Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

May 10, 2022 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:30:55

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #389

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hello, and welcome to episode number 389 of the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for the 10th of May 2022.
	Today I am joined by Harry.
	Hello there.
	And today we are going to talk about the reasons why people get abortions, statistically speaking.
	London's new Tower Hamlets establishment.
	And we're also going to be talking about the new Doctor Who.
	Doctor what?
	Indeed.
	Or Doctor WTF, that's what I call him.
	But before we get into that, two announcements to make.
	Firstly, Lotus Eaters is now on Substack, so you can go and follow us there.
	Our social media manager has set us all up there, and you should be able to follow our content nice and easily over on that site if you use Substack.
	And also, we have a book club coming up.
	This is you, isn't it, after this podcast?
	Yes, Josh and I are talking about Nima Parvini, also known as The Academic Agents.
	Most recent book, which has been published on Imperium Press, called The Populist Delusion.
	And I'm very much looking forward to that, because I really thought it was a very good book.
	And that will be at 3.30pm British Standard Time today.
	Now, British Summer Time, yes.
	Well, it's Standard Time in Summer.
	But anyway, without further ado, let's get into the news.
	Alright then, so, let's talk about abortion.
	I know it's a bit of an awkward subject for a lot of people, and honestly it's quite difficult for a lot of people to talk about, purely because of the rhetoric that's been going on about it for the past few years, but, obviously, as a result of the recent Roe v.
	Wade potential overturning that's been leaked from the Supreme Court, it's restarted a conversation that I think a lot of people have been ignoring for a very long time.
	And that conversation is why exactly are people having abortions?
	Because we can all cast our minds back to the rhetoric that was used in the 90s by administrations like the Clintons talking about how it's only supposed to be safe, legal, and rare, which at the time was the standard and Honestly, as long as you're protecting people who would otherwise be in a situation where they might die during pregnancy, that's a standard that I could stand by, potentially.
	But, the recent conversation has made a lot of people realise that that is not the standard that is being held anymore, and we are far, far Far beyond that standard.
	Before I go any further, I did want to shill out for an article that's in the document, John, if you want to just write at the top there, if you want to bring it up, which is just talk about Carl's most recent video, which you should check out, called What Zoomers Have to Do to Save Themselves.
	And this is a follow-up to his recent What Have Millennials Done to the Zoomers?
	And, of course, this is, of course, speaking to all of the Zoomers who weren't already aborted.
	So, one of the...
	So you're already a bit further ahead in life than some of you.
	So check that video out if you want some good tactical ideas of what Zoomers need to do to become the based chads that you are destined to be.
	Don't let us down, guys, because honestly, you're the next generation.
	You're our only hope in being able to stem the tide of leftist degeneracy.
	And someone had so much fun making that thumbnail, it would be a shame not to click on it, wouldn't it?
	It really would.
	Michael works very hard on this, so please, do him a favour.
	And anyway, let's carry on with it.
	So, the first thing I want to point out is that the Democratic establishment has not reacted well to this.
	We've all seen the video of Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas herself being mad as hell, and Laurie Lightfoot and others are now coming out with things like this to my friends in the LGBTQ plus community.
	She's missed out a few letters, but I'll forgive her.
	The Supreme Court is coming for us next.
	This moment has to be a call to arms, and then her response.
	We will not surrender our rights without a fight.
	A fight to victory.
	Now, if you ask me, this sounds somewhat insurrection-y, but I'll forgive her for it.
	But, yeah, they are...
	The Democrats are actually thinking that now that we're potentially repealing Roe v.
	Wade because of the Supreme Court, we'll be coming for gay rights next, and gay marriage and all that sort of stuff, which is honestly not on my agenda.
	Not something that I'm particularly interested in.
	I mean, I don't really see the connection between abortion and gay rights, personally.
	Neither do I. That seems a little shoehorned, a bit of a reach, if you ask me.
	The Democrats, leftists in general, seem to be able to make some pretty astonishing reaches with what they talk about, but if she's talking about potentially the right for perverted teachers to talk to five-year-olds about sex and other such topics, then perhaps I would understand where she's coming from because I don't want my kids learning about that stuff without my knowledge, without my permission, and to make sure that what they're learning about is age appropriate.
	But the Democrats don't seem to appreciate that.
	But on the subject of people waking up, there have been some clips going around recently where people who otherwise would be classified pretty much on the left, who are pretty establishment figures like Bill Maher and Joe Rogan, this conversation has kind of opened their eyes to a few things regarding this.
	And I thought we'd look at two of these clips just so that we can see the sorts of conversations that people are starting to wake up to.
	Mm-hmm.
	APPLAUSE Alright, so people hate talking about abortion, so let's do it.
	I don't want to do it, but it's the big issue, and we've got to do it, and this is what happened.
	And, you know, it's interesting because until this memo was leaked and we found out that now, unless something very unforeseen happens, the Supreme Court is going to undo Roe v.
	Wade after 49 years.
	We haven't really been focusing on it, or maybe I'm projecting.
	I guess I haven't been enough, because I learned things this week, because this put it on the front page, that are pretty basic things that I did not know about abortion.
	Like in Europe, the modern countries of Europe, way more restrictive than we are, or what they're even proposing.
	If you are pro-choice, You would like it a lot less in Germany and Italy and France and Spain and Switzerland.
	Did you know that?
	I didn't know that.
	I didn't know that.
	That's right.
	Okay.
	I learned most people who are pro-life are women.
	Did not know that.
	Very interesting, isn't it?
	Well, this is what happens when you get all of your information, when you trust the mainstream media, the New York Times, the BBC, MSNBC, CNN. You trust them to decide accurately, in your interest, what sort of information you're allowed to see.
	And you end up not knowing the basic facts about the issues which you've been worked up to be super emotional about.
	Yes, I would say that this has been something that has been obscured by the mainstream for a long time, because to use your kind of language, I would say that the idea of elective abortions is one of the pillars of the current ideological cathedral, which is infesting the mainstream establishment.
	That being that it's...
	It's kind of a non sequitur from the argument that people were having when all this came up about the first time, which is it's turned into a woman's right to choose, whereas the original argument was, is this murder?
	Is this killing an innocent human being, whether or not you want to classify it as just a clump of cells or not?
	And Joe Rogan actually has considered this argument now because Joe Rogan, I'm aware, has been very pro-choice for a very long time.
	But it seems that even he has started to question the narrative that has been fed to him for a long time.
	You know, it's just, I just don't like, you know, I don't like people telling other people what they can and can't do, but it gets weird when the baby gets like six months old.
	You know, it gets weird when they're really, really pregnant because in some states for the longest, I don't know what the rules are now, but I know that some states had late term abortions and sometimes you need one for medical reasons, right?
	Like the woman could die if she gives birth.
	Like it's a decision that people have to make.
	Well, if you look back, what was your favorite part of being a fetus?
	Well, what was your favorite part of being three?
	Should I be able to shoot you at three because I don't want to take care of you anymore?
	It's one of those things.
	It's like I am 100% for a woman's right to choose.
	But as a human being, just as a person observing things, there's a big difference between a little clump of cells and a fetus with an eyeball and a beating heart.
	And for anybody to pretend there's not, you're not doing any argument.
	But where do you draw the line?
	Right, where do you draw the line?
	Yeah, that's the question.
	It's what I call a human issue.
	It's a very complicated issue.
	It's so fraught with emotion and it's so political.
	Some good points brought up there.
	Why is it so fraught with emotion and so political, though?
	I wonder who has a role in making it such a polarised issue.
	I wonder, but I do think you speak into something there, which is that there is something innate in us that recognises that this is not a good thing to be doing.
	Why is it that we don't see videos of abortions being performed, for instance?
	Why would the mainstream fight tooth and nail to prevent these sorts of things coming out to the public?
	Because if we saw them...
	We would suddenly understand the true severity of what's going on.
	And this is the Peter Hitchens point on this issue, which is that the left does not prevent you from seeing these because they are too squeamish to show blood and guts on TV. They don't show you what an abortion looks like because it would make you much less pro-abortion than they want.
	It really would.
	Also, I've got to commend Joe for completely, expertly evading that attempted gotcha.
	Oh, what's your favourite part of being a fetus?
	Yeah, well, can you remember what it was like being two?
	Can I just shoot you because you won't remember?
	But that's also an excellent mini case study of why people watch Joe Rogan, listen to him, and not mainstream media.
	Because...
	Whatever you say, he is being genuine in that interview.
	Yes, he is.
	He's not pretending to have all the answers or to try and get you worked up.
	He's just saying, look, I'm pro-choice, but I think about this, and I think this is a problem.
	What do you think?
	If anything, he actually embodies the ideal of what the left says that they wish they could be, that of starting a conversation, having a conversation.
	Well, Joe's having the conversation, and they still try and cancel it.
	Of course.
	Because he's having the conversation in the wrong way with the wrong conclusions.
	That's right.
	Yes, that is absolutely it.
	But moving on, Lauren Southern posted something that I found interesting, which was in response to Destiny, who posted a pretty terrible meme, to be honest, of the EU being like, oh, we'll solve climate crisis, and then America goes, oh, we'll ban abortion, which is a complete straw man of it.
	And Not that destiny is above strawmanning his political opponents.
	So Lauren Southern just responded with this handy-dandy graph, which shows the comparison between American state laws when it comes to abortion terms when compared to European terms.
	European standards when it comes to when you can have an abortion, what term you can do.
	As you can see there, so yellow is the legal limit, makes it between 11 to 20 weeks.
	The vast majority of Europe is there, whereas the vast majority of the US, it has the legal limit between 21 to 30 weeks.
	Now at 30 weeks, you can see there, it says in brackets, survival outside of womb is possible at 24 weeks.
	So you are...
	Legitimately killing something, because they always go on about, oh, it's a parasite, and if it can't survive outside of the womb, then it doesn't...
	The sort of people who describe a baby in the womb as a parasite without making a joke are just the vile.
	Vile people.
	And also there's something to point out, which is that this is only stats for on-demand abortions, which is elective, which means that the mother isn't at risk, there's no health problems, you just don't want the child.
	So this is what America allows for people just because they feel like it.
	And you can see Texas is the only state which goes between one to ten weeks, which points out you can get the heartbeat detected at six weeks.
	And also that shockingly there are six states.
	Six states in the US which allow abortion between the legal limit of 31 to 40 weeks.
	And of course, remember, 40 weeks, about nine months, which is when most people would be born.
	So at that point, you are murdering something, as far as I'm concerned.
	I don't understand how an abortionist could live with themselves.
	Knowing that they've done anything like that.
	So this is just what the question is.
	Is it that you are allowing a woman to choose, or is it that you are murdering something?
	And I think for the vast majority of those states, they are allowing you to murder something just because you don't feel like taking on responsibility, which to me is completely vile.
	Oh, not six, actually, seven, because I didn't realize Alaska also allowed them up to 40 weeks, which is disgusting.
	The common argument that you hear against having lower limits on when you can abort is people saying, ah, but if you only have a 10-week or a 20-week limit, then those nasty right-wingers and conservatives are going to create loads of obfuscatory barriers that you have to go over.
	Like, you have to see this doctor X number of times and have this psychiatric evaluation and so on and so forth.
	And they will use that, because they're anti-abortion, to push you over the limits so that you can't have an abortion.
	So that's the argument that they'll usually give.
	But even in that case, I mean, an abortion of 40 weeks, what the hell are you on?
	I know, I think that's just trying to obfuscate the discussion that we're having now, which is, is this necessary?
	Is this the practice of a civilised society?
	I'm struggling to put myself in the mindset of a woman who has an abortion between 35 and 40 weeks.
	You can feel it kicking.
	That's a long period of time where you're carrying this baby, where you're essentially looking after it physically.
	I think it's abhorrent, personally.
	And also just another point that I want to bring in here.
	I thought Americans wanted more European-style healthcare.
	Well, this is what you get with it, guys.
	So, you know, you get what you ask for.
	And let's go through some of the important stats that I've got here.
	This is just stuff that's been spared...
	I shared about on Twitter, which I thought was interesting.
	So this was just a graph of reasons that people, well, a table of reasons why people get abortions.
	Note that only vanishingly small percentages are due to actual issues.
	That could be had like a woman's life being endangered or the one that they always like to bring up.
	Well, what about incest?
	Well, how often is that happening?
	Really?
	Not very often.
	Whereas the real reason that most people is giving is no reason at all.
	92% say they give no reason elective.
	And there are some debunkers in this thread that I just want to address for anybody who's going to say that, Harry, you're just taking this out of context.
	This is just some random thing that people have shared on Twitter.
	so they actually put in the source for where they got this information from and then somebody put "I do appreciate the reply, however, I looked at the sources and the data doesn't match the original information that you posted." So click on that image on the left for me there please John.
	And let's see here.
	So what is the most common reason given?
	Having a baby would dramatically change my life.
	Is that 74%?
	Wait, are those cases?
	I think these are cases as compared to the total.
	So 74 cases.
	So if this is to be taken as representative, the vast majority are just going, well, I don't want them because it would have changed my life.
	Yes, that's the point.
	Yeah, I don't think that's a good enough reason to kill something.
	But just below that in 73 is can't afford a baby now.
	Okay.
	I don't think that's a good enough reason.
	Once again, if you've got a three-year-old and you can't afford a three-year-old anymore, you don't just get to shoot it in the face.
	You've kind of got to adapt.
	Unmarried, still not a reason.
	But then if we go down right to the bottom of this table, you can see here, was a victim of rape, one.
	One out of 1,160.
	Became pregnant as a result of incest, less than half.
	Less than half of a person.
	Which means that that is statistically...
	Statistically irrelevant, I would assume.
	So, I assume that just means none.
	So, that's just completely ridiculous.
	This whole argument of, like, well, if you actually look at the figures, I think the vast majority of these do not represent a situation in which I say you are justified in killing something.
	Not sure about a relationship.
	Great.
	That doesn't mean you get to kill someone.
	And so this is not the dunk that you thought it was, whoever shared this.
	And let's move on to more figures that are given here by a woman.
	Oh, this is another one, yeah.
	So, table two, they also put, not emotionally or mentally prepared.
	Who is?
	or mentally prepared to have a child until you have it in your arms.
	This is something that I've heard from many people who have children.
	They're not sure, they don't understand how they're going to be able to cope with it until they have that child in their arms at the table when they've just given birth and they realize I would do anything to protect this.
	That's the beauty of childbirth and having children is that it gives you a greater purpose outside of just being worried about yourself.
	But let's carry on.
	So, I've got some more statistics.
	This woman, Megan Basham, put...
	So, the vast majority of the people doing this sort of thing...
	Is it really because you're just in a situation where you can't deal with a baby, where the emotional, you'd be too financially, the struggle financially would be just too much for you?
	Well, it's arguably a bigger change for the single women earning more, because having the baby means that they are less likely to be able to successfully continue to prosecute that career.
	That's true.
	Whereas if they're making less, then first of all, there is a welfare state of some description.
	There are ways to It's less of a financial hit to devote yourself to looking after that baby full-time or part-time.
	Yeah, so there is that to...
	But the clear thing that's pointed out, because there's another graph that she put on here as well.
	If you go to the next tab for me, John, thank you.
	Yeah, so there's the graph that she got it from.
	So this is just not about poor women trying to mitigate bad circumstances or about women in general trying to mitigate bad circumstances.
	The vast majority of this seems to me, judging by the figures that I've seen, to be more about women wanting to escape the consequences of their actions.
	Some of them, at least.
	Perhaps that's a bit harsh, but the vast majority seems to be, perhaps I just didn't want him to wear a condom, perhaps I got drunk and went on a night out and this just sort of happened, but I don't think that that's justifiable, personally.
	I never used to be so hardline against all of this sort of stuff, but when you start to look into it, and like you said, when you start to see what happens and who's doing this until the sort of age that these babies are when it happens, it really does start to change your perspective a little bit.
	I suppose so.
	On this whole thing.
	And then there was another figure that was different from the one that was given previously, but Carl sent this one through to me, which was just talking about how roughly 80% of late-term abortions are elective, and they just go through some of the facts and figures and how they get to the conclusions.
	Like I say, it is different to the other figure that was given, but it is still, for me, shockingly high that people are just choosing to do this without any outside reason.
	And then if we carry on...
	Well, there is a little bit of good news there, though, which is if you actually look at the case count here, we have 157 people out of 12,336 having an abortion over the 21-week limit.
	So the leftists are at least right on the one point they make, which is that late-term abortions are thankfully rare compared to the overall total.
	But still, the overall number is quite high.
	It is still shocking to me that it's even legal in some states to go as far into the terms as they do.
	But there was also this other article talking about what percentage of abortions are medically necessary.
	And I just want to preface this by saying that this will be referring to countries like the US and European countries where the medical infrastructure is in such a state where you can pretty much guarantee that people are going to be safe.
	In certain medical...
	In certain situations, for instance, if there will be an issue with the pregnancy where there will be options to go against instead of just aborting it.
	But this probably won't apply to, like, if you're in Africa or places that don't...
	Or South America where they don't have quite as good medical infrastructure.
	So they just go on here.
	Abortions performed to preserve the life or the health of the mother are so rare that they do not register statistically, according to Alan Gutmacher of Planned Parenthood.
	Who did more to promote and spread abortion on demand throughout the world than any other individual.
	What a legacy to have.
	I know, right?
	He commented, And that's in 1967.
	Good.
	Imagine how far we've come medically from then as well.
	Naturally, the percentage of abortions allegedly performed to save the life or health of the mother will vary somewhat based on the country, but we can see from the testimony of doctors and researchers that these cases are exceedingly rare.
	Even abortionists testify that if there is a medical emergency, the cause of action is to deliver the baby prematurely because to go through the stages required for a surgical abortion would cause more, if not less, would cause more, not less danger to the mother.
	As far back as 1981, the former Surgeon General of the US, a Dr.
	C. Everett Koop, said the fact of the matter is that abortion as a necessity to save the life of the mother is so rare as to be non-existent.
	Yeah, so I just want to say here, there's a maxim in law, which is that extreme cases make bad laws.
	And often what happens in justice is that there will be an extreme case, which because it is so outlandish, gets a lot of eyes on it.
	And then because it is so high in the public consciousness, new laws are made based on that case to ensure that that case can't happen again, almost.
	So it's like a satisficing approach to law.
	But there's a similar thing happening here, you could argue, where...
	So one side of the debate is saying, well, we need to have abortion because otherwise it will kill mothers, pregnant women.
	And the fact is that actually that's a very rare and extreme case.
	And then the other side of it is, well, we need to have very strict limits on abortion because there are loads and loads of late-term abortions.
	And while there are a lot, it is actually still a small issue.
	It is still a very small proportion.
	So if we are really trying to, I think, address this issue for the benefit of both sides, we need to perhaps lower the temperature when it comes to discussing these two extremes, which is what gets people outraged, and look at the majority of the thousands who are not in either extreme.
	That is true, but I do still think, at its heart, this is a moral question of the right to terminate a life before it even really gets a chance to be started.
	I think the whole question of when does a life begin is very difficult to answer, and because of that I think, personally from my view, it's best to just start where it's most logical, as soon as it's conceived.
	Personally, for me, that's kind of where I've come to with this, personally.
	I must say I have a lot of sympathy for that view.
	I don't have any strong opinions on abortion personally.
	However, if we are to somehow progress in this debate rather than just going to war over it, I think it's important to remember that the extremes of the distribution aren't going to lead us to any kind of good solution or dialogue.
	Yes, that is true.
	But I'll just carry on with this because we've only got a little bit left.
	So they also address the mental health argument, the idea that, oh, if I have this child, it will so drastically affect my mental health that I won't be able to live with myself anymore.
	So they just say there is substantial evidence from several sources, including the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and BMC Medicine, that abortions do not solve mental issues and usually aggravate them, even when compared with the issues that sometimes develop in miscarriage cases and others.
	The research presented concluded that long-term mental health problems in the wake of induced abortions increase and the probability of depression, anxiety, guilt, etc. goes up by 81% compared to mothers who carried their baby until birth.
	That's probably due to a number of factors, but I can't imagine that one of them isn't the, oh God, did I make the right decision?
	But it's also worth pointing out that postnatal depression is a real thing.
	This is true.
	I don't think you can solve...
	I think it's a terrible idea to try and solve postnatal depression by abortion.
	That's a dreadful idea.
	But I think this whole issue of postnatal depression underlines the fact that it's important to actually be within a stable social unit, ideally a family with a male partner or a long-term partner who can actually deal with you when you can't deal with the baby and things like this, or even your own parents or own extended family.
	Well, that would be part of the greater solution that we're all trying to come towards.
	Yeah, which underlines the point that this is a social problem as well as an abortion problem.
	Yes, that is true.
	But I thought I'd also just end this with the fact that Peter Hitchens helpfully put up something that his late brother Christopher Hitchens said in an interview about abortion with Crisis magazine in January 1988.
	And I think that this is just an interesting thing to end on here, his opinion on this, which is...
	Look, once you allow that the occupant of the womb is even potentially alive, it cuts or thwart any blib invocation of the woman's right to choose.
	I'm sorry I don't have Christopher Hitchens' voice for all of you listening, so you'll just have to settle with me.
	If the unborn is a candidate member of the next generation, it means that it is society's responsibility.
	I used to argue that if this is denied, you might as well permit abortion in the third trimester.
	How shocked I imagine he would be if he was still alive today to learn what's going on.
	I wasn't as surprised as perhaps I ought to have been when some feminists, only some and partly to annoy, said yes to that.
	Yeah.
	to accept their own logic and say that the unborn is nobody's business but theirs that is a very reactionary and selfish position and it stems from this original evasion about the fetus being merely an appendage yeah which is a very good point on it and i can only imagine what he would say nowadays given that those feminists which he assumed were to just saying it to annoy him actually got their way in some states in america yeah absolutely and And I do just want to underline that I may have upset some people in the comments by playing devil's advocate somewhat.
	No, no, I think it's good to play devil's advocate.
	But I think it is important when you're talking about a polarizing issue like abortion to try and at least represent the other side somewhat.
	No, thank you for doing so.
	But, from my perspective, don't let the media gaslight you into the reasons that they would like to push of why it is that women are getting abortions, because as far as I'm concerned, the statistics just do not show that that is true.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And on that note, let's move back from the States to our own capital of London, where there is a new political party on the block.
	Now, you may remember last week I called upon people who were going out to vote.
	If they didn't want to vote to Labour or the Conservatives, maybe vote for third parties or independents.
	Well, the residents of Tower Hamlets have certainly listened to me, because a party which is neither Labour nor Conservatives has won.
	In Tower Hamlets.
	Really?
	I know.
	The Aspire Party.
	Oh, the Aspire Party.
	Interested here is, are you eating your words somewhat with this result?
	I wonder.
	Well, let's get into it.
	So, the Aspire Party has taken control of Tower Hamlets.
	If we look at this, Lutfer Rahman is now the new mayor.
	There is a mayor of Tower Hamlets.
	And, yeah, he's pretty happy with that.
	But if we go to the next image...
	This is a map of Tower Hamlets.
	You can see there's Canary Wharf down there.
	So orange is the Aspire party.
	Red is Labour.
	Green is Green.
	And so you can see here that basically it's a Labour stronghold except for Aspire.
	Is that Canary Wharf at the bottom there?
	Yes.
	Aspire has beaten them, I believe, by one seat.
	Oh, really?
	And then the Greens got one seat and the Conservatives got one seat as well.
	So that's a fairly resounding victory because Aspire has a very recently founded party.
	Yeah, I've never heard of this party personally.
	No one had heard of them until very recently.
	If we go to the next one.
	Lutfer Rahman wins Tower Hamlet's mayor vote after a five-year ban.
	Politician was kicked out of office in 2015 after election tribunal found him guilty of vote-wrecking.
	And they just brought him back, you know, why not?
	This seems like a trustworthy gentleman if I've ever seen one.
	It does indeed, and this story is an enormous rabbit hole, and unfortunately I've only been able to skim the surface of some of it, but I'm sure there'll be enough food for thought by the time we get to the end, so they continue.
	After the five-year ban placed on him for standing for public office lapsed, Rahman managed to unseat the incumbent mayor, Labour's John Biggs, under the banner of his new Aspire party.
	Rahman was kicked out of office in 2015 after a specialist court concluded that he was guilty of vote rigging, buying votes, and religious intimidation.
	Wow.
	People of what religion was he intimidating?
	Indeed.
	But the Police and Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to launch a criminal prosecution, so he wasn't charged personally with anything.
	Rahman won 40,804 votes on the second round, with Biggs on 33,487.
	The result is a blow to Labour in what was otherwise a very successful set of results in London, where it took Wandsworth, Barnett and Westminster from the Tories.
	Rahman was originally a Labour leader of Tower Hamlets Council from 2008 to 2010, before running independently for the mayoralty in 2010.
	I believe he was kicked out of the party due to allegations of extremism.
	Oh, God.
	Oh, this guy's the full package.
	He won re-election in 2014 under a new party called Tower Hamlets First.
	I mean, if nothing else, I respect the citizens of Tower Hamlets for truly picking someone who represents them.
	But he was removed from office in April 2015 when he was found guilty in the civil election court rather than in criminal law.
	That's why he was just given the ban rather than any fine or anything.
	At the time, the election commissioner, Richard Morey, said Ratman had, quote, driven a coach and horses through election law and didn't care.
	He ordered Ratman to pay a quarter of a million pounds in costs.
	To be honest, there's a part of me that, having been exploring some of the critiques of democracy recently, is sort of just thinking, based.
	Rahman and his supporters were found to have used religious intimidation through local imams, vote-rigging, and wrongly branding his Labour rival for a racist to gain power.
	Okay.
	Apparently that's not allowed.
	I thought that was just par for the course these days.
	I was going to say, that's a common tactic of labour, so...
	Maury said at that time that Rahman had sought to play the, quote, race and Islamophobia card throughout the election.
	No!
	He was an evasive witness.
	Rahman was no doubt behind illegal and corrupt practices, Maury said.
	But despite that, he was never properly charged with anything or caught red-handed.
	So there is a part of me that looks at this on the surface level at least and says, is this just dirty, dirty smear merchants at work taking out a third party, perhaps on substantial claims?
	I mean, that is the interesting thing here.
	As much as we may...
	Complain about ethnic enclaves forming in cities, and that is a genuine problem.
	At the very least, it does show that certain communities can break from outside of the two-party system that we seem to primarily have.
	Obviously, you occasionally have.
	You've got Lib Dems and Green, but they're all part of the establishment.
	There is a chance for alternative parties to make a splash if people vote for them.
	Absolutely.
	And so there is this argument that he's just a charismatic gentleman.
	But if we look at some of the criticisms of him in this next article, his many enemies had called him everything from an inept empty vessel to a frontman for Islamic extremists.
	He'd been under fire for his desire to sell a Henry Moore sculpture bequeathed to the borough to make up for budget cuts.
	For his closeness to the local Bengali media, for his relationship with a prominent Brick Lane curry king, for the community groups he'd chosen to fund, and for his use of a chauffeur-driven, council-funded Mercedes to get around in.
	That last one took the biscuit for me.
	I mean, he just sounds like a pretty typical politician to me.
	I don't know.
	I would argue that that's not typical of British politicians to have a publicly funded Mercedes and chauffeur.
	Not yet.
	This man is the trailblazer.
	This strikes me very much like a South Asian politics kind of thing, but there we go.
	And if we go to the next one, we have David Atherton pointing out...
	Lüfterrahman's party Aspire has no real website or social media presence and spent virtually nothing but one with the highest turnout in the UK of 42%.
	Hmm.
	I'm sure it's just a coincidence that he was previously convicted of voter rigging.
	It must be a coincidence.
	Nothing to do with it.
	Yeah.
	That's rather curious, I think.
	And then if we go to the Tower Hamlets demographics to substantiate some of the things we've been talking about, if we scroll down to the ethnic breakdown, we find out that Tower Hamlets is, by census data from 2011, 32% Bangladeshi.
	Yeah, they are one of the most diverse populations.
	And that's many from the Silhet region, like Lutfer Rahman himself.
	So not just Bangladeshi, but from very specific areas of Bangladesh that have moved to Tower Hamlets.
	I could believe that an ethnic community would be able to spread word of this without having to resort to expensive campaigning.
	Well, that's what a local community is supposed to be, in a sense.
	The fact that we've lost them everywhere else is a bit of a tragedy.
	But I also want to point out that I think it's fair to view this as a minimum estimate.
	And the reason for that is that, A, this is 2011 census data, so it's 10 years out of date.
	11 years out of date now, in fact.
	Also, ethnic minorities are significantly less likely to fill in a census form.
	I couldn't find the source for that, but it's something that's been substantiated by Office of National Statistics before.
	Especially Muslims, I think, are one of the lowest groups when it comes to census respondents, partly because they view the census as a way for the government to spy on them and find out about them, and they view the government as hostile in a way.
	Oh, I share their convictions completely right there, to be honest.
	And also, from anecdotal evidence, there may be many illegal, undeclared or invisible people in the district, such as migrant workers who work below minimum wage and things like this, who might still find their way to a postal ballot.
	So it's worth considering that possibility.
	And on this note, as we're talking about censuses, we have this article on our website from Carl.
	The census data proves Britain is not a nation of immigrants.
	Well, not in Tower Hamlets, it doesn't.
	But that's a very interesting article and well worth your time if you want to get more into this detail.
	But there are accusations against Mr. Rudd.
	Rahman from 2012 of links to radical Islamists.
	This from Andrew Gilligan.
	And he goes on at length.
	Basically, Andrew...
	It's quite interesting.
	Andrew Gilligan, a Telegraph journalist, went quite hard on Luftwaffe Rahman and investigating his links with the IFE, the Islamic Forum of Europe, which is an Islamic extremist organisation, according to him.
	And there were documentaries about this, there were articles published and so on and so forth.
	But I just want to draw your attention to an interview that Andrew did with Lutfur Rahman, which is in the next clip.
	And it's a very long interview and I've read through the whole transcript.
	And Rahman is so evasive.
	If we go to the next one, John.
	So, and scroll down.
	That's not the right one, sorry.
	It's that one.
	Sorry, yes.
	Scroll down here.
	There's a Q&A. I'll just read from this part here.
	Question.
	But elsewhere in the country Labour membership has been falling, but here in Tower Hamlets membership has gone up, from 551 members in 2006 to more than 1,100 members in 2008.
	Councillor Ruffin.
	This clearly demonstrates the support that the Labour Party has in Tower Hamlets.
	Question.
	Why only in Tower Hamlets?
	What's so special about Tower Hamlets?
	I don't know.
	Go and ask the rest of the country why.
	It's suggested to us that it's because of infiltration by the IFE.
	That is what the Labour Party itself believes.
	Councillor Rahman.
	Andrew, what I would suggest to you is that it is because the people of Tower Hamlets are very politicised and very conscious and very committed Labour Party supporters.
	It demonstrates the level of support for our party, for our great party.
	Question.
	Why are nearly all of these new members Asian?
	Is support for the Labour Party simply confined to the Asian community?
	Rahman.
	No, I'm sure we have members across the line.
	Question.
	Nearly every one of those, 90% of those new members are Asian.
	And then the council officer says, we're going to have to call a halt here, thanks, Councillor Rahman's got another meeting.
	Got him out of there nice and quick there at the end.
	I will say, of this, I don't think it necessarily, obviously if the Labour Party themselves are saying so, then it points to it being the IFE. This isn't incriminating at all.
	As far as I can ascertain, there has been no hard evidence linking Rahman to the IFE. And I could see it easily be primarily due to the fact that the Labour Party seems to cater towards people of Asian backgrounds, and being an organised minority, they stand to gain from forming a political coalition group that can then push for political pressure in their benefits.
	Potentially.
	It's worth pointing out, this is a long, long interview, and he is so evasive throughout.
	He's a constant politician.
	Yes.
	He's like, so someone said this, what do you think about that?
	Oh, you have to ask them about that.
	So you've been reported doing this, what do you think?
	Well, I have not seen that, so I can't say.
	Yep.
	The Labour Party has said this, well, I do not, I am only the leader of the Labour Council, I do not speak for the Labour Party, things like this.
	Yep.
	It says nothing.
	But on that point of 90% Asian, if we go to the next one, this is from this year, and the headline, which is glorious, Lutfa's Aspire Party rejects diversity with 100% Bangladeshi candidate list.
	And that's them.
	I think you'll find that's 100% diverse candidate list right there.
	This is a very left-leaning site, and I just find it amusing that they are criticising Rahman for his lack of diversity.
	And I think they're mostly men.
	I see one woman there.
	Oh yes, right there.
	Who is not sharing space, note, with any other candidate.
	She's been segregated down there.
	None of them wanted to do the photos with her.
	Photograph with a woman?
	No, thank you.
	And if we scroll down here, the writer's take on this, so this is the list of all the candidates in his, who've been proposed.
	We've got, and so on, the list goes on.
	100% Bangladeshi.
	If we scroll down, this author's take on this is amazing.
	This candidate list is a gift to the fascist thugs who still pander to the racist beliefs of their groups.
	These people will argue that if one party can field exclusively candidates of Bangladeshi heritage, then they cannot be criticised for fielding exclusively white candidates of quote-unquote English heritage, whatever English means.
	Oh, goodness.
	I appreciate you got gradually more nasal as you went through that.
	This kind of quote.
	It's like, whatever English means, hello.
	Like, as if Englishness or English people don't exist.
	Well, I mean, they would prefer if we didn't.
	But, I mean, what do you respond to something like that?
	English people don't exist.
	It leaves you dumbfounded.
	Well, it's also like, this is the only way he manages to criticize it, is it really?
	That it'll provoke the so-called fascist thugs, presumably the far right, whoever they are.
	And it's like, I run across this argument so many times that this is bad because it will be a dog whistle to the far right.
	It'll be fodder to the far right.
	It'll be something to do with the far right.
	These people seem to care about what the far right thinks far more than anyone else I've met.
	I mean, yes.
	I mean, this is quite incredible.
	The left is not living up to the left's standards, therefore we need to worry more about those far-right wingers again.
	But having said that, I can at least applaud this writer for being consistent with his own ideology, because he is criticising diversity, not just anti-Englishness or anti-whiteness or whatever, but this is clearly a 100% non-diverse Obviously.
	Because they're all from the same demographic.
	And so on his own logic, he's being self-consistent.
	He continues.
	The East End is diverse and always will be.
	Last time we went to the shops, the population of the borough is not 100% Bangladeshi.
	It is diverse.
	It is the East End.
	The Bangladeshi population makes up around one third of the population.
	The rest of us are the usual wild, wacky and mundane mix of people from all over the planet, which is Tower Hamlet's main selling point.
	There are no Somali candidates.
	There are no West Indian candidates.
	There are no European candidates.
	There are no Commonwealth candidates.
	There are also no British candidates.
	Well, apart from British Bangladesh, I suppose.
	And as far as we are aware, there are no candidates from the LGBTQ plus community, but we would be extremely surprised if there were.
	I would as well, given the makeup of the community.
	The Aspire party has been approached for comment, and we will update this story when we receive this.
	The reason why the Enquirer would be surprised if there are any Aspire candidates who identify as LGBTQ +, is because this candidate list is not designed for the population of Tower Hamlets.
	It's very interesting.
	It is not even designed for the Bangladeshi population of Tower Hamlets.
	It is designed for the uncles, the elderly, very conservative, small-c Bangladeshi men who wield power in their communities and seem to still control its politics.
	That's a very interesting assertion.
	Yeah, that's a big claim.
	I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if, yes, it is probably the older men in that area who probably form a sort of...
	The curry kings.
	Yeah, yeah, form a small-town elite in that area.
	I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case.
	But let's not go pretending that all of the younger generations are going to be far, far more tolerant than their uncles.
	Well...
	Yes, that's true.
	But it's also true that...
	So in Japan, there's a thing called the Genro, who are the elder statesmen behind the scenes who actually run the political system.
	And the political system is often seen as a bit of a pantomime that happens to keep the people happy.
	So yes, we have a democracy, but it's actually just a pantomime.
	And there's this elite of uncles or Genro, whoever, who actually pull the strings.
	And that seems like what he's alleging here.
	Yeah.
	But this is not a new problem, so way back from 2014 we have The Economist complaining about this, the Bad Shah of Tower Hamlets.
	Lutfer Rahman's effort to import South Asian political waste to London is doomed.
	Evidently not.
	No, no, evidently not.
	Take the L on that one, Economist.
	It seems rather healthy, but they have a little pastiche here which is worth talking about.
	So packed was the East London Mosque on a recent Friday that the worshippers, mostly of the ethnic Bangladeshi community that has colonised the East End, spilled onto the narrow pavement of Whitechapel Road.
	There they performed the slow calisthenics of Muslim devotion, kneeling on scraps of newspaper or on the damp concrete while passersby slalomed between them.
	So they're actually doing an outdoor religious service because the mosque is full.
	Anyway, breaking stride, these bemused Cockney pedestrians wore expressions of restrained bafflement or irritation.
	The scene said a lot about the generally polite yet stark polarisation of the communities in London's multicultural East End.
	It was also evident after prayers when the Muslims rose to discuss a political scandal engulfing the local Tower Hamlet's council.
	Its mayor, Lutver Rahman, who was re-elected in May with strong support from the Bangladeshis who represent a third of the borough's population, is accused of having links to jihadist groups and overseeing a regime of ethnic divisiveness, electoral malpractice and financial impropriety.
	In April, Eric Pickles, the Conservative Minister for Local Government, sent in inspectors who on November 4th issued a damning report.
	Despite encountering obfuscation and denial from the council, they found evidence that it had given money to groups, mainly run by Bangladeshis or Somalis, opaquely and contrary to internal advice.
	Over £400,000 had gone to bodies, said Mr Pickles, which failed the minimum criteria to be awarded anything.
	Oh my goodness.
	So, I mean, this just sounds like what I was saying about Japan, but what you can see all around the world, this local elite, sort of petty, small community politics, where there is no democracy.
	This is old school.
	Of course not.
	You know, there may be votes cast, but this is old school power politics.
	You know, you have your chiefs and your groups and so on and so forth.
	What's just described there is...
	Politicians handing out benefits to their mates, which is not anything that's new.
	It's standard corruption, yes.
	And then, it's also worth pointing out if we go to the next one, he campaigns as a progressive and socialists love him.
	So this is a whole article, which I won't waste your time on, saying how he's so great and he's the best thing that's happened to...
	Does he want to redistribute wealth?
	Because I don't know any of his policy positions.
	One of the policies he has is he gives out money for educational reasons and things like that, which is something...
	And then finally, just to close this off, if we look at the 45 candidates who were elected, there's a list here.
	Again, Sirajal is Aslam, Ahmadul Kabir, Rebecca Sultana, Moustak Ahmed, Abdul Salah Chaudhry, Miraj Amin Rahman, Ahmadul Rahmat Khan, Abdul Malik, Mohammed Balaluddin, Amila Ali, Rachel Nancy Blake, Mark Francis, Asma Begum, Nathalie Sylvia Bien-Fait.
	You get the idea.
	A nice British lineup.
	So I counted, and there are six non-Islamic names here, and obviously some of these Muslim names may not be Bangladeshis, they may be Somalis or Arabian or from any other demographic.
	But just from that surface reading, that is 90% Muslim and probably 90% Bangladeshi.
	So yeah, that's Tower Hamlets for you.
	It's worth pointing out to close this off that despite all of this shady stuff, Rahman hasn't been caught doing anything red-handed.
	A police investigation into his culpability dropped all charges, I think, back in 2018.
	His defenders would say that he's simply a charismatic maverick under attack from dirty, dirty smear merchants of mainstream media.
	Whatever the case, it seems clear we cannot necessarily rely on the high-trust quality of British culture and society to ensure that elections are done properly and without fraud, especially where postal voting is concerned.
	That's all very interesting.
	Well, let's move on, shall we?
	Let's move back to the subject of abortions and talk about Doctor Who.
	So, Doctor Who, for a very, very long time, has been running since the 1960s.
	It's one of our, I would say, greatest modern cultural institutions, at least in pop culture, and certainly one of our most popular cultural exports, especially in America, where since, I think, the early 2010s, it's shot off into the stratosphere.
	Hoover.
	Bolivians are well known across the world.
	Yes, not so much anymore.
	The standing has fallen a little bit, and the BBC has been running it into the ground for a long time.
	Anyone who's been paying any attention to it will be very, very aware.
	And for this, I actually had...
	Two shills that I wanted to throw out for this, just because I think there are two videos that I can recommend that are both relevant to this.
	First one being my good friend John here, his recent video on, well, recent back in February, I should say, on the Subversion of Magic, where you're exploring Hollywood adaptations.
	Yeah, I was really happy with this video, actually.
	I think I found a new angle, which I've not heard other people talk about, about why these adaptations are bad.
	Yes, and if anything, I could say that we can at this point classify Doctor Who not as a continuation of the classic canon, but as an adaptation, a reboot almost, if you will, that is destroying the magic that made it so popular back in the 60s and onwards.
	Even with the revival back in 2005, it was still very, very popular because it was good back then.
	And we'll explore that in a little bit.
	But the other video is just Carl's video from ages ago last year talking about the progressive skin suit.
	And I think Doctor Who is absolutely a...
	Standout example of the progressive skin suit where something is wearing something that we love so that they can try and push progressive values rather than tell good stories.
	So check either of those videos out if you're interested.
	So let's carry on.
	So the new doctor has been announced, who is a man called Nkuti Ghatwa, who many people have pointed out, first and foremost, is black, which is a change for the doctor who...
	Classically, he's always tended to be a white man of English origins or Scottish origins in the case of Peter Capaldi and David Tennant.
	But the most recent doctor before Nakuti was Jodie Whittaker, the first woman doctor.
	And we'll be getting onto her track record in a little bit.
	But I don't think...
	It is worth pointing out, sorry, that David Tennant's doctor...
	Was an English Doctor, even though David Tennant is Scottish.
	That is true.
	I didn't watch Peter Capaldi, so I don't know where that is.
	Capaldi kept the Scottish accent.
	I think he's the only one who hasn't performed the Doctor with an English accent.
	Well, that was the end of the series for me, then.
	Oh, I'm sorry to break your heart like that.
	Blooming Celts.
	Cultural appropriation, I see.
	Obviously, on its own, I don't think this Nakuti guy being cast as the Doctor is anything to worry about because, you know, as long as the scripts he's given are good and as long as the performance he gives is good, I think that should be enough as long as we get some nice escapist sci-fi fantasy.
	That's all for me.
	But I just want to say again, there's something about the choice of casting that makes me think they're not going to shy away from political messaging that Just a little bit, because he is black and also gay.
	So there's two boxes ticked immediately.
	But once again, in and of itself, this doesn't have to affect the quality of the programme.
	So let's dive a little bit deeper and see what we can expect from the Doctor Who series going forward.
	So I've got this article.
	Who is Nakuti?
	So he's a Scottish actor, Nakuti Ghatwa, who was born in Rwanda and then moved to Scotland as a refugee.
	So he is...
	Scottish in passport only, as far as I can tell, but fair play, whatever.
	He's best known for starring in Netflix's sitcom Sex Education, which I've never watched, but Thomas has told me it is full of intersectional politics.
	I've heard similar.
	So that does not fill me with hope.
	He told the BBC News, it feels really amazing.
	It's a true honour.
	This role is an institution and it's so iconic.
	Speaking on the red carpet before Sunday's BAFTA TV Awards, where he was nominated for Sex Education, he said the role of the Doctor means...
	And nominated for sex education.
	Oh God, that's not great connotations right now, does it?
	But it means a lot to so many people, including myself.
	I feel very grateful to have had the baton handed over and I'm going to do my best.
	And it carries on.
	Gatwa moved to Scotland as a toddler when his family fled the Rwandan genocide and was at one point homeless before finding his break as an actor.
	So if nothing else...
	Good for him.
	Good success story there.
	Good for him for finding his feet and being able to make a success of himself.
	So, fair play.
	But, carrying on.
	Gatwar will make his debut as the Time Lord in 2023, and he is a very...
	They carry on in the little editorial notes down here, which I find hilarious, where they carry on.
	Nukuti Gatwar is a very shrewd choice for the role, you don't say.
	That's the BBC, like, blowing the BBC's own trumpet.
	I know, right?
	I've never seen that before.
	He's incredibly popular with viewers in their late teens and twenties, thanks to sex education.
	He has more than 2.5 million Instagram followers, and that's likely to shoot up even further after today's announcement.
	It's a double bonus because he can bring in that demographic and, in theory, give a fantastic performance as The Doctor.
	But this kind of analysis has no place in art.
	No, of course not.
	This is the pure nonsense that we see from Hollywood so often, where they can write an amazing part for an amazing, if not very well-known actor, and then the executive comes in and they say, yeah, no, get Leonardo DiCaprio, or get some big-name guy to come in, because that'll bring in that, and that'll help the bottom line, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	That shouldn't really be what you're deciding this on.
	Yeah, that's what I've appreciated recently about the films of Robert Eggers, who did The Lighthouse and The Witch, and most recently The Northman, which I thought was a fantastic film.
	I know you weren't quite as hyped about it as I was.
	It was alright.
	Yeah, you liked it, but obviously you're not quite as big on it as I was.
	But he tends to, obviously in The Northman, there's a few bigger names in there, but they tend to fit with the aesthetic, and they're not cast purely so they can have a famous face in there.
	And in fact, he actually made the career of Anya Taylor-Joy when he cast her in The Witch, which is a film...
	low-level actors as far as their popularity goes, but still managed to get some fantastic performances out of them.
	Even the child actors who somehow managed to deliver convincingly dialogue that was supposed to sound like it was from the late 1600s, which is, as a director, an incredible achievement.
	Well, in the last 10 years, I feel like, however it's happened, entertainment has cracked how to put good child actors on screen.
	They are so much better than they used to be.
	Stranger Things, for example.
	Game of Thrones as well.
	Yeah, yeah, you are right there.
	But anyway...
	Moving on.
	I got a little bit off topic there.
	So I found some more interviews with the guy that didn't fill me with hope, to be honest, in how he's going to be interpreting the role and also in terms of how the show is going to be structured.
	Because since Chris Chibnall took over for Jodie Whittaker, it has been full of politics and Trump bashing and all sorts of rubbish that I don't want.
	I don't want, and the vast majority of viewers don't want, as we'll find out.
	But in this interview, he talks about Doctor Who and diversity.
	Speaking about how Doctor Who relates to diversity, as if anybody asked in the first place, Gadwa said of the Time Lord, he is literally an alien.
	Oops!
	They are an alien.
	Gender-neutral pronouns for the Doctor.
	An established male character who was only made a woman for political purposes of, well, for the reasons of pandering and political posturing to try and get some good press from intersectionally obsessed media outlets.
	So now we get to call them they, which is great, and so they can regenerate into anything and anyone.
	And the fact that he's using this terminology makes me believe that he's bought into all of this, which isn't a good sign.
	And for me, I just find the show to be the most beautiful form of escapism.
	You can forget all about your worldly troubles and go into space and battle aliens.
	This is true.
	I feel like anyone can put themselves in those shoes.
	The Doctor is not from anywhere.
	That's not true.
	Except he is.
	He's from Gallifrey.
	Yes.
	And they don't fit in anywhere.
	And I think for marginalized people, they have been a real beacon of feeling seen in a way.
	Okay, right, so you say, oh, it's all about escapism, and then not even one breath later you're like, and also my political agenda.
	Yeah, my not-so-secret political agenda, probably gay agenda as well.
	It's all about the marginalised people.
	Get your placards out.
	So, this is not filling me with hope, but okay, okay, okay, fine.
	What else is there?
	Who else is there?
	So, previously, one of the most important factors of Doctor Who has been the showrunner, right?
	So, it started off with a revival with Russell T. Davis, who did the Christopher Alcolston stuff and the David Tennant stuff, which, for me, was the best period of the revival so far.
	Stephen Moffat moved on to showrunner for Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi, which started off pretty good and progressively got a bit worse, but still didn't hit the depths that we're used to now.
	And then Chris Chibnall came along.
	But...
	Russell T. Davis came back.
	He has come back.
	So, this is going to be great, right?
	Russell T. Davis is back.
	He knows how to write a good story and not inject politics into it.
	He wrote great stories back in the day.
	He's obviously not obsessed.
	Oh, wait!
	What was this that we covered a bit last year?
	Move along for me, John.
	No, no, to the next article, please.
	Thank you.
	Russell T. Davis takes down LGB Alliance in a sendery speech.
	To cut out a T is to kill...
	Did we cover this?
	Because I remember this.
	This was absolutely ridiculous.
	This was covered the week I started.
	Right.
	So I think it was Callum and Carl who covered this.
	But I just want to go through this because this will just show that Russell D. Davis, for all of his achievements as a writer and showrunner in the past, seems to have let intersectional brain rot set in.
	So the BAFTA-winning TV writer spoke passionately.
	Just to point out that Russell T. Davis is himself gay.
	So I imagine that he sees himself as part of this community that's being attacked.
	The need for trans allyship as he collected the Inspiration Award for his seminal drama It's a Sin at the 2021 Attitude Awards.
	After commenting of inspiring HIV and AIDS workers and condemning the B-word Tories, he made no secret of his scorn for the LGB Alliance, an anti-trans charity created in opposition to Stonewall's policies.
	Russell T. Davis ridiculed the LGB Alliance in a powerful speech.
	God, can you get your nose out of Davis' arse, please, whoever's writing this?
	For the love of God!
	But yes, he spoke about them in a powerful speech and highlighted just how sinister its anti-trans rhetoric is.
	So...
	When people belittle us, they love taking the P out of us.
	They love othering us.
	They love making us look small and funny and insignificant.
	One of their favourite things to do is to say, Oh, LGBTQIA +, isn't that funny?
	You've got so many letters.
	Yes, it is funny because you're sounding more and more ridiculous every time you say it.
	That's why you're called the alphabet soup brigade.
	In what society is having too many letters a bad thing?
	More letters is good.
	More letters includes everyone, because letters aren't things with a function.
	They're not just part of an alphabet.
	They need to have political meaning attached to every single one of them.
	But then along comes the LGB alliance and they say, no, we can only have three letters.
	We're going to cut off the T. You can't have the LGBT. We're going to cut the LGB off from the T. So what you're saying is you can only have words that are three letters long.
	Is that how it's going to work?
	That's just a ridiculous straw man.
	No, what they're saying is a very obvious point.
	It's saying there is something on the plane of ideas which connects LGB and B but does not connect T. Therefore, they feel that it is more coherent to have an LGB alliance than an LGBT alliance.
	Which...
	So there's nothing about the number or style of letters involved.
	That's a ridiculous angle to take.
	Purely speaking from logic, it does make a lot more sense, because LG and B are sexualities.
	T is not.
	T is an identity.
	It is a different category, so it is a category error to put them in together.
	Like, on a purely mathematical logic level, Yes.
	I'm not saying anything about the political ramifications of that, but just from a pure semantic level, LGB belong in a category that T does not.
	It's the sort of basic puzzle that you give to children who are eight years old to see if they understand language.
	And he has failed it.
	Russell must evidently have the mental age of a seven-year-old, because as we can see here, for those listening, you might want to keep a cup near your mouth, because as I go through this, you might start drooling just from...
	The pure brain rot that this is.
	So I thought to myself, can you do that?
	Can you...
	Yes, I can.
	Yes, you can.
	We can...
	You get the picture.
	You get the picture.
	He tries to make sentences using only three letters.
	And then he goes, he finishes it off, and in the...
	We can...
	I'll just talk like a normal person, because this is just horrible.
	We can't, because when you talk like that, you are cruel, you are prah, you are bigoted, you are biased, you are ugly, you are lazy, he said.
	And in the end, you kill.
	To cut out the tea is to kill.
	So expect to see that speech in the first episode of Doctor Who when it comes back and other writing quality of this level.
	The power of these simple words saw the audience erupt.
	Oh, yeah.
	Stunning and brave, everybody.
	Stunning and brave.
	Round of applause to everyone.
	And even Twitter is getting in on how pandering this whole thing is going to be, because the Doctor Who Twitter account has decided to pander to these new demographics that they are going to be marketing themselves towards, when Tiano the writer puts, Lamau, they know our asses are going to flock to watch that blue phone box show now.
	They've got us.
	Move along.
	I suppose it's the TARDIS, not the re-TARDIS, okay.
	LAUGHTER And the Doctor Who account puts, do we have to change our bio to that blue phone box show now?
	Hashtag Doctor Who.
	And move along and we can see that yes.
	Yes, they did.
	Why?
	It's also a police box, not a phone box.
	Yep.
	Well, I don't expect these people to know the difference.
	They don't understand anything about Doctor Who, because traditionally it's generally been English people who like Doctor Who, given that it's an English show, but now we're having to market to demographics outside of that.
	We have to market to Americans, which means we have to cut out 20% of the vocabulary in Yes, I also found, because there are independent blogs talking about this sort of stuff as well, of the sorts of people who I imagine watch the show maybe once every year and then don't watch it ever again.
	Diversity in Doctor Who.
	In previous seasons, Doctor Who failed to show great diversity.
	I think Mickey and Martha would beg to differ, but okay.
	But the new seasons with Jodie Whittaker have made big changes.
	The second episode of the 11th season features a plot with Rosa Parks and even lets Martin Luther King Jr.
	have some camera time.
	The show went into how people of race were treated back in the civil rights movement.
	Two of the characters are a part of this.
	Ryan, who is African American...
	Ryan, who is African-American.
	I've only just noticed that.
	Ryan's supposed to be from Sheffield.
	He's black, but he's from Sheffield.
	He's not American.
	Oh, God.
	You idiots.
	Oh, God, I hate these people.
	I really hate the attitude of Americans towards black British people.
	That's something that really winds me up.
	They really want to just sort of colonise them, just absorb them into this black ummah of black Americans.
	And the rest of the world largely does not care.
	They do not want your hangover.
	Why should I care?
	And then Yaz, who is Indian.
	But the thing is, it's infected this.
	It's infected Doctor Who, because now all of the people in charge of Doctor Who are seeing it through that American lens that you pointed out, that they can only see things through an American view of race and racial relations.
	And it's infected this and made it so that we don't get good stories anymore.
	We don't get stories trying to tell stories.
	We get stories trying to tell messages.
	Yeah, and quite honestly, I think America has one of the worst histories and perspectives on race of any country out there.
	So the idea that everyone should be enlightened by America's progressive view on race is a terrible idea because it just creates conflict everywhere and makes everyone unhappy.
	Yeah, but...
	I got all of the Rotten Tomatoes scores up since the beginning of the revival, just so that we can check in on how well the show has been doing over the years, since they went from telling fun, escapist, and at times even emotional and dramatic stories...
	Well, stories, yeah.
	Stories in the first place, yes, to how they're doing now.
	So, season one with Christopher Eccleston.
	Yeah, it was decent, very well received.
	Yeah, very well received by the audience.
	It's probably my favourite of the Revival series.
	And then we move on to David Tennant, who, even better, is getting 100%.
	100% critic rate.
	92% audience score.
	Let's just move along through the David Tennant one.
	So Season 3, equally very consistent.
	Season 4...
	Also very consistent.
	Season 4, in fact, 98%.
	Even Season 5 carries on 100%.
	Yeah, amazing.
	From critics, 92%.
	Season 6 is where you get the first slip in the audience score to the low 90%.
	Still very good ratings.
	I would say this is where, this is after Moffat took over, this is where his sort of slippery storytelling started to become noticeable.
	Yeah, so with Moffat, I do actually quite like Moffat's writings.
	However, he...
	He doesn't know how to close a story loop.
	So he's able to throw things up in the air at the beginning and befuddle the audience with the question, oh, how on earth is he going to make all of this stick?
	Oh, this is amazing.
	And then you soon realize when you've watched a bit of his stuff, no, he has no intention of making it stick.
	He is not writing in good faith.
	He's not going to close these storylines.
	It'll just be wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.
	He's the man who will throw out the storylines and think, I'll figure it out later.
	And never does.
	Never does.
	And then Season 7, you start to see it drop a little bit, 83%.
	The critics are still absolutely thrilled about it.
	And then you get to Peter Capaldi's first season, Season 8.
	Ooh.
	Where it starts to actually make a significant draw.
	And I feel so bad for Peter Capaldi because he's a huge Doctor Who fan.
	Ever since he was very young, there are old newspaper clippings that you can see of him where, as a teenager, he would go out and try and meet Peter Davison and other people who had played the Doctors.
	And then he comes in and the writing starts to take a dip.
	So I do feel bad for the guy, to be honest.
	Season 9 showed a little bit of an improvement.
	And then Season 10, his last season as the Doctor, oof.
	Big drop there on the audience score.
	So, that seems like...
	Oh, it seems to be on a little bit of a downward decline, but still not awful.
	I mean, 90%, 70%, those are still respectable things.
	Yes, yes.
	And then Chris Chibnall took over, and Jodie Whittaker stepped in.
	Oof!
	Oof!
	That's a big drop!
	That's a big oof right there!
	20% audience score.
	And then season 12, her follow-up season...
	16%!
	But it follows the golden rule of critic and audience ratings.
	It really does.
	You can tell when something political is going on, usually because of this difference.
	The critics still like it, and the audience is absolutely aghast.
	The critics are part of the cathedral, so it's pushing their messaging so they like it, whereas the audience just do not want this.
	They want good stories.
	And let's see what Whittaker's very last episode looks like.
	Even the critics aren't touching this thing so far.
	Nine percent audience score.
	And honestly, I've heard synopsis of this, and I can understand why.
	And recently, a YouTube creator I like called Nerdrothic did a video on top five murdered franchises.
	What- Which is appropriate.
	And he actually chose Doctor Who as his number one because he's a big Doctor Who fan.
	And I thought I'd just take a little clip from this.
	And thank you, Nerdrotic, for the great content here because it really does sum up a lot of the problems.
	So if you just want to play this clip...
	Pregnant.
	Why me?
	Boys give birth to boys and girls give birth to girls.
	That's how it is.
	Jodie Whittaker also put herself behind the eight ball by disrespecting the audience and admitting she didn't do any research.
	The only thing that makes great stories are stories that people can relate to and they feel represented within.
	To only see TV shows or films from one very specific demographic is...
	It's got old.
	And so for all of us, it just, you know, it is...
	Yeah, you can see the guy playing Ryan there.
	Even he's like, oh, God.
	I think these people, on some level, know.
	People don't want this.
	People really don't want this.
	No, but they take a savage pleasure in ramming it down their throats.
	It's the same with modern art, really.
	That's true.
	But expect more of that as we move on.
	And just to show exactly why it is that people hate this and also how they just disrespect everything that came before them, even from pop cultural institutions.
	Do you know about this, The Timeless Children?
	Oh, I've heard of it, but you'll have to...
	Right, I'll go through the synopsis, because this is the story that, as far as I can tell, broke Doctor Who.
	Broke Doctor Who for good, because if you're going to keep this in the canon, it's ruined.
	It's just completely ruined.
	So everybody knows that the backstory of the Doctor is that he was born on Gallifrey, and one day when he was in his...
	Early hundreds, like in his 120s, he just decided to scarper, take off, and steal the TARDIS so that he could go off and have adventures away from everyone, and then it carried on from there.
	This changes that.
	This changes that irrefutably.
	It changes it completely.
	So, the synopsis of the story.
	The Master, Doctor's arch-nemesis, persuades the Doctor to join him on Gallifrey, where he forces her to enter the Matrix.
	He shows her the secret history of Gallifrey and its native Shiboggans, Tektuen, a space explorer, found a timeless child, who in the story is a black little girl, because of course, with the capacity to regenerate.
	She adopted the child and studied her, successfully grafting her regeneration capacities into the Shiboggans, transforming them into Time Lords.
	They chose to limit a Time Lord's regenerations to twelve.
	The Master reveals that the Doctor is the timeless child.
	Tekchuan and the child were inducted into a clandestine organisation called The Division, the details of which were redacted from The Matrix, and the Doctor's memories were subsequently erased prior to childhood, she remembers.
	Only snippets remain masked as the story of an Irish person called Garda Brendan.
	So that's just a complete destruction.
	Complete destruction of the canon, the very foundations of the story that Doctor Who is based off.
	It was already bad enough that Stephen Moffat decided that he wanted to insert his precious original character, Clara, into the foundations of the Doctor's backstory.
	But at the very least, he tried to fit his character within the established canon.
	This is actively destroying everything that came before them.
	And I think it's immense arrogance to think that just because you've been appointed showrunner right this very moment, that means that you have the right to destroy and discard everything that came behind it because you are obviously such a visionary that you must just know better.
	We've seen this with The Matrix recently.
	We've seen this with Star Wars.
	We've seen this with Terminator.
	We've seen this with every franchise.
	And this is just another one because Nerd Rocket is right.
	Another murdered franchise.
	And I don't expect it to get Any better with the new series of Doctor Who.
	Don't expect improvement.
	Don't expect anything to get better.
	Watch different things because these people hate you.
	And on that uplifting note, let's go to the video comments.
	This term groomer, I kind of want to take this term groomer back.
	Yes, I am a groomer.
	Everybody grooms children.
	Anybody who has kids in their lives hopes to be grooming them.
	Are we groomers?
	Yes!
	I'll be a groomer as much as possible.
	We're going to groom in autonomous thinking, right?
	That these kids can think for themselves rather than evaluate information, rather than just swallowing whatever is fed to them, even if it's fed from us.
	So we're going to groom.
	You keep using the word.
	I don't think it means what you think it means.
	Yep.
	Absolutely.
	Tim Marshall slowly descends into chaos in the second half of his book where he looks at the Sahel, Ethiopia, Spain, and space.
	Illuminating the challenges geography places on migration, water access, and agriculture, as well as outlining the history and religious conflicts, he explains much of why these regions and countries are important.
	However, he keeps referring to climate change despite it having no obvious mechanism of influence.
	His final chapter on space starts well, but then departs into the realm of fantasy and speculation, putting a weak ending on what is otherwise a good read.
	Thank you for the 32nd book clubs.
	I've read Prisoners of Geography and I think it's a very good basic primer, but you can't rely on it for anything really penetrating or deep in terms of its analysis.
	I've been tempted to buy that in the past because you go into supermarkets and Tesco and Asda will sell it for £4.
	But at the same time, the types of books that you see like that are generally, like you say, basic primers on things.
	But it's good.
	If you want to read it after the Honjin murders, then I'll pass it across.
	Listen, John lent me a book a while, but I'm still not around to reading it, okay?
	I feel terrible about it, okay?
	Hey, Lotus Eaters.
	My parents have gotten a whole bunch of chickens again this year, and so they're going to be raising them for meat, and so I figured I will make a video about them each weekend when I come to visit my family to document their growth and stuff.
	And so we can...
	Look at how cute they are right now.
	And yeah, so next weekend I will see what they look like then.
	Excellent.
	Yeah, no, that sounds really cool.
	I can't wait to see these chickens grow up, become cute, become independent, and then to see how tasty they look in the end of the process.
	We used to rescue a lot of battery chickens.
	Oh, did you?
	And sometimes we'd get chicks and things as well.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, it's this lovely little process.
	It's amazing how...
	Chicks come out of the egg and they have so many functions already that you can just train.
	You just tap the ground in front of them and they will start pecking at it and learning how to scratch for insects and things like that.
	They come out of the egg almost like...
	I mean, they're chickens.
	They don't get that developed that advanced.
	But what they do have, a lot of it is already there.
	And it's not like human babies that have to be carried and carted around for ages.
	Yeah.
	Well, that's just because we're so superior to everything, basically, is we need to continue developing outside of the womb as well.
	But yeah, well done on getting all the chicks.
	Let's go to the next one.
	So in George W. Bush's eight years as the president, he nominated two Supreme Court justices.
	In Barack Obama's eight years as president, he nominated two Supreme Court justices.
	In Donald Trump's four years as president, he nominated three Supreme Court justices.
	A lot of the deeply Christian Republicans were a little bit nervous about Donald Trump because of his past behavior, but they voted for him anyway.
	And this Alito decision that leaked is their payoff.
	If Hillary actually won the 2016 election, this definitely wouldn't be happening.
	So shout out to Hillary for being really bad at campaigning.
	Thank you, Hillary.
	So, um, Bertie, I know you're a viewer of the Loadseaters.
	I have a request for you.
	I don't care if you're not white, and you're actually Arab.
	Can you not use the N-word on the podcast, and whoever has to censor these video comments, you don't get paid enough.
	Look, I know on the Discord server we're generally significantly more spicy than the unofficial Loadseater Discord, and the Sultans could ever dream to be, but, uh, not on YouTube, please, or so help me, I'm gonna have to censor you myself.
	Believe it or not Bertie, I'd rather not have the podcast get taken down so quick, if you don't mind.
	So is he referring to the Dave Chappelle one where there was a clip with the N-word throwing around?
	Yes, I know that it took a few people by surprise.
	Yeah, well, so, I mean, it was one of Leo's segments, of course.
	I think it came up with such speed we didn't have time to watch it, let alone Vetta.
	But fortunately, for us at least, we have the get-out that it's fair use.
	We didn't say the word.
	It was somebody else saying it in a context that we had no part in.
	Right.
	It was amusing to me, but yeah, thank you for that.
	Thank you for keeping our best interest in mind.
	Indeed.
	Let's get to the next one.
	See you out and about.
	Since completing my robot last week, I've been far too busy to make a video comment.
	You'd drive one around all the time if you had one.
	I'm not one for conspiracies, but I'm just saying...
	Nobody's seen Callum and Lord Miles in the same room, have we?
	I mean, I have.
	But, okay.
	That's not Miles, is it?
	That's Zelensky, isn't it?
	Oh, you're right, actually!
	Yeah, yeah!
	You've got a good point.
	Oh my goodness.
	Can I just say, it's so wholesome that Winnie-Pooh finally saved up enough honey to be able to build himself a mech suit.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I can't wait to see that carrying groceries to him from the supermarket, actually.
	That'll make an amazing video.
	Yeah, honestly, I can forgive you not sending in the video comments.
	If I had something like that, I'd be too busy having fun.
	Mm-hmm.
	Hello, gentlemen.
	Just to clarify one of my previous comments, CAD software in my mind is not the sole reason for why this style is so prominent in modern-day architecture, but it definitely serves as a catalyst since all the lazy modern-day architects can just hide behind it, since it's so much easier to make this type of style buildings in CAD. Just to prove the point, I recreated one of these crazy Rousseau wannabes over the architect world.
	Buildings in real time.
	And solid works.
	Took me like around two hours.
	And I don't even have any education as an architect.
	I love CAD software.
	Once you get some basic functionality with it, it feels like, oh, I am God, I can create things with my hands.
	That's some really good work there.
	So as a challenge, as a sort of mini scientific exercise, if you could try and make a small classical building using that software, that would be really interesting to see, because you could measure how long it takes you, and that would substantiate the point you make about how CAD helps you to do modern architecture.
	The look of the Jersey Devil would be defined by the 1909 Great Jersey Devil hoax started by Norman Jeffries, the man who ran the 9th and Art Street Museum in Philadelphia.
	He needed a new act and he read about the Jersey Devil in a book, so he sent one of his carny assistants to go to South Jersey to send a letter to the newspaper saying that he had seen the Jersey Devil.
	This went viral in the paper and soon things got out of control.
	I appreciate the story, Tony, but I don't appreciate you saying that it's a hoax.
	I mean, it's obviously a real thing that happened.
	Come on, man.
	Next one.
	30-second adventure.
	I set up from the River Hamble near Southampton in search for a sea-people solution.
	I soon encountered HMS Victory in Portsmouth, which was interesting to see as it made a brief appearance in the Lotus Eaters Napoleon podcast.
	Well, I'm very jealous of your boat.
	I'd love to be out on the seas right now.
	Yeah, same.
	If only.
	No, that's very interesting.
	I think that's all the video comments we've got.
	So, do you want to move on to the comments?
	Yes, I'll go through some of the ones on the abortion segment.
	So, Alex Bradbury says, My view on abortion has always been that there's probably a limit on where it should be, but I don't know where it is, and I damn well don't want to get it wrong.
	And respect that opinion.
	Yeah, that's where I've come to, which is kind of why I'm just like, well, the simplest cut-off point for me is it's been conceived.
	Okay, anything after that is way too complicated and gets into the minutia of what constitutes life, which more than anything is a philosophical rather than a practical question regarding this.
	So it's like, the only other way that you could probably classify it is when the heartbeat is detected.
	And that's like the only real objective one that you could say.
	That's when the life started.
	But other than that, oh well.
	SH Silver says, the only places with abortion more liberal than much of the US are China, North Korea, and Canada.
	Given the direction of Canada, it doesn't stand out so much against that crowd, I agree.
	IC Huntley said, would one want to be an unwanted fetus or an unwanted child?
	And I assume by that you mean unwanted fetus, as in aborted.
	Well, personally I would much rather be alive than dead.
	That's like saying, would you rather be dead or unhappy?
	Generally speaking, I'd rather be unhappy because I have a chance to be happy again.
	If I'm an unwanted child, I still have the opportunity to develop a life for myself.
	And potentially, if you're adopted, you can even have parents who still love you.
	Absolutely.
	That's where I stand on that.
	Heaven Fox says, Democrats seem to be confusing the Republicans and pro-lifers with the Westboro Baptist Church.
	Oh, Democrats have made a long, very successful career.
	They're very confused people, yeah.
	Well, no, I think they've very purposefully and very successfully made good strides politically in basically conflating all of these different kinds of people.
	If you are a Republican, that makes you know better than a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.
	If you happen to have the flag of your nation that you are a raving fascist, you're Yeah, exactly, because Hitler was a nationalist as well, so it's obviously the same thing.
	Risto Rantanen says...
	British name, I think.
	Ah, yes.
	I think that these women who celebrate abortions are actually looking for peer support, makes them feel less guilty about aggravating any underlying mental issue.
	That may be the case, but once again, I think severing the life of someone before they even get the chance for it is not...
	Mm-hmm.
	What I would consider to be a good decision, no matter what.
	Carbohydrate Crusader, Carl's arch-nemesis, says, Same here, to be perfectly honest.
	I used to be much more open to it until I started to hear what people were saying and listen to the argumentation that they were making.
	I was like, hold up, this sounds like celebrating murder to me.
	There's a human aspect of looking at an ultrasound feeling your baby kick that is completely disregarded for my science by people who pick and choose their science, biology, gender, etc.
	The fact that these people would rather cheer me with such fervour if me and my partner had an abortion is what is so unbelievably inhuman and disgusting.
	Yeah, because that would qualify you for one of their mascot classes, as Thomas Sowell would say.
	People who they get an emotional and moral kick out of supporting.
	That is true.
	Now, usual mascots are basically minorities, LGBTQIA +, religious minorities, and so on and so forth.
	But if you go into this mascot class, you get all of these benefits because they want to cheerlead you.
	Otherwise, you don't exist to them, right?
	You either exist as something to hate or something to cheer for.
	Anything in between, which is the vast majority of people on Earth, they do not care.
	You do not exist.
	No, that is true.
	I think we've also, just as a culture, massively downgraded the significance and sanctity of being a parent and having children, and I think it's something that we really need to pull ourselves back from.
	Jonathan Crowe says, Harry, you're talking about this as if you're preparing for a baby yourself.
	I think you'd make a good dad.
	Well, thank you very much, John.
	I've not got a baby on the way or anything as of yet, but...
	That he knows about.
	I've been careful, but you know, if it happens, it happens.
	I am of the age now and getting to the mindset where it's like, yeah, I could see that happening sometime soon.
	I'll just go one more.
	Joe Creed saying, if one can't deal with the consequences, one shouldn't be having sex.
	Absolutely.
	party we have maria manzi the aspire tower hamlet council vanguard backed by radical islamists who would have thought it calum dayton says this aspire party is making me very suspicious i'd love to see the newest census data soon because we really need it but this aspire party seems very un-british or unanglo-saxon is the best way i can put it lord nerevar says
	so if i understand correctly tower hamlet's council is under the control of an islamic fundamentalist party which ran as an independent organization so as to disguise the fact that they plan to enact quasi-Sharia Did I miss anything?
	I don't think it's quite that blatant.
	But we shall have to wait and see.
	Yeah, we'll see, won't we?
	Titchy Potatoes says, Ah yes, my favourite mayor.
	I loved his vote rigging so much that I voted for him again.
	Twelve times!
	And my dad granted, too.
	He's just that good.
	Hashtag vote rigging.
	That's brilliant.
	I love it.
	That's good.
	I like it.
	Freewill2112 says, When they say far right, they mean everyone who doesn't agree with them.
	And they now feel bold enough to say what they really think about the indigenous people of Britain.
	This is true.
	Kevin Fox says...
	Hey, hey, hey.
	Local elites, Matt.
	Local elites.
	Andrew Narog says...
	Which we will not quote.
	Charlie Rogers says, Local parties built purely for local areas make the most sense.
	We've got a local party here in Upland, Swansea, and they do well in local elections, winning all four of the wards' councillor seats.
	Local democracy makes sense this way, and in my opinion, national democracy doesn't.
	I mean, that's a fair point.
	Like I say, I was saying it a bit facetiously, but I think there is truth to the fact that, yeah, they have chosen somebody who seems to represent the demographic population there, which is probably what they do want.
	The problem is, as far as I can tell, is that they're in England, and it's not an English community, and nobody as part of the English public asked for there to be ethnic enclaves set up in the capital city.
	It is quite mad.
	I mean, one of the things which occurs to me is that this is the third party we get, Aspire.
	Nowhere else is there this kind of local movement.
	We just get Labour Conservative, Labour Conservative, Labour Conservative.
	But yeah, local parties all for them.
	This particular local party, I imagine they've got a few skeletons in the closet or the cupboard.
	And Tristan Armstrong says, R.E. the chauffeured Mercedes, does the Lord Mayor of the City of London not drive around in a gilded horse-drawn carriage?
	Publicly funded luxury conveyances do have some tradition in Britain.
	Yeah, that's different.
	Come on.
	No, come on.
	That is different.
	So first of all, the Lord Mayor of the City of London is a ceremonial post.
	It exists purely for ceremony.
	It's different from the Mayor of London, which is Sadiq Khan.
	So he exists basically to be this figure who dresses up like it's 200 years ago and has these things.
	He's almost there to represent some of the cultural wealth of London and England and so on.
	So it is a little different.
	Also, do you want to go from London to Sheffield on a horse-drawn carriage?
	Because I think you're going to have a pretty sore backside by the end of it.
	Well, I mean...
	Chauffeur-driven Mercedes on the other hand.
	It's worth it for the prestige alone, surely.
	The more pock-side your backside...
	Obviously the far wealthier you are, yes.
	Yeah, I believe, I forget the name of it, it's like Tower 9 or something that's brought Broadcasting all the media to Earth from space, and then they bring it back later in the season and also have it be mocking Big Brother and all of those other lifestyle-type shows.
	Was it inspired at all by the Iraq War or the information environment surrounding that?
	It could have been, perhaps.
	I mean, I wouldn't be surprised.
	Because back in that time, I feel like even the left was much more suspicious of the mainstream and its information than it is now.
	Now they're in lockstep with the establishment media.
	Well, that was before they recognised just how much they had captured the institutions, I would imagine.
	But yeah, carry on.
	The episode was how the mainstream media had internationally stunted the growth of the human galactic empire.
	The reason, the right word at the right time, repeated often enough, gives them the desired effect and climate of fear and xenophobia.
	Yeah, this is one thing which frustrates me, which is that in fiction, if there's some bad thing, it's always some on the right.
	Like, fear and xenophobia is traditionally associated with the right, as opposed to the left, and this sort of thing.
	Personally, I don't really use the words right and left and rightist and leftist.
	I try to avoid them because I think they're terrible terms.
	When you hear the left going on about far right, well, what's far right?
	Is it complete economic laissez-faire?
	That's far right, in a sense.
	Or is it complete state control of the institutions within a fascist nexus?
	Because that, in another definition, is far right, but these are polar opposites.
	Well, yeah, that's the interesting thing, having just finished listening to Rothbard's Libertarian Manifesto, which is something that, for the most part, I massively agree with.
	He talks about how, you know, nowadays I'm considered massively far-right, but go back to this particular point in time, I would have been a massive leftist, and then, before then, probably still right-wing, and then go back again.
	It was all dependent on where you are.
	Right and left are fundamentally unhelpful terms, and I think they only help if you want to limit yourself to a surface level of understanding of what's going on in society, because it's much more complicated than murky.
	But then most people don't actually have the time to get into it and really understand those differences, I think.
	Yes.
	But Tish Potato says, Doctor Who has failed at diversity in the past.
	Bull, the first showrunner in the 60s, was the first female showrunner in television.
	I did not know that, actually.
	The first director was the first Indian director in television.
	Didn't know that either.
	And came out 40 years later as gay.
	If Trailblazing is failing at diversity, it's impossible to see.
	I mean, these people would probably tell you that 1960s Star Trek failed at diversity.
	So, you know, but thank you for the information that's such.
	The problem is really, whether they say they failed at it or they succeeded at it, they make the conversation all about where it was in relation to diversity.
	Diversity is like the black hole that sucks in all stories and all narratives.
	They all must become about this conversation of diversity.
	That's really frustrating because actually, no, the value of the stories exists in the universe which is completely separate from diversity, which has nothing to do with diversity and you view it on its story merits alone.
	Yeah, I mean, that's the interesting thing saying about Doctor Who used to be based is that, yeah, it still had potentially what you could classify as political messaging in it.
	It was just integrated with the story in a way to make it part of the background rather than the foreground.
	Whereas nowadays, you basically put a veneer of a story over a political message that not everybody wants to hear.
	In fact, as we've seen from the Rotten Tomatoes scores, it seems that nobody really wants to hear it, do they?
	But I think that's all we've got time for, for the comments.
	Thank you very much for tuning in today.
	It's been a pleasure having you here, and we'll see you next time.
	Don't forget as well, we have at 3.30, before I forget, we have your live book club on Academic Agents book, so please feel free to check that out as well.

▲