Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

June 14, 2023 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:32:46

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #675

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hi folks, welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for the 14th of June, 2023.
	I'm joined by Andrew Lawrence.
	Andrew, how are you doing?
	I'm good, thanks for having me on.
	It's nice to be here.
	Thank you for coming.
	And today we're going to be talking about how the BBC's disinformation service has begun disinforming you, why conspiracy theories are so popular and what conspiracy theories the public believes, and of course why you should be revolting against the Empire of Pride.
	But before we begin, we have a couple of announcements.
	The first one is tomorrow at 4.30.
	No, 3.30.
	Sorry, Friday.
	I forgot it was Wednesday.
	Time just starts blurring into one when you get to my age.
	Isn't that right, Andrew?
	That's how it is, yeah.
	That's how it is for me.
	The older you get, time just becomes much more meaningless.
	Friday at 3.30 UK time, Connor and Harry are doing a Rumble exclusive podcast about, quote, is James Lindsay right about Christian nationalism?
	Not actually a subject I'm very familiar with, so that's going to be interesting.
	And also, Andrew Lawrence is on tour, and one of his tour dates is in Swindon on the 21st of July, which we are going to be attending.
	We think you should as well, because I've attended literally all of his Swindon tour dates to this point, back after he was cancelled, and he's very, very funny.
	So you should definitely go and see this.
	So anyway, let's begin.
	So, you may be aware, I'm sure you've probably seen this, is BBC's Verify.
	Verify service.
	Where they were going to spend their time debunking conspiracy theories on the internet.
	And putting out true information.
	Because, God forbid, there's enough false information out there.
	If there's one place you can trust for the truth, it's the BBC.
	Isn't that right?
	Yeah, it's an interesting move given their reputation of recent years.
	It's interesting, they seem to think they're such a trusted institution that they can appoint themselves as the arbiters of truth.
	That's fascinating.
	It doesn't speak highly of their self-awareness really, but let them go for it.
	It's bound to create wonderful entertainment value.
	Although there is that, there is that.
	But before we begin, If you want to support us, because of course we've been demonetised, go to lotuses.com, sign up, and go and check out Josh's latest contemplations about Victorian values, which I find fascinating, because this is of course at the height of Empire, and he's been going through various pieces of literature through the time, where they explain how things should be, and it's just very interesting how wildly different to us they actually are, in the way that they think.
	Anyway, so previously we have covered the BBC's disinformation service, and I love that they call it the disinformation... I mean... Yeah, it's one of those words that sets off alarm bells, isn't it?
	Okay, so you're in a certain club if you're chucking around words like that, aren't you?
	Okay.
	I mean, the fact that her job title is literally disinformation specialist Specialist?
	Wow.
	I wonder what's level of training and how many years of specialist training she's had.
	But would you want your job title to be disinformation specialist?
	I'd write, you know, true information specialist maybe?
	Yeah.
	Makes it sound like it's kind of the mask is off.
	But they promised to disinform people, and boy did they deliver, because they dropped the first series of their podcast, Mariana in Conspiracy Land.
	This is Mariana Spring, their disinformation specialist, who has done some roving reporting in Totnes.
	Wow.
	Okay.
	Which is where all conspiracies begin, apparently.
	And I listened to all of this series, and it's pretty much what you'd expect.
	You know, there's a source of way that a progressive narrative, a progressive will set up a narrative and essentially just cherry pick from a series of sources to present one interpretation.
	But if you actually watch or read all of the sources yourself, you'd probably come away with a different interpretation, right?
	Sure.
	And she spends her time in this mostly talking about a grassroots conspiracy paper called The Light.
	Now, I hadn't heard of this before.
	Have you heard of this?
	No.
	No.
	Well, apparently they've got quite a large readership, actually.
	Something like 100,000 copies a month or something they print.
	So this goes quite far and wide.
	And she interviews, like I said, this is the typical way that progressives set up their narratives.
	So she interviews very kindly and favourably people that she likes and that support what she's trying to say, and is completely unquestioning about the things that they tell her, and then she refuses to accept anything that the people that she doesn't like say.
	So if they say something that may well come from a government website, she'll just essentially say, no, that's wrong, without substantiating a point.
	And of course, she clips them at their worst in order to represent them as being as bad as they can be.
	In Totnes, incidentally, she was interviewing one lady conspiracy theorist, who she ended up reducing to tears, which is like, right?
	That's not nice.
	But also, she did an interview, a proper sit-down interview, with a chap called Darren Nesbitt, who is the publisher of The Light.
	And he recorded it on his side, and you can go and watch that on Rumble, as it is there.
	Just search for Mariana in Conspiracyland, you'll find that on Rumble.
	So I watched about two-thirds of this, because it's about four hours long, and he just comes across like a normal chap.
	He's just a normal bloke.
	I'm a self-admitted conservative.
	I think there's some funny things going on, which a lot of people do, which we'll talk about in the second segment.
	But he just comes across like a normal guy.
	He's not like a raving lunatic.
	He hasn't got a Nazi armband on or anything like that.
	He's just like, look, I think we're being lied to.
	Yeah, well he's got some ideas that he wants to discuss in the public sphere that some people don't like, evidently.
	Well yeah, I mean he turns up and is like, I think I'm being lied to.
	And she's like, well hey, I'm from the BBC.
	So yeah, that's why.
	We're the BBC, we'll let you know.
	We'll let you know what the lies are.
	You can trust us.
	Like, trust old Auntie Beeb, she's never gonna lead you wrong.
	Well, I watched the entire Mariana in Conspiracy Land, or I listened to it, even.
	And in the very first episode, she started talking about me.
	Now, I probably wouldn't have covered this as an entire segment, and this does feel a little self-indulgent, but when BBC Radio 4 are going to start publishing lies about you, and these are like genuine lies, these aren't just lies of interpretation, right?
	When they actually start fabricating events that never happened and attribute them to you, then I mean, I feel I'm entitled to at least push back on that.
	Yeah, you can't let it go, because they do it to you, they do it to other people, and if no one pushes back, they keep doing it.
	So, it's important.
	Yeah.
	Like I said, I think you're fully entitled.
	I wouldn't even say entitled, I think it's the right thing to do.
	You know, they want to put themselves out there as this organisation, a bastion of truth, and then they want to pursue an agenda and tell lies about people, and they need to be called out on it.
	I think so, and I think it's particularly ironic, given the framing, right?
	Because if it was just a regular BBC article, I'd probably like, pfft, don't care, you know?
	But this is a big production.
	She's spent a lot of time explaining, no, no, no, I'm anti-disinformation.
	I'm going to provide you with real facts.
	And then in the very first episode of this, starts spewing just things that aren't true.
	Let's watch this clip of where she's talking about me.
	For Georgina and Ben, this paper from outside Totnes has been part of what has drawn people in the town towards a new way of thinking.
	They compared two separate visits from Carl Benjamin, a former UKIP candidate who ran a YouTube channel called Sargon of Akkad, before it was suspended by the platform.
	He first appeared in Totnes with a former Breitbart editor, Milo Yiannopoulos, a man associated with the far right.
	— At the time, a local group in Totnes condemned Benjamin's use of rape threats and racist tropes, as well as engagement with white supremacists.
	— Obviously, the whole of Totnes would have come out against him, which we did.
	It was a complete, like, old-fashioned standoff on the market square.
	We had, sort of, you know, Arkhan Sakad and his mates, who all looked quite heavy, sitting on one side and shouting about freedom of speech, and then the whole of Totnes, On the other side, shouting him to go away.
	A year after the pandemic, the same guy came back with another mate.
	And half the people who previously had stood up against him were now with him because they'd all been recruited into his way of thinking.
	So nothing was more important than freedom of speech.
	So suddenly these guys who we had all at once, you know, only a couple of years previously, absolutely understood us being on the wrong side.
	People were now slightly conflicted and standing with him and yelling at us.
	So, for me, it's been a bit upsetting to have a town where hippies, who you thought were friends of yours, have crossed very quickly, with only the smallest of encouragement, over to the far right.
	Georgina and Ben are worried that what the conspiracy theory media is doing is something akin to radicalisation, causing a committed minority to adopt radical positions on political or social issues based on disinformation.
	Sounds like I did a good job in Totnes then, doesn't it?
	It's pretty full on, isn't it?
	It's pretty, uh, there's some, some very strong, strong, uh, um, allegations and assertions they're making about you.
	And it's all very black and white, isn't it?
	I went there twice.
	I radicalised the town and I led some sort of insurgency in Totnes.
	Georgina there is a councillor.
	So this isn't even just some rando off the street who's making that allegation?
	You know, if she'd sort of played it down a bit and had some sort of balance in there and said anything vaguely neutral or positive about it, you might have been able to take it seriously.
	But it's so overtly a hit piece that it comes across as ludicrous.
	I mean, I love the sinister music in the background.
	And I can't believe they fat-shamed my friends.
	Simon and Glyn, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to go on keto, boys.
	Like, those big heavy guys, yeah.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Simon and Simon knows it.
	I was heavy at the time too.
	Well I think the intimation is the big heavy meaning they're intimidating.
	Yes.
	I can assure viewers, I'm here in the office, I've seen everyone.
	It's not an intimidating bunch of people.
	I don't think we are anyway, you know.
	I'm a small man, you know, and I can honestly say I felt no intimidation.
	I'm glad to hear that.
	No offence anyone, but... So I just thought I'd go through and just refute, because she made a bunch of concrete assertions about me that were just simply not true.
	And so I thought I'd just go through and refute them.
	The first one being that I was banned from YouTube.
	That's not true.
	If you go to the next one, John, there's my YouTube channel.
	It's right there.
	Click on any one of those videos and watch them.
	I don't know why she would say that.
	I don't know why she would say I was banned from YouTube when it's such an easily verifiable thing, right?
	Literally anyone with an internet connection can verify that.
	Secondly, anyone with an internet connection can verify that Milo Yiannopoulos was not with me at TotNES.
	I recorded the entire thing.
	If you go to the video of the event, That's the entire thing, the whole four hours there.
	And you can see that it's just me and my fat friends, who apparently need to lose some weight.
	Sorry, guys.
	But you can see that Milo isn't there, so I don't know why she would say that.
	It's just me talking to people, just very regularly.
	And there's Simon in the background, being fat shamed.
	Obviously, I've never sent a rape threat, which is why I have no criminal record.
	It's interesting that you again would say that, because that's a criminal offence.
	I don't have a criminal record.
	I've never been arrested.
	I've never seen the inside of a courtroom.
	I don't know what the process is, to be honest.
	Nor have I ever been a white supremacist or engaged with them.
	The only engagement I've had is to debate them, which I did a few years ago.
	This debate has actually been taken down.
	I don't know why.
	But I have debated against them, so there's that.
	But the most important one for me, what really bothered me, because, okay, these are false statements, but they're false statements about the internet, right?
	So it's like, oh, well, this channel's taken down.
	So again, no, that's just not true, right?
	But What I find really interesting is normally, when the BBC is going to lie to you, it's some kind of lie of omission, right?
	There'll be information about something, and they'll take one or two pieces and leave out key contextual other pieces that give you a false impression of that thing.
	So technically, they haven't lied, they haven't made up a fact about the world, and so you come away misinformed, but they can say, well, this is true, that is true, and that's all you need to know.
	Well, not this time.
	This is a very interesting thing, because I've never been back to Totnes.
	I've been there a grand total of once, on that MEP tour, and so when she says, quote, on two separate occasions, that's a fabrication.
	She literally made that up.
	Now, don't get me wrong, it makes me sound awesome, right?
	I went back there and half the town was on my side all of a sudden.
	I'm like the Pied Piper of Totnes.
	Exactly, right?
	I wish I'd done that, now I think about it, because maybe there wouldn't have been.
	But that's just not true.
	That's a total fever dream that has been made up by Mariana and the group.
	That's fear-mongering.
	Fear-mongering nonsense, isn't it?
	And the thing is, just ask yourself, where's the footage of it?
	Like, wouldn't there be footage if half the town was up in arms against the other half of the town?
	Wouldn't there be some cell phones?
	Well, the whole thing screams out a mixture of laziness and vindictiveness.
	But outright fabrication as well.
	Yeah.
	Literally fabricating an event.
	Like, tell me the date I went back.
	I bet there's video footage of me on the podcast that day or something like that.
	But what I like about this is at the end where she says, what the conspiracy theory media is doing is something akin to radicalization, causing a committed minority to adopt radical positions on political and social issues based on disinformation.
	That's what she's doing right now.
	She's literally trying to tell people, oh no, Totnes is a hive of radicalism and therefore the very committed minority of progressives need to start doing something.
	And she's trying to make them think like they're living through some sort of civil war or something like that.
	And it's like, that didn't happen.
	What are you talking about?
	And again, it's not just misreporting, it's fabricating events, which is even worse, in my opinion.
	Obviously, lying by omission is bad, but at least you haven't made up a series of events.
	And there are a bunch of people who obviously believe this.
	You've got people like George Monbiot, Guardian columnist.
	bug-eyed communist, who just says, oh, brilliant series by Mariana Spring, centred on my hometown, which shows how many alternative types, wellness practitioners and well-meaning hippies get sucked into far-right conspiracies.
	Yeah, but you're a communist loon, you would say that.
	What I meant by that, it's a brilliant series, said it told me exactly what I wanted to hear, reflected all my views back at me, didn't really think much about how much of it was true or not and what had been made up, but, you know, it's just nice to have my own vanity and ego massaged.
	Good for you, George.
	That is exactly right.
	That is exactly what they think.
	This is the Totnes councillor who lied about me, Georgina Allen.
	She was an ex-deputy mayor and a current Green councillor.
	And this is an extraordinary podcast.
	Though it doesn't show Totnes at his best, it's incredibly important the way it shines light into the darkest corners.
	You made up a story about me, Georgina.
	Uh, what was the date?
	Where's the footage?
	Where's the evidence?
	I've been back twice.
	It just didn't happen.
	You made that up.
	And then you, Mariana Spring, I imagine you made it up to her and she just took it as read because, like you were saying, it's just reflecting the worldview backing them.
	And so, oh, that's exactly what I want to hear, thinks Mariana.
	And therefore the narrative continues, even though none of that's true.
	She is, if you go to the next one, you can see she's exactly the kind of person who would do this.
	Green district councillor for Totnes and noted liar on the internet.
	Very interesting.
	And then you get a bunch of people congratulating her on her conspiracy theory.
	Like, oh, as a former Totnes resident, I listened to this with my jaw on the floor.
	What a hero Totnes councillor Georgina Green, Georgina Allen, sorry, is.
	She's calmly collecting evidence of right-wing conspirators manipulating and standing up to it.
	Yeah, it's this very characteristic progressive thing of, well, my values, my beliefs are absolute.
	Gospel are the truth and I'm going to say anything.
	The truth doesn't matter.
	I'll say anything to support my values and to further my, you know,
	What I believe to be true, the truth is all relative, I'm just gonna, you know, it doesn't matter if I smear people and tell a bunch of very lazy and vindictive lies about them, it's, you know, if it's all in support of the cause, yeah, it's incredibly, incredibly...
	But this is when she says, well, it's to radicalise a narrow band of political people based on disinformation.
	But here we go, you know, very progressive person who now believes things that aren't true and believes that there is, you know, has become given the radical view that there's some sort of right wing conspiracy going on in Totnes, which I'm sure is really happening.
	And just again, another, these are people from Totnes, apparently.
	As a Totnesian myself, this podcast gets a thousand out of a hundred.
	Okay, but it wasn't true.
	And so there are a lot of people on the other side going, well, this BBC verify thing really is just BBC vilify, isn't it?
	Because that's really what it was all about.
	Pretty much.
	But they get away with it because it's this dearth of critical thinking with people that they have their own views reflected back at them through a series of lies, vindictive lies.
	And that's fine for them.
	There's no...
	That's all they want.
	People don't think for themselves.
	It's depressing, really.
	And the thing is, they know that even if there was a portion of the audience that would fact-check it, they don't have the access to the BBC as a platform to be able to disseminate that knowledge, and so they know that the vast majority of the audience will just not bother fact-checking any of this.
	They won't go anywhere else to try and find any information about this.
	And they can now portray the people of the light and myself and others as just being somehow evil people engaged in some sort of conspiracy to create a revolutionary cadre in Totnes.
	Yeah.
	A couple of places to do it.
	It's fairly unhinged, isn't it?
	It is.
	People started mentioning this to Mariana and she started blocking them.
	Of course, yeah.
	Because that's how you know they genuinely believe in what they're saying.
	When people are like, hang on, his channel isn't suspended.
	He didn't get a top notice.
	I'm sure there are a bunch of things about the light as well.
	I just don't know anything about the paper, but I'm sure there's a bunch of things about that that she said that weren't true either.
	And she's just like, yep, block, block, block, block, block.
	And lots of people were saying, hang on, she's blocked me.
	Why is she blocking me?
	But anyway, this is something apparently other people, citizen journalists as they call themselves, have caught her doing before.
	Like I said, I don't know anything about these particular cases, but to be honest with you, judging about the one case I do know about from Marianna's reporting, I'm not inclined to take her side and give her the benefit of the doubt on this one.
	Yeah, weirdly enough.
	Well, yeah, if it makes you feel better, it's not just you, Carl.
	If you listen to the BBC and you read things on their website, then you come across similar things all the time that strike you as very peculiar, very false and slightly vindictive.
	And the people at the centre of them that they're targeting, well you just smeared someone there really because it suits your agenda.
	It's very tiring really, but it's so transparent now, I think.
	He buys into it anymore.
	I don't think you've got anything to worry about.
	I don't think people, anyone who happens to listen to that, I don't think they're coming for you.
	I think you'll be all right.
	I'm not too worried about them, but it's just nice that we have a very good example of the BBC's disinformation service just actively promoting disinformation on the very first episode.
	So I did actually put in a complaint with BBC and Ofcom and I have received emails back from both of them, but I can't talk about Who knows where that goes?
	It would be very amusing if she gets her podcast taken down because of the disinformation she was spreading.
	But let's move on then.
	Because it turns out that conspiracy theories are just mainstream now.
	They're just so widely held, it's really difficult to say, oh, conspiracy theorists didn't think... I mean, that just doesn't have any teeth anymore, does it?
	You call someone a conspiracy theorist and they're like, oh, thanks for noticing.
	Let me talk to you about the flat earth.
	Yeah, it's a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, isn't it?
	You know, in this internet age where there's a lot of people exploring ideas and having conversations and it's an easy accusation to chuck around.
	And it's very easy to settle upon an individual or a group of individuals who've created something
	Online and it's based around Trading ideas and conversation is easy to latch on to that as certainly if it's successful And pick it apart if you're a mistrustful person or if it if it offends you because it doesn't represent your values it's easy to pick it apart and and And it is fair to say that a lot of people don't have the information they may need to be able to explain a phenomenon.
	They're all kind of derogatory labels for an expression of critical thinking, really, a lot of the time, I think.
	Yeah.
	And it is fair to say that a lot of people don't have the information they may need to be able to explain a phenomenon.
	But like you were saying, why do the public have such high levels of distrust in their own institutions, a place like the BBC?
	see.
	Okay. - Thank you.
	Yeah, well, it's been a long time.
	It's developed over a long period, hasn't it?
	And the real preponderance of information out there People being able to find things out for themselves.
	It opens people's eyes to the actions of government and the actions of mainstream media and the sort of things we're all being fed and told.
	It creates a culture of mistrust.
	socially, generally, which is a real problem, isn't it?
	It's the kind of people who are manning the institutions I'm bothered about.
	The Mariana is a particularly good example where it's this obvious ill intent towards what I just consider to be regular people as well.
	She's trained in a particular way, given her background, to be able to argue in public in the way that But the regular person doesn't have that kind of training and so she can talk them into a framing that makes them feel inferior and tries to paint them as bad people.
	I really dislike it.
	It's totally unfair.
	Yeah, it's a poison.
	I mean, I think a healthy mindset is that you have your values and then you realise everyone else has their values as well.
	That there'd be some overlap and some differences between you.
	And that's fine.
	And, you know, we all make compromises and concessions about who we want to be so society can work.
	And that's a healthy situation.
	And then someone like this comes along, this type of individual.
	And it's about background as well.
	It's about privilege and entitlement.
	And they've decided that their values are the only acceptable set of values.
	And anyone that conflicts with what they believe and what they think needs to be smeared and taken down and lied about and, you know, ostracized.
	And it's poison.
	It's vile and an appalling mindset, I think, but very prevalent.
	That's exactly, exactly how it is with people like Marianna.
	But anyway, before we begin, go and check out our website, go sign up, £5, demonetised, you know what we're talking about.
	Debating modernity, Thomas Dowling returned to debate modernity itself with Stelios.
	Poor old Stelios always looks like he's on the receiving end on these thumbnails, I don't know what's going on.
	It always holds itself well, I don't know why the thumbnails are like this.
	But the point is, and I think this is probably a symptom of modernity, where we were talking just before the podcast, I think that one of the reasons conspiracy theories exist, there are many reasons, but one of them is people are looking for an enchantment in the world.
	To have a world that is just flat and mechanical.
	I think there's something about that that the average person doesn't really believe in, and I think they look for the kind of animating spirit of a thing.
	And I think conspiracy theories are a way of providing that.
	There's a prime mover behind the events that we see.
	You know, whether it's like the World Economic Forum or whoever, you know.
	And the thing is, I'm not saying these things are false either.
	But the reason I think people are so willing to believe it is because they expect there to be some kind of order in the madness.
	Yeah, well a lot of it comes down to escapism.
	Life is very hard for so many people at the moment, you know, in all sorts of ways and has been, you know, for a number of years since the pandemic.
	There has to be an escapism and there's, you know, people need to think, look beyond their lives and think there's something more and, you know, and be able to make sense of things somehow, things that don't seem to make sense in a world where truth, it seems very slippery and it's very difficult to know who's lying to you and who's not.
	And to keep a grip of reality, people seek order, definitely.
	They seek some semblance of order and some sort of meaning behind, you know, why are we here?
	And what's the purpose of all this?
	And conspiracy theories can fill that hole for people.
	And also it looks like there's some really dodgy stuff going on.
	It does, yeah.
	When people behave in a dishonest, dodgy way in public figures at the highest level, which they do, you know, you have to believe that there's some pretty dark stuff happening behind the scenes somewhere.
	Well, let's take a look at some of these things, shall we?
	Because The Guardian put out this survey, they've done a survey, or someone had done a survey, and if you scroll down you see the chart in there.
	So yeah, this is conspiracy belief among the UK public, and this is just remarkable, right?
	So for a series of conspiracies, 32% of the British public believe the Great Replacement Theory is probably or definitely true, 19% don't know, and about 48% say probably or definitely false.
	That's really, really high uptake on that.
	The 15 minute cities, it's 33% think it's definitely or probably true, and about a similar percentage for don't know and definitely false.
	That terrorism is some sort of cover-up, as in the UK government and media are involved in a conspiracy to cover up information about UK terror attacks.
	Again, 34% say probably or definitely true.
	I mean, it depends how far you take the term cover-up, really, doesn't it?
	I mean, let's take the Nottinghamshire police's reporting on the recent attack that happened there.
	Sure.
	Yeah, well, when they sit on so much information, you can't help but feel that there's something untoward going on.
	And you think, hang on, you release so much information about the victims and nothing about the perpetrator.
	You know, there's a degree to which it's an ongoing investigation.
	I don't believe that's the reason.
	It's very difficult to believe that's the reason why we haven't been given more information regarding the nature of the attack and the attacker.
	There are political correctness reasons.
	Well, there are those, but, and it's almost undeniable that, you know, that there is something beyond this and that there is some state control across the mainstream media saying, hey, well, you know what's, and of course they know.
	They know what's happened.
	They have the information and they're not putting it forward.
	And you think, okay, so who Who has that control of you that's holding you back?
	Who's restricting you and censoring you?
	Who made the executive decision?
	Yeah, where's that coming from?
	Of course, all these people turning up in their burgundy suits as well, this kind of security force which none of us have ever heard of before.
	I've not heard of this.
	I can't remember what they're called, but this sort of team of, this sort of security team, and they're all dressed in… Can you pull this up, John?
	In burgundy… Some burgundy… Security uniforms, and it's sort of a cross-network of people from the police, and the fire brigade, and the NHS, and various people.
	Who've been part of this strange security operation.
	It's quite widely reported in the newspapers.
	I can't remember what they were called.
	It was something like a national Um, national inter, inter security.
	Yeah, that's it.
	Yeah.
	I'm just going to pull it up.
	It's very odd.
	They just turned up pictures in the newspaper.
	Suddenly the newspaper, not giving us any information about the attack, but newspapers say, Oh, well, who are this new secure, you know, the security team and what are they about and where have they come from?
	Suddenly it was all this information.
	Hang on.
	We've never seen or heard of, These people before seemed very odd.
	Suddenly they just popped up.
	It was widely, yeah, it was widely reported.
	I saw it at the Times and the Telegraph.
	We'll find it later.
	So anyway, moving on.
	Sure.
	Again, 33% believe the cost of living crisis is a government plot to control the public, with only 10% not sure on this one.
	Much, much fewer people on the fence there.
	Lots of people, though, 58% of the public are like, no, no, definitely not, probably not.
	Is it probably not, though?
	And again, 30% believe the Great Reset theory, that the World Economic Forum as an initiative is a conspiracy to impose a totalitarian world government.
	Well, I wonder why people would believe that.
	You know, even on a very basic level, if you've come through the pandemic, if you've been online, if you've been on, if you watch TV news, if you've listened to the radio, on a very basic level, you've seen, you've heard a lot of high-level political figures, all of them using the same expression, build back better, build back better.
	What's going on here?
	Why are you all saying these same Let's have a look at some of the evidence that may be making people think that something funny is going on.
	In the case of 15-Minute Cities, Oxford, Bristol, Canterbury and Sheffield councils have all said yes, we're going to become 15-Minute Cities.
	So it's another win for the conspiracy theorists, I guess.
	If you're going to do this, it's going to be official government policy in these local areas.
	You can't really blame people for believing that's what you're doing.
	If anything, it makes the two-thirds who don't believe it look like bizarre denialists who, for some reason, don't agree that the councils are doing what they say they're doing.
	Yeah, it's a peculiar time to introduce such an initiative anyway, with so many other priorities that seem to be incredibly pressing.
	I mean, you know, it'd be nice to have access to any sort of functioning health service for people, wouldn't it?
	Either on a public or private level, to be honest.
	It'd be nice if anyone had any access to any medical professionals.
	There's going to be a hospital within 15 minutes, but the queue is about 15 hours.
	Well, it looks like it.
	It's got a hospital sign on the outside.
	It says NHS Hospital.
	Once you get in the building, you find yourself in quite a Kafkaesque dystopian nightmare of people who don't have anything useful to tell you.
	And you seem to want to waste your time and then send you off crying.
	That's about it.
	That's all you get from the NHS.
	That is a fair point, but at least you didn't have to walk very far to get into the Kafkaesque.
	That's true.
	So you have to be grateful for that.
	Yeah.
	But the thing is, after the lockdowns, I mean, am I being excessively cynical to say that, look, these 15 minute cities are going to be like, isn't everything convenient?
	And then eventually you're not allowed to leave them, right?
	Am I being cynical?
	I don't think I'm being cynical.
	Well no, and it's easy to buy into that because the drift towards authoritarianism is undeniable.
	They did just lock us all in our houses.
	We were in lockdown for two years.
	Lockdown for two years.
	Lockdown, that's prison, isn't it?
	That's prison conditions and that's authoritarianism.
	You know, that's an extreme end of authoritarianism as well, actually.
	And, you know, so things like this don't seem mild in comparison.
	So, in fact, actually, despite what I said a moment ago, what a perfect time to introduce such things.
	You know, so that's, well, whatever it is, it's not as extreme as lockdown, so fair enough.
	We'll have it.
	Oh God.
	We'll accept the dystopian future because it was slightly less dystopian than the recent past.
	That's it.
	There's a lot of things people will accept in comparison to lockdown, aren't there?
	Yeah.
	So then the next one being the Great Reset.
	Now, where could people have got this crazy idea from?
	That there was some cabal of world leaders who planned to reset the entire world economy under the leadership of a German Bond villain called Klaus Schwab.
	Yeah, well, he's not doing great on public relations.
	He needs a new PR team, Klaus, doesn't he?
	He's not the world's most liked or trusted man, that's for sure.
	Well, that should really make you think, right?
	Do they need a PR team?
	A PR team is for when the public's opinion actually matters.
	Yeah.
	Does anyone feel like they're getting any input in this?
	True.
	True.
	Well, there's a lot of very incredibly wealthy, powerful people involved in In this, whatever it is, this forum where they all meet up in luxury resorts on their private jets and, you know, have these seemingly empty, give these seemingly empty speeches and presentations and then who knows what goes on behind the scenes.
	A bit concerning, isn't it?
	Just very quickly, a quote from that Guardian article.
	Conspiracy theories often develop out of real-world problems and anxieties.
	For example, rising interest rates and inflation, which reduce affluence and leave families struggling, can fuel a belief that powerful forces are deliberately plotting to impoverish certain sections of society.
	The World Economic Forum's slogan is, you will own nothing.
	They literally say, you will earn nothing and you'll be happy?
	I mean, I'm just saying the messaging seems to imply that the public actually have a much firmer grasp on these things than the average Guardian columnist, that's all.
	Yeah.
	Well, it's, it's about, uh, agendas.
	It's about, you know, what, uh, who's, who's funding the Guardian and, you know, good luck to them.
	Cause they're not getting much funding.
	So let's go on to the more contentious ones.
	Uh, the great replacement.
	So the Westerners are being replaced in their own towns and cities.
	Uh, from the 2021 census, Callum had a nose through and just found areas that are just 0% English, England.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, well there's no doubt, there's no doubt, it happens, it's happening and has happened over, since the Blair era really, at an incredible, incredible rate that we've become culturally enriched and we've become a very, very, very multicultural country.
	There's no denying that.
	So multicultural, there are areas of England where there's just no room for the English.
	And whether that, you know, you can get on board with that and say, I'm fine with that, but my problem is the lies behind it, the political lies and, you know, a government telling us we're doing everything we can to stop these boats, we're doing this, we're doing that, we've got this Rwanda policy, we're stopping this, this is our main priority.
	It isn't, you're doing nothing about it.
	And that's, if you admitted to that, And we're honest and open about it and said, listen, this is the direction we're going in.
	We're letting these people in.
	We think it's going to be a real positive for the nation in the future.
	And, you know, they're all doctors and engineers anyway.
	So we'll all have to get on board with that.
	And don't forget to vote for us at the next election.
	If they, you know, if they are honest about it, I might, I wouldn't have a problem, but don't, don't, Tell us flagrant lies about we're on top of this.
	You're about to get impromptu machete surgery from this doctor from the Congo.
	We've no idea how any of this happened.
	We don't know how these people got here.
	Don't know how this started happening.
	And when you realise it's gone out of control, we're on top of it, don't we?
	We're not.
	But the boat migrants aren't the reason that the five largest cities in England are majority non-English now.
	They're not the reason for that.
	It's literally the government allowing over a million people a year to come and live in the country.
	They're giving them visas.
	They're just stamping, yes, yes, approved, approved.
	But the visa stamping machine must be running 24-7 to process this many visas.
	You can say, well, it's a conspiracy or it's not a conspiracy.
	The reality is, the English are the minority in London, Luton, Leicester, Birmingham, all of these major ancient English cities are now mostly non-English.
	I mean, let's go over to Newcastle and find out what the top priorities, politically, of the people of Newcastle Central are.
	Number one is, quote, democracy in Pakistan?
	What?
	57%?
	Oh, no, sorry.
	57 out of 247.
	They were like, yeah, I'm really interested in saving democracy in Pakistan. - Hi.
	Average Newcastle complaints.
	Your average Geordie's just on the town, he's like, God, I hope democracy in Pakistan's alright, as he's glugging his pints.
	Are you f***ing serious?
	The next one is, quote, action for Palestine.
	Again, traditionally typical Geordie concern is the plight of the Palestinians.
	And then the third one is back onshore wind.
	So, okay.
	Just, all right.
	Just.
	Yeah, it's bizarre.
	It takes on a surreal quality.
	Yes.
	You know, the concern is the vetting process, and there has to be some value to coming to live here.
	This is people's home and people's home that they've made their home all their lives or even if they've been here 20 years, it's people's homes and they pay their taxes and they invest in this country and they work.
	And if there's no vetting process, if it's very easy for anyone to come over, then there's no respect.
	How could there be any respect for this nation, for this country from these people?
	To a large extent, if you're an economic migrant, which the vast majority of people who want to come here are, They want to come and make some money and that's fine, but there has to be, beyond that, there has to be a respect for this nation and an affection for this country as well.
	Which I don't really see.
	No, there seems to be only cynicism.
	It seems, I'm going to come in, I'll make money, I'll bring my family over, I'll send the money back to my family and I'll go, maybe I'll return home, but it's got to be more than an economic hub for people to kind of... It would be nice if it was, wouldn't it?
	We used to have a country, now we have an economic zone.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's, you know, it's just about, the trouble is when a populist doesn't have respect for the country they're living in or admiration or a care for it, a care for looking after it or improving it, then things can only go downhill.
	And have we not seen the decline everywhere we go?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	It's visible.
	Every town centre in this country, the decline is palpable and intimidating actually.
	I'm very sad.
	But, you know, in every sort of public sphere as well, you know, any services that, you know, people might once have taken pride in working for the NHS and, you know, working in schools or that people don't take pride in their jobs or pride in their nationhood, really.
	And it's sad.
	It's sad, but that's an inevitable consequence of making life here cheap.
	Cheap and easy.
	Citizenship cheap and easy.
	I totally agree.
	So one progressive professor has thoughts on this.
	Professor David Andres.
	Can you hover over his bio a second?
	I can't remember where he was from.
	He says in his bio.
	No, he doesn't.
	But he's a professor, he's got a small online following.
	He says, this is horrifying.
	A third of the public, completely lost to reason, believing in plot myths which have racism at their heart.
	Ah yes, the cost of living crisis.
	Average racist conspiracy theory.
	Fifteen minute cities.
	The Great Reset.
	Barely more than a quarter understanding that these things are absolutely false.
	Yeah, but are they false?
	Absolutely.
	Well, it comes back to the same thing for me.
	It's critical thinking being misrepresented by people in a very negative, derogatory way as being conspiracy theory or far-rights or racism or, you know, Just being dismissed.
	Or mental illness, but no, it's fundamental to democracy, the free exchange of ideas, and that's how you know we're in a healthy state, we're all free.
	It's this free exchange of ideas and critical thinking, you know.
	It feels like there's this progressive agenda of discouraging people to think for themselves, like, no, this is it.
	These are the truths.
	This is what's good.
	This is what's bad.
	And if you step outside of that, you're an appalling, dreadful human being.
	You're far right.
	You're a racist.
	You're a conspiracy theorist.
	You're a mad person.
	It's scary, really, isn't it?
	Yeah, but one of the things that they... The reason this exists, just in the first place, is because none of their explanations actually have explanatory power as to why the world is getting worse and not better.
	Like, you know, if everything they said was true, the world would be getting better, but it's not.
	It's getting tangibly worse.
	Well, there's a reason why they want to shut down debates and shut down free expression of ideas, is because their own ideas and values are built on foundations that are less than solid.
	Very true.
	Well, we'll leave that one there and move on to the third thing I wanted to talk about today, which is the Empire of Pride.
	Have you pledged allegiance It's been a big part of my life this month.
	It's everywhere I go, it's all I see.
	I feel like I've seen so many rainbows this month.
	It's like when you're driving on the motorway for a few hours and you stop driving but you still see the road.
	I feel like I've got rainbows everywhere.
	You know, and, you know, good luck to everybody.
	Be who you want to be.
	Do what you want to do within the, within the... Reasonable bounds.
	Within reasonable bounds, as long as you're not hurting anyone else, as long as it's not conflicting with, you know, what's desirable, what we all need as a society collectively.
	Do what you want to do, be who you want to be.
	It takes incredible bravery to stand up and say, this is how I want to live.
	And we're all OK with that.
	What you do with consenting adults or in your own home, whatever you want to do, it's fine.
	We don't care.
	It's of no consequence to the rest of us.
	We're trying to pay our mortgage.
	Do we really need to dethrone the national flag, though?
	To honour the fact that you take it up the rear?
	The idea of there being... The importance placed on this Pride Month is the idea that These people who have come out and are living like this are somehow incredibly, deeply oppressed and subject to extreme bigotry and violence and danger on a mass scale.
	That, for me, is the implication of this big push of Pride Month.
	And that's a lie.
	That's not true.
	This country is very Very liberal, very open and very respectful and tolerant of whatever people want to be.
	And we just, you know, as long as it's not harming anyone else, you do be what you want to be and we support you with that.
	But don't push this lie.
	That we live in a country of hatred and bigotry and oppression and prejudice where these people are being held down and forced into miserable lives because of some sort of bigoted attitude of other people because that's not the country we live in and that's not, you know, that's happening on a very small scale, certainly, but
	In wider society, people live whatever life they want to live.
	That's how it is.
	But also, the more you impose what has become an ideological agenda, with distinctive symbols, with a distinctive ethos and a particular chosen class, like when the British were conquering their empire, It wasn't a coincidence that it was British people that were put in positions in charge, that were administering the empire.
	It wasn't a coincidence.
	And those people who joined them – you had like an Indian administrative class underneath the British – they symbolised themselves using the British flag.
	This was an imperial and ideological statement.
	A mission of intent.
	And it's no surprise that you get the similar sort of thing happening with the pride flag.
	It's just a different constituency that is being taken care of, that is having the regime that they wish to have imposed.
	And this is not all gay people or all trans people or anything like that.
	This is a particularly narrow band of progressive, ideologically captured people who are using this to enforce their ideals on other people.
	That's where the problem, I think, really comes in.
	And I think this is why so many people are just like, no, we're just not having this.
	We're just going to start revolting against it, which we'll look at in a second.
	But if you want to support us, go and watch my book club on Evola's revolt against the modern world, which honestly, at this point, I'm totally on board with.
	I hate modernity.
	I just hate it.
	This is the second part, because the book's divided in two halves, and in this one he's talking about the cycle of civilizations.
	And I think that's actually what we're starting to see play out now, against the Empire of Pride.
	You come in, you get the conquering force that's full of vim, and takes over a place that isn't prepared to defend itself against it, and then you start getting people going, hang on a second, no, and then the energy flows, and the cycle continues, like the wheel turns, and we're on the downswing for the Empire of Pride at the moment.
	I think it's incredibly self-defeating to have this flag plastered literally everywhere.
	Streets lined with this flag, to have it on every TV advert, marketing on the internet, this flag everywhere.
	I think it's extremely self-defeating because historically that has very negative connotations to people.
	A flag plastered everywhere, the same flag, it's in their face day in day out.
	That doesn't have positive connotations for people.
	Let's look at some of that, because we've covered the Imperial Pride flag recently, right?
	About a year ago we covered this.
	Because, again, it was Pride Month, and it was just literally everywhere.
	Like, a gay army had marched in and started erecting these flags, like when the Nazis invaded Austria, right?
	And it's just like, what is this?
	You know, this was in everyone's faces.
	And it's just, it's just remarkable how many people are pledging allegiance to this flag over other flags.
	Like the first one, the empire of pride has conquered the capital of the United States.
	If you go to the next one, like you can say it's just this Joe Biden or the president Biden, a Twitter account.
	America is a nation of pride.
	Yeah, I saw the video of him speaking at that event.
	I think he was on an awful lot of meds that day.
	He doesn't know where he is or who he is.
	Sure, but his handlers, whoever uses his Twitter account, you know.
	Yeah, well, who knows?
	Who knows what's going on there and what's happening behind the scenes?
	Because he doesn't know where he's coming or going.
	I'm sure he's distracted by all the lovely colours in the flag, but... But you can see, like... Okay, for a comparison, Andrew, what do you think you would have to have, or have to achieve, for Biden to display your flag at the White House?
	If you created a flag, how much effort do you think it is to get Biden to display it?
	Could you do it?
	Is there a possibility of it happening?
	Well, I'd have to have some real dirt on him.
	I'd have to have something really...
	Probably something to do with Hunter Biden's laptop.
	Probably something to do with Hunter, wouldn't it?
	Proper, real... At the bloody White House, to fly a flag that isn't the American flag.
	Like, that is mad that this has gone this far.
	Yeah, it's just self-defeating because it doesn't reflect the values of most gay people, I would say, or most trans people either.
	It really doesn't.
	They just want to get on with their lives and quietly and do what they want to do, be who they want to be.
	There's this kind of Very angry sort of campaign.
	Yeah, it's an aggressive campaign, isn't it?
	Because it's underpinned by this idea of victimhood.
	And we're terribly oppressed and discriminated against and held back.
	No one really believes it.
	Well, it's not true.
	It's not true.
	You're supported.
	But if you can make it true, If you can make people believe that, there's all sorts of benefits and also your rights become elevated above the rights of other people, don't they?
	Well, that's the problem.
	I mean, if you go to the next one, you can see that Biden has given many speeches pledging allegiance to what he calls, quote, transgester Americans.
	Which seems unkind in my opinion.
	I disavow for YouTube.
	But if we go to the next one, you can see that they just put out all of this propaganda all the time.
	That's not the one I was looking for, but it's fine.
	They put out, you know, various videos and whatnot on the White House web pages just saying, you know, oh, well, you know, we are totally, totally... That's fine.
	Don't worry, we'll move to the next one.
	So in Britain, we've pledged allegiance to the pride flag too.
	This is the White House, lit up in pride.
	Again, if you had a political movement, what would you have to do to get them to do this?
	You can't even think.
	How would I get the President of the United States to beam my flag onto the White House and put this video out.
	Well, there's two things on there.
	It's either there's dirt on him, but also there's money.
	It's whoever's funding the Democratic upcoming electoral campaign.
	I think it's ideological.
	I think it's about belief, yeah.
	I think these people are in an ideology that this takes on the aspect of a religion, a an imperial religion.
	This is kind of like Islam, progressive Islam, for me.
	And so we've got like, you know, all sorts of demonstrations of faith, you know, in the same way that ISIS would put up their flags and would have their sacred scriptures, things like that.
	This is how it looks to me.
	But like I said, in Britain we pledge allegiance to the flag too.
	On the police!
	Doesn't bother me at all.
	If you go to the next one, it's just Pride Flag everywhere.
	Literally everywhere.
	Don't you just love watching the beef eaters on parade under the Pride Flag?
	Yeah.
	Guys, it just makes you feel so patriotic.
	And those traffic lights have been there for a while as well.
	It's not a new thing.
	They're kind of year-round.
	Yep.
	I mean, just literally, you can't go for a walk and sit down.
	Without just literally everywhere.
	And God forbid you go on the underground in London.
	Like can you even just the garishness.
	It's extreme.
	Are you gay yet?
	An incredible amount of money's been spent.
	Incredible amount, extraordinary amount of money's been spent at a time when, heaven knows, there are things that need money spent on it.
	There probably isn't that.
	I mean, don't get me wrong, it's nice to see a splash of colour about the place.
	It's nice not everything's grey all the time.
	It's extreme and it's...
	You know, it's pushing a false agenda.
	You know, that's my problem is, you know, be who you want to be, do what you want to do, but don't tell me lies.
	Don't, you know, don't pretend that This horrendous, bigoted, oppressive country that hates and discriminates and is violent towards gay people and trans people.
	Where's the evidence?
	It isn't.
	And the majority of gay people, I'm sure, would agree with that.
	Absolutely tearing their hair out when they see all this stuff.
	I'm sure it's infuriating.
	infuriating if you happen to be a gay person just trying to get on with your life, to be lumped in with these extremists.
	Again, and it's a narrow band as well.
	It's a very narrow, very progressive political activist class that is benefiting from this.
	They are the ones in control here.
	They're the ones with the reins of power.
	This isn't like the average gay person, right?
	But this, it's the one at Regent Street that got me really, again, it just got my goat, man.
	Like that to me looks like the symbol of conquest, right?
	Yeah, it definitely makes you feel uneasy looking at it.
	Something is occupying our country.
	Very sinister overtones.
	Yes.
	And so they leave a link with this because they posted this out proudly, you know, we're so proud of this.
	And so they explain where these flags come from.
	They're created by Americans.
	And they begin in America.
	And for some reason, central London's like, yeah, we need an American flag, a flag that is made by Americans to be flown.
	But this latest one is actually a new innovation created by someone called Valentino, sorry, you can go to the next one.
	Valentino Vecchialetti, typical British.
	So this particular one with the circle in it, which apparently represent intersex people, have put that up.
	And eventually, it's surely just going to keep going then, right?
	So they've got a flag that they recognize and continually modify.
	I mean, this Valentino person says, I created the intersex inclusion on the pride flag to bring my community joy and to create greater allyship and support for people with insex variations in the wider LGBT plus community.
	And so they tell us, flags are important cultural symbols.
	That's right.
	And I cannot wait to walk along Regent Street while it's adorned with its beautiful flags, knowing how much joy they will bring me.
	There are surely other political movements where the leaders of those political movements would have said something very similar.
	Yeah, well I love a Twitter profile and his tells me everything I need to know.
	I love it when they've got ten different jobs in their profile.
	He's an intersex columnist, an artist, presenter, consultant, TV, film and theatre.
	Also, you're not very good at anything.
	Failed artist.
	You're not very good at anything, so you've spread yourself across all this stuff just to try.
	All I'm saying is, this is a failed artist With a political flag that's adorning the streets in the background.
	I'm just saying this has happened before.
	He's even got the dodgy moustache as well.
	Yes, indeed.
	Right, so, I mean, like I said, this keeps changing, so it'll eventually end up in this.
	We have the latest.
	This, literally, some LGBT network.
	I mean, can you imagine anything more horrific to look at?
	One day that's going to be lining the streets.
	Yeah, it feels slightly hypnotic.
	And again, that's quite off-putting as well.
	My goodness.
	It is a raw assault on the senses, but it is also the logical conclusion of where this goes.
	But the point that people make is that flags mean things, right?
	There's a purpose behind a flag.
	It's a symbol of a message.
	The next one.
	No, there's one before that as well, John, but that's okay.
	The point of flags is that they are statements of ideological dominion.
	These are the things we believe.
	This is the ruling moral order of the place in which you're in.
	This is why people are posting pictures like this, saying, look, if you have a particular ideological agenda, you put up the flag of that agenda.
	And so there's no particular difference between the pride flag and any other ideological flag that takes the place of national flags.
	Of course, it's an instant association you make in your mind.
	You can't think of anything else.
	But then you think, It's so self-defeating and it's such an obvious association.
	Is there something else behind it?
	Surely you must have known that when you put all this stuff up.
	You must have known the association people were going to make.
	So what's the deal with that?
	Because surely you must know that's self-defeating.
	Everyone's going to look at that and instantly think of Other ideological conquests that have happened.
	So, is this purposely self-defeating?
	If so, why?
	Because I can't... It's difficult to believe anyone would be that foolish not to make that association before going ahead with this.
	Well, I mean, I don't know.
	So, I'm just going to defer to the workmen who put these flags up.
	Because this video went around the other day, and it really does summarise exactly how I feel about it.
	but let's just watch.
	You're taking the wrong f***ing flag down, mate.
	I don't know that!
	At least you know that!
	Could that be more symbolic? - Yeah.
	Yeah it's very, it's worrying to see people going along with things they don't agree with.
	I mean but look at it though, like literally putting up all these ideological flags and just dropping the British flag and the guy, the Londoners doing it, obviously old-fashioned Londoners who are just like putting up the wrong flag, he's like don't you think I know that?
	So why are you doing it?
	Well, this is it.
	He's like so many people.
	He's got, you know, a mortgage or a family to support.
	He's going along with this stuff he knows is wrong.
	And there are millions others like him.
	And that's the real source of concern for me.
	And the consequence of that is this very poisonous, dishonest culture.
	But like I say, he knows it's wrong, right?
	He knows it's wrong.
	Anyway, let's move on.
	You've got people like Lawrence Fox who are in total objection to this, who are just like, look, you should just tear this flag down.
	Now, we're not advocating any call to action here.
	This is Lawrence Fox's opinion, but I don't think his description of it's wrong.
	This flag segregates down racial and sexual lines, purity of certain identity groups, experimentation and mutilation of children, support for homophobia, ideology over nationality.
	I mean, it's not necessarily wrong at all.
	And so there are people who are, I mean it's very bluntly put, Oh, he's gone in hard, but he's recovering from surgery at the moment, so he's probably quite irritable.
	I can imagine, yeah.
	Get well soon, Lawrence.
	If we go to the next one, you can see that people are starting to just get sick of it.
	Three men on CCTV were caught just tearing down gay pride flags at the historic Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village.
	They tore it down, they were sick of it.
	I mean, you know, I'm sure they were just average MAGA chuds who just hate gay people.
	But the police are on it, obviously.
	Police are still looking to track down the vandals.
	That's right.
	This is what the New York Police Department is concerned with.
	We've got no greater issues in New York.
	Someone vandalised a pride flag.
	I mean, the New York police only solve about 30% of all crimes.
	That's quite good, if you compare them to UK police.
	Well, compared to the Met, yeah, if you go to the next one.
	Compared to the Met, that does sound good.
	But that's not great, is it?
	But vandalise a pride flag, they're going to be right on it.
	Get mugged or shot, well, there's a much lower chance.
	But the point is, this is only contentious because the ideology itself controls our country.
	The state, the police, the courts, none of them would bat an eyelid if you tore down the flag of an ideology that wasn't ruling the country.
	You burned a Nazi flag, burned a Soviet flag, no one's going to care.
	Burned an American flag, burned a British flag, no one's going to care.
	Burned a Pride flag and it's a hate crime.
	So people, like I said, are revolting against the Empire of Pride.
	At one school, a bunch of students tore down the Pride stuff and just chanted, USA are my pronouns.
	But that's very interesting, isn't it?
	Because instead of saying, we're straight, they said, we're Americans.
	Isn't that interesting?
	Because that shows you how this is a sort of different nationality they feel is being imposed upon them.
	If the response to this is to assert not their sexual identity but their national identity, that shows you in which way the Pride Empire is approaching them as a conquering foreign power and not something that is a part of themselves.
	And so they assert their national identity in response, which I think is very interesting.
	And the free market is starting to realise that the backlash is coming and maybe it's not a good thing for them.
	The Guardian put up an article of all of the companies that refused or have taken down their Pride merch.
	in prime month if you scroll through this very quickly uh it's quite a lot actually you just just scroll down you just keep going keep going because it's quite long just keep going that you're still only in a's john keep going yeah absolutely ubiquitous yeah there are loads of them that are just like maybe everyone hates this pride stuff because it's weird and foreign and we shouldn't have been imposing it on them um and
	And what's interesting, though, just to finish this up quickly, if you go to the next one, Starbucks actively banned Pride decorations in their stores, which went down like an absolute lead balloon with the online Twitter mob, as you might expect, because people obviously don't like it.
	I mean, I love the way they frame this.
	The company's workers union claimed on Tuesday that it banned Pride decorations in stores halfway through Pride month, halfway through Gay Ramadan.
	How could they?
	How dare they?
	Yeah, it's interesting because Starbucks historically have a reputation of being hugely supportive of LGBTQ community and, you know, that's somewhere where
	you'd work if you were, you'd go and work if you were a member of LGBTQ and they'd actively seek to give people jobs from those communities and that's their historical reputation so it's, yeah, it's fascinating that it comes from, that's where it comes from but it's... Do you know why?
	Well they, the, so now I think that There's essentially a sort of free market backlash to this.
	Like, if you look at the Bud Light thing, people are just like, no, we're just not having it.
	We're just not having it.
	We are actually going to boycott.
	I think that a lot of people are just getting to the point where it's like, no, I'm just not having it.
	But there's internal reasons as well, right?
	Employees at a Maryland store were told that some people felt excluded by pride decorations.
	Posts on Reddit that did not indicate the location showed that other workers were also told that some customers considered pride decor to be exclusionary.
	It is.
	It's actively exclusionary because there's nothing on it for straight people.
	It will be inclusive when you have straight pride on the pride flag.
	Yeah, well, I think you'd walk past there and think, oh, I'm not allowed to near this month.
	OK.
	I can't come back in August.
	So they are right.
	It's an exclusive ideological empire, and people are just openly in revolt against it at this point.
	Good.
	You don't have to cooperate with this.
	This doesn't have to be the way our civilization is.
	You can just be normal.
	Anyway, let's leave it there and go to the video comments.
	Tucker Carl, of course, remakes are bad and reboots are bad.
	Everyone gets that.
	But could you imagine if they had Tucker Carlson as Mulder?
	How much more awesome it would be to see every single lefty freak out?
	Every episode there'd be a new freak out for you to just dig your teeth into.
	Yeah, but Tucker's way too old to play Fox Mulder in X-Files.
	I don't know why that's come up.
	And the trouble is, if they do any bad remake of something you like, it ruins the original for you.
	And that's the trouble.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It is insufferable as well.
	Also, it's just like, okay, why don't you make a new story?
	Yeah, we could, but really lazy and talentless.
	I mean, Disney at the moment is literally just recycling their entire back catalogue with live versions that everyone hates.
	Yeah, yeah, with an agenda, yeah, a lot of versions with an agenda.
	Yeah, the latest one, The Little Mermaid, which I think our writing scene has really tanked.
	And, you know, my seven-year-old daughter, you know, I was very happy to take her to see it.
	She's seen the original 1989 cartoon.
	The Little Mermaid and I showed her the trailer for the new one.
	I said, do you want to go and see The Little Mermaid?
	And she said, that's not The Little Mermaid.
	You know, that's what she said.
	And she didn't want to go and see it.
	So there you go.
	Very fair.
	Let's go to the next one.
	Possibly.
	Broken somehow.
	Tony D and we, Scurvy Joan, here with another tale of pirates in South Jersey.
	According to Weird New Jersey and William McMahon's book, in 1698, Kid went ashore with one of his crew, Timothy Jones, to bury treasure.
	But he and Jones got into a fight and Kid killed him, then moved the treasure and buried him with it.
	They say Jones's ghost guards the treasure.
	Who knows where the treasure is now?
	Timothy Jones knows.
	So, uh, Tony has been sending us these videos about buried treasure.
	He used to do ones about haunted houses, uh, which were honestly always entertaining.
	But, uh, the ones about buried treasure, I feel that might actually be more useful.
	So, uh, all I'm saying is, you know, apparently there's buried treasure out there.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Uh, I was going to make a few videos this month, but unfortunately due to technical issues, I won't be able to.
	The computer that I use to edit videos has currently broken down, so unfortunately I had to use this creepy quality computer.
	Speaking of updates, I want to briefly mention the party that I joined last year.
	The Liberal Democratic Party of Australia has currently changed its name to the Libertarian Party of Australia.
	This means that the shirt that I'm currently wearing is currently out of date, so as a gesture of thanks, I thought I'd send this shirt to you guys.
	Thanks.
	Has it arrived yet?
	No, not yet, but it's coming all the way from Australia.
	Yeah.
	But, you know, I mean, a Libertarian party in Australia, considering they lock down harder than almost everywhere else.
	Yeah.
	I mean, sounds like they need one, right?
	It does, doesn't it?
	Sounds like there'd be some demand for it, yeah.
	Jesus.
	But good luck with that.
	Anyway, so we've got some comments.
	Russian Garbage Human says, Oh my god, Andrew, so good to have you on the show.
	Shame I can't watch live as I'm in the office today.
	Fantastic title card for the podcast also.
	Love your content.
	Keep it up.
	Very much enjoyed it through the pandemic and now.
	Thank you.
	Thank you, it's very nice of you.
	Alex says, huzzah, Andrew's characters were a much needed bit of levity and a spotlight on the powers that be during the lockdown.
	I cherish the updates from Keith, a word that I'm not going to say on the podcast, we're trying to keep it family friendly, who always got right to the nub of the matter.
	And George says, great to see Aaron Drew Lawrence here, his channel has become equal parts comedy and sharp political commentary.
	S.H.
	Silver says, so a scare piece about Carl that was half the people in town were convinced to believe what he was saying within a year.
	What a ringing endorsement for his ideas.
	Yeah, I know, right?
	I mean, honestly, I've radicalised half the time on this.
	I don't think I have, but that would be a result.
	Russ says, would you be able to take the BBC to court for slander Carl?
	And again, I know our courts are very bent against anyone able to far right, but it would be funny if BBC got the Aquila treatment.
	That would be funny.
	I'm just putting in the complaints as a normal person would do.
	And ultimately, I think I want the podcast taken down.
	You're just lying about me.
	It has to be taken down.
	I'd like a public retraction as well.
	Saying, actually, no, we did tell a lie, and another lie, and another lie, and we made up an event.
	We're sorry.
	That's what I want.
	I think it's totally reasonable to ask for that, right?
	I think so.
	And if I don't get that, then I'll be considering legal action.
	Which I think is reasonable.
	I think it's fair, yeah, and I think, as we spoke about earlier, the whole thing comes from a sort of ethos of privilege and entitlement with this woman thinking she has her values and she can say what she likes about anyone who doesn't share them, whether it be true or not, and that's not journalism.
	No, and in fact Diogenes makes a great point here.
	If all it took was talking to someone about why free speech is important to radicalise people, then maybe free speech is important.
	Fair point.
	Yes.
	Michael says, so this idiot doesn't like that you made fun of Nazis?
	No, no, they don't.
	They're really weird about it, actually.
	Really precious about the Nazis.
	Totnes, so right wing they elected a Green councillor, says Nathan.
	It is a bit strange, isn't it?
	Yeah.
	The whole thing is bizarre and very difficult to take seriously.
	Well, that's the point, isn't it?
	In 2015, 2016, maybe this would be taken more seriously, but now it feels kind of anachronistic, right?
	It feels like we've been down this road before a lot of times with a lot of different people and I think the trick doesn't work on people anymore.
	Anyone who's with a degree of being able to think for themselves.
	media savvy can see through this sort of these sort of very insidious lies yeah this is so obvious yeah anyway um base tape says i noticed the way the mainstream way of writing someone off as conspiracy theorist is to state a totally legitimate thing that is openly provable and then disregard it by giving it a ridiculous definition and this he's got a great point here As in, do you believe in the Great Reset?
	The belief that clockwork elves and space lizards are conspiring to steal all the world's bananas.
	That's so disingenuous.
	They must be in on it too.
	Dun, dun, dun.
	And that's exactly how we do it.
	It's like, oh, you believe, and they love to be like, ah, this is antisemitism.
	It's like, what are you talking about?
	Well, I'm going to just frame what you've said as being against Jews.
	And it's like, yeah, but nobody said that.
	Oh yeah, misrepresenting you, misquoting you.
	Yeah, they're the tools.
	Yep, yep.
	But no, he's absolutely right.
	They essentially redefine you as being wrong, even though that wasn't what you said.
	Joan of Arc says conspiracy theorist is becoming a useless term as useless as racist, which is annoying when you're trying to talk about actual things.
	Totally true.
	Omar says, it's surprising how many conspiracies come from watching and listening to what politicians say and do.
	We've gone from disbelieve your lying eyes to literally disbelieve your politicians and what they explicitly said not more than a week ago.
	Yeah, there's a great clip from John Trump where he's just like, well they just started saying it in front of cameras.
	He just plays the clip of them, you know, saying you'll earn nothing, you'll be happy and stuff like that.
	It's like, yeah.
	Why do people believe these crazy conspiracies?
	Well, you know, in a world where none of us is quite sure what's true or not anymore, conspiracy theories, you have to kind of reframe them as trying to cling on to your sanity, just an exploration and trying to work out what's real and what's not.
	In a world where we're bombarded with conflicting information, much of it... much of it contrived, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Baron von Warhawk says, A large part of the population thinks they're being replaced and that the government is covering for terrorists, which I can't understand.
	Sure, we've spent years telling the white people that they're evil, promoting mass migration, covering up the grooming gangs, and writing articles stating that the native population being replaced is a good thing, but I just don't understand the hate coming from the population, say the BBC.
	Yeah.
	They do do all that.
	People don't like being lied to.
	Tell people the truth, they might have a slightly different attitude.
	Yeah.
	Jan says, you'd think the disinformation specialist would make up something a bit harder to debunk.
	That's a good point.
	Yeah.
	He doesn't have a YouTube channel, but it's right.
	Yeah.
	She obviously thought just the title disinformation specialist was enough to get people on board.
	Well, everything she says is verified.
	Yeah.
	Kevin says, today's conspiracy theories are next week's proven fact.
	That's another thing, isn't it?
	The time between insane conspiracy theory to government statement is getting narrower and narrower.
	The time between reprehensible, appalling society eroding conspiracy theory and factual government statement, yeah.
	I just can't get over The lockdowns, to be honest.
	For me, that was definitely some sort of watershed moment, where it's just like, they can't just lock us in our homes more than once.
	They can't do that.
	And they did.
	It's just the easiness with which people coalesce and it's just, people are so, you know, under so much pressure to support their families and keep a roof over their heads that, you know, If a government wants to impose that level of control, it's easy to do, but once they've done it once, it becomes less easy perhaps.
	It becomes more difficult once people have experienced it and know that they've been betrayed and lied to and see the cost of all that.
	Get away with it twice if they try to lock us down.
	Do you think if it had been Jeremy Corbyn rather than Boris Johnson, I don't know if we'd have got as far as lockdown with Jeremy Corbyn.
	We might have all been in a state of open civil war under his leadership anyway.
	Well, that's true, but you know what I mean, right?
	Consistent riots on the street, everything on fire.
	But the thing is with Boris, like, it was obvious that this is kind of against his instincts, and so it came across like he was like, you know, I hate to do it, but they're all, all the scientists are telling me I've got to do it.
	Everyone else is locking down, you know?
	Because initially it'd been like, oh, we've got to just take it on the chin, which is the right response, obviously.
	And so it felt that people kind of went along with it because it felt like Boris didn't want to do it.
	But you know that Jeremy Corbyn probably would have loved to do it.
	Yeah.
	Brilliant, you know.
	Yeah, I think so.
	The interesting thing with Boris is that he seemed to be pushing against lockdown until he himself became seriously ill.
	At which point, yeah, there was a real about-turn and a real shift.
	Yeah.
	And I think we didn't, you know, Interestingly, the information about that, when he was out of action, when he was ill, when he was in hospital, there was very limited information about what was going on there as well.
	So, that was a turning point.
	Andrew says, the left shows itself to aspire to be an empire of evil.
	Thank God you do the work you do, and others such as the Daily Wire have been doing to fight back against this deliberate perversion of nature and reason.
	Well, now that sounds like quite a hard statement, but I mean, pride is literally a sin.
	Yeah.
	Do we get a month for the other deadly sins?
	Mortal sin, isn't it?
	I'm looking forward to the gluttony one.
	I like food.
	I love a good meal.
	Sloth sounds great.
	There's already the greed element to it already.
	This month is going to be, we want a full month.
	Not a week, it won't do.
	A day won't do.
	It's a full month and everything is about us for this month.
	We have the full month.
	We want every flag that's up, it's ours.
	Take every other flag down.
	So the greed's already there, isn't it?
	We've got the pride and the greed.
	I would like a month of sloth though.
	though you can do it a month off instead everyone just takes a month off do you know what though i think it's one of those i identify slothful you had one good sleep afterwards you wake up and actually i want to get back to work yeah yeah uh richard says if you have to round things down normal people's throats stick in their face at every opportunity and enforce a message that is clearly nonsense it means nothing uh it will enrage the majority or at least cause apathy It has become a new high religion to the idiots and the virtuous, aka hypocrites.
	Yep, that's a totally fair comment.
	Rose says, Pride, like the mid-century Germans, has appropriated a symbol and turned it into almost the exact opposite of its original meaning.
	Yeah.
	Zen says, I live in Newcastle and there's always protests at Monument Centre, which is the centre of town, waving tons of flags I don't recognise.
	It's weird as hell since everyone I know is worried about the economy and is struggling to pay the bills.
	You're not worried about democracy in Pakistan then?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Just average Newcastle concerns.
	It's that bizarre detachment between what's important to people living their lives in the real world and what's being peddled to us as important, what's being sold to us as important.
	By our governments and media collectively.
	Because there's a real disparity between the two.
	The thing that annoys me, and I think the Newcastle survey really highlights it, is the false assumption that, oh, we'll just let in anyone in the world and they'll just be exactly like we will.
	It's like, no, actually, they're actually different to you and they know they're different to you.
	And for some reason, you don't know that they're different to us.
	And so they come over and you expect them to have the same concerns.
	But I mean, how do the Islamic communities of Britain feel about Pride Month exactly?
	Didn't think to ask them, did you?
	Yeah, well, if you don't have integration, you have ghettos, ghettoisation, and that's the situation we have, is ghettos across the country.
	Unfortunately, people don't live together because the importance of integration hasn't been given the due attention it needed.
	But the thing is, what does integration even mean?
	So what are we going to do, force them to drink tea and eat crumpets?
	What does it mean?
	Well, in all societies it's that compromise, isn't it?
	About who you want to be and what you want to do.
	It means compromise.
	It means compromise for people coming to live here with different values and it means compromise for the people already here.
	That this idea of compromise, people compromising themselves for the good of society, has been lost because in what we have in place, no integration, no compromise, people doing exactly what they want to do, but living in very disparate groups and with this open tension and animosity towards each other, which is not healthy.
	There has to be compromise.
	But then it makes me wonder, why should Group A have to compromise with Group B when Group B come from somewhere else.
	Okay, they're going to come over and now you've got to make compromises against a bunch of people who weren't here previously and had no right to be here?
	Well, it's a question of if the people who are here make compromises, what are the people who want to come here bringing to the table?
	As you know, they're all doctors and engineers, Carl.
	That is true, but what I mean is like, actually I don't think it should be a compromise.
	I think it should be Group B does things the way that Group A wants things done, or else you don't come, right?
	Yeah, there has to be a set of rules and conditions to citizenship, of course it does.
	You would think so!
	And it doesn't seem to be, does it?
	It doesn't seem to be.
	No.
	Or maybe there are, but it's all, people pay lip service to it.
	It's not, you know, it's, it's, you know, maybe you sign something saying, I'm going to live like this, but people do what they want to do, but that's no good for society.
	And, you know, this, this economic and social erosion and the widespread decline is, is, This real selfishness and this real lack of compromise between individuals and communities.
	Historically, integration meant intermarriage.
	You have to marry someone from the other group.
	That's what it meant.
	So your children would be mixed in the group and therefore that would be a form of integration into the group, right?
	You have to actually live in it.
	That's just not happened.
	But anyway, Dan says, I know it wasn't a segment today, but I really appreciate the mention of the Nottingham attacks.
	Well, the reason it's not a segment is because we try not to do ambulance chasing here, right?
	So it's like, The facts aren't all out, you know, they're not all concrete.
	I do ambulance chasing, come to my YouTube page for that.
	And that's fine, get to Andrew's YouTube for that.
	But we prefer to do analysis, right, and so if all the facts aren't out, and I've seen this happen so many times, where people just jump in, oh this confirms everything I thought, and then it actually is complete opposite, and everything you thought was completely wrong about that, and now you've got egg all over your face, and I just want to avoid those circumstances.
	And so until we have the hard details, I'm not going to make a commentary on what has happened.
	But in the next few days, or however long I'm sure for the details to come out, we will then cover it.
	But we're cautious.
	But Dan says, I'm a student in the same year and the same uni as the two of the victims.
	I know people who knew them.
	The government has blood on its hands.
	So I'm really sorry to hear that.
	I hope everything is OK.
	It's one of those things where we just can't leap into these things, but this is just… it's just terrible.
	Anyway, right, Andrew, where can people find you if they want more of you?
	Why wouldn't they?
	Come on.
	Well, you know, I'm an acquired taste, maybe not for everyone, but if I, you know, you think I might have something for you, come to my YouTube page, it's Andrew Lawrence Comedy, and you can find out about the tool dates I'm doing there.
	Or otherwise, if you don't like YouTube, I'm on Twitter.
	That's just Andrew Lawrence, at Andrew Lawrence on Twitter.
	Or, I'm pretty old school, I'm on Facebook.
	You can find me on Facebook, Andrew Lawrence Comedy.
	Right, OK.
	But I don't go in for any of that Instagram stuff, sorry about that.
	And certainly not TikTok.
	There you go, that's where you'll find me.
	That's me.
	Right, OK, well, thank you for joining us, folks.
	We'll be back tomorrow.

▲