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July 12, 2024 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters
01:30:06
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #955
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Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for the 12th of July 2024 and I'm very pleased to be joined by Godfrey Bloom and Lewis Brackfell, both back by popular demand We saw lots of positive comments in the audience when we announced that you'd be appearing together, so it's going to be a fun one I think.
And today we're going to be talking about Reform Conforming, in that they have replaced Ben Habib, who has been a loyal party man and worked quite hard, as I understand it, to campaign for reform, with Zia Youssef, who sort of parachuted in, donated lots of money to the party and now has taken his position, as well as Lewis is going to be telling us about his freedom of information requests to the UK government about Geoengineering, I suppose.
And then finally, we're going to end off on a lighter note, and we're going to be looking at some of the articles talking about Keir Starmer being sexy, which I... After covering the Hunter Biden laptop story, it's probably the second worst thing I've had to look at since working here for the past four years.
And yes, please, please pray for me.
There are some things you just can't unsee.
But anyway, I do have an announcement to make before we get started.
We're going to play all of the video comments next week because Samson is on his own.
We have both of our video editors on holiday and he's been running the shop and Carl will also be back from America next week so you'll get to send them to the big man rather than me who you're probably sick of because this is my fourth time this week I've been on the podcast, which is actually the busiest week I've ever had working here.
Also, of course, we're doing the Rumble Rants.
So if you want to send in questions for our guests or just comment generally on the stories we're covering, we're going to read them after we actually cover them, which is something new that we're doing.
As well as we do have Lads Hour this afternoon, where we're going to be talking about rejected YouTube video ideas.
It's going to be a silly one.
We're going to have a bit of fun as it's Friday, and I suppose I may as well get into it.
Nice.
There was this story back at sort of June time, I believe, that a Muslim millionaire gives a major donation to Reform UK and this Muslim millionaire goes by the name of Zia Yusuf and he is a tech entrepreneur and he donated £200,000 as I'm aware.
You know, it's always difficult to tell but I did a little bit of digging and I think that's the amount he donated which is not exactly A small amount, particularly to a budding party.
This is the first election with Nigel at the helm of Reform UK that has happened, and so they needed that money, I think.
I think that's fair to say.
And Mr Yusuf actually said, the party leadership feel very strongly that we should protect British values and put British people of all religions and creeds first, and this Um, you know, somewhat uncontroversial statement, um, did set off some alarm bells because it was wrapped up in the language of multiculturalism.
And of course, I don't believe in the law discriminating against people, of course.
However, um, when someone wraps up language in that way, it seems to suggest that perhaps, um, your dedication to ending things like mass immigration, for example, is not as strong as someone else.
And it is worth also mentioning as well that in the Reform Manifesto, it's an often overlooked part, but Bo Dade, a former Reform candidate that was one of the purged candidates of our very own Bo, put me on to the fact that there was a part in there that said ban Sharia law.
I'm not sure how that was going to happen, but it seems like a little bit of a juxtaposition when you have a Muslim coming in.
Although I don't necessarily think he's, you know, joining the Mujahideen or ISIS anytime soon.
I don't think he's that kind of Muslim, to his credit, I suppose.
But they have mopped up a fair amount of money leading up to the election.
This story, I believe, was from three days ago.
And they got about £600,000 in one week's donations, which is quite good really for a party of their size.
But I was somewhat disappointed by this.
This is what led me to cover this really.
I saw Ben Habib.
Share on Twitter this message and I'll read it and then we'll talk about what we actually think of it.
I've just been informed by Nigel Farage that Richard Tice is taking over as deputy leader of the party.
Consequently, I no longer hold that position.
I'm considering my position more generally in light of this change.
I have long held concerns about the control of the party and the decision making process.
I'll reflect on all of this.
The key for me is that Reform UK stays true to the promises made to the British people.
The movement we have created does not belong to us, it belongs to the people.
We are obliged and indebted to the British people.
So, first and foremost, Godfrey, what do you make of this?
Well, there's an awful lot of stuff I don't know.
There's a lot I don't know.
So I need to flag that up straight away.
I'm not in the know, I'm not behind the scenes on this at all.
Of course, and neither am I for that matter.
But I would say, as a Almost found a member of UKIP years ago.
This surprises me not.
Ben Habib is now a member of a very big club and if you remember UKIP started with in 2004 I think it was with something like 11 MEPs and when they finished that session it went down to five MEPs and then the next session started in 2009 I think it was and the UKIP members were MEPs were 14 and finished with five.
Nigel does, he's very articulate and he's a good platform performer and he has a lot of political nous but every now and again drops the pass and I fancy this is a dropped pass.
It's a problem that we saw in UKIP and it looks like it might go the same way.
Nigel's idea of management is based on Stalin, Joseph Stalin.
And if anybody sort of gets in your way, it's the gulag for you.
And I suspect there's probably more to this than meets the eye, because Ben Habib is an articulate, intellectual, well-read individual.
And Joe Stalin would have certainly got rid of him on that basis alone.
And it reminds me of Julius Caesar a little bit.
If you remember, I'm going from my Shakespeare interpretation of Julius Caesar, when he complained that he was surrounded by thin men and he wanted fat men around him.
He trusted fat men.
He didn't trust thin men.
And I think we've got a sort of a game here that There's a lack of trust in somebody who's looking a bit too clever, a bit too sharp, a bit too erudite, a bit too articulate, and maybe he might take the spotlight off the leadership, and that was very much the UKIP game.
That's how it happened.
It could be that, because taking up on the point of the £200,000 donation to reform By modern standards, that really isn't very much.
I mean, I could write a cheque for 200,000.
It wouldn't please my wife.
She would want to spend it on booze and horses.
But it's not a big sum by modern standards, really.
Not really.
I suppose so.
And my concern is that, as we're going to get onto later, that it's almost like a return to the 19th century of, you know, buying commissions.
In the military?
Yes, buying commissions.
And if you actually study your military history, which I have, of course, I'm a military historian.
You didn't get particularly many bigger damage, whether they bought it or they didn't.
I mean, of course, there was no buying your commissions.
And the generals we got, broadly speaking, in the First World War were pretty rubbish.
Yes.
And so on and so forth.
So it doesn't always necessarily follow.
But I think perhaps a nearer analogy here would be Lloyd George's The sale of honours.
The overt sale of honours.
It's always been going on, that sort of thing, but Lloyd George didn't even bother to hide it.
And I think that's really what we're dealing with.
But £200,000, I don't know, has reform sold its soul for a mess of pottage?
Seems like it may have, actually.
Certainly Ben Habib is no Mark Antony, is he?
Lewis, what do you think?
Yeah, I mean, echoing what Godfrey said about Ben Habib being very articulate, he's very popular as well.
I mean, this post has generated 3.3 million views alone, 7.7 thousand likes as well.
Ben Habib has always been, I think, one of the favourites within reform, just as a candidate, as someone who can get his point across very eloquently, very straight to the point.
So I'm sensing a kind of, it's stealing the limelight a bit off of certain few, whether it be a candidate or whether it be a leader of this particular party.
So like I said, I think we don't know the behind the scenes of what's going on.
I'm very disappointed actually, is the honest truth.
I'm disappointed that A. Ben Habib wasn't elected which is gutting because I think he would be a fantastic candidate and leader so I guess there's the looming threat there and on top of that
I'm gutted that they've decided to demote him just on the basis that he wasn't elected and that's probably the decision that they decided to make because he's not within parliament, he's not got that limelight that the rest of them do with Lee Anderson and this new guy as well that was elected.
Ashfield, was it Ashfield?
And the new guy, the one that was late.
Oh yeah, Basildon.
Basildon, that's the one.
The dark face.
That's the one, yeah.
I've got a mate that lives there actually.
Oh there we are, enough said.
So yeah, I'm gutted for him personally but I'm sure that there is more to this than meets the eye and I'm sure we're going to hear a bit more very soon.
I would imagine so, yes.
As you were saying, he's well regarded amongst reform voters and I think that we need only look across the Atlantic to one of Nigel Farage's friends, I suppose you can call him, Donald Trump, and he takes a very similar line of he likes to have people under him that are quite understated.
That will not outshine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he likes people who not necessarily are the most articulate speakers because he likes to hold that position for himself.
And it might be in fact he's been talking to Trump and then exchanging political strategies with him because of course he's been over there and helping him campaign at some point.
And this is one of the things that Trump might have suggested he do.
I think it's a very big mistake.
I was just saying, Lewis, before we went on air, when I was in the army, which is a long time ago, bows and arrows and stuff like that, but I used to surround, when I was a squadron commander or a platoon commander, whatever the rank I happened to get to eventually, The reason I managed to get to field rank eventually was because I picked the best corporals and the best sergeants I could possibly get hold of to cover my arse.
And you need, if you're going to be a team, you need the best people around you.
It doesn't detract from you at all.
It actually enhances you as the leader.
Gosh, he knows how to pick good men.
And we had a general inspection once, General Learman, Well, a general at the time inspected my training squadron and he said, he said, this is one of the best training squadrons I've ever seen.
I said, well, it's nothing really to do with me.
Better meet my sergeant major.
Introduced to my sergeant major.
And of course, people think there are officers and managers who think that that detracts from your situation.
It doesn't, because General Lehman got in the car and when he went back to command headquarters, wherever he went back to, He wants people who know how to pick good people.
Yeah.
That's the key.
Uh, and I think if you do that, you move forward, uh, very quickly.
Uh, and we had this problem in, uh, UKIP where, uh, Nigel insisted that you could not be a spokesman for UKIP on TV or anywhere else, basically, unless, uh, you were an MEP, an elected MEP.
Well, first time round, our MEPs were fairly van ordinary to be frank, hearts in the right place, good people.
But we had recently retired naval captains, very recently retired, who could have spoken on defence.
We had a keen new keeper who was a surgeon, young surgeon in Edinburgh and so on.
We had some really top, but they weren't elected MEPs, they were just very good people and we should have fielded them.
But again, Oh, it reminds me years ago of the Evening Standard cartoon, and you won't have anybody watching this who will remember that.
It goes back quite a long way.
And there was J.J., the column was J.J., and he was a fat cigar-smoking businessman, CEO, and his secretary was called Miss Finch, and he had a, you know, all these little buzz-throughs, and he flicked through it, and he said, Miss Finch, he said, I want you to trawl through the organization and find somebody who's bright, attractive, competent, Somebody who's capable of taking my place and sank him.
And that's what I smell.
Fair play.
So we have actually spoke to Ben Habib before.
He spoke to Bo while he was still a candidate for reform.
before Tice purged him thanks to Hope Not Hate.
And so if you want to hear him speak for himself, this is a good place to go.
It is free.
You don't have to pay for it.
It is a full interview, and I feel like it's certainly worth watching.
But Carl, you know, my boss, posted a video in support of Ben Habib in which Ben Habib thanked Carl, unfortunately, Oh that's nice.
Which I think is nice because Carl basically said much the same as we've said.
He's worked hard and you know he doesn't necessarily deserve to be treated in this way because he's well regarded by reform voters and it seems a little bit unfair.
He's the one you want.
He's the one you want surrounding everyone.
I'm a bit biased but he's the most articular out of all of them.
So he's like the gold dust from all of these guys.
He's the one that you would pick.
To have as either an advisor or someone to lead in that regard.
He's also, he's better than, he's not just the best that reform can offer Ben Nabib, I would argue that he's the best any political party can offer at this moment.
I agree.
And you can't do every TV, every question type, every any questions, you've got to spread it around, or what will happen, and this happened,
Last time, in 2014, you can't go into a national election without a shadow cabinet, or suggested shadow cabinet, which is what UKIP did in 2014, when I was, after I'd left, and I explained to Andrew Neil, and it's on my website, that you can't, being a protest group is one thing, and Nigel's extremely good at being a protest vote, you know, bang, bang, banging the drum, and all that kind of thing, that's very good.
But in four or five years, it's not impossible that reform could be looking to be HM opposition.
Yes, perhaps.
And the first question is going to be, where's your shadow cabinet?
And the answer is nowhere.
You know, it's bang, bang, bang, let's all go to the pub.
That works in, you know, in certain types of parties.
It worked in European politics, which was proportional representation.
It doesn't work when you go to the country.
And it looks to me possibly like this is a lesson that hasn't been learned.
I agree.
And I think that this decision has, if the National is to be believed here, potentially distanced Habib from the party, understandably.
I certainly don't blame him for potentially considering resigning.
There was a part in here, I can't quite remember where it was, but yes, they're talking about the criticism and things like that, but obviously we still need to wait and see what he actually has to say for himself in greater detail.
I was going to say, that part shines the most.
The key for me is that Reform UK stays true to the promises made to the British people.
The movement we have created does not belong to us, it belongs to the people.
We are obliged and indebted to the British people.
I think we need to hear more of that and the fact that Habib has just outright said that I think it speaks volumes to character and, you know, intention.
Because trust, I mean I'm very cynical as it is with regards to politics or politicians.
You're literally at my age.
See how cynical you are.
It's only going to increase.
So to actually hear that is extremely refreshing and we need more of that.
So I can't wrap my head around this.
I'm really sorry.
I can't do it.
So we look at Yousef's post here.
It is an honour to be appointed Chairman of Reform UK Against All Odds under Nigel Farage, and he talks about their electoral successes.
This is just the beginning, an important work of professionalising the party, which I think is an interesting word there.
Building national infrastructure and continuing to grow membership has already begun.
I will bring all my expertise, energy and passion to the role to ensure we achieve our mission of returning Great Britain to greatness.
And yes, if you look beneath this, you can see lots of people rather upset about this decision.
There's one person there saying you are such a gentleman to give him his credit.
And yes, People are giving him a hard time which is very different to what you might get for Ben Habib's post where people are actually being quite supportive and I think that this is a great way to alienate your potential base really.
I remember the professionalization of UKIP which actually meant dumping the grassroots.
That was a euphemism for dumping the grassroots.
Which was the whole strength of the party was grassroots.
Professionalize it.
And what we did, we got people, wannabes who couldn't make it in the Conservative Party, who came in, parachuted in.
We got people who were sort of gurus of this, that and the other on 50 grand a year or whatever it was.
And I'm trying to get 10 quid out of old age pensioners in Yorkshire.
And the next time, they go, where's old so-and-so gone?
No, he's gone.
He was an idiot.
He's gone.
Suddenly gone.
Professionalising a political party, in my view, is a bad thing.
It's a bad thing.
We have too many professional bloody parties all over the place with their hand in the till, taking no notice of the electorate.
I wouldn't professionalise it, but I wouldn't make, you know, what I think perceived mistakes such as this.
One very quick thing, I must say, I feel I must say.
I had a first-generation Pakistani commanding officer, regimental commanding officer, He was absolutely fantastic, and he had the Union Jack on his bloody underpants.
He was a really patriotic, straight guy.
So I'm quite sure that this guy's straight.
I just think it's not been done right.
I think the idea of just buying your way into the Chairman, the appointed Chairman, is just... I don't know, I think...
It kind of shows, I don't know, a bit of light on how things operate there.
Well, the thing is though, because Ben Habib himself is half Pakistani, and so, you know, if Faraj were trying to counter the The accusations you get from BBC types of, you know, is your party racist?
Are the people that belong to your party racist?
Well, this decision wouldn't necessarily make sense because, you know, Ben Habib is already there and well regarded.
So it doesn't make sense.
And so the only interpretation I can really come up with, unless there's something a bit more complicated internal, you know, I'm not privy to everything, is that this was, you know, a cynical move as a reward for donation.
Exactly.
Your enemies are always going to call you ists and phobes and isms.
You can't deal with that.
You can't get away.
Don't play that race card with me.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And the Tory party and the Labour party are essentially the same party with the same crux of identity politics, ESG, DEI.
You want to stray away from that.
If someone...
They're always going to call you the ists and isms, so why are you playing the same game?
I just, I don't understand it.
Well, it's defending yourself on their home turf, really, isn't it?
And you shouldn't concede the framing, you know, if you defend yourself via their paradigm, you've already conceded too much ground.
Exactly, exactly.
But you also have the same effect here where the Reform Party announced Zia Yusuf as chairman.
And yeah, one of the top comments, complete betrayal, embarrassing.
A lady with a Palestinian flag saying, we want to kick the Muslims out, which dear, dear, that's a bit of a contradiction there.
But there we go.
And then finally, I did want to mention that he did Give a speech at a rally for reform on the 30th of June and his speech did go down well with the base.
It roused the crowd a bit and he's clearly a good speaker at least and I agreed with some of his points but I feel like some of the framing of what he was saying was slightly off.
I think that He was talking very much in the abstract about British values but not very much about the British people and I think that many of the people in reform concerned about the British people because you know you get British values by having the British people that is sort of indisputable really and so I think that it causes some reason to be a little bit cautious about this because I think that it could be
A potential means in which reforms stance on things like immigration could be softened because it's wrapped up in values and and of course he talks about people of any culture of any religion and things like that and that to me sounds like something out of the Conservative Party if I'm being completely honest and it is not why people voted reform it's not why I voted reform begrudgingly albeit and it's quite frustrating really Very.
I just hit the nail on the head.
I've got nothing else to add to that one.
Sure.
So I believe you're going to be telling us all about geoengineering, which is something I don't actually know anything about other than that they were doing it in Dubai.
They were very proud of their ability to change the weather, which to be fair, if you lived in a desert and you can make it rain.
That is the stuff of gods in bygone eras.
Absolutely.
I must preface, this subject can get a bit prickly and you can easily steer off and go off down the rabbit hole as we all do at times when we're really interested into a subject.
So I want to make sure that during this segment I'm only dealing with facts, what they are saying, and not any opinions or anything like that, and not to stray off.
But geoengineering is the act of man-made climate intervention so purposely changing the climate to suit a particular agenda which it might be to thwart global warming or you know all these types of things and using various techniques such as solar radiation management which will get into stratospheric aerosol injection and all this.
Now I didn't believe that this was happening I'll be honest with you I Just didn't believe it at all.
But then this story popped up not too long ago, so this was back in April, and this was over in America where it says, geoengineering test quietly launches salt crystals into the atmosphere where an experiment in San Francisco could lead to brighter clouds that reflect sunlight.
However, They didn't tell the public about it because they were afraid that people might protest and stop this particular act because it's quite, well, it's very controversial, the act of actually doing this.
I don't know if you guys have heard of geoengineering before, if you've heard of cases?
Yeah, like you, I was a bit sceptical.
I'm becoming less sceptical.
I'm very much interested in what you've got to say, believe me.
Brilliant, so I decided let's start with a little bit of history.
So this is one of the most famous cases of, I guess, geoengineering that is in the UK called RAF Rainmakers which was back in 1952.
This is a Guardian article that was published in August 2001.
So this is also known as Project Cumulus, where the RAF conducted weather modification experiments, including the dispersal of salt, dry ice, or silver iodide particles into clouds, which tragically resulted in a flash flood in the village of Linmouth, which tragically resulted in a flash flood in the village of Lovely village.
It's not too far from my neck of the woods.
Oh really?
I've never been, I'd like to go.
We had to pack up our toys, I remember quite vividly.
We packed up our toys and sent them to Lynmouth.
Oh really?
Yeah, one of my first memories.
Oh wow, okay.
Yeah, and unfortunately this experiment claimed over 35 lives and survivors demanded an investigation into this but their calls were sadly unanswered and then it was later declassified decades later.
Another one was Project Stormfury.
This is one in America between 1962 to 1983.
Could have guessed from the name there, couldn't you, that it was an American one?
Yeah.
They sought to weaken tropical cyclones, so that was the main idea of it, and to suppress hurricanes using silver iodide, another common element.
Fidel Castro even accused the American government of weaponizing hurricanes.
I remember reading about that and I just thought he'd sort of lost the plot.
However, it was eventually determined that most hurricanes lack sufficient supercooled water for cloud seeding to be effective, leading to the project's closure later on.
Another one is Operation Popeye.
which is this was back in 67 to 72, where a weather modification program aimed at increasing rainfall over selected areas in Vietnam to hinder enemy movement.
And this highly classified program allegedly sponsored by the Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the time and the CIA without the Secretary of Defense's authorization involved cloud seeding to disrupt transportation routes.
Um, Now, if you look into the media now, in modern times, you would think that this was called a crackpot conspiracy theory.
But no, the media are saying, and if we could play this of course for the viewers...
Thank you very much.
They're saying it's pretty much safe.
They anticipate at least another 200 ground cloud seeding machines to be put in before next season.
Ginger, this is such a cool concept, but is it too good to be true?
I mean, how do we know that the chemicals that they're spraying from the air aren't bad for us or the planet?
The good news is we've been doing this since the 1940s and 50s.
Other countries do it, and there have been a lot of research projects that have shown that the silver iodide, for example, is not found.
It's negligible once it gets down to ground level.
So, again, I don't want to be too skeptical, but is there anything wrong with manipulating nature like this?
I think that's the question we should have asked when we built every single parking lot and every rooftop.
We have been manipulating weather with our... us... for a very long time.
I do think that looking at and continuing research on when these programs get bigger, if it will affect people downstream, that needs to be watched.
At least we're manipulating it now to help the planet.
So there you go.
Manipulation of the weather to help the planet is the... Silver eye.
Safe and effective.
Yeah.
And we've heard that before.
Haven't we, Jones?
We'll get in trouble if we say where we heard that.
Yeah, exactly.
True.
Any thoughts so far, gents?
So my initial, you know, I'm a psychologist, I'm not a meteorologist or, you know, a climate scientist, thankfully.
But my understanding is that we still don't have a complete understanding of the climate and thus, by interfering with it, we, to my sort of lay perspective, and this is just my sort of gut feeling here, We stand to potentially do more harm than good because of course we can only seek to really emulate nature but it's very difficult to surpass it in my understanding of the world.
I totally agree.
We have a small holding up in East Yorkshire with just a few horses and a few chickens and maybe a fattening beast and all that kind of stuff.
It's only a few acres.
But we are in the country, and we've had that smallholding, I don't know, 40 years or something like that.
And when you live in the country, you do tend to look skywards, you know, you've got a few plants, maybe got a few strawberries, you've got a bit of this and a bit of that, and you're smallholding.
So we tend to make much, We make much more of weather than your city dweller.
I'm no longer a city slicker.
I'm a country pumpkin.
I've switched.
I've gone the other way.
My wife is total bumpkin.
But we look up and we were walking the dogs the other day and it was a beautiful clear sky.
And this is not the first time this happened.
A beautiful, quiet, beautiful.
I said to a neighbor, a village, and we were just walking past his cottage.
And I said, what a beautiful evening, you know, it's a really beautiful summer's evening.
And then we saw two or three, almost immediately, two or three trails.
And now I don't know what the trails were, and two or three aeroplanes, quite high, I would say 25,000 feet up, and crisscross.
And we're not on a flight path.
Now, that also doesn't mean necessarily anything.
But yet again, yet again, Uh there was this white whiteout with the sun disappearing and just trying to fight its way through a white muslin tablecloth kind of thing and it's happened for me just too many times for me to believe that this is all coincidence and on my channel um I have lots of people sending stuff.
And they send it, this is the sky this morning over Chelmsford, or this is the sky this morning over Chippenham, or where it is.
And it looks to me weird.
And then I've got skeptics who say, oh, well, basically, where are the logistics?
Where are the pilots?
Where's this?
And they take it from that point of view.
No, that's not happening.
They say, oh, well, it couldn't be kept a secret, this kind of thing.
Um, but I know when I look up, and so do my bigger farming, bigger landowning, you know, proper landowning friends, not smallholders, but they look up and they say there's something not right, there's something not right, and we don't know what it is.
I think it's definitely worth, I think it's, it's, I would never ever turn my nose down or nobody should be turning their nose down to others who are questioning this sort of thing.
I mean, like I said, it's a prickly subject because you can easily come to conclusions very quickly, people can just throw all sorts of things, but I think it's one of those things that I think is a legitimate question to be asking.
With regards to silver iodide, after them saying it's completely safe and effective, well I had a little look and there are journals about the possible effects of silver iodide and many other chemicals that have been used for cloud seeding and its possible effects.
And it's not good, I'll be honest.
Here's one, it's JSTOR.
I can't remember how you properly say it.
JSTOR.
Believe me, I'm very well equipped.
Oh, you are very well equipped.
Unfortunately.
I should have looked up how you properly say that one.
But there's plenty, including the National Library of Medicine, saying the potential risk of acute toxicity Uh, using this sort of stuff.
So, I don't know, I think it's a bit risky to be using silver iodide for too long, and of course, um, this has been happening since the 50s, maybe even possibly the 40s, um, so the fact that the media now, in this era, are saying, no no it's completely fine, don't worry about it, but there are still Publications coming out saying, no, no, no, this is really, really bad.
So I don't know who's lying is my question.
So then I decided after all of this, I'm going to send off some freedom of information requests to the UK government, the Met Office, the UKRI, which is the research body or the Research Council.
And I, if we could show the Met Office funding screenshot that I got.
So this is what I received back.
So the Met Office, Britain's forecaster, disclosed receiving funding for their involvement in geoengineering research over the past five years.
They received £152,046 from the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme, all to do with geoengineering.
So that's climate intervention using SRM, or stratospheric aerosol injection as well.
And they also received $200,000 from a NGO called Silver Lining.
Ha!
And I thought, who are they?
I've never heard of these guys before.
So I did a bit of digging, and this is their website that you can go and see.
Silver lining.
I mean, it's a big giveaway with the title.
I wonder what they do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's all to do with, you know, equity.
There's also, I don't know if I can have a look, have a look there.
Um, in fact, no, if we just keep going, I looked into who has been bankrolling, uh, silver lining and it's a particular family.
Okay.
That says not that's gone.
Okay.
That's strange.
Oh, you might be able to refresh it.
Oh, that's a bit strange.
It's gone!
That's really weird.
Well, I've already got the screenshot for a previous video on my YouTube channel about this, but I've got all the information here.
Silver Lining recently announced a $20.5 million in funding to advance its governance and equity initiatives on near-term climate risk and climate intervention.
Moreover, they have ties to the wealthy Pritzker family in the US, who contribute to the NGO through the Pritzker Innovation Fund, and they are ranked sixth in...
Oh, it's not there for some weird reason.
But they ranked sixth by Forbes among the wealthiest in the US.
So a substantial donor.
And they had an article on their website announcing this big $20.5 million So I don't know why that's gone.
I don't know why they've deleted that.
That's news to me.
I wasn't expecting that.
But they also have ties right here with the United States.
This is Congress where they have mandated a research plan and research government framework in relation to solar radiation management.
And this framework includes scenarios for solar radiation modification, international cooperation, and frameworks for physical aspects of solar radiation modification.
And there is a particular, if I can find it, there is a particular graphic that they use.
I'm going to try and find it now in real time.
But it's a graphic that they've shown in this document that shows all the different types of, here it is, SRM climate intervention.
So you've got space-based methods.
Which includes putting a giant disc into space.
Is that like a solar mirror?
Yeah.
I know that that's something that's been considered.
I don't know whether that's actually something else and I just remembered that term and I'm misapplying it.
I'll quickly have a look.
But then you also have other methods here, increasing the amount of SSAI, which is obviously stratospheric aerosol that you can see here.
Marine cloud brightening, which is another one that's like the San Francisco story we heard earlier by putting in salt crystals to increase the brightness of clouds in order to reflect sunlight.
And increasing, I think it's to do with re, it's It's sort of like when a volcanic eruption happens and all the ash clouds, like it's sort of replicating that.
And that can be quite stark.
Certainly what it looks like from our farm, yeah.
And that's kind of their sort of way of doing it.
The director of this silver lining actually commented on a particular man, and of course he's cropped up, Bill Gates, where this executive director of this NGO
Gave a good review on his book, Climate Intervention, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, where she says in this article, We are grateful for Gates's support of our field and we need more individuals, organizations and governments who are concerned about our escalating climate emergency to support and invest in our field of study.
Research is key to solving the issues of feasibility, impact and governance that currently exists in our field, and no group can achieve that research without the investment and support required to make it possible.
We at Silver Lining hope that Bill Gates's recognition of our critical work encourages others, regardless of background or prior knowledge of climate intervention, to do more of their own research to better understand the potential of climate intervention.
She also co-authored another one, and I'm sorry to go real down the rabbit hole, I guess, but the more you find.
I wonder if this company, this silver lining company, has a goal for 2030, by the way.
Yes, and yes, they do.
She co-wrote an article called, Can We Geo-Engineer Our Way Out of Climate Change?
This was published back in 2017, to which it reads, During the agricultural, industrial and digital revolutions of the past 150 years, we have arguably been accidentally engineering the Earth's system.
We lit the planet where it was dark.
We transplanted species, paved forests, emitted carbon, moved rivers and changed the Earth's chemistry.
Could we now apply the advances of the fourth industrial revolution to protect the natural systems we rely on?
And this entire article goes through that vision, which also shows...
How do the people who are sponsoring in big money solar panels feel about this?
I mean they're covering Yorkshire with solar panels and now trying to block out the sun.
Exactly who's doing what to whom and why?
I mean it's all... Why would you put solar panels in and then sponsor people blocking out the sun?
And California without sun I mean, they're vineyards, they're market gardens.
Biodiversity, they're... The whole thing!
Yeah, it would thwart... Mind you, of course, we all know, don't we, we're trying to rationalise this, aren't we?
Yeah.
And how stupid is that us?
I mean, who know?
I mean, what are we talking about?
We know exactly what is going on, don't we?
They're Malthusians, they're crooks, they're gangsters.
Yeah.
And this is about political control.
It's about making money.
This is all about making money.
Yeah.
It's about money.
It's a climate mafia, that's what it is.
It's a trillion dollar industry, even more.
So if they can get more grants, sponsorships, if they could put their hands in other people's pockets to move some things around, get some things done.
Governments grant lots of exceptions to green technology because they want the innovations to progress, which means that there's a very strong incentive to invest in these industries, however fruitful or fruitless they might be.
Pun intended.
And it's just this weird...
symbiotic relationship between governments because we've been seeing lots and lots of green money, if you will, coming into politics again and one would only conclude from that that they're trying to influence politics even further in their favor to get these tax breaks, even more favorable treatment from the state to allow them to make even more money from it than they would otherwise.
Well, my landowning friends and I complain, I'm trying to explain to them that these great wind turbines don't work, they just don't work.
They do the numbers, it's ridiculous.
They have to bury the blades as well.
I know!
Yeah, they have to bury them in the desert.
They don't get any of this, but the general response is Godfrey, they say, How would I afford the school fees if I didn't have these things on my land?
They pay me £100,000 or £200,000 a year for these three things.
I've put three kids through school and university.
Everybody's got their hand on the till, annoyingly, except me.
I want my hand in the till.
I never seem to make it work.
Even when it's an MEP where you can put a shovel into the kitty, I didn't do that either.
There's something wrong with me.
It's got nothing to do with the climate.
It's to do with funding.
But this is a screenshot from my other Freedom of Information request to do with funding.
With the UKRI, that's United Kingdom's Research Initiative.
According to the UKRI, they do hold relevant information with regards to funding geoengineering projects in the UK, but they point out that it's already, quote, reasonably accessible to the public.
Which is a bit of a lie.
Which means it's not.
Via their gateway research platform they recommended specific searches like geoengineering, solar radiation management, earth radiation management, greenhouse gas removal and carbon dioxide removal.
These searches yielded details of 327 projects that have been funded in the UK with an additional seven if you type in stratospheric aerosol injection And here is the website that you can go to to have a little look for yourself.
On the side there you can see the amount of money that has been pumped through and the dates and it gives you a bit more details when you click on them.
They stress that these are hypothetical projects, so using climate modelling systems, so they're not real experimentations.
However, I did send another request to ask about real experimentations, and they replied saying that Out of all these 327 projects, there may be some physical experimentation hidden within.
So there's a lot to go through still and there's a lot of money being poured in.
I reckon over at least 10 million being put in or around that sort of ballpark figure.
That's all really interesting and some great work you've done there.
Funnily enough, my producer said to me on my channel, he said we've got to get into this now because we were bang on early when it came to Covid.
We were really early.
We were the first in saying, you know, this isn't that and all this is fake.
And I want to keep my record on my channel and my websites going with this.
And he said, find somebody who really knows their stuff.
We can interview on our channel.
You are that man.
I will deal with you after we go off air.
I'll make you come on my channel.
Oh, brilliant.
And because this is a pleasure, we need to get this out to everybody, don't we?
Yeah, I made a video on this and put that out on X and YouTube.
It's gotten some good views but I think it needs to go.
Yeah, more of us need to put our shoulder behind it because I don't want to be breathing in silver iodine.
No.
Whatever it bloody well called.
I asked about consent, so the public awareness and consent, because if there are projects to do with climate intervention the public needs to know about this.
And they replied, the Natural Environment Research Council replied saying, well there has been There was a public dialogue and consent.
There was a meeting done.
The Met Office responded that they have no information regarding awareness and consent.
But these guys said that there was a public dialogue on geoengineering in 2011.
To which... Oh no, that's not it.
Sorry, I need to go back.
Apologies.
Go back.
To which 85 participants turned up, including 74 experts and stakeholders.
And according to this report, back in 2010 or 2011, Participants felt heard and appreciated during the discussions with scientists.
However, it's worth noting that the only media coverage of this event emerged three years later and it was on BBC Radio 4's Today programme in 2014.
That's their idea of public awareness and consent with this.
So nothing really.
And I don't know about you, there's a lot more to this than what I've found.
This is what they're, I hate to say it like this, but this is what they're telling me.
So there's obviously a lot more information.
A whole heap of stuff they're not telling, yeah.
So this investigation is still ongoing.
I'm committed to finding out more.
And, you know, I can't do it by myself.
So if anyone wants to, you know, come on board and help, you're more than welcome to.
So one thing I will say about this is that from my time in academic research, You couldn't, you know, get anything past an ethics committee, at least in psychology at least.
You know, they questioned everything to a degree which took me, you know, I knew about research ethics, I was doing a research-focused masters at the time, at one point at least, and even then there were things that they're picking up on that I never would have thought would have mattered.
Things like, oh, will the link be able to be accessed on multiple different devices other than just a web page?
Can you use a mobile phone?
And that was the consideration of an ethics committee for psychological research.
So you look at something like this, which has the potential to affect Hundreds of thousands of people, potentially, if not millions, depending on where they do it.
I would imagine they probably do it in a rural area.
They're at least trying to be responsible.
But my worry is that with an experiment like this, the ethical clearance may well be, you know, just get us results.
This is a very important thing that we have to develop and therefore don't worry about that.
Because I don't know how this sort of research would ever pass the ethical standards that I had to uphold when conducting research and there's a sort of potential here, just you know, as a general researcher, of unintended consequences because it's dealing with something that we don't fully understand.
Exactly.
And they all say it.
On that silver lining, I don't know if we could quickly go back to the silver lining, let me try this.
We should be able to, yeah.
Oh, sorry, that's my fault.
There is a... if we go on the About Us, there is a quote I'm going to try and find this.
Apologies.
I've just remembered.
There is a quote.
Here it is.
So this is the director of Silver Lining saying this.
Climate change is here.
We are experiencing its devastating effects in recent extreme events.
The Safe Climate Research Initiative supports research on promising means of reducing warming rapidly to help people To help keep safe and natural systems stable.
We do not have enough information to know whether climate interventions are viable or can be undertaken safely.
The work of these groundbreaking research teams will help ensure we have science to inform decisions in this critical area.
So they're openly admitting that they don't know.
They don't have enough information and they don't know whether it can be undertaken safely.
Yet there's money being thrown around and there's more of it.
So the sums of money that I at least saw on screen of, you know, a hundred thousand to a million, these are the sorts of sums that you do see in, you know, a hundred thousand for perhaps a small scale research project, a million for a slightly larger scale one.
Those do indicate they are conducting research.
It's not, you know, covertly funding anything necessarily.
Fair point.
And so I would say that perhaps if there is something like that going on, I don't know personally, it's not necessarily going through these research means that you've got here.
But those do seem to be sort of pilot studies, if you pardon the pun.
Yeah.
And further research on this sort of thing.
And although I do support research, I think that perhaps the urgency of the tone of this statement suggests that they're going to overlook some of the ethical considerations and some of the potential for the people that might be affected by these, you know, practical research, I suppose, that they're going to overlook their concerns.
Do we risk this as a potential rabbit hole, I'm afraid?
How many people are actually buying into all this kind of ludicrous nonsense?
I mean, the Met Office, we looked at a clip from the Met Office, turns out we had the hottest May for years and years and years.
Yorkshire froze to death.
You know, it's bloody ridiculous.
We've all got our wests and heavy woolies on again and all the rest of it.
We have a small swimming pool, which we've been in once.
Up to now.
July's been, June was no better.
And the one thing, British people were, most people I suppose, were conned easily because viruses and immunology.
People go, oh I can't see, it's a bug, I've got this bug, I'm going to die, kind of rubbish.
But we all, I mean the British do weather.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Every time you meet somebody, if you're walking down the country lane, oh, it's brightened up, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
When is it going to come that people are going to say, bugger me, they're at it again, aren't they?
And, you know, this is, sooner or later, you can't fool the Englishman on weather.
No, you can't.
That's all he does.
That's all he thinks about.
It's true.
Well, yeah, I, as much as it's a dark, horrible subject and I really disagree with it, it's, I've kind of taken quite a liking into researching into this particular topic because I don't feel insane talking about it that way but that's what I have.
There's a lot more information but of course time constraints but yeah hopefully we'll get some more information soon and like I said if anyone wants to reach out and help I can't do this by myself.
Yeah, well, I'll certainly come and I'll be doing the same thing.
I was thinking anyway, because I've got so much economic and other stuff, but I've got actually one of the things we're having a sort of a semi boutique following, if you will, but for bigger or for better or for worse or smaller, is an awful bit like the local pub.
Somebody, somewhere, will know how to do that.
Yeah.
If you go to the pub, don't you?
Somebody will know.
Who knows how to grow chrysanthemums, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
There was about two guys who said, oh, I don't know, but there's an old allotment, he knows how to do it.
And I said, I've got a Morris Minor 1000, sort of classic car thing, and I don't know anything about cars, and I wanted to find somebody to bash it with a mallet.
There's somebody in the college, I've been restoring those for years.
And I think you've got that kind of following, you'll find people who will say, yeah, Yeah.
I know how to do that.
I could do that.
Or what bit of that?
It's a big subject.
What bit?
I could do that bit.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, we could.
I think a lot of people would like to become involved in that.
I hope they do.
So we've got some comments sent in.
So Hewitt76 says, Josh, buy yourself a pint for all your hard work over the last week.
Well, thank you.
Chaos is fun.
Interesting name there.
I'm disappointed in you not shilling Carl and Connor's trek across the pond to reclaim the colonies.
Appear on the Culture War on Tenet Media after the podcast.
Well, I was going to leave it up to them, actually.
Because I don't want to, you know, steal their thunder.
They're probably going to have a lot to say.
What was that, sorry?
Samson says they'll probably go for it next week.
And then a name I can't pronounce says follow Will to Power with a zero for an O and ones for Ls on TikTok for bold MAGA content exposing cognitive dissonance and TDS.
Join daily live debates.
Okay, I'm reading someone's shill here.
Engaged in political discussions and stay informed.
We all defeat Harry the Fairy.
What?
Who's that?
You don't mean Northern Harry, do you?
Oh well.
Poor Harry.
But anyway, time to lower the tone even further now after reading that.
We have some of the absurd articles about Keir Starmer being sexy.
And I never thought I'd say those words.
I was going to say, is that your opinion?
No.
No.
I'm not into 60 year old men.
Despite the speculation.
And here is an article.
This was on The Times by so-called comedian Caitlin Moran.
Keir Starmer has turbocharged my arousal levels.
I feel fruity.
Please don't clip this.
Every middle-aged woman I know feels right now kind of fruity.
Turned on as erotic as a British woman can feel during a wet summer.
I'm sorry Godfrey for this.
On the morning after the election... Supervised buckets!
I feel like I would like one as well.
It's a new way of cloud seeding.
On the morning after the election, one of my friends whatsapped and I realised, and this is a direct quote here, I realised I got up and shaved my legs, put on a face mask and blow-dried my hair like I was subconsciously preparing for a date.
And whom was that date with?
As we spent an enjoyable hour analysing her subconscious, we concluded it wasn't specifically with Keir Starmer or even a new Labour government, but with competency.
That is cringe.
It is.
Yeah, so this comedy article is actually just a vehicle for saying the Labour Party is competent and the funny thing is, and this isn't some sort of snobby comment because I went to a comprehensive school as well, they were boasting about how we're the least privately educated, we have the least privately educated cabinet
Um, in British history, which seems to me not to be a brag.
Personally, everyone knows that, you know, usually speaking, private education is better.
Otherwise, what are you paying for?
It's true.
Um, so yes, I'm, I'm not, you know, looking down my nose.
I went to one.
Um, so I wish I did.
I'm insulting myself.
Well, comprehensive.
No, no, no.
Oh, private.
I didn't go private.
Oh, right.
Oh, sorry.
Um, I wish I had though.
Um, but yes.
Within the same breath, they're also being called the most competent.
And you know, you have people like David Lammy as foreign secretary, who, uh, his, his venture on to mastermind where he didn't get any questions right on his specialist subject.
And then even questions that children could have got in the general knowledge section, he got wrong, which quite frankly is embarrassing.
And is that online for, um, foreign governments to watch when they anticipate his visit?
The thing that totally stunned me, one of the questions, it was sent to me by my producer guy, and he said, look at this, he said, what cheese do you normally associate with port?
And he didn't know.
And that, for me, I couldn't possibly vote for a man who didn't know about Stilton.
I mean, that guy is a complete arse, as far as I'm concerned.
I mean, dear oh dear oh dear.
But they are, If it is a competent Labour government, it will be the first in history, let's put it that way.
But of course, as I say, another rabbit hole, who cares who you vote for these days, it's all World Economic Forum.
And of course, at least Starmer's honesty, the honesty of Starmer.
When he was interviewed by Emily Nomates, she said, was it Parliament or was it Davos?
I've got to vote for him then.
Vote Labour.
I mean dear oh dear oh dear.
Apparently isn't that chap we were talking about earlier a WEF young leader or something like that?
Somebody told me the reform guy, the new reform chairman.
Oh it's Zia Yusuf.
Yeah.
Is he WEF?
I don't know.
Somebody told me and I'm just saying.
Well I can google that right now.
Well that would be a revelation.
Although I can understand, at my age, the sexiness of Keir Starmer because he looks... One of my really favourite dishes is steak and kidney pudding.
And he does look like steak and kidney pudding.
I mean, he's got that suety sort of look.
And so, yes, yum, yum, yum, yum.
So it carries on to say, there is nothing more erotic to a middle-aged woman than competency.
I mean, there might be something to that.
I'm not a middle-aged woman.
Hey babe, get a hold of my competency.
It is the quality we value above all others.
As we age, our preferred language of love shifts from, I would die for you, to I will stay alive and do your VAT return for you.
And the single most sexual phrase we can hear is, I'll take care of that.
And so That part did actually kind of make me laugh a little bit.
I'll admit, I'm very guilty about that.
And so, however it pans out, at the beginning of this new government, the fact that they seem, at the outset, incredibly competent is making women of a certain age very frisky.
I don't know about this.
I'm not sure about that.
So this last part, I'm going to read it in full because you're going to have to pinch yourself.
Look who turned up to form a new cabinet walking down Downing Street last Friday.
Not the familiar parade of pink public school boys, all seemingly in the same suit, exuding a palpable Worcester-ish air of, what ho, I guess I'll be Minister for Housing in 18 months, could be fun.
Don't know anything about it?
Why not give it a shot?
Instead, a new Minister for Leveling Up, Angela Rayner, is someone who has actually levelled up from a single mother in a council house to Deputy Prime Minister.
I don't know whether that's anything to brag about.
The new Minister for Prisons, James Timpson, I expected it to follow and say he was a prisoner but no, has spent the last 20 years finding jobs for former prisoners.
The new Minister for Transport, is that Louise Hay, has the kind of red emo hair dye that suggests she frequently jumped the barriers at the Tube on her way to a Green Day gig, which is not what you want really.
from a government minister.
I don't know what it means!
Well, I wish I could be you.
All my friends were watching these arrivals as if we were watching Magic Mike Live.
I'm not going to read that last part but they said something about rubbing a certain area.
It's almost as if Keir Starmer has hired the best people for the job rather than just someone's wife or a mate from school.
But the thing is, they've had 14 years after power to sort out their shadow cabinet.
Eventually they're going to find people to fill it.
You know, when you have the dregs of the Conservative Party, they've cycled it around so many times that, you know, they're running out of people that are willing to take the job.
I'm surprised they didn't ask people passing by Downing Street if they wanted to come in and become, I don't know, the Minister for Leveling Up, which is a silly title anyway.
I didn't even know there was a Minister for Leveling Up!
It's an absurd...
That's what we need, more government departments.
To help keep your lunch down, I'm going to move on to the next one, which is even worse.
The Starmers are sexy.
Really?
I don't know what about this calls.
Brilliant.
But this is The Spectator, once highly regarded, now clearly not.
The Starmer in that clip, it looks like he's just had sex.
Somebody's taken him from the south So it reads as follows Now we have new leadership and with it a new paradigm of attractiveness.
David Lammy, the new Foreign Secretary, is even less handsome than Dave, meaning David Cameron, but for different and therefore revitalizing reasons.
Elsewhere in the cabinet though, things hot up with the cheek-bony, luscious-locked Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves of the world.
My goodness me.
I don't know.
I don't know what to say about this.
I suppose the spectator have been recruiting from the DEI textbook here and hired a blind writer.
But for me they are the wrong sex to ogle and thus to the very top.
Starmer himself, politically, I was lukewarm about the new Prime Minister as the next North London free marketeer.
Why are you writing this then?
But as I did, What I always do when a new leader is elected, googled the leader young.
I found that he has a form, he has form sorry, as a beefcake.
One picture sees the Prime Minister as a Leeds student lying on his front on the floor with his mates, an impressive array of biceps visible, downright saucy pin-up face, cheekbones to die for, nice mouth, full mouth, thick craft of hair.
Enough!
I beg you!
I'm sorry!
And it carries on to say, while he is no longer that fitty, he's 60, he's still a relatively fine figure of a man over the weekend.
Jane Garvey wrote in the Times that Starmer was unlikely to prompt many erotic dreams, which I think is where this trend has originated.
Maybe that's a good thing.
I see it differently.
Starmer is the first Prime Minister since Tony Blair in brackets.
Sorry.
You should be sorry.
You know, a demonic man with whom I would happily consider a saucy affair.
Who would write this?
Why would you?
This is the worst Fifty Shades of Grey like political ripoff I've ever heard in my life.
The thing is, I willingly chose to cover this.
I wonder if the women years ago, 120 years ago, felt the same about Lord Salisbury.
An interesting concept, doesn't it?
I love his bushy beard.
I particularly like his house.
Yeah, yeah.
Fair enough.
Yeah, yeah.
That Starmer is a beefcake adjacent is a good thing.
He looks like he could actually take someone on in a fight.
Oh, could he?
Not me, couldn't.
By the way...
I'm going to cut to something in a minute that completely demolishes that.
He looks like if furious he could be dangerous.
He looks in short... I know what you're going to play.
Like what one used to think men ought to look like.
I know what you're going to play.
I knew it!
I knew you were going to play this.
So here we are.
Here is Keir Starmer.
Have you seen this Godfrey?
No.
With some boxing gloves on.
He's punching like the London lawyer that he is there.
with his labour clubs on.
I'm going to do that just one more time.
This is the man that has got middle-aged women hot in the loins.
For some reason, it's not playing, probably to save us all.
I'll leave it to you, Samson.
I used to box a bit in the army years ago, and I'm an old man now, admittedly.
He wouldn't go two minutes in a round with me now.
I don't think he could win a fight with a child, could he?
Look at that.
Oh dear, what I could do to him in two minutes.
I know.
Me and Harry, one of our other presenters, we used to go boxing together for quite some time.
That would be embarrassing for the first five minutes of your first session.
Why he recorded this, why he did this, I do not know.
But I am horrified.
I've still got my gloves.
That's the match I'd like to see.
I know who my money is on.
Yeah.
And as if that was not enough, let's get rid of this horrible video, shall we?
There is more.
Forget Dishy Rishi.
Here's why people think Keir is the new Downing Street Daddy.
you know - Yeah.
These words have come out my mouth now, I am sorry to everyone involved.
But unfortunately, British politics has really gone downhill, you know, in the past 140 years or so.
To be crowned a daddy by the internet is a rare yet esteemed honour.
Idris Elba, David Harbour, George Clooney and of course Pedro Pascal have all made the exclusive list but now there's a new daddy in town and you'll find him in the most unlikely of places.
I think we can all agree that residents of Downing Street have never really got us monitoring for a fumble under the back benches.
I can't believe I read that.
This is the Metro, by the way, so it's obviously not a highbrow.
Sorry, I zoned out.
Yeah, I wish I could.
Sure, a young, just-call-me-Tony wasn't awful to look at.
Here it is again.
What is the obsession with Tony Blair?
He was in his 40s, I suppose.
Didn't he hang around lavatures in his youth?
I wouldn't be surprised.
There are accusations.
He was up before the beak about it.
Yeah, he went under the name of something, whatever.
Oh, I did hear about it.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
I have to say it doesn't surprise me.
Lavatory Cowboy.
And, um.
Sure, as Tony wasn't awful to look at and Cameron brushed up well in his seat, one Metro writer, who shall understandably remain nameless, even admitted to thinking Churchill had a certain something.
Maybe it was the whisky nose perhaps?
I'm lost for words.
But it's our new Prime Minister Keir Starmer that finally seems to be turning up the heat in Westminster.
His appeal is no doubt helped by the fact there's long been speculation that Sir Keir was the inspiration between Mark Darcy, the dashing human rights lawyer that Bridget Jones falls in love with.
These are all women writing this, right?
I would hope so, but I'm not entirely certain.
It is worth mentioning Keir Starmer's record as a lawyer, Chief Prosecutor of a particular case, wasn't it?
Jimmy Savile?
That's the one, yep.
Also the grooming gangs?
Yep.
Not a good track record.
It's a bit dodgy isn't it?
Just a little.
Not exactly the kind of cases you want to be taking in a rom-com is it?
Was that a picture of him as the prosecutor?
The chief?
Was that him back then?
I think so.
Oh dear.
He's not got grey hair there.
I can understand it at least a little bit more in his younger days perhaps but now it's getting a little bit desperate isn't it?
But it carries on to say His appeal is no doubt helped by, oh no, while author Helen Fielding has since quashed the rumours, she has said Keir is really sexy and there are similarities between the two.
The internet seems to be in agreement, is Keir Starmer, our hottest Prime Minister in history, as TikTok creator, the boldest bitch, which is actually a man by the way, I don't know why you would go by that pseudonym online, in a now viral video comparing Keir to the likes of Liz Truss, And this is a quote, Gordie B, meaning Gordon Brown, and T Blair, I don't know why they've got hip-hop names all of a sudden, Harold Wilson and Winston Churchill, Sexy Starmer came out on top.
This is the level of journalism now, Labour is in power.
I think it's time to shut down the mainstream media for good now.
It's time to shut down my brain reading this.
He's stunning like a fine wine, reads one comment.
I'm so glad someone has said this, said another.
Right, I'm done with the Starmer stuff now.
My goodness, I feel like I need a cold shower or something.
But the torture is not quite over yet.
I'm going to remind people.
With the Tony Blair years, here is an article from 2014.
Tony Blair packed number 10 with very beautiful girls who were half in love with him, Andrew Marr claims.
And I can't help but think that there's a touch of envy from Andrew Marr there.
But yes.
How do you think the media would have reported this if it wasn't Tony Blair and it was a Conservative Prime Minister and they packed Much like Berlusconi, I imagine, in Italy, right?
They would try and, you know, make it out to be that he's a misogynist and a predator or something.
Yeah, we couldn't get invited to his parties.
Nigel and I used to keep writing, we kept emailing him in the old European Parliament saying, oi, you know, we're free too, next weekend.
Never got an invite, I imagine?
No!
Oh dear.
But I thought it was funny, just saying, because when you are in office that attracts a certain kind of political groupie, and then in the European Parliament it attracts, there's lots and lots of pretty girls there who are interpreters, or they do this, they do that, or then research things for various parties.
And it was good to be seen, I mean, I was an old guy then, I'm nearly dead now, but I was sitting in the plaza in Luxembourg having a sherbet, and this blonde girl bounced up and said, is it alright if I, can I sit with you, because my friends will be coming out in a minute, and I said, you know, by all means, blonde girl, you know, rather nice, sits there, can I sit with you, you bloody well can, I'm not a Liberal Democrat!
She sits down and we have a sherbet, I buy a sherbet, And her friends now come up and wave at the rest of it.
And she wanted that.
And that's how John Prescott got his name when he was an MP.
John Two Shags Prescott.
Came later two jacks because he had two jacks.
He was a neighbour of mine, John Prescott, by the by.
Constantly ghastly man.
And yeah, it's the attraction of office.
So all these girls with their knickers around their ankles, presumably, are attracted by the fact he's in No.
10 Downing Street, not that he looks like a suet pud.
Who knows?
But the female mind, who knows?
It's a mystery to us, isn't it?
I've been married 40 years and she's younger than me.
God knows where that came from, I really don't.
It could have been my coot's gold card.
It does help.
Could be, yeah.
I think it probably was.
On a similar note, actually, has anyone noticed, anyone who's seen Clarkson's Farm noticed the difference between Jeremy Clarkson and his... His wife.
Well, I'm not entirely sure that his partner is quite the difference.
Let's just say that it's amazing what a very large amount of land and a successful career as a TV presenter can can get you, isn't it?
What first attracted you to multi-millionaires?
His personality, obviously.
And then we have this as well, which I thought was interesting.
Wendy Deng reportedly wrote a letter praising Tony Blair's body, but she'd hardly be the first to go weak at the knees.
Wendy Deng is important because she is the wife of Rupert Murdoch.
Of, you know, Fox News fame and Sky News, right?
That's a bit unfortunate for him.
It might explain why the Daily Mail were so keen to support Tony when he had it in the ear from his missus that she'd run off with Tony, perhaps, if he didn't report on him favourably.
I hate to be ungallant, but you have to consider Mrs. Blair's legs only to just imagine how talented Blair must be in the sack to actually manage to do it to that the image is in my head and now horrific Thank you very much.
You had this, even from the Telegraph, Linda Kelsey here, in 2010, Tony Blair, a pretty sexy kind of guy.
And of course, it's worth mentioning as well, the film Love Actually, made by a bunch of Tony Blair's mates.
You know, the Tony Blair figure played by Hugh Grant, interesting.
He doesn't particularly resemble Tony Blair so much, does he?
Looks a bit different really.
I think that they were trying to portray him favourably and also at the end of the film he sticks up to the nasty US President which of course Blair was criticised on.
So it's almost like there was an ulterior motive behind the film even though we have actually run a segment on Lotus Eaters when people were attacking it for being too white.
Oh yes, What Love Actually.
Yeah.
I think it's quite a good film.
Yeah, I hear that a lot actually.
Yeah, I think it's quite good.
No comment.
No comment, no.
But um, I'm gonna get slaughtered for that one, so you all just get quiet.
One final thing, as now judging by appearance is back on the cards, now labouring for some reason.
Starmer has praised the diversity among new MPs in his first speech to Parliament.
Every government does, he says.
The most diverse by race and gender this country has ever seen, and he said it's the largest cohort of LGBTQ plus MPs of any Parliament in the world.
So yes, we have the gayest Parliament There's a completely parallel article that I read this morning and it's also the most godless.
I heard that, yeah.
The most godless, so that fits.
And I would suggest least meritocratic.
Yes, that too.
I would like to implore you to have a look at this.
If we can open up this image.
What is the first thing you notice about it?
I'm sorry it's a bit of a small picture.
White!
Yeah, if we had Humza Yousaf here we would be able to... Wrong spectacles I'm afraid.
But to describe it to you, it looks very different from the Tory benches, that's for sure.
You've got every diverse spectrum of white middle class person.
Angela Rayner right at the front, that's true.
Samson is circling.
Diverse faces, but the point being that the diversity is not actually in Labour.
It is a cheap shot, but it is worth pointing out.
You know, it's like a where's Wally game here that's got out of hand.
You can just about spot David Lammy there and that's second from front row.
You'd have thought they'd have moved him out the front, wouldn't they?
I thought that as well.
Foreign Secretary relegated to the second row.
It's a bit of an insult, really.
But yes, as we're able to comment on appearances now, according to journalists, it's no longer objectifying.
Well, here we are commenting on the Labour bench.
Actually got quite a few English people in it, which is different to the Tories, I suppose.
But I believe we have a bunch of written comments now, anyway.
Now I've lowered the tone enough.
It's been pleasant, mate.
It's been funny.
Sam Weston says, I'm pleased to see that both Godfrey Bloom and Lewis Brackpool have returned for today's episode of the podcast.
Josh, Godfrey and Lewis is a magnificent lineup to start the weekend.
All my very best wishes to you, gentlemen, and thank you for everything that you do.
That's very kind, Sam.
And you, Sam.
Thank you.
Annie Moss says, really happy to experience the week Josh, great job and while it was a lot of work for Josh, I wouldn't mind seeing him in this rotation more often.
Well thank you very much!
Chris King says good work this week Josh and Samson.
Busy week all round.
Many great recurring guests.
Congratulations to Stelios on his wedding.
He's not here at the minute but you might remember Stelios.
Of course I do, I send my best wishes to him.
He's in Greece at the minute and if you're watching Stelios, sorry I can't be there.
Smashing plates.
Action packed, won't it?
Yeah, good time to invest in crockery.
Yeah, yeah.
Rude the Day says, absolutely love these two fellas and they work great together.
I feel a bit called out, but that's very nice of you.
Annie Moss again says, really enjoying Lotus Jesus having Godfrey on today.
He always has pithy things to say and all around great guest.
There we go, this is nice.
This is very complimentary.
That was my mother.
And for the reform conform segment, Warlord Wu Tu Tai, presumably not a real warlord, to echo Godfrey's statement on the professionalization on reform, surely the professional politicians are exactly what people are cynical and mistrustful of, and to which reform has been seen as the antidote.
I entirely agree with that, I couldn't have put it better myself really.
So Omar Awad says, doesn't professional just sound so sterile?
Nobody voting for the outlier party is looking forward to politicians by committee.
Reform must keep its pro-anglo character or crumble into obscurity.
I don't disagree, no.
Kevin Fox says, since Ben is no longer an MP it was fairly hard for him to stay as deputy leader.
However, why did they not make him party chairman instead of some Johnny-come-lately-with-deep-pockets-who-will-most-likely-alienate-many-of-Reform's-followers?
Exactly my sentiment, and that was my motivation for actually covering it, so yes, of course, I agree.
And Northance Knight says, this restructuring of Reform does have the hallmarks of a red flag.
I would certainly say so, yes.
I was already suspicious of them to begin with and now I'm very suspicious of them.
What do we think?
What are our general thoughts on reform more generally?
Well I haven't voted for years and I voted reform this time because I made a very public promise and I've made it for many many years that I would vote for the first genuine artisan that stood for Parliament And he was a bricklayer.
Okay, got a successful business going, but he started life leaving school at 15 as a bricklayer.
That's where I drink at the Wheatsheaf Public House in Howden.
It's full of artisans who turn up at 4.30 finishing work and you'll get more common sense from them than you will from any of my Oxford educated dinner party guests.
They know how many beans make five.
I call it the sergeant's mess.
You know, where you get common sense, commitment, loyalty, and that's what we want.
Don't professionalise it, because what will happen then, the suits will bring in somebody, the suited and booted will then come in and they won't want brickies.
I know how well, that's what professionalism is, and it will be another anodyne ghastly mess, and that's what happened to UKIP.
They took away all the good people, and I could smell the wind a bit on that one, where they were cancelling people who might have tweeted last year.
Well, you know, if it's that kind of party, when Tice was in charge... I mean, is he a sexy one too?
I'm just wondering.
Our very own Bo Dade got dropped as a candidate for writing out reform party manifesto in an article for the Mallard and that was what got him dropped in the end, as well as some joking comments about Scotland.
That is going to scupper Reform, because that's what they call, they'll have a professional chairman, a professional this, a professional that, and everybody, ah, just like everybody else.
It's another bungled opportunity, like UKIP.
UKIP got four million, got just as many votes as reform in 2014, if you check your numbers, with again, no seats, because that's, but that's another rabbit hole of how the system works.
But this professionalization things, you get, you lose your grassroots.
I mean, talking of Foreign Secretary, excuse me, just dragging on a little bit this, what my father used to say, and my father knew how many beans made five, I can tell you.
He said the best Foreign Secretary we ever had was Ernie Bevin.
He was bloody good, Ernie Bevin.
Working class guy and he stood up to the Soviets.
He didn't take any nonsense.
He didn't take any nonsense from anybody.
You need some working class people in Parliament because they're real people and totally unrepresented.
Your working man now, your brickie, your cabbie, your joiner, your sparkie, is totally and utterly unrepresented in Parliament and has been for decades now.
And that's the problem.
And professionalisation is going to kick them out.
Absolutely.
Shall we move to some comments on your second, Lewis?
Yep.
So, someone online says, can the government stop being Mr Burns and trying to put out the sun for five minutes?
That's from the Simpsons.
Yeah, I know.
I'm a Simpsons fan.
Oh man.
Omar says, the problem with playing God is it almost always comes with unintended consequences.
The only reason I say almost is because I'm not sure which ones are unintended.
That's a good comment actually, yeah.
Roman Observer says, Geoengineering stages are something like, number one, it's not happening, it's a conspiracy theory.
Number two, it's happening, but why do you care?
Number three, it's happening whether you want it or not.
And number four, it's happening and it's a good thing.
Very true.
That is the formula for most political changes in this day and age.
I'm afraid so.
It all emanated from Europe, of course.
It was the EU that did that because, you know, people Nobody could spot it.
It came in.
It was.
There's no.
Debate in Parliament about it.
2,000 regulations a year, which became law.
A year?
Yeah, in a year.
And nobody... Suddenly, why have we got, instead of sort of one-sixth of a jill, why have we got, you know, two mils, and why have we got this, and why have we got all those little 30-mile-an-hour signs, or 40-mile-an-hour... Suddenly, how many millions did that cost to change every single signpost so that it was the same size?
Yeah.
Most people haven't a clue.
I knew farmers and landowners who thought DEFRA made up the rules.
DEFRA is just an enforcement agency for the European Union and they haven't rescinded a damn thing.
What happened to Brexit?
Didn't happen.
Yeah, exactly.
RuTheDay says, wonder if we're going to see that British.gov article where they say, quote, we have the technology to sunshield, we must, but we would never, not without consulting the public, we promise.
On the same note, I've noticed that summers in Ireland have gone peculiar.
Over the last few years it's actually been warmer at night.
Interesting observation.
That's where people are beginning to think something's not right somewhere.
And that's sort of the key.
Do you know they were saying it was the hottest June and it rained the whole of June?
Yeah.
Part of the reason for that is that it was really hot at night time and that changed the averages.
So it was much hotter than average on of an evening at least by the measurements if they're to be believed and so that just wasn't communicated and everyone was like well it was raining the whole time what are you on about but yeah that's the way averages work i suppose yeah uh kevin fox says bill gates is so into this geoengineering two things number one how do they expect all these solar farms to work if they keep making clouds number two has he not watched highlander 2 Connor McCloud did geoengineering and it didn't go well for the planet or him.
I've not seen Highlander 2.
So I'm going to read some from the final segment because we've only got two minutes left.
Sorry.
That's okay.
Face Tape says, it's almost like women get turned on by powerful and wealthy men.
It's almost like when you're rich and famous women will just let you... I'm not reading that.
It's a famous quote by Donald Trump.
Grab them by the something.
But I'm not having that clipped and put out on the internet.
It's bad enough for Trump.
Marik Bosvik, I think.
There we go.
I tried.
It's simply the hypergamy.
Women love a man with status more than anything.
That's a good comment.
The middle one by Eloise.
Eloise says Keir Starmer shrivels up my ovaries.
no thank you and then I suppose to end us off Hector X says thank you so much for having Lewis Absolutely chuffed.
And what a lovely, lovely way to end the show.
So I've had a lot of fun.
I've enjoyed learning about all of the geoengineering and I haven't enjoyed torturing you both with those articles about Keir Starmer.
Our broadcasting's not over quite yet because we'll be going to lads hour and we'll be having a bit of fun, a couple of beers to end the week off and make sure to tune in in half an hour.
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