The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1229

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Aug. 13, 2025 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1229

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	Who are the men that pick for scraps amongst the ruins at the end of history?
	You should know, because you encounter them every day.
	Between the towering buildings of a fallen empire, we find the Felahin, the historyless men, who know nothing of the turning of the cosmic wheel and find themselves outside of civilization itself.
	Cut loose from the great chain of being, they represent the loan into which our dying culture will return.
	That is, unless we choose to take up the burden once again.
	This Felahin condition is the subject we explore in issue four of Islander magazine.
	On sale while stocks last and available worldwide at shop.loadseaters.com.
	Hello, and welcome to the podcast of the Load Seaters, episode 1229 for Wednesday, the 13th of August, 2025.
	I'm your host, Luca, joined today by Josh and Stelios.
	Hello.
	Yes, he's back.
	He wasn't the mystery guest on this occasion, though, was he?
	No, he wasn't.
	He was.
	Well, there's another mystery.
	Anyway, today we're going to be discussing the UK just getting taxed into oblivion for the foreseeable future.
	We're then going to talk about the EU destroying journalistic freedom and not the good kind, unfortunately, and how to spot high social IQ.
	I've been working hard to come up with my own flawless test.
	So you are an expert in this field.
	Oh, I. Oh, I. All right, then.
	Over to you, Stelios.
	Right.
	So, unfortunately, it looks like the UK will be taxed into oblivion.
	And Rachel Reeves is after all our money.
	So, before she completely destroys your wallet, you may want to have an option.
	You may think, where should I invest my money and put it somewhere where their value is going to increase as opposed to evaporate?
	I have an idea for you, Eula Ford.
	And they're talking here about the Felahin something.
	It's just a concept about some broken people, something.
	Yeah, suspects Benglarian historyless people, people at the end of history.
	Yeah, so it's $14.99.
	Click on our uk.shop.lotuseaters.com.
	Check it out.
	Definitely.
	It's the fourth issue of The Islander.
	This is a magazine that has done very well.
	Definitely get a copy.
	And the good news as well is that when the economy eventually all collapses, it's edible as well.
	So you can eat it.
	Exactly.
	And if we all turn into Felahin, you might as well know what's going to happen.
	So let's understand what's coming.
	Lotus Eaters is not liable for any paper cuts you receive following Luca's advice.
	No.
	Right.
	So I hate taxes.
	And I think Brother Josh hates taxes.
	I think Brother Luca isn't particularly keen on them either.
	Just don't like them.
	Right.
	So it looks like Labour is going for an economic policy that is disastrous.
	And this is the combination of open borders and massive increase in welfarism.
	And this is, of course, to fill that 50 billion black hole that we've found out now exists within the budget.
	And of course, when they came in, they were complaining about the Conservatives having a 22 billion black hole.
	And I, for one, I'm hoping for not a metaphorical black hole to appear in Whitehall, but a real one.
	We can be rid of all of this.
	But alas, I'm afraid the black hole is a very small club of people.
	You have anticipated my point about black holes, Josh.
	Right, so it seems that this is the policy that Labour is opting for.
	They have their people.
	They have who is this man with Stevenson with a weird accent?
	And everyone is falling for him because Gary Stevenson.
	Yeah, Gary Stevenson.
	Gary Economics.
	Tax the rich.
	Where have we heard this before?
	This is such a new concept.
	Who came up with it?
	Well, the rich are more able to Move than ever.
	And also, that's already what's happening.
	And in fact, haven't we lost something like over a thousand multi-millionaires over the past few years?
	I remember seeing something like that.
	I'm just remembering it very vaguely in my mind.
	Brother Josh, you're anticipating my segment again.
	You don't have to treat everything as a black hole.
	I'll let you get on with it.
	Right.
	So I think the combination of welfarism and open borders is disastrous because you have a population that is rising and more and more people require benefits.
	That means that people, everyday people who are working, are taxed into oblivion and the taxes are rising.
	And if you see the main leftist narrative when it comes to poverty and crime and all adverse effects that we are encountering on a daily basis, it's always somehow leading into you need to be more taxed.
	It's always leading into.
	It's always the answer.
	Exactly.
	And that is because the left has gone for the globally rich versus globally poor distinction, according to which almost everyone in the West, definitely the working class of England, sort of counts like globally rich.
	It's basically a way of punishing people who are economically productive in favor of people who are essentially financial net negatives.
	Right.
	So in these conditions, business confidence is decreasing.
	So we have an article here from the Telegraph by Tim Wallace, its deputy economics editor.
	Says, business confidence worse than during COVID.
	Reeves has hit firms with cost increases while failing to improve the economy, say bosses.
	Right.
	I mean, it's not particularly surprising to us.
	Maybe it could be surprising if you're a leftist, but it's not surprising.
	But there's also the fact that at this time, the global economy is not doing particularly well.
	And so it's all the more important that you get things right at home to be able to weather the storm.
	And instead, what we've got is a perfect storm of incompetence.
	Because not only did the pandemic disrupt trade, and I know things are sort of getting back to normal, but economic growth hasn't necessarily returned to the same sorts of levels.
	In many ways, I think we're getting degrowth, aren't we?
	And so it's the worst times you could be possibly doing it for the country.
	Right.
	So we have here an article that talks about key vents.
	This is by the same author.
	And we are essentially going to show you stuff and data from this article and talk about them a bit because it's very dense in information.
	I'm not going to show you many links.
	We're just going to talk about this.
	And I'm going to say, so he says staff numbers declined by 164,000 in July compared to the same month last year, according to the Office for National Statistics, taking the total to 3.3 million.
	So last July, it was 164,000 more jobs.
	And this has got to be a consequence of making the cost of having an employee more per head for businesses by increasing the business rates of tax previously.
	And we're only just seeing the knock-on effects of that, and now it's going to be made even worse, probably.
	Yes, and they're saying basically that this has turned businesses to hire contractors, to prefer contractors as opposed to full-time employees.
	Hey, that's what I'm doing now.
	Right.
	So it says it comes as company grapple with rising staff costs caused by the Chancellor's decision to raise the national minimum wage and employer national insurance contributions in April.
	So it seems to me that we have the same, we have the same age-old issue here.
	We have leftists who don't know economics 101 or they know it, but they completely choose to pay attention to it because in their minds, it's not the morally correct thing to do.
	Yes.
	If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a Chancellor who looks like she should have been a dinner lady hiking your taxes up forever.
	It says there, however, average wage Growth slowed down from 5% to 4%, 6%.
	And we will see that wage growth is higher in the public sector, not in the private sector, which means the UK is opting for statism, and statism means that the state is a black hole, sucking all economic creativity, stifling all economic freedom and making things worse.
	Before this, I think as a percentage of our country's GDP, about 46% of it went through the state.
	And this was prior to all of this.
	So we're probably 50% now, if not more.
	And that's more or less a measure of how far are you to full communism?
	Well, we're halfway there.
	We're not living on a prayer, though.
	And let's be very honest.
	It's not just labor who was bad in economics.
	No, no, no.
	It says there, the number of job vacancies fell for the 37th month in a row to 718,000 between May and July, down by 44,000 on the previous three months.
	So they're just declining in number for a long time now.
	It's more than three years.
	That's economic mismanagement.
	It's been declining at a pretty steady rate, despite technical innovation that's helped somewhat since the time of Thatcher when she was closing all of the industry and mines and the likes.
	And also we have the rate of unemployment holding firm at 4.7% between April and June.
	So that's not exactly a good job.
	Right, so we have here jobs in retail and hospitality hit hard.
	Office of National Statistic Direction of Economic Statistics, Liz McCairn, said, taken together, these latest figures point to a continued cooling of the labor market.
	The number of employees on payroll has now fallen in 10 of the last 12 months, with these falls concentrated in hospitality and retail.
	Which are disproportionately low-income jobs as well.
	You know, what I would refer to as entry-level positions.
	Exactly.
	And now you can't even enter them because they're all getting take up by new arrivals.
	Yeah, so while the job market's contracting, the population's exploding.
	That's, I'm sure, a recipe for a healthy economy.
	Which means that the wholesaling, retailing, hotels, and restaurants sector showed the strongest regular annual growth rate in the wake of Rachel Reeves' decision to raise the national minimum wage in Europe.
	I'm not surprised about the hotels, to be honest.
	I think in a thousand years' time, the only thing that's going to be left are some towering golden hotels that have just taken in every migrant and built up an empire.
	Some of the richest people in the country now are the hotel owners that have been running this migrant scam.
	It's unbelievable.
	Well, if the population is increasing, you need more food for them to eat.
	Right?
	No wonder.
	Channel migrants.
	No wonder the wholesaling, retailing, and hotels and restaurants sector is going to boost.
	Also, if you have a government that has open borders and also opts for welfarism and says that lots of people who come here illegally need to be placed in hotels and they're paying hotels also with taxpayer money, obviously hotels are going to show regular annual growth.
	But of course that's going to be disproportionately weighted towards the ones that have contracts with the state because there are many hotels and hotel chains that aren't going to do that.
	And because of the state of the economy, I imagine internal tourism is down.
	And so actually it's going to be very much weighted to the hotels that have sold our country down the river and betrayed us.
	And that's kind of unfortunate.
	Right.
	Also, we see here that the public sector seems to show a high growth of salary.
	It says public sector pay grew by 5.7%, while private sector pay slipped from 4.9% to 4.8%, which I think is worrying.
	It shows a steady economic centralization tendency, which I consider to be particularly detrimental.
	I think it's also bad that they're getting such a significant pay cut at the expense of the private sector that has to prop it up.
	And, you know, I would like everyone to earn good money, so it's not necessarily jealousy.
	I mean, that's public sector also includes things like firefighters and ambulance staff.
	So, you know, obviously I'm going to be grateful towards them, but also it includes civil servants, to which I go, ugh.
	And policemen.
	But there is some policemen.
	There's also the other issue, Josh, and I'm sure you will agree with this: is that when it comes to the public sector, lots of prices aren't determined spontaneously as they would be in a relatively free market.
	Very likely they reflect the choice of bureaucrats to try and gather political support.
	Well, there's no profits or losses to determine values, therefore it's harder to allocate resources.
	That's the whole reason that the Soviet Union collapsed.
	You know, it's just in a much smaller scale, well, not so much smaller, but smaller scale.
	Right.
	Only half a Soviet Union.
	Yes.
	But also here, we're talking about the per capita issue of how pay is distributed according to the population.
	It says total pay, which measures average wages, including bonuses, fell from 5% to 4.6% during the period.
	So less money per person.
	Right, let's move onwards.
	Ministers target people not seeking work.
	This here is just complete gaslighting.
	Honestly, this is very frustrating.
	The government needs to bring more people out of economic inactivity and into work.
	A labor education minister has said.
	Now, pause for a minute.
	And let's, for instance, talk about welfarism.
	One of the negative aspects of welfarism is that you are creating a culture of dependency.
	The more you opt for this, the greater you go for social benefit, the more you go for increased social benefits, the more some people are going to say, well, what's the purpose in working?
	I'm just going to sit and I'm going to receive benefits.
	Because if I start working, I'm going to lose the benefits.
	In psychology, it's referred to as learned helplessness.
	In that what you actually do by making someone dependent on you is you remove their ability to act in a way in which they can be self-sufficient.
	And this is why some African countries have actually said, no, we don't want foreign aid because we need to build up our own industries.
	Some of the more savvy ones, in fact, are like, actually, no, our dependence on foreign aid is actually hobbling us, and we need to be self-sufficient because in the long run, we'll be much better off.
	And I think that's true of people as well.
	I think that to a certain extent, you have to be somewhat cruel to be kind and allow people to suffer the consequences of their own actions.
	Obviously, not to a ridiculous degree, but just enough that it motivates them to better themselves.
	Exactly.
	But this rhetoric that the labor education minister is using isn't the traditional rhetoric of proponents of a massive welfare state.
	In fact, it's quite the opposite.
	But they are opting for this in combination with open borders.
	And there are, what is it, 20% of welfare recipients of foreign nationals?
	Indeed.
	Not surprised.
	Jobs slow down, maybe abetting.
	Payrolls dropped to the lowest level in nearly two years, but the pace of decline was the lowest since January.
	Let's move forward.
	That's about the right firms switch to contractors after Reeves' tax raid.
	Business owners are increasingly hiring contractors and virtual staff as they grapple with Rachel Reeves' tax raid.
	And we have here a chief executive at Mo Living saying, Since April's employers' national insurance hike, I've resisted taking on full-time staff.
	My property management business now runs entirely with 12 contractors and virtual assistants, both UK-based and overseas.
	The NI increase raised employment costs enough to tip the balance.
	Full-time hires mean fixed overheads, while contractors offer flexibility, scalability, and access to specialist skills without the commitment of salaries, holiday pay, or sick leave.
	This is precisely what the criticism of leftist economics is about.
	Stop thinking that your plans can backfire.
	They try to constantly talk about the precariousness of the working class, and in their economic illiteracy, they're making people's lives and especially the lives of members of the working class more precarious.
	Because, of course, if you are a contractor, you don't have the guarantee of income you have if you're a full-time employee.
	And so it's riskier.
	You know, I'm a contractor, however, I don't have any dependents that I have to look after.
	And were I in that position, I would perhaps want something a bit more secure because you want to be able to feed your own children, right?
	And moving to a contractor economy isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world, but it doesn't suit everyone.
	And particularly if you're in that camp of having a family and wanting the security of regular income, you can't take the hit or the risks like I can, perhaps.
	Then it's going to be awful for you.
	And also, you're going to need some of those benefits, things like national insurance and pension payments, all of that sort of stuff that you don't get when you're a contractor.
	You're absolutely right.
	And I will say this the way I saw it in universities.
	Universities have stopped hiring, more or less, they have stopped hiring regular stuff, full-time stuff, and they are opting for contractors.
	And there comes a time where they're saying, right, we either have to make you a full-time member or we are going to stop our collaboration with you.
	And then you have to find another place.
	And yes, this doesn't particularly help people who want to settle down and have a family because you need that kind of mobility.
	Right, the minister defends Reeves' tax rate on companies.
	Well, they're protecting and defending their own.
	Let's move a bit upwards.
	Reeves' tax rate will mean no more rate cuts this year, warns economists.
	I will say one thing, which is good.
	The interest rates fell from $499 to, I think, $425 and $4.
	I was one of the unlucky ones because I got a mortgage with $499 a few weeks before it fell into $425.
	But that's a good thing.
	But they're saying that they are now a bit skeptical.
	So they will be very skeptical with respect to considering lowering the interest rates yet again.
	Right, so you get an idea.
	There are all sorts of data we can talk about here.
	Labour's economics is an absolute disaster.
	Borrowing costs rise after jobs blow.
	It says here the yield on 10-year UK guilds, a benchmark for the cost of servicing the national debt, climbed four basic points to 4.61%, well ahead of rises in Europe and the US.
	It came as traders reduced bets on the Bank of England, cutting interest rates again this year following official data that indicated wage growth remains too high for inflation.
	Yields on bond markets tend to rise when there are expectations that interest rates will remain high.
	So it seems like there isn't particular confidence in the UK economy by investors.
	Nor should there be.
	Why would anything get better?
	It's only going to get worse.
	Right, we have this article here from this is Money, which is talking about rumors about an inheritance tax.
	That's just what people need.
	Stealing the pennies off of dead people's eyes.
	That's what they want to hear.
	We have a Labour minister today opened the door to a controversial inheritance tax rate as Chancellor Rachel Reeves looks to plug a 50 billion spending hole at her next budget.
	Now, I checked and they said something like there are some research policy institutes who are talking about a 50 billion pound hole for the next five years that Rachel Reeves needs to fill.
	So that means that she will have to most probably because that's how leftists think.
	They're going to say, we're going to increase taxation as opposed to cut spending.
	Yeah, there'll be no reforms for the NHS.
	There'll be no cutting back on the gibbs to migrants.
	It'll just be pinching from native Brits until there's nothing left to take.
	Right.
	And I think that they are definitely not going to go for cutting spending.
	They also say about the NHS that one of the reasons why they want to increase their revenue is because they want to increase funding to the NHS.
	Yep, there it is.
	Yeah, the NHS.
	Back to black holes again.
	It's one of those institutions where you have several people saying, no, no, it's completely underfunded.
	Other people saying that it's completely overfunded.
	I'll say anecdotally, I have a very good friend who has worked for the NHS, and they say that they are spending incredibly and they are not particularly economic.
	And they're buying kits of medical equipment and they are buying them in packs of 15 or 20.
	And they may open up one and they're expensive.
	And they may open one kit, take a knife out of it, or a scalpel or a scissor or something, and then throw all the pack just.
	I can put it into perspective if you want.
	So we spend more than the Japanese do per head on healthcare.
	And the Japanese obviously have almost double our population.
	And yet you can walk into a doctor's surgery and get a same-day appointment.
	And everything works over there and it doesn't work here.
	It sort of suggests that it's not a matter of money because, you know, unless the Japanese are miracle workers, there's a comparable situation there.
	It just suggests that everything's being mismanaged and there's lots of waste, which hearing from pretty much anyone who works in it is definitely the case.
	And what's more, there's no incentive by the NHS or by those who, you know, take management of it to reduce that waste because it's an institution that is just invulnerable to criticism.
	Right.
	And as this holy thing that can't really be criticized.
	I would abolish it in a heartbeat.
	Right.
	So we have lots of billionaires and millionaires leaving.
	We have here a Norwegian marine tycoon flees to United Arab Emirates, blaming Reeves' tax raid.
	And he is not the only one.
	There are many who are leaving because they are considering the UK economy to be less investment worthy than they did before.
	and definitely before Rachel Rehm's tax rate.
	Please.
	I was just going to say ever so quickly that I'm amazed people haven't seen the writing on the wall that this entire economic model just doesn't work.
	Like, it's so obvious.
	The economic model of the entirety of the Western world doesn't work.
	And it's just putting our governments into debt and we need to change it.
	Is that obvious?
	It might work somewhat for the United States, but that's because they've got the dollar, which is used as a reserve currency for a decent portion of the countries in the world.
	And therefore, they can run a debt deficit.
	They can keep printing money and get away with it because the costs are spread out to not just the United States, but other countries as well.
	We can't do that.
	So it makes our economy contract like this.
	This reminds me of something Milton Friedman said, I think, about the Soviet Union.
	He says when the Soviet Union collapsed, people said that it collapsed because of a very stagnant economy and economic centralization.
	And the lesson they took from it was, therefore, we need more economic centralization.
	You couldn't get more centralized than that.
	There's no denying it.
	They had an office full of bureaucrats running stuff, basically.
	Right.
	So it looks like Rachel Reeves will opt for increasing taxes and try to tax us into oblivion.
	All right.
	May I have the venerable text?
	Let me.
	Should I read?
	Oh, yeah, sure.
	Yeah, okay.
	The engaged few.
	In Bose Britain, Josh will be the colour commentator at the Fed posting.
	And the treason hangs.
	His dulcet tones explaining how the knot has to be positioned on the neck, just so in order.
	Oh, please, nooses are easy to tie.
	It's one of the like.
	I went to scouts.
	It's one of the first knots you learn how to do.
	Not because you're using them in scouts, but just that.
	Back when you get a proper accusation.
	Yeah.
	Based Ape has a very mean comment.
	He says, I enjoy an edgy joke as much as the next person, but I think Labour going on and on about the enormous black hole the Conservatives left in Westminster is quite a brutal way to.
	Come on.
	Refer to Kemi.
	I finished it for you, Stellio.
	Come on, Based Ape.
	Right.
	The habsification, why people still keep voting labor is beyond me.
	No lessons are ever learned.
	I think I have an answer for you because it reminds me of Greece.
	They may be doing it because they think that they personally will profit from that situation.
	Well, hello, Anon.
	You know, and I know that the EU hates you and would rather that you don't have the opinions that you have about certain things, certain projects, and the trajectory that Europe seems to be going on these days.
	And they have solutions for that.
	And we'll talk about them in a moment.
	But before we do, let's talk a bit more about that wonderful knowledge that you hold and how you can enhance it with the fourth issue of Islander magazine.
	This one, the theme is Felahin.
	It's about how really civilizations can crash out after their winter period and lose memory, right?
	It's about losing memory of what made you great, what led to you thriving in the first place and being a successful society.
	So there's loads of really erudite thinkers writing essays for this magazine.
	You've got Morgoth, you've got Will Tanner, you've got Ed Dutton.
	You've got Luca Johnson.
	Yeah, I wrote one about the Lord of the Rings.
	I'm like, yeah, I can just map Spengler onto the Lord of the Rings.
	And it was quite a challenge, but kind of got there.
	Anyway, let's start talking about the EU.
	Sorry, if you want to buy Islander, it's $14.99 on the website and shipping.
	Yeah, but limited time while stocks last, so go and buy it now.
	All right, then.
	So, you have here this wonderful post from the EU that they put out.
	Actual Schizo posting, are they?
	You see, the more you repeat it, I assume the more true it becomes.
	It reminds me of Jack Torrance, the shy thing.
	All work and no play makes Jack a Darboy.
	Yes.
	So as they say, the European Commission, independent free media stands at the core of our democracy.
	I am so sick of the words our democracy.
	Yeah, American politics has sort of ruined that for us, hasn't it?
	Well, and EU politics as well.
	Oh, blimey.
	Just Western politics.
	Anyway, today the European Media Freedom Act starts applying, designed to strengthen media freedom, independence and pluralism within the EU.
	And you can see here that they also had a...
	So I did.
	And you can see here, they go on to say that free media is a key pillar of every democracy, and they are essential for a healthy market economy.
	On a global scale, the European Union remains a stronghold for free media, setting a standard as a democratic continent.
	You're pulling my leg.
	That's what they say.
	When did the EU have a comedy division, eh?
	Honestly.
	Yet, there are increasingly worrying trends.
	Building on past efforts, the Commission has taken a number of measures to protect media freedom and pluralism in the EU, in addition to enhancing free movement of services.
	So, as always, the technocracy, the bureaucracy has our best interests at heart.
	And we'll start to explore some of the ways that they're going to do that.
	And as always, they don't have a mirror.
	No, no, they never come to the conclusion of why don't we just get out the way.
	Or are we the baddies?
	Are we the baddies?
	Yeah, exactly that.
	So it goes on to say that the legislation is aimed at defending democratic values by fostering, this is great, the sustainability and visibility of trusted, editorially responsible media and news content.
	You can't trust any media, full stop.
	You should never take anything at face value.
	You know, and I'm saying that about what I say as well.
	Please don't just take it at face value.
	You know, look it up, check it, fact check it if you wish.
	That's good practice, generally speaking.
	Yes, definitely fact-check everything that Josh is about to say in his upcoming segment.
	Well, that is facts.
	But haven't they just, you know, from the very beginning there?
	No, it's about protecting the trusted sources, right?
	It's about all the legacy media throughout the continent, you know, in France and Germany and all the rest of them, right?
	And it's obviously going to be used as a weapon to bullgeon and force into submission all of the new independent, you know, privately owned media companies that are popping up across Europe now and the independent journalists as well, who quite frankly do all the heavy lifting these days.
	Enough patting yourself on the back.
	No, I wasn't thinking about that at all.
	I was thinking about the...
	Yes, without us, everything would crumble.
	I was more thinking about just, you know, the people going out and filming the migrant hotel protests and stuff like that.
	The stuff that the media doesn't want you to know, you know, those sorts of things.
	Look at the journalism they took from us.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Or are trying to take away from us.
	Indeed.
	So it didn't, of course, take long before we got to the nub of what all of this was about, which is a perfectly legitimate word.
	You can say nub steleos.
	I think it's the accent.
	It makes it sound like you're saying something else.
	Well, I'm sorry.
	I'll try to do better.
	Oh, well, thank you.
	Right.
	So Article 3.
	Member states shall ensure that journalistic sources and confidential communications are effectively protected.
	Member states shall not take any of the following measures.
	Okay, good start.
	Good start here.
	Let's go to B. Detain, sanction, intercept, or inspect media service providers or their editorial staff or subject them or their corporate or private premises to surveillance or search and seizure for the purposes of obtaining information relating to or capable of body hell, they could do with a few full stops in this, couldn't they?
	Of identifying journalistic sources or confidential communications or detain, sanction, intercept or inspect any persons who you get the idea.
	That is the longest sentence I've ever heard.
	Yeah, I've also, it would have been a lot better if it was like detain, sanction, intercept migrants.
	No, it's journalists.
	Okay.
	Yeah, and you can do that.
	But as it says, member states shall not take any of those following measures, right up until we go to point four, where all of a sudden we can see that, well, by way of derogation from paragraph three,
	member states may take a measure referred to therein, provided that it is provided by union or national law, is in compliance with articles 52.1 of the charter, and here's C, is justified on a case-by-case basis by an overriding reason of public interest and is proportionate.
	And this is the line that has been circulating, isn't it?
	Because, of course, justified on a case-by-case basis and public Interest, that's like doubly subjective.
	It's just like, yes, we very much want to have our cake and eat it too here.
	We want to appear like we're this nice and noble institution that protects journalistic integrity.
	But actually, what we've done is given governments basically the power to silence whoever they like because anything can be justified by public interest.
	I mean, whether it's legitimately in the public's interest or not is a different thing, but that is so subjective as to just invite tyranny.
	Absolutely.
	And if there's one thing that we've seen ever since that glorious revolution of 2016 and Brexit was the fact that, of course, the EU didn't take that defeat and use it to be introspective about the way they were governing things.
	Such dissatisfaction had emerged in Britain about the European model and just who has sovereignty, right?
	Where does power lie?
	Who has the power to decide their own destiny?
	And all these sorts of things.
	No, every step they've taken ever since 2016 has been further down the rabbit hole of every grievance that Eurosceptics had about the EU in the first place.
	So the EU isn't functioning particularly as a democratic institution.
	No, these are just words.
	These are just words.
	And this is also just word because frequently we can look at documents and they do make sense in the abstract.
	The question is, how are they applied?
	I think that the main problem with the leadership of the EU right now is that they think that there is one and only one problem, which is basically Russia.
	And populism.
	And populism, yeah, but they are linking it with Russia.
	They're trying to argue that they're all Russian-funded, aren't they?
	Which is just as furious as the Donald Trump investigate stuff.
	Or let's say Putin's Russia.
	Let me put it this way.
	Now, let me be very clear.
	I think that, yeah, to a very large extent, there is an attempt to influence Europe negatively from Putin's Russia.
	I think there's no doubt to this.
	But the problem is that the same issues that are problems on that front are also problems on other fronts.
	Of course.
	They don't understand this.
	So, for instance, I'll give you two very quick examples.
	The only border in Europe, the only European border in Europe where the EU is, within quotation marks, far right about, is the border between Poland and Belarus.
	If you focus on the language that they're using about that border, they're saying everything everyone else says from the right about borders in general.
	They're saying Putin is using migration and also Lukashenko, both of them are using migration as a method of hybrid warfare.
	That's actually true, though, isn't it?
	Yes, it is true.
	The point is, why do they artificially, why do they selectively say, no, this is the only border for which this is going to apply, and all the other borders are going to be open.
	So that's one thing.
	And the other bit is, I'm asking people, for instance, who are in Greece, who are really close to me, and they're smart.
	I'm asking, right, what is your issue with Putin's Russia?
	And they're going to give me a list, say X, Y, and Z. Right, I'm asking, okay, can't you understand that the same thing comes from other areas as well?
	That's not the only problem that the EU is facing.
	And that's when most of them are beginning to think that functions as a sort of the beginning of a rabbit hole.
	Indeed, the onion of deception.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So, as I say, the problem that we have here, of course, is the fact that it's so transparent that this is just a new power, of course.
	It's voted to itself.
	And, of course, because it's EU, it has to have an entire another body of quangos set up in order to operate it who are all elected officials, of course, from across the member states.
	There's a very good phrase that you can't legislate freedom.
	You know, in many ways, freedom is the absence of legislation.
	And so you look at this and you think, hang on a minute, how can you make the press free with a law?
	How does that exactly work?
	Well, you're protecting them from the government at best, perhaps.
	But then also it gives domestic governments power as long as it's not inconsistent with EU law, which, as we've seen here, is pretty subjective.
	Well, as we say, they're making their press free.
	Their trusted press is going to be free.
	And everyone else will simply have to tread on eggshells.
	So then you get, this is, from what I understand, actually an older video now, but it just goes, it's a perfect case study for the sort of thing that happened.
	So in Finland, Ursula von der Leyen gave a speech and she praised Finland for being a democratic country where people are free to express themselves and saying that in Moscow a protester would be arrested within minutes.
	Just within the future.
	It's within hours.
	No, it's actually.
	And first of all, to those who scream and yell here so loud, they can be happy that they are no free country like Finland.
	Where the free speech is a right, where they have not got any restrictions.
	they would be in Moscow, they would be in jail in two minutes.
	Thanks God we have a democracy.
	Congratulations, champion!
	Congratulations, champion!
	Wheezing
	I'm so sorry about that, Josh.
	My poor ears.
	Hopefully it wasn't as bad for you.
	German aggression was coming through.
	It wasn't as bad for you at home, but my poor ears, they're still ringing.
	Well, you get the point.
	And that, so that chap in the audience, he was fined 110 euros.
	That sounds like freedom to me.
	Yeah.
	Just for shout heckling.
	Yeah, it's just freedom to be fined.
	Saying that he disagreed.
	And yeah, it was for harming a public official.
	So criticism.
	He looked so harmed.
	Criticism.
	He carried on talking while it was all going on.
	Criticism is the worst form of harm that an EU official can take, frankly.
	Have a migraine now.
	I'm so sorry.
	I'm very, very sorry.
	So then you have, I'll be cautious before I play this about the volume now that I've spooked you both terribly.
	But it's also, you have here, of course, within the EU, you know, as far back as, you know, back when we used to participate in, you remember that time when we used to have European elections in Britain?
	I do, yeah.
	That far-off past now.
	I even voted in one.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I voted in one too.
	And invariably, what would happen is we get a load of UKIP MPs just sort of shouting and jeering from in that venerable chamber right there in the European Parliament.
	But what does any of it really matter?
	Right?
	Does any of it really matter?
	Yes, you can elect them, but they're not.
	Because the decisions have already been made.
	The Commission, who are, you know, a tight cabal of coterie, have already decided what is going to happen and what the democratic will of the people is.
	And here I was thinking you're making an existentialist point.
	But no, you're very much right.
	Well, you can make the existentialist point if you wish.
	I don't want to depress people anymore.
	That's all right.
	How considerate.
	And it's exactly the same now.
	Of course, you still get the odd-based Polish voice in the EU saying exactly what they're doing.
	And the chap is absolutely right.
	Dear colleagues, the discussion here is not about the so-called Media Freedom Act, a label given by the European Commission to this regulation, but the Media Surveillance, Control and Censorship Act, which accurately describes the nature of this regulation.
	It is unacceptable that the European Commission claims to promote the media freedom while in fact this regulation opens the doors for journalists, their employers and even their families to be subjected to surveillance and spying by the security agencies.
	As the shadow rapporteur in LIBE for the ECR group, I table amendments aim to eliminate the provisions that permit such spying and surveillance or journalists, but they were rejected by EPP, SD and Renew.
	Joseph Stalin said, and I quote, the press is our party's chest and most powerful weapon.
	Clearly, under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission does not desire a free press, but rather a propaganda machine, which is tightly controlled and subjected to surveillance, like it was in the Soviet Union.
	The dangerous precedent established by the so-called Media Freedom Act Regulation will have unerceivable and devastating consequences for democracy and freedom of the speech throughout the European Union, which is why I asked the parliament to heavily reject it.
	I hope Ursula von der Leyen doesn't change her name to political potential.
	It's one of the theories about Paul Pot, about the name.
	All right.
	Yeah, because they were talking about Stalin and yeah.
	There's just a few points to make on this, of course.
	One is that we have only ever seen high-handed authoritarian tactics come from the EU.
	But the other thing as well is that with the wave of populist growth in the political parties across Europe, now, of course, you know, we all have our contentions with these populist parties and how much they're just simply seizing on the political capital of the moment and whether or not it's actually all charged by principle.
	And invariably, it just so happens that you just have to vote them in like you do in Italy, wait for them to screw you over and find out the hard way.
	But in other cases, it's more about the fact that, well, all of this apparatus is being set up by the European Commission and by all of these Europhiles in order to keep the populist threat at bay so they can clamp down on populist media so that they can, as we say, clamp down on the independent journalists so that they can control the narrative.
	It's just about controlling the narrative and trying to obviously shape your perception of what's going on in Europe, which I needn't tell you isn't great.
	But also in making this, if these populist parties do get into power, or dare I suggest, parties even more radical than that, then they are creating this entire apparatus that those parties will then be able to inherit and use against the people who created it in the first place.
	I feel like the beauty of this is we've left the EU, but they're still speaking English, even though we're gone.
	I did think about that.
	Cultural victory, my friend.
	The eternal Anglo strikes again.
	All right, I'll head over to these comments.
	Engage for you says, yeah, it's our democracy in the same way that there's a Democratic People's Republic of Korea, indeed.
	Habsification says it just tells you they've lost all control of the narrative.
	They yearn for the days of publicly funded state broadcasters and news media and state-approved private media.
	Yeah, they absolutely do.
	But that's the thing as well.
	If they actually had any sense of containment, they would just address some of the most contentious issues and obviously new to the populist energy.
	Yeah, and around Europe.
	But they can't even do that.
	They can't pivot.
	This also applies to Labour.
	Maybe even more so at this rate.
	We've got Sigilstone says the EU more like the PU.
	Funny.
	Ha!
	Got them.
	Bang a comment, Sigilstone.
	Habscation says the EU despises the alternative platforms, independent media and citizen journalists, not only because it exists, but also because they're unable to sink their managerial hooks into it.
	Yeah, but also because the independent media actually has an organic fan base, right?
	You're not just watching it because your great-grandfather, you know, used to listen to the BBC on the wireless back in the 1920s and then the television.
	You know, it's like, no, like the times have changed, the circumstances have changed.
	And if they're not going to cater to the moment and address the problems that are going, then the stakes are so high that people are going to look elsewhere.
	Whatever information, you know, the EU tried to control, if people feel like they're being lied to, they will look elsewhere.
	It's that simple.
	All right.
	All right, then, Josh.
	Here's one of these facts.
	I need to be giving me stuff first.
	I'll go on the ibs.
	There'll be lots of link pressing.
	Yes, I do.
	The VOWS Hilarious before.
	Right.
	Get my hair out of my face while I'm at it.
	Right, I'm good to go now.
	I took my time.
	But it's worth taking.
	Stop pampering yourself.
	You've got to get into the so we all know how IQ tests are racist.
	I mean, here's a book, which is obviously definitive proof.
	The racism of intelligence: how mental testing practices have constituted an institutionalized form of group domination.
	And that's not just books.
	There's also research papers here.
	Here's one.
	Race and racism in intelligence testing.
	And why are they saying that?
	Well, here's a graph.
	On one side is your average IQ of certain levels of education and the average IQ of certain groups.
	And there's this very awkward lining up here between 9 to 11 years and a certain group, which makes it quite uncomfortable because, of course, you look at, say, white or Asian, that's equivalent to, you know, college, you know, university, what have you, education almost.
	And that doesn't look good.
	And of course, the answer for this is that it's caused by racism.
	Of course, this graph is taken from this, which is the most widely used intelligence test for adults in the world.
	And that graph itself came from this book, which is associated with that test.
	So it's only the most widely used one, which, of course, just goes to show how deep the problem is.
	And of course, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this because I've had a lot of time on my hands, let's be honest.
	And I think I've come up with a solution that will cater towards the people who weren't getting quite the scores.
	And it's a different kind of test, more to their sort of level, I suppose.
	And it's that of a sort of social or civic IQ.
	But first, I suppose it's worth mentioning that if you've already got a high civic IQ, you know that buying island magazine is probably a good idea.
	It's internationally shipped.
	You can get it in most countries, I think.
	And it's relatively cheap.
	And you get some beautifully designed things and some well-written stuff.
	And guess what?
	It's on paper.
	When the EU bureaucracy destroys the internet, you'll still have this.
	You can still have stuff to read in your electricity-less house.
	So there you go.
	It's a plan for the future.
	With that out of the way, I put out this.
	This is my first attempt at trying to devise a test, but then I soon democratised it to you, the people at home, the audience.
	I asked you to help me come up with some questions as well.
	And I've selected my favourites.
	And we're going to go through.
	And there is a point at the end of all of this.
	So I'm not just being silly, although it's going to be a lot of fun.
	There is a proper political point here at the end.
	So I say at the start of IQ tests, they should ask, do you use your speakerphone in public?
	And if the answer is yes, the pen is taken away and the rest of the tests must be completed in crayon.
	Each crayon eaten is a deduction of 10 points, which I feel like is an important point.
	I will say, as per my previous segment where I was berating the term democracy, I am a fan of democracy on Twitter.
	I feel like that's the best place for it.
	I tell you what, this process actually made me feel like, you know what, the internet's not such a bad place after all.
	I was sort of proud of you all.
	I was just like, you've got the assignment.
	You've given me lots of good answers.
	It's like, ah, you lot, you know, better than you think, really.
	Sounds almost like a backhanded compliment.
	I meant it in a nice way.
	So the first subsection of my test is called in the store.
	And it relates to obviously things that are in stores.
	So the most obvious one, Of course, is do you return the shopping cart?
	The ultimate test of self-governance, which I don't feel like needs much explaining.
	I think the question is self-evident.
	I imagine you both return the shopping cart.
	Well, I want that quid back out of it, don't I?
	That's true, Stellios.
	Yeah, of course.
	Why would I leave it in the middle of nowhere?
	Exactly.
	Or in a river.
	Yeah, it's not exactly like a post-apocalyptic setting.
	So the next question I quite liked.
	When shopping for groceries, you realize you grabbed an item accidentally that you did not want.
	Do you, A, place the item on the closest available shelf, or B, return the item to its proper place on the shelves?
	Well, I think we know the correct answer to this one, right?
	Right.
	Obviously, you throw it on the floor.
	Josh, I think there's the other element.
	There's people who understand what you want to hear, irrespective of what they're going to do.
	So let's say I'm a very sneaky person.
	I can understand what you want.
	Well, you look left, you look right, there's no one else in the aisle with you.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	So yeah.
	Throw it away, not destroy it, you know, destroy it in seconds.
	In a similar vein, while shopping, you noticed a garment has fallen off the hangar and is laying crumpled on the floor.
	Do you A, put it back on the hangar, B, ignore it and hope nobody notices, or C, kick it further under the rack so other shoppers don't notice you ignore it or D, wear it D is shoplift it, yeah.
	To be fair, when I was a kid, I did do C once or twice, but then more often than not, it wasn't me that knocked it over.
	I was just like, well, I'm gonna move out of the way because it's better than someone standing on it, but I'm not gonna take the time to pick this up because it's you know, shop that's somewhat beneath me.
	Then you add a slightly higher education, and you learn that that was wrong.
	Now I pick it up and put it back on the hanger, yes.
	But the point being that it is children that make these sorts of mistakes, ideally.
	But not anymore.
	Yes.
	Well, as we've seen sometimes, it's not always the children, is it?
	And if you have a full trolley and the person behind you only has a couple of items, do you let them go in front of you?
	Now, I've seen this happen quite a lot.
	And it happens normally in more high-trust areas.
	I know where I grew up, this was always the case.
	People would actually stand in the queue and look behind them to make sure they could facilitate a speedy...
	Well, and you've got a full trolley or you're the person.
	You have a full trolley and say, okay, let's get it done.
	Let's get it done.
	I've done that before, actually.
	And I just asked the person next to me, is it alright if you watch my trolley while I pop to the toilet?
	And they're like, yeah, of course.
	And then by the time I'd come back, my trolley was there with a very annoyed cashier.
	I was just like, I had to go.
	I'm so sorry.
	I was desperate.
	I drank so much.
	It's fine.
	I'm Josh Firm from the Lotus Seat.
	I wasn't at that point.
	I was just Josh Firm.
	And then finally, do you have your wallet, purse, cash, or card ready at the checkout when it's time to pay?
	Or do you react with surprise and have to locate it when given the price of your purchase?
	I think this is a man-woman thing.
	Stellios is going to stir the pot.
	No, because I think, generally speaking, you know, I just have the car ready and I pay.
	But I see my wife many times, you know, she just sits there, she opens her wallet, she's counting the 10 pence.
	Yeah, I've seen other women doing it because they frequently carry more stuff than we do.
	That's true.
	I'm always there with a card ready.
	Sometimes I might even get my wallet out whilst I'm putting the shopping away, even before I've paid, just so I can get it as quickly as possible to tap it and leave.
	But also shopping isn't a religious experience for me.
	I hate it.
	Yeah, I absolutely hate it.
	I'll go into the store.
	I'm going to look at it, I'm going to x-ray it, I'm going to instantly find out what I want to buy.
	I'll either buy it or not, and I'm gone.
	That's called being a man, Stelios, and that is the correct way of doing it.
	I know what I like.
	I'm in and out of the shop.
	If there's any more of them, precision here to the next.
	It's like a special military operation.
	You go in and out, no witnesses.
	Having so surrender.
	For all of this, you know, it's like, no, I just want to get in and, you know, do my shop as fast as possible.
	Oh, these questions, right?
	No, if it means putting things back on the right shelf or letting someone with far fewer things than you go ahead, right?
	Just these social things.
	Social considerations for other people.
	Naturally, courtesy comes first.
	Next, my subgroup is travel.
	So you're leaving a bus.
	What do you say?
	And now they didn't include any options, but I thought this was a good question.
	I have option A, nothing.
	Option B, a bunch of gibberish to your cousin Abdul on speakerphone.
	Or C, thank you.
	And I think I've been basically coded to always say thank you to the bus driver.
	Same.
	But then you don't have a cousin called Abdul.
	That's true.
	But if I did, I'd be on the phone.
	But what if the driver is the leftist?
	I'm still grateful that he transported me safely.
	More grateful, really.
	Yes, but he did it because he was aiming towards the revolution.
	Not to help you.
	The revolution in bus drivers.
	What's he going to do?
	Just go on strike.
	Oh, wait.
	They never tell up anyway.
	Yeah, he's not going to notice.
	So this one was almost a trick question because I actually found this one difficult.
	Who gets the last seat on the bus?
	So, you know, there's a final seat, and for some reason, there's this mix of people.
	First come, first serve, which is, you know, the London rules.
	A mother with children and bags, who I'd normally give up a seat for.
	Whoever is the largest, I would make them stand out a principal.
	They need it.
	Four, the oldest passenger, another good candidate.
	I give up my seat to old people.
	Five, a pregnant woman, which is, you know, I feel like a given you give up your seat for a pregnant woman.
	Six, a disabled man, or seven, yourself.
	And to this, I'm just like, well, have I got to pick between a mother and her children with lots of bags, obviously needs lots of room.
	A pregnant woman, the oldest passenger, so an old person or a disabled person, at this rate, I would just say, you know what, you guys figure it out between you.
	I'm not going to sit down.
	You know, I might get the next one, actually.
	This is too awkward.
	But I feel like the disabled person, normally they come on wheels, don't they?
	As in onto like a bus.
	They'll be in like a wheelchair.
	So you can tuck them away close to the luggage rack.
	Obviously, it's still in their wheelchair.
	Tuck them away.
	So unless they're like on crutches or something, but then I think it should be the pregnant person, then the old person.
	Because I think old people are happy to stand for a pregnant woman.
	They understand the importance of it and they're most likely to adhere to that.
	However, if anything, I would encourage other people to stand to help some of these people sit.
	But it's a very difficult one.
	This is like, oh, I get up for that woman.
	I've done that before.
	You shame people into being good.
	It works.
	Here's one.
	When you're waiting for a lift, when the doors open, do you immediately enter or do you wait for current passengers to disembark?
	Now, in Britain, people are normally pretty good for this, except I think in the underground in London, where people sort of scramble, but not always.
	And I've noticed that more and more over the years as well.
	It's getting worse.
	Yeah, lived in London for five years.
	And to begin with, I didn't notice that.
	Like, everyone, wherever they were from in the world, like the people getting off, had right of way.
	And now that's becoming less and less common.
	You need to exit like a juggernaut.
	I've shoulder barged people before.
	I'm just there walking out the door just like this.
	Just taking out as many as possible.
	Now, you look at them like a hater.
	It's the broken window effect.
	Stand back.
	Here's another one.
	Do you moved to the side of the escalator so people can pass?
	Lots of people fall afoul of this one.
	You have a fast lane and a slow lane.
	To be fair, it's more of a London thing in my mind because where I'm from, we didn't really have fast and slow lanes.
	If you're on the escalator, normally you're just standing there.
	And people take their time.
	You know, I'm from the West Country.
	It's a slower pace of life.
	People are just generally, you know, less in a rush.
	I'm one of those people that I just, I always walk up them anyway.
	So do I. I normally take stairs if you're given the choice.
	But the ratio of standers to walkers is quite high, for want of a better way to put it.
	I think I've seen too many videos from Russia where the escalator collapses and people get swallowed up.
	And I'm just like, you know what?
	I'm going to take the stairs.
	I don't know who's maintaining this.
	Here's another one.
	When travelling by train, do you A, sit inside?
	B, sit on top.
	Or C, hang on the outside.
	I'll tell you what, a part of me is waiting for this to happen in England.
	I've thought about this before.
	Thing is, if it happens in Britain, I think the first people to notice it are going to be all of the Anoraks that are watching the trains.
	All the train spotters getting upset.
	Just like, narrow that, you can't do that.
	No one will believe them to begin with.
	It'll be the canary in the coal mine for the decline.
	And then the final one in travel is starting your car's turn signals or your indicators if you're in Britain indicates one, you'll be turning or changing lanes in three or more seconds.
	Two, you're beginning to change lanes right now.
	Three.
	What are those?
	Imagine people stop lighting.
	Now I'm just stopping.
	Four.
	Instantly.
	Four.
	Indicate one way.
	Go in the other direction.
	Diversion.
	I'm actually going to correct this one because the correct answer, according to the British Highway Code, is that it indicates that you wish to turn, not that you're going to turn in any amount of seconds.
	It's that you're going to turn or change lanes when it is safe.
	So it's indicating your intention, which is why we call them indicators rather than turn signals.
	So that is the correct way.
	I got a good score on my theory test, alright?
	Not so good on the practicals.
	Still not road legal.
	Hey, I've got a license.
	And next, I've called this food and entertainment.
	Here's a good one.
	Do you ever feel peckish when you see swans at the park?
	I feel like this is...
	Do you see them as free to be taken?
	Or do you see them as, in a sense, collective public property that beautifies the area?
	Well, on a personal level, I don't like swans.
	Nor do I. I wouldn't go so far as to eat one, though.
	No, but I wouldn't make a picnic of one.
	No.
	No.
	A buffet, perhaps, but not a picnic.
	Why would I want a swan in my house?
	They could break a man's arm, you know.
	Go around loitering.
	Just the one swan, actually.
	So here's a one that's particularly topical.
	For each meal, which is the correct eating tool for the job?
	Knife and fork, spoon, hands, and four.
	Hands in mouth up to the knuckle.
	So we've got a roast dinner, top left, some slop, top right, a burger, bottom left, and soup, bottom right.
	I would say, obviously roast dinner, knife and fork.
	Slop, use your hands to launch it away from you because it's probably going to give you food poisoning.
	A burger, depending on its integrity, I might use a knife and fork, but sometimes hands.
	And same with the fries or chips.
	And soup, obviously use a spoon.
	Obviously hands.
	Hands for soup.
	I've seen it happen before when I've been in London.
	I've seen someone eat soup with that hands.
	And the thing is, it wasn't that they didn't have a spoon.
	There was a spoon next to them.
	So they chose to do it.
	So honestly, how do they do it?
	Digital.
	They like cup their hand.
	You can talk to them and you like, teach me.
	I don't want to learn.
	No, just study them.
	Eat my cereal in the morning with a cupped hand.
	Unbelievable.
	So this one gave me PTSD, as I said in the reply.
	When you visit a busy takeaway restaurant, do you read the menu, contemplate your choices and decide on your meal while in the line, or only do that after the cashier asks for your order?
	Which was one of the most popular suggestions, actually.
	This one is annoying.
	Yes.
	Please make your decisions before you talk to a customer service representative.
	Well, I never have this problem because I'm a very, very basic man, and I just always order the same thing from the takeaway, whichever one I go to.
	I like to go for adventurous stuff.
	What should I take?
	They ask you, what are you going to order?
	What do you recommend?
	What do you recommend?
	That's all right in a restaurant, but if you're takeaway, no chance.
	So, I've got some questions here that I came up with at the cinema.
	I'm just going to leave this to play in the background.
	Come on, please.
	So, when at the cinema, do you take your rubbish with you?
	Because I've always done this.
	Growing up, you don't leave your rubbish in the cinema, you take it with you.
	And when everyone left, there'd be no sign that people had been there to watch a film.
	But this is, of course, the West Country, so everything works down there.
	And it was just that no one went to the cinema.
	To be fair, towards the end, yes.
	Do you talk to the person next to you the whole way through?
	Which apparently is the thing.
	I've never really seen this in the cinema myself, but in London, apparently, it's really bad in multicultural areas.
	Do you answer phone calls and shout over the film to be heard?
	I've seen videos of this in the cinema.
	I've never seen it myself, but if I did, it would be seconds before I say something.
	I went to one time I was in London when I was living in London, and I went to the cinema in Wimbledon with a few of my friends, which is still a more British area of London, let's put it that way.
	And the tennises.
	Everyone was very conscientious, you know, and it felt like it was just a nice atmosphere to go and enjoy a film in.
	But then there was another friend who couldn't catch it.
	I enjoyed the film, so I went again.
	But that time we went to the cinema in Peckham and it was...
	There was a lot of cries from the urban youth, and it was honestly the single worst experience cinema experience I've ever had.
	Speaking of a movie theater, you know, one thing that constantly makes me go ballistic in seconds is when people are kicking my seat.
	I hate seat kickers.
	That's another question.
	and do kick people's seat.
	Also, whoever invented Whoever invented eating popcorn in the cinema, I want to find you and hurt you.
	No, you know what?
	Normally, you're food in the place where you most want silence.
	No, because if we were in a movie and you were frustrated with people eating popcorn, I'd laugh hysterically with you getting frustrated.
	I know you well enough.
	It need not be said.
	That's another thing.
	Like, are you do you have a high enough social IQ so that if you do take snacks to the cinema, you open them all and let, you know, get rid of the noise, the noise bits, before the film starts.
	When I went to see Top Gun Maverick, someone brought along what can only be described as a cooked meal in a Tupperware, which was still warm and stunk out the entire cinema.
	If that's you, consider dignitas.
	That's the politest way I can put it.
	So imagine you're busy barbecuing indoors and you hear a beep from your hallway.
	What do you do?
	Or a chirp.
	A, I don't hear no beep.
	B, offer a sacrifice to satiate the skybird.
	Or C, change your smoke alarm battery.
	It's an important question.
	So here's one that is actually quite a good one because it's sort of counterintuitive to some people.
	In a busy pub, you find a place to stand at the bar and wait until it's your turn to be seen by the barman.
	Or do you start forming a single-file queue like somebody who's never been in a pub before?
	So yes, we like a queue in Britain.
	Not always appropriate.
	Sometimes when you're at the pub, the man at the bar or the lady, you know, different times keeps rough track.
	And also, the people at the bar normally say, oh no, you were here before me.
	There's a certain amount of deference.
	And what it does is having this method makes people talk to each other, makes people show some good faith to one another.
	You don't just slide in and barge ahead.
	Nothing breeds ire in my English heart more than someone who slides in and gets served before their time.
	It's a complete violation of the social contract.
	And speaking of which, do you bathe daily and wear deodorant?
	You've been to the gym with me before.
	Yes.
	I've noticed that certain demographics, largely the subcontinent of India and the continent of sub-Saharan part of sub-Saharan Africa, just refuse to wear them in the gym of all places.
	And sometimes when you're trying to do reps, you get a big lung full of someone else's body odour, pungent, worse than I could ever produce.
	That is enough to put you off and is actually probably dangerous.
	And I'm not saying this to be like hyperbolic.
	You just drop the f ⁇ yourself.
	Like, I'm just like, oh, I'll be there lifting, you know.
	95kg's bench press.
	And then I'm there catching the whiff of someone's armpits.
	And I'm just like, it makes the rep harder.
	It does.
	It really does.
	Because you're getting less oxygen intake.
	Because it stinks.
	Here's a nice basic one.
	Do you say sorry when someone bumps into you?
	Of course.
	I do as well.
	I remember someone in Slovenia stood on my foot and I said sorry to them and then they looked at me as if I was like mentally ill.
	Okay, guys, I don't understand.
	Why are you apologizing if someone bumps into you?
	Because I know this happens, but it's just to say, I'm sorry.
	It's like, I'm sorry this has happened.
	Yeah, I'm sorry for this entire situation.
	Yeah.
	Maybe they did it on purpose.
	It's not claiming response.
	Well, you don't say sorry then, do you?
	In that case, you don't leave until they've said sorry to you.
	They're going to be sorry.
	Here's one the Japanese understand.
	If there's no bin around, do you put your rubbish in your pocket or throw it on the ground?
	I'm proud to say I've never littered in my entire life.
	And in fact, I probably picked up more of other people's litter than most people.
	That's going camping for you, eh?
	You pick it up, you find a nice spot, and you tidy it up because there's inevitably a crisp packet or something.
	So yes, very good question.
	Here's one from Proper Horror Show who, coincidentally, today I think our conversation about Standing Kubrick's films are coming out on low seats.
	Are pajamas a housewear item or good for trips to the supermarket or Macy D's?
	I like that question.
	Very good.
	Dunking on the other side.
	Pajamas are also a shroud.
	And here's one.
	A customer service worker is female.
	She smiles as she assists you.
	Is she A, hitting on you?
	B, doing the job she is paid to do and no more.
	I quite like this one.
	This was quite astute because lots of people, you know, regular English people even fall on this.
	And I've had it in my life where people have been like, oh, they were really nice.
	Was she like hitting them?
	I'm just like, no, they're just being friendly.
	Are you so starved of attention?
	Yeah, but fell for it to get in the water.
	It depends how attractive you are.
	Stelios is...
	Stellius is like, it's always A. It's always A. And then.
	Oh, man, damn.
	Man, damn it.
	Stop looking at me like that.
	So the final one for manners is a series of questions.
	Do you stop dead in shop doorways?
	This is one that I hate the most.
	This is very prevalent in Swindon with its large Indian population because they haven't quite acclimatized to having a civic sense of spatial awareness.
	Escalators and things like that as well.
	When walking down the street, do you look more than two steps in front of you?
	This is true of a lot of people.
	There's no one demographic.
	You know, plenty of teenagers on their phones do this.
	And when walking with a group of people, do you leave room for people to pass going the other way?
	This is something I wish more people would do.
	Fat people are guilty of this one particularly.
	They do take up more room in the pavement, but still, they're bumbling along at a slow pace, taking up all the pavement.
	I don't want to have to step in the road and nearly get hit by a car just to get around you.
	And I'm too impatient to wait.
	So yeah.
	So I do the fourth one.
	I know.
	I've seen it happen, though.
	Someone gets to the bus driver after queuing to get on the bus.
	And it's like, does this bus go to such and such place?
	It'll be on the front of the bus in big letters.
	It's like, dear lord.
	Are you sure you're okay to be traveling on your own?
	And then I've got some questions for the pros.
	So here are some difficult ones.
	Do you know what per capita means?
	No, sir.
	I didn't think so.
	But one number's bigger than the other.
	I don't understand.
	Also forgot to mention when it comes to the do you return the shopping cart.
	What I was going to say, it would have been a lot better if I did, was, no, I actually use a basket.
	This is a play on the breakfast question, isn't it?
	Didn't work.
	And here's a big brain meta question.
	Do you respond to any of the wrong answers with any variant of lol, why do you care, though?
	Because, of course, we've seen this where people get called out on their poor behavior publicly.
	And it's like, why do you care?
	What's it to you?
	Which is, of course, a very low IQ response.
	It affects you every single day at this point in some capacity or another.
	So, why have I designed this?
	What's the real purpose of this segment?
	Well, I read this and I thought it was very good.
	And I'm going to read it to you.
	You didn't need to be a crime victim to feel it.
	It wasn't just in the air.
	This clicks when you watch somebody blast videos on subway speakers, you know, or underground train, bus, any form of transport, really.
	Nobody else in the subway car moves.
	Nobody speaks.
	They're all running the same calculation.
	This person already broke the basic social contract.
	So what else will they break?
	Someone who forces 30 strangers to listen to their TikTok videos has already announced they don't follow rules or care about consequences.
	So when you think about tapping their shoulder, you're not wondering if they'll turn it down, you're wondering if they'll stab you.
	The antisocial behavior works because everyone else does the math and decides their discomfort or their comfort, sorry, isn't worth finding out whether this person's boundaries actually where these persons' boundaries actually end.
	It's soft terrorism.
	And I think that this is a good characterization of it.
	Someone's basically holding a whole group of people to ransom through the potential threat of violence.
	Because in a perfect world where we knew that people wouldn't be violent, people would say something, wouldn't they?
	And they'd feel comfortable doing so.
	Yeah, this is why so many of the people that you see on the omnibuses or on the trains who are blaring their music out.
	Why people don't just go over to them and say, excuse me, can you turn it down, please?
	I'll turn it off.
	Because they're scared of the repercussions.
	What will happen if they intervene?
	I still do it anyway, but then not everyone's as crazy as me.
	Formidable.
	Yes.
	The formidable firm.
	Tenacious.
	I'm a big guy.
	I can get away with it.
	The threat never gets spoken, never gets recorded in any crime database, but it controls every interaction.
	And that's the key point here.
	This is a new way to view these sorts of things.
	They're not just, you know, I had some innocent fun with it, but actually, there is a dark undertone to this.
	That it's someone announcing that they don't care about wider society.
	And then they're willing to go against the norms.
	And so it suggests that they're going to hurt you, basically.
	You hear someone playing music out loud.
	It means that there's a higher chance that they're going to try and hurt you.
	It was that simple, really.
	And this extract, by the way, to credit, comes from this guy.
	I think it's from his newsletter.
	I've never heard of him before.
	I just saw the extract by chance on Twitter.
	And it got me thinking about this sort of thing.
	And actually, yes, these sorts of behaviors, they're not just restricted to migrant communities or people from abroad.
	They are also present domestically, even before mass migration, to a certain extent, but it was limited enough that we didn't feel this same sense.
	We felt like we could police ourselves.
	But now it's to the sense of not only are there people who simply just don't know our norms, but also it lowers the boundary for our own domestic people because it's like the broken window effect.
	Well, there are other people on the bus playing their music.
	Why can't I?
	And so not only is it the new arrivals, it's also the natives that are having their standards lowered just by being in the presence of these people.
	And what it does is it just makes people more afraid of being out and about in everyday life.
	And that's obviously not a good thing, but it hasn't received nearly as much attention as the serious problem that it is because it's presented as a petty convenience.
	Actually, it's one of those things that is a looming threat that affects everyone's life in the modern mass migration world.
	I think there is a distinction between very combative and reconciliatory behaviors.
	I think these are the terms.
	And when people are polite, they show that they have the ability to be reconciliatory when it comes to minor social friction That happens every day.
	So they show, yeah, listen, I'm prepared to look past that and move on, move forward.
	The people you're describing and the people who are routinely acting as if they don't care about the people around them, they show basically they're signaling, unintentionally perhaps, that they're very aggressive.
	They're also that they are not going to reconcile with others.
	They're basically basically anti-civilizational, aren't they?
	They're thumbing their nose at the notion of a civil society and civilization more generally.
	But if you do care about civilization, perhaps you should check out my YouTube channel because I've got lots of videos there.
	I've got a new one on the way soon.
	And yes, hope you enjoyed this.
	Something a bit different from my usual segments, but hopefully it was a bit of fun with a good moral lesson in the end.
	Thank you for watching and goodbye.
	Not from the whole podcast, though.
	No, no.
	I would just say particularly as well.
	Go watch Josh's camping video because that one in particular is something you can take in boarding your daily life that's really helpful.
	Oh, well, thank you.
	Do you want to go through your rumble round?
	Oh, yes, of course.
	Habsification says the alternative platforms, independent media, and citizen journalists are like a hydra to the EU.
	They take one down and two more will take its place.
	That's very true, yes.
	And Sigil Stone, intelligence is racist, yeah, because smart people start noticing things.
	Pattern recognition is a sign of intelligence, yes.
	Sigil Stone says, oh, I got a great grocery IQ question.
	Do you wash your chicken with dish soap with bleach?
	If yes, with bleach, instantly committed to a care home.
	Okay.
	Yes, please don't do that.
	It's unnecessary.
	And it's weird.
	Tom Ratt says, we will maintain our freedom by ensuring our press supports our freedom in our democracy, even if it means we have to deploy our boot boys with our billy clubs and send you out to our gulags.
	Very clever.
	Habsification says, I think I found a way to gamify to increase the indigenous population birth rates.
	Not sure what the conference is.
	Okay, I'll read the top one.
	Oh, I see.
	Only open to 3.5 million women.
	Must be married.
	Lower taxes, each child born with lower taxes if you have 12 kids.
	You'll never pay any type of taxes and all goods and services are half price forever.
	Now the two work together to make sense.
	I want to be very selective about which 3.5 million, please.
	Skittenhun says, what if I got hit by the train?
	You get points for that.
	Trying to film yourself in front of you.
	Unless, of course, you delay me.
	I had someone jump in front of my train when I was coming back from Christmas and it made me really grumpy.
	I was just like, if that person's alive again, I'll kill them all over.
	Such a selfish thing to do.
	Jump in front of a train.
	You not only traumatise the driver and the people that have to clean your gelatinous goo off, but you delay a whole group of people.
	Bobabad says, comparing IQ between race and age is the show, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
	Now a racist dog whistle.
	Can you tell when they answer questions or try to grope the women and scam the host?
	Yeah, we need to.
	Can I see one comment from Sister Texas Gal?
	Oh, sure.
	She says, good day, brother Luca, brother Josh, and brother Stelios.
	Good day to you as well.
	Good day.
	Good day.
	Sigil Stone says, the proper answer is you scratch your ass and then eat with your hands knuckles deep both times.
	That's grim, that is.
	Dear me.
	Sandwings raging.
	I recommend just never leaving the house.
	Thank you from our resident shutting.
	Thank you for watching.
	You've almost, apart from one day a week now coming here.
	I've been a bit of a social butterfly recently.
	Thank you very much.
	I've been out at least the past four days in a row.
	hapsification if the indigenous women has 16 kids and still married will never have to pay any taxes and 70% that's Because in Britain, the people who have the most children are either very rich and can afford it.
	Okay, that's fine.
	Or very poor and I've got to pay for it, which is annoying.
	That's random names.
	So social IQ seems to be just a fancy way of saying conscientiousness.
	Just like EQ is a fancy way of saying empathy, which ironically enough is something directly proportionate to one's IQ.
	Which is true.
	Yes, the two do correlate, and there's still a debate in psychology about whether they should be the same thing.
	The Engaged Few says in Josh's Britain, Bluetooth speaker violators can legally be garotted by other passengers.
	I mean, something like that.
	Maybe not garrotted.
	Flogged.
	That's a random name.
	Black female co-worker got into an argument with some of the white ladies at work.
	They couldn't understand how she could keep her phone on speaker in public.
	She just kept repeating it and didn't bother her.
	Yeah, she doesn't think of other people.
	It's funny that.
	Perfectly believable.
	She eventually got fired because all she did was talk instead of working.
	She tried to sue for racism.
	Fair enough.
	Brilliant.
	Occupant says the correct response to someone using the speakerphone in public is to join in the conversation when they say it's a private conversation.
	Point out that private conversations are kept private.
	I like your passive-aggressive style.
	My favourite thing is to have a loud conversation with someone next to me saying how much I hate people talking on speakerphone in a very passive-aggressive way.
	Last time I did that on a train to London, the woman actually talking on speakerphone got up and moved.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah.
	Well, and just went and had a speakerphone conversation.
	In the hallway, in the correct place.
	Based ape says, I have a high social IQ.
	Stellios can't understand my high-level genius.
	What do you say to that, Stelios?
	He says based, but he also says ape.
	We're all apes, Stellios, technically.
	We're all apes.
	Right.
	Video comment.
	Video comment.
	It's a lovely cat.
	Yeah, I love cats.
	Getting more confident as it went.
	I love how cats are always fascinated and terrified of water simultaneously.
	The Adeptus Arbites are meant to be a satyr of authoritarian and brutal police, but if I told you that the party of the Lotus Eaters won the 2030 UK election and sent in the Lotus Arbites to stop the sorts of people we see in sections from this podcast, who would you support when watching this video?
	Attention, scum!
	Prepare for sentencing.
	Dramatic music
	That was very, very loud, but still easier to listen to than Ursula and von Dorian in that video.
	Yes, we do need people like that going through and forcing the rules I was discussing in my segment.
	Hello, Wobcetters.
	Today, I'm out of Wok, Ness.
	Shh.
	Beautiful day, as well.
	Beautiful.
	I was just at a castle as well.
	Very nice.
	Brought the Islander.
	I was taking pictures with that and climbing Ben Nevis with it tomorrow.
	I'll also share some pictures with it today, actually.
	So see you then.
	I hope by the time you see it, it went well.
	It looks a lovely day for Ben Nevis, to be fair.
	Hey, sheep.
	Buy Islander.
	This should be the video we do the marketing campaign for Islander.
	Sheep reading island.
	Right.
	We got another rumble rant there.
	Do we have another video?
	Nope.
	Right.
	Oh, we got the comments.
	Okay, do you want to go from your segment, Stellius?
	Yeah.
	So, North FC Zuma says the Stellios is back.
	Good video in AA.
	I'm too low IEQ to understand who won, but Stellius is a martial arts man.
	And AA is a bit chubby, so Stellius wins.
	I think that's the most best criterion for intellectual exchanges.
	You know, who knows martial arts?
	Right, okay.
	The UK will be taxed into oblivion.
	Right, Ash F. They heavily tax cigarettes and alcohol to reduce their consumption, but think the result would be different when they heavily tax productivity.
	Yep.
	Yeah.
	Just textbook leftists.
	Jimbo G Reminds me of an old joke.
	We need to address the 20 million billion black hole.
	What do you mean you don't want to fix the 40 billion black hole?
	How are we supposed to fix the 50 billion black hole with that attitude?
	That's a great comment.
	Right.
	Alex Ogu, my Islander Four has arrived via Canada Post.
	Risky venture at best.
	And I'm glad to see Luca has fixed his variant spelling.
	That should drive up the value of the first three issues as more are added to the catalogue.
	I'm glad to see that I've done that too.
	I'll try to keep at it.
	George Happ says taxation is theft.
	Doubly so when the intention, when they intend to get what your parents build their whole lives.
	Absolutely leads people to just massive spending and just ridiculous lifestyle.
	Spending lifestyle.
	Henry Ashman says the inheritance tax rate just makes me feel like the state hates parents investing in their children.
	Yeah.
	I wouldn't be surprised if they were on board with the leftists who wanted to randomly assign newborn babies to parents to stop people caring about the child they raise.
	If they try to take my assets when I die or tax everything I've ever given to any potential children, I'd rather spaff it on a billboard, telling them where to shove it the day before the NHS euthanizes me for being too expensive under the assisted dying bill.
	It's all so poetry there.
	Shall I read a few?
	And one more, Jan V says, afternoon Stellios, Josh and Luca, the inheritance tax just sounds like a scam to steal money from people.
	Does the NHS have some organization where people can report things like fraud or waste?
	I think it probably does, but I think that there's so much of it that it's an insurmountable task, really.
	I'll read from Anani Roulette says, my favourite is when most of the Lithuanian independent journalists turned out to be directly funded by USAID and open society.
	Yeah, many such cases.
	Roman Observer says, is the far right funded by Russia or is Russia funded by the far right?
	Henry Ashman says, the longer it goes on under Ursula von der Reying, the more it feels like the EU is just another German takeover of continental Europe by the back door.
	Third time's their charm though, eh?
	Yeah.
	It's the front door at this point, isn't it?
	The Germans are more into the back door, aren't they?
	Sorry.
	Lowering the tone again.
	Oh, dear.
	Instead of comparing them to the Soviets, maybe it's time to start comparing them to the other.
	No, we shan't be that lazy, Henry.
	But yes, it is definitely another German power grab.
	You're quite right.
	Alpha of the Betas, our democracy is a euphemism for the status quo of lies, manipulation, and centralized control.
	Quite true.
	And AZ Desert Route says, if you're going to be a public official or in the public eye, be ready for public criticism.
	Yeah.
	Remarkable how many public officials can't seem to understand this.
	Yes.
	Especially the MPs in Britain, I will say as well.
	People will say mean things about you.
	Yeah.
	Why do the British choose to use a knife and fork for a burger?
	I said sometimes for a burger, and that's only if its structural integrity is such that it's falling apart and I couldn't possibly pick it up with my hands.
	Sometimes I get burgers that are too big to physically get my mouth around because why wouldn't you?
	With the burger, it is a question of circumstance.
	Yes.
	I take burgers by a case-by-case basis.
	Someone online says, I have such a low social IQ that they slapped me with an Asperger's diagnosis.
	Welcome to our audience.
	And the panel, actually.
	Colin P says, another question for Josh's IQ test.
	At the self-service checkout, do you A, get your bag ready before starting to scan your items or B, scan your items, then get your bag out and put your shopping in?
	That is a good one.
	And then I'm going to quickly read this Rumble rant before it gets forgotten.
	Shimo says, freedom isn't a right, it's a duty.
	Everything else are rights given to you of that Sacred duty.
	Yeah, well said.
	Well said.
	All right.
	Well, that's all we've got time for today, ladies and gentlemen.
	I hope you've enjoyed the show today, and we will see you at 1 p.m. tomorrow.

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