The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1248

All Episodes

Previous Next

Sept. 9, 2025 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:30:39

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1248

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters, episode 1248 for September 9th, 2025.
	I'm your host, Luca, joined today by Beau and Firas.
	Good to see you both.
	And today we're going to be discussing reform's latest embarrassment, just the latest embarrassment to come out of reform.
	We're then going to be talking about the fall of the French government again and another one.
	And then we're going to be talking about your patriotic duty to boycott bad businesses.
	So with that said, before we get into the first segment, I'd just like to turn your attention to a magazine that you should have all heard and presumably bought by now, which is Islander Magazine.
	But just in case you haven't, you're not going to be able to get issue for much longer.
	And if you do, you will be paying thousands upon thousands of pounds.
	You will have to take out a large loan in order to afford Highlander.
	So get it now for a very sensible price of £14.99 plus shipping.
	And with that, shall we discuss reform?
	So, it was Reform Party Conference last weekend.
	Not the most eventful thing, to be honest with you.
	We're very much at the point now, it seems, where we know what they're all about, right?
	We know the flavour of party that we're getting from reform.
	And the answer to that flavour is, of course, not a very impressive one.
	But you have, it was certainly hyped up because, as Zia Yousuf says here, as Prime Minister, Nigel will assemble galactic level talent in the first reform cabinet, many of whom won't be MPs.
	The era of the likes of Miliband, Hancock and Reeves making the most important decisions in the land will be over.
	We need the best, including from outside politics.
	So we're obviously looking at an American style system here.
	I think more importantly than that, if you have this talent ready to serve you, why not run them for parliament anyway?
	Well, that's a good question as well.
	If you've got this pool of talent, why are you going to hide them during the election campaign only to reveal them after presumably you've won, aha, here we are.
	I had all this talent, but I didn't let them run as MPs.
	I don't understand the mindset behind it or the point, unless it's a way to make sure that they are there only to serve Farash personally, in which case that's interesting, but that's a bit worrying.
	And he should be a little bit more open about what he's planning to do.
	I thought you had to be an MP in order to be in cabinet.
	Well, we don't have to be an MP, you can be a lord.
	Can you be entirely unelected and be on the front bench?
	How does that work?
	Well, I suspect even if that's not the case, so we'll simply obviously pass a bill through the House of Commons in order to make it happen.
	This is obviously just something that Nigel has the intent to do.
	And what's more, again, it does speak to the fact that, yes, I'm not denying that there has been a shocking standard of cabinets of late.
	Most of my lifetime, in fact.
	But really, as you say, I very much agree with your point, Firas.
	But when Yusuf is talking about galactic level talent, seems a bit hyperbolic.
	It does when you're referring to the right honourable Nadine Dorries.
	Right?
	Not the first person that I would have thought of when I was thinking of the galactic levels of talent that are in our United Kingdom.
	But what's remarkable here as well is that, and keep this one in your memory, her just saying the Tories are finished, right?
	And then she obviously says they did not deserve your loyalty.
	So now you simply have to support reform, right?
	But the problem is, we've seen this time and time again.
	It seems that anyone actually sensible, anyone genuinely patriotic, anyone like Ben Habib, like Rupert Lowe, these sorts of people, they have no placing reform.
	People who do have a placing reform are Tory has-beens, right?
	Who would have ever given Nadine Dorries another thought?
	Would you have thought about it ever again if she hadn't been forced into your face right now with Farage saying, welcome back, Nadine.
	Welcome back to the limelight.
	Let's get Virginia Bottomley back out of retirement.
	Who?
	Exactly.
	A Tory has been.
	All right, okay.
	I'm joking.
	Well, yeah, you are.
	But get this.
	This is just remarkable.
	I'll play this clip from Farage introducing her at the conference.
	That is why I'm pleased to welcome today to the stage a woman who has served in cabinet as culture secretary.
	A woman who has sold three and a half million books.
	A woman who has been on I'm a celebrity, get me out of here.
	Somebody from the real world who's worked their way up, been incredibly successful, who actually crosses the boundaries from politician into celebrity.
	And I'm delighted that we're going to have the experience, the talent, the hard work, and the loyalty of the Dean Dorries.
	That is why I'm pleased to welcome today to the stage.
	So she just defects from her previous party and what he's praising as her loyalty.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Yes, more or less.
	Interesting.
	And that list of accomplishments that she's sold three million books.
	Well, I mean, Poshbeis has sold millions of books.
	She's semi-illiterate.
	Should we give her a cabinet position?
	Been on celebrity drunkards or whatever it is.
	Like, that means nothing.
	No.
	That means nothing to me.
	That's not serious.
	Been in cabinet.
	Yeah, not necessarily in and of itself.
	Especially when that cabinet was Boris Johnson's cabinet.
	Quite.
	They're fully leaning into the sort of boomer con event as reform between her and have you got Andrea Jenkins singing?
	I didn't want to inflict it upon anyone.
	Thank you.
	I mean, between those two, it's sort of what?
	Why?
	I mean, if you're going to do this, you might as well beg Jeneric to join you because at least now these days he's saying things that are interesting and are sensible.
	But what he wants from these has-beens is precisely their dependence on him.
	Whereas Jenrick is a contender for not just the leadership of the Conservatives, but also if he were to join reform, potentially for reform.
	So this is the style of Nigel, where he just doesn't want anybody who is potentially a threat.
	And it's this obsession with staying in control that makes him a bit dangerous.
	And I understand because, you know, fighting through what he was fighting through in the early days, there were a lot of loons that he wanted to keep away.
	But he successfully kept away of a big number of very capable and talented people as well.
	And that was more deliberate.
	So.
	Well, exactly.
	No one was ever going to Nadine Dorries was never going to be an influence in Parliament ever again.
	Were it not that she jumped to the ship of reform.
	And now that she's in reform, she owes that, I use the word relevance in the loosest possible sense, that relevance solely to Nigel.
	And so she will tow the line.
	And let's just face it as well, the fact that the only reason that Nadine Dorries was ever in Boris Johnson's cabinet was not because of any legendary skill that she had.
	It was because she was a total sycophant.
	It was because she was just going to do whatever Boris told her to do.
	Because actually, more than any party, the person that Nadine seems most loyal to is Boris Johnson still to this day.
	Which is disgusting.
	Because Boris Johnson is possibly the greatest traitor.
	Possibly the greatest.
	More than Blair, in some way, because Boris said that he would do one thing, fulfill the promises of Brexit.
	Yes.
	And totally stabbed us on every issue.
	Every single issue.
	And so let's not forget as well Nadine Doris' great contribution to politics, which was, of course, the Online Safety Act.
	This was something that she was really pushing for.
	And also, let's not forget, she was a huge advocate of the lockdowns.
	Yes.
	Very zealous advocate of lockdowns as well.
	And I will never let anyone offer that whatsoever.
	Whatsoever.
	If that is something that they proudly attached to their name at the time, they deserve to be recognised for that forever for the rest of their lives.
	Well, this gets to the criticism that reform are just basically Tory 2.0, sort of a teal Tory.
	And this just sort of is sort of the last nail in the coffin on that argument that they obviously are.
	I give Nigel some credit for insisting, and I believe him on this, insisting that he won't allow reform to be subsumed into the Tory party.
	Okay, fine.
	That he won't make a pact with the Tories after the election to form a coalition government.
	We'll see about that.
	But it seems pretty hardline that he won't do that.
	So credit there.
	But the idea that you just take in endless Tories, someone like Nadine Doris, that it's just sort of a no-brainer, that he'll sing it from the rooftops.
	I mean, like, that's all you need to know right there, right?
	I'm sure there are a few capable ones that he should be working on in parliament.
	I'm sure there are a few that he should be working on instead.
	And I'm sure that they see the writing on the wall when it comes to the future of the Conservative Party.
	So at least try to...
	If you're going to work on getting Tories on board, fair enough.
	You should build alliances.
	But go for competence, not Nadine Dorries.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But she's been on some celebrity reality TV show, that that's something that you sing from the rooftops again.
	It's like, really?
	It's a strange way of pursuing the pensioner vote.
	But it also misidentifies the nature of the political problem.
	The nature of the political problem is that young men in this country have zero opportunities.
	And that is why you're seeing this anger and that is why you're seeing this reaction.
	And so trying to appeal even harder to pensioners isn't going to solve any of the structural issues that are keeping young men from getting married, forming families, owning houses, having good paying jobs.
	Like, it completely misses the central political problem facing not just Britain, but pretty much all of Western Europe.
	That's what he's missing.
	I think people want, certainly we want, and I think a lot of people in just the general public want, if the last general election is anything go by and the Tories collapse at the ballot box at the last general election, they don't want more of the same.
	No, they don't want a Tory 2.0.
	They want something fairly radically different.
	So to be packing your own ranks with that is, it doesn't seem like it's the best strategy to me.
	I think he needs a couple of reliable voices to sort of be able to do the Sunday morning shows and to be able to sort of defend the government as necessary.
	And so that kind of explains Jenkins and now Doris.
	Fair enough.
	I'm willing to be a little bit tolerant, but you have to offer us some red meat.
	And what red meat gets thrown out just seems to be entirely set by arbitrary precedent.
	Yes.
	Based on just what Nigel feels is safe ground at this point to throw out.
	It's Rupert going out there doing all the hard work.
	Yes.
	Just shifting the discourse in Parliament, pushing on the issues that those MPs sitting there don't want to touch.
	And again, maybe this is a valid electoral strategy.
	Don't take the risk, see what the public receives well.
	And if the public receives it well, then adopt it as your policy.
	So I understand the caution, but can we get some substance, please?
	Right.
	And that's what we're not getting.
	And it will never come from the likes of Nadine Doris.
	And it will never come from the sort of Andrea Jenkins just singing at the, you know, it's like you do not understand how desperate, how late the hour is, like how deep the struggle is at this point.
	We are heading towards ruin.
	Yes.
	I mean, Nigel's strategy, use the word caution.
	Yeah, it's very cautious.
	It's very cautious.
	So people accuse him of being a follower, not a leader.
	And we really need a leader.
	I'd really like to see a leader.
	They may be ahead in the polls, but I feel like they'd be twice as far ahead in the polls if he was sort of a bit more radical.
	He was led by the leader.
	Yeah, if reform was led by Lowe and he had that platform and these seats in Parliament, you could easily see them on 40% today.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Or more.
	Holding on 45% today.
	Easily.
	It's interesting, actually, because I watched Farage's concluding comments from this conference.
	And he was talking about, apparently, they'd had one of the former Canadian members of parliament over from when they had that experiment in the 90s and they managed to flip the board and get their new party in.
	And he was talking about the fact that, well, their success was all bound up in having their disagreements in private.
	Right.
	And Nigel was really forcing this onto the audience, i.e., don't contradict the family.
	Don't contradict the line in public.
	I don't.
	If he hadn't been saying things in public such as there can be no conflict with Islam in Britain.
	And if he hadn't been saying things like zero net migration, I would have appreciated that to some extent.
	But what is obvious is that negative migration is needed and that there is a conflict with Islam.
	Now he said, I think, that he's going to proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a good idea.
	But if you proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood without first thinning the numbers, you're going to end up with riots on the streets.
	Absolutely.
	Because they are sufficiently well organized to cause a serious problem.
	So you want to have negative migration for a couple of years and then proscribe it in order to improve your own standing.
	You want to have a reformed police force and then proscribe it.
	But you can't just do these kinds of things without having thought of them.
	And the fact that he is makes me think that it must be maybe Imarati money, maybe Israeli money that's trying to tell him, well, this is a priority now.
	When in reality, the problem isn't the Muslim Brotherhood because they can just rebrand very quickly and say it's a different organization now.
	The problem is the numbers themselves that therefore show up in institutions such as, you know, the Home Office Muslim Network, such as the Civil Service Muslim Network, et cetera, et cetera.
	Indeed.
	And what's more as well, sometimes it's just very important to have these conversations in public, in front of the public.
	And this is exactly what you got with Lowe.
	By Lowe challenging, saying, you're not going far enough, you're not.
	And Farage observing the fact, I mean, particularly with Elon Musk, but also with a faction of the British public as well, that there was a big enough part that was sympathetic to Rowe's position, right?
	It shows a challenge to your power, which wouldn't be a problem if you were willing to accept that reality.
	Yes.
	That there was that part of the public that you weren't acknowledging and you weren't addressing their concerns.
	But Nigel doesn't want to address their concerns.
	And you have this entire thing where it is obviously a containment trap in order to, it's the last-ditch effort to save the system as it still stands.
	The last point that I'd make, sorry, sorry to the last point that I'd make is that if the disagreements are delayed until he's in government, then you end up with fighting on the front benches and different policy propositions from people on the front benches.
	You're better off disagreeing today and formulating proper policy so that you can actually implement it when you get in.
	Because when you get in, exactly like Labour, exactly like Boris Johnson, he's going to have a very short honeymoon.
	People are very fed up with the system as a system.
	And they went with Boris to sort of change the system.
	And then Starmer won to change the system.
	Farah is going to win to change the system.
	If he doesn't have a plan, it's really curtains.
	And it's really violence on the streets.
	And this is what he's not understanding.
	And it's possibly a default or a currency crash.
	So this sort of, no, we can't discuss this publicly.
	We have to keep it in the family.
	Look, you don't have a plan here.
	You haven't said how you're going to fix the economy.
	You haven't said how you're going to fix the immigration system.
	You haven't said what you're going to do that actually makes things function.
	So, yeah, there need to be disagreements today so that when you govern, you know what you're implementing, as opposed to you're sniping at each other from the front benches and it's a complete disaster and you end up exactly in the same position that the Conservatives were in the last few years.
	Plus, as well, we live in the world we live in.
	It's not a polit bureau.
	It's not like a military junta from the 70s.
	People in the reform leadership team can and will brief with journalists if they want to, if they decide it's in their best interest.
	And then it is actually public even if you are having the private conversation.
	So that is still a thing.
	Yes.
	So the reality of it, isn't it?
	But then you get just ridiculous things like this.
	As you say, Reform UK vows to repeal the borderline dystopian online safety act.
	Okay.
	Good idea.
	But then why are you bringing in its architect?
	Right.
	So why are you inviting the architect of it into your party?
	I imagine the calculation is simply that she's a named entity.
	Yes.
	Right.
	And isn't completely disgraced, although anyone that knows about her and her record won't be all that impressed.
	But the point is, your average person that doesn't pay much attention at all to politics, really, will probably have heard the name before.
	And that's it.
	That's about as deep as the calculation goes.
	And put her on television to defend you.
	That's her main utility.
	She's tested in front of the cameras.
	You can put her on television to defend you.
	She did that for Boris.
	She'll do that for him.
	That's what he's after, because if these guys end up with 400 MPs, given how they're running now, who are these guys going to be, given that they keep punching down on their own talent pool?
	So that he's going to need these kinds of media figures that you can put in front of the press.
	And that's what he's asking.
	And that is of value, just to say, that someone that is a tried and tested entity that can go on Laura Kooningsberg and hold her own just about.
	That is a value.
	I mean, I hate Nadine Dorries, but there you go.
	She's capable of that at least.
	Right.
	Yeah, it's a fair point.
	Well, I'll come to it.
	But you have people like reform counselor Lila Cunningham.
	And Cunningham is one of those other people whose name has just started to emerge in the past few months or so because Farage has looked at Trump's success in America and he realizes that he does need not just his own name but many recognizable names.
	And Cunningham is one that he is trying to make recognizable.
	Right.
	She's one of the people who's starting to do the media rounds.
	You can see she's on talk TV.
	She goes on GB News, right?
	So we're trying to get a face out there.
	And even she's just like, ah, maybe we shouldn't have Nadine Dorries in the party.
	Why is she here?
	Right.
	So already we're like, it's, I mean, no, just, I have no affection for Cunningham in this.
	You know, she's not, I've no, she's not mine.
	I'm not supporting her or the party.
	But the fact is that you can already see the dissent in there because this was obviously just a unilateral decision from Nigel.
	They're just, no, we're going to have Nadine.
	And you just have to go along with that.
	And we won't have any public debate on this whatsoever.
	It's just.
	I will just very quickly say that that is kind of dirigue for political parties.
	It's not that Nigel is particularly more tyrannical than any other party leader.
	It's kind of how it's usually done.
	Yes.
	That is kind of how it's usually done.
	The leader gets the last say on nearly everything if he wants it.
	Sure.
	But yeah, Nigel, no one really likes this decision.
	Optically, it's a bad decision.
	Yeah, it doesn't seem to be, yeah.
	Especially when you have.
	So as soon as she's now in here, Nadine's saying, well, we just need to bring more Tories over.
	You know, like, well, I jumped ship.
	You can jump ship too.
	And now we've just got a ship of Theseus where every plank of reform has just been replaced with a Tory plank of wood.
	And my God, aren't they planks of wood?
	And so we're in a position now.
	But obviously, most, and let's not forget as well that Nadine wrote this back in March where she basically tried to write a hit piece on Rupert Lowe.
	So there's her credentials for why she deserves to be in reform, if ever there was one.
	And it's fantastic, this, because she says, I'll say at the outset that I have no time for Lowe, who is perhaps the most far-right MP in the whole of Westminster.
	And she says, he thinks that entire non-Indigenous communities in the UK should be deported.
	Yeah.
	And that includes people who were born here.
	And she also says, and he also believes that illegal immigrants should be sent to insect-ridden internment camps.
	Which has now become government policy to sort of...
	Where is the objection?
	Right.
	What's the insect-ridden thing?
	What's that?
	Oh, he was just saying they shouldn't be in the hotels.
	They should be in tents.
	And he was just talking about, he was just using.
	I think the insects are a side effect.
	Right.
	Find the place with the most insects and put them there.
	The sickening threat, Rupert Loeb, that was shown to not be.
	It was shown to be fiction.
	Right, obviously, acquitted by the police, all the rest of it.
	Pretty bad.
	So there's no place for Rupert in reform, but there absolutely is a place for Boris Johnson, wouldn't you know?
	And so Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage must unite to crush Labor for the good of the country.
	Absolutely, bloody not.
	Right?
	Absolutely not.
	If Boris Johnson ever comes back, then we're buggered.
	Right?
	It's just he was the worst, the absolute worst.
	And the fact that Nadine Doris can't even understand how much of a traitor he was.
	She even says in this exact interview, she says, I'll always have his back.
	Oh, well, fine.
	Right.
	Always have his back.
	Don't worry about the double crime of the lockdowns and the Boris wave.
	Don't worry about that.
	Two of the most unparalleled crimes against the people of these islands.
	Don't worry about that.
	She's got his back.
	Oh, good for you.
	Good for you.
	It's lunacy.
	But also, it's totally a total political miscalculation.
	Boris Johnson and Nigel must unite to crush Labour.
	Labour are already getting crushed.
	They're crushed.
	They're already getting crushed.
	They're already going to lose the next election.
	And as things stand, reform are just going to win the election.
	So why do they need Boris?
	Why do they need the Tories?
	Why do they need anyone?
	You know, for all my criticisms of reform, it does kind of almost look like a given now because there is just such dissatisfaction with the other two parties.
	Yes.
	And even if Nigel is sort of shifting the old guard through the new door, right, of the old Tory government and all their backbenches and things and councillors and so on, so many defectors, right?
	It's still a different, it's got a different name.
	And so.
	To be fair, despite what Nadine says and thinks, I'm pretty sure Nigel and Zia have come out and firmly said no way.
	I've seen Ziag say absolutely not to Boris.
	They did say this.
	So there is that.
	They did say this, but the problem with that is it's like, okay, but why is there such a dramatic difference between taking Boris on and taking all of his acolytes?
	Yes.
	That's a fair point.
	At what point, why are you deciding that that's where you're drawing the line?
	Because you're already taking in people who were absolutely loyal to him to a fault, who agreed and will go along with every policy you put forward.
	Pretty much.
	So what's the difference between just getting Johnson himself on at that point?
	Yeah, no, it's just because he was the head shed, right?
	He was the figurehead.
	He was the actual preemptor.
	But I get it.
	Yeah, you'll take anyone and everyone up to the point, but Boris himself is beyond the pale.
	I mean.
	Because again, Boris would be a threat to Nigel if in the scenario.
	And therefore.
	Yeah.
	He would be.
	He's such a big beast, despite everything.
	He's still got loyalists.
	I've seen people on Twitter that are still, come back, big man, come back, boss.
	We still love you.
	Some people, some Cretans still say stuff like that.
	And yeah, he could actually, just in and of his own right, threaten Nigel for the leadership, which, yeah, Nigel obviously won't have.
	No.
	So Jacob Reesmog ruled out a defection, but I don't particularly trust him.
	And it seems that his children are already signing up to reform as well.
	So we'll see how that goes.
	And then, just as a fun little note at the end, I just wanted to.
	Morrissey, far too based to sing at the reform conference.
	Apparently, he was invited to go and sing at the conference.
	He said, Well, I'm apolitical and I've never joined a political party.
	It's not quite true, I believe.
	I think he was a fan of Britain first.
	But the point is, reform are far too milquetoast for a king like Morrissey.
	Anyway, so there you are.
	Reform is still a total mess.
	Right.
	I'll just quickly rumble through the rants.
	We've got Tom Rat says, I'm a separate government maximalist.
	I think MPs should put their seat up for by-election when they accept a seat in government, and the backbenches should be a separate entity to government.
	Got O Punk says Farage might not be at war with Islam in Britain, but Islam in Britain is at war with him.
	And here's whether he likes it or not.
	Well, they're not his natural constituency.
	He goes after everyone who isn't his natural constituency and shun those who should be his natural ally.
	It's pretty much the opposite of what Trump did.
	Right.
	Exactly.
	Exactly the opposite of what Trump turn two was sort of doubling down on his core constituency, whereas this we were seeing this mess here.
	He'll do everything that Trump did.
	We'll have silly reform baseball caps, even though flax.
	Except the things that made Trump win.
	Right.
	So, yeah.
	And I'll just read some of the ones from YouTube as well.
	We've got testing says, Nigel can't be trusted, but everything they've come out with for the past few weeks has been positives.
	Other than Tory conversions, repealing the OSA, the Online Safety Act is vital.
	I absolutely agree, it's vital.
	And they will do some good, right?
	Some good will be achieved, I've no doubt.
	But also, because the base is so low, will they lock in the rot as well and make that even more immovable?
	We've got Valpolitics says, how can he manage immigration when he can't control migration to his own party?
	He backs Tories over reformers.
	And if elected, he's just a Thatcherite and will damage the Celtic-Anglo relationship.
	Kaguyu says, unfortunate news, but a racehorse, Haru Araru, passed.
	I don't know anything about racing.
	Absolutely devastating.
	Samson informs me of this is devastating.
	So I'll take his word.
	Cheers to you, Haru.
	And Reverend says, Bo, any plans on doing an epox on the rise and fall of the Swedish Empire?
	I'm not asking just because I'm Swedish.
	Our empire did influence the history of Europe in interesting ways while it lasted.
	No immediate players, because I've got honestly dozens and dozens of things that I've promised people I'll do first.
	But it is a fascinating subject.
	Hopefully I'll get round to something like that at some point.
	But no immediate players.
	Don't hold your breath.
	I've obviously got dozens and dozens of things in the pipeline that I sort of have to do first.
	But I would and should will eventually get round to something specifically on Sweden.
	That's all I can say at this point.
	Sure.
	Fair enough.
	Okay.
	Fair ass.
	Over to you, sir.
	Shall we go to the next segment, Samson?
	Thank you.
	So the French have lost their government again.
	I just wanted to do a quick comparison between what a term of office for a prime minister under the monarchy would be versus what it is now.
	You see, for example, from 1515 to 1541, so 30 something, 36 years in office, six years in office, that's a short term, 10 years, sometimes 20 years, etc., etc.
	A lot of them, when they end up with a short term, like just 13 years, it's because they died in office.
	And you see this stability and this power that comes from incumbency, because if you've been in office for a long time, you will learn how to manage the ship of state and you won't be completely at the mercy of silly civil servants.
	And then you see the introduction of democracy a little bit and more participation for the public.
	And then the government lasts for a year.
	And this trend continues and it continues.
	And now it seems that Nice Mr. Macrow is going to have to appoint a seventh prime minister in a matter of eight years.
	And I think it's five in the last two years.
	I think it's five prime ministers in the last two years.
	It's worse than the era of the four emperors, isn't it?
	Yeah, which shows you that there is a severe dysfunction within the French state because nobody understands what is the French state for.
	Is it there to hold the doors of the borders open and to keep on providing cradle to grave welfare?
	Or does it actually have a function beyond that that requires it to, I don't know, maybe worry about the interests of the French people themselves?
	And you don't see that on display in France.
	What you see is that there is just complete chaos.
	They think that the problem is economic.
	And the Prime Minister Bayroux went as far as to say, no, no, no, the migrants are not part of the problem.
	They're not the problem.
	It's just the debt that's the problem.
	And admittedly, the debt is a huge problem.
	The debt to GDP ratio of France is something like 114%, meaning that it's third behind Italy and Greece.
	And its long-term bonds are trading at yield levels that are, I think, higher than Italy and Greece.
	So the markets believe that there's a higher possibility of a French default than of an Italian or a Greek default.
	That's how bad things are for France.
	114%.
	114%.
	In Britain, it's 100% or 101%.
	I didn't realize it was that bad in Britain.
	It's not far behind, actually.
	It's really bad.
	It's really, really bad.
	And Spain is somewhere in between, I believe.
	Germany's like in the 60s, I think.
	Germany's in the high 60s and they've just...
	Which is still terrible.
	That's still really quite bad.
	So 60% used to be the limit for the EU.
	Just to put all of this in context, to put all of this in context.
	If you were going to be a good EU government and be allowed to do things like, oh, join the Euro, which will definitely improve your economy.
	Look at Greece today.
	You had to have a maximum debt to GDP of 60%.
	And the French are near double that.
	And the Italians and the Greeks are past double.
	And the Spaniards are not far behind.
	And the British are catching up.
	And you had to have a maximum budget deficit of 3% on the assumption that maybe you could achieve growth of 4%.
	So if the growth is higher than the deficit, then your total debt to GDP ratio is shrinking because the denominator is growing faster than the numerator.
	So fair enough.
	Now with France, the budget deficit is around 6%, which is a disaster, especially in peacetime.
	They're not facing an immediate financial crisis, although one is coming, obviously.
	They're not falling apart right now.
	But with 6% debt to GDP, sorry, with 6% budget deficit, which tells you how much more you're spending than you're making, and with 114% debt to GDP, it means that if there is an economic crisis, the French government is too broke to do anything about it.
	Other than dramatically cut spending.
	Which they can't.
	Isn't the last three governments fallen?
	Because of that, they've tried to reduce spending.
	Precisely.
	And it can't get done and the government falls.
	They bring in a new lefty government to try to do the exactly the same thing.
	It fails.
	They bring in another one because they won't have anything to do with the National Front or Le Pen.
	Just repeat.
	So you see the same pattern happening pretty much everywhere in Europe where there is a Cordo sanitaire being imposed on right-wing parties, on genuine right-wing parties, to say that, no, no, no, you're not allowed to participate in government under any conditions.
	We won't bring you into a coalition.
	We won't listen to you.
	We will just close our ears and start screaming rather than listen to what you have to say.
	The only country that seems to be an exception to that rule from what I read on it seems to be Spain, where the centre-right is giving lip service to being open to working with the Vox party.
	Yeah, maybe.
	Maybe.
	But it's not actually happening.
	No.
	In Germany, that's their favorite trick, isn't it?
	Whatever happens, everyone else will gang up to prevent AFD from being governed.
	I mean, isn't that what Macron did at the last election, like last year?
	Exactly.
	I'll let you explain it.
	That's exactly what he did.
	That's exactly what they've been doing all the time.
	So when Macron won against Le Pen in 2017, I think it was, the way that that happened was that all of the far left, all of the centre-right, everybody who wasn't part of RN voted together against Le Pen for Macron,
	who's a creature of the Rothschild Bank at the end of the day, and doesn't have any real experience in government, and who's married to a pervert.
	Let's just careful.
	She's very litigious.
	Whatever.
	I'm happy to say that if you're in your 40s or 30s or whatever she was and having relations with a 15-year-old, there's something slightly perverted.
	So this is who the guy is.
	And the entire political establishment decided we'd rather have that rather than less immigration and some questions about our relationship with the EU.
	Genuinely like Mr. Waternus in Monsters Inc., I'll let a thousand Frenchmen get stabbed on the street before we're at the national rallying.
	Precisely.
	It's a monstrous position.
	It's a horrific position.
	And they did the same thing again in the last presidential election when it was again them two.
	And in the legislative election, the snap legislative election that Macrot called for in 2024, so last year as well, everybody banded together to make sure that the Iran wouldn't have their man and wouldn't be allowed to get a prime minister.
	And all of the different parties who were competing for runoff elections decided we are all going to vote together against Iran.
	And that's how they didn't get a majority in parliament.
	I don't know how long they can play that trick for.
	I don't know how long, or that gambit they'll say.
	I don't know how many.
	The demographics change enough.
	Until the demographics change enough.
	I mean, it's pretty transparent.
	It's pretty transparent that they're sort of biding their time, biding their time, until they feel that this insane experiment is sufficiently irreversible.
	That seems to be the story.
	The thing that always confuses me about this is why do they seem to think that they'll still be the ones at the top once it has fully taken hold?
	Because they won't be able to.
	They haven't learned what happened to the leftists after the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
	It was the leftists who did the street mobilization.
	They did the strikes.
	They did the organization.
	And then they received the executions.
	Like they literally all got killed, all of them.
	So these guys are so committed to hating themselves and hating their country and so adamant that the purpose of the government of the nation-state is not to serve the nation-state, that they will go to any lengths to make sure that Marine Le Pen doesn't get into power.
	And if you look at how diluted Marine Le Pen's positions are compared to her father, then you see that there's simply no reasoning with these guys because there are no amount of concessions that you're willing to make that will actually satisfy them.
	It's like the leftists here that try and paint Nigel as a fascist or something.
	I would fully support the Nigel that is in the left's imagination with zero preconditions.
	It's the same with Le Pen.
	It's the same with AFD.
	It's the same thing.
	Like AFD are neo-Nazis.
	They're really not.
	They're not.
	They're a Mesians in a relationship with a Sri Lankan.
	Right.
	Like, you're not very neo-Nazi at that time.
	And who supports Israel?
	And famous neo-Nazis that support Israel.
	Yes.
	So now there is talk that they will try to impeach McCall.
	And he's saying that he's absolutely...
	Sorry, can I just ask?
	Yes.
	Who will?
	Is this because I understand the agreement on the left and right about this?
	I was going to say, my not great understanding, my shallow understanding is that even the center left and even some of the far left are saying that they're done with Macron.
	So it's nearly everyone, it seems, don't want Macron anymore.
	They're blaming him personally.
	They're blaming him personally.
	And the problem is that the far left is actually strong.
	And I think alone they get something like 26% of the vote.
	Under Malichon.
	Under Melanchon.
	And they want more communism.
	And the prime minister is saying don't become like Britain because the Brits tried raising taxes on the rich and all that did was raise property prices in Milan.
	And if you looked at it, apparently property prices in Milan have gone up by 49% since 2017 as more and more rich people have moved there because Meloney decided that she is going to tax foreign income at a flat rate of under 200K.
	So if you have overshore, like the whole, what was it called in Britain?
	The offshore thing, the overseas non-resident tax, non-dom.
	Oh, right.
	Okay.
	If you were to wanted to be treated like a non-dom, you'd have to pay 200,000 pounds, which is peanuts.
	And then you get to live in Milan.
	So he's saying don't make the same mistake and try to tax the rich.
	And the left is saying, no, no, no, how dare you?
	How dare you?
	That's our only plan.
	We will not learn from experience.
	Screw learning from experience.
	That's for amateurs.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	So this seems to be the whole argument of the left that really what's needed is more government spending.
	What's needed is more taxation.
	And this will solve things.
	Even though, and you have to remember this, the French government spends 55% of its GDP.
	So more than half of the economy is under the control of the French state.
	34% of GDP is just welfare payments by the French state.
	So one out of three Euros that is made in France just gets redistributed to some probably immigrant because if you look at the level of education, employment, et cetera, et cetera, among the migrant communities, it's atrocious.
	You had people during last year's riots in France putting up signs saying, please don't smash my windows.
	I need to pay taxes to give your mother welfare.
	And the answer from the left is, how about more taxes?
	How about more welfare?
	How about more foreigners?
	How about more foreigners?
	Exactly.
	So it's an absolutely obscene position.
	I was going to say, it's not that much better in Britain, but France seems to be speedrunning the process even faster than we are.
	Even faster.
	Yes.
	They're further down the route and they're going faster.
	It's a structural problem across the board where there is no recognition that if you do believe in the nonsense of the social contract, you must at least throw the natives a bone here and there.
	And the response throughout is absolutely no concessions to the natives at any cost.
	And the French economy, I mean, if they end up with hyperinflation or a default, which are realistic scenarios when you have this level of debt, already they have the highest G7 unemployment rate.
	So they're not exactly doing very well.
	They're higher than their competitors.
	And they're locked into an enormous amount of spending that keeps on rising.
	And they don't really seem to have a solution other than more spending, more deficits, more debts, more taxes.
	Like that seems to be their only playbook.
	And the police are saying we're too dysfunctional to stop the boats.
	And they're mostly too dysfunctional to stop the crime in general.
	And there are massive no-go areas in Paris.
	I remember when we were having this debate a few years ago, and the left was saying, no, there's no such thing as a no-go area.
	You can go there so long as you have a police escort and you're going at high noon.
	You can drive around.
	But everybody knows that these things are real.
	And you see them, you see the most recent humiliation here of basically a bunch of thugs climbing on the raising Palestinian flags on the statue of Joan of Arc and generally being their friendly, thuggish selves.
	And you see that the French state admits that the Muslim Brotherhood has pretty much fully infiltrated the state because of the numbers, not because you can ban a specific organization.
	It's an ideology first.
	It comes with the numbers.
	And 10% of France is Muslim at this stage, which is an insane figure when you think about the history of France.
	And you see that there is no solution.
	And it's not obvious to me that there is an electoral solution.
	Because even with all of this mess, the RN is still at 32%.
	And the left is at 25%.
	So with some other allies, they could still end up in control.
	They'll just keep locking them out.
	They will do everything that they can to keep locking the RN out.
	Whilst France burns.
	Whilst France burns.
	And that seems to be the playbook.
	And it goes back to a fundamental question of what is the purpose of the state.
	Should it be providing you with childcare and health care and pensions, but zero protection for your property or for the safety of your person while importing an endless horde of people who absolutely hate your guts?
	Or is the purpose of the organs of the state to serve the people whose land the state is built on?
	And that's the fundamental philosophical problem.
	Without a conception that the state is there to serve, the French state is there to serve the French people, and the French people are in fact not Moroccan or Algerian or African or Lebanese.
	Without that conception, none of this is going to be resolved.
	Fundamentally, there is a philosophical problem over why we are collecting taxes.
	Why do we have these employees working for the government?
	Why are these NGOs being funded?
	What is the purpose of all of this?
	And the answer seems to be to serve the global good at the expense of the people paying the taxes who have been on this land for a thousand years, 2,000 years, 3,000 years.
	In Beau's case, was it 29,000 years?
	Something like that.
	Dan, it was Dan's.
	Dan's capital.
	That's like a British cap originally.
	Dan's case, 29,000 years.
	So this is the fundamental issue.
	It's a philosophical question first and foremost.
	And they're pretending that it's an economic question and it has nothing to do with immigration.
	Look, guys, enough.
	Like, just be honest about this, please.
	They can't.
	They can't, though.
	Because they're the same people.
	It's the same worldview that led to this.
	Yes, quite.
	Quite.
	Civic nationalism leads to open borders and leads to sectarian chaos.
	Exactly.
	Oh, just to add a quick point.
	They're still funding Ukraine.
	The French are still funding Ukraine.
	And they still haven't learned that a big part of the economic crisis in Europe is because they cut themselves off from Russian gas and had the Americans blow up the main pipeline feeding the German economy through Ukrainian hands, whatever, but it was American approved, the blowing up of Nord Stream.
	And the result of that is Germany de-industrializing.
	And if the German economy isn't working, no European economy is going to be working.
	So this isn't just a French crisis or a British crisis.
	This is a system-wide crisis.
	And one of the roots of it is complete European subservience to the United States.
	That's one of the key roots of it.
	And nobody wants to discuss this.
	And nobody wants to think clearly about this.
	Because it goes back to the fundamental question.
	It is in France's interest to align with Russia because that's always how you've been containing Germany.
	And that's always been how you contain Germany.
	You get a Franco-Russian alliance and that keeps the Germans in their place.
	But you cannot think about that.
	Why?
	Because they're all in NATO and they all have to serve the American Empire, not their own people.
	It's very interesting.
	I've got an anecdote about that.
	A while ago here, I interviewed Peter Bohringer of the ADF.
	He was at least one of the deputy chairmen of ADF.
	AFD?
	AFD.
	Sorry.
	What did I say?
	ADF.
	Oh, sorry.
	And he was doing the rounds, like he did an interview on GB News and stuff.
	He was kind enough to come on here and ask him all sorts of questions.
	And at one point, I asked him about Nord Stream.
	Right.
	And he literally just sort of said, wait, wait a minute.
	Can you not ask me that question?
	I sort of can't answer that question.
	I don't want to.
	I'm not in a position to.
	I can't really.
	And I was like, okay, fine.
	I'm not trying to do a doctor.
	I'm not trying to embarrass you or catch you out.
	So we'll just move on.
	Absolutely fine by me.
	And he did the same thing, though, for when I talked about American bases.
	Like, how do you feel about having loads of American bases still after World War II peppered throughout your country?
	And he's like, I can't.
	But that speaks volumes, doesn't it?
	That really does speak volumes about the hegemony still of the United States.
	This is what castrated people sound like.
	There's not loads of US bases in Britain.
	There are.
	There are.
	Exactly.
	But at least we could have, at least I could talk about it.
	At least I'm at liberty to speculate who blew up that pipeline.
	Or I'm free to say, wouldn't it be better if there weren't US Air Force bases peppered all over Britain?
	I'd like it if there weren't, actually.
	I don't feel terrified in posing the question.
	Yep, yep, yep.
	It's a good point.
	People don't really bring up that point very often, but that is true.
	It's true.
	It's a fundamental part of reality that Europe has surrendered its sovereignty.
	And part of surrendering Europe's sovereignty entails pretending that Europe is the United States and is therefore a land of immigrants.
	Now, the revolutionary thing about the United States was that it was a land for European immigrants, and that was understood by a lot of the founders, all of the founders, arguably.
	And now the pretense is that no is for anyone from anywhere, including Hindus, including Buddhists, including Confucians, including Muslims, including whoever.
	But before that, it was understood that it was actually about white Christians.
	And that was not even controversial.
	No, and what's more, it's obvious idiocy to think that it was the founding fathers did have in mind that it would become basically a place for all people of the world.
	These founding fathers who we never hear the end of how racist they were.
	And yet somehow they simultaneously wanted it to be a place for all people and all faiths and all.
	There's no coherence to their thinking.
	There is no coherence to leftists' thinking.
	It's just that stupid plaque that somebody after the fact put on the Statue of Liberty thing, wasn't it?
	Yeah, bring me all your huddled masses or whatever.
	I'm paraphrasing.
	No, no, that's a much, much more modern concept.
	Well, the idea of critical theory and critical race theory and all that stuff.
	It's not that old.
	You look back at histories by someone like Winston Churchill or Sir Charles Omer, 20th century, first half of the 20th century.
	They're just openly talking about race.
	The white race here or there.
	Yes.
	And the differences between groups of people.
	And the fact different groups and that belief systems matter.
	Churchill's views on Islam, quite famous.
	So it's just complete separation from reality.
	Shall we go through a couple of comments?
	Sure, by all means.
	Sure.
	Let me see.
	Regardless of what's popular, we, the USA, are unapologetically and totally on your side as English citizens.
	My heritage is English and mostly Viking.
	I wish and hope you will fight like you did against the Viking invaders.
	Yeah, thank you for that.
	And that's from Magnum Norse for $50.
	Thank you for that.
	Thank you very much.
	From Val Politics for £20, you'd think with such bleak economic prospects, nations would push their own natives to have children, since that justifies investing in the foundations of long-term GDP growth.
	Precisely.
	The economy is shrinking because the country is.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	And the idea that somebody from Morocco, I mean, have you been to the sort of rural parts of Morocco where pretty much 40% is illiterate?
	The idea that they will just become wonderful French citizens is just laughable.
	Squabblat for five pounds.
	We all know the solution.
	Nobody wants to say it.
	Mastery migration.
	Juan de Ribera knew it 400 years ago.
	I'm assuming that would be Uli Conquista.
	How about we stop allowing this nonsense?
	I'm in North Carolina, also Magnum Norse.
	Thank you very much for that.
	Brother Doom for £4.99.
	I'm an American and I'd also prefer not having military bases all over Britain or Germany for that matter.
	I'd like to send the troops home.
	Well, yes, because for the Americans, and this is no part an attack on American citizens, at no point at all.
	But the fact that the American government prioritizes the empire comes at the expense of American citizens.
	And so nothing that I said should be construed as being, you know, against Americans.
	No, it's not about the people.
	Not at all.
	Not at all.
	It's just that if they prioritize their empire, neither European citizens nor Europeans in the United States will be a priority.
	And that's the objective reality of it.
	That's a good point.
	I would like to make a distinction again between the average person in Nebraska and the planners at the Pentagon.
	Yes.
	They're not the same.
	The planners at the Pentagon are usually a lot more sane because they might get shot.
	The most awful people are the people in the State Department.
	I've met some of them and they're all morons.
	I think that's a random name makes a really good point in the Rumble rant as well, where he says there's also a second cod on sanitary going on throughout the West that I refer to as the tyranny of the boomers.
	Because once they lose a majority as a voting bloc, things will pop off.
	That's my belief.
	You do see this when you look at the most recent German elections and the way it's the boomers popping up, the old parties, getting in the way of a huge voter block of young vitality for the AFD.
	Or even for the leftist parties.
	You know, it's this boomer centrism that everybody hates.
	Admittedly dissatisfied.
	The left is less guilty of boomer centrism than the right.
	They were the first to leave it.
	Yeah.
	They were the first to leave it.
	I give them that.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Over to you, Beau.
	Okay, Samson, can you bring up all my links for me?
	There we go.
	Okay, so just want to talk a little bit about the dark economy, the hidden economy, if you like, the plague of delivery drivers we've got in this country.
	You may not have it in the United States or in other places, but certainly it's pretty bad here.
	And also, basically, to call for a boycott.
	I think it's high time.
	I mean, boycotting in general terms is kind of a lefty thing.
	Broadly speaking, but it can work.
	It does and can work.
	Yeah, I mean, even in recent times.
	Yeah, but the Bad Light one was a good one, good example.
	Just stop giving them your money.
	So, okay.
	For anyone who might not know, and I think anyone that is in Britain will know.
	But yeah, as I say, this phenomenon now of Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats are sort of the big three platforms, companies that employ completely undocumented migrants on a bicycle or an electric bicycle to come and deliver food directly to your home, including like Greg's and McDonald's.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	And you can't not notice that.
	Everyone knows.
	In the same way that everyone knows about all the Turkish barbers.
	And the moment they're going, just everyone knows.
	All the fake vape shops.
	Right, yes.
	You really, really can't fail to notice the sort of swongs of these delivery drivers.
	And it's all relatively new as well.
	It wasn't the case, like even, well, 10 years ago, five years ago, it was minimal.
	Ten years ago, sort of non-existent.
	And people may think that some of the things I've just said there, I've sort of mischaracterizing it as a far-right stance to say all the things I said about migrants, non-documented migrants, but it really is the case.
	It's been shown.
	And even the sun, I mean, let's just actually watch a bit of this video where the sun did some investigative journalism on it.
	Can you put the sound up?
	Oh, okay.
	I'll do it.
	Let's just start this thing.
	Asylum seekers are being offered deliveroo and just eat accounts within 10 minutes of asking for them as thousands work illegally for the apps across the country.
	We went undercover to expose how easy it is for illegal immigrants who have just arrived in the UK to join the massive black market economy.
	And at hotels in London and Bournemouth we witnessed dozens.
	Just say, yeah, just these bikes are constantly hanging around all sorts of not just McDonald's and Greg's but loads and loads of different takeaway places.
	They're just sort of constantly constantly there.
	I mean like a swarm of them.
	They're ubiquitous, absolutely ubiquitous.
	They drive absolutely recklessly.
	There's that too.
	Peter Hitchin's really grievous there.
	It is actually a little bit dangerous.
	They are quite dangerous.
	No, no, seriously, they're quite dangerous.
	And as it gets worse, I mean, we have the same problem with these small motorbikes in Lebanon.
	And God, they are such a hazard on the road.
	Even in a country like Lebanon where you just expect hazard everywhere.
	You know?
	And here, no offense, but British drivers are not used to sort of monitoring 360 degrees because they don't know where somebody might jump onto the road.
	British drivers are used to driving in an orderly way.
	Just whizzing around corners.
	Yeah, because a lot of them are migrants that have come here very, very recently.
	And they're sort of not used to our green cross code.
	They don't have licenses in a lot of cases.
	Even when they're on these motorbikes, they don't care.
	They know the police isn't going to stop them.
	And so they just...
	Beyond the illegals being in these companies as well, it's just phenomenally rare to actually see someone ethnically English.
	Yes, just to see someone British.
	Working these jobs.
	Do you ever see a British?
	I did have a double take one time because I actually saw one.
	I was like, bloody hell, is that Uber Rider actually British?
	Yeah, it was that rare.
	Let's just clear on with this real quick.
	...migrants in the full uniforms of Deliveroo and Just Eat, coming and going at all hours of the day.
	To prove exactly how easy it is to get around these supposedly ironclad work requirements, I posed as a new arrival into the UK and joined forums on Facebook where accounts are offered for sale.
	Within 10 minutes, I've been contacted by one so-called Deliveroo dealer who has an account I could rent and begin immediately working on.
	I started by telling...
	So just to make that clear what's going on there, you need the right paperwork in order to do this.
	So they've got a guy that's got that and then you just rent his account.
	You could have multiple people, dozens, maybe even hundreds of people using his account to do this.
	So that's that's just to be clear, that's what's going on here.
	So completely circumventing the system that a company like Deliveroo has put in place.
	And well, they will be aware of what's going on.
	Yes.
	If this son reporter is able to sort of do this with complete ease.
	I have arrived in the UK and did not have the documents, making it clear I had no right to work.
	But despite the law, he still told me that wouldn't be a problem and said, quote, rent weekly cost is £80 and monthly cost is £200.
	I wanted to check if he was sure I wasn't going to get caught and asked him exactly how it works.
	He quickly replied, quote, okay, I will guide you through whatever you don't understand and show you how everything works perfectly in Deliveroo.
	He went on to tell me that I wouldn't get caught in any way.
	He also reassured me insular.
	So one, obviously that guy, whoever he is, and there's loads of these people.
	Obviously, he's a scumbag.
	Obviously, he's a fifth columnist, a cuckoo in the nest, an enemy within the gates.
	Okay.
	But the next thing does sort of beg the question, Delivery themselves, or Juste or Uber Eats or whoever.
	What are they doing about this?
	We'll get onto that in a moment.
	He has done this many times.
	When it came to proving my identity, I was told that I don't need to verify anything, as I was simply renting an account and not creating one.
	Now, moving on to the money.
	He told me, quote, you can earn up to £100 daily, though other dealers said migrants had made as much as £250, and some we spoke to said they were making nearly £1,000 a week.
	We found another seller offering Just Eat accounts and, after raising the same fears about being caught, the man told us, quote, it's no problem if you do your job, mate.
	A third seller told us, don't worry, leave that to me.
	It's my job.
	I will sort it out on your behalf.
	Migrants in hotels have generally been in Britain for less than 12 months, meaning they are supposedly banned from working for cash in any circumstances.
	Even those here for longer are not allowed to legally work as delivery drivers.
	But at two packed hotels in London, housing hundreds of asylum seekers each, we took photos of migrants cycling off while brazenly cloaked in Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats branded jackets.
	One thing I'll quickly say.
	One thing I'll quickly say, but I'll reiterate it, is in Bose Britain, if it was up to me, these companies would be stopped.
	Yes.
	They would be prescribed.
	They'd have to be made to pay billions in damages.
	They'd have to pay billions in damages.
	You'd have to wipe out their shareholders and their lenders.
	I would prescribe them from operating.
	You'd have to destroy the political economy of them.
	Yeah, yeah.
	One road e-bikes worth over £1,000 while others use...
	You see this everywhere now.
	Something like this.
	I remember when one of the migrant hotels very near to these offices, one of the hotels very near to this, very near, was being used as microphones.
	Within days of it being packed, suddenly, you just had dozens and dozens and dozens of bicycles and some electronic bikes chained up to the posts, the lampposts, directly outside.
	If they're literally fresh off the boat, not a turn of phrase, but literally fresh off the boat, where did they get them from?
	Where did they buy them from?
	They're just stolen.
	So they come here, they get put in a hotel in some town somewhere, wherever it is, steal loads of bikes, and then just use those bikes to work in the hidden economy for someone like Deliveroo.
	despicable tampered public hire bikes like lime port forest and santander's boris bikes we found migrants could rent delivery and just eat accounts online for as little as 40 pounds a week by exploiting a substitution loophole it allows legitimate account holders to sublet work even though signing up for a delivery account is generally free okay you get the idea Actually, good bit of journalism here by this chap.
	So, I think the obviously it would be nice if the government did something about this for us.
	Obviously, that would be nice.
	There don't seem to be any massive hurry.
	We'll get into what they are or aren't doing, but they're obviously not in any massive hurry.
	No.
	Even reform, to be fair, it's one of the things Reform have said quite early on.
	I remember Tice a few years ago saying, What are all these fake sweet shops going on?
	Yeah, you do.
	Just mentioning, what are all these barbers?
	Why does one high street need like eight barbers?
	So they do actually talk about it a bit more than most.
	But yeah, so it's just become clear now that this sort of thing, again, it's ubiquitous, isn't it?
	You'll see it absolutely everywhere.
	And the scale of it is just massive.
	Minister, I think this is quite a while ago now, isn't it?
	There is.
	No, it wasn't too long ago.
	Ministers are going to sort of start thinking about talking about it, maybe.
	Thank you for noticing.
	Yeah, thanks for nothing.
	Hundreds of delivery drivers arrested.
	Yeah, well, that's a drop in the ocean.
	Yes.
	So you're doing almost nothing.
	Because it says a restaurant appointed.
	Yeah.
	They'll be let straight out.
	Yeah, of course they will.
	And they will go straight back to the black economy of what they're doing.
	Yeah, and some of these companies have already been revealed.
	I think, was this a while ago now?
	Yeah, this is a few years ago.
	A couple years ago.
	So yeah, we know that they know, like Uber and Delivery, they know they're breaking the law.
	They know that we know they're breaking the law.
	Just still doing it.
	Just still doing it.
	Oh, yeah, they're not above just using children as well.
	Look, if you're 16 working as a delivery driver, good for you.
	But you should be presumably a British young man doing your first job.
	Right, yeah.
	It is sort of a 16-year-old type job.
	It's a great young man's job.
	It's a great job for young people in a safe society where you assume they wouldn't get attacked or beaten or stabbed.
	So it ties together in so many different ways.
	Some of these companies started to complain.
	Oh, it'll push up the price of your delivery service if the government does anything, it cracks down in any real way.
	So you're admitting to breaking the law that brazenly?
	Yeah, seemingly, yeah.
	Breaking the law in the name of you having lower costs on your illegally delivered takeaway.
	Now the thing I would say, and I do try to not be too judgy in general, I don't like when commentators like us just on some podcast try and tell the rest of the world how to live their life.
	I don't particularly like that or engage in it very often, but today I'm going to.
	Always an exception.
	Stop getting loads of takeaway all the time.
	Why are you getting McDonald's and Greg's delivered to your front door?
	Are you that gross?
	lazy Like sort it out sort your life out if you're doing that Like it's disguisable start start picking up your own food, you know like um like get a takeaway every now and again.
	I'm not like that puritan like that's okay But like if that's how you live It's like most of your meals are delivered to your door by uber eats Like that's gross.
	You're gross.
	Okay.
	So yeah, well, it will cost you a bit more Yeah, at the cost of the fabric of your own society.
	Oh look the home office and delivery working together against illegal migrants.
	Well not very hard.
	They're not working very hard at that.
	It's a tiny bit of red meat.
	It's nonsense, isn't it really?
	Especially when you have all of this going on in the major cities as well like London and Birmingham where they're already just swarmed with foreigners.
	It's like who's going to really notice?
	Who's going to really care?
	You know they're already sympathetic to everyone outside of Britain.
	This is like five years ago.
	Uber Eat says it's going to stop using gig economy workers.
	Yeah, well they haven't.
	They said that years ago and just haven't.
	If anything, it's ramped up exponentially, if anything.
	Yeah, we're going to keep doing more checks on illegal workers.
	No, you're not.
	Liars.
	You're lying.
	You could just quickly have them do a face scan on a relatively new phone.
	Like, if they wanted to do it, it is very easily solvable.
	But the business model relies on not doing it.
	The business model relies on illegal labor that comes with a hugely damaging effect society.
	That's why I don't call it slave labor because it's causing massive damage in every other way.
	They're certainly not slaves.
	They're making half decent money.
	If they make a thousand pounds a week, that's more than I make.
	With their meals covered.
	That's loads of money.
	That's a really good wage.
	Thousand pounds a month.
	They're not covered.
	With their meals covered.
	With their residence at the hotel covered.
	So they're not paying rent.
	They're not paying for food and they're not paying taxes.
	If you take home four grand a month, that's half decent money in our country right now.
	That's not too shabby.
	But it is a big thing.
	It's a big market.
	We're playing with tons of money here.
	Look, again, years ago, 2019, a merger between Just Eat and takeaway.com.
	8.2 billion that deal was worth.
	It's quite a few years ago.
	Yeah, when Just Eat struck a deal with McDonald's and Greggs.
	It's 40%.
	40% of lazy people getting their Greggs and McDonald's delivered to them all the time.
	Rather than go outside, travel, go there.
	I could fit in another episode of Netflix, you know, and just have it brought to me.
	Oh, David Cameron chipped in saying it's ludicrous to blame the gig economy for mass migration.
	No, it isn't.
	What are you talking about, Dave?
	It's literally true.
	What are you talking about, Dave, you dickhead?
	Right.
	So the hidden economy, the hidden economy is what they like to do.
	Everyone can see.
	The black economy, the illegal economy, is massive.
	It's sort of 10%.
	It's something like 10% of the UK economy.
	That's mad.
	Look, years ago, it was worth $150 billion.
	Just a straight up Google search.
	Just a simple Google search says it's between 10 and 11%.
	And I think it was either Lewis Brackpool, one of the Voice of Wales chaps, came on a while ago and went into this in some detail.
	And it does seem this.
	Something in the order of 10%, maybe a touch more, of the entire economy is this hidden stuff.
	So like, it's not just Deliveroo and Just Eats delivery drivers.
	It's also the fake barbers, the fake sweet shops, the fake vape shops, on and on, which are just fronts for money laundering.
	Lots and lots of drugs, lots and lots of people, people trafficking, lots and lots of prostitution.
	So, okay.
	So what I would say is, because a lot of people say this when we moan on the internet.
	Well, what can I do?
	I'm just one person.
	I can't control government.
	I've only got one vote.
	What can I really do?
	Well, what you can do is boycott them.
	Boycott them all.
	Don't spend your money with them.
	Delete your apps.
	Yes.
	Stop giving them money.
	Stop transferring our wealth to them.
	Because I only send it home anyway, mostly.
	Stop giving them money.
	They are stealing from us in essence.
	Or not even in essence, just literally.
	They're stealing jobs from young people.
	They're stealing safety from everybody.
	Right.
	They're stealing welfare.
	And they're stealing welfare.
	You think in a different, well, not that I'm, I mean, I'd still have my contentions with delivering justice regardless.
	But in another world, you think it'd be an entry-level job.
	Which is what it should be.
	Right, which is what it should be.
	Like, work over the summer.
	Yeah.
	Make a few quid.
	Yeah.
	Have some pocket money.
	Learn some financial responsibility.
	Learn how the system works.
	Get some experience.
	It's not a bad thing.
	But instead, it's good to work if you're 15, 14, 17.
	It's good to have a job appropriate for your age.
	Absolutely.
	It's like being a paperboy.
	Like maybe a delivery driver, a pizza dude.
	Exactly.
	Or whatever.
	There's nothing wrong with it.
	It's actually healthy.
	In the summer, you go and pick strawberries somewhere.
	Yeah, exactly.
	You learn how to be on time.
	You learn responsibility.
	You learn that you've got to interact with people.
	It builds up your confidence.
	It gives you a little bit of financial independence.
	It's healthy for you.
	They're taking an opportunity away.
	So it should be seen as such.
	And the argument always comes back, doesn't it?
	It's like, well, British people wouldn't want to do those jobs, would they?
	It's like, well, if you stopped importing all the illegals and the mass immigration and suppressing the wages, then you'd have to pay them a fair wage and you would make those jobs more attractive to them anyway.
	When you go around London at around when it sort of stops being lunch hour, 2 to 4 p.m., something like that, you will see gaggles of Algerian men or African men or whatever hanging around with each other between peak hours.
	And they will be normally smoking pot and they will be clearly not from there.
	And you can imagine if you were a British 16-year-old doing that job and you went to hang around with your colleagues, you would pretty quickly get stabbed because it's not your culture and they don't like you.
	So there's this dishonesty to it that, oh, these guys are poor victims.
	They're not harming anyone.
	No, no, no.
	This is a real observable social harm.
	Indeed.
	And they've got gangs of their own.
	So sometimes it's now emerging that rival factions of delivery drivers fighting each other.
	Sometimes even with machetes and stuff.
	The Afghans fighting the Iraqis.
	Yeah.
	Delivery driver turf wars, which are also obviously ethnic and sectarian in nature as well.
	As they would be.
	As they would be.
	So I say, boycott.
	And it's a double whammy because one, you stop giving them money to send home.
	And two, you put the money in the pockets of actual British businesses.
	So whatever it is, spend your money with businesses that are just do it responsibly, yeah.
	Because boycotts can and do work.
	If they're widespread enough, they can and do work and they can work real fast sometimes.
	The history is littered with examples of when there's all types of different types of boycott, aren't there?
	Like political ones, sporting ones.
	But I'm obviously talking about commercial, commercial ones.
	I mean, just look at the Townsend Acts and the American Revolution, boycotting British goods in the 13 colonies, all the way through to sort of boycotting grapes in California in the 60s, boycotting buses in the South in the 50s.
	But loads and loads of boycotts, all the way through to sort of bud light.
	Boycotting can and does work if it's widespread enough.
	So that's what I say.
	That would be my message.
	If anyone's worried, what can I do?
	I'm seeing my country dissolving before my very eyes.
	I'm completely powerless.
	I can do nothing.
	Well, you can stop spending, you can stop giving them money.
	Stop giving out enemies money.
	You can do that.
	It might be slightly more expensive for you.
	It might be slightly more inconvenient.
	You might have like your local cooler shop or your local barbers or whatever.
	You have to go a bit further afield, maybe pay a touch more.
	But do that if you can.
	But that's the point, isn't it?
	These CEOs and these people own that company who are aware of what's going on, they've wagered your convenience.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	I say.
	Taking it that you'll take that for your own convenience.
	I say it's your patriotic duty to not use Deliveroo Just Eats and Uber Eats.
	Absolutely.
	England expects.
	Every man will delete his Deliveroo hat.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	That's the segment.
	Fantastic.
	All right.
	I've got.
	That's Random Name says, the reason the general public don't care about stuff like Deliveroo is because the older generations, in my experience, don't care about us younger people.
	They only care about their comfort.
	Well, I mean, it's one of those things that on paper, I do agree.
	But at the same time, do I think it about my own parents?
	Do most people think that about, you know, it's like the people you actually know in your own life.
	Yep.
	You know, it's a difficult one.
	I appreciate the sentiment behind it, but yeah, it's difficult.
	And then just a few from YouTube says, Carl says, Renfrew Street in Glasgow is lined with five or six small hotels and BNBs.
	Every single one of them on this street has these bikes parked outside.
	Every hotel is owned by someone without a British name.
	Right.
	And so often is the case as well.
	This is the reality of our country, up and down the...
	Did you say Glasgow?
	He did.
	So, yeah.
	From the top of the island to the bottom.
	Everywhere.
	Yep.
	And then Wendy Kirkland says, Fiona Campbell was stoned onto a bleeding as she walked across Morocco for simply being a female out in public.
	Do we want this in the UK?
	I don't.
	Good question.
	Don't you remember the horrific case of those two Scandinavian girls?
	Absolutely.
	We've got Mr. Scary.
	The Terry says, glad to see the fellas back on YouTube.
	Thank you.
	We're glad to be back on it.
	Val Politics says, got delivery today.
	Let's say he didn't look like a Greg.
	Delete, Val.
	Delete.
	That'd be the last one you ever have.
	You hear me?
	And Mighty Balsick, just for a Monty Python lesson, says, well, he did say John.
	He said it again.
	All right, let's go to the video comments.
	A quick question for Luca with regards to your Chronicles series.
	Would you ever consider discussing The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan?
	And perhaps as a follow-up of sorts, C.S. Lewis's The Pilgrim's Regress?
	I absolutely would.
	I absolutely would.
	As regards to any rhyme or reason as to what chronicle I do when, it's really just as simple as some works take longer to research, longer to read than others.
	And so I just have to do it around my flexibility and the time that I have available.
	But yes, I will be more than happy to cover them at some point in the future.
	Particularly some C.S. Lewis works, particularly science fiction works as well.
	I'd be really keen to go into those because I've never actually had the chance to read them.
	Did he say Pilgrim's Progress?
	He did.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Piers Plowman.
	Classic.
	Absolute classic.
	Anyway.
	There's so many, aren't there?
	so many it's commando isn't it hot fuzz isn't it yeah So dark, but it's a very funny post.
	I always think in those films, it's the classic arming scene, like in the Iliad.
	There's a whole scene of strapping your armour on.
	Right.
	Getting your weapons ready.
	My radio alarm set to a local CBC radio station played an article with a typical activist complaining that insert system or function is completely broken in need of total reform.
	It's typical of activists to push their own reforms, which would, counter to their expectation, then completely break said system.
	I'd always been annoyed by a former CEO refusing to take action on an issue unless people could point to something good in it on which to build reform.
	Annoyed because the CEO's hypocrisy meant he'd delayed taking action on a rebranding undertaken by an activist.
	Interesting.
	Is that all the video comments, Samson?
	Yep.
	Okay, thank you.
	I'll just go through a few comments from my segment.
	Omar Awad says, if Nigel considers appearing on Celebrity Slop, it's a positive entry on a CV.
	It goes some way to explaining why he still humiliates himself on cameo.
	Yeah, what is that about?
	Do you want to do that?
	I don't know if he still does it.
	If Omar says he does, then I'm sure he does.
	I think he wouldn't have time.
	I saw some of those.
	I wasn't even searching for it.
	Somehow it would just come up on my timeline.
	And I couldn't believe, I assumed it was a fake.
	I assumed it was AI generated.
	He's saying the most stupid things.
	He was saying skibbody and winner-winner chicken dinner and stuff like that.
	It's like, wait, this is real?
	Big chungus.
	Big chungus, winner, winner chicken dinner, skibbity.
	I don't know.
	It was like the most embarrassing cringe nonsense of all time.
	And it was real.
	For what?
	A few shekels?
	Really?
	Aren't you like a prime minister in waiting, Nige?
	What on earth do you think you're doing?
	Have some self-respect, man.
	It's real, right?
	It's real.
	Right, it's real.
	It's the sort of thing you'd expect from washed up celebs.
	But then.
	Kevin Fox says, Nigel can't have anyone forward-thinking, competent, dedicated, because it might drag the limelight away from him.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	But that's the thing, isn't it?
	On the one hand, you need a really, really competent cabinet.
	And on the other hand, you can't have anyone more competent than yourself and who's able to outshine you and you've got...
	It's a very Middle Eastern way of thinking.
	And it wasn't like this in Britain.
	Well, he is a fan of Islam.
	It used to be the way that sometimes they would form what they would call the government of all the talents.
	It used to be the case that sometimes, we know how Trump picked RFK, who's nominally a Democrat.
	Right.
	Used to be the case, and I'm talking back in like the 19th century, that yeah, you'd pick someone from the other aisle, from the other side, if they were really competent.
	Everyone knew they knew the most about a particular industry, so you made them the Secretary of State for that industry.
	It was all right, it was done.
	We don't really do that much anymore.
	That requires a level of cohesion and shared objectives and shared values and shared interests, which come from a shared identity.
	And since you don't have that anymore, you can't have that anymore.
	Sorry, Justin, once more, the problem in British politics at any rate is there's so little talent in either aisle.
	So why even bother taking from the other one?
	And it does also require from the leader a level of, like you do see in Trump, at least to some small extent, a level of self-confidence.
	Yes.
	A level of being comfortable enough in your own skin, in your own position, that you feel you can do that.
	That you're not constantly threatened by anyone who might challenge for your leadership at some point.
	Exactly right.
	Unfortunately, that's one of Nigel's shortfalls, it seems, is that.
	Yep.
	Seems to be.
	And if he's not overcome that after several decades, probably never will.
	It's hard baked into his personality, I would have thought at this point, there's no going back on that.
	I don't think I'll learn to that.
	Well, who knows?
	Who knows what he'll do in government?
	We'll see.
	Do you want to go through something else for us?
	Yeah, sure.
	There's an interesting one of yours that I'm going to mention.
	Oh, sure.
	Maybe a bit of wishful thinking, but perhaps Nigel soaking up the wet Tories could make the Tory Party vulnerable to a hostile takeover by Lowe.
	Please.
	It will be an improvement.
	I'm begging for the best timeline for the good ending to all of this.
	Yep.
	Yep.
	Lord Inquisitor Hector Rex says, have we tried turning France off and on and on again?
	As an Englishman, many times.
	Well, they're going to be trying.
	There's a massive wave of protests being organized for tomorrow, and there is a big wave of strikes on the 18th of September, which are things that I forgot to mention on my show.
	So they are going to be turning it off.
	Whether it goes back on again is a different question.
	Have they got the I was going to say the sansculotte.
	It's not the sansculotte.
	Who's the guys with the German residents?
	The Giant Jean.
	Are they still going?
	Are they still doing it?
	No, this is being reincarnated into the movement that starts tomorrow under a different name called Blocautout.
	Let's block everything.
	And so we'll see how that goes tomorrow.
	But it should be an exciting day.
	They need the Sanskul.
	Yep.
	Michael Dribe.
	I pronounce it Drebelbus.
	Okay.
	I'm not sure.
	In the 1940s, the French planted trees along the Champs-Élysées because the Germans preferred marching in the shade.
	Now they're cutting those trees down because the Muslims prefer the sunshine.
	Very telling.
	Derek Power makes an important point.
	You don't want American military bases in Europe.
	Spend and make your own defenses.
	The French have done that.
	The French are the only ones with a fully vertically integrated defense industry.
	The Brits have completely surrendered.
	The Germans are in the process of surrendering.
	The Italians have some defense capabilities, but none of them seems to be focused.
	Aside from the French, nobody's working on building independent jets and bombers, which you must do.
	Which you absolutely must do.
	But yes, this is a valid point.
	The Europeans' defense has been subsidized.
	And part of the reason for it is that after the Berlin Wall fell, the Americans didn't want the Germans to take over Central Europe's security and become a threat again.
	And so they decided to take over it themselves and sort of run the show.
	The thing is, Britain's got a trident.
	We have got the Royal Air Force.
	Yeah, we buy it wholesale off the American shore.
	Trident is completely dependent on the American.
	Yeah, right.
	You know, we pay for that.
	We've got that.
	Okay.
	There's the Royal Air Force for what it's worth.
	Okay.
	I don't think we need loads of American U.S. Air Force bases in Britain because it's not 1957.
	Because I don't think the Ruskies are going to try and bomb us.
	I don't buy that threat.
	I don't buy it.
	So we don't need it.
	No, it's, yeah, yeah.
	If there weren't US bases, would there be Russian bases instead?
	Listen to Bo.
	Appropriate moment to bring up that question.
	Do you want me to read through something else, Bo?
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Kevin Fox says, delivery manager says, Abdul is our best delivery rider.
	He puts in a 32 hours a day, eight days a week.
	There you go.
	Seems to be.
	Definitely doesn't deliver drugs.
	No, no.
	No.
	Definitely not that.
	Definitely not.
	Lorden Cluster Hector X says, I do like the idea of an ICE officer delivering my food and informing me my rider has been arrested for being a weak man.
	That would be sweet.
	God, I like that idea too.
	Yeah.
	And then Sophie Liv, final comment says, I'll just say it.
	Always a bit of a foreboding sentence.
	I'll just say it.
	When you're ordering that 5,000 calorie pizza you probably can't afford already, get off your fat behind and get it yourself.
	If you don't need the walk already, you will after eating that slop.
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	Acede.
	Well done, Sophie.
	All right.
	Well, that's all we've got time for today, ladies and gentlemen.
	I hope you've enjoyed the show and we'll see you back here at 1 p.m. tomorrow.
	Have a good day.

▲