Luca, Stelios, and Bo dissect King Charles III's contentious US state visit amidst UK-US diplomatic strains over Iran and Greenland, critiquing speeches on Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism while noting the irony of Democratic support. They pivot to allegations against JP Morgan executive Lorna Hajdini regarding sexual abuse, highlighting systemic failures for male victims before arguing Britain's high streets are overrun by organized crime fronts in vape shops and barbershops used for money laundering and slavery. The hosts contend that corrupt authorities ignore these networks, demanding a new agency willing to wage violent war against criminal gangs to protect citizens. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Welcome to the Lotus Eaters00:09:42
Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters, episode 1408 for Thursday, the 30th of April, 2026.
I'm your host, Luca, joined today by two very fine gentlemen, Stelios and Bo.
How are you, man?
I'm really well.
How are you?
Yeah, I'm all right.
I'm looking forward to it.
1408 does a movie with John Kizak and Samuel L. Jackson.
Is it?
A man.
I'll take your word for it.
You're much more schooled on the classic films than I am.
It's a horror movie, which is a very good adaptation of a short story by Stephen King.
Okay.
I'll add it to the list.
I'll get to it.
Anyway, today, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to be talking all about His Majesty's visit to the colonies, to the United States.
We're then going to be talking all about the business executive from hell.
And then we're going to be concluding things by talking about the pandemic of crime that is now scattering itself across our high streets up and down the country.
Before we get into all of that, though, I do just want to once again raise awareness for a fantastic conversation that Stelios and I had.
Garganjung three part, uh, series talking all about Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica.
He was the royal librarian, uh, at the, the great library of Alexandria.
And he wrote possibly what is the definitive telling of the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, Jason and the Golden Fleece.
And so we had a really great time discussing all of that.
And we really think you'll enjoy it.
So if you want to check it out, you can go and subscribe on the website, five pound a month and get access to that and all of the other fantastic premium content such as epochs.
That we have on the website.
All right, with all of this said, shall we crack on?
So, rejoice, my friends, because we now have a king in America again, it turns out.
So, there was a notice that was put out towards the end of last month.
And obviously, it goes to say, even though this was announced to be happening, all of these things are planned months and months in advance, of course, between both nations.
And so, this will have been long in the works.
But nonetheless, on the 31st of March, it was.
Declared, I suppose, if we want to get medieval about it, by royal decree.
By royal decree, that on advice of His Majesty's government and at the invitation of the President of the United States, the King and Queen will undertake a state visit to the United States of America.
Their Majesty's program will celebrate the historic connections and the modern bilateral relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States, marking the 250th anniversary of American independence.
And then the King would also be visiting the island of Bermuda as well.
As his first royal visit to one of Britain's overseas territories.
So, this was already very much, as I say, being planned.
However, it came at something of a tumultuous time in the relationship between Britain and America, because obviously, as we're all very well versed in by now, Trump and his administration have been less than happy about Keir Starmer and not getting wholly committing ourselves, obviously, to Iran.
And by, I say, not wholly committing, I mean doing very little.
To do with it whatsoever and really just staying out of the conflict.
And as a result of this, of course, it led to some very serious strain in the relationship between the United Kingdom and America.
And it's these sorts of events that really work to redefine geopolitical alliances, isn't it?
It's these types of diplomacy that have wide ranging butterfly effects.
There's another thing I think, well, I don't think I know, that the White House and the State Department weren't best pleased with Europe and Britain's response to the whole Greenland affair.
That sort of irked them, didn't it?
And from their point of view, I can see why.
Sure.
And then, yeah, throw the Iran thing on top.
Right.
They're annoyed.
Yeah, absolutely.
But this was all made suddenly more real as well, because as a result of all of this, as it was announced, an internal Pentagon email reported by Reuters suggested that the US was considering options to punish NATO allies it believed had failed to support its war on Iran.
A Pentagon spokesman did not comment on the email's existence, but said it would, quote, ensure that the president has credible options to ensure that our allies are no longer a paper tiger and instead do their part.
As President Trump has said, despite everything that the United States has done for our NATO allies, they were not there for us, the spokesman added.
And so things are all getting quite tense.
And of course, from a British perspective, the last thing that we want after having a war for British sovereignty in the Falklands within living memory is to see all of that just go to waste and for the sacrifice of those brave British soldiers to be in vain to protect that territory simply because, you know.
Of an American attempt to punish us for not getting involved in the Middle East once more.
Can I say two things before you say something, both?
So, the NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance.
So, what Trump is saying about Article 5, it doesn't apply here.
No.
Because it's not that a NATO member was attacked and there is an obligation of other NATO members to rush to aid it.
Yes.
So, that's not exactly when he says they weren't there for us.
I think mostly he's just trying to apply pressure to them.
It's interesting you said there it's Reuters.
You've got to be so careful these days with all different information coming out because I saw, like everyone else, that the Americans had talked about or there'd been an email somewhere about a review of the Falkland status.
And then I saw other people a couple of days after that saying, that was fake news.
That's not real.
That's all just like an online echo chamber thing.
It's completely not true.
It's not real.
But Reuters are saying it is.
And the spokesperson from what the Pentagon or the State Department said, at least confirmed on some level that there was Pentagon spokesman.
Okay, right.
So.
The thing is, we've been in the Falklands ever since what?
The 16th century?
Yeah, long time.
I think it was Hawkins, wasn't it?
Was it?
Well, you're right.
I think Captain Hawkins, like the age of Drake.
So, yeah, like the Elizabethan age.
Yeah.
The 16th century.
Yeah.
We've been on those islands long, long, long before Argentina existed as a country.
Yeah.
Because that's one of the things the Argentinians appeal to, isn't it?
They say, well, we should have inherited it from the Spanish Empire.
It's like, but it wasn't the Spanish Empire's to give away.
It was our territory.
And the ultimate bottom line is that they've had votes a number of times of the people that live there.
Yes.
And it always comes back like 99% or something.
Very, very, extremely, extremely high.
An overwhelming majority that they want to stay part of a British dependency or a British overseas territory.
And so that's the end of the story, isn't it?
Yes.
And it's also really bad that Keir Starmer is the PM right now because he's very happy with talking about handing away the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
Yes.
Yeah, so this does communicate weakness.
So definitely they will try to take advantage.
The fact we can barely muster one frigate.
Yeah, it's looking a bit sticky, I suppose we could say.
But all of this is to say that the King's appointment to go and visit America has come at a bit of an auspicious time, actually, where it could be a very powerful diplomatic tool to placate the Trump administration and just sort of calm everything down again, remind one of.
One another of our long ties, our enormous commonalities in our history and our philosophy, and in the common blood that we actually share with one another, right?
And I'm of the opinion, call me controversial, I'm in favour of no more brother wars, right?
That's my position with all of this.
Don't mention the war of 1812.
Well, we'll get to that.
Let's talk about it.
But going off of this article as well, it says when asked in a phone interview with the BBC, Whether the visit could help repair the relationship.
Trump himself said, Absolutely.
He's fantastic.
He's a fantastic man.
Absolutely.
The answer is yes.
I know him very well.
I've known him for years.
He's a brave man and he's a great man.
They would absolutely be positive.
The president also spoke about his relationship with Keir Starmer, who he has said can only recover if he changes his course on immigration, which, yeah, good point.
I find it remarkable as well that Trump is literally just saying to him, regardless.
Just ignore the fact whether or not Trump is actually doing these things himself to the degree that he should be in the United States, right?
He is still offering Starmer free advice here that would actually shore up his position.
So maybe you should just get on top of that immigration issue that everyone in the country keeps telling you to sort out, Keir.
And obviously, Keir Starmer being a total globalist is just, it's too unpalatable for him to consider, even if it is just from a purely pragmatic level, the thing to do to shore up his own power.
So all of this was becoming.
Very real.
And so the king arrived at Washington, and you see here the Rose Garden line with band members in period outfits as they await for King Charles III and President Trump to walk to the Oval Office.
And I'll just play this in the background.
The King's Globalist Dilemma00:05:13
The late 18th century period outfits.
Yeah, so they're all dressed like you can see as well that the lobsters at the back there, the red coats, still got the Union Jack, Union flags, and everything.
I tell you what, God, we've lost some, excuse me, we've lost some aura.
Over the centuries, haven't we?
I mean, just look at how fine we used to dress.
So, right, there was a lot of pomp, a lot of circumstance, and it was all quite good.
And then we can obviously go to Trump's first speech, and it's interesting to listen to.
Here in the shadows of monuments to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, honoring the British king, might seem an ironic beginning to our celebration of 250 years of American independence.
But in fact, no tribute could be more appropriate.
Long before Americans had a nation or a constitution, we first had a culture, a character, and a creed.
Before we ever proclaimed our independence, Americans carried within us the rarest of gifts moral courage, and it came from a small but mighty kingdom from across the sea.
For nearly two centuries before the revolution, this land was settled and forged by men, women, Who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British here on a wild and untamed continent?
They set loose the ancient English love of liberty and the great Britain's distinctive sense of glory, destiny, and pride.
And that's what it is glory, destiny, and pride.
I'll just pause it there.
One thing I just wanted to say is the writing for the speech is really good.
Yeah.
The actual content of the speech as well, because again, it's actually.
It's appealing to the fact that no, America is special because it was colonized by a particular remarkable people, right?
It's an, you know, expressly appealing to a sort of British exceptionalism that no one in our political landscape here at home would ever possibly dare to appeal to, perhaps with the exception of Rupert Lowe, right?
But other than that, right?
It's just something that our politicians would never touch.
And there's a constant frustration here because basically, as we go through it, one of the things that I'm going to lay out is the fact that the king and the president coming together in this way has actually turned out to be a very powerful diplomatic tool.
And I think that as I mean, we'll see obviously what happens in the months to come.
It's just simply too early to guess.
But one thing to say is just that it speaks to the fact that there is a real kingship there between those nations.
And not just, of course, with America as well, but Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and all of these nations that still bear our people, right?
And in some ways, still, even as they flood themselves with countless foreigners, as we do now as well, it really does speak to the fact that if that continues to happen, Then something irreplaceable dies with those people, right?
It's the end of something truly special.
Yeah, I mean, it is fair to say, historically speaking, I've made loads of content about American history, hours and hours and hours.
And I'm an Anglo American myself.
My father was born and raised in the United States, but loads and loads of cousins over there.
But when you look at the history of it, there is completely undeniably the idea that the United States, as its own political entity, is born out of, in many ways, Sort of the English experience, you can't deny it that, like, the founding fathers and even like some of the founding documents, not just the constitution, they mention or they're inspired by English common law in all sorts of ways, even though Jefferson was a francophile.
Jefferson was a francophile, yeah, he absolutely was.
Nevertheless, in lots and lots and lots of the supreme court's decisions, they will reference the Magna Carta, right?
For example, just one, just a couple of little examples, yeah, but it's much more.
English than it is anything else.
And that's the easiest argument in the world to make.
So, yeah.
And of course, we're tied by language and blood and all sorts of things.
There's also a massive influence by thinkers like John Locke and the 17th century people like Algernon Sidney, who definitely influenced John Trenchard and who wrote with another, I don't remember right now the name, the Cater's Letters.
It definitely had a major effect on the founding fathers' philosophy.
Yeah.
And so then the king went to speak in Congress as well.
And, you know, I mean, it's low hanging fruit, but there was something genuinely funny about watching a bunch of Democrats in the No Kings protest getting up standing and giving an actual king a standing ovation, as they did many times throughout the speech, in fact.
And so obviously, Charles's speech to Congress itself obviously had very, very clear political objectives to it.
Standing Ovation for a King00:15:01
And of course, one thing to say as well that Of course, Charles would not have written personally and singularly all of these speeches.
There would have been many, many hands around this speech.
In fact, there's an article I didn't include in here from The Guardian where it was talking about exactly that the number of people that were involved, like from the Foreign Office, from the State Department, you know, for all these different things, from Downing Street itself, trying to create like the perfect diplomatic letter of appeal to the United States.
And even though I think that every single one of these, Are disgusting traitors and globalists.
I can't deny the fact that they have done a very good job here in appealing to the American state on certain issues.
And so we'll let Charles speak here.
In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, when NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time, and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and moments that have defined our shared security.
Today, Mr. Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people.
So you can tell here.
Sorry, go on.
No, no, I just wanted to say that the way he started was very good because Trump has said several bad things about other NATO allies allegedly not rushing to help the what followed the 9 11.
And especially there was a high death toll and they didn't stand back as he said at some point.
But I think he detracted.
I mean, I'm talking about Trump when he said that they.
They played safe and that they didn't.
Yeah, that was a total mistake by him.
And it's a good thing that King Charles mentioned this.
Yeah.
But as regards to the stuff with Ukraine, of course, I'm certainly not in favor of the war carrying on indefinitely.
And Europe and America have both expunged more than enough resources on it at this point.
But the thing is, as well, you can tell there that the king is very much just speaking as is just the nature of monarchy in the modern day, just as a mouthpiece for the British state itself.
And the British state is, of course, Very, very hawkish when it comes to this sort of stuff.
But moving on to the actual state banquet as well, we had some more where, so you can see here, Trump was saying the first Americans saw themselves as free men carrying forward the ancestral liberties and ancient rights of the Anglo Saxons into this new world.
In the eyes of American founders, our war of independence was not fought to reject this heritage, but to reclaim it and perfect it.
And honestly, it just feels kind of strange in a way to hear.
Somewhat an actual guy from the top of politics just speaking about Anglo Saxons.
It's like, oh no, yeah, that thing that's constantly gaslit about, we don't actually exist.
Every day here, we're like, what is an Englishman?
And all this sort of stuff.
It's like, oh yeah, obviously all this comes from the Anglo Saxons who were very real and responsible for the entire modern world, really.
There's a movement in academia, isn't there?
Quite a strong one to even replace the words Anglo Saxon.
Yes.
I've talked all about it with Survive the Jive, Tom Roussel, a couple of times.
He's done a lot of work on it.
That they would like to wipe it out as a concept.
Yeah, so to have the leader of the free world to actually just say, actually, no, it is a thing.
Yeah.
And it's a great thing, actually.
Yeah.
But obviously, my frustration with all of this is that two things are done at once.
One, because in all of these speeches, what is continually acknowledged is the fact that all of this comes from a particular people with a particular sense of heritage, and that that thing is, of course, and they go on at length about how valuable this is and how it must be protected.
But throughout the entirety of the Anglosphere is a truly, you know, a statesman or monarch who is actually protecting those things.
Charles cannot go to every single, you know, speech that Charles will give about a foreign country.
He can't help but give some sort of a land acknowledgement about it.
And yet, when it comes to the state of the English, the Anglo Saxons in our very own motherland, in our very own home, it's absolute crickets.
And so the entire affair is very, very frustrating.
However, that doesn't mean.
To say that this was possibly not one of, I think, Chaucer is best throughout this entire speech because actually you can tell he was very witty.
He delivered his jokes very, very well.
It was popular throughout the hall.
And so I'll just play a few of them, I suppose, a few highlights.
This said, our French friends can feel equally at home with a glance at a map.
Indeed, you recently commented, Mr. President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German.
Dare I say that if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking French?
Obviously, referring to our victory, I suppose, in the Seven Years' War and subjugating sort of like French colonialism in the colonies, or certainly mitigating it throughout the land.
But again, it comes back to this thing it's like, oh, ha ha, isn't this all very, very funny?
And yes, on the one hand, I can isolate the two.
It is very good diplomacy within the halls of power, and yet insufferable on the other hand.
Because it points to the fact that, yeah, but what difference does that make?
If actually the criteria is, oh, it would be bad for this particular people to be, for events to occur in which they would have to speak another language.
Again, I constantly come back to the appeal of demographic replacement throughout the West.
Where is the appeal to that when our towns and cities are now taken up by people who speak Urdu and Arabic and, you know, like Eritrean or whatever African language it might be?
And likewise in the United States as well, how.
You know, states now are just having such an influx of Hispanic people that actually a lot of these are now just speaking Spanish with one another as well.
So, like, if the language is such an important thing to protect, then where is the action behind it that actually protects these things?
Nonetheless, I cannot deny it.
No qualification.
This was a banger.
On this occasion, I cannot help noticing the readjustments to the East Wings.
Following your visit to Windsor Castle last year.
And I'm sorry to say that we British, of course, made our own small attempt at real estate redevelopment of the White House in 1814.
Anyway, I am so glad we have an important opportunity at this critical time to renew those bonds of history and friendship between our nations and our peoples.
It is good that everyone can laugh about it though.
Right.
I think there's still a wall somewhere inside the White House where it's still scorched.
They've deliberately left it there.
Right.
Scorched from where, if anyone doesn't know, it was the War of 1812.
It's called the War of 1812, but most events went down in the War of 1814.
Yeah.
I've got a long form bit of content on it, by the way, with Benjamin Boyce.
And yeah, the British soldiers burnt it.
I mean, Washington, D.C. was sort of a new city.
They sort of built it deliberately, more or less from scratch, out of the marshes.
The White House was sort of brand new, not brand new, it was very, very new at that point.
British soldiers went and burnt it down.
But the fact that everyone can just laugh about it now, the King of England can go there in that building, make a joke about it, and the Americans laugh.
That's great, really, isn't it?
I think.
I think, really.
No, I agree with you.
It's like old guys, two old brothers that are in their 70s, and they used to fight each other, have fist fights when they were in their 20s.
But now they're two old dudes sitting on a porch laughing about it now.
Yeah.
It's healthy, right?
It is good.
I think.
I think so too.
And this is part of, again, the frustration with it, because it reminds you of what might be of the actual good relationship that all of these Western nations could have with one another, that we could banter with the French about the hundred years war and water and, you know, the rest of it.
And, you know, the Americans about 1812 and all the rest of it, like, and still get on as allies.
Like, but we could maybe do that in a world where we're not constantly replacing Europeans in Europe and Americans in America.
It's not so much to ask.
I do think it is really, really odd.
To me, it's an odd worldview to be still hurt about things that happened centuries or even millennia ago.
Like, I can't remember who it was.
One of the Weinstein brothers, I think, maybe, went to Rome and couldn't help but flip off the arch.
Titus has got a triumphal arch there.
Yeah.
And he's still angry about it.
Or.
He's been looking back in anger for 2,000 years.
Or Muslims whip themselves about some battle from the 8th century or something.
Are you saying it?
Come on, like, you're not.
Do you feel you could?
Don't look back in anger, Stereo.
Clink a glass to Lepanto with the Turk.
I'm sure you could.
So then, as well, I'll just actually, for the sake of time, I'll just read this.
So, as it says, there was one particular AUKUS president.
So, actually, what ended up happening is, as a personal gift to Trump as well, Charles has given him a bell from HMS Trump, which, as it says here, was launched from the United Kingdom shipyard in 1944 and served for the majority of its life attached to the 4th Submarine Squadron in Australia.
And it played a critical role in the war in the Pacific.
And so they've given Trump as a personal gift the bell from HMS Trump as a gesture to goodwill.
It says, May it stand as a testimony to our nation's shared history and shining future.
And so, as I say, you can see all of this was very, very carefully played out, right?
Everything about it, every word was very precisely chosen to appeal to particular interests of just realigning sort of fraternity between the United States and the United Kingdom.
And it seems like.
Trump was very much affected by all of this.
I mean, he's always had a very soft spot for the monarchy, particularly he did for the Queen and now has for Charles as well.
I guess that there's a bit of bias remorse in there from the Americans on this matter, but the fascination with monarchy.
But nonetheless, then of course, because this was a four day state visit, so then it also ended up with them visiting New York as well, where they would go and visit Ground Zero and pay their respects.
For 9 11 and some other appointments throughout the city as well.
And it's not in fact much related to a visit, but I did find this kind of hilarious as well.
When someone asked Mandani, he says, when he was asked what he would talk to King Charles about, if he could, he says, well, if I was to speak to the king, I'd probably encourage him to return the Kohinoa diamond.
It's like, Mandani, India don't want it, mate.
They've already said it belongs to us, and actually that's all fine.
But also, as people were pointing out, What an odd thing for an American who's just as American as anyone else to possibly bring up.
Fair point.
I mean, yeah, he's very grievance driven, but also he's constantly asking for money.
Have you checked?
Well, it wouldn't surprise me.
Yeah, right now he's saying we have a massive budget crisis.
We need to increase taxation.
Never saw that coming.
Anyway, so, and as I say, all of this comes at a time when the Anglosphere Alliance is more brittle than it possibly ever has been.
And we have seen really a good thing here, I think, actually.
You know, for all of my grievances with Charles, and I didn't actually expect to be talking about him again so soon, but only two weeks ago I did a segment just called The King is Complicit, laying out all of the things that the ways that he has allowed the troubles and the corruption and the just sheer barbarity of injustice that's been allowed to take hold in the United Kingdom, right?
His part in all of that.
Think here just because I'm glazing him here that I'm in any way like just some sycophant or friend of the king, right?
Very sensible of his drawbacks.
But this was a very successful visit by him, and it seems to have gone down like a White House on fire, you know, in its popularity.
So it's been really, really good.
But all of this comes as well, just as news today has come out that Indian born residents have officially become Australia's largest migrant group, overtaking the English for the first time.
And obviously, this is a total tragedy.
This is not something that should ever have been allowed to have happened or even been contemplated.
And I would suggest that if His Majesty wishes to keep the Anglosphere alliances together, then he is going to have to become more alert to the grievances of the Anglo Saxon peoples throughout the world for those lands that they've obviously made homely for themselves.
Because if they don't, then eventually, just like everyone else, the king is not so above it that these problems are not going to come knocking at his door.
And eventually, you know, God willing, we'll have a Very patriotic prime minister in charge who is going to bring these matters to the king's attention, whether or not he wishes to discuss them.
All right, so I'll just go through the rumble rants, quite a few of them, so thank you.
Tom Ratt for one dollar says the reality is that there's an unseen third party in Chagos, Falklands and Labour's fortunes, China.
America recognises this dance of the seven veils we've been engaged in and is calling us out on it.
Sigilstone for two dollars says the king's visit was largely uneventful.
Except for one moment when he visited New York, he ordered his plane be.
Allegations of Racial Abuse00:15:45
Can't read that.
Thank you.
Logan Pine for a dollar says, My thoughts are this is a double play on Trump's part.
Samson's laughing.
I highly doubt Starmer wants to be seen as Trump's man if he gave away the Falklands.
Sorry, I'm just for the sake of time, I'm just going to skip through them.
14 Barber says, We will restore our aura.
We shall bring peace, freedom, justice, and security to our new empire.
Damn straight.
Cranky Texan for $5.
Thank you.
Says Charles is a globalist.
He represents the pound, not the British people who are just debt mules to people like him.
Understand this and understand what is happening to your country.
Quite aware, Texan.
I promise you that.
And Okidorf, thank you for $2.
Says, Been so long since I've heard the king speak.
I forgot how stereotypically British his accent was.
It bloody ought to be, wouldn't it, if he's going to be our king?
Funny, not many people, hardly anyone, has that accent anymore.
You listen to Wills or Harry.
Yeah.
They're kind of plummy, sure, but they're not that old school bygone era.
Yeah, that old school 1920s BBC type thing.
You just don't see it anymore.
So, this is going to be a very horrific segment.
There are some working environments that are absolutely hellish and abusive for the people who work there.
And I mean, we're really happy to not be in one of them.
No, I've got a good working environment.
Thank you, Carl.
But there are some environments where they're absolutely hellish.
And there are even some people who are roofing their employees.
Yeah, they have stories that are so hellish that they cannot but evoke sympathy to anyone who reads them about the victims.
And I want us to be very, very careful today and talk about this issue.
So it says here major breaking news JP Morgan executive Lorna Hajdini has been accused.
This is an allegation, hasn't been proven yet.
Of using her power to sexually harass and abuse a junior male employee.
Now, the allegations here are absolutely horrifying.
And there are several layers into this very distressing story.
Because let me just say that if it were a man doing that to a woman, all hell would have broken loose.
JP Morgan wouldn't, most probably, they wouldn't have said, well, we don't believe the allegations and goodbye.
They wouldn't have said this.
But now it's a woman.
Being accused by a man, by a male intern.
And let's see what happened here because I will say this and I really want you to sit down and be very careful because this is going to be very distressing.
So, an article was published in the Hindustan Times.
I wonder why.
Lorna Hajdini, five things about JP Morgan executive accused of sexually harassing junior employee.
And let me tell you, this is her.
Again, let me say this is an allegation.
Who is, please?
Lorna, please stop using the mouse.
Yes, this is her.
And she's accused by an anonymous plaintiff.
Used the name John Doe, but he didn't want to be using his name in public.
We'll have to talk about this in a bit.
He accused her of roofing him and abusing him sexually.
Let me just say who she is.
She's 37 years old.
She graduated from the Stern School of Business at New York University and has been with JP Morgan since 2011, as per LinkedIn.
I checked her LinkedIn profile because I wanted to find out more about her.
And she also speaks very fluently Albanian and English.
Let me just say.
She moved up the ranks as an analyst to becoming vice president in 2018 and getting the executive director post for Leverage Finance in 2021.
Her account also states that she lives in New York.
So she's very well established there.
And there's a question of whether people who are very established in a working environment can use the power in order to harass their stuff.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time.
It wouldn't be the first time.
Can I just say, can I just make a counter argument?
Not a counter argument, but just state the obvious.
We should roofie people, actually.
Yeah.
Let's make roofieing great again.
No.
Come on.
I'm joking.
Oh, you can't be safe.
I'm joking.
You cannot not feel empathy for the guy.
And I don't know what she actually did to him if it does turn out to be truly horrific.
I really don't know any of the details.
But it's not the other way around, though.
I just want to make that point.
Like, if it is the other way around, yeah, that's terrible.
But she's, like, at least kind of attractive.
It's like, couldn't he just have, like, what's.
Take it for the team?
Take it for the male sex?
Like, yeah, what?
What's the problem?
Right.
So, sort of.
I think we need to talk about this because there is a toxic male culture according to which, you know, whenever men are accused of being sexually abused by women, several men responded by saying, Hey, you're a, you know, I don't think it's constructive.
So let's look here.
What happened?
Okay.
Yeah.
What actually happened?
Yeah.
How bad was it?
You know, let us talk about the allegations.
We are going to talk about what we already know.
And what is an allegation?
We will describe it as an allegation.
Can I say one other quick thing?
Of course.
I worked for JP Morgan for a few years, like two, three, four years.
I can't remember.
You're a legend.
When I was young, when I was in my early 20s, straight after uni, undergrad, I worked for JP Morgan Asset Management near Liverpool Street.
And I must say, just from lived experience, IRL, loads of people that worked there were absolute pricks.
So, Nick Tulliott.
Nick, all right, Nick Tulliott.
Loads of people there were dicks.
And there was no sexual.
There was no crimes.
But loads of them were absolutely.
You mean Richards, and the small name was Dick?
No.
Surname Head.
Loads of the management were horrible, horrible, horrible people.
Really, really, really horrible, ambitious, freakish, not nice people.
Loads of them.
I've worked in a few places where there's a dodgy atmosphere.
The bosses are kind of bullies.
That was probably one of the worst places I ever worked.
It was really good.
So it's not beyond the sphere of the imagination that something of the sort would happen.
This is what I want to ask you.
As someone who.
Did have sort of contact with the company culture.
I want to ask you if the thing I'm going to read here about the allegations is something you think would absolutely happen there.
So, her accuser claims she admitted to dragging him with a date, rape, drug roofie on multiple occasions and during one encounter berated him as he cried while she performed a sex act on him against his will.
Really?
Come on.
Really?
Oh, don't.
Oh, don't.
Oh, please don't.
Oh, go on then.
Come on.
No, drugging someone is terrible.
I'm laughing with your reaction because, you know, I like your humor.
Drugging someone is absolutely unacceptable, of course.
That's crazy, right?
That's a crime and should be the drugging bit.
But, like, he could get up and walk away.
He's probably physically stronger than her.
He could push her away if he really didn't worry.
I mean, yeah, but the point is, it's not the other way around.
Whereas I'm physically bigger and stronger and healthier.
It's not that.
That's not what's going on.
She blackmailed him, though.
Oh, okay.
She told him, if you don't succumb to this, if you don't let me penetrate your defenses, you're going to lose your job.
Allegedly.
That's true scumbag behavior.
No doubt.
No question of that.
Okay, fair enough.
So the complaint was filed Monday in New York County Supreme Court by a plaintiff proceeding anonymously as Joan Doe, who claims he chose to hide his name to protect himself and his family after receiving threats.
Right.
By the way, it could be, let me just be devil's advocate here.
It could be the perfect excuse for someone who, you know, effed up to explain the whole ordeal to his wife.
Just saying.
Just saying.
But it could also be true.
Right.
The lawsuit also accuses JPMorgan Chase of enabling the alleged abuse and retaliating against the banker after he reported it, claiming the firm placed him on involuntary leave, destroyed his reputation, and allowed.
Threats against him to continue while Hajdini and others went unpunished.
And I want to read to you some to understand what this guy went through.
So, the abuse allegedly started almost immediately after the pair began working together in the spring of 2024.
And here there are several descriptions.
Though he's Asian, he joined as a senior VP director that March.
So, he isn't exactly an intern.
This isn't exactly a low position where no one believes you and your whole career depends on it.
One thing I will say is that being a VP in big banks like that doesn't necessarily mean a great deal.
I mean, you're more like a middle management thing, but nonetheless, a senior VP and director, that's reasonably senior.
It's not like you're in the top 10 most powerful people in JP Morgan, but you're not a nobody.
You're certainly not an intern, are you, really?
Yeah, so he.
Not a T boy.
Allegedly, he went through really rough experiences.
So in early May 2024, he says, he alleges that Hajdini dropped her pen on the floor next to his desk and while bending to pick it up, Rubbed his leg and squeezed his cuff.
She was trying to get him to send him a message.
He claims she then remarked, Oh, did you play basketball in college?
I love basketball players.
And he, she said that they get her so wet.
What's the problem?
Seriously.
No, drugging.
I don't know.
You are laughing.
Sanson's laughing.
Sanson's laughing.
Drugging someone and blackmailing them.
Yeah, that's absolutely terrible.
But that's just.
She's trying to, she's flirting.
She squeezed his calf.
Oh, no.
Oh.
Oh, a pretty blonde.
She's laughing at half.
Oh, no.
I'm laughing with what you're saying.
You need to be a defense lawyer, to be honest.
Yeah, but that was just the beginning.
Okay, fair enough.
She upped her game afterwards.
Okay.
All right.
Because, you know, she wouldn't have no as an answer.
Allegedly.
All right.
Allegedly.
All right.
From there, Doe alleged the advances grew more explicit and frequent.
Later that May, Doe said in the complaint that Hajdin invited him out for drinks, but he declined.
In response, she's alleged to have said, If you don't F me soon, I'm gonna ruin you.
Never forget, I effing own you.
Yeah, that is scumbag.
Before squeezing his calf and stuff, that is just flirting.
Yeah, she's an idiot.
But that, saying that, that is out of order.
Because then you're like, oh, right, well, you're gonna, yeah, that's horrible.
Yeah, it's really horrible.
Yeah.
Twice, Doe claims that Hajdini propositioned him for oral sex in the office, on one occasion, asking, birthday BJ for the brown boy.
Samson Costola.
Her little Brian boy.
Now she's also allegedly introducing also racist abuse.
Well, sexual abuse.
A racial fetish.
A combination of racial and sexist abuse.
So Waldo claims he continued to resist her advances, so he declined to the birthday treat.
Hashtini allegedly threatened professional retribution, telling him if he wanted to be promoted to executive director, he would need to start.
Pleasing her, according to the lawsuit.
And she said, You're gonna need to earn it, my little Arab boy toy, allegedly, during a social event at her private members' club.
During the same event, he claims she repeatedly groped his groin under the table and spat in her hands, running them over his neck and head.
That's absolutely disgusting.
Yeah, that is great.
This is super, super.
I know I'm laughing, but like.
She's like obviously really, really aggressive and mental, and the actual like blackmail element to it that's all horrible.
Yeah.
But okay, okay, I'll give you that.
But being offered oral sex oh, sorry, I've lost my tiny violin, I'm afraid.
Oh, poor dude.
Oh, he had to turn that down for a pretty blonde.
Oh, what a shame.
Eventually, though, he claims that the alleged harassment escalated into sexual assault.
Two witnesses are cited in the complaint as corroborating parts of his account.
Though alleged that Hajdini used escalating threats and racial abuse to coerce him into performing sexual acts.
He also claimed that Hajdini admitted to dragging him with Rufi without his knowledge before some encounters to incapacitate him and facilitate sexual activity.
So, presumably, someone this high up in JP Morgan's will probably be able to get, you know, have a good number of men available to her.
And so, this entire thing is what?
Just some sort of like sick power game.
Yeah, I mean, out of all the jokes I've made, if you drug someone, yeah, like that is, yeah, that's that is that is properly mental, isn't it?
And also, say, sorry, I'll finish, gone.
Um, everything about your job, everything that you are, every avenue to promotion that you have, like I am in charge of.
And if you don't do exactly this thing that you are not comfortable with doing, which is a personal and intimate thing, then I mean, he's in a terrible, terrible situation here.
It's not the sort of leverage that anyone should have over anyone else.
You're right.
All joking aside, you're absolutely right.
Of course.
Right.
So, allegedly, his gravitational pull, as far as sexual attraction goes, grew and drew her in the house.
And she assaulted him and confronted him.
And he told her he wasn't interested.
And allegedly, she removed her shirt, began fondling her breasts, and racially insulted Doe's wife, remarking, I bet your little Asian fish head wife doesn't have these cannons.
The complaint reads, She's just.
Sorry, it's just.
Why are you laughing?
You're playing this really deadpan.
Forced Intimacy and Denial00:06:57
It's just.
You know what it is, honestly?
It's the absurdity of her language.
It's just sort of like how.
Yeah, I don't know.
I'm a bit lost for words.
Anyway, so.
I didn't realise he was married.
That does make it way worse.
I didn't.
That's the first.
I didn't know he was married.
Yeah.
That makes the whole thing way worse to me.
Yeah.
And she knew he was married.
Yes.
That does make it way worse.
Joe claims then she forcefully removed his pants.
And performed, you know what, on him against his will.
He continued to protest and began to cry according to the lawsuit.
And she responded in a very heartless way, allegedly, again, let me say, because stop effing crying.
You think anyone would ever believe you?
You're an effing douchebag who thinks he's hot, S H I T, because you can't even get it hard.
What is this?
And she then ordered him to perform things on her.
Ignoring his pleas of don't make me do this.
Right.
Anyway, so I want to say this that I don't know what happened here, if it's true or not.
And there is definitely the case that there can be female abuse of men.
And jokes aside, that we made, there is such a thing.
And people and culture rush to hear mostly when it comes to the allegation of men abusing women.
But when it comes to the allegation of men being abused, Whether by gay men or women, people tend to not pay that much attention.
So, irrespective of whether this case is accurate or not, I think that there is such a point and I think we need to make it.
But let me just say, I think personally, I think that this is, I'm not buying it.
I think it's basically like the screenplay of a bad steamy show.
Don't ask me how, no.
And there are several memes here that I'm going to.
One thing I'd say where she forced herself upon him and then forced him to do stuff to her.
Now, sorry, if you really didn't want to be in that room, you can leave the room.
Yeah.
Like, and also, despite her threats, if you really didn't want to, you're like, forget my career, then I'm not letting this happen to me.
You could also say, yeah, I'm a family man.
My family comes first.
I'm sure my wife will understand.
She was like, I'll ruin you.
It's like, well, so be it then.
Yeah.
I'm not letting myself be sexually assaulted.
I'm not a prostitute.
You remember the Duke of Wellington, where they tried to blackmail him.
It's like, damn your blackmail, and just, you know, like, drink whatever, just do what you will, but I'm not moving.
Publish and be damned.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, anyway, there are several memes here that I'm going to show you now.
We're going to make it a more lighthearted.
Conversation.
So, Soundobah says it shows a Peppa meme.
Says, I'm ready for my JP Morgan performance review from my manager with great cannons.
You get that saying great cannons is funny.
Yeah, come on.
Surely you realize that's funny.
Five minutes ago, you gaslighted me into thinking that's not funny when it clearly is.
Here we have this from Mads.
He says, I said this to my boss at work and she replied how shocking it is and how she'd never do that to her employees.
I'll give it my like.
I love Matt's posting so much.
It says here, point of view, you're a junior banker at JP Morgan and your MD wants to have a performance chat.
Samson, are you alive?
Do you need an ambulance?
Okay.
Samson's laugh is so funny and wholesome, but it is very wholesome.
Removes her shirt and starts fondling her breasts.
Stop effing.
Crying.
That's another meme here.
And that's the Trump meme.
So I'm living the male fantasy and being forced into sexual submission by my hot corporate psycho bitch boss, and I'm going to cry about it.
Anyway, it's just, and how it feels to work at JP Morgan.
Right.
So, okay, joke aside, joke aside, I think we should definitely see what is going to happen next in this case.
And Yes, there is such a case as people looking the other way when it's males who say that they have been abused.
Okay, I like how happy this segment may have made you.
So, Bald Eagle 1787.
It may seem like it's ridiculous that he didn't stop her, but her position of parent with how New York operates one word from her, and he's in jail, no questions asked.
A hand on her equals abuse charges.
Based ape.
I can't stop laughing, imagining Bo.
Do you need this?
The, I don't know if I can read that.
Blah, blah, blah.
Defense lawyer in court belittling an accuser on the stand.
I'm going to hell.
Fallen Firebird says All depravity aside, I can safely say that this was the funniest segment in the history of the podcast.
Thanks.
Thank you, Fallen Firebird.
Cheers.
Thanks, lads, and especially Bo for sending me into office hysterics.
Bald Eagle 1787.
I worked in the finance sector.
The horror stories that I've heard about every big bank headquarters in New York indicate something like this is normal and is constantly covered up.
If he had Sigilstone 17, if he had pushed her away physically, he'd be the one charged with assault, and don't you dare to claim otherwise.
I agree here.
And I also think that this is also the line of defense that he needs to bring to his wife.
I couldn't say no because she would accuse me of sexual assault and that would ruin us.
This is definitely something he should consider telling his wife.
14.
Barbara says, This awful case that Brother Stelios has brought to attention.
I'm so glad I do not work for someone like this.
I just keep thinking, What?
This is outrageous.
It is unfair.
I hope this receives justice.
Sigilstone 17 says, Bo, for the love of Christ, put the hear me out cake away.
She says that she's an Albanian.
And tells you something about standards.
A drunk changeling says, Suddenly, Carl always offering to bring tea to set makes a lot more sense.
Sigilstone 17, woman using roofies means she does.
Vape Shops Under Siege00:15:54
You, yeah, okay.
We're not reading that.
Sigilstone often is too spicy, dude.
It's funny, but.
We respect it.
We can't read that on the internet.
Before we go to your segment, from your experience, is there something that you think is completely outlandish?
I guess I'm not attractive enough.
I was never propositioned like that in any way at any point in my entire career.
I've never turned the cannons on you once.
Yeah, not once.
Yeah, no, although I never saw anything the other way around either.
In 20 plus years of working in banking and asset management and investment banking, really, I never saw anything the other way around either.
Like men, like really taking advantage of a much more junior woman.
I never saw.
Yeah, that's just my experience.
So all that feminism was a bunch of bullshit.
All right.
Right, okay.
We need to talk a little bit about the absolutely undeniable case that Britain is awash with organised crime.
At a glance, our high streets are completely ruined by shop fronts which are.
Massively, obviously, a front for organised crime in various ways.
Whether they're vape shops, like takeaway shops, chicken shops, barbers shops, sweet shops, or, you know.
And anyone that's watching this that lives in Britain or has even visited Britain in the last few years will know exactly what I'm talking about.
And of course, it's a plague that's all over all the big cities, of course.
But even in smaller towns, a mid sized town like Swindon, and even small places, you'll go to sort of, even now, Not always, but often you'll find like a small sort of provincial, not much more than a village.
And they'll have like a couple of barber shops, a couple of vape shops.
It's just, it's just, we're completely flooded with it.
And they are a front for largely what people trafficking, modern day slavery, money laundering, drugs, anything and everything.
And everyone knows it.
Like the local knowledge of the areas what they're in, it's like just, it's the most open secret.
Everyone knows what's going on.
Everyone knows where all the money laundering is and where the crime is coming from.
They just, no one with the authorities or, Actually, do anything about it.
And most of these shops, no one's in, hardly ever they're in as well.
Also, for some reason, you can't pay with POS, with card.
Yeah, they're like cash only.
Oh, right.
Yeah, that's not super dodgy.
All right.
Okay.
Oh, yes, I remember 1950.
Do you ever go into a barber shop and they're like, ugh.
Because they're like, oh, what?
He actually thinks we're really a barber shop.
Yeah, yeah.
They turn around and they're like, really?
You want a haircut?
Get a clue.
Almost, don't they?
Sometimes.
Yeah, they do.
Yeah.
They turn around and they're like, really?
Some native actually wants a haircut.
Okay, bro.
I don't know how to compare.
Yeah.
Just get a little clip.
Well, the vape shops are nearly all, not always, very, very often, the people in there or running them are driving some top of the range, tricked out BMW.
And they've obviously got lots and lots of money.
It's like, how are you making so much money from a vape shop that no one's ever in?
Well, because it's all organised crime, isn't it?
I mean, just here's a few just images, but people will know it's just a tiny number.
Have you ever seen a high street like this out there?
Anyone in Britain?
All the time, just vape shops and just nonsense, just crap, just disgusting crap.
Shops like this, yeah.
And very often, no one ever goes in there.
Okay, everyone knows what I'm talking about, don't they?
Yeah, everyone knows what I'm talking about.
How many Turkish barbers do you need?
Like in Swindon, not even all of Swindon, just one bit of our end of Swindon, not even old town.
Yeah, what's there, like 10 barbers?
Yeah, it's strange as well.
10 that's not an exaggeration, is it?
No, no, it's ridiculous.
And half the time as well, they're not even actually staffed by Turks.
They're like Kurds or Afghans or Syrians.
Or Iraqis.
Yeah, they just say they're Turkish.
I don't know why, as if that's supposed to give it a sort of like air of eloquence or something.
I don't know.
Or nail places.
That's another one, isn't it?
Nail places.
The different ethnicities.
Quite often in the nail places, you'll see people that they're like Vietnamese or something.
The Turkish barbers are like quite often like Iraqi or Syrian or something.
And then the chicken shops are usually much more often.
Pakistanis or Bangladeshis or Indians or something.
They've all got their own little thing, haven't they?
Yeah.
We're supposed to just ignore it.
We're supposed to just be, oh, that's fine.
Oh, this is absolutely fine.
Yeah.
Especially when they're just such an eyesore and a bright on the.
Like that building on the left, it's beautiful.
It's classic.
It's obviously, you know, like English tradition.
It's nice.
It's civilized.
And then they're just like setting up, just intermingling themselves in the streets.
And it just corrodes the entire aesthetic of the high street.
Look, those guys just sitting there, just on their phones constantly, never actually cutting anyone's hair.
Yeah.
Or you may have a barbershop where they're.
With 10 people working there.
Yeah.
You always have that.
One of them operates as just a lookout at the front of the shop all day.
Just sits on a little chair outside the shop all day on his phone.
It's just a bit sauce.
It's obviously organised crime, isn't it?
I mean, even Josh, did we have a wonderful.
Yeah, even on Lotus Eaters, there's a particular bit of Swindon, Manchester Road.
Is it particularly reputable?
No.
I know.
I know, you know.
I know.
Josh did a segment.
Just walking down this one particular road in Swindon where it's just fake shop after fake shop after fake shop after fake shop, like one after the other.
It's crammed full of them.
In fact, Josh did a thing on Manchester Road there.
And there's this article from, it's actually from January this year.
It just says illicit tobacco and vapes worth £150,000 seized in Swindon.
This is in Swindon.
It's in the same part.
What was it called?
The Broad Green or something?
Oh, yeah, the broad green area of Swindon, which is where Manchester Road is.
The Wiltshire police just four shops the Istanbul Market, the Zabka Polski Shklep, the Romanian and Polish Shop, and Helsinki Mini Market, just those four alone.
The police decided to raid just those ones one day.
The thing is, as well, right?
150 grand of fake.
The thing is, they know.
They know it.
That's the thing.
Yeah, the police know where it is.
Everyone knows.
Everyone knows.
Yeah.
The thing is, as well, right?
Think back to when we were doing the live event, right?
And there was that piddling little protest, right?
Outside, we're talking about how the lotus eaters weren't welcome in Swindon and how, like, it's like, oh, but nothing to say about the sheer level of organized crime.
If Swindon's yours as much as it's ours, where is your concern for all of the vape shops and the crime and the obvious black marketeering going on in just all of these different streets?
Oh, you've nothing to say about that.
Not going to spend a moment of your days or your life ever caring about that and considering that, probably because, you know, in their thinking, it'd be racist to do something about it.
Or also, they think that they shouldn't criticize those who fund them.
Well, as I'm about to get onto it, if you do criticise them, they'll intimidate you, threaten to kill you and stuff.
I'm not exaggerating.
No.
Okay, so here's another link I saw.
The ITV News reports that up to 50% of convenience and vape shops linked to organised crime.
That's a conservative estimate.
Yes.
I would say it would be nearly all of them.
Let's just watch a little clip of this.
Samson, do you need to do something to make that work?
Let's play.
Oh, yeah.
About one in four takeaway shops on high streets in some parts of Britain are suspected of being a front for organised crime according to trading standards.
It's published a month identifying streets full of what they call dodgy shops that sell counterfeit and potentially harmful goods.
Well, Nick Dixon is in Erdington in Birmingham this year.
Not our Nick Dixon.
And Birmingham's named in particular in this report of having some of the dodgiest high streets in the whole of the UK.
You don't need more, just that it is now being mentioned in the mainstream media.
Basically, as if they've just discovered this, as if it's news to anyone.
Yeah, in fact, let's watch a little tiny clip from this.
You may have noticed the changing shape of Britain's high streets.
I can't see any um recovery in the high streets in the imminent future whatsoever.
We've lost our high streets, they've been hijacked.
A new report has revealed some of the shops replacing some of Britain's most recognisable brands aren't quite what they seem, they're cover ups for serious organised crime.
So, why are criminal gangs taking over our high street?
In some areas, as many as half of convenience stores and vape shops, up to a third of American candy stores, and a quarter of fast food takeaways are estimated to have links with organised crime.
The main thing from our report is the scale of the problem.
It's endemic across the UK.
These aren't legitimate law abiding businesses.
They are not paying tax, they're not sticking to the standards.
So, they're really undermining the level playing field for business.
The challenge is trading standards lacks the.
Yeah, okay.
So we all know what's going on, and even the authorities know that it's, I mean, they say a third of these, half of these, it's more.
It's most of them, isn't it?
It's most of them.
And so you can only really come to the conclusion that the government, the authorities, even the police on some level don't mind it.
Oh, God.
Who knows what backroom deals and just corrupt.
Police officers turning the other way.
And I mean, we know how much, you know, as well, that those institutions of law and justice have been captured by DEI and all these sorts.
The Home Office, yeah.
If the Home Office say, because all policing comes under the purview of the Home Office, all of it, right?
If they wanted to, if they had the political will at the very top to sort of go to war with these people, they could, then they would.
But they're choosing not to.
It's like the small boat invasion.
They are choosing not to stop them.
Yeah.
Because it would be racist.
You know, in the classic 1987 Untouchables film with Kevin Costner and Sean Connery, engineering.
Oh, yeah, I love that film.
Yeah, it's one of my favourite films where it's like, Sean Connery's like, Mr. Ness, everyone knows where the liquor is.
Everyone knows where the money is.
The problem is the person who's willing to actually do something about it.
And it's just exactly so everyone knows.
You know, it's right up to the Prime Minister himself.
Everyone will know about this, but there's only a certain group of people who can do anything.
Because, as you say, for us, mere plebs, Just walking the high street.
As you say, all these are becoming very, very dangerous places.
I mean, these are, it's the point, isn't it?
They're already being staffed, if that's the right word, by criminals who are willing to come from abroad, insult us, break our laws, and put us in harm's way.
Who knows what else they'd do?
We need an Elliot Ness.
Yes.
Let's do something.
Our own team of untouchables.
So, yeah, it's not just simply the blight in and of itself, it's that if you try and do something about it, you're in trouble now.
I mean, here's a BBC article.
We will kill you and burn your house.
Council staff under attack from high street gangs.
This one particular woman says that she was basically threatened and intimidated by, in this case, Kurdish gangs.
Kurdish gangs were running loads of shops in her area, and it was her job to sort of highlight it, bring it to attention, try and do something about it.
They just told her, We'll kill you, we'll burn your house down, we'll run you off the road.
We'll sit, we'll just sit in our cars outside your house all the time, like as an intimidation thing.
So, yeah, she faced escalating threats from a Kurdish crime gang that had been sending illegal cigarettes and nitrous oxide canisters.
Groups of men repeatedly turned up at her front door.
Were they at least caught or.
Well, I think, well, they were already on trial.
That was the thing.
They were already on trial and, like, some of their money had been confiscated from them.
And they were like.
Blaming her for it, trying to intimidate her and her husband to the point where she just had to flee.
Her and her husband had to move.
Just had to flee.
There's like all sorts of different examples.
Yeah, where the trading standards type organisation, which were the first people to say, Oh, actually, you are selling like counterfeit and dodgy things and not paying taxes.
And that's the least of it.
Right.
But even they just haven't got the money or resources, or really, they're just not equipped to deal with it.
Because as soon as you scratch the surface, Oh, I'm dealing with a A potentially murderous gang of foreigners.
Oh, I was only, I'm just a trading standards guy.
Yeah.
I'm not equipped to deal with that.
Yeah.
This wasn't in the job description.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And you're saying that loads of them, like 70% or more of them, have to deal with like intimidation and things just constantly.
So this is the thing that's happening in Britain.
I think what needs to happen, in my opinion, is that from the very, very top down, From the cabinet, from the government itself, all the way down the Home Office, anyone that's protecting any of this or allowing, even just allowing it to go on, needs to be swapped out with a new department or a new agency, which is clean, Elliot Ness clean, right?
Who's prepared and has got the budget to really kind of go to war with this because it's ruining our country.
It's absolutely ruining our country.
If anyone thinks, oh, you're so overreacting, you're so being like a right wing fascist.
No, no.
Remember, the reality is, all of our high streaks are like this now.
It's not a small problem.
And it affects all of us.
It doesn't matter whether you vote Restore or Green Party.
This is something that eventually, if allowed to fester, will just become ever present in all of our lives.
And, you know, and it's just something that can't be allowed to go.
It's already gone too far.
It's just the rule of law.
We've already got many laws on the books where you can't just set up a business and not pay the taxes, not abide by the rules of what you are or aren't allowed to sell.
I mean, there were articles earlier in the week all about how you can go into some of these mini markets and just ask for certain types of drugs.
And for me, probably the most egregious thing is that they're nearly always a front for money laundering in things that are even more nefarious.
Yes.
Not just selling a bit of weed under the counter, but you're actually laundering money from your people trafficking business or your massive drugs business.
Crime cartel or prostitution, or God knows what, anything and everything.
Criminals Take Over High Streets00:03:58
And you have to wash that money, you have to clean it.
So you pretend you run a chicken shop or a vape shop and you make loads of profits through that shop or that barber's Turkish barber shop.
So all it would require is the law itself being enforced that the police, mob handed if needs be, go into these places and say, Let's see all your books right now.
Oh, it doesn't add up right.
You're closed down now.
And you're all under arrest until we find out exactly what's going on.
And if you're foreign, Deported.
Yes.
And that needs to happen on a massive scale.
A massive, massive scale.
Yeah, but you do need a serious state to do this.
Yeah, of course.
Instead of a state that says, ah, maybe, yeah, but how are they going to eat chicken nuggets if they're going to get deported or a prison doesn't have good food?
Yeah, it will require sort of an iron hard will from the top of government.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's what I'm asking for.
That's what I'm advocating for.
Exactly that.
A party that might be interested in, say, restoring Britain, for example.
Right.
Yeah.
That just tweeted out the other day yes, there will be riots as we put people into get in the back of the van, you know, just put people in the back vans and stick them on the planes.
It's like, but it's going to be necessary.
I mean, there is, as you say, just, I mean, all of our high streets have just been taken over by criminals.
Yeah.
I just noticed a tweet there that's come in there from Bald Eagle, 1871, 1787, sorry.
He says, Bo, do you realise that going after those storefronts?
Is going to end with violence and loss of life on both sides.
Those gangs aren't going to give up quietly.
Yeah, I do realize that.
Yeah.
And that's the evil that has been foisted upon us.
And it's not good enough just to let it happen, just ignore it.
Oh, well, that's happened now.
All right.
We'll just never, ever have a normal high street ever again.
Yeah, it probably will end in something horrible.
Yeah.
But that's baked in.
They baked that in for us.
Thank you very much.
But that's an outcome of, for instance, doing something about organized crime.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
If you're going to go and disarm a cartel or something, yeah, they're not going to hand them in, but you have to because that's the job of the state.
The job of the state, the number one responsibility of the government is to ensure public safety and that the law is maintained.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like someone's beating you up and you can't fight back because they might beat you up more.
That doesn't make any sense.
That logic is nonsense.
Now, this is a terrible, terrible crime and injustice and a disgusting thing, and it should morally.
The argument is that it should be reversed and wiped away.
Or there might be some violence or something.
Well, unfortunately, yes.
Yeah, they won't go quietly, I'm sure.
They shouldn't resist.
They shouldn't, but.
It's a further insult, particularly to the English as well, who have for so long, I mean, you know, derided by Napoleon as a nation of shopkeepers, right, prided ourselves on the presentation of our high streets.
When you look back at all of that classic footage from the middle of the 20th century and you see how impeccably, you know, the signage, you know, all of the presentation in the shop windows and everything, I mean, it was just genuinely impeccable.
It speaks to like the standards that we could achieve and the sense of prim and properness.
You know, throughout England, that brought such meaning and comfort and homeliness to all of the communities up and down England.
And it's just been totally bastardized and taken away.
If what you described, Bo, before were the principle, which kind of is of the government, you have no state.
If the idea is that I'm not going to do anything because there is going to be resistance, then you have no state.
You have anarcho tyranny.
And you're sending the.
Wrong message across.
You're sending the message to bad people, I'm not going to do anything because I'm afraid of you.
That's when you don't have a state.
Law Enforcement in Crisis00:04:57
But when the government is using its force to law abiding citizens who may write an edgy post here or there, that's where they are tyrannizing them.
What a crazy state of affairs.
And as well, they just become sanctuaries for all of the illegals who've come across as well.
It's a disaster on multiple levels, least of all, really, the aesthetic of the high street.
That's almost like the least of the problems that it represents, isn't it?
There's something far, far deeper and malignant here than simply that the high street looks uglier than it used to.
Right?
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Terrible.
All right.
So, on the super chats, so I have to do that.
So, where's the mouse here?
Red one.
That's a random name, has a pop of my hair.
Bo, to be fair, some of those barber shops give you that look because you have no bloody hair for them to work with.
We'll have to keep it really short.
Like, this is too long.
Right.
I need to get this buzzed down to a bonehead again.
Sometimes I do go into a barber shop and they're like, what?
There's nothing.
What can we do?
It was funny to work with in the beard, didn't it, though?
I've got a quarter of a mil of hair on my head.
That needs to be got rid of.
Right.
Okay.
For Tim Barber says, the lucky part of living in Cornwall currently, The attitude is if you're not with me, then you're my enemy.
Yeah, good.
Cornishman.
Cornishman for the win.
A lot of Star Wars quotes in the comments today.
I'm here for it.
Sigilstone 17.
Wait, let me read this because sometimes you say things that are too spicy for us to read.
We all clear?
Can I read that one?
Okay, yeah.
He said, These segments helped answer the question I had of why does the next town over have so many barbers when there's not enough barbers?
And there's not enough people to support them.
There's enough addicts, though.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
I think a lot of it, to be perfectly honest, is to do with modern day slavery or people trafficking, whatever you want to call it, which goes hand in hand to some extent with prostitution and drugs.
A lot of it will be drugs money.
All right.
Fictaja says When I lived in Dudley, I was desperate for a haircut and went into one of those barbers.
They called their mates to come in.
And jump in front of me.
They hardly did any cutting, completely fake.
Yeah.
Okigdor says high streets turned into the low streets.
Yeah.
And I read that one by Bald Eagle.
Ochigdor again said, that would just change who gets thrown into the van from the grooming gangs to the government.
Did I read that right?
I think so.
Get in the back of the van.
He goes, oh no, I have to go to one convenient shop for Kit Kats and cocaine.
And my lobster is too buttery.
My boss's cannons are too massive.
You're a funny man, so Juster.
Cannons.
There's no way that can't be funny to me.
No, it's cold.
Bald Eagle again says The biggest question is why does the public have the steel spine to accept the losses to allow the fight to continue?
If the public don't support it, when the death starts, then nothing will change.
I think he means once the death starts, then nothing will change.
Um, yeah, I mean, who knows?
All right, that's a random name.
Says, um, so can we finally admit that this problem has metastasized and that the system is beyond saving?
No, it's not beyond saving.
Uh, also, I have the exact same hair issues, Bo.
Baldies for the win.
It's based, it is.
Wear it like a champ.
Um, no, I don't think it's beyond saving.
No, it's hardly ever been things are hardly ever completely beyond saving.
In fact, these islands have been in worse spots than this.
Before?
It's mostly a matter of will.
Yeah, it just needs political will.
It's not even an issue of coming up with a new philosophy over intellectualizing or anything.
It's just there are enough laws.
All it takes is people to enforce them.
We don't have to go and just completely reinvent the wheel and fire and stuff.
It's just simple law enforcement.
We just need a government that has got, well, it's as simple as that, isn't it?
It's got the iron will.
Saving England Needs Political Will00:03:34
To confront all of our issues.
To be normal.
And tackle them, even if it does get dirty.
Yeah, definitely.
It can be done.
It can be done.
No one in this country has anything better to do right now than to help and save it.
That's a random name.
Just popped in another one says, Britain is not beyond saving.
I meant the current usury based gynocracy.
Fair enough.
No, sorry, I didn't mean to have a pop at you personally.
That's a random name.
Um, no, far from it.
Sure, he's a super fan, so yes, thank you, thank you.
We'll be a fan.
Uh, do we have video comments today, Samson?
All right, in that case, we'll go.
We can talk about the comments for five minutes, yeah, we can do that.
Just uh, let me know when the ready mate the normal comments, yeah, the normal comments.
So, uh, Occupied England says, Isn't it accurate to say that um, it's actually England, aka Westminster, not Washington, DC?
That is the center of all English speaking governing and ideological centrism.
I feel the King's visit was to remind the Trump regime that they are still part of a collective vassal of the English liberal regime.
I happen to disagree with you on this one.
I mean, obviously, I agree with it.
Yes, being the creators of the English language, obviously, England sits at the heart of the Anglosphere and the Anglo world.
I appreciate that.
But in terms of America's ideological commitments to us, I feel like all we can actually do is appeal to those things.
I don't feel like America will do what is in America's interests, you know, or certainly, you know, what its state believes it to be its interest.
But I don't think that we have as much leverage over them.
That's why, actually, the intervention of the king was such a powerful one in many ways, because it's one of the last good hands of prestige that the British state does actually have in its arsenal.
It's something that we have that the French, for example, I'm not picking on them, but could never muster.
President Macron.
Turning up to the United States just doesn't have the same gravitas as sending King Charles III.
It just doesn't.
I think it depends on who represents you and whether you think that they represent your nation well.
Because people who do value their nation, they do want their representatives to have a sort of respect, be respected on the international stage.
So I think that that's what we're looking at here.
I mean, to speak for the French here, nothing to disagree with you in what you say about.
The king.
But if they had a president that they felt was good for French interests and commanded respect, I think they would be also happy on that.
I've got a question for you.
Hasn't Greece currently got a monarchy?
No, no.
No.
When was that abolished in like the 70s?
Yes, it was.
Did they not bring him back?
No, no, no.
Okay, sorry.
Fair enough.
There was a referendum after the junta, the coup.
In the 70s, is that?
Yes.
Okay.
I think 74, that's when the dictatorship fell, and then they had the referendum about the monarchy.
Okay.
People chose NLT.
Okay.
All right.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
Sorry for my total ignorance.
Was it because the monarch was in some way tied up with the hunter?
No, I don't think so.
Right.
Okay.
A separate issue.
Okay.
France, Napoleon, and War00:05:38
Well, it looks like Samson's got the video comments up, so we'll start going through them.
So, my old poli sci professor went on an interesting diatribe about the usefulness of negotiation using South Africa as an example.
He was basically saying, like, oh, well, you know, we wanted them to give up their connection for Odisha and we use our leverage to get them to stop.
And Then we kept sanctioning them anyway because they're bad people.
And so we did the same thing with them regarding the nuclear program, and they agreed.
And then we kept sanctioning them anyway because they're bad people.
And basically, we did this till they fell apart.
And he cites this as a success story.
And I'm thinking, this just tells me that you should never agree to anything a liberal asks you because they're always negotiating in bad faith.
Yeah.
The Syrian refugee crisis is a perfect example of this.
It's like, oh, we need them to all come over here because Europe's the only place that's safe for them.
And they can go back once they're here.
And then once, Syria is stabilized, and people do start returning from places like Turkey and Lebanon.
You know, the liberals on the continent are like, Oh, no, what are you doing?
We can't let them go, we need them for the workforce.
It's like, No, the agreement was they went home when it was so.
Yes, they will always be shrewd in that way.
Welcome aboard this Avanti West Coast service to Liverpool Line Street.
I've walked there.
Really?
Yeah.
How unfortunate that is.
Well, thank you for putting that together for us, Samson.
So that was our producer, Samson, who made that video and then played it.
Is that what happened?
Yeah, he's done it.
That's what I was experiencing.
Just to be clear, what happened just happened there.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, Liverpool has some wonderful parts to it.
It has some.
One of the best nights out I ever had was New Year's Eve, Liverpool, 2019.
Little did I know what a horror show we were going to go into with the Boris wave and lockdown and all of that at the time.
But like that.
That particular night, we were in the Cavern Club.
There was like a Beatles tribute act.
They did like a five and a half hour set through the night.
It was an amazing night, and the city was nice.
So, yeah.
Okay, let's look at some dogs.
What?
No video comments?
Well, we'll have to remedy that.
Well, gentlemen, I'm going off to France tomorrow.
Yes, my father is going to spend down my inheritance, and he's going to take me to the U.S. Cemetery in Normandy.
And we'll probably do some other tours while in France.
From today's segment, I'd say it's going to be a more interesting trip.
He has got a very cute dog.
Yeah.
That is adorable.
Yeah.
And I hope your journey goes really well for you.
I hope that you enjoy, you know, manage to enjoy your time in France.
I also hope he watches my segment because I'm sure Michael would love this segment.
Oh, today's one?
Yes.
All right.
Yeah.
Also, if anyone's, if Michael, if you're interested, I did, I've done.
Over the years, two segments on D Day about D Day.
I chose those.
They didn't do all that well in terms of clicks, but I thought they were good content talking about D Day on the 6th of June.
So, obviously, not obviously, but I imagine if you've got family that fought andor fell in Normandy.
Yeah, I hope you enjoy the trip.
I hope you enjoy the trip.
Absolutely.
That's all the video comments, is it, Samson?
All right, great.
Going back to my comments, then, we had Lord Inquisitor Hector X who says, Last time someone roasted Trump, he ran for president.
Careful, Charles.
Well, there's not really anywhere else for it.
He's already president now, so we'll take our chances.
AZ Desert Rats says that joke about remodeling the White House in 1814 is going to fly over most Americans' heads.
People are often shocked when I talk about the War of 1812.
Yeah, there is a bit of selective amnesia, I think, when it comes to the War of 1812.
Down the White House, stormed into Washington, the only time that's ever happened in US history.
For now.
But ultimately, we lost the campaign.
Ultimately, the British lost the campaign, though.
The Americans tried to invade Canada.
Right.
Like a couple of times they tried to invade Canada.
And the Canadians didn't want to.
And they got turned back.
So no one really won that war.
Historians argue about who won or who lost that war.
Both Britain and the United States ended up with egg on their face, basically.
It's remarkable as well.
It's an interesting one.
Yeah, he's an interesting one.
To fight that war.
Simultaneously to Napoleon on the continent and everything in Europe at the time as well.
The year 1812 is the year Napoleon tries to invade Russia.
Right.
And so a lot happened in the year 1812.
And a lot of it that went down was actually in the year 1814, which is, well, the year when Napoleon is not defeated at Waterloo, but defeated and sent to Elba.
Right.
So that whole, those few years around the beginning of the 19th century, they're very, very tumultuous time.
These are years for Britain.
Yeah.
Sorry, you were going to say something, Stelio.
No, I just wanted to say that I laughed a bit, not because of what you were saying.
I wasn't making fun of the war.
The Complicated Man Omar00:04:12
But Dan sent a message that I'm going to read when I read the comments from him.
I'll just read one more from mine then, which is from Joshua Pomponio, who says Thomas Jefferson kept a replica of Oliver Cromwell's death mask at his home in Monticello.
When I went to visit there, the tour guide didn't know who that was or why Cromwell would be influential to Jefferson.
That's very interesting.
Got a long form piece of content all about Jefferson.
He's a complicated, complicated man.
I don't agree with everything he ever said or did, but I think he was a great man.
A titan of his age.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Extraordinary.
Very, very interesting person.
Dan says, Dan, our Dan, can we offer this JP Morgan girl a job at Lotus Cetus?
I suggest we give her the job manager of Dan.
Good one, Dan.
You can imagine Dan being, no, don't stop.
Get back, leave me alone.
Don't drop the pen.
Yeah, Dan's just got a pocket full of pens.
He's accidentally dropping all over the place.
Stop touching my cuff.
Omar Wad says, I wish I had enough theory of mind for both parties to truly appreciate the Izad implications.
For these exchanges, must be fascinating.
White Rider says, She roofed him on multiple occasions.
I don't buy it.
If he didn't want it, he would have done something after the first time.
Her threats fall through the second he gets drug tested at a hospital.
They had an affair and he's regretted getting caught or something.
Henry Ashman says if all of this is true, it's horrific.
The language described sounds very show Bob's and.
Zagin.
Yeah.
Or like some sort of Tumblr fan fiction to me.
Plus, all the stories around Izat and how any way to acquire cash has definitely planted a seed of doubt here.
Yeah, it's like a bad Spanish steamy show.
It's kind of like a pleonasm because almost every steamy show is Spanish.
I can't get past that.
And if it is the other way around, because you said that, imagine it the other way around.
Yeah.
The other way around, it's just a completely different story, a completely different dynamic.
If a woman is assuming she's not like China and she's not much taller and heavier and stronger than you, assuming that's not the case, you can physically stop her if you really wanted to.
She threatens to ruin your career.
Well, you're the man.
You're the man in this situation.
Right.
Man up.
Yeah.
You just physically leave the room.
Like, you're a foot shorter than me and like 80 pounds lighter than me.
I'll just pick you up and move you out of the way, and I'm going to leave the room now.
You could have done that, couldn't you?
And last comment by Arizona Desert Rats Some women are really bad at dirty flirting.
This lady seems like she's one of them.
These are allegations.
I will just say, Bo, you say that he could have easily moved her out of the way, but you have no idea how heavy her cannons were.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway, do you fancy reading just one comment or two from you?
Yeah, a couple of comments from mine then.
Ed Miliband harassing Enoch Powell's spinning grave says that's their name.
They've said, let's be honest, the only reason any of these illegal shops are facing any sort of justice is that the government isn't getting a piece of the pie.
Right, maybe.
Yeah, quite possibly.
Yeah.
They shut down the handful of ones that are not giving the government their vig.
Yeah.
I know.
Maybe Zach Polanski will sort it out.
You know, he does seem to care about people paying their fair share.
So I'm sure that goes to the black market as well.
Yeah, well, don't they feel the full force of the law?
And Omar Awad, I was on a go to Zoom with you once and you said, We always pronounce your name, your surname incorrectly.
So sorry, I've forgotten what you said was the correct way.
Apologies if I do too.
If we always keep saying it wrong, I can only apologise.
Democracy's Blame Paradox00:00:40
Anyway, you've said, The paradox of democracy is it's easy to vote to remove the gangs and save the high street, but difficult to find someone to blame for not doing it.
Interesting point.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, an interesting point.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, we hope that you've enjoyed the show today, ladies and gentlemen.
If you're a morning person, then you can get up bright and early, join Beau for Brecky tomorrow, which you should.
Obviously, go and watch Breakfast with Beau, the best breakfast show on the British television scene.
And if not, of course, then we will be back at 1 pm for the podcast tomorrow and look forward to seeing you then.