Bob Moran, a political cartoonist fired by the Daily Telegraph for opposing COVID lockdowns and mandates, now produces three free weekly cartoons via Canada’s Democracy Fund, unconstrained by editorial bias. His 2020 critiques faced industry isolation due to government-funded media propaganda under Justin Trudeau, yet his work—like Keep on Trucking—celebrates grassroots resistance, such as Canada’s truckers’ protests, proving self-governance thrives without state overreach. Pastors like Arder Poloski (jailed 51 days for preaching against restrictions) and James Coates defied mandates, growing congregations, while compliant leaders saw attendance collapse. Moran’s global reach and audience unity highlight the power of independent dissent in preserving freedom and dignity. [Automatically generated summary]
It's me, potentially your favorite Rebel host, Sheila Gunnery, but you know what, I'll take being in your top 10.
That's fine.
You're listening to a free audio-only recording of my weekly Wednesday night show, The Gun Show.
However, this is the internet, and the beauty of the internet is freedom for now to listen or watch whenever is convenient for you.
Now, tonight, my guest is someone that I've never spoken to before, but I was really excited to because he's a person who has paid a great personal cost for his outspokenness against the pandemic overreaction of governments.
And he lost his job, but that's good news because when he lost his job, he gained creative freedom, hundreds of thousands of followers, and a new job with the Democracy Fund.
It's political cartoonist Bob Moran.
Now, if you like listening to this show, then I promise you're going to love watching it.
But in order to watch, you need to be a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's what we call our premium long-form shows here on Rebel News.
Subscribers get access to, well, naturally, my show, which I think is worth the price of admission.
I work really hard to put it together, so, you know, it's worth it.
But you also get access to Ezra's nightly Ezra Levant show, David Menzies' fun Friday night show, Rebel Roundup, Andrew Chapados's show, Andrew Says, and Kat and Nat's brand new show, Misunderstood.
It's only eight bucks a month for all that.
And I want to point out, we added two new shows and never raised the price of admission.
We're fighting inflation for your family over here at Rebel News.
And just for our podcast listeners, you can save an extra 10% on a new Rebel News Plus subscription by using the coupon code Podcast.
It's really easy.
Just go to rebelnewsplus.com to become a member today.
And now please enjoy this free audio-only version of my show.
And before I go, I want to ask you to do me one simple little favor because, well, out of spite a little bit, but also because I think we do great work.
Could you leave us a five-star review wherever you find us on whatever podcast platform you're listening to us on?
Leave us a five-star review because it puts us higher in the suggested podcast algorithm.
But also, you know, those five-star reviews help us beat CBC and they have, you know, billions of your dollars to produce podcasts that sometimes people don't listen to.
But it also helps other people find us.
And sometimes the best way to find us is, you know, through a free podcast.
So if you wouldn't mind doing that, that would be terrific.
I would really appreciate it.
Now, enjoy this free audio-only version of my show.
He spoke his mind.
He lost his job.
Then he gained hundreds of thousands of followers and got a great new job where he gets to speak or draw his mind freely.
Today, we're talking to political cartoonist for the Democracy Fund, Bob Moran.
Bob Moran, for those of you who don't know, is a multi-award winning British illustrator and cartoonist dealing with themes of politics, ethics, and family.
And in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic and the government's overreaction to it unfolded, Bob became a cautious skeptic to the restrictions and mandates being foisted upon an unwilling or unwitting society.
And so he did what a cartoonist does.
He started cartooning and lampooning the government and the power brokers within society.
And Bob paid a personal cost for this.
He lost his job at the Telegraph, but he landed on his feet over at the Democracy Fund, where he now produces three political cartoons a week, all with the creative freedom he needs to speak truth to power.
Bob joins me today in an interview we recorded earlier this morning from his home in the UK.
Check it out.
So joining me now is Bob Moran from his home studio.
He's a cartoonist working with the Democracy Fund on their civil liberties initiatives there.
And I wanted to have Bob on the show because as Bob and I were talking off air, there are so few skeptical cartoonists, cartoonists who are willing to speak truth to power instead of punch down at the little guy.
But before we get into the cultural ethos of being a cartoonist in the times of lockdown, I thought I would give you a chance to introduce yourself to the rebel news universe, Bob.
What sort of work do you do?
How long have you been cartooning?
And where are you working from?
Sure.
Thanks, Sheila.
I'm Bob Moran and I'm a cartoonist from the UK based in the southwest of England.
I've been cartooning for national papers for just over 10 years now.
And I was with the Telegraph for 10 years doing political cartoons, the Daily Telegraph in London.
I was fired from the Telegraph at the end of last year due to partly due to my stance on everything that's been going on.
And I'm now working for the Democracy Fund in Canada, producing three cartoons a week, which I make available to any publisher anywhere in the world free of charge.
I think that's wonderful.
There's such a deficit of cartoons during the time of COVID.
Like I said, that speak truth to power as opposed to punch down at the little guy just wanting to live their life.
What was the one thing or was there one thing that was the pandemic turning point for you?
I know a lot of people can point to, you know, you're hearing a lot of fear coming out of China and then all of a sudden it clicked that maybe it wasn't as bad as what everybody says it was going to be.
What was, did you have a moment like that and what was it for you?
Maybe there was a not one moment, but I would say over the course of maybe a couple of weeks, the narrative unraveled for me in terms of I think like a lot of people, I was skeptical but cautious for the first few weeks.
You know, this could be something real, this could be something dangerous, but it smells fishy.
It doesn't quite add up, particularly because it all allegedly began in China.
And I think really it was getting my head around the moral situation of lockdowns and of the way the governments were behaving and the way they were treating their electorates in this unprecedented way.
You know, for me, I thought that's what's unprecedented here, not the illness, not the pandemic or the virus.
It's the behavior of these allegedly democratic leaders.
And I could see that we were headed in a really dangerous direction.
But to be honest, when I kind of changed my stance and began to put out cartoons, this was probably the beginning of May 2020 was when my output changed in that way.
I fully expected that pretty much everybody in my industry would be following along with me.
You know, I kind of thought, well, maybe I'm the first, but I'm sure within a few days, all the other cartoonists are going to be on the same page with this.
Because as you say, it should be instinctive for anyone who does my job to want to hold those in power to account and to monitor when they go too far, when they get too big for their boots, because they have a natural tendency to overreach.
to seek powers that they have no right to hold and these things.
And that is the job of cartoonists.
And I'm still amazed that so many have not done that.
And I can't really explain why.
I think some musicians are having sort of the same experience as you, those people from the cultural arts, where they've got an industry built on free speech, actors same way.
You've got an industry built on free speech and free expression.
And yet, more often than not, quite frankly, they've become the enforcers of acceptable speech and acceptable expression, as opposed to the free expression upon which their industry is built.
I find it all very odd.
Yeah, and I guess it comes down to the pursuit of truth, you know.
And as creative people, as artists and actors and musicians, our output is supposed to be based very much around that, getting to the underlying truth of a situation.
And I have always felt that in particular, the art form of cartooning and caricature has an ability to do that, you know, to peel back these layers and to try and show a truth that may not be immediately visible to an audience.
And it's as though all of these creative people have kind of abandoned that principle and gone, we're just going to accept the truth of what those in authority tell us and not question it and not delve any further.
It's really bizarre and sad.
You know, I wish it hadn't been the case, even though I've gained a massive audience and more notoriety because I'm one of the only people doing it.
I would much rather be part of a large group, just another cartoonist who was trying to fight this.
Because I really feel like if all of us had taken the same line, we could have had a genuine impact.
That's the sad thing.
Yeah, as we were talking off air, in the days of the court jester, and not to say that you're just some goofy guy in a weird hat, but in the days of the court jester, you know, it was the role of that person to speak truth to the king when the people could not or the people didn't have the same voice or access to the king.
And I feel like that's sort of the job of the political cartoonist these days is, you know, there are these people, but you have the platform and you get to speak truth to power.
And it feels as though the entire industry has fallen down on the job.
And the political cartoonists in Canada are particularly bad.
It seems every day you flip open the pages of the editorial newspaper if people still buy a physical newspaper.
And it is something poking fun at truckers, normal people, conservative voters.
There's a very classist divide unfolding in pop culture versus the people who consume pop culture.
There's this real divide happening right now.
What do you think that, what would you attribute that to?
You're right.
And, you know, it's so bizarre because if you were to look back, it was certainly this is the case in the UK.
I don't know about in Canada, but so many of these cartoonists have spent most of their careers trying to defend the little guy, you know, standing up for working people and trying to highlight the fact that governments weren't taking care of the poorest in society and people with, you know, small businesses and all of those things.
And it's like they've done a complete about turn and they are promoting policies that are destroying those areas of society.
And I think it's when you look at the propaganda drive that so much of this has been driven by propaganda.
And I don't know if it's the same in Canada, but certainly in the UK, newspapers who were already struggling have essentially been financially propped up by the government's propaganda.
You know, they are paid huge sums of money to carry all of the warnings and the advertisements and the propaganda about getting vaccinated and staying at home and not killing your grandmother, all of these things.
And the cartoonists, most of them have essentially been providing additional propaganda free of charge for the government rather than doing their jobs, which was to provide a counterpoint.
It's really disheartening.
I don't know, is it part of the mass psychosis?
Is it that they may have just been told, look, you can't keep working for this paper unless you toe the line?
I mean, that's in a way, that's kind of what happened to me because I wasn't prepared to do that.
Yeah, I think you might be right there.
In Canada, we go one step further, we as in the royal we as in Justin Trudeau, with direct funding to the newspapers, because it's a failing sunset industry.
And instead of just having one state broadcaster parroting the government line, why not turn them all into state broadcasters parroting the government line?
And so he's bailed out failing media companies, but they know what side of their bread is buttered and who's doing the spreading.
And it's Justin Trudeau.
And so, you know, political cartoonists, if times get lean at a newspaper, they could be the first guys to go.
So they know, conform ideologically if you want to keep your job.
Sudden Changes in Journalism00:06:13
Yeah.
But, you know, that's creative and spiritual death, I would have thought for a cartoonist, you know, not who we are.
It shouldn't be the way that we're wired.
Yeah, I think, am I right in saying that Trudeau has actually been quite open about this?
Has he not?
He's openly acknowledged that he's essentially funding the media.
They call it protecting quality journalism.
This is protecting it by infecting it with the government.
Yeah, it's insane.
There is supposed to be a large degree of separation between an independent media and the state and the government and the politicians.
To blur that line is one thing, to come out and, like you say, brag about it is just nuts.
And I am aware, probably more aware than a lot of people here in the UK of how bad things are in Canada.
And I felt it was an interesting twist of fate, I suppose, that as I began, almost the moment I began working for a Canadian organization, the Democracy Fund, was when the Truckers protests began.
And suddenly Canada became the front line of this battle for freedom and human dignity.
And the eyes of everybody on our side of this fight were suddenly on Canada.
And it was so, I felt very lucky and privileged to be able to cover those events because I realized immediately that had I still been working for any national publication here in the UK, I would have been told to pretty much ignore what was going on or to probably portray the truckers as mad conspiracy theorists and all of that kind of thing.
So it's been a great change in my career and change of direction.
And when I lost my job at the Telegraph, and I was lucky, I had various opportunities presented to me for what I could do.
But I really felt like it was important for me to put some distance between myself and the mainstream media.
I knew I didn't really belong there anymore.
And ideally, I didn't want to tie myself to any specific media brand.
And it's not that there weren't plenty that I admired, including Rebel News.
But by doing that, by tying yourself to any one outlet, regardless of how much you admire them, you are essentially denying the opportunity to all the others to share your work and to use what you're doing.
And for me, the most important thing was to allow anyone who wanted to use my work and share my message to just take it and use it.
And the Democracy Fund provided a perfect opportunity to allow me to do that, which has been great.
Well, that answers my question.
My next question was, why the Democracy Fund and how did you end up there?
So you just answered that for me.
I guess my other question would be, what has the reception been like from, I guess, your former colleagues, former peers in the visual arts?
Are they sort of envious of you?
I feel like other journalists are envious of me and my freedom.
I really do.
I think that's where some of their prickliness about Rebel News comes from.
What has the response been like to your shift to the Democracy Fund and this more freedom-oriented cartooning?
To be honest, I haven't heard from many of my former friends and colleagues even before.
That'll happen.
Yeah, but even before I lost my job, you know, there was quite a tight-knit community of us cartoonists here in the UK.
There really aren't many of us.
There's maybe a group of 15, 20 people who do it full time for the newspapers.
And we would meet up in London a couple of times every year and have drinks.
And there'd be, you know, sometimes awards shows and things like that where we'd see each other and talk about nerdy things like paper and paints and complain about editors and all of that stuff.
And as soon as I took this line against lockdowns, masks, vaccines, all of that, just I was cut out.
You know, they didn't communicate anymore.
A few of them spent some time sending really nasty, abusive emails, which I didn't respond to.
And they seem to have given up now.
So, you know, to answer your question, I don't really know what they think, but I can guess.
Yeah, and maybe they're envious, but, you know, they still have their secure jobs and they're still tied to these big brands.
And maybe they think I'm...
I have seen them quoted actually in some other articles where they've been interviewed about, well, what do you think Bob Moran and what he's doing?
And several of them have said that I'm committing career suicide, which is interesting.
And the articles often then go on to say that I have more followers than them.
And, you know, I sell more work than they do and things like that, which is kind of funny.
I don't know.
You can't spend too much time worrying about that, can you?
You just got to focus on your work.
And, you know, I feel. really good about the fact that I now have this wider audience and I have a much better idea of who those people are because they share such important values, you know, that binds everyone on our side together.
It's not one readership.
It's not one area of the class system.
Truckers Show Community Resistance00:05:10
It's not one nationality.
It's nothing like that.
It's just human beings who care about freedom and dignity and democracy.
You know, that's it.
And that feels great.
And it sounds like they're giving you the creative freedom that you need over at the Democracy Fund.
Your work is phenomenal.
Your keep on trucking original artwork.
I mean, I think it really does capture that moment in time when all the systems failed Canadians.
The politicians, the judges, the laws, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the public health officers, the media, pop culture, everything failed Canadians.
And so the truckers did it for themselves.
And, you know, it shows the hope.
It shows, you know, the common dignity of the blue-collar man and just the government tyranny and the darkness that befell us after.
Even though the truckers succeeded, even though the truckers succeeded, by the time they landed on Ottawa, provinces were repealing their mask mandates so fast they didn't want to get convoyed.
But it does, it shows the hope, the accomplishment, but also the tyranny all at once.
I love that.
I haven't heard that getting convoyed, using it by that idea.
I didn't want to get convoyed.
Yeah.
And you know, I think the other thing was the dignity and restraint that those truckers showed was what was so impressive to all of us around the world.
The fact that it was such a huge show of force.
You know, those trucks are powerful.
It's literally a massive potential force that they had, but they remained so calm and peaceful.
They just parked up, got out of their trucks, became part of the community.
They built this community there.
And, you know, they played music and they were trying to have a dialogue.
It's all they wanted.
And they were denied that.
And even when the government reacted with violence, you know, they still kept their heads.
They still stayed calm.
That was amazing because it can't have been easy.
And, you know, not necessarily what you might expect from these huge burly truckers, you know.
But they really set an example for the rest of us, I think, of how it's done.
Yeah, it was interesting to watch because if that were a far left-wing protest that would have devolved into violence and rapes, murder, drug overdoses, within 48 to 72 hours, these guys went on about four weeks and it was completely peaceful.
But not only, it never devolved.
They actually, as you say, built a community instead of invaded one and made a community gross, as you so often see with, you know, the left-wing protests like Chaz and Chop from the United States.
The opposite happened here.
Crime rates actually went down and people were being taken care of.
Yeah, it was like they were trying to remind the rest of Canada and the rest of the world what humanity should be like, you know, how we're supposed to live and interact.
was what was so moving about it i found um sorry sorry to interrupt you there but you just um that is exactly i think the point of lockdown resistance is that these truckers showed up there and they showed that you can build a community and take care of each other without the government getting in between you and your fellow community members which has been the problem with the entire pandemic restrictions and overreaction they showed the world that you can do this.
You don't need the government in between you and your neighbor.
And I think that's where some of the overreaction to them came from as well, because they showed how obsolete the government can be in so many situations.
Yeah, people don't want to believe anymore that we shouldn't rely on the government to micromanage every aspect of our lives.
It totally goes against what they've placed their faith in, which is this total nanny state, this, you know, governed by fear and to just hand over all responsibility.
And it was like they were saying, no, taking responsibility for ourselves is actually a really good thing.
It's really fulfilling and it actually reminds you what humanity is about.
And yeah, I've really enjoyed having the creative freedom to express these ideas, as you say.
It's daunting.
You know, for my whole career, I have had editors, you know, teams of editors and different colleagues that I've worked with to share ideas with and to hold my hand, if you like.
And it's kind of scary being more or less on my own, but it feels great.
It feels great to have such creative freedom and just to be able to channel all that creative energy into coming up with the idea instead of constantly second guessing whether an editor is going to want to use it or not or want to steer me in a different direction.
I think that's great.
Pitching Passionate Stories00:03:06
That's how we approach journalism here at Rebel News.
Instead of assigning stories to the journalists, they pitch stories they're passionate about to me because I think that's the most authentic way to do it.
If they care about the story, their passion is going to come through in the story and they're going to be careful about the story, not me assigning something boring that I might care about, but they don't at all.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, it's kind of how I grew up thinking journalism worked, you know, and it's what you see in the old movies and things if there's a newspaper and stuff like that.
And then, yeah, exactly.
It's not what I've experienced in 10 years of working in the free press in the UK.
Can we call it the free press still?
I'm not sure about that in Canada.
No, I said that very sarcastically.
No, Bob, I know you're very busy.
You're getting a lot of media requests and you're working very hard to produce new cartoons for the Democracy Fund.
But I think it's important to give you an opportunity to let people know where they can buy your original artwork because you've generously allowed people to use your artwork.
But if they would like to buy an original print, how do they do that?
Yep.
So everything's available through my website, which is bobmoran.co.uk.
And on there, you can, if you're a publisher of any kind, a blog, website, magazine, newspaper, you can download the cartoons in high resolution, free of charge, and use them in your publications or on your platform.
On the same website, you can buy the original artworks if you'd like to invest in an original Bob cartoon.
You can also buy prints, various sizes, framed and unframed.
And there's a link to my merchandise shop on there as well.
So you can get t-shirts and sweaters and hoodies and that kind of thing.
That's excellent.
Bob, I just want to thank you so much for your hard work.
I know you've paid a personal cost fighting for freedom, but on the flip side, let it be an example for other people that if you do stand up, if you do, you know, allow yourself to be guided by your convictions and your morals, you can come out the other side and have a very successful career and a successful following because there are people out there just looking for someone to stand up and tell the truth.
Yeah.
And you know, the other thing is don't be afraid because our side of this is full of the most generous and decent people.
And, you know, if you think you're going to fall, they will catch you.
So don't worry about it.
Speak your truth.
Bob, thank you so much.
And I can't wait to see what you do next.
Thank you very much, Sheila.
Great to speak to you.
Regular, recent viewers of the show will know that I'm trying something new to wrap up the show each week.
I read one or two of your letters to me, randomly selected.
The Other Side of the Story00:04:03
I do not pre-read them.
And I think it's a great way for you to have your say and it maintains our commitment to telling the other side of the story.
Sometimes the other side of the story is your side of the story.
And unlike the insufferable Trudeau cheerleaders at the CBC, we don't leave our comments section closed.
It's wide open.
My comment section, if you want to have your letter possibly selected to be read on the show, just go to Sheila at RebelNews.com, send me an email, put gun show letters in the subject line so that I can easily find it, poke my finger at my phone screen and say, that's the letter this week.
So we've got a letter this week.
It's from Eileen Dehan.
She sends me a letter that reads, Hello, Sheila.
As a practicing Christian and an advocate for freedom, I have been following the trials of Pastor Arder Poloski on Rebel News.
I have been looking for over a year for a faith community willing to stand up for freedom to vaccine mandates and the lockdowns.
I have discussed with pastors in three different churches and all are either unaware of the dangers to religious freedoms presented or unwilling to stand up to the authorities due to possible penalties, financial or otherwise.
Or if aware of the loss of religious freedom and the hypocrisy of politicians who break the rules while jailing pastors for the same contravention, state that it is worse in countries like Iran, but it doesn't stop people from worshiping.
In my humble opinion, the person stating this view, a senior person in the local evangelical church near where I live, is more interested in flogging Jesus for his own financial benefit and security of his position in his church than standing up for the principles Jesus was teaching and who did stand up to the authorities of his time.
So my question is, does Pastor Arder Polowski have an online service for his church?
And if so, how do I join?
Sincerely, Eileen Dehan, White Rock, BC, Canada.
Hi, Eileen.
I'm so glad you sent me this email because I've been feeling this way throughout the entire pandemic.
It is a pastor's obligation, a priest's obligation to tend to his flock physically, of course, keep them safe from disease, but also spiritually.
And so many of them have fallen down on the job.
They have been compliant with the government, even when the government falls out of compliance with God.
And, you know, we do live in a secular society, but so many of our laws are taken directly from the Ten Commandments.
And we know as Christians, and I speak about this from a Christian worldview, but we know as Christians that we are told to be obedient to our government insofar as the government does not run afoul of the laws of God.
And for Pastor Archer Poloski and many other Alberta pastors like him, like James Coates at Grace Life Church, who actually just wrote a phenomenal book, and Tim Stevens from Fairview Baptist in Calgary, they stood up and resisted laws that they said violated their religious freedom.
And while other churches who moved to Zoom Church shrank, and I don't know if their congregations will ever return, theirs are booming.
I know Grace Life Church is looking for a larger building, and they have a huge building.
Tim Stevens' congregation has outgrown his church, and I think Pastor Art could be experiencing the same problems.
Again, this is like when businesses stand up to lockdowns and they're flooded with business.
Churches, same thing.
They stood up to lockdowns and they are flooded with worshipers who feel let down by their own congregations.
Pastor Art's Thriving Services00:01:53
I completely get where you're coming from, Eileen.
So to answer your question, that was a long preamble, but to answer your question, yes.
Pastor Art, although it's been some time since he's been behind the pulpit, since he was incarcerated for 51 days, and you can follow along.
I know, I'm sure, Eileen, you have, but for our other viewers, you can follow along at savearter.com.
You can see all the documents, court filings, interviews with lawyers, interviews with art.
But basically, this time around, he was in jail for giving a sermon to truckers at the Coots border.
And they treated him like a pipeline bomber for that.
But Pastor Art does stream his services from the Cave of Abdulam, that's his church, on Archer Poloski TV on YouTube.
So you can tune in there.
But boy, I sure hope you make the trip to Calgary so you can meet Pastor Art in person and attend one of his services.
Because while he's a firebrand on the internet, and he is a firebrand in real life, he is one of the kindest, funniest, most charming guys you'll ever meet in your life.
Just a really warm and genuine guy who cares deeply about his community and refuses to bend that knee to the altar of the state.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
And again, if you'd like to have your letter read on air, it's very easy.
Just send me an email at sheila at rebelnews.com.
Put gun show letters in the subject line so that I can easily find it.
And again, I just select them at random, but the good news is my viewers are very smart and thoughtful.
So, you know, I'm getting a lot of good letters.
Thanks to everybody in the studio in Toronto for putting the show together for me tonight.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next weekend.