Latest / UK Column Radio / Weekly UKC Banter: Episode 4

Transcript

Weekly UKC Banter: Episode 4 · UK Column Radio

0:38
All right, so let's start off. Let's start off Sorry, sorry,
0:40
sorry, but hang on Charles, before you go any further, let's
0:43
just start off by saying we don't have rain this time.
0:47
Well. That, that is what I was going
0:48
to say. Speak to yourself.
0:50
Yeah, exactly. You speak for yourself.
0:52
We've got plenty here, but hopefully not audible.
0:55
And, and so this is unfashionably an apology.
0:58
I, I, I think not. Well, I was the one that was in
1:01
the room. The, the elephant zone last week
1:03
was very, very wet. Funnily enough, it wasn't
1:06
because the rain was hammering on the roof.
1:07
It was the sound of the rain rolling off the edge of the roof
1:09
and into the gutter. But that's neither here nor
1:12
there to an extent. I'm very sorry that it was quite
1:15
so loud, quite so distracting. Fun enough reading through the
1:18
comments, not everybody found it to be off putting.
1:22
I think some people were pleased by the sound and I think there
1:25
is something to be said for that.
1:27
I don't know if you can really recreate it in a, in an
1:30
electronic sense, but the but the, the sound of running water
1:34
is absolutely fantastic. But, but I'm not sure that was
1:36
quite what we did. So an apology, because for me in
1:39
that room, it didn't seem as loud as it subsequently came out
1:43
on the recording. I is my view.
1:46
I'll tell you something. It was nothing last week
1:48
compared to today because that has been, I mean, the volume of
1:51
the, of not only the rain hitting the, the, the roof, but
1:55
running down that gutter today was, yeah, it was off the
1:58
charts. It was amazing.
2:00
We had some pretty spectacular rain this morning.
2:04
That's a great thing. I mean, clearly global warming
2:07
is, is just destroying the UK. It's just, you know, it's, it's
2:11
getting so hot that it's raining.
2:15
I thought it looked look. The farmers, it's going to be
2:19
interesting. Charles, I don't know what your
2:20
thoughts are because farmers have been complaining because we
2:22
haven't had any rain this year so far.
2:25
And then over the last couple of weeks things have turned about
2:29
somewhat. But I can see it going the other
2:31
way over the next month or so. Yeah.
2:33
I think, I think that's the thing where we are at that time
2:35
of year where it's it, it does tend to go one way or the other.
2:41
It's, it's either a very wet period of the year sort of
2:45
comparably or, or, or it's far too dry.
2:47
But I think it I, you know, it raises a lot of really
2:50
interesting points, especially with arable agriculture and how
2:57
the particularly well for now, hybridization of crops and stuff
3:02
works. You see, say you take things
3:07
that are not interfered with at all.
3:12
So, so a lot of grasses that haven't been re sown or
3:16
whatever, so sort of hedge row grasses.
3:18
And you, and you see how things will respond according to nature
3:23
in the if, if it's a, if it's very dry, they will give out
3:26
seed as a, as a sort of control mechanism in order to, for there
3:33
to be progeny if they die off. And you know, similarly, if
3:39
there's enough water, they'll grow instead before issuing seed
3:43
and, and all the rest of it. Whereas you look at crops that
3:46
are hybridised and, and one, I think one example in the, in the
3:49
UK that's really interesting to watch is maize, which is largely
3:53
used for winter feed for cattle. And I, I can think of periods
3:59
here where, you know, it would definitely constitute grout in
4:02
drought in the, the, that period of time that the maze has been
4:05
in the ground, there's been no rainfall at all.
4:07
And yet it just keeps on growing.
4:10
It's, it's very, very odd to watch and it's just, it's
4:13
completely unreal. And you think, right, well, if,
4:16
if that's able to do that, what, what's it going to be doing to
4:21
the inside of a cow when, when it eats it?
4:24
And consequently, what's that going to be doing?
4:26
The condition of the meat, if it's going to be beef, or indeed
4:29
the milk, if it's going to be dairy and all, you know, all
4:32
these things just just remind us of how far removed we are from
4:36
nature in its natural state and how people have got so utterly
4:41
used to that, that it's, it's not even a consideration
4:44
anymore. You know, stuff just stuff just
4:45
grows and that's that. And I think in the UK, you know,
4:48
getting back to it, OK, it might, might appear boring for
4:50
people that aren't engaged with it, but actually it is
4:53
enormously relevant. We, we had a incredibly wet
4:56
winter, not the one just gone, but the, the previous one.
4:59
And, and there was it a real, real effect because it was bad
5:03
for both camps. I mean, you know, livestock,
5:06
terrible conditions because the ground was so horrifically
5:09
boggy. Or if you're, you're trying to
5:10
get anything in the ground to grow, it was just way too wet.
5:14
And but you know, the amount that was lost because it just
5:16
drowned was, was phenomenal. And that was a kind of, you
5:19
know, that was a reminder that I think the public did have some
5:22
sense of the the weather on this.
5:25
Of course, for anyone to say, oh, well, hey, that's the way
5:29
it's going to go because of climate change is ludicrous.
5:31
But I think people do need to be reminded of the way in which the
5:35
weather does actually affect stuff.
5:38
When I was in Poland and what do you call it, Netherlands,
5:43
Holland is just I think one of the provinces always get this
5:45
wrong. In 2023 though they were telling
5:49
me about the globalist attack on agriculture in in their country.
5:58
Is the same thing happening in the UK?
6:03
100% And it's fascinating because you know, Britain, as
6:08
everybody knows, Britain came out of the European Union a few
6:11
years ago and up until that point, all this sort of
6:16
industrialised farms that are effectively, you know, they're
6:19
not viable businesses in many ways they were reliant upon
6:25
payments from the European Union.
6:27
That is a common agricultural policy to keep themselves in
6:31
profit. And after we left the European
6:36
Union and inverted economists, the common agricultural policy
6:41
money stopped blowing and the UK government said that they would
6:44
replace it with various renate rewilding schemes and and
6:51
renaturization and all this kind of stuff.
6:55
And so farmers have signed up for that.
6:59
And in fact, there were they, they seem to have, they seem to
7:03
close the, the application process a few weeks ago or a
7:08
couple of months ago because, well, whether it was there were
7:10
too many or whatever, but now they're looking at under the
7:13
spending review, maybe not even letting that programme run its
7:18
course. So, so farmers are, you know,
7:22
they're not viable as, as a business because of, of many
7:26
factors, not least the, the way that supermarkets have have
7:30
decimated, you know, the, their income.
7:33
But also just the, the fact that grain markets are
7:39
internationalised, globalised. And, and so they are trying to
7:44
sell grains at, at prices sometimes that, that aren't even
7:48
covering their costs or if they are covering their costs only
7:50
marginally. So, you know, farming by itself
7:55
seems to be, I mean, Charles, you can correct me if I'm wrong
7:57
about this, but it seems to, it seems to be that it's
8:00
increasingly unviable as a business, partly because we are
8:05
as individuals increasingly unwilling to pay, you know, for
8:09
food in a way that we once did. And, and you go back several
8:14
decades and, and the proportion of our income that we were
8:16
prepared to spend on, on food was that much higher.
8:21
But we've got used to what the supermarkets have done to the
8:24
farming industry, plus government policy has done to
8:27
the farming industry and we prefer to go on for foreign
8:31
holidays a year instead. Yeah.
8:34
I mean, I, I know we've we've talked about this before quite
8:37
quite closely associated with this.
8:39
I think if you, if you look at it the other way round and it's
8:42
the city, it would apply to any system or, or anything that
8:46
we've, we identify on a, on a, either a national worldwide
8:50
basis who does the system suit? And it's certainly not the
8:54
farmers, but but it does suit the grapefruit cartels.
8:59
So, so if you, if you look at what they're getting out of it
9:02
and then you reverse engineer from that point, then you see
9:05
exactly why we are in the situation that we are in.
9:08
And they they can only do what they do because government
9:13
steals money from people in order to it effectively pump it
9:19
back into the food industry. I mean, as I say, you don't, you
9:23
don't have to just apply this to food.
9:25
But for that to be able to happen, it means that people who
9:29
are trying to farm in I was about to use the word
9:32
conventional, but we have to be careful with that because of
9:34
what what has become conventional.
9:37
But, but, but that within itself that the, the sort of, you know,
9:42
the wider agricultural industry which incorporates the food
9:48
outlets, the supermarkets, all that kind of thing, but also the
9:51
chemicals and the pharmaceuticals and, and all the
9:54
all the other inputs that are contributing to it.
9:58
They all profit greatly from it. But they can only do that
10:02
because the exactly like Mike describes, the subsidy system is
10:07
an enabling process, a financial instrument in effect to
10:12
condition people to do a particular thing, which is not
10:16
to say that you can't do it outside of that.
10:18
We've again, we've talked about that before, whether in the UK
10:21
or or elsewhere, the conditions are very much against you and
10:24
you just have to think totally differently about what you're
10:26
trying to do. But but yes, I mean, you could
10:29
say this is part of a process of destruction of agriculture as we
10:34
know it. But actually it's that that's
10:36
part of it. The the other part, of course is
10:38
that it is, it is sweeping aside all of that in order that the
10:44
likes of craft and Cargill and and whatever can do what they do
10:49
and, and indeed how they play into all the rest of it.
10:52
And you look at those guys now, of course, they're all like
10:55
everybody else in the grips of AI and tech, you know what they
10:59
call innovation. But but frankly, it's just yet
11:02
more removal of people from the land and removal of people from
11:07
having any idea as to what food is.
11:10
But as I say, you know, we've talked about a lot before.
11:11
So, so yes, it's it's an intentional destruction, but
11:14
there is a but there is a specific purpose beyond simply
11:18
wilful sort of nihilistic destruction.
11:22
And we can't. Sorry, sorry.
11:24
I was just going to say, Jim, we can't.
11:25
We can't let that pass without just mentioning, you know, since
11:30
Charles has brought in the issue as the big conglomerates, you
11:33
know, the the gene editing plans, the sort of factory
11:38
production of food. You know, that part of the
11:41
reason that this is happening is, is undoubtedly because
11:45
there's an intention that food is not going to be produced on
11:47
the land anymore. It's going to be produced in
11:50
factories using organisms that have been genetically
11:54
engineered. Now they'll claim that in the
11:56
legislation and so on. They'll claim that it's not
11:58
genetic engineering or it's not genetic modification, rather to
12:02
use the correct term, because they say that the organisms that
12:05
are eventually produced are don't have any foreign genetic
12:10
material in them. But but they are the these
12:14
factory farmed products are factory produced products are
12:19
allowed to be developed using genetic modification as an
12:23
interim step. The claim is that the foreign
12:26
genetic material is removed at the end of the process.
12:29
But nonetheless, it's, it is. It is.
12:32
It is not, in my opinion, Charles, again, I'd be
12:35
interested in your thoughts on this, but it is not, in my
12:37
opinion, equivalent to selective breeding because it is
12:42
significantly more there's, there's more genetic messing
12:46
about going on than than can possibly happen through
12:50
selective, careful selective breeding.
12:52
No, I, I would, I would totally agree with Mike.
12:55
And I think, again, I know we, we have, I think covered some of
12:58
this before, but, but I, I, I think the other element to it
13:01
is, it is, you can't know. And, and, and it's, it's
13:05
staggering from a scientific point of view to suggest that
13:10
say, say something could be done in a, you know, in a sort of
13:16
hybridised conventional fashion that would take, say, 1020,
13:20
thirty years to achieve. And all you're saying is you're,
13:24
you're condensing that amount of time into a much shorter period.
13:29
And, and you're, you're overriding assumption in all of
13:33
that is that condensing that period of time isn't going to
13:36
make any difference. As though you know exactly how
13:38
each stage of that will turn out.
13:40
It's, it is utterly ridiculous and completely irresponsible for
13:44
anybody to put that forward for for two reasons, or at least two
13:48
reasons that that sort of I have on top of my head.
13:50
Now, first of all, you don't know how the Organism itself
13:54
will turn out to be, you know, compared with that process, but
13:58
also you don't know how it will relate to its environment, how
14:02
its environment will relate to it.
14:03
That's the other bit that nobody considers.
14:05
So you're you the, the knock on effect of altering a food chain
14:10
in such an incredibly abrupt manner by putting something
14:14
into, you know, whether it's a, let's say it's a breed of sheep
14:18
that has that has not gone through that 30 or 40 year
14:22
period and therefore it's environment has not adapted to
14:24
it. It hasn't adapted to its
14:26
environment. It's, it's an absolutely radical
14:29
change and, and the, the absurd position that people have on
14:34
sort of protecting the environment or this confusion
14:38
with sort of climate and nature and, and the, the conflation
14:41
and, you know, frankly the complete and wilful
14:44
misunderstanding of the situation.
14:47
But people are unable to sort of pull this bit out and realise
14:50
that it's, it's totally and utterly wrong.
14:52
It it just because you don't know, which is not to say it
14:55
definitely will be a disaster, but it's you can't possibly say
14:57
that it won't be. What I was going to say earlier
15:01
is one of the driving factors of all of this is of course the U
15:07
NS Sustainable Development agenda.
15:10
South Africa has about 80% of land that's used for
15:14
agriculture. The UK has about 71%.
15:18
Compare that to Hong Kong, which is 2%.
15:21
That's pretty much no agricultural land.
15:24
The first thing I would say, the first thing I would do, there is
15:26
question that statistics, 71% of Britain's land may be classed as
15:31
agricultural land, but that doesn't mean that it's being
15:34
used for agriculture. A lot of it has been, as already
15:38
mentioned, put into rewilding programmes.
15:41
A lot of it has solar panels and wind turbines on it and a lot of
15:48
it just simply isn't being farmed.
15:50
So, so you know, the, the, the, the better statistic for me,
15:55
Jeremy, is that I think we're 40% food independent.
16:02
So 60%. I think it's more than 60% now
16:05
of our food is, I could be wrong about that, but somewhere around
16:08
that region is, is imported. And, and so, you know, I think
16:13
that's to a large degree indicative of of the fact that
16:17
so many people have left the farming industry in recent
16:20
decades. Well, it depends.
16:23
It really does depend how you categorise it.
16:26
And, and, and again, just going back to the statistics, like
16:29
Mike says, they, they are terribly misleading because it
16:32
is that it that that percentage is classification by land use.
16:38
And that doesn't mean that any farming has to be conducted on
16:41
it for it to count as agricultural.
16:43
And and that's, you know, that's one thing from the last,
16:47
particularly the last year actually or a year and a bit, I
16:50
suppose about a year and a half now that that, that some of
16:52
those figures have fluctuated really wildly.
16:54
And you and you see the effect of these sorts of subsidies, you
16:58
see how incredibly effective they can be.
17:00
And the, the one set of statistics that sticks in my
17:05
head is that one of these, in fact, the scheme that Mike
17:10
referred to that was shut down and then, and then they've sort
17:13
of reneged slightly and, and, and opened it up again.
17:16
But the sustainable farming incentive, which was basically
17:18
meant to take land out of, out of production of food.
17:21
And, and you know, they say put it into nature recovery.
17:25
But of course that, that again is, you know, I don't know if
17:27
we've got time necessarily to go into it, but that, but that in
17:30
itself is such a gigantic con because in actual fact, what
17:33
they're suggesting is not treating the particular bit of
17:37
ground on its own merits. So it'll be, you just get a bird
17:40
seed, a little wild bird mix. So you're going to put in a
17:44
whole load of species into say a wildflower Meadow or or whatever
17:48
that aren't native to that particular bit of ground.
17:50
And we go back to the hybridising or genetic
17:54
modification of organisms. And you're, you are absolutely
17:57
disrupting that ecosystem by doing that because all the, all,
18:00
all the, let's say, all the butterflies, all the worms or
18:02
whatever, everything that relates to the plant species
18:04
that should be there suddenly don't know what to do because
18:07
the, the, what should be there isn't.
18:10
OK, You could say, well, if you're starting from something
18:12
that's just a, you know, a, a chemically treated field of
18:17
wheat, then frankly, what's the difference?
18:18
But that, but there is a difference.
18:20
And that in itself is done from a utterly wrong start point.
18:25
So the whole idea of nature, nature recovery is, is a massive
18:28
con in the 1st place. But but they, they started this
18:33
scheme and in the first instance it was unlimited in that if you
18:38
farmed 100 acres or 100,000 acres, it didn't matter.
18:42
You could put the whole of your farm into this scheme in that,
18:46
you know, one year you might be producing 100% of your, of your
18:50
land might be dedicated to producing beef or, or wheat or
18:53
whatever. OK, you should hopefully
18:55
wouldn't be doing that, but but still it could be.
18:58
And then the following day, you could say, right, we're into SFI
19:02
100%. And so the obvious question was
19:06
to to the ministry to, to Defra Also, what, what do you think
19:09
the effect of this is going to be?
19:11
I mean, if you're, if you're allowing people to de risk their
19:13
business to that extent, what do you think is going to happen?
19:16
Are they going to think, yeah, well, I'll tell you what, I'll
19:19
roll the dice and maybe make a bit of money on, on wheat or
19:23
barley or, or beans or something.
19:25
Or should I just take the cash and do a one hit and just sow
19:29
bird seed and doesn't matter how it turns out and, and Defra in
19:33
their infinite wisdom and arrogance said we don't expect
19:37
there to be any material change to the circumstance.
19:40
Go forward three months from the time that that question was put
19:45
by UK column to to Defra. After three months, they reduced
19:50
that drastically and said you can only put 1/4 of your land
19:53
into the scheme. And then a couple of months
19:55
later they received, they released the statistics and, and
19:58
what what's called the uncropped arable land.
20:02
Had increased by a factor of 107% over that time period.
20:07
So, OK, how much of an effect does that actually have given
20:11
that our relative sustainability or self sufficiency is so low?
20:16
Well, yeah, OK, maybe not that much, but the but the point to
20:19
be made is that the influence that is held by the food
20:24
industry and by the government by virtue of these sort of
20:27
crooked subsidies is phenomenal. And that and you know that will
20:31
will feel the the longer term effects of that in, you know,
20:34
over the next few years because to to undo it.
20:37
The point is that if you have gone into it and you've you've
20:40
created a load of land that that now cannot produce food, to
20:46
actually undo that and to start again in order to achieve some
20:50
sort of profitable exercise for your business is, is really,
20:53
really difficult. So it's a sort of, you know,
20:55
it's kind of a fudge every which way.
20:57
But, but I mean it, yeah, it totally and utterly happened.
21:01
And so, yeah, it's a it's a disaster.
21:04
But again, people don't have any idea because going back to the
21:07
Hong Kong thing, we just, we get around it by by importing food
21:12
and and then at the same time saying, oh, well, you know,
21:14
Russia is such a terrible threat.
21:16
Well, so in which case, why are we importing food?
21:20
It is a weird concept. If you grow food and then you
21:23
export it and then import, the whole thing is a very strange
21:27
cycle. It's a great demonstration of,
21:31
of how the, the whole climate narrative is internally
21:34
inconsistent. You know, we've got to stop
21:36
driving internal combustion engine cars because we're
21:39
pumping out all this nasty carbon dioxide and sulphur
21:42
dioxide and stuff. We've got to, so we've got to
21:45
change everything to batteries. But we're going to, we're going
21:47
to, we've just done a deal. The UK has just done a deal with
21:51
the United States to export product from the UK to the
21:55
United States and then to import product from the United States
21:58
to the UK. This would make sense if we were
22:02
producing different product, but it's the same product.
22:05
So please explain to me how this fits with their climate change
22:09
narrative. It's it's a lot in itself
22:11
demonstrates that the climate change narrative is a pile of
22:14
nonsense in my opinion. Because because they can't even
22:17
get their own story straight. And if you look at what's
22:21
happening here in South Africa, they are building huge, huge
22:25
forms of solar panels and, and wind turbines.
22:29
But yes, yes, they're up. They're building them in the
22:32
middle of nowhere. And at this stage, they aren't
22:35
connected to the central power grid.
22:37
So now this is beautiful for basically the technocrats, for
22:43
the UN, for the World Bank, because big loans are going to
22:46
get taken out so that they can start building the
22:49
infrastructure. No, but but that but I mean, you
22:52
know, at least let's let's say if you were to give the system
22:54
the benefit of the doubt and just look at it on on common
22:57
sense ground. You know, South Africa's
23:00
latitude means that that there is at least a case on the solar
23:05
side of it for it for it making some degree of sense.
23:08
You know, you have consistently a more consistent amount of
23:14
daylight and indeed you have more sunlight than the UK and,
23:20
and yet are, you know, the peak and through, I mean, OK, more,
23:24
much more acute further north in the UK that you go.
23:27
But you know, right up in the north of Scotland in the the
23:30
Northern Isles, the, the days in winter are absurdly short and,
23:35
and yet in the summer it's it's never dark.
23:38
So, so how on earth, how are you matching that power input with
23:42
the requirement, you know, no one on a, on just a common sense
23:46
basis. And I, and I say this as
23:48
somebody who has solar panels, but in a, in a completely off
23:52
grid capacity, because it makes sense.
23:55
And, and, and I therefore use energy around the delivery of
24:01
the, the energy from the sun. So I mean it, it makes sense and
24:05
it means sort of two fingers to the National Grid.
24:09
But but I would never suggest that because it works for me and
24:12
I can, I can think, OK, well, I can put that machine on now.
24:15
I can run that. Now.
24:16
I would never suggest that you try and run a country's grid on
24:21
that basis. Yeah, but that's totally crazy.
24:24
Charles But that's the that's the obvious difference.
24:27
I don't think any sane person has anti solar panels or
24:30
whatever. If you have them on your roof,
24:32
it's great, but that's not base load.
24:35
That's the difference. Yeah, but you see that the on
24:37
the roof things really interesting because that here in
24:40
the UK, Ed Miliband was talking about that just earlier this
24:44
week, I think it was. And you know, as though, oh,
24:47
it's a complete revelation, you know, finally common sense and
24:51
this that and the other. Yeah, OK.
24:52
But but but still when you look at the wiring diagram, how does
24:56
it actually work? Well, the way it works, unless
24:59
he is really suggesting common sense, which I doubt is that
25:02
the, the panels, the, the, the, you know, out the back of the
25:05
panel goes the cable out of the house and back into the grid.
25:10
So if there's a power cut, even if the sun is shining and you've
25:14
got panels on your house, you will not have electricity
25:17
because the power goes to the grid and it needs to therefore
25:20
come back from the grid as opposed to what I'm describing,
25:23
which is an off grid thing where you're able to store the energy
25:26
because you've got batteries. So in actual fact, this the the
25:29
idea, you know, this this sort of word that gets bandied around
25:32
about resilience. It is, is absolute rubbish
25:38
because because of that. So, so still you have this
25:42
central requirement and there was that was it Spain that had
25:46
the outage the other day? I forget, Mike.
25:49
I think you spoke about it on the.
25:50
News. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:53
Portugal, but yeah, so you know, this the the the peaks and
25:59
troughs in terms of the, the delivery versus something like
26:03
nuclear. How on earth it would basically,
26:07
if it weren't for the climate narrative, you know, how on
26:09
earth would anyone have come out of a meeting and said, yeah, OK,
26:13
well that the let's go for the let's go for the form of energy
26:17
that's there's a load of like more than we can use during the
26:20
middle of the day and then absolutely none at night.
26:22
I mean, no one would ever have said, yeah, that's a good idea.
26:27
Yeah, but as I was saying, it's base load versus secondary
26:30
power. I mean, solar panels are
26:32
fantastic. Wouldn't turbines fantastic?
26:35
You know as as secondary, but they're not reliable.
26:38
But yes, I mean, it's fascinating, right?
26:41
This could be a shoehorn too far, but we just before we
26:43
started recording, we're talking about daylight saving and.
26:47
Yes, let's talk about daylight savings.
26:49
Yeah, it's, I don't necessarily have a have a dog in the fight
26:54
exactly, but it is, Yeah, it is controversial.
26:57
Well, I'll tell you what, You start because you were the one
26:58
that brought it up. You say, you say your piece.
27:02
OK, so I I find the concept of daylight savings ridiculous, so
27:07
go on. As it turns, as it turns out, we
27:09
don't have that in South Africa. We don't even have multiple time
27:14
zones. Technically South Africa should
27:16
have two time zones, but we don't.
27:20
So we keep things really simple. If it's darker for an hour
27:22
longer than so be it. You know, just that's it.
27:26
That's the time. Mike, what?
27:28
What's I need? You were reluctant to
27:30
necessarily. I don't, I don't have, I don't
27:33
have a dog in this fight, as the saying goes.
27:36
I mean, my preference would be that we don't have it.
27:40
I also don't really understand what it's actually for.
27:44
Of course, I grew up being told all kinds of stories about that
27:48
it's beneficial for farmers and so on.
27:50
So. So maybe I should just pass that
27:52
straight back to you, Charles, since you are a farmer, is it
27:55
beneficial to you? OK, what's wrong with just
27:57
changing your lawn, that's all. Why must why must be done from
28:00
the government? Yeah, OK.
28:04
Well, that that that is you are absolutely correct.
28:07
I mean that that is ultimately what it comes down to.
28:11
But I, but the, the way I look at it is that, yes, it would be
28:15
perfectly easily, perfectly easy to, to simply adapt according to
28:20
the seasons. And OK, in the South of England,
28:24
it's, it's not so acute, but, but nonetheless, it, you know,
28:27
this time of year isn't very nearly Midsummer.
28:31
It is light. It's, it's light enough to be
28:33
outside short pretty shortly after 4:00 in the morning.
28:37
I mean that that is seriously early.
28:39
And then it's, it's easily light enough to, to walk around still
28:43
at 10:30 at night. And obviously the further north
28:45
you go, the, the, the wider that margin gets.
28:49
But if, if you think about what time the working day starts and
28:55
finishes and then what people, how people manage their lives,
29:00
the, the case for it sort of makes itself because, because
29:05
exactly like you say, people don't simply change their alarm
29:08
clock. So if you want, if you are
29:10
either in a professional, you have a lifestyle that means that
29:14
maximising daylight makes sense, then yeah, you're quite right.
29:17
You should just get up earlier. But but if, if you are going to
29:21
say right, well, it would just be helpful for people to have
29:26
daylight at the time where it's sort of more necessary.
29:31
Then my point is if we take the, if we take midday, the, the, the
29:36
Meridian as being the time of the sun at its highest point, we
29:42
are crazy in that we, we, we have such a short period of
29:46
time, generally speaking, before that and such a long period
29:50
afterwards. And so that's, so we've moved
29:53
away from, I mean, with the OK previously using candles, lamps,
29:58
whatever, but now with, with electricity, we don't really
30:02
move according to, to daylight. And so people, you know, people
30:07
that don't go to bed until sometime, I mean, OK, in, in
30:11
the, in the winter, it doesn't really make sense to manage your
30:16
day like that. So I think so that that's,
30:18
that's sort of how it's come about, if you see what I mean,
30:22
because we are choosing to spend a completely unequal amount of
30:26
our day at, at either end of it, if that makes sense.
30:31
I mean, it's crazy, but, but sort of now with where we are
30:35
necessarily. So I think the only way to
30:37
resolve it in the UK would be to to split it down the middle and
30:43
and have the the half hour like in is India is is on 1/2 hour,
30:51
Bhutan is on 3/4 of an hour and somewhere else is at quarter
30:56
past or Yeah. OK.
30:57
So, so, so that would be the, that would be the way to resolve
31:01
it because otherwise we'd otherwise, you know, if you, if
31:03
you do want to have broadly speaking, a day that we call the
31:08
working day that does best fit daylight throughout the year
31:12
without him to change the clocks, then you then you would
31:14
have to get, you'd have to do the half hour.
31:16
Just as. Unfortunate it looks like.
31:18
Sorry, I was just going to say unfortunate.
31:20
It doesn't look like we're going to have to worry about what Iran
31:22
does for another in another few weeks time.
31:24
But but anyway, that's a whole other conversation.
31:27
But yeah. What is the default time?
31:31
So right now you're an hour behind me and then the other
31:34
half of the EU two hours behind me.
31:36
So what is the UK's default time?
31:39
To GMT so it would be two we'd be two hours away.
31:43
So we're on now yeah. What's called British
31:45
summertime. I mean the, the history of it if
31:49
one's to believe it with, with John Harrison and his C clocks
31:53
it is is completely fascinating. But.
31:57
But but again sort of weird that well they're not weird.
32:03
I mean go when you think going back to that time people's days
32:07
did did start earlier and did not finish so late.
32:11
So so Greenwich meantime did make sense for those people then
32:17
it doesn't really make sense for the way that we operate now.
32:20
So yeah, you're right. We should, we should, if we were
32:23
to avoid daylight saving, we should just alter our, our lives
32:28
accordingly. But people won't do that in the
32:30
same way that, you know, we talked about food earlier.
32:33
People won't save food and therefore save money and not on
32:37
not waste. I mean, it does, you know, say
32:40
where do we, where do we start? Where do we finish?
32:42
But I, I, Jeremy, I don't get your complaint in some way.
32:45
I mean, I agree with it, but I don't necessarily get it because
32:49
of course, we don't even have to bother changing our clocks
32:52
anymore. That's all done for us.
32:53
So really we just go to sleep one night and we waken up at the
32:57
alarm the next day and and it's just happened.
32:59
So I mean, what's the problem? You guys are aware surely that
33:05
NATO and you know, which is driven by the US has for a long
33:08
time now I've been been trying to.
33:10
Find a way to Now, let me just stop you there for a second.
33:13
Are you sure about that? Is NATO, is NATO, is NATO driven
33:18
by the US or is NATO actually driven by the UK and and who is
33:23
actually producing the policy? That's a very good question,
33:27
Mike. I think, I think you'll, I think
33:30
that actually NATO policy is coming from, we might call it an
33:36
Anglo American deep state axis. Let's say there's this, the the
33:41
various intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic are
33:44
pretty much aligned. Not necessarily aligned with
33:48
with the current regime in the United States, not necessarily
33:51
aligned with the regimes in European countries, but
33:54
certainly I think largely aligned with the policy
33:58
objectives of the British Foreign Commonwealth and
34:00
Development Office. That's just my my view, Charles.
34:03
You may have a different. One, no, I mean not, not
34:07
significantly, no, I, I, I agree.
34:09
I, I absolutely agree. And I think the yeah, I mean,
34:13
the, the, the Iran situation, it is fascinating.
34:17
You know, the, the, oh, we cover it quite a lot on the news.
34:20
But the, the constant references to Iran being involved in
34:28
absolutely everything that pertains to a threat to us or a
34:33
threat to other countries in the Middle East.
34:36
I mean, it's, it's completely relentless from here.
34:39
And it's, it's, it's almost all unsubstantiated or it's the
34:45
product of very, very crooked intelligence, if that's really
34:49
the word for it, which I don't think it is.
34:51
I mean, it's phenomenal. And also the, the efforts that
34:53
are being gone to, to, to stir it up.
34:57
And I was just, I was interested.
34:58
We, we the, the actually again, going back to NATO is
35:02
interesting. The UK sent a an aircraft
35:05
carrier carrier strike group out from Portsmouth in.
35:11
Was it in May or was it in April?
35:13
I thought it might have been. Later sometime, yeah.
35:16
And they and they, I mean it was extraordinary description for
35:20
it. So it's a, it is described as a
35:22
combat operation, operation high mass.
35:23
So it's not an exercise, it's an operation.
35:27
And it was in conjunction, certainly in its first part
35:30
through the Mediterranean and then and then through the,
35:33
through the Suez Canal with a sort of NATO escort or, or
35:39
indeed sort of auxiliary vessels from NATO.
35:43
And now they've, they've turned W turned left, they're there and
35:47
I say they're in the western Arabian Sea.
35:51
So without having to make people get the map out, basically,
35:54
they're they're going round Yemen.
35:55
And of course Yemen now is is absolutely chucked in with Iran,
36:02
with Russia and everything else. And almost laughably part of the
36:06
remit of the carrier strike group is trade, trade relations
36:10
in the Indo Pacific. I mean, it's just hard not to
36:15
say. I mean, I don't mean to be
36:16
overly cynical, but but it looks very much like its primary
36:20
purpose is to be a magnet for fire to to draw fire to to
36:26
provoke some sort of incident and consequently, therefore
36:30
stimulate trade, trade in weapons and to fur.
36:35
You know, we've just had the strategic defence review
36:38
released here. All about the only thing it's
36:41
about is, is blowing everybody up with nuclear weapons and
36:44
industry and how everybody just makes packet and, and it just,
36:48
it is completely extraordinary how people, especially given,
36:51
you know, we're talking about people's memories.
36:53
We're not that far from how everything was cooked up and,
36:56
and and then utterly sort of twisted before the Iraq War,
37:02
2003, you know, to the point where George Bush was even
37:05
minuted in a meeting that Bush himself was talking about a
37:09
false flag shooting down of an aircraft.
37:12
You know, I mean, so we're almost in, in that sort of
37:15
territory now. It's it's totally perverse.
37:18
The reason why I I mentioned the US earlier is I don't know if
37:23
you're aware of the Path to Persia document that was
37:28
published in 2009 by the Brookings Institution.
37:33
I think it's really important to understand the role of these
37:36
think tanks, these policy think tanks and and so on because you
37:40
know they are effectively they and the media to some degree as
37:42
well are effectively an armed agents of the so called deep
37:47
state. So they are there to present the
37:50
ideas to the to governments initially and and then the
37:55
governments are representing these ideas to the people.
37:58
And, and of course, this is something another thing that
38:00
most people get a bit backwards is, is what the purpose of
38:05
representative democracy is? Because it's not about as I'm
38:09
sure everybody watching this. Well, no, but it's, it's not
38:12
about choosing individuals to represent our views to the
38:17
legislature. It's about the the so called
38:21
legislature representing the policy that has come from some
38:25
other place to the people and hopefully selling that policy
38:29
well enough that they get voted in the next time around.
38:32
So, so you know, this is another area where we sort of get, get
38:37
our, our, our view of, of how things work a bit crisscrossed.
38:43
But it's genius because if you're a think tank, you, you
38:46
don't have to take blame for anything.
38:47
No, no, no, we didn't do anything.
38:49
I just, you know, we just, we just presented some ideas.
38:53
Yeah. That's.
38:54
Exactly right, exactly right. I mean, we, Mike and I began
39:00
Wednesday's news this week with a, with a kind of extended
39:04
report on digital ID. And this is absolutely case in
39:07
point, you know, the, the, you look at the government's website
39:10
and what the, the, the data access bill, we're just going
39:16
through, well, it's effectively sort of gone through parliament
39:19
and, and in that, you know, in the, in the government's
39:22
writings on that, they're talking about a digital identity
39:27
that is not mandatory. And then just a few days ago, a
39:35
think tank very closely associated with the Labor Party,
39:38
Labour Together have produced a policy paper about something
39:43
called a Brit card, which they're proposing would be
39:46
mandatory, would be universal. But they they're, they're
39:51
selling it on the basis that it will stop illegal migration and
39:57
control overall migration. And and that is that, that is
40:02
basically that's it. That's that, that's their sort
40:04
of sole offering. But exactly like you say, they
40:07
just sort of toss it on the on the heap.
40:11
And and then and stand well back and and that's that.
40:15
And and then, you know, but of course it enters public
40:17
consciousness. It gets reported on.
40:19
Actually, I don't know if it has been reported on by the
40:21
mainstream, but well, I mean, sorry, it it, it obviously has,
40:25
but but anyway, so, yeah, the the point is, is valid.
40:31
Absolutely. It's absolute though, aside from
40:34
that the, the, you know, the government should be lied to us
40:38
and and aside from the the whole Brit card discussion which is
40:41
not settled yet. Literally about 30 minutes ago I
40:45
received an email from company's house in the UK demanding that I
40:50
verify my identity digitally for future use on the company's
40:54
house website. So, so that's absolutely
40:56
mandatory and, and mandatory digital ID is here, no matter
41:00
what the British government might say in their denials, it's
41:03
here already. Yeah, staggering.
41:08
What? What's the where?
41:10
Where is it at in South Africa on that front?
41:16
I think you, you, you might find that we are very far behind.
41:21
And that's thanks to having a very inept state.
41:26
We have a, you know, pretty much a failure of a government, which
41:31
is beneficial in, in many ways. It's depends on what, what hill
41:37
you want to die on. But if you, if you want chaos
41:41
like we've got that is accompanied by a sense of
41:46
freedom. But if you want less chaos and a
41:50
lot more control, then it is accompanied by things like
41:54
digital ID and, you know, and and and more central governance.
41:59
Yeah, it's a really, it's an interesting point because I, I
42:03
do agree and I think, but, but what I would say is qualify that
42:07
with, with what, what 1's perspective is.
42:11
Because, you know, the reason I ask about South Africa is that
42:14
there are a lot of organisations, you know, the UN
42:17
in particular and the African Union.
42:20
And then all the funders of that, you know, the, the, the
42:23
crew of wrong and philanthropists who are
42:27
desperate to give the impression that that Africa really wants to
42:31
embrace the tech revolution and that that digital idea is
42:34
absolutely happening. And but you're bridging the, the
42:37
tech divide and all that sort of stuff, the digital divide.
42:41
And, and then and then, you know, you talk to somebody who's
42:43
there you who says no, I mean, it's, it's really not.
42:47
And, and then then, and I would agree, you know, on the, on the
42:50
sort of the idea that that the UK, let's say, which is a
42:53
smaller landmass, a more dense population, a better established
42:59
series of sort of urban spaces, insofar as the, the connections
43:04
and, and lines communication stuff are, have, have been more
43:08
enduring. But actually, I would say that
43:09
going back to the, the oil, I mean that the oil can is looking
43:12
quite empty. The, the, the way in which a lot
43:16
of this stuff is supposed to work is now quite far removed
43:20
from the way in which it actually does work.
43:23
And one can point to both sides of the fence, I would say, you
43:28
know, whether it be the state, the sort of government systems
43:31
or indeed the, you know, the other side of it and and what
43:35
corporations promised to, I mean, Marks and Spencer, for
43:38
example, you've got because what what's Marks and Sparks in South
43:41
Africa? Woolworths is it?
43:42
Woolworths, I think, yeah. OK, so so they, they had a, some
43:47
tech, you know they they were hacked or whatever it was
43:50
ransomware I think a couple of months ago.
43:53
They are still not trading online after more than two
43:57
months because they were knocked sideways.
44:00
The, the vulnerabilities in all of this are absolutely vast.
44:04
And I know I sound like a broken record on this, but it's very
44:06
easy for the UK, for the British government to give the
44:09
impression that we are this extraordinarily in your, you
44:12
know, well oiled machine. And, and the truth is, is, is
44:15
not at all like that. And also the, the, the distance
44:17
that we have to come. I mean, I remember, just as an
44:19
anecdote, I can remember shipping a vehicle back into the
44:24
UK. It was only 10 years, in fact
44:27
not even 10 years ago. And it's quite an unusual thing
44:30
to do as an individual. Obviously there are a lot, you
44:32
know, hundreds come in. Well, I should probably not so
44:35
much anymore, but but hundreds come in commercially and that's
44:38
fine. But in order to get it through
44:41
customs, you have to have a code allocated to it.
44:45
So you look down all the codes. And anyway, I spoke to the, the
44:51
civil service department in, in Manchester that were meant to
44:53
run this and no one there had any idea how you're supposed to
44:57
do it. So I filled out the form and it
45:00
said code, you know, for import or whatever.
45:04
In the end, I just made it up because I knew that that they,
45:08
they weren't going to know any better, but that something
45:10
needed to go in the, in this series of boxes.
45:14
So that was the first point. The second point was right,
45:16
we'll say how do I get it to you?
45:18
Have you got an email address that I can attach it to?
45:20
No, no. Can you fax it?
45:24
And this was, this was in 2015, I think, and, and fax was the
45:32
only way you could communicate with this outpost of Revenue and
45:36
Customs to do with vehicle imports and exports.
45:40
So I'm not saying that they won't have evolved since then,
45:43
but the, but the idea just because they say, Oh yeah, we've
45:47
got a one government login now and in 5 minutes you'll be
45:49
having a Brit card. It's just, it's really not it.
45:53
It's not that simple. It's not that straightforward.
45:56
It's not that well oiled. But I mean, just to add to what
46:00
you're saying, right, I, I don't know what the geography is like
46:03
where you guys live, but is it fairly easy to leave your home
46:07
and take public transport and go into the city?
46:09
Is a is a quite easy. Well, we're like you go first.
46:17
Well, I live in the city, so that's, that doesn't apply.
46:19
But but I would say, I would say that as a general rule, public
46:23
transport is vastly lagging behind where, you know, the the
46:30
climate change proponents would want it to be.
46:33
If, if, if there's a plan that people will be taking any kind
46:36
of transport at all, of course. But but bus services are
46:39
appalling, trails that train services are appalling and
46:43
vastly overpriced. So.
46:45
So the answer is that the public transport at this point is not
46:49
fit for purpose. OK, but at least you have public
46:53
transport. If I were to now leave my home
46:56
and just go to the shop to the to the closest shop, I don't
47:02
think I can unless I have a car. I'm just thinking I can maybe
47:07
get an Uber but that seems excessive.
47:11
I don't there is an that's it. I'd have to take an Uber or
47:14
walk. That's it and it's and it'll be
47:16
a long walk. If, like in the UK, you rewrite
47:19
your planning law predicated on the sort of post confected
47:28
pandemic behaviours and you say that everybody is going to be
47:32
working from home, then then you don't need public transport.
47:37
You know, you people will ride their E scooters or or some
47:42
other very dangerous device And and you know that sort of that's
47:49
what you say or you just you don't bother.
47:51
But no, I mean, I would, I would agree with Mike.
47:55
The area that I live in is, is rural.
47:59
There are bus services, they do run, but to suggest that you
48:04
could just, you know, manage your day in a sort of convenient
48:10
sense according to bus timetables is ridiculous.
48:12
I mean, I think. Sorry, go on.
48:15
No, no, I mean I was just going to say like like sort of trains
48:17
or whatever. I mean, if you're, if you're
48:18
ever wanting to make a return journey anywhere, I think in the
48:22
UK now, as a, as a rule, when they devise the timetables,
48:25
it's, it's more or less a given that, that either it's
48:28
deliberately designed so that you can't get somewhere and back
48:32
in a day. Or that if you can, you've got
48:34
about a 7 minute window before you have to get on the, on the
48:36
bus or the train coming back. Or, you know, or that a
48:40
connection will always just miss or mean a sort of an 8 hour
48:48
wait. So yeah, it's, it is a disaster.
48:51
And actually just, you know, we can't joke about this.
48:54
The other, the other thing is going back to where we started
48:58
the because of this and because of what what there isn't in the
49:03
rural environment, it, it means that there is, and you've talked
49:06
about this in South Africa, but people do have to be able to do
49:09
stuff for themselves and therefore they are dependable.
49:11
And as such, they are independent or more independent
49:14
and dangerous. And so that's why there is such
49:17
continued push to get them off the land and to push them into
49:19
areas where they can be more easily managed and controlled
49:23
and, and, and, and generally deskilled.
49:26
So I think that's it. That's the thing.
49:28
But the other, the other thing, I mean, you know, what a joke on
49:30
the climate thing. So trains in the UK, if ever you
49:36
take your bicycle on a train, there is a little sort of
49:39
compartment where you can hang your bike up.
49:41
And I can remember first starting to do, you know, take a
49:45
bike on a train, I don't know, 3030 or more years ago.
49:49
And there were three you had to book and there were three little
49:52
hanging hooks. So you can take a maximum of
49:55
three bicycles on an intercity train, which can seat goodness
50:00
knows how many 100 people. And the last time I did it,
50:03
which admittedly was probably a couple of years ago, guess how
50:06
many hooks there are on the train now?
50:09
Still 3. So.
50:11
So this whole idea that we are doing everything we can to get
50:17
people into more efficient and, and, and sort of, you know,
50:21
modes of transport the better for the environment or whatever.
50:24
The whole thing's just just complete nonsense.
50:26
So I go back to the sort of perspective thing, you know,
50:27
from the outside it might look like that because you can
50:30
produce glossy videos and glossy pictures, but nothing's really
50:32
changed. It's just got worse.
50:35
But that's maybe a good thing because it's hold on.
50:40
It's a good thing in the sense that it shows that the agendas
50:43
are not really succeeding at the pace that we keep thinking they
50:47
are. Yeah.
50:49
No, no, I mean, you're right. I think, I think, I think 1
50:52
takes that I suppose it's yes, it's difficult to eliminate the
50:59
the sort of potentially positive thoughts where you think, well,
51:03
hang on a minute. I think, you know, if one does
51:06
believe people of an older generation or older generations,
51:10
I think there was a time where public transport, for example,
51:13
did work. It was efficient, it was clean
51:16
and it was organised and and it was affordable.
51:20
But somehow in these times of intense progress, we are no
51:26
longer to able to achieve that. So yes, it is a it is a, well
51:30
you know what is it? Is it a failed agenda or is it a
51:32
deliberate agenda? No, it's what it's what I was
51:36
alluding to earlier when Nick Hudson said that you have so
51:41
many competing interests even at those levels that you end up
51:46
with a lot of slowdown. I think that's right.
51:52
I think that's sorry, I was just going to say I think that's
51:55
right because, you know, so many people present the idea of of
52:00
this unified enemy and it doesn't exist.
52:04
A. Few years ago I decided to take
52:06
my wife for lunch to a beautiful little seaside restaurant, maybe
52:11
about 45 minutes car drive away from here.
52:15
So maybe an hour to an hour and a half in the train.
52:18
So I thought, well let's be different, let's take the train.
52:21
Well, it was a tragic experience to the point that we had to get
52:25
somebody to come and fetch us on the other side and drive us
52:28
back. One of the stops along the way
52:31
when we got off to to change trains, the security guard came
52:35
to came to us and said, Are you sure you want to be here?
52:40
We said, OK, why? So we're just changing trains.
52:42
He said yes, OK, I'm going to stand with you until you get on
52:45
on your train because this is not safe.
52:48
Well, I, I think we, we started in an interesting place with
52:54
the, you know, the, the, the, the land and removing people
52:59
from it and how, how you know, the, the, how all this stuff
53:04
connects back to itself. And exactly like you're talking
53:09
about, you know, why, why would a train service have ended up
53:14
sort of being like that if it, if it wasn't in some way all
53:18
related to, to what's going on? And, and, and I think I go back
53:21
to my point of, of just looking at who these outcomes do
53:26
benefit, because there is, you know, that there is always a
53:30
benefit somewhere. And I think it's, it's, it's up
53:33
to us to, to keep an eye on that and therefore sort of react
53:38
accordingly and, and, and in a way, you know, go, go in the
53:41
opposite direction and, you know, do as much as you can to,
53:46
to sort yourself out, as it were.
53:49
And and, and just make sure that your life functions and, and OK,
53:53
you know, your training experience.
53:55
Obviously a shame because wouldn't it be nice if it did
53:58
actually work? But you just make a plan and,
54:00
and you get on with it. Let's stop changing the time
54:04
twice a year. I've got a sound effect for
54:08
that. Hold on, hold on, hold on.
54:14
Mike Robertson, Charles Mallett, Thank you for joining me in the
54:17
weekly banter.