Latest / UK Column Radio / Weekly UKC Banter: Episode 1

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Weekly UKC Banter: Episode 1 · UK Column Radio

0:00
Speaker 3: H M.
0:38
Speaker 1: Mike Robinson, Charles Mallett, thank you for joining me in
0:42
Speaker 1: what's going to hopefully be the weekly Trenchers.
0:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, if we have the stamina, which is probably sloightly
0:50
Speaker 2: too early to make a judgment call on that, but
0:51
Speaker 2: I think it's a good idea. It's a very good idea,
0:53
Speaker 2: and we'll hope to make it a good one for
0:56
Speaker 2: weeks to come. Obviously, we as UK column are very
1:01
Speaker 2: pleased to have you doing what you're doing. But I
1:03
Speaker 2: think we I hope we speak for the audience, which
1:07
Speaker 2: again we hope will be a burgeoning one. Certainly is
1:10
Speaker 2: in the first instance it emerges the existing UK column
1:13
Speaker 2: audience and your existing audience. But I think it's I
1:15
Speaker 2: think it's fantastic because it just it does bring something
1:18
Speaker 2: different and that is that is absolutely superb And I
1:22
Speaker 2: think the response to what you're doing and the variety
1:26
Speaker 2: that you've already put out is absolutely terrific, and that's
1:30
Speaker 2: that that is a huge advantage to us, but enormously
1:34
Speaker 2: enjoyed by the people that are engaging with the content.
1:36
Speaker 2: And also it's very it's very sharable now that we
1:40
Speaker 2: live in an age where to transmit this sort of
1:44
Speaker 2: thing from place to place is instantaneous. You know, it
1:47
Speaker 2: is great to have this extra dimension. So I think,
1:51
Speaker 2: I think we really, you know, we really do look
1:52
Speaker 2: forward to more and more and more. And indeed the
1:57
Speaker 2: audience response, which is which is superb.
2:00
Speaker 3: So I'd like to know what you're what kind of
2:04
Speaker 3: response you've had. And I'm actually quite interested to hear
2:07
Speaker 3: what kind of response you had to last night's interview.
2:10
Speaker 3: And I probably shouldn't say last night, because I'm not
2:12
Speaker 3: sure when this particular, this particular discussion is going to
2:16
Speaker 3: go out, the Titanic one, because I have an interest
2:21
Speaker 3: in that area. I mentioned on the news yesterday Jeremy
2:24
Speaker 3: that my uncle I don't know if you've ever seen
2:27
Speaker 3: the skyline at Belfast, but the skyline of Belfast in
2:31
Speaker 3: certain photographs is dominated by these two massive cran's, big
2:37
Speaker 3: yellow creans that are called David and Goliath, and my
2:43
Speaker 3: uncle project managed to build those in the sixties seventies,
2:47
Speaker 3: and so he was working in Harlan Wolf, which built
2:51
Speaker 3: the Titanic. And you know, of course was no one
2:56
Speaker 3: or it's highly unlikely that there was anybody still alive
2:59
Speaker 3: that was. If there was, they were certainly apprentices at
3:03
Speaker 3: sixteen or fourteen or something like that. But but certainly,
3:06
Speaker 3: the the the memories of the stories that were told
3:10
Speaker 3: at the time, we were absolutely still being shared and
3:14
Speaker 3: and so you know, the the the idea of the
3:18
Speaker 3: of the ships being swapped was was was one that
3:21
Speaker 3: was absolutely part of the Harland and Wolf culture at
3:24
Speaker 3: that time. And of course we're talking thirty years before
3:27
Speaker 3: the Internet, so this isn't an Internet conspiracy theory. This
3:30
Speaker 3: is something that was that was in the culture of
3:32
Speaker 3: Harland and Wolf at the time.
3:34
Speaker 2: Can I just leap in with a with a quick
3:37
Speaker 2: fact check because somebody well already yes, thank.
3:42
Speaker 3: You, yes, sorry, yes, yes, sorry, you're absolutely right, that's
3:49
Speaker 3: absolutely yes, yes, sorry, yes.
3:53
Speaker 1: What did you think of it, Mike?
3:57
Speaker 2: What did I think?
3:58
Speaker 3: Well, I haven't had it, hands up, I haven't had
4:01
Speaker 3: time to watch the whole thing yet, so so I'll
4:03
Speaker 3: get I'll get time to watch it today.
4:04
Speaker 2: But but.
4:07
Speaker 3: I mean so I've got to be fascinated to see
4:08
Speaker 3: how the conversation ended up.
4:10
Speaker 1: But yeah, well, to answer your question, so far from
4:15
Speaker 1: what I've only had a brief look at some of
4:17
Speaker 1: the feedback, and it's it's generally positive. In fact, in fact,
4:22
Speaker 1: the feedback overall so far has been has been very positive,
4:26
Speaker 1: which which worries me. I'm not doing my job properly.
4:29
Speaker 1: I need to I need to ruffle them all feathers.
4:32
Speaker 1: But but By and Lodge with the Titanic discussion, it's
4:38
Speaker 1: it seems to be positive, although there are one or
4:40
Speaker 1: two weird comments like why are we're discussing this? It's
4:44
Speaker 1: a sort of bench a pair of mindset. Well, it
4:46
Speaker 1: happened long ago, so who cares. But it does matter
4:49
Speaker 1: because it's about rectifying or revising fabricated truth, you know.
4:56
Speaker 1: And and and it actually isn't just a random story.
5:00
Speaker 1: It involved JP Morgan, you know, a significant central banker.
5:05
Speaker 3: So that that is that is a really key point.
5:07
Speaker 2: You know.
5:08
Speaker 3: I was I was on a discussion recently and it
5:14
Speaker 3: was involved I can't remember exactly what the what the
5:18
Speaker 3: context was, but I was giving a little bit of
5:21
Speaker 3: historical background to in a lead up to describing events
5:25
Speaker 3: that are happening at the moment. And somebody interrupted me
5:27
Speaker 3: during the conversation and said, why are you telling this this.
5:31
Speaker 3: We don't need a history lesson. We absolutely need history lessons.
5:35
Speaker 3: We've got to understand the context of current events, So sorry,
5:41
Speaker 3: we've got to understand current events in the context of
5:43
Speaker 3: what's happened before. And when we're talking about the likes
5:46
Speaker 3: of JP Morgan, he is the precursor, or he was
5:50
Speaker 3: the precursor to exactly the kinds of mindsets that we're
5:53
Speaker 3: seeing operating today. And if we don't understand that what
5:57
Speaker 3: we're seeing today is is ideological in a sense, and
6:00
Speaker 3: we've seen it actually many times in the past. If
6:04
Speaker 3: we can demonstrate from from because you know how it is,
6:07
Speaker 3: events happen, and evidence around those events tend not to
6:12
Speaker 3: come out for significant time afterwards. So actually we can
6:15
Speaker 3: learn a lot from looking at at historical evidence. And
6:18
Speaker 3: if if JP Morgan was prepared to pull that particular gag,
6:26
Speaker 3: then you know, one of the comments that is often
6:32
Speaker 3: made is why would they do that? Well, you've got
6:35
Speaker 3: to understand what has been done in the past to
6:39
Speaker 3: understand why people would do things in a particular way today,
6:44
Speaker 3: And without understanding history, you can't understand current events. I'm
6:48
Speaker 3: going to say. I'm going to say that, you know,
6:51
Speaker 3: one of the one of the things this surprises me
6:55
Speaker 3: most in recent months about people.
6:59
Speaker 2: That are.
7:03
Speaker 3: That are saying that they are interested in the truth
7:06
Speaker 3: is it? Actually quite often they're not, And whenever a
7:12
Speaker 3: competing idea comes along, they find it very, very challenging,
7:17
Speaker 3: and they're not willing to consider that competing idea because
7:21
Speaker 3: it is in competition with their established ideology. And I
7:26
Speaker 3: think this is a very dangerous position for any of
7:29
Speaker 3: us to get into. And we've got to be absolutely
7:31
Speaker 3: challenging what our perceptions are, what are in built ideas
7:39
Speaker 3: about what's going on around us are? We need to
7:41
Speaker 3: be challenging those every single day. Am I right about this?
7:44
Speaker 3: And if we're not challenging that, then then we are
7:47
Speaker 3: no better than mainstream media.
7:50
Speaker 1: But that's exactly correct. And I mean somebody as ask
7:53
Speaker 1: me the other day, why don't you bring on the
7:55
Speaker 1: other view to let's just say, now the Titanic right
7:59
Speaker 1: or the polemish. Why don't you bring on somebody who
8:02
Speaker 1: who who disagrees with your guest? Well, what you're effectively
8:06
Speaker 1: saying is bring on somebody from the mainstream against So no,
8:09
Speaker 1: because that's not what I'm doing. I'm trying to present
8:12
Speaker 1: competing ideas. I don't want to perpetuate the established ideas
8:16
Speaker 1: because you can get those everywhere.
8:20
Speaker 2: And that's really important. Yeah, it is, and I think
8:23
Speaker 2: it's I think we need to be careful, not just
8:25
Speaker 2: not not to totally overlay the mainstream with the suggestion
8:32
Speaker 2: that everything that comes from the mainstream is bad and
8:35
Speaker 2: wrong or lazy or compromised. But it's the I would
8:39
Speaker 2: say that the fundamental part is that, like you say,
8:43
Speaker 2: with the opposing view, what really what they mean is
8:46
Speaker 2: simply presenting or representing the paradigm, and that's that's of
8:51
Speaker 2: no interest because it is the paradigm that the whole point,
8:55
Speaker 2: going back to exactly what Mike was saying, is to
8:58
Speaker 2: challenge everything and if the result of that remains to
9:04
Speaker 2: be uncertainty, well that's fine, and that's what we have
9:07
Speaker 2: to accept because exactly like what we were saying, you know,
9:09
Speaker 2: we're talking about the Church of England going back well
9:13
Speaker 2: over a thousand years. I wasn't there, you weren't there.
9:16
Speaker 2: We don't know, but I think we have to be
9:19
Speaker 2: absolutely prepared to introduce the element of doubt. And if
9:23
Speaker 2: you think of in terms of sort of fables from
9:26
Speaker 2: the modern era, and I don't mean fables as in
9:28
Speaker 2: they're completely untrue, but the stories that get slung out
9:32
Speaker 2: at a very young age to children. It's part of
9:35
Speaker 2: these sort of building blocks of what it means to
9:39
Speaker 2: be dipping your toe into the waters of history. I mean,
9:43
Speaker 2: the thinking of the Titanic is absolutely something that everybody
9:46
Speaker 2: knows about or thinks they know about it, in the
9:48
Speaker 2: same way that the Twin Towers perhaps represent the same
9:52
Speaker 2: thing for the earlier part of the twenty first century.
9:55
Speaker 2: And if you're not prepared to think, you know, like
10:01
Speaker 2: we always say, think critically, or just think at all
10:03
Speaker 2: about it, then you're just you're setting yourself up for
10:06
Speaker 2: a fall. And also it seems totally illogical to pick
10:12
Speaker 2: holes in one thing and then imagine that everything else
10:14
Speaker 2: just stands up. And also, I think, particularly with the Titanic,
10:19
Speaker 2: it is you know, we forget how actually one hundred
10:22
Speaker 2: plus years is such a short frame of time. I mean,
10:27
Speaker 2: you know, there would have been appeared until quite recently
10:29
Speaker 2: where people who would have even remembered the sinking of
10:32
Speaker 2: the Titanic were still alive. So it's you know, it's
10:36
Speaker 2: very recent history. All those names they crop up all
10:40
Speaker 2: over the place now. It's absolutely it's directly relevant, as
10:44
Speaker 2: indeed are so many of the historical things that really
10:47
Speaker 2: are critical to our understanding of what's happening now. So
10:52
Speaker 2: I think we we really, you know, to disregard history
10:55
Speaker 2: to me sounds utterly insane. And I mean, and I
10:58
Speaker 2: mean both versions of it, that the official sort of
11:02
Speaker 2: paradigm version of history is as important and as relevant
11:05
Speaker 2: as the exposing of what actually may have happened, because
11:09
Speaker 2: in being told the official version, you're creating your own
11:13
Speaker 2: understanding of what it is that you're supposed to believe,
11:16
Speaker 2: you're supposed to take away in the way in which
11:18
Speaker 2: you're supposed to conduct yourself as a result, and that's
11:20
Speaker 2: really important.
11:21
Speaker 1: Mike, you made a very good point a few days
11:23
Speaker 1: ago on my show. And because we're talking about ideas
11:28
Speaker 1: that sometimes seem over there, far away, distant, but actually
11:34
Speaker 1: some of these are very close to home. Lack diet
11:37
Speaker 1: and health.
11:37
Speaker 2: Right, so hawd it pout this?
11:41
Speaker 3: I'm also now following a relatively low I'm not going
11:44
Speaker 3: to say no carbs, but I'm certainly low carbs. And
11:50
Speaker 3: what fascinated me over the years has been that I
11:54
Speaker 3: have naturally sort of drifted towards that kind of thing.
12:00
Speaker 3: I eat quite a bit of meat, I will admit,
12:03
Speaker 3: I don't eat very much fruit, if any fruit any
12:05
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't eat any fruit anymore. But I
12:10
Speaker 3: just that just felt natural to me. The kind of
12:13
Speaker 3: food that I eat just felt natural to me. It
12:15
Speaker 3: was just something that that happened. And actually, as it
12:18
Speaker 3: turns out, that was the that's the thing that works
12:21
Speaker 3: for me best. Where I fell down over the last
12:25
Speaker 3: few years was that I was eating way too much
12:30
Speaker 3: sugar and I was basically self medicating. I was trying
12:33
Speaker 3: to use sugar as a as a mechanism for you know,
12:37
Speaker 3: if I was if I was needing to get something
12:39
Speaker 3: done and it just needed an energy boost. I was
12:41
Speaker 3: just consuming quantities of sugar that I just shouldn't have
12:44
Speaker 3: been and I definitely suffered for that for quite a
12:48
Speaker 3: you know, three or four years.
12:49
Speaker 2: I was well over with.
12:52
Speaker 3: And I think about a year ago, I just went
12:56
Speaker 3: cold turkey on it and said, no more, I can't
12:58
Speaker 3: do this. I'm killing my So I was killing myself
13:00
Speaker 3: aboue that. And so so I've cut sugar out completely
13:06
Speaker 3: in the sense of refined sugar or any kind of
13:09
Speaker 3: so I'm still eating a little bit of carbs, but
13:13
Speaker 3: but that's the only kind of sugar intake I would
13:15
Speaker 3: be having. But I didn't feel like I needed to
13:21
Speaker 3: be told that that was the right thing for me,
13:22
Speaker 3: because that was just what I naturally liked eating. And
13:28
Speaker 3: and it turns out that seems to be the best,
13:30
Speaker 3: the best stuff for me. I'm certainly a lot better
13:35
Speaker 3: that way now that I was. But this is something,
13:37
Speaker 3: you know, I look around. I mentioned this the other night,
13:40
Speaker 3: but I look around on the streets of Plymouth and
13:42
Speaker 3: other cities in the UK as a travel and whatnot,
13:45
Speaker 3: and and and I just think to myself, why why
13:48
Speaker 3: are people so willing to allow themselves to get into
13:52
Speaker 3: the state that they're in. I'm not in any way criticizing,
13:56
Speaker 3: because that would be hypocritical, because I allowed myself. But
14:00
Speaker 3: at some point we've all got to realize this is
14:02
Speaker 3: not the best thing for our futuris, and maybe we
14:05
Speaker 3: want to be reconsidering that.
14:08
Speaker 1: But I mean, how do you how do you expect
14:10
Speaker 1: an army to win a battle if the soldiers on
14:13
Speaker 1: the front line all fat and sickly?
14:15
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, Charles is better qualified than I to
14:17
Speaker 3: talk about this, but my feeling is that that wars
14:19
Speaker 3: are going to be fought by human beings on battlefields
14:22
Speaker 3: in the NATO distant future, right, so maybe it's maybe
14:25
Speaker 3: it's not so important anymore.
14:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder I would I would question that only.
14:34
Speaker 2: I mean, I appreciate that we I think we sort
14:37
Speaker 2: of are led to believe by all the various announcements
14:41
Speaker 2: that the rate of change in the last couple of
14:44
Speaker 2: decades in particular, has been so quick that the nature
14:50
Speaker 2: of warfare has to change fundamentally and basically has. And yet,
14:57
Speaker 2: you know, the last item on yesterday's news was absurd,
15:02
Speaker 2: but I referenced a video that the Defense Science and
15:09
Speaker 2: Technology Laboratory had put out about underwater glue. You know,
15:12
Speaker 2: they said that underwater glue would save lives. I mean,
15:16
Speaker 2: so that the whole this idea of kind of innovation
15:19
Speaker 2: can go in any direction. And I remember being asked,
15:23
Speaker 2: you my first sort of interactions with the Army over
15:27
Speaker 2: thirty years ago, being asked whether I believed that tanks
15:32
Speaker 2: would become obsolete. And this was with a view to
15:36
Speaker 2: new sort of range of armored vehicles that the British
15:38
Speaker 2: Armor is going to introduce. And here we are thirty
15:42
Speaker 2: years later, and ye, okay, some armored vehicles and now outdated,
15:46
Speaker 2: but ultimately they're still there, they're still doing stuff that
15:50
Speaker 2: there are still blokes running around on the battlefield. I
15:53
Speaker 2: think it is very hard to see how the sort
15:56
Speaker 2: of man to man kinetic pot would be taken out.
16:00
Speaker 3: Do you not think, Charles, that we're seeing so much
16:03
Speaker 3: use of remotely controlled I mean, I'm not even talking
16:06
Speaker 3: about let's not go too far into the future in
16:08
Speaker 3: terms of AI controlled swarms, but certainly remotely controlled drones.
16:13
Speaker 3: This seems to be becoming increasingly the major kinetic weapon
16:17
Speaker 3: of choice.
16:20
Speaker 2: Sorry, go on, no any I mean, just to say
16:24
Speaker 2: a little bit like what we were talking about earlier,
16:26
Speaker 2: To be able to assign a particular result or effect
16:33
Speaker 2: to drones, I think is very difficult. I'm not aware
16:38
Speaker 2: of there being a mechanism by which we can judge
16:43
Speaker 2: their effect. I think it's very easy to talk it up.
16:48
Speaker 2: And I'm not suggesting that they're they're insignificant, but actually
16:53
Speaker 2: compared with you know, if one that they are sort
16:57
Speaker 2: of I mean, I regard them as being a mechanism
17:00
Speaker 2: of indirect fire, but there are many other ways in
17:03
Speaker 2: which you can fire and directly at an enemy or
17:07
Speaker 2: at people and still produce absolutely devastating effects. So I yes,
17:12
Speaker 2: I agree with you, but I'm just not sure that
17:14
Speaker 2: we really know enough about the effect and indeed the
17:20
Speaker 2: symmetry of the of that effect in terms of cost,
17:24
Speaker 2: manpower and supply. I don't know.
17:28
Speaker 1: I just I was being metaphorical and I said soldiers
17:32
Speaker 1: on the front line, because I'm referring to the information war. So,
17:36
Speaker 1: for example, you have people sitting on their couch eating
17:42
Speaker 1: junk food while scrolling through telegram and forwarding things that
17:47
Speaker 1: they see and going, oh, something must be done.
17:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, that that is a massive thing. I mean, actually, sorry,
17:53
Speaker 2: just to go back to the literal consumption thing. It does,
17:58
Speaker 2: it is. It is staggering. I think just just to
18:00
Speaker 2: be an armed forces bought for a little minutes longer,
18:04
Speaker 2: it is perfectly astonishing given what we do knowgu we've
18:06
Speaker 2: just been talking about tim noakes that kind of thing.
18:09
Speaker 2: In actual fact, what are soldiers in particular sustain by
18:13
Speaker 2: if there if they're on operations, certainly when they're on exercise,
18:17
Speaker 2: they're sustained by highly processed ration ration packed food which
18:23
Speaker 2: has a very very high sugar content, as well as
18:27
Speaker 2: all sorts of very undesirable things that should really not
18:30
Speaker 2: be in the diet and and that's how they're expected
18:32
Speaker 2: to perform. And again I don't know statistics, but I
18:35
Speaker 2: can think of a number of people that I know
18:37
Speaker 2: who have become diabetic whilst on you know, whilst active
18:42
Speaker 2: in the armed forces. They they pay absolutely no heed
18:46
Speaker 2: really to health properly as it should be. You know,
18:50
Speaker 2: obviously there's sort of medical support, but again it's it's allopathic,
18:56
Speaker 2: basic medicine that they're you know, the number of people
18:59
Speaker 2: who are not fit to fight is a scandal that
19:03
Speaker 2: should that should never be the case. People should be
19:05
Speaker 2: properly looked after, and they're not. And that just that
19:09
Speaker 2: is a bit of a joke to think that you're
19:11
Speaker 2: you're producing, you know, your drones, your underwater glue, all
19:15
Speaker 2: this stuff, cutting out of technology. You can't even look
19:17
Speaker 2: after your own blokes that they still have not got.
19:20
Speaker 2: And I remember, you know, years ago, talking to a
19:23
Speaker 2: friend who was then in Special Forces, and I just
19:26
Speaker 2: thought it was such a joke that hay fever, for example,
19:29
Speaker 2: hay fever absolutely was a massive problem because people couldn't
19:34
Speaker 2: deal with it. They were then going down the route
19:35
Speaker 2: of being injected with stuff or taking this, that and the other.
19:39
Speaker 2: And actually it's so simple. You know, Okay, there'll be
19:41
Speaker 2: other methods, but just simply flooding your system with water
19:46
Speaker 2: basically gets rid of hay fever because it dilutes the
19:49
Speaker 2: histamine that you're creating in response to the pollen. And
19:51
Speaker 2: they don't know that. And I just these sorts of
19:55
Speaker 2: things are absolutely incredible to think that this idea that
19:59
Speaker 2: we've leapt into the twenty first century and we know everything.
20:03
Speaker 2: It's this absurd sort of arrogance and stupidity at the
20:07
Speaker 2: same time. So sorry, Yeah, that's just on the consumption thing,
20:12
Speaker 2: because it is so important, and it does come back
20:15
Speaker 2: to it doesn't matter whether you're in the army or not.
20:17
Speaker 2: If you're not in effect fit to fight, then you
20:21
Speaker 2: are in that same position. You are sitting on the sofa,
20:24
Speaker 2: scrolling through stuff, saying something must be done, but it's
20:27
Speaker 2: not going to be you that does it.
20:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean you can bring it right back
20:30
Speaker 1: and say, well, somebody breaks into your home, are you
20:33
Speaker 1: actually mentally and physically fit enough to fight back if
20:39
Speaker 1: somebody attacks your family or you just affect slob eating McDonald's.
20:43
Speaker 3: Well, this is why when we were speaking the other day, Jerry,
20:47
Speaker 3: that I said this fight begins with us as individuals.
20:51
Speaker 3: And you know, I admit to a certain degree of
20:54
Speaker 3: frustration when people say, well, what can we do?
21:00
Speaker 2: You start with yourself.
21:02
Speaker 3: And if you're not fit, and you're not healthy, and
21:04
Speaker 3: you're not then you're not going to have the energy
21:07
Speaker 3: to actually be involved in the fight in any practical sense.
21:11
Speaker 3: So it starts with ourselves. And you know, if we're
21:15
Speaker 3: talking about resisting, we've got to look at the whole
21:19
Speaker 3: picture of what we're being bombarded with, and we start
21:25
Speaker 3: with the fundamentals. And the first fundamental is quality of food,
21:29
Speaker 3: quality of environment, and so on. Just start with those two,
21:34
Speaker 3: and start with the quality of food, and consider what
21:38
Speaker 3: we're being what's being shoved at us by supermarkets and
21:41
Speaker 3: so on, and all this so called hyper processed food,
21:46
Speaker 3: in fact, the same stuff that Charles just be talking
21:48
Speaker 3: about with respect to soldiers. But we're consuming this every day.
21:51
Speaker 3: I'm not, I'm not, but most people are. And what
21:57
Speaker 3: you know, you know, they say, you know, if we
22:01
Speaker 3: do not have the energy and the health there first,
22:05
Speaker 3: because once you get on healthy, you just don't feel
22:08
Speaker 3: like doing very much just and in fact, it becomes it,
22:10
Speaker 3: it becomes it very quickly. Becomes a downward cycle, and
22:14
Speaker 3: and you just don't want to get off that sofa.
22:16
Speaker 3: And you know, at the end of the day, the
22:18
Speaker 3: only way this we're going to we're going to win
22:21
Speaker 3: any kind of fight that there might be here, is
22:23
Speaker 3: if we get off the sofa and actually start making
22:26
Speaker 3: physical relationships with people again, because the virtual isn't going
22:30
Speaker 3: to cut it. And and so you find you try
22:33
Speaker 3: to find the best quality food that you can find.
22:36
Speaker 3: That So in other words, Okay, you could take the attitude, well,
22:40
Speaker 3: what's the point because they're spreaying the fields and so on,
22:43
Speaker 3: So I'll just eat this hyper process for it. Okay,
22:47
Speaker 3: you go ahead, that's your choice. But this is not
22:49
Speaker 3: This is not right headed thinking. And you know, I mean,
22:53
Speaker 3: Charles can speak better than I can on this because
22:55
Speaker 3: you know, you, Charles, you are involved in farming, so
22:59
Speaker 3: you know there must be ways for people to with
23:03
Speaker 3: a bit of effort, find good quality food.
23:05
Speaker 2: Still, yeah, beyond doubt. Yeah, I mean, I think I
23:08
Speaker 2: think it's to a certain extent, it's harder in an
23:13
Speaker 2: urban area in so far as you're probably restricted on
23:17
Speaker 2: what you might be able to buy there. And I
23:19
Speaker 2: think also there is a tendency for sort of sort
23:23
Speaker 2: of so called farm shops in places that aren't really
23:26
Speaker 2: that close to farms to perhaps I mean this is
23:28
Speaker 2: a huge sweeping generalization, but perhaps to stock stuff that
23:32
Speaker 2: is sort of dressed up as though it's perhaps organic
23:35
Speaker 2: or chemical free or whatever, and in actual fat it isn't.
23:39
Speaker 2: So I think that that's an issue. But then again,
23:41
Speaker 2: that's that's no different from food that's labeled as being
23:45
Speaker 2: low fat as though there's some inherent suggestion that it's
23:48
Speaker 2: good for you, and actually that means this really couldn't
23:50
Speaker 2: be more bad for you. So I think I think
23:53
Speaker 2: that's that's a problem. But then again, you know, get
23:59
Speaker 2: depending on where one is. Thinking back to your Gym
24:02
Speaker 2: Gale podcast of recent times, you know, everyone is able
24:08
Speaker 2: to grow food of some sort. Now, you know, just
24:11
Speaker 2: because you at the outset, you think, right, well, I'm
24:14
Speaker 2: not going to be able to produce everything that I
24:16
Speaker 2: need to eat. That that is not a reason not
24:18
Speaker 2: to have a go. And it's I was making the
24:21
Speaker 2: same point about rainwater last week. You know, we're now
24:25
Speaker 2: from having gone to sort of flood warnings and watch
24:28
Speaker 2: out your electric car is going to explode. When we're
24:30
Speaker 2: now doing. In fact, you know, it's too dry and
24:33
Speaker 2: we have no water, so you know, look out. But
24:37
Speaker 2: the bit in between is well, if you're able to
24:39
Speaker 2: harvest and rainwater, yes you might not have all the
24:42
Speaker 2: water that you need, but you'd have most of it,
24:44
Speaker 2: and then the government would or the water company or
24:47
Speaker 2: whatever would not have such a holdover you in the
24:49
Speaker 2: same way that people do have a holdover you if
24:51
Speaker 2: you're not healthy in mind and body. But no, I
24:56
Speaker 2: mean the in the rural environment, I think there are
24:58
Speaker 2: now plenty of place is people who are supplying chemical
25:03
Speaker 2: free food pharmaceutical FEF because I think that's the other
25:06
Speaker 2: thing is, particularly where meat is concerned. And you know,
25:09
Speaker 2: as you know, Angus Macintosh has spoken a lot about this,
25:13
Speaker 2: both to you and to me, but you know that
25:16
Speaker 2: the yeah and the amount of pharmaceuticals that go into
25:21
Speaker 2: the food industry is absolutely phenomenal. And then people sit
25:24
Speaker 2: here and apparently wonder why the domesticated bird population poultry
25:29
Speaker 2: is susceptible to disease. And it doesn't matter whether or
25:32
Speaker 2: not you believe that the disease sort of went from
25:34
Speaker 2: a wild bird to an elephant seal to a human
25:37
Speaker 2: to a chicken or whether you just think those chickens
25:39
Speaker 2: are kept perhaps not in the right condition, which is
25:41
Speaker 2: why they get ill. But the coincidence is there for
25:46
Speaker 2: all to see. And it's the same with humans. You know,
25:48
Speaker 2: people who live like poultry in that they are fed
25:52
Speaker 2: highly processed food laced with all sorts of foremones and
25:56
Speaker 2: pharmaceuticals lamphole, they get ill exactly the same.
26:01
Speaker 3: And let's not talk about the pharmaceuticals that around the
26:03
Speaker 3: water supply and if you're talking about harvesting water, I
26:06
Speaker 3: mean right, So look, it all begins with us as individuals.
26:12
Speaker 3: We have to make a decision about how we're going
26:14
Speaker 3: to live our lives. And one of the key words here,
26:17
Speaker 3: in my opinion, is inconvenience, because a lot of a
26:21
Speaker 3: lot of the bad behaviors that we've developed over the
26:24
Speaker 3: years have come about as a result of convenience. So
26:27
Speaker 3: it's convenient to get the water out of the tap,
26:30
Speaker 3: it's convenient to buy the food from the supermarket, and
26:35
Speaker 3: of course getting the water out of the tap, you've
26:38
Speaker 3: got no control over that. I mean, of course, what
26:41
Speaker 3: are the falls out of the sky isn't always perfect either,
26:44
Speaker 3: but it's better and so that should be our choice.
26:47
Speaker 3: But the giving up of our self determination, our ability
26:54
Speaker 3: to decide for ourselves what we do for the sake
26:56
Speaker 3: of convenience seems like a very bad choice to me.
27:00
Speaker 3: And so you know I would encourage also.
27:04
Speaker 1: But it's also about laziness. I mean, I'm adding to
27:07
Speaker 1: to the I mean, convenience and laziness go together. For example, Charles,
27:11
Speaker 1: you mentioned Angus. Now I'm still going to get him
27:15
Speaker 1: on my show because he's got such a beautiful insight
27:19
Speaker 1: into into food and soil and and and getting back
27:23
Speaker 1: to healthy living. If you see the way his chickens live,
27:29
Speaker 1: you'll understand why he's so passionate. His chickens are genuinely
27:34
Speaker 1: free range. They can fly away, but they choose not to.
27:38
Speaker 1: And and I asked him, does this affect the price
27:41
Speaker 1: of your of your eggs, for example? And he says, yes,
27:43
Speaker 1: it's slightly more premium. But then he says, but what
27:47
Speaker 1: is the price of your health? Because because eventually, if
27:50
Speaker 1: you keep eating low quality eggs, it's going to potentially
27:54
Speaker 1: affect you and then you're going to end up having
27:55
Speaker 1: to medicate. So so you have to kind of figure
27:58
Speaker 1: out where that where that balance is in terms of
28:01
Speaker 1: what you're willing to pay for a bit of quality
28:04
Speaker 1: result and the laziness aspects people are not willing to
28:08
Speaker 1: go and look. So for example, we get delivered a
28:13
Speaker 1: literal basket of fresh vegetables from a farm that's maybe
28:17
Speaker 1: twenty kilometers away.
28:18
Speaker 3: Yeah.
28:18
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But I think in the UK, I mean, obviously
28:21
Speaker 2: our population densities between the UK and South Africa are
28:25
Speaker 2: quite different, certainly in particular areas, and obviously the way
28:28
Speaker 2: in which food is therefore produced, but the principle is
28:31
Speaker 2: the same. And in fact I would defy anyone in
28:35
Speaker 2: the UK to find somebody producing the type of food
28:38
Speaker 2: that we are talking about that isn't completely having their
28:45
Speaker 2: supply outstripp by demand that they can't produce enough. So
28:49
Speaker 2: and one has to expect that, you know, let's call
28:54
Speaker 2: it market forces will dictate. And so it's not that
28:58
Speaker 2: the supermarket industry or the food hotels will collapse, but
29:01
Speaker 2: certainly they will have to seed ground because I mean
29:05
Speaker 2: in the literal sense in that it's not more and
29:08
Speaker 2: more people who hold land, particularly people like Angus who
29:13
Speaker 2: have not Okay, his family backgrounds in farming, but he'd
29:16
Speaker 2: not grown up professionally doing it. So he comes in
29:19
Speaker 2: with a new perspective and he sees what needs to
29:22
Speaker 2: be done and sees how it can work. And he's
29:24
Speaker 2: not hamstrung by the prejudice for want of a better word,
29:28
Speaker 2: that somebody might be, particularly in the UK where they've
29:30
Speaker 2: grown up with it. And this is going to sound
29:33
Speaker 2: overly critical, but it happens in every industry. You know,
29:35
Speaker 2: if you've grown up with it, you're far less likely
29:38
Speaker 2: to question it and challenge it, and therefore you go
29:41
Speaker 2: straight into it and you're on the hook with regard
29:43
Speaker 2: to subsidy here certainly and this, that and the other.
29:46
Speaker 2: But actually those that have seen that not only is
29:49
Speaker 2: there a business case and an environmental case and a
29:56
Speaker 2: let's say sort of practical farming case for doing it,
29:58
Speaker 2: for working with nature. Once you've seen that, you don't
30:02
Speaker 2: you don't go back because you realized that it made
30:05
Speaker 2: the whole system absolutely does work. And again for the
30:09
Speaker 2: for the UK audience, the you know, Angus macan Goosh
30:12
Speaker 2: obviously been doing this a while in South Africa. But
30:14
Speaker 2: Julian Rose, who again I've recorded a couple of interviews
30:17
Speaker 2: with and he's been you know, long term supporter and
30:20
Speaker 2: correspondent with the UK column. He's done this for decades
30:24
Speaker 2: and he converted an eight hundred acre state in Oxfordshire
30:28
Speaker 2: bit by bit into okay, what was then called organic.
30:33
Speaker 2: That's more of a certification term. But he saw that
30:37
Speaker 2: being subverted in the same way that everything does, in
30:40
Speaker 2: that it started for exactly the right reasons, improving the
30:43
Speaker 2: soul health and providing something of sufficient nutrient density to
30:48
Speaker 2: the person who was going to eat it, for which
30:49
Speaker 2: you pay a premium. But then again, if the cost
30:52
Speaker 2: of that is to be weighed against that get that
30:55
Speaker 2: of your life. Really kind of reasonable to spend a
30:59
Speaker 2: bit of money on it and indeed realize that it
31:01
Speaker 2: goes further. But he made it work. So he would
31:05
Speaker 2: he would let out small bits of land to tenants
31:10
Speaker 2: on the agreement that they would not introduce chemicals into
31:13
Speaker 2: the soil, and then he was able to push on
31:15
Speaker 2: and make a business of it. So he wouldn't have
31:17
Speaker 2: been able to do that, and it wouldn't stand today
31:19
Speaker 2: if there wasn't demand, if people didn't understand it. But
31:23
Speaker 2: the more and more people that do not just see
31:26
Speaker 2: that it is being done and it can be done,
31:28
Speaker 2: but that they can have meaningful part in it that
31:32
Speaker 2: then the better and it absolutely is out there. And
31:35
Speaker 2: also the idea that like going back to Julian's model
31:39
Speaker 2: to approach landowners to rent out a field, a couple
31:43
Speaker 2: of fields and start doing your own thing, you know,
31:46
Speaker 2: raising livestock. It really is not that it's not that difficult,
31:51
Speaker 2: and you should it work, but it should be something
31:54
Speaker 2: that you're able to derive pleasure from. And when you
31:57
Speaker 2: consider that you're putting time in, and that's time that
32:00
Speaker 2: you are actually being paid back in, you know, with
32:03
Speaker 2: the product that in many cases money can't really even buy,
32:08
Speaker 2: so it's totally worth it. There we are. We live
32:12
Speaker 2: in a world sort of like it or not, and
32:16
Speaker 2: almost all parts of it there are. There are luckily
32:20
Speaker 2: still some isolated and remote parts of the world where
32:23
Speaker 2: they don't have to make that compromise. But for the
32:25
Speaker 2: rest of us, we do live in a world where
32:28
Speaker 2: we are we compromise with absolutely everything. And and so
32:33
Speaker 2: to take the view that you are if you know,
32:37
Speaker 2: primarily you're, as Jason Christoph would say, progress, not perfection,
32:42
Speaker 2: but the idea that you're by and large eating as
32:47
Speaker 2: much of the right stuff as you can and you
32:50
Speaker 2: should and you feel good for it, and I think,
32:51
Speaker 2: you know, just think of all these sort of the
32:53
Speaker 2: old adage, you know, talking about food that either agrees
32:56
Speaker 2: with you or doesn't agree with you. It's it's just
32:58
Speaker 2: such a sort of grandparently thing to say, and yet
33:00
Speaker 2: it's absolutely true. You can find if you if you do,
33:04
Speaker 2: if you stop and think about it, you can tell
33:06
Speaker 2: absolutely whether something does or does not agree with you.
33:08
Speaker 2: And it should be the same thing with drink. I mean,
33:11
Speaker 2: if you're if you drink to a point where either
33:15
Speaker 2: during the drinking session you are realizing that it's not
33:19
Speaker 2: agreeing with you, well then you've overcooked it or you stop,
33:22
Speaker 2: and it's the same thing with it with the following day.
33:24
Speaker 2: And if there's not, if you're not getting that sense
33:26
Speaker 2: that your ability to function at a high level is
33:30
Speaker 2: being compromised, then then you know, and you are deriving
33:33
Speaker 2: pleasure from it, and you don't believe it's going to
33:35
Speaker 2: sort of cutail your life or affect your friendships or
33:38
Speaker 2: your professional or whatever. Then yes, it's okay, you know
33:41
Speaker 2: it exists, and therefore that is that. But I think
33:45
Speaker 2: you just one does need to have a discipline, and
33:49
Speaker 2: you have to draw the line somewhere because otherwise, Yeah, well,
33:51
Speaker 2: you know what about cocoa pops? You know, two packs
33:53
Speaker 2: of cocoa pops and then the next thing you know,
33:56
Speaker 2: you're back on the sofa and you're not you know,
33:58
Speaker 2: you're not able to function at that level. So yeah,
34:00
Speaker 2: it's you know, there is a there is as it
34:04
Speaker 2: is interesting. I mean I find it really sort of
34:05
Speaker 2: intellectually fascinating, the idea, the sort of the hairshirt existence.
34:09
Speaker 2: And and how how bad is I mean that, you know,
34:11
Speaker 2: before we started recording, you and I were talking about
34:13
Speaker 2: life in the bush in Africa and how you know,
34:16
Speaker 2: how there's an elephant. I don't know if anyone see,
34:18
Speaker 2: but if there's elephant behind me, and and how entirely
34:23
Speaker 2: magical that is. And and you know, I've been lucky
34:25
Speaker 2: enough to travel to parts of the world where people
34:27
Speaker 2: live in complete isolation, in still in caves, with with
34:32
Speaker 2: nothing that comes in effect from the outside world. They
34:35
Speaker 2: exist on what they have and that's that. But if
34:38
Speaker 2: if you were to say, right, well, say you know,
34:40
Speaker 2: what are you missing, what are you unhappy about? The
34:42
Speaker 2: answer is nothing. They've got everything they need. And but
34:45
Speaker 2: but we have been exposed to all this stuff, and
34:47
Speaker 2: it's like sort of the tree of knowledge thing. We
34:48
Speaker 2: know about all this this kind of stuff out there,
34:51
Speaker 2: but failed to ask the question of whether we actually
34:53
Speaker 2: need it and whether it is actually good for us.
34:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there's an interesting philosophical segue there which kind
35:01
Speaker 1: of feeds into the purity test thing, which in a
35:04
Speaker 1: weird way comes back to what we were talking about earlier,
35:06
Speaker 1: because the purity test, I think can also be very dangerous.
35:09
Speaker 1: For example, oh well, if you have a low CORB
35:13
Speaker 1: diet but you drink beer, therefore I can't trust anything
35:17
Speaker 1: you say, right, Or if you or Jordan Peterson right,
35:22
Speaker 1: and you happen to have an interesting history that was
35:25
Speaker 1: in my view valid in many aspects. And then when COVID,
35:30
Speaker 1: the COVID years came, he went off the rails. But
35:33
Speaker 1: that doesn't detract from what he said back then. But
35:36
Speaker 1: now what happens is you have this purity test mentality
35:38
Speaker 1: that I've noticed, particularly with people on shall we say
35:41
Speaker 1: outside who just regards it's getting worse.
35:45
Speaker 3: It's getting much much worse in fact, And you know
35:48
Speaker 3: I'm earlier on at the beginning of this conversation, I
35:53
Speaker 3: was saying, you know, we've got to be challenging our
35:56
Speaker 3: own view points on a regular business and so on.
35:58
Speaker 3: And I guarantee that somebody, when they heard that will
36:00
Speaker 3: have said, but Mike, you're a limited hangout because you
36:03
Speaker 3: don't cover this topic or that topic or the right.
36:07
Speaker 3: And that doesn't mean that I don't consider these topics right,
36:10
Speaker 3: because we, of course we consider these topics. But if
36:14
Speaker 3: I'm clearly not going to talk about something that I
36:17
Speaker 3: am not confident that I'm qualified to talk about, number one,
36:21
Speaker 3: So don't expect me to talk about, you know, your
36:24
Speaker 3: pet topic, because because that's something you know about. And
36:28
Speaker 3: the other thing is the expectation that any commentator or
36:32
Speaker 3: anybody that's covering a news topic or so on, is
36:36
Speaker 3: there to reflect, to reflect, sorry, to reflect people's own
36:45
Speaker 3: views back at them. Again, this is this is this
36:49
Speaker 3: isn't what the job is. This isn't what we should
36:51
Speaker 3: be doing. If people already have come to a conclusion
36:55
Speaker 3: about something, well that's fine. They don't need validation from
36:58
Speaker 3: somebody else, or do they need validation from somebody else,
37:01
Speaker 3: because actually they're not that confident in their own position.
37:06
Speaker 3: And if they're not, if we're not confident in our
37:08
Speaker 3: own position, then we need to be really challenging that position.
37:12
Speaker 3: But we shouldn't be running out looking for people to
37:15
Speaker 3: validate our positions and then criticizing those people if they
37:19
Speaker 3: don't validate our position. And the other thing. The other
37:23
Speaker 3: thing is, you know, we.
37:24
Speaker 2: Have to be willing to.
37:27
Speaker 3: Accept that other people are going to have different views
37:30
Speaker 3: to ourselves. And if every time somebody expresses a view
37:33
Speaker 3: which is different to our own, we turn around and say, well,
37:35
Speaker 3: you're a government shill. Therefore, then we can't we can't
37:39
Speaker 3: ever actually get to the truth because we're not willing
37:43
Speaker 3: to have a discussion. So you know, I'll tell you
37:48
Speaker 3: what else is dangerous, and it's actually really if people
37:51
Speaker 3: are talking about limited hangouts, let's talk about why the
37:55
Speaker 3: UK Column might be a limited hangout. And one of
37:57
Speaker 3: the reasons is because if we bring on one on
38:00
Speaker 3: to have and you're discovering this with some of the
38:02
Speaker 3: guests that you have on from some of the feedback,
38:06
Speaker 3: if we have someone on that is taking a different
38:10
Speaker 3: position to the position that the UK Column is perceived
38:13
Speaker 3: to have, then that results in us promoting the position
38:22
Speaker 3: that that person said somehow right. If the BBC or
38:26
Speaker 3: any or Sky News or any other media outlet and
38:30
Speaker 3: mainstream media outlet has somebody on that takes a different
38:35
Speaker 3: position to the platform that they're on, the channel that
38:38
Speaker 3: they're on, the BBC isn't accused of necessarily of promoting
38:42
Speaker 3: that person's position, because the BBC is allowed to bring
38:46
Speaker 3: somebody on to find out what they think, to challenge
38:50
Speaker 3: what they think. We're not allowed to do that for
38:52
Speaker 3: some reason, because every time we bring somebody on that
38:55
Speaker 3: is perceived as being on the wrong side of the argument,
38:58
Speaker 3: that becomes therefore we are promoting the wrong side of
39:01
Speaker 3: the argument. And this is extremely dangerous in my opinion.
39:04
Speaker 3: We should be able to and you're you know, you're
39:08
Speaker 3: starting to push the boundaries of the types of guests
39:11
Speaker 3: that we have had on in the past. Uh And
39:14
Speaker 3: and that has certainly challenged in one or two cases
39:20
Speaker 3: some of the people that are that have watched with
39:22
Speaker 3: our diet and for example, and I think this is great,
39:28
Speaker 3: this is absolutely what we should be doing. But people
39:30
Speaker 3: have got to drop this idea that if if if
39:33
Speaker 3: a platform has person X on that that platform therefore
39:37
Speaker 3: is promoting person x's opinion or agrees with person x's opinion.
39:41
Speaker 3: We might choose to present an interview with person X,
39:44
Speaker 3: because we feel that you need to know what person
39:47
Speaker 3: x's view is for you to help you come to
39:50
Speaker 3: your own conclusions about what the truth is about a
39:53
Speaker 3: particular point. That doesn't mean that we agree with what
39:56
Speaker 3: with everything that somebody is saying. And you know, I
39:59
Speaker 3: just feel that that that is a problem of that
40:04
Speaker 3: were organizations like us end up being limited by as
40:09
Speaker 3: a result of criticism, that really shouldn't be a thing.
40:17
Speaker 3: I don't all, Charles, if you've got to thought about that, well,
40:19
Speaker 3: I do agree.
40:20
Speaker 2: I think I think the bit that's always rather nebulous
40:24
Speaker 2: is trying to ascribe a reason and it to me
40:30
Speaker 2: and it's going to be individual to a large extent.
40:35
Speaker 2: But it does seem that if one considers, say sort
40:40
Speaker 2: of late twenty twenty one to be the to have
40:46
Speaker 2: been the sort of high point of unity, let's say,
40:51
Speaker 2: against the mounting tyranny of all the pseudo health lockdown
40:58
Speaker 2: nonsense that was then driven towards absolute division of society
41:04
Speaker 2: by virtue of whether or not you'd had a novel
41:08
Speaker 2: untrialed pharmaceutical product. So basically, if you were at that
41:14
Speaker 2: point in one camp where you felt like you were
41:17
Speaker 2: part of a unified body in that had you shared
41:23
Speaker 2: a common enemy. Let's say, it doesn't matter whether that
41:26
Speaker 2: enemy was actually embodied by a person or an organization,
41:29
Speaker 2: but there was a sense that you belonged to something.
41:33
Speaker 2: And I think that now that carpet has been whipped
41:36
Speaker 2: away and the common enemy is not there. It's now splintered,
41:42
Speaker 2: and there are a multitude of things that are sort
41:46
Speaker 2: of that are out there, like health, like you know, climate,
41:51
Speaker 2: like gender, all these ridiculous narratives that people do have
41:58
Speaker 2: different views. And that's a contrast was there wasn't really
42:05
Speaker 2: much nuance to the taking the view that lockdown as
42:10
Speaker 2: an affront to liberty is simply not conscionable in the
42:15
Speaker 2: same way that taking a pharmaceutical product that you didn't
42:18
Speaker 2: need and didn't want just it was so it was
42:21
Speaker 2: so binary, whereas now there is nuance. And so to
42:25
Speaker 2: go back to Kennedy, I think people had allowed themselves
42:29
Speaker 2: to believe that that sense of unity meant that we
42:34
Speaker 2: all agreed on everything, and we never did. We never did.
42:38
Speaker 2: But it was because those topics assume such enormous primacy
42:42
Speaker 2: in the public consciousness and the individual consciousness that people
42:46
Speaker 2: have struggled to adapt and for a lot of people
42:49
Speaker 2: who in effect jumped the fence in twenty twenty coming
42:53
Speaker 2: from you know, what might have been they would regard
42:56
Speaker 2: as being a sort of different place psychologically into space.
43:00
Speaker 2: Now that they're not going to you know, to the
43:03
Speaker 2: hopefully to a great extent, they're not going to sort
43:06
Speaker 2: of drift back into that other place where they of
43:08
Speaker 2: course some have, but they've found that actually the reality
43:12
Speaker 2: is that we are I say we, but I mean
43:15
Speaker 2: those people that fought those things and felt those things
43:18
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one are in fact just
43:20
Speaker 2: as splintered as the group of people that they may
43:23
Speaker 2: have come from prior to that. And I think that's
43:25
Speaker 2: a bit of a disappointing revelation because I think a
43:27
Speaker 2: lot of people felt that they really were pushing on
43:30
Speaker 2: and you know, it was all a fight in this,
43:32
Speaker 2: that and the other worlds. Now, you know, we've talked
43:34
Speaker 2: a bit about sort of the evolution of warfare. Well,
43:37
Speaker 2: I mean, in a sense, this is similar. And if
43:40
Speaker 2: you can discombobulate your enemy by presenting multitude of targets
43:46
Speaker 2: that are either you know, very difficult to locate and
43:49
Speaker 2: strike and whatever, then you're doing very well. And I
43:52
Speaker 2: think that is sort of what's happening, which is why
43:54
Speaker 2: we get the whole We get this thing of well
43:56
Speaker 2: you didn't say the one thing, or you you know,
44:01
Speaker 2: how can you not say this? You know, all these
44:04
Speaker 2: types of things. And I think that's why it's happening.
44:07
Speaker 2: And also I think that it that it relates very
44:10
Speaker 2: closely to the sense that people are still wanting Nigel
44:17
Speaker 2: Farage or Donald Trump or even Kennedy or somebody to
44:22
Speaker 2: stand up and punch the big guy for them, whoever
44:25
Speaker 2: the big guy actually is.
44:28
Speaker 1: But nobody's going to save you.
44:31
Speaker 2: Indeed, now we've got to see if ourselves.
44:33
Speaker 3: But I mean, just to finish that point, Charles, I mean,
44:38
Speaker 3: I'm not sure we agree and everything.
44:41
Speaker 2: I hope we don't. I mean, that would be so dull,
44:44
Speaker 2: it really would. And also if we if we agreed
44:46
Speaker 2: on everything, we would learn nothing from one another. You know,
44:49
Speaker 2: I think you know, Mike and I have now worked
44:53
Speaker 2: together in the grand scheme things from a UK column
44:57
Speaker 2: history point of view, for a very short time, you know,
45:00
Speaker 2: a couple of years, and I mean personally I have
45:04
Speaker 2: certainly you know, I'm not going single Mic out or
45:07
Speaker 2: indeed below his horn just because he's on this thing. Yeah,
45:11
Speaker 2: but I mean I've learned a huge amount from him,
45:14
Speaker 2: but and possibly the other way, certainly a few things
45:18
Speaker 2: he probably didn't think he was going to learn. But
45:21
Speaker 2: I think that's that is absolutely fantastic. And you know,
45:24
Speaker 2: debate and conjecture should be used to progress our thoughts
45:30
Speaker 2: and the way in which we develop. And I mean
45:32
Speaker 2: that sincerely. I'm not talking about some mumbo jumbo rubbish
45:34
Speaker 2: where we sort of have these abstract concepts that don't
45:37
Speaker 2: really mean anything. I actually probably properly mean rigorous debate
45:41
Speaker 2: that makes you think about stuff. And this is exactly
45:44
Speaker 2: jerm what your what your podcast is doing. It is
45:48
Speaker 2: making people think. And even if even if it does
45:52
Speaker 2: mean that ultimately you stick with the thought that you
45:56
Speaker 2: originally had on an idea, fine, but you will have
45:59
Speaker 2: strength and that position in some way because it made
46:03
Speaker 2: you think about something you hadn't necessarily considered before. And
46:06
Speaker 2: that is very important. And we talk about having a
46:08
Speaker 2: strong foundation from which to fight and this and I
46:12
Speaker 2: bang on about it all the time, but it is
46:14
Speaker 2: as much mental as it is physical or you know,
46:17
Speaker 2: and spiritual and all the rest of it's it's all
46:19
Speaker 2: aspects and this is this is completely a part of it.
46:23
Speaker 2: So disagreement in whatever way is healthy.
46:27
Speaker 3: This is just just before we finished this point that
46:30
Speaker 3: this is really important because because I hear people saying
46:34
Speaker 3: on a regular business well, I try to engage with
46:36
Speaker 3: people out on the streets and they won't buy they
46:39
Speaker 3: won't buy into my argument. And part of the reason
46:43
Speaker 3: for that is because we're not having these conversations. We've
46:46
Speaker 3: decided that we know what the truth is and we
46:49
Speaker 3: don't need to consider X, Y and Z or A,
46:51
Speaker 3: B and C.
46:52
Speaker 2: Right.
46:53
Speaker 3: But the point is when we're when we're then confronted
46:55
Speaker 3: with X, Y, Z or A, B and C in
46:57
Speaker 3: a in a discussion, we don't have an answer for it.
47:01
Speaker 3: The only way that we can actually, the only way
47:03
Speaker 3: that we can actually get to a point of being
47:06
Speaker 3: able to have a conversation which might sow some seeds
47:10
Speaker 3: to help other people move in the right direction, is
47:15
Speaker 3: if we are able to respond to the kind of
47:19
Speaker 3: arguments that are put to us. And of course, if
47:22
Speaker 3: we never have those kind of arguments put to us,
47:24
Speaker 3: then we can't consider the implications of them, and we
47:28
Speaker 3: can't think them through, and we can't work out whether
47:31
Speaker 3: my response to that argument strengthens my argument or weakens
47:35
Speaker 3: my argument. Well, So, in other words, we should not
47:39
Speaker 3: be saying to each other basically, you can't say that,
47:44
Speaker 3: or if you say that, I'm not going to listen
47:47
Speaker 3: to anything that you say anymore because I don't agree
47:49
Speaker 3: with you. I mean, this is a common response.
47:54
Speaker 2: What I find amusing and ironic at the same time
47:58
Speaker 2: that in these stories of exasperation of you know, and
48:01
Speaker 2: he or she just wouldn't just absolutely refuse to listen
48:04
Speaker 2: to my point of view. What you're actually saying is
48:07
Speaker 2: I completely refuse to listen to their point of view. Yes,
48:10
Speaker 2: because the situation is the same. It's not like you're
48:13
Speaker 2: just projecting onto a blank canvas. You're trying to deal
48:15
Speaker 2: with somebody who has an idea about the particular thing
48:19
Speaker 2: it is you want to talk about. It's just not
48:21
Speaker 2: your idea, And so the situation is the same. It
48:24
Speaker 2: just happens to be that you are trying to impose
48:26
Speaker 2: your will on theirs, if that's the way in which
48:28
Speaker 2: you're going to go about it. And I think Fergus
48:30
Speaker 2: So Connor Greenwood articulates it well in calling it the
48:33
Speaker 2: backfire effect, and it's dangerous because not only is it
48:40
Speaker 2: a loss in so far as that particular instance is concerned,
48:43
Speaker 2: if you are trying to supposedly convince somebody or sort
48:46
Speaker 2: of tell them the truth about something, you fail. On
48:50
Speaker 2: the one hand in that they go away thinking, right, well,
48:54
Speaker 2: I didn't go along with that, or I'm less favorably
48:57
Speaker 2: disposed to forward to that person. But actually what you're
49:00
Speaker 2: probably doing is up armoring their defense mechanism against a
49:05
Speaker 2: similar approach in future. So it doesn't matter what the
49:07
Speaker 2: topic is, they will be even more determined that their
49:10
Speaker 2: point of view is actually right, which is totally daft
49:15
Speaker 2: and a total fail. And I think also the you
49:18
Speaker 2: know it bears relation to I think a very well,
49:23
Speaker 2: let's say, a more neutral approach first of all, via
49:26
Speaker 2: asking questions and trying to understand somebody's position. You know,
49:28
Speaker 2: expressing a little bit of humility works for a start
49:33
Speaker 2: in most cases, because if you question somebody who actually
49:36
Speaker 2: understand why it is they believe something. I mean, we
49:39
Speaker 2: all are guilty of making assumptions as to why somebody
49:41
Speaker 2: believes something, But in most cases somebody will have come
49:45
Speaker 2: to such and such a point of view because at
49:47
Speaker 2: some stage or other they will have been told something
49:50
Speaker 2: that we perceive to be untrue. And it wasn't just
49:54
Speaker 2: them that was lied to. It was all of us.
49:56
Speaker 2: So at the fact that we're all in the same boat,
49:58
Speaker 2: you know, we go back to the beginning with the tip.
50:00
Speaker 2: It wasn't just one lot of people that were told
50:03
Speaker 2: a fib about the Titanic, if indeed it was a fib,
50:05
Speaker 2: it was all of us. And so it's not you know,
50:09
Speaker 2: not banging heads with you. It should be that we're
50:12
Speaker 2: both banging heads with somebody there who has lied to
50:17
Speaker 2: all of us, and that does matter. So in actual
50:19
Speaker 2: fact we should be looking for the common ground and
50:22
Speaker 2: to work with the bits that we can make those
50:26
Speaker 2: connections with, you know that, which is the fact that
50:28
Speaker 2: we are manipulated and abused. The more time people spend
50:32
Speaker 2: trying to put the boot on the other foot, the better.
50:35
Speaker 2: And the thing that always comes to mind in this
50:38
Speaker 2: regard was, okay, we're doing it less and less now.
50:42
Speaker 2: But in the first decade of this century that the
50:45
Speaker 2: tempo of operations for the British Army in particular was very,
50:48
Speaker 2: very high, and we were causing more than a nuisance
50:54
Speaker 2: in certainly Iraq and Afghanistan, and there was a huge
50:57
Speaker 2: public support for it because of all the charitable stuff
51:01
Speaker 2: that was going on, and this that now there, and
51:03
Speaker 2: the line that was changed from it being a sort
51:06
Speaker 2: of military campaign to a political one, you know, keeping
51:08
Speaker 2: our streets safer, and a whole load of stuff that
51:09
Speaker 2: was fundamentally untrue. But the bit that I always found
51:13
Speaker 2: odd was that, No, I've never come across anybody who
51:17
Speaker 2: imagined the situation in reverse, in that the Taliban or
51:21
Speaker 2: the Northern Alliance or you know, let's say, any any
51:25
Speaker 2: false body whatever in Afghanistan had taken exception to the
51:27
Speaker 2: way in which we were doing stuff in this country,
51:29
Speaker 2: and they deployed blokes to Dover and there was a
51:34
Speaker 2: you know, a company or a battalion or whatever patrolling
51:38
Speaker 2: the streets of Salisbury or Amersham or whatever. How would
51:43
Speaker 2: we feel about that? Would we think, oh, my goodness,
51:45
Speaker 2: this is what we've been waiting for, thanks so much
51:48
Speaker 2: for turning up. Or would we think I'm not sure
51:51
Speaker 2: we really want you here. And people never ever consider that.
51:56
Speaker 2: Why not.
51:59
Speaker 3: They should, because because you know, they're considering it in
52:02
Speaker 3: a certain sense with the immigration issue.
52:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. I think I think people need
52:09
Speaker 2: to be consistent, they really do. And again, you know
52:14
Speaker 2: history migration, I mean, crrecty. I know this is probably
52:17
Speaker 2: the wrong time to be throwing a hand grenade, but
52:19
Speaker 2: that this island nation is one in which, you know,
52:25
Speaker 2: migration has affected in one way or other, whether through
52:29
Speaker 2: means of violence or not, has affected this place for
52:32
Speaker 2: as long as we think we have a history of it.
52:34
Speaker 2: And but people are not consistent on that. No one
52:38
Speaker 2: wants to acknowledge the fact that if you were to,
52:41
Speaker 2: you know, if it is about sort of blood or whatever,
52:44
Speaker 2: you either trace yourself back to being a you know what,
52:49
Speaker 2: are you an Angle or a Saxon or a celt
52:51
Speaker 2: or a Norseman or what Because in saying that you
52:56
Speaker 2: are British or English, you do, in a historical sense
52:59
Speaker 2: mean something that is quite distinct from something else. So again, consistency,
53:06
Speaker 2: and I think one can only really achieve that from
53:08
Speaker 2: examining as much as you can possibly try to understand
53:12
Speaker 2: about everything. But as I say that, perhaps perhaps a
53:15
Speaker 2: bigger thing. Maybe we get into that next week.
53:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, gentlemen, I'm looking at the time. So let's let's
53:20
Speaker 1: come in for the final lap. This is the first
53:23
Speaker 1: of hopefully a weekly round table to chat an attempt
53:29
Speaker 1: just to humanize UK Columner, but you know, show that
53:32
Speaker 1: we are real people. It's not just text on a screen.
53:38
Speaker 1: What do you I mean give me some final thoughts.
53:42
Speaker 2: Well, I think I think it's been really great start.
53:45
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed this and I hope it sort of
53:48
Speaker 2: relates to people that are listening, because I think it
53:53
Speaker 2: can it can evolve to incorporate lots. I think, I
53:55
Speaker 2: think what I you know, as we progress, I think
53:59
Speaker 2: to relate this to particular specific things that are going
54:02
Speaker 2: on in the world that we have been porting on,
54:04
Speaker 2: I think would be really good. But you know, it's
54:07
Speaker 2: it's kind of setting down the foundation of sorts. Today
54:12
Speaker 2: has been fantastic. But I did actually jotsund some notes
54:16
Speaker 2: beforehand of sort of news talking points that I would
54:18
Speaker 2: perhaps like to get into next time, because yeah, because
54:22
Speaker 2: it's just it's crazy. I think to go back to
54:24
Speaker 2: the idea of discussing this stuff with other people, to
54:27
Speaker 2: be able to introduce into discussion things that people may
54:32
Speaker 2: not know about, and you can simply peak their curiosity
54:35
Speaker 2: by mentioning them, as opposed to grabbing them by the
54:38
Speaker 2: scruff of the neck and trying to ram them down
54:40
Speaker 2: their throats, I think are very useful. And there are
54:43
Speaker 2: you know, the let's say that Mike's offcom piece in
54:47
Speaker 2: which it became clear that three to five year olds
54:51
Speaker 2: up to a fifth of that population have a presence
54:54
Speaker 2: on social media and engage with the Internet on a
54:56
Speaker 2: daily basis. That to me is quite extraordinary needs further discussion.
55:01
Speaker 2: So I mean, I hope that we can we can
55:03
Speaker 2: sort of work out a way of talking about some
55:05
Speaker 2: of those things as well.
55:07
Speaker 3: We can do that, Mike, Yeah, I mean, these kinds
55:11
Speaker 3: of formats are great, and uh because we you know,
55:16
Speaker 3: I suppose one of the other criticisms that we get
55:18
Speaker 3: is we don't cover topic xpires and we don't have
55:21
Speaker 3: time to cover all the topics in the news program.
55:24
Speaker 3: And if we can, you know, expand on this format
55:27
Speaker 3: some what we can, we can go into those those
55:30
Speaker 3: topics maybe to cover stuff that we actually haven't had
55:33
Speaker 3: on the news as well in a in a more
55:35
Speaker 3: relaxed way as well. So so you know, I'm looking
55:38
Speaker 3: forward to.
55:38
Speaker 1: This as we.
55:43
Speaker 3: We can't talk about that because we're a limited hang out,
55:49
Speaker 3: all right.
55:50
Speaker 1: Mike Robertson Charles Mellett, thank you for joining me in
55:53
Speaker 1: the weekly trenches.
55:55
Speaker 2: All, thank you.