Latest / UK Column Radio / Weekly UKC Banter: Episode 2

Transcript

Weekly UKC Banter: Episode 2 · UK Column Radio

0:38
Speaker 1: So how was the week.
0:41
Speaker 2: Well, I think, as they tend to do, it disappeared
0:44
Speaker 2: in a flash, and I guess we have to take
0:46
Speaker 2: that as a as a good sign. I know some
0:48
Speaker 2: people might think differently, but yeah, I think it's been great.
0:51
Speaker 2: I mean for certainly for UK column. You know, I
0:57
Speaker 2: think at the end of the last episode of this
1:00
Speaker 2: so I was talking about, you know, looking forward to
1:02
Speaker 2: this week and the stuff that we might talk about,
1:04
Speaker 2: and I think for us, the yeah, I mean the
1:07
Speaker 2: new cycle in a way, it is as bizarre as always,
1:10
Speaker 2: but I think the format that we have and you know,
1:13
Speaker 2: the ability to talk about it in extra at greater
1:16
Speaker 2: length is fantastic. It well, I think personally and professionally
1:21
Speaker 2: it helps to be able to talk afterwards in a
1:25
Speaker 2: in a less formal, less time constrained capacity. I think
1:29
Speaker 2: that does actually make a difference. I think the I
1:31
Speaker 2: think it's it's easy to get so caught up in
1:34
Speaker 2: something you're reporting on that by the time you you
1:37
Speaker 2: do it, it's it's in a sort of different part
1:39
Speaker 2: of your brain and so so to have that slightly
1:43
Speaker 2: slower time period afterwards is great. And I think with
1:47
Speaker 2: you know, that fits well within you know, your your
1:51
Speaker 2: new show, and that again adding a different dimension of
1:56
Speaker 2: what's required of brain capacity to to follow what people
2:00
Speaker 2: are saying and introducing completely new topics. I mean, it's fantastic,
2:03
Speaker 2: So yep for me being a very good week, and I.
2:07
Speaker 3: Might I'm just continuing to be staggered about how much
2:10
Speaker 3: we aren't able to put in the news because there's
2:12
Speaker 3: so much going on at the moment that there just
2:15
Speaker 3: isn't time. And it is incredible. I mean, we we
2:18
Speaker 3: are well on the way to. I mean, I think
2:21
Speaker 3: have we announced what we're doing with the news program,
2:23
Speaker 3: but anyway, we're well, I might as well just mention
2:25
Speaker 3: that we're on our way to going back to five
2:27
Speaker 3: days a week. We haven't done this for many, many years,
2:30
Speaker 3: but because you know, there's no other way to cover
2:33
Speaker 3: the range of topics that we need to cover, and
2:37
Speaker 3: you know we're regularly getting emails.
2:39
Speaker 4: Why didn't you talk about this? Why didn't you talk
2:41
Speaker 4: about that?
2:41
Speaker 3: It's it's it's impossible with the with the time constraints
2:45
Speaker 3: that we have, so so we did we need to
2:47
Speaker 3: make more time for ourselves.
2:49
Speaker 5: But Charles, you said a moment ago that the news
2:52
Speaker 5: cycle seems so bizarre yes, A quick thought that I
2:55
Speaker 5: had the other day. Is it actually bizarre or are
2:58
Speaker 5: we just more away of what's going on? Or has
3:01
Speaker 5: it has a genuinely become more bizarre. I'm not sure.
3:06
Speaker 3: I can answer that if you want. It's genuinely become
3:09
Speaker 3: more bizarre, right, And there's a number there's a number
3:12
Speaker 3: of reasons for this. Part of it is real and
3:15
Speaker 3: part of it is fake. It has become more bizarre
3:18
Speaker 3: because it's absolutely clear that on the establishment side, the
3:25
Speaker 3: people that are supposed to know what they're doing, they're
3:26
Speaker 3: supposed to be able to run countries, they're supposed to
3:28
Speaker 3: be able to run international relationship relations and so on,
3:32
Speaker 3: they are off their heads and so they're behaving in
3:35
Speaker 3: a particularly paranoid in many ways, but but just aggressive
3:42
Speaker 3: and quite unpleasant ways to each other, to the to
3:46
Speaker 3: the general population and so on. Because they're off their heads.
3:50
Speaker 3: That feeds through to everybody else. But as well as that,
3:54
Speaker 3: there is no doubt that we are in a massive
3:58
Speaker 3: information war at the moment, and a big component of
4:01
Speaker 3: that is the deliberate pollution of the information space with
4:07
Speaker 3: rubbish and just any kind of rubbish to with a
4:12
Speaker 3: view to I mean, they used they start using. They
4:15
Speaker 3: started using the term post truth world a number of
4:17
Speaker 3: years ago. But the aim of the game here is
4:21
Speaker 3: because the term the term post truth world came about
4:24
Speaker 3: around the same time that they started using the word
4:26
Speaker 3: trust in a particular way. And the aim of the
4:29
Speaker 3: game here is to so pollute the information space. Their
4:34
Speaker 3: their intention. Whether they're successful and this or not we
4:37
Speaker 3: can talk about. But their intention is to try to
4:39
Speaker 3: push people to one location for trustworthy information, and the
4:45
Speaker 3: Internet and social media is not it, right, So, so
4:48
Speaker 3: the aim is to so discredit everything that's on social
4:52
Speaker 3: media that really you have to go to the BBC
4:55
Speaker 3: or the Guardian for your information. And this is happening
5:00
Speaker 3: through the increased use of AI and and algorithms degenerate
5:05
Speaker 3: this content in to you know, at a piece that
5:09
Speaker 3: that nobody else can compete with.
5:11
Speaker 4: And it's also through.
5:15
Speaker 3: Psychological psychological operations actors like seventy seven Rigid and other
5:20
Speaker 3: various groupings of this type that are that are out
5:23
Speaker 3: there just pushing out the biggest pile of dunge onto
5:27
Speaker 3: the Internet that they can possibly do.
5:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm certainly not going to disagree with any
5:35
Speaker 2: of that. I think the I think what's changed, Well,
5:39
Speaker 2: what one of the changes. Not it's not a new one,
5:42
Speaker 2: but I think that the effect is felt on a
5:45
Speaker 2: continuing basis and will be.
5:47
Speaker 4: So.
5:47
Speaker 2: Is that the because everybody who has been drawn in
5:53
Speaker 2: exactly like it, Mike says, this extraordinary space, whether it's
5:58
Speaker 2: you know, the Internet or social media, however exactly you
6:02
Speaker 2: term it. But the point is that the waiting of
6:06
Speaker 2: content across that medium is not like it was before.
6:12
Speaker 2: The ability of somebody to have something bizarre or stupid
6:20
Speaker 2: or wrong or questionable whatever, for that to be magnified
6:26
Speaker 2: or multiplied in a way that never would have happened
6:28
Speaker 2: previously is quite commonplace now. And I think what has
6:33
Speaker 2: happened ever since the well, I mean I suppose they
6:38
Speaker 2: felt that it was inevitable and they had to. But
6:41
Speaker 2: when the mainstream publications started to first of all, quote
6:45
Speaker 2: people from social media and then started to use it themselves,
6:50
Speaker 2: that was I think the beginning of the end, because
6:53
Speaker 2: for several reasons, I mean, one was that they were
6:57
Speaker 2: forgetting or appeared to willfully forget that Twitter, let's say,
7:04
Speaker 2: was a you know, a platform that belonged to somebody else.
7:08
Speaker 2: It wasn't it wasn't this sort of transparent space with
7:14
Speaker 2: with no prejudice, And I think they they right from
7:19
Speaker 2: the start, they absolutely gave a wrongful impression of what
7:24
Speaker 2: these platforms were. And you know, look look where we
7:27
Speaker 2: are now with the censorship regime, with the powers in
7:30
Speaker 2: the UK that offcom has to prevail upon these platforms
7:35
Speaker 2: to chuck people like UK column off there, you know,
7:40
Speaker 2: off their space. I mean, it's so where we've got
7:43
Speaker 2: to with it is perfectly extraordinary. But also then they
7:46
Speaker 2: started putting out their messaging on it, and then and
7:49
Speaker 2: then learn behold that the government follows suit.
7:52
Speaker 4: Now.
7:52
Speaker 2: I mean the whole thing is it's sort of it's
7:55
Speaker 2: the gutter really and a lot of these people and
7:58
Speaker 2: organizations really should not belong then and in fact, just
8:02
Speaker 2: to exemplify that was just bringing up an image I
8:06
Speaker 2: might report on this next week. I saw a tweet
8:09
Speaker 2: yesterday I think it was I mean, the sensationalism is
8:14
Speaker 2: just childish and extraordinary. But this is from the Justice Secretary,
8:17
Speaker 2: shabanah Ma Mood. And there's a sort of graphic. You know,
8:19
Speaker 2: everything's about pictures these days. There's a sort of picture
8:22
Speaker 2: of a graph that's quite clearly just been drawn on
8:25
Speaker 2: the back of a fag packet, but it says at
8:28
Speaker 2: the top, we're running out of prison places, and then
8:30
Speaker 2: at the bottom this is from the government. It says
8:33
Speaker 2: without action there will be a total breakdown, and total
8:37
Speaker 2: breakdown is sort of highlighted in a block, a total
8:40
Speaker 2: breakdown of law and order. And this is this is
8:44
Speaker 2: from the government. This is not some sort of you know,
8:47
Speaker 2: opposition electioneering poster. They are putting this stuff out and
8:55
Speaker 2: it's just crazy. It's crazy to talk. Really, what on
8:58
Speaker 2: earth do they mean by that? They're sort of they
9:00
Speaker 2: are in control, but they aren't at the same time,
9:04
Speaker 2: and no one else can save you or quite what
9:08
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, to divine some kind of message
9:11
Speaker 2: from this is almost impossible, And I think this is
9:13
Speaker 2: part of it. People are so incredibly confused, exactly like
9:18
Speaker 2: Mike says, on both sides. I mean, the people that
9:20
Speaker 2: are putting the messages out don't even understand really what
9:23
Speaker 2: it is they're saying. But I think part of that
9:26
Speaker 2: is because of the fact, as I describe, and that
9:28
Speaker 2: people have moved into spaces they never should have done.
9:30
Speaker 2: They haven't really considered that. And the other thing I
9:32
Speaker 2: think is that this relentless sense of the necessity for immediacy.
9:41
Speaker 2: It just drives an agenda of utter pointlessness. You know,
9:46
Speaker 2: these particularly from the government, they have to they have
9:49
Speaker 2: these Twitter accounts, so therefore they've got to put stuff
9:53
Speaker 2: out now. I mean you just you know, you look
9:54
Speaker 2: at the things that get put on there. I mean,
9:56
Speaker 2: why are they there? They just that they do it
10:00
Speaker 2: because that's how the system works. If you don't put
10:02
Speaker 2: content on there, people don't follow you, people don't share
10:04
Speaker 2: your stuff whatever. I mean, why does why does the
10:06
Speaker 2: Home Office need followers for example? I mean, you know,
10:10
Speaker 2: it's the Home Office, It's not it's not just going
10:12
Speaker 2: to not exist if people don't look at its Twitter page.
10:16
Speaker 2: I mean in a way sadly, but yeah, it's uh,
10:21
Speaker 2: it is very very strange.
10:24
Speaker 5: One of you mentioned post truth and something that I
10:27
Speaker 5: was thinking about recently is exactly that. It's always the
10:32
Speaker 5: other person though, who doesn't know the truth. How do
10:35
Speaker 5: you discern what is true what isn't true. Well, the
10:39
Speaker 5: first thing is if you've got it. I mean, I'm
10:42
Speaker 5: not accusing anybody here, but we have to stop being Lizzy.
10:48
Speaker 5: We have to stop.
10:49
Speaker 3: You know that there is a there's a.
10:53
Speaker 4: Very much.
10:56
Speaker 3: An approach to admit that many, if not most people
10:58
Speaker 3: take that if somebody who they view as being a
11:01
Speaker 3: trusted voice says something, that therefore it's true. And that's
11:07
Speaker 3: not necessarily the case that applies to me. The last
11:10
Speaker 3: thing or anybody. The last thing I want is for
11:12
Speaker 3: anybody to take anything I say as being gospel or
11:15
Speaker 3: the truth.
11:16
Speaker 4: That's not the point.
11:18
Speaker 3: I'm putting out information which I believe to be correct.
11:22
Speaker 3: Otherwise I wouldn't put it out. But that doesn't make
11:25
Speaker 3: me above criticism or or and it certainly doesn't mean
11:31
Speaker 3: that I'm a credible sources to just be without criticism accepted.
11:37
Speaker 3: Everything needs to be checked, and it needs to be
11:39
Speaker 3: checked with primary sources, not with not with you know,
11:43
Speaker 3: I don't care what platform you trust in inverted commas,
11:50
Speaker 3: that is a secondarysource. So I mean, just to give
11:53
Speaker 3: an example, many occasions, I'll see something on the BBC
11:58
Speaker 3: or in mainstream media which talks about a report said
12:02
Speaker 3: and often, and of course they never link to the report,
12:06
Speaker 3: and it takes a real it actually takes a lot
12:08
Speaker 3: of effort to get to the source, and when you
12:11
Speaker 3: get to the source, you found that the source didn't
12:13
Speaker 3: say that at all, they've spun the story in some way.
12:17
Speaker 3: And so so the key thing is is to to
12:22
Speaker 3: you know, drop the lizziness and and and actually put
12:25
Speaker 3: the effort into into trying to work out for yourself
12:28
Speaker 3: what the what the truth is, and that means going
12:31
Speaker 3: to as close to the source of the information as
12:33
Speaker 3: you possibly can get even you know, and and then
12:38
Speaker 3: you can start to analyze and make a decision for
12:41
Speaker 3: yourself about what what the truth is. I mean, assuming
12:45
Speaker 3: there is an objective truth. And I believe there is
12:47
Speaker 3: an objective truth, because ultimately you know something is, something
12:51
Speaker 3: has happened, and you know something is correct. The trick
12:56
Speaker 3: is to try to identify what that correct thing is.
12:59
Speaker 3: And the only way to do that is to put
13:00
Speaker 3: the effort in. And most people don't do that. Most
13:03
Speaker 3: people simply share the sensationalist material that they find on
13:08
Speaker 3: social media without any discernment and or or or actually
13:14
Speaker 3: working out whether it should be shared or not. And
13:17
Speaker 3: that that in fact, every time somebody does that, anytime
13:21
Speaker 3: somebody looks at a post on social media uncritically and
13:24
Speaker 3: just shares it, they are doing the other side's job
13:30
Speaker 3: because they're they're they because the other side. The establishment
13:34
Speaker 3: wants rubbish shared on the internet because that gives them
13:39
Speaker 3: the justification for everything else that they do in terms
13:42
Speaker 3: of the censorship regime. And so you know it is
13:45
Speaker 3: it is, in my opinion, beholding none us all to
13:49
Speaker 3: actually not just with you as a as a knee
13:54
Speaker 3: jerk reaction, share the latest sensationalist post. You've got to
13:57
Speaker 3: put the effort in workout is it correct, and if
14:00
Speaker 3: it's correct, absolutely share it. Share it as hard as
14:02
Speaker 3: you can, but only once you're happy that it's for
14:07
Speaker 3: certain correct.
14:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, well, I think like Mike saying, I
14:11
Speaker 2: mean that the issue is well in so far as
14:16
Speaker 2: truth is concerned, is there is there one objective truth
14:20
Speaker 2: and and and without wanting to sort of dodge or
14:24
Speaker 2: complicate the issue, it does depend It depends on, you know,
14:28
Speaker 2: if you're the example you use you know where say
14:31
Speaker 2: the BBC will cite refer to a report which also,
14:35
Speaker 2: by the way, one should add is usually a report
14:37
Speaker 2: that's come out well over six months ago and hasn't
14:41
Speaker 2: been addressed at all, but probably will have been dealt
14:43
Speaker 2: with by UK column. But yeah, it's uh, it's something
14:49
Speaker 2: like that. You can you can go to the report
14:51
Speaker 2: and you can see for sure that what has been
14:55
Speaker 2: reported by the third party is just not correct. So
14:58
Speaker 2: there that you can find an objective truth there. I
15:01
Speaker 2: think in a lot of other situations it's it's a
15:04
Speaker 2: little bit more nebulous than that, perhaps, and that that
15:09
Speaker 2: does put us into slightly difficult waters. But but then,
15:13
Speaker 2: but then it becomes a matter of belief, and your
15:16
Speaker 2: beliefs are underpinned by very thorough research and an appraisal
15:23
Speaker 2: of all the factors that you can put before yourself,
15:27
Speaker 2: and so it yeah, I mean this is we're in
15:31
Speaker 2: a sort of dodgy area because it does sound a
15:33
Speaker 2: little bit like post truth and this, that and the other.
15:35
Speaker 2: But but but then the absolutes are are really rare,
15:40
Speaker 2: and I think we we do. I mean, going back
15:44
Speaker 2: to what you were saying talking about fact in the
15:46
Speaker 2: COVID era, I mean, how utterly laughable that it should
15:48
Speaker 2: be the scientific community that would declare there to be
15:53
Speaker 2: absolutely I mean, it's as though that the whole meaning
15:56
Speaker 2: of science is being completely forgotten. I mean, no great coincidence.
16:01
Speaker 2: That also was a time of enormous investment, let's say,
16:07
Speaker 2: in science. But that's slightly by the viye. I mean
16:11
Speaker 2: again etymologically and from an argument point of view, the
16:17
Speaker 2: way we use the word fact now is incorrect. I
16:20
Speaker 2: mean a fact a fact is not was never an
16:24
Speaker 2: absolute truth, the fact was. I mean the derivation of
16:27
Speaker 2: the word is to make something. So it's to make
16:31
Speaker 2: a position, it's to make a statement. It's not incontrovertible.
16:35
Speaker 2: And yet that's how they're used now. So when we
16:38
Speaker 2: talk about scientists putting out fact or the government's putting
16:41
Speaker 2: out fact, well, actually what they're meaning is it's something
16:44
Speaker 2: they have made. It's a position they have made which
16:47
Speaker 2: is absolutely open to challenge. But of course we sit
16:50
Speaker 2: there and think, oh, right, well, in which case that
16:53
Speaker 2: must be that I mean, maybe we don't. I hope
16:55
Speaker 2: we don't, but people do, and I think that's a
16:58
Speaker 2: really important distinction to make. But yeah, I mean on
17:03
Speaker 2: the belief side of it, that will at times come
17:07
Speaker 2: down to a question of perspective. And just to take
17:10
Speaker 2: this down to you know, in a sense, relate it
17:12
Speaker 2: back to your anecdote about your grandmother. As people might know,
17:19
Speaker 2: some of my professional experiences were spent policing, and one
17:23
Speaker 2: of the things I was found fascinating was to was
17:26
Speaker 2: to investigate something where you had you were lucky enough
17:30
Speaker 2: to have several different sources of evidence in that if
17:35
Speaker 2: it were an incident that had taken place, a physical
17:38
Speaker 2: incident that had involved other people, and you could take
17:41
Speaker 2: witness statements from people that did have a particular point
17:46
Speaker 2: of view, as in a literal point of view, they
17:48
Speaker 2: were nearby what happened, and maybe all of that was
17:53
Speaker 2: also filmed on CCTV, or maybe CCTV from two different places.
17:59
Speaker 2: What was completely remarkable and in a way you can't
18:03
Speaker 2: you can't quite believe it till you do see it.
18:05
Speaker 2: But you might get three witness statements that would appear
18:09
Speaker 2: to be talking about almost totally separate incidents, and then
18:15
Speaker 2: CCTV footage that would show something else. Again, so my
18:18
Speaker 2: point is that depending on where you're standing, you will
18:22
Speaker 2: in fact see a different version of an event. Okay,
18:26
Speaker 2: I know I'm sort of superimposing a literal analogy onto this,
18:32
Speaker 2: but the point is that there is nuance, there is
18:38
Speaker 2: complexity to all of this for those instances that are
18:42
Speaker 2: outside of the well, this report says that, and you
18:46
Speaker 2: can go to the report and it quite clearly doesn't
18:48
Speaker 2: actually say that, But that's you know, unfortunately that is
18:53
Speaker 2: not the way that everything works, and so ultimately we
18:58
Speaker 2: do have to It's a sort of best effort, and
19:01
Speaker 2: it has to be a belief to be able to
19:04
Speaker 2: go that step further and say that your belief is
19:07
Speaker 2: the truth. I would say in a lot of instances
19:10
Speaker 2: is a step too far, but that you know that
19:12
Speaker 2: that works both ways and people have to acknowledge that.
19:15
Speaker 5: Let's use a real world example of what you're talking about.
19:18
Speaker 5: The South African president to the White House mit with
19:21
Speaker 5: Donald Trump, and the whole thing to some degree was theatrical.
19:26
Speaker 1: What is true about what was said there?
19:29
Speaker 3: So you've got to make a judgment. First of all,
19:32
Speaker 3: you've got to see the comments from Donald Trump in context.
19:38
Speaker 3: But before we even get to that point, you've got
19:40
Speaker 3: to ask, first of all, what is the definition of genocide?
19:44
Speaker 3: And so what definition you're going to use for the
19:46
Speaker 3: use of the term. And in this case, it's extremely
19:52
Speaker 3: difficult because South Africa does not publish statistics on ethnicity
19:58
Speaker 3: of people that are murder victims. So the last statistics
20:01
Speaker 3: I saw were for the last three months of last year,
20:05
Speaker 3: and there may be more recent months with let's just
20:09
Speaker 3: take those as an example, because that's what I have
20:11
Speaker 3: in my head. And there was something in the region
20:13
Speaker 3: of six thousand murders in South Africa in the last
20:17
Speaker 3: three months of last year, and the official numbers say
20:22
Speaker 3: that one of those was a white farmer, that there
20:25
Speaker 3: were several others that were farm workers or people who
20:29
Speaker 3: were living on the farms. No, of course, somebody that
20:35
Speaker 3: is on the pro I don't mean pro in the
20:39
Speaker 3: sense that they support it, but they believe in the
20:41
Speaker 3: idea of a white genocide in South Africa will say, oh, well,
20:44
Speaker 3: those are official statistics, so you can't believe those anyway. Well,
20:48
Speaker 3: that's true, but they're the only statistics that we have
20:50
Speaker 3: at this point. But on the other hand, the other
20:54
Speaker 3: statistic that I thought was interesting that Donald Trump made
20:57
Speaker 3: this offer and so far, what have there been about
20:59
Speaker 3: forty fifty people have taken it up. So that does
21:02
Speaker 3: not imply a white genocide because there is not a
21:06
Speaker 3: mass exodus. Now, what I think we can say is
21:12
Speaker 3: that since the ANC has has come to par they
21:17
Speaker 3: have certainly allied for whatever reason, they have allied significant lawlessness.
21:25
Speaker 3: And you know that that figure of six thousand murders
21:28
Speaker 3: in three months is you know, incredible and I don't
21:32
Speaker 3: know how any country can stand for that. But my
21:37
Speaker 3: understanding of it is that without doubt, there is unfairness
21:43
Speaker 3: in the in the legal system in the sense that
21:46
Speaker 3: whenever these because what we're looking at here is criminality.
21:49
Speaker 3: It's gangs that are going right, and of course if
21:51
Speaker 3: they view a white farmer or white farms as being
21:55
Speaker 3: relatively affluent, then of course there are going to be
21:58
Speaker 3: targets of criminals. But criminality is not genocide. So that's
22:02
Speaker 3: the that's that's that's a point to make. So but
22:09
Speaker 3: the point is if if if these criminal gangs are
22:13
Speaker 3: running around the countryside murdering each other and and and
22:17
Speaker 3: as a as a a side effect of of the
22:21
Speaker 3: the the theft that there, which is really what's motivating them,
22:25
Speaker 3: people are being injured and killed, and then there the
22:29
Speaker 3: law enforcement is not, uh, you know, doing anything about that,
22:33
Speaker 3: then it's clear that that is an unfair situation for
22:37
Speaker 3: the for the victims of that of that criminality. But again,
22:41
Speaker 3: that's not genocide either. It's it's a bad situation and
22:45
Speaker 3: it should be dealt with, and really Ramoposa should be
22:47
Speaker 3: doing something about it, but clearly he isn't. But But
22:50
Speaker 3: then on top of that, you've got the question of
22:52
Speaker 3: whether or not there there is uh, you know, intent
22:57
Speaker 3: from the government to to to stay effect take land
23:01
Speaker 3: without compensation or from from anybody, whether it's white farmers
23:06
Speaker 3: or any you know. And and I don't know actually
23:09
Speaker 3: what the truth of that is, and maybe you can
23:11
Speaker 3: can help with that. But but you know that I've
23:14
Speaker 3: seen a video clip of Ramaposa talking about this, but
23:18
Speaker 3: I don't know what the context of it is, and
23:19
Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, how accurate or truthful it
23:22
Speaker 3: is to perceive it this way. So so it's it's
23:26
Speaker 3: very difficult to get to the bottom of exactly what's
23:30
Speaker 3: going on. And and of course people that are on
23:34
Speaker 3: the receiving end of criminality are going to be very
23:36
Speaker 3: vocal about it. But but it all for me, it
23:39
Speaker 3: all comes down to what's your definition of genocide? And
23:42
Speaker 3: then sorry, I'll just just make one final point. And
23:45
Speaker 3: then we've got, as I say, see it in the
23:48
Speaker 3: context of other events and the fact that South Africa
23:52
Speaker 3: is itself making allegations of genocide against a certain other country,
23:58
Speaker 3: and the Trump is a supporter of that other country precisely,
24:01
Speaker 3: and therefore is he jumping on this particular bandwagon, which
24:06
Speaker 3: nobody has said anything about for the last goodness knows
24:09
Speaker 3: how many years. Suddenly it's become an issue. Why has
24:12
Speaker 3: it suddenly become an issue now? And so you can
24:14
Speaker 3: sort of come to a conclusion about what's actually going on.
24:17
Speaker 4: There without.
24:19
Speaker 3: You know, I think, I think that that conclusion is
24:23
Speaker 3: possible to come to without getting caught up in particular
24:28
Speaker 3: ideologies or narratives. You think, but there's another there's another
24:32
Speaker 3: important point there. What's going on in Gaza is state violence.
24:36
Speaker 3: This is the state using state weaponry, state war capability
24:40
Speaker 3: to bomb the hell out of a part of the
24:43
Speaker 3: of a country right in South Africa. The violence, whatever
24:48
Speaker 3: it is, is not state violence, or at least I
24:50
Speaker 3: haven't seen any evidence whatsoever that the state is in
24:53
Speaker 3: any way directly involved in it. There's not certainly not
24:55
Speaker 3: using the military. They're not bombing farms with with you know,
24:59
Speaker 3: f thirty f lives. So it's not staate violence. And
25:03
Speaker 3: that that is another significant difference here.
25:05
Speaker 5: That's so, and you're correct, And so I said this
25:09
Speaker 5: earlier this week that the definition of genocide is it's
25:14
Speaker 5: an infinite loop, because what it does is that It
25:16
Speaker 5: captures you into a particular set of parameters and you
25:20
Speaker 5: can't get out of it. So you're no longer arguing
25:22
Speaker 5: about what's going on. You're arguing about what a word means.
25:26
Speaker 5: And so you go around and around and around and around,
25:28
Speaker 5: and it's a distraction ultimately.
25:31
Speaker 2: What Yeah, no, no, I just I mean the minefield
25:37
Speaker 2: where statistics are concerned is is is boundless? No you
25:41
Speaker 2: think I'm not. I don't mean to compare this with
25:44
Speaker 2: what's just been said about Gaza. But but if you
25:48
Speaker 2: think and your your question at the beginning was, you know,
25:51
Speaker 2: we started talking about South Africa. You're in South Africa,
25:54
Speaker 2: so oh well you know you must know because you're there.
25:57
Speaker 1: No, but it's a big country.
25:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And and I think that's what's so fascinating.
26:01
Speaker 2: And you think back to the to what was happening,
26:04
Speaker 2: you know, And I can speak for the UK in
26:07
Speaker 2: twenty twenty if you had lived in Austria and you'd
26:10
Speaker 2: called your English or Welsh or Scot's Northern Irish friend
26:14
Speaker 2: and say, gosh, you know, what's what's with this pandemic thing?
26:18
Speaker 2: You know, is it real? And obviously ninety five percent
26:21
Speaker 2: of people answering that telephone call would have said, oh yeah, gosh,
26:24
Speaker 2: it's absolutely real, you know, people dropping like flies. I mean,
26:26
Speaker 2: look at these graphs, you know, look at look at
26:28
Speaker 2: the statistics. It's it's across the board, it's across the regions.
26:32
Speaker 2: And and of course that's not my belief do or
26:35
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't think any of that happened. I
26:38
Speaker 2: think that it's perfectly possible to kill people by imposing
26:40
Speaker 2: conditions on them that mean their lives basically stop being
26:43
Speaker 2: lived as they would like, and therefore they will die.
26:46
Speaker 2: I mean that that's that's no great surprise. You don't
26:48
Speaker 2: need you don't need anyone to be ill or even
26:52
Speaker 2: the you know, you just you just need the sort
26:54
Speaker 2: of the specter of illness. But so, so the two things.
26:58
Speaker 2: One is how STITTI I mean, we know this, it's
27:01
Speaker 2: it's it's obvious, but how statistics are wielded and manipulated
27:06
Speaker 2: to whatever end. But of course the other thing is
27:09
Speaker 2: this idea of sort of ground truth that oh, well,
27:11
Speaker 2: you know, and again you think of the BBC. Here's
27:14
Speaker 2: so reporting from lahaw and usually if they're reporting from Lahore,
27:18
Speaker 2: it'll be about something that's happening in Delhi or something,
27:21
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, it's just that so the idea
27:23
Speaker 2: that somebody that is there A can actually see what's
27:27
Speaker 2: going on, but b has any better idea than anyone
27:30
Speaker 2: who isn't there. And I think it's very easy to
27:34
Speaker 2: sort of just use that idea of proximity as being
27:40
Speaker 2: meaningful when when it's still exactly like Mike says, I mean,
27:44
Speaker 2: there's still so much more scrutiny of the information that
27:46
Speaker 2: should be conducted. It doesn't matter really where anyone is.
27:51
Speaker 2: Just and then on the South African thing, I mean,
27:53
Speaker 2: I'm afraid that for me, the the it's the Musk
27:57
Speaker 2: influence that I think is impossible to ignore in that
28:01
Speaker 2: he is desperate to.
28:04
Speaker 1: Float the law.
28:06
Speaker 2: With the black and white ownership thing and the deal,
28:10
Speaker 2: the Starlink and Tesla deal that he's been trying to
28:13
Speaker 2: sort out with Ramaposa. I'm sure that must have something
28:16
Speaker 2: to do.
28:16
Speaker 5: With the Definitely, I think it's part of I think
28:20
Speaker 5: it's part of a Gina twenty thirty. It's bring it's
28:22
Speaker 5: to bring more mass surveillance into the agricultural sector. I mean,
28:25
Speaker 5: Catherine fitz has spoken about this.
28:28
Speaker 2: It's a bit like going back to the you know,
28:29
Speaker 2: the BBC says such and such a report says something
28:34
Speaker 2: in actual fact, whilst I mean, let's say, you know,
28:37
Speaker 2: climate change the whole sort of very well, ninety seven
28:40
Speaker 2: percent of climate change scientists say that, say say this,
28:43
Speaker 2: that and the other. So yes, it would be perfectly
28:45
Speaker 2: possible to read a report and come away with perhaps
28:49
Speaker 2: more than one conclusion, depending on your point of view
28:52
Speaker 2: before you started reading it. And I think that's the same.
28:55
Speaker 2: That's the Douglas Murray thing. It doesn't it doesn't matter
28:57
Speaker 2: where you take Douglas Murray. He's not going to stop
29:00
Speaker 2: being a Zionist, and so it's in a way that's
29:05
Speaker 2: that's immaterial. However, they're absolutely, of course there is I mean,
29:09
Speaker 2: I would say there is absolutely a value in going
29:13
Speaker 2: to the source, whether that be a physical place or whatever.
29:18
Speaker 2: But that but exactly like you say, that doesn't qualify
29:21
Speaker 2: you to have an opinion that cannot be challenged.
29:25
Speaker 5: Just as a matter of interest. I don't know if
29:26
Speaker 5: I told you I was at a dinner last year
29:30
Speaker 5: with Douglas Murray and a bunch of other people. He
29:32
Speaker 5: came to South Africa. I was actually invited on I'm
29:35
Speaker 5: not exactly friends with him. And there were maybe I
29:39
Speaker 5: don't know, sixty people at the dinner and he said
29:43
Speaker 5: that Israel must not stop bombing Gaza, and everybody took
29:47
Speaker 5: the glasses of wine and chinked and cheered and clept,
29:50
Speaker 5: and I just watched this and I thought this is incredible.
29:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's it. So forgive me, am I not
29:57
Speaker 2: correct in thinking that you in per his voice fairly accurately.
30:02
Speaker 5: No, I quan't im fascinate his voice. I can't even British.
30:06
Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
30:08
Speaker 2: I thought you did quite a good doug, miss Murray.
30:11
Speaker 2: I thought I heard you say the other way. Oh okay,
30:13
Speaker 2: fair enough. Something something to work on for next week.
30:16
Speaker 5: Accent I can't. I can't even come anywhere close to
30:19
Speaker 5: your accent.
30:21
Speaker 2: That might be a good thing, Yeah, I mean, but
30:25
Speaker 2: that's it. That, That is exactly it. And it yeah,
30:30
Speaker 2: it's it's it's it's perfect astonishing. We were talking in
30:35
Speaker 2: extra on Wednesday's News this week, following a report that
30:40
Speaker 2: Sandy Adams had done about the Delphy technique and about
30:43
Speaker 2: manufacturing consent, and this is it, this is it is
30:48
Speaker 2: absolutely amazing. She showed a sort of cartoon of a
30:51
Speaker 2: bunch of people all verbally agreeing with something, and the
30:57
Speaker 2: little thought bubble from everybody's heads was no that I
31:00
Speaker 2: can't what the exact words were, but know that this
31:02
Speaker 2: sounds like a terrible idea. You know, I don't think so,
31:05
Speaker 2: and yet everybody said yes, and it's it just constantly
31:10
Speaker 2: astonishes me. I mean, I know it shouldn't because that
31:13
Speaker 2: sort of sounds as though it's it's terrifically naive, especially
31:16
Speaker 2: after all this time. But at any level really of
31:22
Speaker 2: society where these sorts of ideas get floated or pushed out,
31:25
Speaker 2: there has to be a start point for that. There
31:27
Speaker 2: has to be an initial meeting where somebody says, so,
31:31
Speaker 2: you know, bombing civilians, what do we think? And you know,
31:36
Speaker 2: why do people lack the integrity and the moral courage
31:41
Speaker 2: to just say straight away, no, we're not, we're not doing.
31:46
Speaker 3: That, Because you've just hit the nail on the head
31:48
Speaker 3: as to why we're in this mess in the first place,
31:51
Speaker 3: and why why I get personally so frustrated with with
31:55
Speaker 3: anybody who says, but what can I do right? What
32:00
Speaker 3: we need to do, what each of us needs to do,
32:02
Speaker 3: is to start with ourselves we need to develop the
32:05
Speaker 3: moral courage and the moral backbone to stand up and say, no,
32:09
Speaker 3: this is not going to happen in my name or whatever.
32:12
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter whether we're talking about genocide and gaza
32:15
Speaker 3: or or a low traffic zone in a local authority.
32:19
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter what the topic is. If you disagree
32:22
Speaker 3: with it, you've got to have the guts to stand
32:24
Speaker 3: up and say even in the face of you know,
32:27
Speaker 3: you being the only voice in a room of one
32:30
Speaker 3: hundred people, it doesn't matter. We've got to. We've got to.
32:33
Speaker 3: Each of us has got to start right there because
32:36
Speaker 3: because without that, you know, everybody else just everybody just
32:39
Speaker 3: goes along. And you know, I can't remember when the
32:46
Speaker 3: conversation was it. This was it last week when you
32:49
Speaker 3: were talking about the suggestion that people will go to
32:53
Speaker 3: the camps without you know, yeah, to the good ags.
32:58
Speaker 3: This is this is, this is why it's important that
33:02
Speaker 3: we have to work on ourselves first before we even
33:04
Speaker 3: start looking at what's going on on the outside. It's
33:07
Speaker 3: what's inside that is the key. And and that's why
33:13
Speaker 3: I'm saying in action from most people, you know, even
33:18
Speaker 3: people that are very strongly disagreeing with everything, that's going
33:21
Speaker 3: on around them. They sit there and say, well, well,
33:23
Speaker 3: what can I do. I'm not going to write them MP.
33:25
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna they will. They won't even take they
33:27
Speaker 3: will take a single step, because there's always an excuse
33:31
Speaker 3: for not taking that step. And and it's it's got
33:35
Speaker 3: that's got to change. Everybody's got to be speaking out
33:38
Speaker 3: in some way. It doesn't matter what way it is
33:41
Speaker 3: or how people choose to express themselves. Find the most
33:44
Speaker 3: creative way to express yourself you possibly can, but you
33:47
Speaker 3: got to have the fiber to do it.
33:49
Speaker 4: And that starts with us. Yeah, it does.
33:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know I was I was thinking yes,
33:57
Speaker 2: sorry Charles, No, no, no, no, that was it. Now going.
34:01
Speaker 5: Now, I was going to say that this whole thing
34:02
Speaker 5: about finding truth is it's a forever war, isn't it.
34:07
Speaker 5: It's not something that will end anytime soon. It's not
34:12
Speaker 5: like we're going to wake up one morning and go
34:14
Speaker 5: right today we know the truth. It has arrived and
34:17
Speaker 5: we can now see it. I mean, I think this
34:19
Speaker 5: is this is part of the existential crisis of humanity goes.
34:25
Speaker 5: I think even way back to the Greeks, you know,
34:27
Speaker 5: the ancient Greeks and even further trying to figure out
34:29
Speaker 5: what was true about what was happening around them.
34:32
Speaker 3: But that as a crisis. That's not a crisis. That's
34:35
Speaker 3: that's that's what life is about. That's fun, that's working
34:38
Speaker 3: out what her life works is. But that is that's
34:42
Speaker 3: we should be looking at that as being something that
34:44
Speaker 3: gives us enjoyment.
34:47
Speaker 1: Right, okay, right, yes, that's a good point.
34:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry I indrupted.
34:54
Speaker 5: No no, no, no, no, but that but I mean
34:56
Speaker 5: what you're saying is is actually correct. So it's not
34:59
Speaker 5: an existential crisis. There are very few, I suppose existential crises,
35:04
Speaker 5: and they don't really have to do but have anything
35:07
Speaker 5: to do with truth. They probably have to do with
35:08
Speaker 5: things like volcanos and the sun like that.
35:13
Speaker 3: No, I think you're on there's something there. I think
35:15
Speaker 3: the existential crisis is the fact that people are actually
35:18
Speaker 3: not interested in discovery, and I think that is the problem.
35:24
Speaker 3: They're not interested in engagement with life, and they just
35:28
Speaker 3: they want to go and get drunk at the weekend whatever,
35:31
Speaker 3: because because actually they just want to escape what's going
35:34
Speaker 3: on around them. That's that's the existential crisis in my opinion.
35:40
Speaker 1: You know, like in the last few years.
35:43
Speaker 5: This idea, for example, of of of being vaccinated has
35:47
Speaker 5: become cult like in its in its status. For the
35:52
Speaker 5: longest time in my life, I can never remember a
35:55
Speaker 5: stage when asking if somebody was vaccinated or unvaccinated unless
35:59
Speaker 5: it did such an emotive response.
36:03
Speaker 3: I think I think they started. This started well before
36:06
Speaker 3: that German. You know, if if we look at Brexit
36:10
Speaker 3: for example, and there's there's other things before that. Again,
36:13
Speaker 3: this this has been a process that's been developing for
36:16
Speaker 3: a very long time. And and and people have been
36:23
Speaker 3: people have had division imposed upon them. But this comes
36:27
Speaker 3: back to this, this whole conversation about I mean, this
36:29
Speaker 3: whole conversation explains why that has happened. Because people have
36:33
Speaker 3: not been actually engaged properly with what's.
36:36
Speaker 4: Going on around them.
36:37
Speaker 3: They have then allowed themselves to be driven into one
36:42
Speaker 3: camp or the other. There's the camp that wore masks,
36:44
Speaker 3: the camp that didn't wear masks, of the camp that
36:46
Speaker 3: voted Brexit, the camp that didn't vote Brexit. There's the
36:48
Speaker 3: camp that protested the the potential to go to a
36:52
Speaker 3: war in Iraq in two thousand and three, and the
36:54
Speaker 3: camp that didn't. And and that this division has been
36:58
Speaker 3: and you know, I haven't seen it a division. That's
37:01
Speaker 3: I mean, each time that they do this, it gets
37:03
Speaker 3: harder and harder a divide. And actually the Israel Gaza
37:07
Speaker 3: thing has become probably one of the hardest divides that
37:09
Speaker 3: I've seen ever. So we have been being softened up. Yes,
37:15
Speaker 3: COVID was a very big one, and that one of
37:17
Speaker 3: the real softening exercises, no doubt about it, right up
37:21
Speaker 3: there at the top of the list. But it's been
37:23
Speaker 3: going on for decades. Somebody said to me when October
37:29
Speaker 3: seventh happened. Somebody said to me, why are you supporting
37:34
Speaker 3: the Palestinians? Gretas supporting the Palestinians right, And the implication
37:42
Speaker 3: was that because somebody else that I disagree with on
37:44
Speaker 3: another topic was supporting this topic, that I happened to
37:48
Speaker 3: support that therefore I'm wrong.
37:50
Speaker 4: Well, I'm sorry. That doesn't make me wrong.
37:53
Speaker 3: It doesn't make me wrong that somebody who's who's who
37:56
Speaker 3: was taking the knee for George Floyd is wearing a
37:59
Speaker 3: pal Justinian scarf round their neck doesn't mean that that
38:04
Speaker 3: Israel bombing Palestine is the is the thing that I
38:06
Speaker 3: need to be supporting. And this is the problem. We
38:09
Speaker 3: are allowing ourselves to be driven into camps. You know,
38:12
Speaker 3: one of the things that I'm probably proudest of with
38:16
Speaker 3: respect to the UK column is that we'll get equal
38:19
Speaker 3: criticism for being left wing and right wing. Nobody knows
38:23
Speaker 3: what the hell we are. And this is this is
38:25
Speaker 3: the point, because I'm looking at things in terms of
38:30
Speaker 3: you know, what I think is the right thing.
38:33
Speaker 4: You know, what I think the truth is.
38:35
Speaker 3: And as I said before, that doesn't mean that it's
38:37
Speaker 3: objectively true, but certainly I'm doing my best to try
38:40
Speaker 3: to get as far as you know, we all are
38:42
Speaker 3: trying to get.
38:43
Speaker 4: To what is objectively true.
38:45
Speaker 3: But I'm not gonna I'm not going to make my
38:47
Speaker 3: judgment and what true is based on whether I consider
38:52
Speaker 3: myself to be conservative this week or whether I can
38:54
Speaker 3: consider myself to be a socialist next week. That's not
38:57
Speaker 3: how it works. You take each of you got to
39:00
Speaker 3: take each issue on its merits.
39:03
Speaker 2: The main thing is that people, most people now would
39:07
Speaker 2: not know a principle if it ran up to them
39:10
Speaker 2: in the street, pulled their trousers down and punched them
39:12
Speaker 2: in the face. They just they don't get it. And
39:16
Speaker 2: so how do we live in a world where for
39:20
Speaker 2: two years solid we were told that we were saving lives.
39:24
Speaker 2: We had to do everything we could to save lives.
39:26
Speaker 2: And then the moment the illegal Russian aggression started in
39:31
Speaker 2: February twenty twenty two, we had to then quickly kill
39:33
Speaker 2: as many people as possible. And then when in October
39:39
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three some Israelis were killed, which was reported
39:44
Speaker 2: as being a terrible tragedy, we then had to make
39:46
Speaker 2: sure that a lot of Palestinians were killed to make
39:50
Speaker 2: up for it. I mean, it's absolutely absurd, and it
39:54
Speaker 2: comes down to very very straightforward principles, and if you
39:58
Speaker 2: follow principle, so you just you really don't go far wrong.
40:02
Speaker 2: But but of course people have utterly lost sight of that,
40:06
Speaker 2: which is why it is so easy to manipulate division,
40:11
Speaker 2: because people just totally forget what it's about. And you
40:13
Speaker 2: do get and then and then you will get oh gosh, no,
40:16
Speaker 2: well I can't I can't support that this week, because
40:18
Speaker 2: Greta's already got there first, and I don't, you know,
40:20
Speaker 2: I don't agree with her. Well, I mean because actually,
40:23
Speaker 2: funny enough, that was even on the news there was
40:25
Speaker 2: that she was she was into Lacy. She was she
40:29
Speaker 2: was remember there was that rather awkward video of her
40:31
Speaker 2: dancing in the streets in Georgia, and I think I
40:33
Speaker 2: made a throw away and I said I felt rather
40:35
Speaker 2: sorry for her because she did look a little bit pitiful.
40:38
Speaker 2: She was just sort of dancing not terribly convincingly on
40:41
Speaker 2: the street in Georgia, and it was all a bit
40:43
Speaker 2: awkward and at a very human level. Of course, I
40:47
Speaker 2: felt sorry for I feel sorry for her for a
40:49
Speaker 2: whole host of reasons. She should not have been put
40:51
Speaker 2: in that terrible position of just a lifetime of absurd
40:56
Speaker 2: pressure that she frankly sort of had no part in
40:58
Speaker 2: didn't really understand. Of course, I've sorry for her. But then,
41:01
Speaker 2: but then the next thing is, there's you know, there
41:03
Speaker 2: are sort of comments about, well, how can you sympathize
41:08
Speaker 2: with with Greta or this, that and the other, and
41:10
Speaker 2: you know, okay, it's it's it's the principle, it's it's
41:15
Speaker 2: it's not I'm not saying no suddenly, Oh well, therefore
41:19
Speaker 2: I have to fall in lin and absolutely everything she's
41:21
Speaker 2: ever said it's not how it works anyway, should be
41:24
Speaker 2: very simple.
41:25
Speaker 5: Your point about principles and values is for me foundational.
41:29
Speaker 5: So that's why I make a very clear cut argument,
41:33
Speaker 5: and I think that people need to have something to
41:36
Speaker 5: believe in. Now this is going to sound a bit wooo,
41:38
Speaker 5: but I I have come to realize that, for example,
41:41
Speaker 5: believing in nothing is a great way to be manipulated
41:45
Speaker 5: and and and and influenced. So I don't care if
41:49
Speaker 5: you're a Muslim or if you're a Christian, but at
41:52
Speaker 5: least you have a set of values. I don't have
41:54
Speaker 5: to necessarily agree with your values, but at least you
41:58
Speaker 5: have a set of values on which to base your
42:01
Speaker 5: decision making.
42:03
Speaker 3: I think I think you've hit something quite important there,
42:05
Speaker 3: because that is something that I've had sent in my direction.
42:10
Speaker 3: I don't know whether Charles said this in the last
42:14
Speaker 3: number of months once or twice. Why did you talk
42:18
Speaker 3: about this in this way? Because you're beginning to sign
42:20
Speaker 3: like the BBC. What that what that sentiment represents is
42:27
Speaker 3: the idea that if it's on the BBC, then it
42:32
Speaker 3: has to be you have to take the opposite position,
42:35
Speaker 3: so the BBC can never be right about anything. This
42:38
Speaker 3: is this is very dangerous because of course it's not
42:41
Speaker 3: Life is not black and white, and we've sort of
42:43
Speaker 3: touched on this already, but life is not black and
42:45
Speaker 3: white in this way, and you know there is nuances,
42:49
Speaker 3: sheets are gray, and sometimes the BBC covers things. You know,
42:57
Speaker 3: the facts, as they say, speak for themselves, and the
42:59
Speaker 3: BBC is no choice but to explain things as they are.
43:03
Speaker 3: In some cases, if we simply allow ourselves to say
43:08
Speaker 3: that there is no truth ever anything that comes out
43:11
Speaker 3: of a mainstream mouth, whether it be a politician or
43:13
Speaker 3: the BBC or whatever it happens to be, then we
43:17
Speaker 3: without question end up going down blind alleys and being
43:24
Speaker 3: taken in directions that are not productive. And in fact,
43:29
Speaker 3: bearing in mind the complexity of the information space at
43:32
Speaker 3: the moment, I would argue, in many cases are there
43:36
Speaker 3: specifically to draw people into blind out alleys and directions
43:42
Speaker 3: which are unproductive.
43:44
Speaker 5: So can I give you what I believe as a
43:47
Speaker 5: good way to navigate the mindfield of propaganda and information
43:51
Speaker 5: also the beginning of the discussion, how do you discern?
43:54
Speaker 5: I don't have the solution or any type of formula,
43:57
Speaker 5: but I do have a good rule of thumb which
43:58
Speaker 5: I picked up from Nassim Taleb, who I don't know
44:02
Speaker 5: if you know who he is, but he's written some
44:03
Speaker 5: some great books on risk analysis. He got the COVID
44:06
Speaker 5: thing very wrong, and I'm well aware of that, and
44:09
Speaker 5: he even blocked me on Twitter at the time. But
44:11
Speaker 5: nonetheless he's written a lot of very good stuff. And
44:14
Speaker 5: what he said in a nuts shoulder is the following.
44:18
Speaker 5: Consider those making the claims and see if they have
44:21
Speaker 5: skin in the game, how much do they have to
44:23
Speaker 5: lose by making that statement. If CNN makes a statement
44:27
Speaker 5: and it's clearly wrong, what happens to CNN, Well pretty
44:31
Speaker 5: much nothing. They just say, oh sorry, we got that wrong,
44:33
Speaker 5: or they didn't. They just don't do anything and they
44:36
Speaker 5: carry on. If somebody small, like let's say UK col
44:40
Speaker 5: him in comparison, gets it wrong, there's a lot more
44:43
Speaker 5: to lose you'll have. You'll start having subscribers going, well,
44:47
Speaker 5: you know what, you guys are not trustworthy. We're going
44:49
Speaker 5: somewhere else. It's you have more skin in the game
44:53
Speaker 5: than say CNN or the BBC.
44:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I would absolutely agree with that. I
44:58
Speaker 2: would alsoy just going back to what you were saying about.
45:04
Speaker 2: You know, you say, oh, well, Donald Trump might say this,
45:08
Speaker 2: which which seems to be the case, or seems to
45:11
Speaker 2: be something that you might agree with or whatever, and
45:14
Speaker 2: it's the same. It's the same sort of thing. It's
45:17
Speaker 2: and indeed, in so far as the BBC, of course,
45:21
Speaker 2: will put out content that we may agree with on
45:26
Speaker 2: a factual basis, I think what you're talking about really
45:31
Speaker 2: is it concerns motivation. You know, why is something being
45:37
Speaker 2: said and to what end? And I think, particularly with
45:43
Speaker 2: any politician, you know, to what to what end would
45:46
Speaker 2: they be saying such and such a thing. Similarly, with
45:49
Speaker 2: a with a mainstream media organization that, as you say,
45:52
Speaker 2: faces no backlash for anything that it really says, why
45:56
Speaker 2: would it be putting particular information into the public domain?
46:00
Speaker 2: And by the same token, why would it be not
46:04
Speaker 2: putting certain pieces of information out there? Why would things
46:08
Speaker 2: not be talked about? Actually, on that note, insofar as
46:14
Speaker 2: treating things on their own merits. On Wednesday's News, Mike
46:19
Speaker 2: played a clip from Kemy Badanock, the leader of the opposition,
46:25
Speaker 2: leader of the Conservative Party at the moment. So she's
46:28
Speaker 2: in a position where, like leaders of the opposition tend to do,
46:32
Speaker 2: they can just stay stuff without consequence because they know
46:36
Speaker 2: that they're miles away from a general election and they
46:38
Speaker 2: probably won't win that anyway, And you know it doesn't
46:41
Speaker 2: really matter. It's just it is sort of theater upon theater.
46:43
Speaker 2: And yet, in an interview with Trevor Phillips, she said
46:47
Speaker 2: that Israel is fighting a proxy war on behalf of
46:52
Speaker 2: the UK just as Ukraine is fighting a proxy war
46:56
Speaker 2: on behalf of Western Europe. She said that in a
47:00
Speaker 2: mainstream live television interview, and then silence. I mean, actually,
47:05
Speaker 2: I'm not I haven't seen what happened after her. I
47:07
Speaker 2: know what Trevor Phillips said to that, if anything, Oh.
47:10
Speaker 4: No, he didn't. He didn't.
47:11
Speaker 3: He let it pass because I chopped the rest off.
47:14
Speaker 3: There was nothing of consequence in the in the next
47:17
Speaker 3: minute of comments.
47:19
Speaker 2: So yeah, so you know she said that, I mean
47:23
Speaker 2: it actually was. It was during sort of quite an
47:24
Speaker 2: animated back and forth. So one feels that she wasn't
47:28
Speaker 2: completely in control when she said it, and therefore it's
47:32
Speaker 2: you know, taking it at face value. It doesn't look
47:34
Speaker 2: like it was on her list of talking points to
47:36
Speaker 2: get out during the interview. It's as though it did
47:39
Speaker 2: sort of come out by accident, and so therefore, in
47:43
Speaker 2: the skin of the game thing you think, well, actually,
47:46
Speaker 2: was she seeking to make political points or capital from it?
47:52
Speaker 2: Maybe not maybe maybe it was as far as she's concerned,
47:57
Speaker 2: sort of an objective belief, but it's you know, it's significant,
48:00
Speaker 2: and yet it was it was met, like Mike says,
48:04
Speaker 2: met with silence. And I don't think we don't think
48:06
Speaker 2: it's been reported on elsewhere. So yes, I mean, this
48:09
Speaker 2: stuff it does come out sometimes sometimes perhaps there isn't
48:13
Speaker 2: necessarily an gender in saying it. It didn't look in
48:16
Speaker 2: the way that she did say It didn't look like
48:18
Speaker 2: she had a particular agenda in saying it other than
48:20
Speaker 2: it was her belief.
48:23
Speaker 5: I remember back in twenty twenty, I was trying to
48:26
Speaker 5: find information to counter what I was seeing in the
48:28
Speaker 5: mainstream and that's how I discovered UK Column. And my
48:32
Speaker 5: anecdotal story is that I had more faith in or
48:34
Speaker 5: was being published on UK Column about this this quote
48:39
Speaker 5: unquote pandemic than what CNN and BBC were publishing. And
48:44
Speaker 5: that's and that's because, as I said, the small crew
48:47
Speaker 5: behind UK Column have got more skin in the game.
48:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, well yeah we do, and we and we you know,
49:00
Speaker 3: the criticism comes directly to us as well. You know,
49:04
Speaker 3: there aren't there aren't five hundred layers between us and
49:09
Speaker 3: the and the public because it's not often that you know,
49:14
Speaker 3: if you want to criticize a specific reporter or presenter
49:18
Speaker 3: on the BBC, you don't get to do that directly.
49:21
Speaker 4: You've got to go through Capita.
49:23
Speaker 3: Or whoever's running the BBC call center, so so that
49:29
Speaker 3: you know, the criticism comes directly to us, and and
49:32
Speaker 3: you know, we don't get the opportunity to to respond
49:37
Speaker 3: to every email or every comment it comes in our direction,
49:40
Speaker 3: but you know it's it's by and large, it's all
49:44
Speaker 3: red and it's all considered. So you know, there were
49:48
Speaker 3: a couple of comments for me from yesterday's coverage of
49:53
Speaker 3: King or Wednesday's coverage of King Charles in Canada and
49:58
Speaker 3: people suggesting that the allocations of abuse in the church
50:02
Speaker 3: run schools for Indigenous children were overegged and not not
50:10
Speaker 3: quite accurate. Well, okay, that that that message has been
50:15
Speaker 3: received will be taken into account. I'm not sure I
50:19
Speaker 3: think there. I think there is plenty of evidence to
50:21
Speaker 3: suggest the abuse that I was talking about. But you
50:26
Speaker 3: know that obviously will will that that that feedback will
50:30
Speaker 3: be considered and and you know, if there's a correction
50:33
Speaker 3: needs to be made, it'll be made. But you know
50:36
Speaker 3: that's still a bit of work to be done there.
50:38
Speaker 3: The point is that the feedback comes directly to us,
50:42
Speaker 3: and so it's not just the fact that there's financial
50:45
Speaker 3: skin in the game, which there is in terms of
50:47
Speaker 3: memberships and support that way, but also the the direct
50:52
Speaker 3: contact that we have from from our viewership.
50:55
Speaker 1: Well, let's come in for lending final thoughts.
51:01
Speaker 2: After you, Charles, I think the very kind Yeah, okay, yes,
51:14
Speaker 2: I think. I think as a as a theme goes
51:19
Speaker 2: or not a theme, you know, like a sort of
51:21
Speaker 2: a talking point. I do think principles, you know, the
51:26
Speaker 2: really elemental aspect of dealing things on their own merits.
51:32
Speaker 2: So so exactly like we've been talking about, you know,
51:35
Speaker 2: why why would you make a rod for your own
51:37
Speaker 2: back and disagree with an organization or a person based
51:41
Speaker 2: on who they are. I mean that that that sounds
51:43
Speaker 2: like an extraordinary prejudice to carry around to I would say,
51:48
Speaker 2: no effect or only a negative effect. So so taking
51:52
Speaker 2: everything on its own merits is a much more straightforward
51:56
Speaker 2: way to approach things. And I think in the pursuit
52:00
Speaker 2: of an objective truth, if such thing exists, that's the
52:04
Speaker 2: way to go about it. And again, in terms of
52:07
Speaker 2: forming your own point of view, which are totally critical
52:10
Speaker 2: to use to follow principles and values. I mean, again,
52:15
Speaker 2: this is really interesting because something I've been pursuing for
52:19
Speaker 2: the last few weeks started with a story that the
52:22
Speaker 2: Ministry of Defense tried to get a grip of, which
52:28
Speaker 2: was a Raal Marine who put out a survey about
52:31
Speaker 2: the policy for diversity and the Roll Marines and how
52:34
Speaker 2: it would affect the combat effectiveness and this sort of thing.
52:37
Speaker 2: I mean, I would say, you know, totally legitimate concern
52:40
Speaker 2: with the way in which things have been going. Anyway,
52:44
Speaker 2: the Ministry of Defense took the survey offline and then
52:49
Speaker 2: said that this was an issue of values and standards,
52:52
Speaker 2: and all regiments units in the enforces have their own
52:56
Speaker 2: set of values and standards, and the idea was that
53:00
Speaker 2: was conflict between the Romarines values and standards and this action.
53:06
Speaker 2: But that really wasn't the case. You know, they're there,
53:08
Speaker 2: They're written down in black and white, and nothing this
53:11
Speaker 2: chap had done was in any way a challenge to
53:15
Speaker 2: the values and standards of the rom Marines. In actual fact,
53:18
Speaker 2: it was it was absolutely based on him wanting to
53:22
Speaker 2: uphold that. In fact, for the commando's is slightly different
53:26
Speaker 2: they have they have the commando ethos I think it
53:28
Speaker 2: is and something else. I'm apologize to all the bootnecks
53:31
Speaker 2: who will be shouting at the screen saying that I've
53:34
Speaker 2: got that wrong. But but but whatever it is, the
53:37
Speaker 2: Romarines have something slightly different written down. It's it's more
53:39
Speaker 2: simply the four key parts. But this, you know, this
53:44
Speaker 2: was just spin by the Ministry of Defense. And that's
53:47
Speaker 2: where they get in trouble. I mean, I think that's
53:49
Speaker 2: you know, the flip side of this is that if
53:51
Speaker 2: you if you are if you if you're not principled,
53:55
Speaker 2: and you don't treat things on their own merits, you
53:58
Speaker 2: create a world of trouble for yourself. And this is
54:00
Speaker 2: where we you know, we go back to the beginning
54:02
Speaker 2: with the news cycle being so crazy and people just
54:06
Speaker 2: being nutcases, sending out things that just don't make any sense.
54:11
Speaker 2: And I think this explains in large part, if one's
54:14
Speaker 2: to assume that anyone is attempting sincerity in the first place,
54:19
Speaker 2: this is why people get it wrong, because they don't
54:21
Speaker 2: stick to the very very fundamental and foundational point and
54:27
Speaker 2: everybody veers off course. And that works both ways, not
54:29
Speaker 2: just those that are putting out the information, but those
54:31
Speaker 2: that are receiving it as well, which is why we
54:33
Speaker 2: get idiots like Douglas Murray standing up saying let's bomb
54:36
Speaker 2: Israel and everyone goes, oh, yeah, go on, then daft.
54:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would just say that, you know, we were
54:43
Speaker 3: talking about resistance starting with us internally and sorting ourselves out.
54:53
Speaker 4: I think.
54:55
Speaker 3: Something that we have a skill that we have lost,
54:57
Speaker 3: if we ever had in the first place, is is
55:01
Speaker 3: dialogue and the ability to have a conversation with someone
55:04
Speaker 3: without without running into entrenched positions and without basically just
55:11
Speaker 3: trying to shut them down. We've got to be able
55:14
Speaker 3: to find a way to talk to each other even
55:16
Speaker 3: when we aren't completely opposing views. We're being driven into
55:22
Speaker 3: extreme positions by what I believe is a psychological information war,
55:27
Speaker 3: and we've got to start We've got to start recognizing
55:31
Speaker 3: that that is being done to us, and that if
55:33
Speaker 3: we allow ourselves to be driven to the extremes which
55:37
Speaker 3: we increasingly are, then that that is in fact doing
55:42
Speaker 3: the job of the of the people that are trying
55:44
Speaker 3: to push us in those directions. So where we are
55:47
Speaker 3: behaving like sheep, even the people who think they are
55:49
Speaker 3: wide awake, are behaving like sheep in their own way.
55:52
Speaker 3: We've got to recognize that and and just stop and
55:57
Speaker 3: think a little bit about about what's happening around us.
56:02
Speaker 1: Quick plug UK column dot org.
56:05
Speaker 5: These support us by going to the support page.
56:13
Speaker 4: We are John is a member that that is the
56:16
Speaker 4: best thing.
56:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, get over because k Yeah, And I think sorry,
56:23
Speaker 2: I think I I think I may have just quated
56:25
Speaker 2: miscreated Douglas Murray. I think I think I said he
56:27
Speaker 2: said bomb Israel. Of course I didn't mean that at all.
56:31
Speaker 2: You would never have said that. My apologies to Doug.
56:35
Speaker 1: All right On.
56:36
Speaker 5: Then no, gentlemen, Charles Mannett, Mike Robertson, thank you for
56:39
Speaker 5: joining me in the weekly Benter Strenchers.
56:43
Speaker 1: Thank you, m