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Hello and welcome.
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This is William Richardson,
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otherwise known as Will,
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here,
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and Nicholas Richardson,
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cousin Nikki,
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to us who know him well,
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ensconced in his library.
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In my study, yes.
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I'm in an undisclosed location.
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I've moved from Cheyenne, Wyoming.
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I can tell you where I was now.
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I think I even mentioned it in the last broadcast.
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Nobody
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Yeah, well, you said Wyoming.
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You didn't say where.
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Yeah, nobody cares anyway.
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But I am in another undisclosed location somewhere in the vast prairie states on a mission,
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Brother like the Blues Brothers, a mission from God.
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Yeah.
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That's the way that is.
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My mission right now is to talk to you, Nicholas, and to go over some headlines.
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We have some really varied headlines because the world is absolutely mad right now.
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We've never seen so much change from an American president since FDR in the 1930s
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as we're seeing from Donald Trump and his group of game changers.
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Here comes the rain.
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We're going to get one of those prairie storms, I think.
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They've said that there will be possibly tornadoes.
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Oh.
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Cyclones.
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Remember the Wizard of Oz?
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I remember the Wizard of Oz.
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Well,
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I hope my location doesn't get whisked off into a cyclone and I end up facing the
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Wicked Witch surrounded by munchkins.
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Indeed.
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Yeah.
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Well, you never know.
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You never know.
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Stranger things have happened.
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I can't think of any because that's pretty strange.
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If that were the case, which character would you prefer to be?
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The Tin Man, the Scarecrow, or the Cowardly Lion, or one of the Flying Monkeys?
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Which character would you be?
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Assuming I'm Dorothy.
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I don't know.
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Probably the Lion.
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You'd like to be the Lion.
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Yeah, he's my favorite too.
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There's something there's something catchy about that lion.
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His transformation is amazing.
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What a dramatic transformation.
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Cowardly lion to.
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The beast of beasts.
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Anyway, a lot of things are happening and I suppose the main thing.
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In world events, although we're going to talk about some regional events too, is.
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The negotiations for ceasefire.
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To which.
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Ukraine has magically agreed.
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Well, I don't think Ukraine had much choice, ultimately.
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That's the point.
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But in any event, a ceasefire would suit everybody, I suspect.
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You know,
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you could only have young men,
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and it's mainly young men,
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I accept that probably women involved as well,
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but you can only have young men from either side slaughtering each other for so
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long before somebody has to bring it to a halt.
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Somebody has to bring it to a halt.
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That's right.
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But will the Russians, do the Russians want to bring it to a halt?
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Because I just think they'll use delaying tactics as they have always.
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Putin doesn't know the meaning of the word retreat.
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He hasn't retreated from any of the areas where he moved, has he?
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Except for, what's their situation in Syria right now?
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I'm not clear.
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It's not what it was, that's for sure.
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It's not what it was.
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I think they've been generally evacuating their hardware and their people.
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I mean,
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there have been a couple of ships that have steamed from Syria up through the
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English Channel on their way to the northern Russian ports.
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That's right.
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I believe you, yeah.
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That seems to ring a bell.
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You follow these things.
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You used to be a Middle East correspondent.
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Yeah.
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So,
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yes,
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I mean,
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we talk about Syria because what has been the main event this week in Syria was the
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new government,
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which everybody thought would be jolly good,
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turning around and massacring a large number of Alawites,
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which are the minority which supported the Assad regime.
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So it seems that plus ça change, plus ça la même chose are.
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in terms of change in Syria, remains to be seen how much further that's going to go.
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But the new leader is not the sort of wonderful person everybody was.
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I don't know what they were expecting.
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They were kind of fooling themselves into believing it will be a wonderful new regime.
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But it appears not to be that different from the previous one.
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Well, yeah, it's going to be oppressive because that's the history in Syria.
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And the Middle East, unfortunately.
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Very, yeah, unfortunately.
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Not all of the Middle East, but a lot of it.
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A lot of it, for sure.
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And discontent, widespread, widespread poverty.
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And despite the oil riches and so forth.
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The other places, Georgia, Russia's still there.
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No signs of retreat.
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Still have those two provinces in the mountains on the border of Georgia.
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I was there during that war, of course.
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Reporting from Tbilisi and Goury and close to that area,
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close to that area,
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I went through the Russian tanks and a very long line,
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probably 10 kilometers long of Russian
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material, men and material, didn't look very scary.
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A lot of it looked like it might not run for very long.
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They weren't far away from Russia at that point.
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They haven't left Transnistra, and they threatened Moldavia.
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At any time, they might move there, and that puts them next to Romania.
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And, of course, they continue to threaten the eastern part of
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Ukraine, although it seems to be a stalemate, doesn't it?
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I think the Russians are creeping.
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I mean,
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the Russians did make advances during the week when Trump had turned off the supply
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of military,
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but more importantly,
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turned off the supply of intelligence.
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So not just in the Kursk region,
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but more significantly further south along the front,
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the Russians were able to inch forward slightly.
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A lot of destruction was brought by the missiles and drones that the Russians fired off,
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but I understand that the Ukrainians responded with a lot of drone barrages,
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but most of these things on both sides get shot down.
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Well, that's what both sides claim, and they probably do.
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They probably do,
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but I saw a lot of destruction,
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more than a lot of destruction on the Ukrainian side,
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as we all did pictures
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Photographs freely available on the internet.
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Where else have they not moved?
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What's the main threat?
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What's the main threat of the Russians?
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Why will they not do a ceasefire?
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Let me ask you that.
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Why will they not do a ceasefire?
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You're a man who's doing the news every night.
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You're a professional, and we need a professional opinion right here, right now.
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Well, they won't do a ceasefire immediately because, A,
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They claim,
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of course,
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it's typical of the Russians,
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that they claim that a ceasefire will be used by Ukraine to regroup and re-equip
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its army.
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But of course, the Russians have been doing exactly the same.
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I think the main problem is that the Russians see their own actions as wholly
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justified and that a ceasefire doesn't get them what they want,
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which is their original grievance,
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which was obviously manufactured,
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about the need to make certain changes in Ukraine and to,
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as they would see it,
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to defend
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Russian security,
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which means no NATO troops anywhere near Ukraine,
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Ukraine not in NATO,
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a change of regime in Ukraine and some restriction on Ukraine's military capability.
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All of which,
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of course,
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is complete nonsense,
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given that it was Russia that attacked Ukraine in the first place.
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And there is no evidence that Ukraine posed any threat to Russia.
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But this is unfortunately the paranoia oblique Shia
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of Putin and his merry men in terms of manufacturing a grievance and then taking
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action to put right this grievance.
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If you were Putin, where would you attack next?
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Well,
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I think if I were Putin,
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I don't,
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unless he wants to really widen the war and go completely wild and suddenly go to
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another country,
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I think he's just going to keep pressing on where he is.
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It's not a desperately impressive performance by the Russians.
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In fact, they're relying on so many Korean troops, North Korean troops, I should say.
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The latest interviews I've seen with Ukrainian soldiers suggest,
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particularly in the Kursk region,
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that the North Koreans are not as bad as everybody was claiming they were,
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that they are fearless fighters and they just keep going.
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Ideal communist sort of party party.
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type of soldiers they just go and if they get killed along the way they don't
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really care too much um so it's not the case that they as they were apparently at
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the beginning arriving in a completely strange country not knowing where they were
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or what they were doing it seems they are beginning to fight much more effectively
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and are they uh there the reports are that ukrainians are encircled in kursk
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Yes, in the Kursk.
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They never got as far as the city of Kursk, but in the Kursk region, yes, they are.
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That is the problem, particularly during this week, that there is one very minor.
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There's a road to where their main forces are to get back to their own supply lines.
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But the neck of country which they control,
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which protects this road,
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was only last time I looked 400 metres wide,
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which is not very much.
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And it makes it very difficult for them either to resupply.
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the people on the Kursk front or for the Kursk front to effect an orderly retreat.
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And it was particularly in this last week when they were short of intelligence as
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to where the Russian forces were,
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that the Russians were able to make advances in that particular sector of the front.
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Well, there was some kind of something about Russian special forces troops
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crawling through a long pipe.
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They were crawling through some gas pipes.
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Yeah.
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And then coming out, popping out like, you know.
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Yeah.
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But I think that the Ukrainians eventually put a stop to that.
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But even so, it's in a very delicate balance in Kursk.
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And if Ukrainians lose the 10,000 soldiers in Kursk,
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they happen to be among their better 10,000 soldiers.
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How are they going to lose them?
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I mean, what's the Ukrainian plan?
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If you're in Ukraine,
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What's your plan to rescue those that break through that salient?
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Well,
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I don't know what their plan is,
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but I presume their plan is they have to beat an orderly retreat before it's too late,
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I suspect.
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Yeah, because there must be a way still out of there.
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There is.
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They can fight their way out.
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There can't be a really strong ring to the west.
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Not quite yet, but they don't have a lot of time to think about it, as I understand.
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They need to think about moving out of there, don't they?
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Well, they do really.
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I mean, they've made that point and it was quite a good point.
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Well, the ceasefire can't take place as long as they're there.
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I mean, the Russians can be on Ukrainian territory.
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Ukrainians can't be on Russian territory, right?
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Well, that is the Russian thinking as always, yes.
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OK, so.
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I still think the wildcard in this negotiation is Trump's personality.
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I don't think that's an original idea particularly, but it's worth highlighting.
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that he doesn't like to be upstaged.
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No.
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The one thing he doesn't want is Putin to come out looking better than he does.
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Whatever you think of Trump's decision-making regarding Ukraine.
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Yeah,
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well,
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the problem was that Trump,
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that is,
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sort of gave away most of his negotiating tactics to the Russians before he even started.
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Which doesn't sound like art of the deal, does it?
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No,
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or it was either some major double bluff,
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which none of the world's experts have been able to see through yet.
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It may be pretend to be weaker than you are and then smack, you know, smack.
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I mean,
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the issue with the problem with all of this or not the problem,
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but the issue is simply this.
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Ukraine is not and is unlikely ever to be in our lifetimes, at least a member of NATO.
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Therefore, as Russia well knows, there's a limited amount of support.
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which Ukraine can expect from anybody else,
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the way of stopping Russia would be militarily,
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but nobody,
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either the United States nor NATO in the wider sense,
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has any desire to go to war with Russia.
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So although Russia is extremely weak financially,
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demographically,
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and obviously militarily,
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there is a limit to how much we can actually do effectively to stop them.
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How weak are they?
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Because...
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It's things and hear things that the Russian economy is doing very well because of
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their energy.
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They've been their gas and oil that they've been able to natural gas and oil.
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They've been able to actually find as many markets and sell as much as they were before.
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They're just not selling it to the West.
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Yeah, well, they're selling to China and India in particular.
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Amongst others, but those are the two.
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China doesn't have any of its own.
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And it's also getting into the European Union as well.
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I mean, that's some, believe it or not.
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It's still some going to the European Union.
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It's still some going to the European Union.
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Germany.
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Well, of course.
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Isn't Germany the main receiver of their natural gas right now?
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I think it is.
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I think it still is, yes.
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I think the plan in the United States, maybe, seems a likely plan is...
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with the deregulation of gas and oil production that Europe can be supplied from
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the United States,
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which has the greatest resources of anyone.
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Well, of course.
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Not even counting Alaska.
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And not to mention, I mean, look at Canada as well.
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And Mexico has oil, too.
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Well, exactly.
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Venezuela has oil.
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I mean, lots of people have oil.
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Well, we don't know whose side Venezuela's on.
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I suppose the United States is still in charge, more or less, of what's happening in Venezuela.
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But it's in the backyard.
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Yes, I suspect.
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Sorry, just to finish off.
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What's going to happen?
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What do you predict is going to happen with these negotiations?
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My prediction is that Putin stalls and pulls out,
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keeps stalling,
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eventually pulls out,
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and is just playing for time.
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I think he is.
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He's already said yes in principle, but there are some details.
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And we'll never know what these details are.
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No,
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I'd tell you what some of the details are that I just came across before we started
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talking today.
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since yesterday when we talked last,
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that is that Ukraine must stand down the mobilization of its army.
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They must stop producing weapons, all kinds of things which are ridiculous.
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Well, exactly.
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They're going to fly.
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That's why I don't think it's going to work.
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So it's not going to work.
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But I mean,
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I think probably Putin is finding it very difficult to know what to do next,
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in all honesty.
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Because if he agrees to peace or a peace deal,
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He then risks the nutters back home who will say he's betrayed Mother Russia.
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If he doesn't agree to a peace deal or even a ceasefire,
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then he's likely to incur the wrath of Donald Trump,
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whatever that means.
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But it will then become a longer war of attrition.
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OK, you are also NATO correspondent, Nicholas.
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I'm going to ask you about that.
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You reported on NATO for several years to then the Middle East.
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And that was a weekly or bi-monthly thing.
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Weekly, weekly.
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Quite a decent-sized segment, you know, on the TV there.
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In English, of course.
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What do you think is NATO's response?
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I need to talk to our friend Anthony McFarlane-Gonzalez,
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who,
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of course,
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is a cybersecurity expert with NATO.
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I'm going to get him and talk to him this week.
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but what do you think is NATO's move right now?
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Well,
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NATO's move right now is rather confused because,
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of course,
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the United States is the major part of NATO,
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and nobody's quite sure what the United States' attitude to all this is,
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other than what's been happening when Saudi Arabia talks between this original or
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this tentative peace deal.
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In terms of Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister's coalition of the willing,
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They had another large 29 nation conference call, I think, yesterday or Friday.
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The upshot was they were going to send when when when peace finally breaks out,
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they'll send a peacekeeping force of 10,000 soldiers,
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which is obviously inadequate.
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And two minesweepers,
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which are ex-Roll Navy minesweepers,
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which were given to the Ukrainian Navy,
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but they're nowhere near Ukraine because since the outbreak of hostilities,
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as is their right and has been their right for donkey's years,
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Turkey has closed the boss for us to warships,
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which it always does in a time of conflict.
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But the point is,
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it's all right these people running around,
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but they're making promises to send soldiers they haven't got.
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to a frontier they can't defend.
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And it may make them all feel better, but it's of very little practical use to anybody.
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And if I can see that and you can see that, I'm sure the Russians can see it.
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The problem is the European Union members of NATO and the European members of NATO
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have allowed both their armed forces,
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but even more importantly,
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their manufacturing,
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their arms manufacturing capability
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to decline to such a large extent over the last couple of decades that it will take
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them years and years and years to be able to make a meaningful contribution.
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So they should start now.
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As you can see, they're still a bit slow at getting started.
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And that is part of it.
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I mean,
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on paper,
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NATO has lots of people available,
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lots of soldiers and sailors and airmen and airwomen,
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et cetera,
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available on paper.
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But in reality, it is slightly different.
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People are finally beginning to wake up.
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But I still don't detect,
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when you read what people are up to,
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I still don't detect any sense of urgency.
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The new German Chancellor is seeking to reverse decades of German fiscal
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conservatism by creating these two large funds,
(00:20:15):
which would allow a rather greater federal borrowing.
(00:20:18):
with a view to being able to spend more on defense.
(00:20:21):
But modern defense is very complicated.
(00:20:25):
It takes years to build up resources.
(00:20:29):
And that is part of the problem now.
(00:20:33):
The country should never have allowed their defense.
(00:20:36):
And to be fair to successive American presidents and military leaders,
(00:20:40):
they've been urging Europe for decades to take defense more seriously.
(00:20:45):
But everybody thought, oh, well, the world is,
(00:20:48):
very safe, and then after 1989, that was it, we've won.
(00:20:52):
And then under Angela Merkel,
(00:20:54):
we can do lots of good deals with the Russians,
(00:20:56):
and the Russians will be so keen to sell us oil and gas,
(00:20:58):
they won't be any trouble to us.
(00:21:01):
And unfortunately, that has not turned out to be the case.
(00:21:05):
And so now everybody's in a bit of a pickle.
(00:21:07):
Yeah, I mean, Merkel was not the right leader.
(00:21:13):
She made a lot of the same mistakes Biden's people made.
(00:21:19):
which riled the German people,
(00:21:24):
preferring foreign immigrants to their own people is not a winning policy.
(00:21:30):
Which brings me to,
(00:21:32):
are you aware that,
(00:21:34):
and this is headlined from a left-wing,
(00:21:37):
or let's say,
(00:21:39):
not conservative website,
(00:21:40):
68 percent,
(00:21:44):
of people disapprove of the Democratic Party.
(00:21:47):
That's all voters.
(00:21:48):
68%.
(00:21:48):
This includes Republicans and Democrats.
(00:21:54):
Of Democrats, only 21% disapprove.
(00:21:56):
40% approve of Democrats.
(00:21:57):
49% of Democrats, which is really bizarre, disapprove of their party.
(00:22:02):
So that
(00:22:12):
shows a shift to the center, strong shift to the center.
(00:22:18):
And yet they're looking for their leadership from the left still.
(00:22:23):
Well, this is the problem.
(00:22:24):
People like Cortez.
(00:22:26):
Well, that would be a disaster, wouldn't it?
(00:22:28):
I mean, that just makes a bad situation worse.
(00:22:30):
I don't think she is.
(00:22:32):
It's worse than Tulsi Gabbard on understanding international policy.
(00:22:36):
Cortez and...
(00:22:38):
that group of three or four congresswomen,
(00:22:41):
one of which who is an extreme Islamicist,
(00:22:44):
who seems to think when the cameras are not on her,
(00:22:47):
quite happy to stand up at rallies and meetings of Muslims and say that America is
(00:22:53):
and should be an Islamic state.
(00:22:55):
These people are extremely dangerous.
(00:22:57):
But you're right, this move to the centre, I mean, I don't see it as a move to the centre.
(00:23:01):
I don't think it's the politicians of either side who've abandoned the centre.
(00:23:06):
The people,
(00:23:06):
both in the United States and the United Kingdom,
(00:23:09):
have always been broadly centrist.
(00:23:12):
Yeah, exactly.
(00:23:14):
But let's describe what that centrism encompasses, because I completely agree.
(00:23:20):
Well, I think there's... They're moderate.
(00:23:23):
People are moderate.
(00:23:24):
Yeah, it means sensible economic policies.
(00:23:27):
It means things working properly.
(00:23:30):
It means not allowing minorities to take the mickey.
(00:23:34):
Essentially,
(00:23:35):
it means no to mass immigration,
(00:23:38):
which is really something the politicians have been too scared to put to the vote
(00:23:44):
because they know the people will reject it.
(00:23:46):
This is not just in the United States or the United Kingdom, across the European Union.
(00:23:50):
Everybody is getting fed up of this.
(00:23:52):
Yeah,
(00:23:52):
well,
(00:23:52):
the problem,
(00:23:53):
the thing is that people forget when they're supporting this mass immigration is
(00:24:00):
that
(00:24:01):
I mean,
(00:24:01):
the argument from the left is,
(00:24:03):
boy,
(00:24:04):
this is interesting,
(00:24:05):
too,
(00:24:06):
because it's not the capitalists who are saying we need illegal immigrants.
(00:24:10):
It's the left wing socialists.
(00:24:11):
They're saying they're particularly pushing the idea.
(00:24:14):
OK, we have a mixed economy.
(00:24:18):
All of us are socialists to a certain extent because of the government programs
(00:24:22):
that we have voted in.
(00:24:24):
And we voted in politicians who created them for almost 100 years.
(00:24:31):
certainly since the 1930s in the West.
(00:24:35):
But we are penalizing the mass of people who want to immigrate through the proper
(00:24:46):
channels and rewarding people who don't do it.
(00:24:50):
With all kinds of things,
(00:24:52):
you know,
(00:24:52):
talking about if you apply in the United States for citizenship,
(00:24:57):
even if you're married to someone,
(00:24:59):
you have to show that you're not going to be a ward of the state, right?
(00:25:03):
Which the state's not going to,
(00:25:04):
you have to show an income,
(00:25:05):
the state's not going to take care of you.
(00:25:07):
But yet all this huge mass of immigration that came in were people just pouring
(00:25:12):
over the border with no checks at all,
(00:25:15):
at all,
(00:25:15):
including during COVID when they weren't even checked for the virus,
(00:25:18):
when everybody else was.
(00:25:20):
This dichotomy is one of the reasons that people want, maybe the chief reason, uh,
(00:25:27):
because people see it in their everyday lives,
(00:25:29):
the unfairness of it,
(00:25:30):
is why people are against the Democrats,
(00:25:34):
because it's a lack of common sense.
(00:25:37):
But it is.
(00:25:37):
I mean,
(00:25:38):
you know,
(00:25:38):
the first thing Keir Starmer's government did in the United Kingdom was the much
(00:25:43):
derided Rwanda scheme,
(00:25:45):
which was beginning to have an effect even before it became operational.
(00:25:48):
And this was proven by the large numbers of migrants who suddenly turned up in Dublin
(00:25:53):
having got themselves to Northern Ireland and cross the border because they were
(00:25:56):
worried if they stayed within the United Kingdom,
(00:25:59):
they would somehow be sent to Rwanda.
(00:26:02):
Keir Starmer, of course, they said this was terrible.
(00:26:04):
So they came and they abandoned it straight away.
(00:26:07):
Interesting to note, interesting to note.
(00:26:10):
that the Italians are wanting to do something similar in Albania.
(00:26:14):
The Germans are looking at a similar scheme somewhere else.
(00:26:16):
The Dutch, the Dutch of all people, are in discussions with a similar scheme with Uganda.
(00:26:22):
The Australian- The Dutch are not the Danes.
(00:26:25):
They're not the Scandinavians.
(00:26:26):
They're much more- And actually, Scandinavians are much more underneath the surface.
(00:26:31):
I mean, they're Vikings.
(00:26:31):
They really don't like other people.
(00:26:35):
Denmark has sort of closed its borders as best it can.
(00:26:38):
Sweden is essentially saying no more asylum people.
(00:26:42):
And they're getting rid of people who are troublemakers, too.
(00:26:45):
Well, we should get rid of people who are troublemakers.
(00:26:49):
What people forget is there are many people who have come legally as immigrants
(00:26:54):
over the last few years,
(00:26:55):
or indeed over a longer period,
(00:26:57):
who are themselves distressed by what is happening because it A,
(00:27:01):
makes their life more difficult.
(00:27:03):
B, they get tarred with the same brush every time something goes wrong.
(00:27:07):
They're stigmatized.
(00:27:08):
Nicholas, you're absolutely right.
(00:27:11):
People think of immigrants,
(00:27:13):
they think all these great guys and women who run the corner shop,
(00:27:16):
who do all these useful jobs,
(00:27:18):
particularly in the case of the,
(00:27:19):
you know,
(00:27:19):
from many years ago,
(00:27:20):
the Ugandan Asians who came to the United Kingdom and become very prominent
(00:27:24):
business people.
(00:27:25):
That's what people think of immigrants.
(00:27:26):
But what we've been getting in recent years, very few have fallen into that category.
(00:27:33):
You get tons of people coming across, don't you, Nicholas?
(00:27:35):
And just to agree with you,
(00:27:37):
Tons of people coming across the board who don't even speak English or even make a
(00:27:42):
rudimentary effort at speaking English.
(00:27:44):
And why are they here?
(00:27:46):
Why are they in Europe?
(00:27:49):
Why are they in the United States?
(00:27:50):
Why?
(00:27:51):
Because of where it's soft touch.
(00:27:53):
I mean,
(00:27:53):
there's a particular problem with the United Kingdom is that English is such a
(00:27:58):
common language that many of them have family or they think if they get to England,
(00:28:01):
they'll be able to be absorbed into the job market more easily because they speak English.
(00:28:06):
And because we have,
(00:28:08):
because of our history,
(00:28:08):
we don't have the same checks and identity checks,
(00:28:12):
which they have in continental Europe.
(00:28:13):
It's very easy for Poland to keep people out,
(00:28:16):
or if they get here,
(00:28:17):
for them not to be able to do anything.
(00:28:19):
Because as you know,
(00:28:19):
in Poland,
(00:28:20):
you need a piece of paper with your name and number on to actually do anything.
(00:28:25):
That's not the case.
(00:28:28):
And this is something which the French have made this point,
(00:28:30):
particularly about the United Kingdom.
(00:28:33):
Please change your...
(00:28:36):
administration.
(00:28:36):
So at the pool,
(00:28:38):
you're not sucking in all these immigrants who are traveling across the continent
(00:28:42):
of Europe to get to the United Kingdom.
(00:28:45):
And it's just so obvious,
(00:28:47):
it beggars belief that last year,
(00:28:51):
the United Kingdom legally allowed 960,000 people into the country.
(00:28:59):
That's about 1.6 percent of the population.
(00:29:01):
So we're getting poorer because if the population grows by 1.6 percent,
(00:29:05):
but the economy grew by half a percent,
(00:29:08):
by definition,
(00:29:09):
on a GDP per capita basis,
(00:29:11):
we're poorer than we were the year before.
(00:29:13):
And how many of those people are productive in terms of working and creating and
(00:29:19):
paying taxes and the rest of it?
(00:29:21):
How many of them are indeed wards of the state?
(00:29:24):
The left doesn't seem to think that's a problem because that's going to be their voters.
(00:29:27):
Let's be frank about it.
(00:29:30):
Yeah.
(00:29:32):
In the United States, they need agricultural workers.
(00:29:34):
OK, that's the big argument from the left.
(00:29:38):
And that sometimes Republicans or somewhat traditionally,
(00:29:45):
I believe,
(00:29:46):
based on research and reading and listening,
(00:29:49):
have considered what they turn a blind eye to it.
(00:29:53):
to some extent,
(00:29:54):
but not 10 million,
(00:29:55):
12 million people in,
(00:29:57):
in a matter of,
(00:29:59):
uh,
(00:30:00):
what a decade,
(00:30:01):
I mean,
(00:30:01):
less than a decade,
(00:30:02):
probably,
(00:30:03):
uh,
(00:30:03):
who knows how many people there are.
(00:30:05):
If you just,
(00:30:07):
what kind of mindset opens the border gates to a flood of people,
(00:30:14):
you don't know who they are,
(00:30:15):
and then you reward them,
(00:30:18):
uh,
(00:30:20):
with entitlements,
(00:30:22):
uh,
(00:30:24):
Allow them to seek refugee status.
(00:30:27):
What kind of country does that and then makes it hard for people to do it legitimately?
(00:30:31):
Yeah, well, it reaches states of absurdity.
(00:30:34):
There's the prime minister of the United Kingdom saying,
(00:30:37):
yippee,
(00:30:38):
we're going to spend six billion pounds more on defense,
(00:30:42):
which is a good thing.
(00:30:42):
It should be 60 billion pounds more, but I take no point on that.
(00:30:46):
Isn't that wonderful?
(00:30:47):
But he actually claimed it's 13 billion, it's 6 billion.
(00:30:50):
At the same time,
(00:30:51):
he is spending and the government is spending eight billion pounds a year on
(00:30:55):
temporary accommodation for folk who arrived by Robert Dini,
(00:30:58):
who shouldn't across the channel,
(00:30:59):
should be there in the first place.
(00:31:01):
Where the you know, we do not.
(00:31:03):
Unfortunately,
(00:31:04):
after years of this nonsense,
(00:31:06):
the country is slowly going bankrupt and people say it's all Brexit.
(00:31:11):
It's not Brexit.
(00:31:12):
This is complete stupidity.
(00:31:14):
Yeah, well, this just came on the heels of Brexit.
(00:31:16):
or in the midst of Brexit.
(00:31:18):
So it looks like it might be Brexit.
(00:31:21):
I mean, Brexit has its pros and cons.
(00:31:23):
But when you throw in,
(00:31:25):
as you say,
(00:31:25):
that this amount of people into...
(00:31:28):
And then we have another problem.
(00:31:31):
We have nine million people of working age who are inactive economically.
(00:31:36):
Nine million.
(00:31:38):
Out of a population?
(00:31:39):
What's your population in the UK?
(00:31:40):
They reckon by the end of the decade,
(00:31:42):
the sickness benefit,
(00:31:43):
which is in addition to the other benefits...
(00:31:46):
will be 100 billion pounds a year, twice a defense budget.
(00:31:51):
This benefit did not exist 10 years ago.
(00:31:55):
What's the GDP of Britain?
(00:31:58):
Is it something like 2.5 trillion dollars, something like that?
(00:32:01):
2.5 trillion?
(00:32:04):
That sounds about right.
(00:32:05):
I don't know immediately, but that sounds about right.
(00:32:09):
The government is spending nearly, the government is spending about a trillion dollars.
(00:32:14):
And everybody gets very excited over saving six billion.
(00:32:19):
Yeah.
(00:32:19):
What's the remedy, though?
(00:32:23):
The remedy, like all remedies, is going to be very painful.
(00:32:27):
But we've reached that point.
(00:32:29):
That's the way it looks, doesn't it?
(00:32:30):
What we need is it's going to be the same shock to the system if anybody's prepared to do that.
(00:32:37):
that Mrs.
(00:32:38):
Thatcher brought when she was prime minister at the beginning,
(00:32:41):
which was terrible,
(00:32:42):
a terrible destruction.
(00:32:43):
In many ways, she went too far with industry, but it's that sort of shock we need.
(00:32:47):
We've got to get people working who are here.
(00:32:50):
We've got to stop taking more people who need to take out more than they can put in.
(00:32:57):
Otherwise, everybody is going to be poor.
(00:32:59):
Well, they are going to be poorer.
(00:33:01):
I mean, these are the facts.
(00:33:04):
Let's be clear.
(00:33:05):
We're not anti-immigration.
(00:33:07):
The declining population in the West,
(00:33:09):
in the United States,
(00:33:11):
in Europe and the United States,
(00:33:13):
we need people to come in.
(00:33:16):
We need the right sort of people.
(00:33:17):
We don't need people full stop.
(00:33:19):
And they have to go through the process.
(00:33:22):
You can't just throw a bunch of people with no connection to the countries they're
(00:33:26):
going to into the mix.
(00:33:27):
So they create ghettos and diasporas that become antithetical to the countries in
(00:33:34):
which they live.
(00:33:36):
That's exactly the point.
(00:33:40):
That's exactly what you get branded as being a racist for saying common sense.
(00:33:45):
But you wouldn't get branded as being a racist if you said if we were if people
(00:33:50):
were invading Rwanda or Kenya or or India or Pakistan.
(00:33:56):
That's all right.
(00:33:56):
That's all right.
(00:33:57):
It's OK for the Africans to throw out Whitey because he's a terrible person.
(00:34:01):
But it's not OK for Whitey in his country to say, hang on a minute.
(00:34:05):
I think we have too many people.
(00:34:07):
Can we just actually have can we have a common sense approach?
(00:34:10):
Stop calling me whitey.
(00:34:12):
You know what I mean?
(00:34:13):
I'm using dramatic language to emphasize the point.
(00:34:17):
All right.
(00:34:17):
Well, let's let's move on from that.
(00:34:19):
I think we've we've exhausted that for now.
(00:34:22):
And it's all food for thought.
(00:34:24):
And some people are going to disagree violently with what we're saying for some unknown reason.
(00:34:30):
And others will say,
(00:34:33):
as Gavin Newsom is beginning to say,
(00:34:35):
the very ultra-liberal governor of California,
(00:34:37):
he's sprinting to the center ahead of a presidential run.
(00:34:42):
So he's now meeting us in the center.
(00:34:45):
We're in the center.
(00:34:48):
We're moderates, centrists.
(00:34:52):
All our lives, we've been probably there.
(00:34:54):
I have.
(00:34:56):
Either a little to the left when I was younger and a little to the right of the center
(00:35:00):
as I got older, but certainly now on the conservative side, but perhaps it comes with age.
(00:35:09):
And losing some,
(00:35:13):
adopting practicality and losing some of the utopianism of youth,
(00:35:19):
which is a necessary part of,
(00:35:22):
that utopianism is perhaps a necessary part of coming of age.
(00:35:27):
At any rate, one must come of age.
(00:35:29):
Now,
(00:35:30):
Uh, I got a few stories here, which are going to blow your mind.
(00:35:35):
Okay.
(00:35:35):
People, the egg price.
(00:35:37):
Have you heard about the egg price in the United States?
(00:35:39):
I haven't.
(00:35:40):
Yeah, I've heard a lot.
(00:35:41):
There's been a lot.
(00:35:41):
It seems to me there's been a lot coming from the United States about the price of eggs.
(00:35:45):
This is becoming a political, a political feature.
(00:35:49):
Can I tell you a little bit about it?
(00:35:51):
Please do.
(00:35:52):
Okay.
(00:35:54):
The facts right in front of me, but no eggs, unfortunately are too expensive.
(00:35:59):
Um,
(00:36:01):
In 2019,
(00:36:02):
pre the pandemic,
(00:36:03):
it was one and a half dollars for a dozen eggs in the United States,
(00:36:08):
which is,
(00:36:09):
I don't know what it is in Poland,
(00:36:10):
it's about two dollars,
(00:36:12):
two and a half dollars in Poland,
(00:36:13):
but Europe's always more expensive.
(00:36:15):
That's what it is now,
(00:36:16):
okay,
(00:36:16):
in Poland and in Central Europe,
(00:36:20):
generally,
(00:36:21):
cheaper in the countryside.
(00:36:24):
In 2025, sorry,
(00:36:28):
2024, it was $3.
(00:36:30):
So double.
(00:36:32):
A year later, it's almost $6.
(00:36:36):
And people are smuggling eggs from Mexico.
(00:36:39):
There's a real thing on the border.
(00:36:41):
No, seriously.
(00:36:42):
There is smuggling eggs from Mexico.
(00:36:45):
And there's a sort of special lookout for egg smugglers, which is the most hilarious thing.
(00:36:52):
I never thought I'd see that.
(00:36:53):
But so many things we never thought we'd see.
(00:36:55):
Unfortunately, yes.
(00:36:57):
And this is just incredible.
(00:36:59):
I heard some of it had to do with avian flu,
(00:37:02):
but I think it's just inflation and the cost of fuel,
(00:37:06):
transport,
(00:37:07):
feed,
(00:37:09):
you know,
(00:37:11):
taking care of the chickens,
(00:37:14):
feeding them and lighting and warming the places where they live and all that sort
(00:37:18):
of thing.
(00:37:18):
So it's about energy, mostly, one would think.
(00:37:22):
And some avian flu, perhaps.
(00:37:25):
But...
(00:37:26):
That's a true thing.
(00:37:26):
On the border there, they are looking not just for drug smugglers, but for egg smugglers.
(00:37:32):
That's incredible.
(00:37:33):
Something I never thought I'd love to see.
(00:37:36):
It never occurred to me to smuggle eggs,
(00:37:38):
but I'll tell you what,
(00:37:39):
if I go to Mexico,
(00:37:43):
I'm going to see how many eggs I can get back in.
(00:37:46):
Because I believe in, being part Scottish, I believe in economy and frugality.
(00:37:54):
Now,
(00:37:55):
Which part is the question?
(00:37:57):
What about... You're aware of Doge, right?
(00:38:01):
And Musk, as the whole world seems to me, as they attack the bureaucracy.
(00:38:06):
Bureaucracy is not democracy, my phrase, if I may.
(00:38:10):
You may.
(00:38:12):
And under that motto,
(00:38:15):
perhaps,
(00:38:16):
we could say that they're attacking the bureaucracy in the United States and trying
(00:38:20):
to reduce it so we can get the debt down and balance the budget
(00:38:24):
Last time it was balanced was under a Democrat.
(00:38:27):
Full credit to Bill Clinton for balancing the budget.
(00:38:31):
He had a Republican Congress, and they worked very hard on doing that back 30 years ago.
(00:38:36):
All right.
(00:38:38):
So 60 percent, though, of Americans are disapproving of the way Musk is doing his job.
(00:38:47):
According to the poll I saw, it may be a left of center poll, but
(00:38:54):
Let's just say, even if it's 50%, a lot of people are unhappy.
(00:39:01):
And it doesn't dovetail exactly with, because we talked about how many people are disappointed.
(00:39:08):
Democrats are disappointed in their own party.
(00:39:10):
So it's not just Democrats.
(00:39:11):
It's Republicans and Democrats who are disapproving of this.
(00:39:19):
You know, 120 years ago, we had the Robert Barron's.
(00:39:24):
in the United States, that was the name for them.
(00:39:27):
The huge, I mean, they weren't billionaires.
(00:39:30):
They were just world owners.
(00:39:33):
The Carnegies, the Rockefellers, the Melons, the Goodyear, all of these families.
(00:39:45):
Pulitzer,
(00:39:46):
who controlled the press,
(00:39:47):
a lot of the press in the United States,
(00:39:50):
along with people like Hearst,
(00:39:52):
who was famously William Randolph Hearst,
(00:39:54):
famously very conservative.
(00:40:02):
These people were attacked.
(00:40:03):
I'm leading to something about Upton Sinclair, the writer.
(00:40:12):
These people were finally corralled by Teddy Roosevelt.
(00:40:16):
A lot of people look back to that time now,
(00:40:19):
looking at the vast wealth,
(00:40:22):
even commensurate wealth,
(00:40:25):
I should say JP Morgan as well,
(00:40:26):
who controlled finance,
(00:40:28):
who actually financed,
(00:40:30):
put together the package for the British so they could run their society during
(00:40:37):
their empire during World War I.
(00:40:41):
These people were attacked by Teddy Roosevelt and introduced the antitrust,
(00:40:48):
the antitrust acts,
(00:40:50):
which broke up,
(00:40:52):
for example,
(00:40:53):
Rockefeller's empire of oil, broke up standard oil in order to allow competition.
(00:41:01):
Anyway,
(00:41:01):
Teddy Roosevelt,
(00:41:03):
a rich man himself,
(00:41:04):
from the very highest elite of the East Coast,
(00:41:10):
Northeast Coast,
(00:41:13):
took a common sense approach and wanted to limit and did limit,
(00:41:18):
in fact,
(00:41:19):
the power of these people.
(00:41:20):
But another thing he did is very, very important.
(00:41:24):
which was protecting workers.
(00:41:25):
He was first reluctant to get involved.
(00:41:29):
But then Upton Sinclair wrote a book called The Jungle about the meatpacking
(00:41:33):
industry in Chicago.
(00:41:34):
Upton Sinclair went to Chicago and worked undercover in a meatpacking plant and saw
(00:41:44):
up close,
(00:41:46):
day by day,
(00:41:48):
what was going on.
(00:41:50):
And there was horrific things were going on,
(00:41:52):
not just the working conditions and the harm to the workers from loss of limbs,
(00:41:59):
from the machines,
(00:42:00):
from problems with the chemicals that were being used in the meatpacking,
(00:42:09):
particularly in the meatpacking process,
(00:42:12):
but in other things as well.
(00:42:15):
Sinclair wrote this serialized
(00:42:19):
articles in a left-wing socialist publication of the time,
(00:42:23):
because this was a time of great socialism,
(00:42:28):
not only in the United States,
(00:42:29):
but in the UK,
(00:42:30):
of course,
(00:42:30):
the Fabian Society,
(00:42:32):
and the leaders of the Webbs and Bernard Shaw,
(00:42:37):
who were trying to make a more palatable,
(00:42:38):
people were trying to make a more palatable version,
(00:42:44):
create a more palatable version of Marxism.
(00:42:49):
which was seen as way too radical to succeed in those countries.
(00:42:57):
But also there were workers' rights that needed to be examined.
(00:43:02):
These people were living and working in horrific conditions, to say the least.
(00:43:08):
Now, this change that was...
(00:43:15):
This desire for change with Teddy Roosevelt created the Pure Food and Drug Act,
(00:43:21):
which regulated the production of drugs.
(00:43:24):
It took cocaine and heroin out of the medicaments you could buy in the local
(00:43:30):
drugstore and regulated those substances.
(00:43:34):
You can say that in some ways it set the groundwork for the abolition of alcohol in
(00:43:41):
1918 or 1919.
(00:43:45):
just after the First World War, last until 1932, the prohibition time.
(00:43:52):
And then regulated all these industries that were slaughtering animals,
(00:44:01):
for example,
(00:44:01):
and then packing the meat.
(00:44:03):
I mean, they would pack spoiled meat, you know, disguised that it was spoiled.
(00:44:09):
I mean, you know, horrific things were going on.
(00:44:11):
Put it in your hot dogs, you know.
(00:44:14):
So.
(00:44:18):
that was an example of regulation on the ultra-rich, which was needed at the time, right?
(00:44:26):
And is it too far to say we need the same thing today?
(00:44:31):
I think not.
(00:44:33):
What say you?
(00:44:34):
I think we certainly do.
(00:44:36):
Yeah.
(00:44:37):
And why?
(00:44:38):
Well, because we have now an imbalance, right?
(00:44:43):
a small number of people,
(00:44:44):
largely American tech billionaires,
(00:44:47):
who have far too much power over most people's daily lives.
(00:44:52):
And we saw during COVID how this power was abused, essentially.
(00:45:00):
But it's now commonly admitted by everybody that this outbreak happened from an outbreak from a
(00:45:09):
Chinese laboratory in Wuhan, as a lot of people said at the time.
(00:45:13):
We weren't allowed to say that, but we said it.
(00:45:15):
At the time, people weren't allowed to say it.
(00:45:17):
They were banned by Facebook and people.
(00:45:20):
Some people probably lost their jobs over this.
(00:45:23):
A lot of people.
(00:45:23):
Now, where is the apology when they were actually merely telling the truth?
(00:45:27):
Where was the debate with the free speech, a different point of view?
(00:45:32):
This is one of the reasons the Democrats were voted out.
(00:45:36):
And it's one of the reasons also that people were
(00:45:39):
disappointed to some extent with the choice that was offered in the last election
(00:45:43):
on both sides,
(00:45:45):
because some of this started under Trump.
(00:45:48):
But really,
(00:45:49):
the draconian stuff started,
(00:45:51):
as we well remember,
(00:45:53):
under the new Biden administration.
(00:45:55):
I mean, you know, and after the vaccine came in.
(00:45:59):
And the trouble is, although they.
(00:46:00):
Many of these people, these businesses have become monopolies.
(00:46:07):
And we know that Teddy Roosevelt saw the disadvantage of monopoly.
(00:46:11):
I mean, take Microsoft.
(00:46:14):
We are having this conversation on Skype, which Microsoft bought.
(00:46:19):
In May, Skype is going to be closed down.
(00:46:22):
You may migrate to a free version of Teams,
(00:46:25):
also run by Microsoft,
(00:46:27):
but it's not as user-friendly.
(00:46:29):
The free version has considerable limitations compared to the paid version, of course.
(00:46:36):
Skype is simple.
(00:46:36):
You
(00:46:37):
Just go online and you press a button and you can call whoever you want to call.
(00:46:41):
And you can't do that with teams.
(00:46:43):
You've got to sort of set up a meeting.
(00:46:44):
You've got to send an email or whatever within your organization.
(00:46:47):
Maybe you can do it slightly differently.
(00:46:50):
But you don't necessarily have a large organization if you and I are not part of
(00:46:56):
the same organization for these purposes.
(00:46:59):
So that's a classic example of a monopoly player actually becoming even more entrenched.
(00:47:05):
Now, Bill Gates may be a wonderful person.
(00:47:07):
This is not a personal attack on Bill Gates.
(00:47:11):
But the point is,
(00:47:13):
what is even more insidious is a lot of these companies are then providing their
(00:47:20):
services to governments.
(00:47:22):
And they are running government services as well.
(00:47:26):
And then you are forced to use them.
(00:47:27):
You are forced,
(00:47:28):
in many cases,
(00:47:29):
if you wish to communicate with your bank,
(00:47:31):
if you wish to communicate with
(00:47:33):
increasingly with governments,
(00:47:35):
you're forced to have a smart telephone and you're forced,
(00:47:38):
therefore,
(00:47:38):
to use whatever programs these are,
(00:47:40):
often provided by the same people.
(00:47:42):
Facebook is another example.
(00:47:44):
They take your data and they sell it and they make money out of you.
(00:47:50):
And there's very little control you have over how they use that data.
(00:47:55):
And you don't know how secure it is ultimately.
(00:47:59):
You don't know.
(00:48:00):
And of course, governments, even
(00:48:02):
Governments can see this and they want to be in on it as well.
(00:48:06):
They want this untrammeled power.
(00:48:07):
They see what the Chinese are doing and they'd like to do it themselves.
(00:48:11):
Hence this.
(00:48:12):
I mean, in the United Kingdom, a country where they should know better.
(00:48:15):
Hence legislation now,
(00:48:16):
which forces trying to force Apple to give up the encryption of of certain services
(00:48:25):
so that they allegedly the police or whatever can
(00:48:28):
can track down pedophiles.
(00:48:30):
The reality is the police and others have plenty of powers which they failed to use already,
(00:48:35):
but they always want more power.
(00:48:36):
And the only people who ever suffer from these abuses of power are normal people
(00:48:39):
going about their daily lives because they're the targets.
(00:48:45):
And the whole thing is just getting far too powerful.
(00:48:47):
So we need to break up.
(00:48:48):
We need to have a Teddy Roosevelt type approach.
(00:48:52):
It's not hostility to capitalism.
(00:48:55):
It's not hostility to the people running these businesses.
(00:48:59):
It is just unhealthy.
(00:49:00):
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
(00:49:03):
Whether you're a president,
(00:49:05):
a prime minister,
(00:49:06):
or the chief executive or major shareholder of a company for which a large part of
(00:49:13):
the world's population is either dependent or forced to use you.
(00:49:20):
You and I might like to use it.
(00:49:21):
You and I might like to use Skype,
(00:49:23):
but Skype was bought by Microsoft and we are now forced to use Microsoft.
(00:49:27):
Well, do we need someone.
(00:49:30):
Walking behind these people,
(00:49:32):
these billionaires behind the president as well,
(00:49:34):
he's a billionaire,
(00:49:36):
saying,
(00:49:36):
whispering in their ear,
(00:49:37):
you are just a man.
(00:49:39):
We do.
(00:49:40):
I think we do.
(00:49:41):
I mean, it cannot be.
(00:49:44):
It is simply not healthy that any individuals have so much power.
(00:49:51):
unless they are particularly focused on not abusing that power.
(00:49:55):
I mean,
(00:49:56):
you know,
(00:49:56):
you might take it if you look at the current crop of American billionaires,
(00:49:59):
the one who probably is not abusing his power,
(00:50:02):
not even in the economic sense,
(00:50:04):
is Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway,
(00:50:07):
because that's purely an investment.
(00:50:09):
company, and they're just very successful at buying other people's businesses.
(00:50:13):
But he's not trying to create a monopoly, as far as I'm aware.
(00:50:17):
He and the late Charlie Munger were very good at spotting businesses which could
(00:50:23):
make a good return for shareholders.
(00:50:26):
That's a slightly different approach.
(00:50:28):
But Microsoft or these others,
(00:50:32):
I don't deny they make good stuff and we all use it,
(00:50:35):
but there was no need for Microsoft to buy Skype.
(00:50:39):
for example, and then close it down.
(00:50:41):
I mean, that just shows what they would their mentality.
(00:50:45):
I agree.
(00:50:45):
They didn't ask anybody if they liked Skype.
(00:50:48):
You know, we've been using Skype forever.
(00:50:50):
They did a similar thing.
(00:50:51):
They've often done these weird things like.
(00:50:55):
Forcing change on you with word.
(00:50:57):
I mean, when you're already happy.
(00:51:00):
Changing the way your email works without notice or with very brief notice.
(00:51:07):
It's it's it's.
(00:51:09):
It's as if, you know, forget.
(00:51:11):
Look, you have no choice.
(00:51:13):
So we're going to tell you what to do, which is wrong on the face of it.
(00:51:17):
The head of Microsoft actually is Satya Nadella.
(00:51:21):
I had to look that up because I knew.
(00:51:23):
I don't know what I said.
(00:51:23):
I said Cook, but he's the head of Apple.
(00:51:25):
He's the head of Apple, yeah.
(00:51:27):
Yeah.
(00:51:27):
So it's Satya Nadella.
(00:51:29):
And the head of Microsoft AI is Mustafa Suleiman.
(00:51:36):
Interestingly.
(00:51:39):
interesting the uh uh i didn't i didn't remember that i didn't remember that you
(00:51:47):
know but pays to you know this is business stuff and you it's a whole nother world
(00:51:51):
that you have to follow to keep up with it you need to follow it on a daily basis
(00:51:56):
to keep up with what's happening with stocks but i mean the point is the ai the ai
(00:52:01):
services are used by government and at what point
(00:52:04):
is government,
(00:52:05):
if it's dependent on Microsoft AI for a lot of its government services,
(00:52:10):
at what point is government able to turn around to Microsoft and say,
(00:52:13):
oh,
(00:52:13):
by the way,
(00:52:14):
we think certain things should not work in the public interest.
(00:52:18):
And they'll say, hey, we're going to turn off your computers.
(00:52:22):
This is an argument which Trump made when it came to using the Chinese software.
(00:52:29):
We couldn't use Chinese software for our 5G system because
(00:52:32):
That was likely to be controlled by the Chinese government, which is obviously not a good idea.
(00:52:38):
But ultimately, if it's about the abuse of power or the potential abuse of power, a U.S.
(00:52:45):
tech billionaire, we assume he's been brought up and is a subscriber to the U.S.
(00:52:50):
view of democracy, et cetera, et cetera, is a thoroughly good egg.
(00:52:55):
And therefore, you have to assume that.
(00:52:57):
But the problem is power corrupts, right?
(00:52:58):
Power corrupts.
(00:53:02):
We can't assume that any longer.
(00:53:04):
It's the old axiom that you brought up.
(00:53:06):
I mean, it's almost a cliche at this point.
(00:53:09):
I mean, everybody's heard it.
(00:53:12):
And when you look at what is happening today,
(00:53:27):
and particularly with AI,
(00:53:30):
it seems as if what if power
(00:53:32):
and AI develops its own.
(00:53:35):
If power does corrupt and absolute power,
(00:53:39):
what happens when AI gets absolute power and you can't shut it off?
(00:53:43):
Like in 2001,
(00:53:45):
which was made in 1968 or 67,
(00:53:46):
the late 60s,
(00:53:51):
and Arthur C.
(00:53:52):
Clarke wrote about the computer HAL and saw,
(00:53:57):
and that's obviously an AI type of invention,
(00:54:00):
that computer,
(00:54:01):
and saw that it could develop a mind of its own.
(00:54:05):
That's a long time ago.
(00:54:07):
It's rather like the H.G.
(00:54:08):
Wells stuff looking at the future.
(00:54:12):
So this is something that we're facing a lot of howls, you know, in our own homes, perhaps.
(00:54:22):
And you say if the corporation and the corporation do control AI,
(00:54:27):
which means they can take over your computer if they want.
(00:54:30):
Well, they can and they probably do.
(00:54:33):
Yeah.
(00:54:35):
Yeah.
(00:54:36):
Or your telephone or all these sorts of things.
(00:54:39):
Oh, the telephone is obvious.
(00:54:40):
I mean, there's no security on a telephone whatsoever.
(00:54:44):
If anybody has your number, there's no security.
(00:54:48):
But the point is, in many cases, you cannot increasingly access even normal daily services.
(00:54:57):
without um a smartphone i was trying to do something on a uk government website but
(00:55:04):
it i had to download again i had to have a smartphone to do this yeah and they want
(00:55:09):
to they want you to go paperless which i think is just an excuse for more control i
(00:55:13):
mean it's likely oh no paperless it's good for the economy but now we grow a lot of
(00:55:19):
trees i mean trees are harvested by the big
(00:55:21):
companies like United Paper.
(00:55:23):
But it's not that good because,
(00:55:24):
you know,
(00:55:25):
if you think of the amount of energy now,
(00:55:29):
which these servers require to keep cool,
(00:55:33):
they're using huge amounts of energy.
(00:55:36):
Right.
(00:55:36):
If you're talking about sustainability,
(00:55:38):
I think chopping down a tree,
(00:55:40):
turning it into paper,
(00:55:42):
recycling your paper is probably more sustainable.
(00:55:46):
The paper is ultimately recyclable because even if it goes into the as trash,
(00:55:52):
it disintegrates rapidly.
(00:55:53):
Well,
(00:55:54):
essentially,
(00:55:54):
I mean,
(00:55:54):
no doubt the economists or the biologists will tell us we're completely wrong.
(00:55:58):
But I mean, time scale apart, it actually, you know, we have a we have a huge problem.
(00:56:05):
We're completely wrong for sure.
(00:56:07):
Yeah.
(00:56:07):
But I mean,
(00:56:08):
what we need,
(00:56:09):
of course,
(00:56:09):
is the secret of any any economic development in the history of mankind.
(00:56:15):
has been energy.
(00:56:17):
And the leap forward in the Industrial Revolution,
(00:56:21):
for example,
(00:56:22):
in the early part of our human existence,
(00:56:25):
you had to gather firewood.
(00:56:28):
And you gathered firewood and you burned a fire.
(00:56:31):
But the energy you got from burning the firewood was actually not dissimilar from
(00:56:37):
the energy you had to expend to collect the firewood.
(00:56:40):
The great leap forward came with the Industrial Revolution when the energy you got from coal
(00:56:45):
was far greater than the energy required to mine the coal.
(00:56:50):
I mean, this is a great leap forward.
(00:56:52):
And similarly with nuclear power.
(00:56:55):
And what we need is, you know, that's why we should move to nuclear power, in fact.
(00:56:59):
Because without,
(00:57:01):
the reason our economies are stagnating is we're reaching this point where we
(00:57:06):
haven't got enough energy to get things done properly.
(00:57:11):
We can't make these leaps forward in the same way we used to be able to.
(00:57:13):
That's a very good point, eloquently put.
(00:57:17):
Really nice, nice point.
(00:57:20):
I do try.
(00:57:22):
Pretty good.
(00:57:22):
Have you done this before?
(00:57:25):
Every night, I think, during the week.
(00:57:27):
But no,
(00:57:29):
one other thing before we go,
(00:57:31):
because we've run an hour and almost an hour and 10 minutes.
(00:57:38):
Hot coffee.
(00:57:39):
Do you remember the story of the McDonald's coffee back in the late 90s?
(00:57:43):
Oh, yes.
(00:57:45):
something around there a lady had hot coffee spent on her and she got you know a
(00:57:50):
couple million dollars or whatever it was from mcdonald's a lot of money because of
(00:57:54):
hot coffee uh a fellow was in a was in a starbucks and ordered some coffee and they
(00:58:02):
put it in one of those takeaway uh trays right and apparently the lid on one of
(00:58:09):
them was not securely put down which
(00:58:12):
I should be suing a lot of coffee, people, because it's happened to me a bunch of times.
(00:58:15):
But apparently he spilled it into his lap and burned his genitalia.
(00:58:21):
I don't know if he was naked or he had on very thin trousers,
(00:58:27):
but that was some pretty hot coffee,
(00:58:29):
wasn't it?
(00:58:31):
Anyway, he's been awarded $50 million by a jury.
(00:58:36):
Yeah, but presumably that'll be reduced on appeal because that's just crazy.
(00:58:40):
It is crazy,
(00:58:40):
but it makes me think about buying a lot of coffee in Starbucks and spilling it on
(00:58:48):
myself inadvertently or having trying to take the tray and then and then suing Starbucks.
(00:58:55):
What do you think?
(00:58:55):
I shouldn't have said that because it's.
(00:58:58):
Well, I think I should have said it live on.
(00:59:01):
But I think a lot of these cases from an English legal point of view are just nonsense.
(00:59:08):
If you buy a hot coffee, then you have to be careful.
(00:59:10):
And if I spill the coffee, I can't believe it.
(00:59:14):
I don't want to buy a cold coffee, do I?
(00:59:16):
I wouldn't be into a coffee shop to buy a cold coffee.
(00:59:18):
I mean, what temperature do people think they're getting their coffee for?
(00:59:21):
And if I spill it, that's my thing.
(00:59:22):
Actually, I have spilled Starbucks coffee and McDonald's coffee on myself.
(00:59:27):
And I can tell you, it smarted a little bit, but didn't burn me through my clothes.
(00:59:32):
I mean, that coffee would almost have to be on fire, wouldn't it?
(00:59:35):
Well, I'd have thought so.
(00:59:38):
I think in the United States you have a different mentality.
(00:59:44):
The United States takes you that everything in life that is unfortunate in your
(00:59:50):
life is the fault of somebody else who can be sued when you can find a lawyer to do it.
(00:59:54):
And you have a system of contingency fees or fees where you only pay your lawyer if
(01:00:00):
you win and he takes 40% or she takes 40%.
(01:00:01):
And you have a much lower...
(01:00:06):
social security system,
(01:00:09):
much lower social security funds available to help people get over the wrongs in life.
(01:00:15):
So you've gone a slightly different way from continental Europe, it seems to me.
(01:00:20):
But whenever I read of these cases in the newspapers,
(01:00:24):
I'm always just appalled at the sheer disproportion of the financial
(01:00:34):
which is given to somebody for what appears to be a minor accident.
(01:00:38):
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you.
(01:00:42):
I agree with you, but I am going to Google the nearest Starbucks and go over there immediately.
(01:00:47):
Yes, well.
(01:00:48):
The thunderstorm is finished.
(01:00:50):
Well, I think it has.
(01:00:52):
So I'm going to,
(01:00:53):
maybe I'll cycle over there and,
(01:00:58):
you know,
(01:00:58):
sort of trip while they're handing it to me.
(01:01:03):
For me, I just find it just remarkable.
(01:01:07):
You're not going to do that?
(01:01:08):
You're not going to try it out?
(01:01:09):
No, I'm not going to do that, no.
(01:01:12):
No.
(01:01:13):
I'm not.
(01:01:14):
All right.
(01:01:15):
Do you think I should?
(01:01:17):
Well, you're an American.
(01:01:18):
I'm a free agent.
(01:01:20):
You're an American in the United States.
(01:01:21):
That's kind of the way you folk do this sort of stuff.
(01:01:25):
That's true.
(01:01:26):
I mean, I wouldn't be American if I didn't at least try it.
(01:01:29):
Well, that's exactly the point, isn't it?
(01:01:31):
Although I did feel a lot of sympathy for the fellow, you know, who burned his privates.
(01:01:39):
Well, yeah, but he spilled the coffee.
(01:01:43):
It wasn't the Starbucks people had spilled it.
(01:01:46):
I know, that's the hazy part.
(01:01:48):
It seems as if the Starbucks employee may have aided the spillage,
(01:01:54):
you know,
(01:01:54):
at the moment of taking it.
(01:01:56):
The lid was slightly off and then it tilted.
(01:01:59):
You see, this has all been worked out.
(01:02:01):
We'd have to read the transcript.
(01:02:02):
We would have to.
(01:02:04):
But $50 million.
(01:02:05):
I think it's a movie of the week myself.
(01:02:07):
Yeah, but $50 million is just wasting everybody's time, isn't it?
(01:02:12):
It's just completely ridiculous.
(01:02:13):
I don't know.
(01:02:14):
Maybe if you gave him a couple hundred bucks, that'd be about right.
(01:02:18):
Well, yeah, or you offered to buy him a new pair of shorts or trousers or whatever.
(01:02:22):
Make him a lifetime member of Starbucks.
(01:02:24):
Yeah, the whole thing is just completely disproportionate.
(01:02:28):
Anyway, you want to add anything?
(01:02:31):
Is there anything you want to talk about?
(01:02:33):
No, I think we're now left with this enduring image of genitalia damaged by Starbucks coffee.
(01:02:42):
Yeah, I mean, I find it disturbing.
(01:02:44):
But, you know, we live in a disturbing world and we're going to have to live with it.
(01:02:47):
Yeah,
(01:02:49):
and who knows what this next week will bring because it seems that the world
(01:02:52):
changes very rapidly.
(01:02:54):
Yeah, I think by the time we talk next week, half of what we said could be totally redundant.
(01:03:00):
Anyway, that doesn't seem to bother anyone else.
(01:03:03):
So why should it bother us?
(01:03:05):
I'm Will Richardson here.
(01:03:07):
He's Nicholas Richardson.
(01:03:11):
We'll see you next time.
(01:03:12):
Okay, great.
(01:03:15):
Cheers, Nicholas.
(01:03:15):
Bye.
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