Financial Mail Row, The DA's Western Cape Disaster and UK Cabinet Reshuffle

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Have you been following this mad fight around the new financial mail group? Yes. It's put together by, as far as I understand, by a chap I think I've only met him once called Charles Petit, and he's a very successful business person and investor, and hugely committed to South Africa's success and actually willing to do something about it. And he thought the best thing to do might be to resuscitate the business media. So he set up to buy the financial mail and he took over the currency new startup, whose guys we know a bit, and mining MX and put them together in a new media group, which is a very good thing to do. And then they tweeted or whatever one does, a picture of their newsroom, which seemed to be all whites and, you know, the world came to it. And then the idea is even put out there by the critics that if you distill down what they're saying, that blacks and whites think differently about finance, investment, and economics. And therefore, and this stuff doesn't cross pollinate things. So what whites want to read about investment and finance and economics is different to others. Yeah, but who's saying that? [00:01:53] Speaker 2: It's like the likes of Redi Klabi and Roshni and Kumzile Van Damme. What do they know? Yeah. [00:01:59] Speaker 1: And you know, we're going to write an editorial about the new financial mail group. I think it gets published the next day or two. And it says, you know, how should society respond to what this petite guy is doing? And you should say, great, thank you very much for being so committed to the country that you're prepared to do this. You could actually spend your life running your own successful businesses and investing in much more lucrative projects. And thank you for doing this. And we look forward to reading it. And it might be very interesting. This is what you do if you're not trying to break it down immediately. It's very bad. So we wish these guys really, like, I hope they're really successful. Exactly. [00:03:01] Speaker 2: And they do great. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And just a word of advice to them. Don't apologize. Don't ever apologize in the way that they have. I mean, you know, that was a goodwill, well-intended thing to say, sorry, we got this one wrong. You've got people there like Anne Crotty, like Tim Cohn, very, very serious journalists. Just forget about it. It's noise. Yeah. [00:03:30] Speaker 1: They're real ink in their blood journalists. They're almost none of those. Absolutely. Not upstarts that think they can just get a media platform going off the cuff one afternoon and start a podcast. These are the real deal, these guys. Yeah. You know, really. There's certainly a place for them. And we hope you guys all do absolutely great and really look forward to reading what you put out. [00:04:00] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Simon, it was a shame. We missed you last week and we missed covering Anne Whittacombe. Yeah. But just, could you tell us a little bit about that in this opening bit now? [00:04:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, sure. Look, I'm not going to go into much detail, but in between all that happens, and Anne Whittacombe was a member of parliament for the Conservative Party. She then was a Brexit Party member of the European Parliament and probably the most influential woman in Conservative politics since Margaret Thatcher. She was murdered on the 8th of July at her home on the fringes of Dartmoor in Devon. She wasn't just murdered. She was beaten with a hammer 21 times. She was 78 years old. Defenseless. She lived alone. Now, this is a very serious issue for this country because it's the third political assassination in less than a decade. And it's the second high-profile Conservative in five years. And I'm afraid, like now we're talking about the media and so on, I've noticed something which I thought would be remiss of me to exclude. And that is if you look at the way the media speaks about people like Nigel Farage and the language that is employed, such as traitor, racist. That's what you get. And I see that same language being used against the likes of Afri Forum and Solidarity in South Africa. And you want to know where it gets to. Look what happened to Anne Whittacombe. It's incredibly sad. The guy is in court. There are all sorts of stories about him being a committed Marxist, being a member of one of the mainstream left-wing political parties here. But Max Dupree, Adrian Bascon, and Peter de Toye. You want to know where the destination ends for calling people these names. It ended on the 8th of July in Devon. Take a look at that. See if that's what you want. Gabriel. [00:06:15] Speaker 3: Yeah. No. I mean, it's kind of, what's nice is this week we're going to talk about, and a little bit later, Richard will be telling us about Marco Rubio's speech about far-left violence. But it is extraordinary, especially given how remarkably peaceful the last few hundred years of British politics has been. [00:06:38] Speaker 4: And, Simon, it's the Dorset police, right? They came out almost immediately and said this is not a terrorist act. How did they know? [00:06:47] Speaker 2: Well, Rich… [00:06:48] Speaker 4: On what basis did they say that? [00:06:50] Speaker 2: So, Rich, the answer to your question lies in the grading that was released last year, marking them the worst out of all Britain's constabularies. So, you're starting off a very low bar. And secondly, the police now, it is evidence. They will lie about anything. And they'll admit they'll lie if they think that there's the possibility of riots emerging from statements to the contrary or the truth being disclosed. And so they came out with this rubbish. You know, think about it, guys. You beat an elderly woman over there with a hammer 21 times. What do you think she looks like? Do you think that looks like someone fell down the stairs or got chicken pops or something like that? Okay, no, no, no, no, no. They knew that when her body was found that something had happened. And we were only told on Friday afternoon. They arrested completely the wrong guy. And then they arrested on the Saturday night last week. They picked up the actual dude in Rotherham. He had driven a round trip that you would take 10 hours to do. 500 miles. No, 600 miles. About 305 miles there, 305 miles back. He drove in his little red courser from Rotherham to where she lived in Hayden, Devon. There's something very, very wrong here. [00:08:17] Speaker 1: Gabriel, you just spoke to, just while we're in the UK, let's just quickly go there. You've just come off a recording with Lord Hannah. [00:08:28] Speaker 3: Indeed. Our good friend who is the director of the Institute of Economic Affairs. And the conversation was very interesting. He had a lot to say that was in agreement with stuff we've talked about here. One of the big problems of the UK being one, the government's just continually like splashing cash everywhere. So the huge amount of government expenditure. And then the other problem being the net zero stuff that has driven up the cost of energy completely. And so I asked him, does he see, you know, much hope in the new prime minister in the UK? And he was not particularly optimistic. But as he said, he said he's part of a think tank. So he is now, he had his party blood horribly cauterized from his veins. So he wishes our PM the best and hopes that he does as well as he possibly can. [00:09:31] Speaker 1: Well, that's probably the right way. He heads the most important and storied of the UK's think tanks. That was extremely important to the ideas that underpinned Thatcher. And there probably isn't a more important moment for that experience to be repeated than now. Exactly. [00:09:55] Speaker 2: While we hear Gabriel, there's also been another announcement. The Center for Policy Studies has appointed BM Halligan as its director. And they were looking for a number of months. And I promise you that guy is the most economically literate commentator in studying the UK economy. That's a really strong appointment. I think Elliot and Cohen must be thrilled because that's real substance. And you need that because of what's coming down the line. Yeah. [00:10:27] Speaker 1: Our sense when we were all there a little while back was that the way back for the UK must begin with the rebuilding of the institutions that will then create the ideas that will become necessary to inform the policies that are necessary in order to get it back on track again. Yeah. And when I first sort of started looking at the UK a few years ago, I was amazed at how little investment goes into their policy groups and their think tanks, particularly relative to what happens in the United States. Yeah. And it actually starting to look like that is, I mean, it's nowhere near where it should be, and a lot more needs to be done. But it's starting to look as if that, I mean, it's looking better than it looked three or four or five years ago when we first started looking really seriously at it. [00:11:18] Speaker 3: Yes. Good. Definitely. [00:11:21] Speaker 1: All right. [00:11:22] Speaker 3: Yes. For Richard's sake, I've got to get the main show going. I've got a meeting. Richard's got more important people to speak to. Yes. [00:11:35] Speaker 1: Okay. Well, let's not keep him. [00:11:37] Speaker 3: Exactly. Well, hello to all of those of you endowed with common sense. You're listening to the finest current affairs broadcast in the world. This is the Talking Sense podcast. In this podcast, we have gathered a panel of brilliant South African born thinkers to talk, to try and talk some sense about what is happening in South Africa and across the world. This week, we will be talking about new research on the Hope Field site, the United Kingdom's new prime minister, the democratic socialists of America, Israel's deadly public opinion problem, the IDAC debacle, and South Africa's black engineers. The panel we have gathered this week to tackle these topics begins in Bremen, Germany, with James Mayberg. Hopping across the Atlantic to Washington, it is Richard Trent. Staying in America, we have France Grenier. And we are back across to London for Simon Lincoln reader. And of course, for me, Gabriel Macon. Before we get into today's topics, though, ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to remind you that if you appreciate what we're doing here at The Common Sense, please like this video and subscribe to our channel. And also, please check out our website at www.thecommonsense.co.za, where writing will cover basically every subject that we talk about on the podcast today. So with all of that out the way, I'm going to start with you, James, because your colleague at Politics Web, Mary Louise Antoine, has written a follow-up on the Western Cape ecological disaster story, the Hopefield story. Can you just tell us about that? [00:13:17] Speaker 5: Yeah, just to remind listeners that there's this planned synthetic aviation fuel plant for the small town in the Western Cape, on the West Coast called Hopefield, which is on a very, very sensitive biodiversity area. It gives its name to the Hopefield Sand Faneboss, which is an endangered form of faneboss all around it. And there's this effort to build this, what's called a synthetic aviation fuel plant, just to the north of the town and then surround it with thousands of hectares of solar panels, which are going to have to mean the clearing of a similar amount of faneboss land. And it's just a totally inappropriate place to do that from an environmental point of view. It has huge long-term risks going forward. It threatens two Ramsar wildlife sanctuaries for the lifetime of its operation if anything goes on. So it's an abomination. My colleague Maurice and Tony did a very deep sort of investigation into the origins of that. And essentially, just remember, the people of this town, of this area, and of the West Coast more generally, were essentially told about this in, I think, April this year when they were giving 30 days to comment on the two aspects of the project. There's a third aspect, which is a carbon biomass boiler, which they haven't yet been told about. So even now, they haven't been told about the full extent of this. And she went back through the record to try and find out, you know, trace it back to its source. And what emerges from that is the DA Western Cape government have known about this for years. And they've been boosting it for years. You know, boasting about all the investment that's coming. But without, you know, taking the time to tell the people of the town whose lives are going to be upended that this is what's coming to them. So on the one hand, you had all these summits, you had Alan Windy, you know, welcoming this investment in 2023. And yet it's keeping the ordinary people, the little people in complete ignorance for three years, and then giving them 30 days to comment, you know, a few months ago. [00:15:56] Speaker 3: And so why is it that the Western Cape government has done it like this? Does you, does Mary Louise get to that? [00:16:05] Speaker 5: Well, they, you know, she submitted a lot of questions to them and they came back with very sort of shift, quite sort of shifty answers. You know, you know, there was the Saldana Bay industrial development zone, which was set up, I think, in 2012. And it never attracted investment. It was just a money sink for the Western Cape government. And so when these Europeans come along and say, well, we need you to produce lots of green hydrogen for us. And then this is sort of a scene as a sort of lifesaver. But yeah, there's a lot of questions. I mean, she did ask, when did you know that this was going to be located in Hopefield? And sort of, there was a sort of shifty answer that came back. So it's a government that's sort of not being honest with its own people and not consulting them up front and saying, well, look, this is what we planned. But these are consequences. So you keep the people who are going to be harmed by it in the dark for three years and then give them 30 days notice to comment. It's a very strange way to run a democracy. Let me put it that way. [00:17:18] Speaker 3: One of the interesting things in reading about this was that it seems as though the initial suggestion might have been that the plant would be in the Saldana Bay industrial development zone, the special economic zone, the SEZ or IDZ or whatever. And then at some point it's moved and it's like, and no one is consulted in the moving or what, you know, what's that about? [00:17:44] Speaker 5: Well, look, you have an industrial development zone, which has been a complete failure up until now. So when people hear about Saldana and industrial development, they obviously think, well, obviously, it's going to go into the dedicated industrial zone. But that would add a lot of costs. So it's the low cost option is to put the plant next to the solar panels. And that's the option they went for. But that's from an environmental and planning point of view. So it means trampling over all your prior, you know, spatial planning, all your environmental sort of codes, all that sort of thing. [00:18:22] Speaker 3: Richard, do you want to say something? [00:18:24] Speaker 4: No, I'm just, no, I just, this whole thing is so strange to me. When I first moved back to South Africa from the UK, I had a job for about a year working for some environmental consultants. And I can remember, you know, on much smaller, less significant projects, going and doing community consultations and spending months and months talking to everybody and getting consensus and spinning out reports and doing videos and all sorts of things. It just seems like this has all been thrown out the window for this. And it just makes me very curious as to what's behind discarding all these laws. I mean, there are laws about this that we had to comply with and what's going on? [00:19:10] Speaker 2: I'll second that, Rich, by saying that I've done environmental authorizations in the Western Cape before, and they are by far the more rigorous in the country. And you have to get all sorts of, you have to get the Aviation Authority approval. You have to get, they found Leopard Square on one of the areas that took months to rectify that and mitigate. So it is, and I've told James this, we've spoken, and it just seems to be happening at a pace that's alien if you look at what people have done, had to do previously. [00:19:46] Speaker 5: Well, yeah, but it's, you know, the EU's put huge efforts to try and sort of get South Africa to, you know, they're exporting this environmental devastation to South Africa to save them a bit of money on their crazy sort of net zero mandates. And South Africa, the government, national government, provincial government, local government seem to have all bought into it. But I think it's a problem. I mean, you know, the legitimacy of a government, I think, rests on two things. One is that it knows, it's seen as it's, it knows what it's doing. And the second thing is that it's acting in the interests of its people. And when those two things go, then its support will vanish. And that's what happened with the ANC, obviously. And I think it's, the DA needs to think very carefully about this because they're not acting in the interests of the people of the Western, certainly not of the people of the West Coast. I think the idea that this is going to create lots of jobs is going to destroy lots of jobs in the existing economy and create sort of marginal jobs. And the benefits are going to mostly be overseas to the degree that there are benefits. So I think this is a real challenge for the DA. They really need to seriously reconsider what they're doing here. [00:21:10] Speaker 3: You know, what was great about Mary Louise's latest piece was that she also pointed out how the DA had gone to campaign in Hopefield and the constant messaging about how important the natural, you know, the Fanebos and the natural vista of the area is. And they seem to, you know, it's the complete opposite. They're doing the complete opposite to what they're saying in that instance. [00:21:39] Speaker 5: Well, Alan Windy was there last year. There's a Hopefield Fanebos Festival, which is scheduled at the end of August every year. So this, you know, this goes ahead. This is the last year for that, because two sides of the town are about to be surrounded by these massive solar panel arrays. So, yeah, I mean, he came there, praised the organizers of the Fanebos Festival. Didn't tell them, look, but we're planning to, you know, obliterate the two sides of your town and cover them with solar panels. So it's a real sort of, yeah, I don't know what they think they're doing. [00:22:23] Speaker 4: My years ago, a friend of mine here, Paul Driessen, wrote a great book called Eco-Imperialism. And it's the way in which Western progressives export their ideas on environmental purity, whatever, you know, so they can feel good with themselves. But it's the poor of the world that pay the price. And it sounds like this is a great example of eco-imperialism and that the fact that the government is involved in this is utterly shameful. [00:22:47] Speaker 2: James, Mari-Louise is doing exceptional work. She's probably one of the best investigative journalists, certainly one of my favorite investigative journalists in the country. So she's got all our support here. [00:22:58] Speaker 3: Richard, the term I prefer is green colonialism, because I think this is exactly what it is. [00:23:07] Speaker 2: Watermelons. Green on the outside, red on the inside. Yes. [00:23:13] Speaker 3: Well, exactly. Well, I think that's a good place for us to move along. And we're going to turn our attention internationally. And first, we're going to the United Kingdom, where at the beginning of this week, Simon, we got a new prime minister. And this seems to have not affected your plans to get away from the country as quickly as possible. I hope that he proves to be a bit more effective than the last guy. But can you tell us about this man, Andy Burnham and his new team? [00:23:47] Speaker 2: So Andy Burnham, and I think we've discussed this in minor detail previously, but Andy Burnham is a longstanding labor profile who emerged in the late 1990s as part of Tony Blair's cohort and has been sticking around there. He was with Gordon Brown when Brown there. He was with Gordon Brown when Brown succeeded Blair. And he's a guy from the north, which makes him much more accessible and authentic than most of the guys that they've had in 10 Downing Street since. But he obviously has ambitions and he was very unhappy with the way that Keir Starmer was running the government, especially as it related to the electoral losses that they were suffering in council elections. And he assumed a seat that was vacated for him by a guy called Josh Simons and he contested the Makerfield election and he won, which allowed him to become an MP, which essentially allowed him to challenge. As soon as that happened, he announced that he would challenge and Keir Starmer resign. That was some weeks ago. Now, just in terms of the change of the government's appearance, he's very wisely kept the Home Secretary, and I have to credit Starmer for this. She's probably the best cabinet minister that we've had, certainly that I've had over the 10 years that I've been here. Her name is Shabana Mahmood. And she's said a couple of lively things about fighting for Gaza in the past. I don't really think that that's important in the measure of her capabilities because she's done an extraordinary job at enforcing rules that everyone else apparently doesn't think are important. And he sacked Rachel Reeves. Fantastic. It's like the best news that the economy could have had. And she was just a disaster. But Rachel from accounts has a sister called Ellie from compliance. And Ellie Reeves is her sister. And she's come in as the Attorney General, replacing Richard Herrmer, who was Starmer's closest cabinet ally and the most reviled profile within the government. He's the guy that's going after the war veterans. He's the guy that gave Chavos away. He's the guy that wants to parachute international law into domestic affairs. So we've seen the back of him. It remains to be seen what Ellie from compliance is going to get up to. She is Rachel Reeves, her sister. Apparently they had a falling out. I'd also fall out if I was Rachel Reeves's brother with her. So there's nothing really to gain from that. They've put John Healy as Rachel Reeves's replacement. He's the principal guy. He was formerly the defense secretary. He resigned when Keir Starmer was unwilling to fund his defense commitments, his defense budget. Elsewhere is Wes Streeting, who was one of Mandelson's creatures. You know, they used to sign off their little WhatsApp messages with kisses. These little sweet guys talking about how much harm they want to bring to the Labour government, of which they are both members, signing off with kisses between him and Mandelson. So he's now defense secretary and they've possibly got the most ridiculous woman called Lucy Powell, who I spoke about on the show previously. Couldn't quite remember her name, but she's now the education secretary. And the first thing that she does is spell stuff wrong in an announcement, congratulating herself for becoming the education secretary. So Gabriel, just to summarize this thing, we don't talk about this country thriving. We don't talk about prosperity. We know what's going wrong. We measure now and will review as such as to whether it can survive. The forces that are assembling in a wall of blackness, and those are the borrowing costs. And they are the unemployment rates. And once you've got past those, you've got to ask, can the country defend itself? And then once you've got past that, you've got to say, what's the, what is going to be the collateral damage from AI? And so I kind of, you know, I think that's how we should, as a group, that's how we should measure Britain. We should defenestrate any sense of disappointment. It's not a rich country anymore, but we do want to see it survive. And hopefully at some point in the future, things will come right. But our talk of the country as coming right under Burnham, it's not, I don't think that's going to happen, Gabriel. [00:28:55] Speaker 5: James? What do you think of the move of Ed Miliband to the post of foreign secretary? [00:29:02] Speaker 2: Disaster. I forgot that. James, thank you for reminding me. Absolute disaster. So listen to this story. Okay. It's this morning. They've got a show on Sky News. And they have the American ambassador, Warren Stevens. He's a legend. He's one of the nicest guys from Arkansas. So he's got that drawl and his father started a bank that he grew even more. And now his kids are in it. And, you know, he's a billionaire. He understands business. And the guy who's presenting the show reads out comments that Ed Miliband has made previously, calling Trump a racist and an idiot and a fool and all of this stuff. This is Britain's, you know, how many times have we done this? How many Labour guys have said something to be popular and had to be faced with confronting their words? It just keeps on happening. James, that is a disaster. Ed Miliband is a clown. There's no other way to describe him. He's a zealot. He's got no experience in international affairs. He should have, Labour should have won that 2015 election. But for his personality, they lost and gave David Cameron a majority in Parliament. The Miliband to Britain, it's like a wasp's nest. [00:30:34] Speaker 5: But at least he's out of the energy portfolio. [00:30:37] Speaker 2: Well, who's replaced him is actually much worse. His replacement as Secretary of the Climate and Net Zero is the daughter of the former foreign minister of Liberia, who was in the Doe. Do you remember Samuel Doe's administration? She came to the UK as a young child and she has done very well. Don't take anything away from her. But how she thinks is not good. And she's already made pronouncements. And I've got a feeling that if she follows through with what she's saying, in a couple of months, James, people are going to be wishing that Ed Miliband was back there. [00:31:20] Speaker 4: Okay. Richard? Is she the woman who was behind this green bank? Is that one of her ideas? Yes. Yes. Correct. [00:31:29] Speaker 2: And she's also been complicit in a fraud of 44 million. It happened under her watch. A fraud of 44 million dollars. The guys got off scot-free. People were shortchanged. And that was her. Under normal conditions, guys, you, France, you go and orchestrate a 44 million fast one. Or you run a campaign that loses 44 million dollars. Do you think you're going to get a job ever again? Ah, she gets promoted. See, it's this like rhythm of upward failure. And she's a beneficiary of that. [00:32:01] Speaker 4: Actually, I had a question, Simon. Before he even became prime minister, he started banging on about Gaza and Britain's response to Gaza. What do you make of that? [00:32:15] Speaker 2: You know what? That is his advisors. We've got a couple of dangerous guys that have entered the fray here. From an organization which is the UK's equivalent of the Southern Poverty Law Center in the US. And these guys are called Hope Not Hate. Now, his new policy advisor was the director of Hope Not Hate. There are a couple of other features over there. And those are the people Richard was telling him. But Northern guys, and I'll give you… Gabriel, let me finish with my bride scenario so that people can relate to this. Northern guys are not identarians. Because I think that they've had to live in a wasteland. And they're kind of like post-apocalyptic wasteland. And they've survived to the best that they can. They're more important things. And I don't think that is a natural instinct for him. But take this as a summary of where this country is. You get invited to three brides on the same day. From three of the most prominent left-wing profiles, past and current. So, Keir Starmer, former Prime Minister, asks you. Ed Davey, he asks you. And Andy Burnham, new Prime Minister, asks you. And you make a point to go to all three brides. So, you rock up at Keir Starmer's Bride. And you go to the bar. And you say, "I'll have one gin and tonic." And then that Herma guy, that rat-faced weasel comes and he says, "No, we don't drink that here because that's the drink of Empire. And we are an inclusive, diverse, and tolerant society." And you go like, "Okay, I don't want to stay at your fucking bride." And then you go to Ed Davey's Bride. And he said it's the bride. It's 39 degrees outside. And he's serving vegetarian curry. Okay. He says, "This is New Britain." And there are lots of men walking around with socks and sandals. And, you know, like all their wives hate them. And that's why they've encouraged them to join swinging, the lifestyle. Which actually happens here. And then, so you go, "No, I'm leaving this." And you go, "Okay, I'm going to Andy Burnham's Bride now." And there, you meet a lot of good dudes. The guys standing, they're tall. Their hair is all coming in the front of their head. They're listening to ocean color scene. You're standing around talking to a bunch of guys, having a good time. One hand to your cigarette, but it's actually hashish. And before you have a drag of it, you go, "It's nice, but it's not the way to run a country." And I'm afraid that's exactly good intentions. Much better people than we've had before. Not going to happen, sadly. Gabriel. [00:34:50] Speaker 3: You wanted to say something? [00:34:52] Speaker 1: The most stunning number on this that sums it all up for me is still this polling we've discussed before that was done by the Institute for Economic Affairs that we discussed earlier, which asked residents of the UK where they would rank themselves in per capita terms if they were a US state. Now they're 51 states in the United States and UK residents thought that they probably rank about seventh in terms of economic output. You know, the truth is they rank last behind Mississippi, which is the poorest. They are a poor place now in the relative order of things, but they think they are a rich place. And that delusionment, I think, Simon has captured it very well in his little speech. [00:35:49] Speaker 3: There are only 50 states. So, Simon, to cap this then off, you say that there's a group of good guys with the best intentions, but what are the new fears that we should have of them? [00:36:05] Speaker 2: Well, unfunded tax cuts is never a good idea because you saw what happened to Liz Truss. But you should also have, like, there's going to be no way to keep money in Britain. I mean, genuinely considering the 50% tax return of the 50% tax again, which Gordon Brown ushered in 2010 to disastrous consequences that was repealed, partially repealed by the succeeding government. Because moving a government, Gabriel, moving the logistics of government from one city to another is not a smart idea. It's a luxury item that they can't afford, but that's what's going to happen. He wants the number 10 Downing Street to be represented in the north. I think under any other circumstances, a more prosperous country, maybe that's a good way to build some more social cohesion. But at the moment, they can't afford to do things like that. They're trapped. It's a tax. Gabriel, look at the borrowing costs shot above 5% again. 5% yield. And watch closely, guys. I'm happy this is happening. And I'm happy that Liam Halligan's at the Center for Policy Studies because I'm going to use a lot of his stuff in what he said previously in marking how this goes ahead in the next few months as we watch how Burnham unfolds. [00:37:38] Speaker 3: So I think all three of France, James and Richard want to say something. So let's do France, then James, then Richard. [00:37:44] Speaker 1: My advisory panel, Gabriel, out of shot over there, says I have to make clear that the UK would be the 51st state of the 50 states. So if it was a state, there would be 51, and it is then the 51st. So I have addressed the point. Please say hi to your advisory panel. Yes, everybody. Send all this. [00:38:10] Speaker 5: The committee that tells me what you're saying over here. So just an obvious question, but just to put it on the record. So there's no suggestion that this government is going to pursue a policy of fiscal discipline? [00:38:26] Speaker 2: No, they'll break the fiscal rules, James. That's how bad it is. It won't just discipline to hell with discipline. It'll be a funding exercise that breaks existing rules. And Rachel Reeves, the only thing that's good about her is that she kept it. But, yeah. [00:38:45] Speaker 5: But were those fiscal rules part of the manifesto that they won on? [00:38:52] Speaker 2: Yes, correct. In 2024. And they've broken everything else, James. So why not break these? You know, there have been so many line items in that manifesto that have been torched. [00:39:05] Speaker 5: But they don't have an electoral mandate for it? No. No. [00:39:13] Speaker 4: No. Richard? I'll build on what Francis' point about growth and relative wealth. There was a great op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal. And the op-ed that was talking about trade and our stupid obsession with trade deficits. But listen to this. It speaks to the importance of having a growing economy in a dynamic private sector. From 1998 to 2024, U.S. corporate profits grew from around $500 billion to $3.7 trillion, a more than six-fold increase. The rest of the world saw profits grow from $102 billion to $457 billion, only a 3.5-fold increase. Said another way, the U.S., with its 5% of its global population and 25% of global GDP, made 83% of world profits in 1998, which increased to a further 89% in 2024. This is what happens when you let the private sector grow. And Britain is going in the opposite direction, and it's not going to work out well. Anyway, this is a great piece by Bill Wilby in today's Wall Street Journal. [00:40:21] Speaker 2: Rich, I was thinking of something that you said previously the other day. So I'd like to get your sister back to the U.K., okay? And to forget that she'd ever been in between the time she made that remark about it being a third-world country and she couldn't wait to leave. Well, she lives in the U.K. It's the same. Nothing's changed. It's nothing's changed. [00:40:43] Speaker 4: Yeah. She's lived in the U.K. for a long time. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. [00:40:48] Speaker 3: Nuts. I think that's a good place for us to hop across the Atlantic. And we're going to go from talking about one group of democratic socialists to another group of democratic socialists. Because this year, it seems in the States, has been the year for the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America. But Richard, who are the DSA? What's their history? Where do they come from? And how have they ended up with such relevance now? [00:41:20] Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a political party distinct from the Democratic Party, which is one of the two main political parties here. The DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, founded in 1982. And they were founded by a man called Michael Harrington, where he merged two left-wing political movements together. And Michael Harrington was a left-wing writer and activist. And he founded this party, which for a long time sort of just bumbled along. It really didn't achieve very much. But it didn't have very many, almost any elected officials. But it grew in significance when Bernie Sanders ran for president. And he's not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He's an independent, but he's endorsed by them. And he kept on using the word democratic socialist. He kept on saying, "I'm a democratic socialist." Every time someone called him a socialist because of his socialist ideas, he was very careful to say, "No, I'm a democratic socialist," even though he's an independent. But now, so the early DSA, you can think of this kind of like a far-left European political party, left of the most left-wing of the Swedish parties or the most left-wing Germans left of that. So, I mean, they believed in a big welfare state, in high taxation, in greater union power, against nationalizing industries, which, you know, given that they were founded in 1982, in the wave of privatizations around the world. That's, you know, that's where they found their energy. But this is very important to note that Michael Harrington and the DSA were anti-communist. They were socialists, but they were very anti-communist because they understood that the first people that the communists put up against the wall and shoot in the head are the socialists. And not only was he anti-communist, he was very pro-Israel. At the time, you know, when he was like, Israel was certainly a more left-wing country. This is before the very necessary and important economic reform was brought in by Bibi Netanyahu when he was finance minister. But they recognized that Israel was a great anti-colonialist project. This was the returning of indigenous people to the land and an overthrowing of an old colonial order. So this is, you know, I might have disagreed with them on almost everything, but this was a party that did have a moral compass in their rejection of communism. Now we have some, they've become, as I said, you know, they got a lot of energy with Bernie Sanders. They now have their most high profile members. The DSA members, the mayor of New York is, he's recently elected, Zoran Mamdani. And so he's been elected. They've been in primary elections around the country. They've had people winning in New Jersey, New York, in Colorado. One actually just lost in Arizona, which is a good thing to a more mainstream Democrat. But they are, it looks like a DSA member is going to do well, maybe beat the current sitting mayor in Los Angeles. So they are on, this is where the energy of the left is, is with them. And what they do is they will endorse democratic candidates. So the, the execrable woman who's going to become the mayor of my benighted city, Janice Lewis George, she's a Democrat, but she's endorsed by the democratic socialists of America. So that gives her a lot of, a lot of juice. And so what are they, what are they, what are they pushing? Well, you can look at all sorts of delightful policies. They want complete defunding of the police and, and the removal of the prison system. They want to do away, they want to abolish the United States Senate. Uh, they want to completely reform the, um, the, the Supreme Court. They want to do away with borders. Uh, they want anybody who wants to come here, can come here and you can vote here before you're even a citizen. Uh, they obviously want single payer health, health care, um, health care. Uh, they want, you know, basically to have a national health, um, service. Uh, so this is, this is just some of their policies, obviously much higher, higher taxation. They want to abolish the idea of billionaires. Um, it's, but it's kind of interesting to look at who these people are. Uh, they are 80% are urban 85. Oh, sorry. Almost all of them are urban. 80% of them have college degrees and 85% of them are, are white. Um, so this is a very kind of elite white party and, uh, and highly educated. And, and, you know, you're, you're always reminded of that great Orwell quote. Uh, I think I'm probably going to butcher it, but it's something like, some ideas are so stupid. Only the highly educated could believe. Um, and this is where we are. And so I, let me just focus, uh, on New York, cause this is where it's most consequential with, with their mayor. Um, one of the things that he promised to do, uh, was to have government run grocery stores. Now, I don't know if any of you have been to New York, but on almost every corner, there's a small grocery store. There are supermarkets everywhere. This is a city where you can buy anything that you want at any time of the day, 365 days of the year. But they want to have their own, uh, government run grocery stores. And I think the cost, I looked this up was $14 million per store. That's what it's going to cost to put these stores up. The, the DSA leader for New York is this guy called Gust, Gustavo Gordillo. And he's asked by an interviewer, well, what happens if you happen to be, uh, a private set, you know, have run a private grocery store, one of these sort of small bodegas. And you can't compete with the government subsidized store. And his response is if private grocery stores can't compete with a city run grocery store, maybe they shouldn't exist. Now, here's the thing to remember. Almost all of these small private grocery stores in New York are run by, by non white immigrants. Most of these are new immigrants who, who have found a way to open up a little store selling at very, very low margins, uh, working incredibly long hours, seven days a week. And they do that so that they can put their children to a better school and get on the, the ladder of success and achieve the, the, the American dream. And this Gustavo Gordillo, uh, thinks that they just shouldn't exist because that might interfere with the great now communist, uh, uh, ideal. It's Sia Weaver, who's the, his, um, he's Zora, she's Zora Mandami's housing secretary for the city of New York. She says that basically that individuals and companies shouldn't have a right to make a profit from, uh, from providing goods or services that people need. So landlords shouldn't be allowed to make a profit from providing housing or pick anything. Uh, and, and, and back to this Gustavo guy says that it shouldn't be allowed. He, he, he's asked about landlords making profit. And he said, it's, it's not in the constitution. You shouldn't be allowed to make profit, uh, in double digits. Cause it's not in the constitution. This is all nonsense. Um, and it's extremely damaging. Is that a break there? Cause I want to talk about, uh, what, where they're going on, on international, uh, issues. Cause Mandami's video that he put out. [00:49:19] Speaker 3: Um, I'm going to go to James in a second, but I wanted to make the point on that. Uh, when you were talking about how, you know, if a, if a grocery, a bodega can't compete against a state run store, it has the, the economic thinking in time. It's entirely backwards because I thought the rule was, if your business cannot survive without subsidy from the government, then you should be allowed to die. You should, your business has no right existing, but this is the saying, if you cannot compete with a subsidized, a government subsidized business, your business should not be allowed. I mean, extraordinary. James. [00:49:54] Speaker 5: So is it right that these DSA people often from very elite backgrounds? Um, so, so sort of 1%, um, and very idealistic, but then completely untethered to, to, to, to, to the reality of life. [00:50:10] Speaker 4: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, this is great. Free press today has the, uh, the story of, um, a guy who's a radical communist. And he's, he's, uh, uh, the billionaire scion of, uh, of, uh, of, uh, of the Cox fortune was communications and, uh, family. And he's devoting his money to spreading communism and destroying Israel. Uh, this is a guy who's grown up the most elite of the elite of the world. Uh, the child of billionaires. And so, yeah, this, some ideas are so stupid. Only the intellectuals only can believe that highly educated believe them. And some ideas are so damaging that only the people growing up in extreme privilege could, could buy into them. Cause they have no concept of what it means, what the outcomes might. [00:50:52] Speaker 2: Can I just, uh, uh, compliment Benji. Benji, who's written an amazing piece for the common sense this week. Ben, our friend, Benji Shorman, uh, about a similar situation that's going on in Los Angeles with Patrick Soon-Shong. Patrick Soon-Shong was born in Port Elizabeth. What was Port Elizabeth. And he became, he is known as Los Angeles's richest man. I've met him. He's a very, very nice guy. But when you meet him, you are told by his aides not to bring up the subject of his daughter, Nika, who is the, um, how would I say this nicely? It's like the black sheep is too, too polite. You know what I mean though? That she's like, uh, uh, because she's, she's into all of the DSA stuff and she's into the Gaza stuff and she's into BLM stuff. It's like having like a terrorist under your own roof. [00:51:45] Speaker 4: Yeah. I think she, she's behind drop site news. So, so the father owns the Los Angeles times, the mainstream newspaper. Uh, she, uh, is with the drop site news, a very far left, radical, anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Israel news site. It's, uh, yeah. She's the red sheep of the family. It's even worse than the black. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you have to wonder, like if you meet these people, like what sort of psychologically is going on with them? What, what, you know, their, their, their guilt. Uh, um, I just wish they could keep their guilt for their wealth to themselves instead of trying to destroy the lives of others. [00:52:23] Speaker 1: But you know, sorry, Richard. [00:52:27] Speaker 4: I wonder, I just wanted to talk about Zora Mandami's video that he put out two days ago, but, but carry on France. No, no, no. [00:52:33] Speaker 1: I'll follow up on that. Mine will need to. [00:52:35] Speaker 4: Well, I think it's, it's, it's relevant for our discussion that we're going to have on, on Israel. So I mentioned that the old DSA had been anti-communist and pro-Israel, and this is now completely gone backwards. They are pro-communist, uh, and they are very anti-Israel. They, um, they blame the West for everything. They blame Ukraine for being invaded by Russia. That's obviously Ukraine's fault and the West's fault for that. Um, they obviously seek the destruction of Israel and they, so Mandami puts out this, this video. He campaigned, uh, saying that he was going to arrest Netanyahu and basically on the ICC warrant for his arrest. Uh, and then obviously realized everybody knew this was nonsense. He had no authority to do that. There is in fact a law in the United States that prohibits state and local officials from acting on ICC warrants. You're not allowed to do this. He has no authority to do. Uh, so he comes out with this video two days ago. It's a two minute videos. And I swear to God, when I started watching it, I thought this might have been some clever AI thing. Cause I couldn't actually believe what I was hearing. It's two minutes of complete and utter lies put out by the mayor of New York, the mayor of the most Jewish city in the world, claiming that Netanyahu is among other things, a genocide there that, uh, he's killing, murdering children, but he's starving people. It's basically one long blood libel. And we've already seen in New York and all around the country, aside from obviously Western Europe, uh, attacks on Jews, uh, ordinary Jews going about their business. Mandami says he doesn't have the authority to arrest Netanyahu, but that the federal government should. And basically this is a call to arms for ordinary people. This is, uh, going to lead to violence against Jews. People will attack synagogues. And I am very, very troubled about this. And it's, uh, uh, yeah, I don't know what else to say there is about this other than the fact that the response from the democratic party has been flaccid at best. Uh, you have one or two, uh, John Fetterman, the Senator from Pennsylvania, who's come out since this is a small sort of petition that's gone around. But for the most part, the mainstream Democrats are going along with this because they see this is where the energy of the party is. And they're trying to ride that wave. Uh, they should not, they should not be allowed to get away with this. This, uh, these people are not just anti-Israel. They're anti-American. They're anti-West and, uh, no good can come from this. [00:55:21] Speaker 1: No, just, just, um, you know, we've been saying, I suppose for some time now to people on South Africa, think about it as a seriously good option for you. Um, and sometimes we've had some pushback from that. I think from people who might not be fully appraised as to what's happening in much of the rest of the world, who, who say that, that we're crazy. And, and obviously if you can get out from South Africa, you should, you should run away. And, and, and we pushed back against that and we say, and, and this conversation here is very useful for what we've been saying. You know, the, the, the, the kinds of depths of, of crazy that you get from some of these Western groups and politicians exceeds that of what you get from the worst of the South African hard left populists. I mean, there's, there's formerly the, the, the, the South Africa's, um, most dominant political party governs in coalition with the communist party, but, but it's not going to propose a state led grocery store in a serious fashion. Um, for state run one. And even on, on, on things that it's attempting to do, like national health insurance. I mean, I've had that conversation with people and privately there to stick with today's sort of analogy. They're a bit sheepish on it and kind of say, well, we don't really want to get rid of our private healthcare. We don't really know how we've got ourselves into this pickle. Um, and I, I, to use the word based, I, I think that in, in the relative order of things, South Africa's relative left is much more based than the relative left that's emerging in the Western world. And then it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's on the South African side too. I think the balance of forces is, is, is, is much more, is tilted in a, in a fashion that might be, you know, leaning a bit somewhat against it. You know, it's not absolutely clear, but just, I, I, I, I really do think that, um, you can make the argument that projecting into the longer term, looking at what some of the stuff is in the Western world, that it, it, it, it certainly justifies the argument to think carefully about whether South Africa strategically doesn't offer the right kind of person. A competitive longterm option to base themselves and to be in and to relative to the default knee jerk. Well, we'll go to the UK. We'll go to wherever in the Western world, because that is obviously better. I don't think that is obvious anymore. [00:58:11] Speaker 4: Yeah. I will just say that the, the, the energy on the left is with the DSA and with this insane agenda. They haven't, they've been elected in the mayor of New York. They haven't got more widespread. Uh, they are still being constrained. Uh, and it is the South African government that did take Israel to court at the ICC. Uh, so we still have guardrails. We still have a constitution. We still have things that make this country the most prosperous on, on earth. [00:58:38] Speaker 1: You know, I watched Mondami's speech, the one you speak to. And I, I thought just as a, a professional political effort. It was very well done. Um, I think it could easily land and resonate extremely well, um, in the Western world broadly. It was, it was cleverly put together, was delivered in a, with an appropriate tone for what he was attempting. I thought this was an expert effort. And, um, I wonder on the, on, on the, you know, you, you, you try and figure out the, the swing of things, the trajectory of them. Where, where are the pendulum swinging? And you know, the guy is the mayor of New York. One, if the, and I, I read then on, on, um, YouTube or whatever it was, the commentary under his speech was vast and very, very, very, very popular. Um, and I, I just, I, I just think at the very least, I'd say you, you have to think quite carefully now about where the pendulum's relatively left and right or swinging South Africa versus the Western world. And, and you might more, more than has ever been necessary before. [01:00:01] Speaker 2: Yes, you Gabriel. Thank you. I want to agree with Francis point there about the South African left being much more serious. sensible and being more authentic in a way that you saw in figures like Tony Benn, uh, in, in, in, in, in Britain's history. And the most radical forces of the left I see in South Africa are its media, actually, much more so than the, the politics. Again, the highly educated. Over educated rich. Yeah. Yeah. [01:00:33] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe the thing is that South Africa has relatively less highly educated graduates in the Western world. And, um, you know, um, you know, a serious idea is the idea that the final stage of the Western liberal order is this one where you've achieved such massive technological advancement and safety and comfort, and you want for nothing. You're so safe. And so, you know, you can't be hungry. You can't be thirsty. You can't be in danger from anything. That, that, that, that, that the luxury of that position makes it possible for you to begin to entertain because you win esteem from it. It's actually counterproductive ideas. And you can do so almost confidently ideas that would appear to be at odds with your best interest, because you're so safe that you think there's no possible way that this could ever catch up to me. And that, that's, that's how the whole thing, it's, it's sort of the final stage of capitalism in a sense. It, it achieves such incredible safety and comfort for people that they become complacent about that. Yes. And more than that later begin to break it down themselves in a sort of perverted, exactly as this elite left in, in, in, in the Western world is doing a sort of perverted manner. Um, and, and that the, what, what that sets into motion, it's a small change in present conditions that shapes their long-term outcomes. It's the, the, the, the good analysts read the initial little grassroots shoot, that little thing. And they appreciate where it's, where, what the implications are. And there's actually a, it's not just kind of guesswork that there's, there's a lot of really good math behind that. Now that, that, that small shift in the present conditions of a system brings about a huge shift in its future circumstances. And that you've therefore got to be very attuned to the small shifts and, and, and not be afraid to read into them a great future, um, moves. There's the, the, the, the, the concepts best understood in terms of what's called twin tabbing, which apparently is what a vast tanker ship does. That, you know, it's so big that it can't easily turn around. And the forces at play are apparently such that it can't turn its rudder on its own because it's too big. So the rudder has a little rudder within it. And when the captain wants to turn it around, take miles to do a sort of 360 or whatever you do, but such thing, they turn the little rudder and the little rudder turns the big rudder. And then the big rudder turns and later you see the entire ship turn around and people say, well, where the hell did that come from? No one saw that coming. Well, they did if they were looking in the right place. And, and so I think it is in, it is incredibly important that the mayor of New York is Mandami and that he delivered that speech as well as he did and was as well received by many people as it was. And I think you can confidently extrapolate from that, that this is headed in a particularly firm direction. And you can also extrapolate that the fact that the South Africa's relative left is, is privately not entirely committed to its efforts to nationalize health insurance. It's a little, it's a little thing from which you can extrapolate a few other things as well. [01:04:05] Speaker 3: So I, I, I, do you have a delicious good James has something to say quickly. [01:04:12] Speaker 5: Sure. I just, just to go back in a way to that South Africa actually is exercising fiscal discipline in the way that the West is incapable of doing in, in actually much more harder circumstances. Um, I think the left is still embedded in the working, you know, the unions, which is a check on its, um, a check on its sort of the, these deranged luxury beliefs that you get when the left is that, you know, made up or being funded by the children of billionaires. I, I think where South Africa is vulnerable, those is, um, if that sort of money from these sort of, you know, woke billionaire class starts getting put into South Africa and promoting causes in South Africa, it can do huge amounts of damage. Um, so, so that would just be my cautionary, um, note on, on, on, on that. [01:05:04] Speaker 1: Can we invent a, a concept called DLBs now, uh, uh, deranged luxury beliefs. I think it's a, it's a, um, DLBs and the DLB threat to the Western world. It's like the woke mind virus, the deranged luxury belief. Nice. [01:05:23] Speaker 4: I'm sorry. I have to run to get to a meeting, but I am going to do two things. One, donate to Helen Zilla's campaign. And two, look at burning some property in Westcliff Ridge or some fancy part of Johannesburg. Um, but there we go. Yeah. Uh, cause I'm so convinced by France and his, and the sunlit uplands that he is portraying. You need a bolt hole. [01:05:43] Speaker 3: And Richard, Richard, just remind us that I think you told the, the, the viewers that you had become a registered Democrat, um, to vote in, uh, the, the primaries. Is the woman, uh, the one that you wanted, uh, your new mayor, the one that you wanted or not? [01:06:00] Speaker 4: No, she's the one that I, I detest that woman with the fire of a million suns. She's foul. She's Zora Mandami without the brains or the, or the charm. And with the nail polish, she's one of, um, her name is Janice Lewis George. And the, the great linguist John McWater, uh, whose people should pay attention to. He's fantastic. He talks about the three name people. Always these far left people have three names. No good can come with the three name people. You know, look at them all, especially in South Africa, uh, Kosazana Tlamini Zuma. Name any one of them. They all have three names and they're all terrible. And the mayor of DC incoming is a three named B.I. See you next Tuesday. I don't want to say, say rude words, but I need to go. I had to struggle through the traffic to get to this meeting. I'm very sorry to abandon you, but what do I do? Do I just push leave and then leave it open? James? Yes. [01:06:58] Speaker 3: Gabriel. Thank you very much, Richard. [01:07:00] Speaker 4: Thank you. I'm sorry to miss the rest of this. Okay. Ciao. [01:07:04] Speaker 3: Bye. Well, I think it's a shame we'll, we'll lose Richard for this section because I'm sure he would have stuff to say, but we're going to continue on, um, the, uh, path of insane ideas of the West as we get to the disturbing and quite alarming. If you're an Israeli thinker trend in public opinion data in the United States and France, we wrote about that, uh, in the common sense at the commonsense.co.za. Um, can you tell us what we found? [01:07:38] Speaker 1: Well, also totally predictable data predicted and predictable, but it seems to have. It's timely the Israeli's ability to see ahead. The, if you want to destroy Israel, the way that you do it is this. It's a pincer movement. Part one of the pincer is that you poison opinion against Israel amongst young Westerners, college kids in America. And the reason you need to do that is that they will one day create the pressure that causes Congress to stop providing support and weapons and particularly smart weapons to Israel. And cut off from particularly the smart weapons, Israel will have to use increasingly brutish tactics to fend off attacks against it. And very many more people will be killed as a consequence. And that will make it even easier to further poison opinion against Israel, et cetera. So you cut off the weapons externally. You cut off the external military support to Israel, protect itself for a time. And then it stops. The second part of the pincer, the bottom end of it, is that you poison opinion. You stigmatize young Jews to such an extent that service in the IDF becomes contested idea, whether you actually want to do this at all, because you're doing it in defense of a genocidal state, a crime against humanity. And eventually, young Jews might say, well, they don't really want the pressure as such. You don't want part of that. It's just easier to leave and go live in New York and pretend that everything's fine. Why are you running around in the deserts of the Middle East shooting at people and them at you? I mean, you could just go to New York. If you achieve both objectives at the same time, then Israel's odds of continuing to exist are very limited. It has no external support, more vulnerable to attack. Its defensive responses are killing far more people. External and internally, consensus on fighting for Israel is fractured, and you end up with an anti-conscription campaign and can't defend itself from within, and it falls apart. This is the tactic. Now that tactic took a huge one giant leap forward in 2026 because something very important happened in America. For the first time, the share of Americans who sympathize more with the Palestinians and therefore the broader cause around them than they do with the Israelis became the plurality. 41% of Americans say they now sympathize more with the Palestinians than the 36% who say they do so with the Israelis. That's a complete reversal from the position of the past 30 years, where on average, about 60% of Americans said they sympathize with the Israelis, and 15% said they sympathize with the Palestinians. So the pincer, the top part of the pincer has shot the lights out here. This is vast. You can extrapolate into the future by looking at the age group breakdown, and I'll say this about that, that it is only amongst older conservatives that a majority view remains in favor of Israel. Amongst younger Americans and non-conservatives, the view is now opposed. So move through a generation, and the great majority of Americans are going to be on the non-Israel side. If you're an anti-Israel activist, you'll be hugely encouraged by the fact that this has happened. Turn to Europe. Turn to Europe, and the latest data there, the American data outside of you come from Gallup, the European data from Pew. Across Europe, strong majorities now take an unfavorable view to Israel relative to a favorable view. So in Sweden, it's 78% unfavorable, 19% favorable. In the Netherlands, it's 76 to 20. In Germany, it's 73 to 23. In the UK, it's 69 to 25. Even in Hungary, which is supposed to be the more based side of Europe, it is 54 ante to 32 in favor. So between what you're seeing happening in North America and Europe, you can now say that Israel has no allies left in the West, in the free world. They are all gone. And in the non-free world, it doesn't have much of an option there. So that's the top end of the pincer, essentially complete. The bottom end of the pincer internal opinion is we looked at some very interesting numbers that were produced by the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies. And it found that 36% of Israeli parents say they would discourage their kids from serving in the IDF in circumstances where the ultra-Orthodox did not have to serve, which is an internal Israeli debate at the moment. And what's important about those numbers is not whether the ultra-Orthodox serve or don't serve, but something else: that it's possible to contrive a set of circumstances in Israel now that will see a substantial proportion of Israelis think about whether service in the IDF is still warranted. And what that means is you can contrive other circumstances and achieve the same objective. It is no longer a given that the great majority of Israeli opinion will say, "Obviously, the right thing to do is to serve in the IDF." That era has changed now, and that will further greatly encourage Israel's adversaries. And the trouble then for Israel is really this: that it has an iron dome and can shoot down a mortar shell fired from wherever like a pigeon flies. It's like a pigeon flying through the air in it. It has the air force, and it has all these things. But none of these things. Iron dome stops rockets landing in Israel. It doesn't stop ideas filtering through. And Israel fights two wars. And the one is the physical war in the ground that you fight with tanks and guns and rockets and the like. And the other, the much more important war, is the war of ideas. And it conjures up the lament of General West Merland, who'd been the supreme commander of US forces in Vietnam, who said, after being betrayed by the political leadership in that country, in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, that—the quote is very much along these lines—that we lost the war, not in the jungles of Southeast Asia, but on the streets of Washington. And in the living rooms of America. And Israel is fighting the same war. And it's not sufficiently aware of it. And it is losing that war. And I think it might now have lost that war to a point where it becomes difficult to sustain the argument confidently that it can survive at all under these circumstances. And, yeah, Gabriel. [01:15:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think we should do this quick, this question in brief, because we're running, we're going to run quite long with a couple of other things. But I think it's worthwhile to contrast the utter failure of Israel to project a positive image in the Western world with the change in global opinion on China, France. So can you just tell us about that? Yeah, it's interesting. [01:16:12] Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think they're entirely related to each other. And we're quite positive on China in many respects. But China, we've been publishing— [01:16:19] Speaker 3: But not to imply that they're related, but just the contrast in the strategies. [01:16:24] Speaker 1: I mean, China now, we ran some numbers on this through the week, I think we published them last week, that showed that relative to the Western world, opinion on China globally, China is gaining significant ground relative to its Western adversaries in terms of people who are sympathetic to or attracted to the idea of China and what it represents. And it's an unrelated but similar phenomenon of, you know, Israel is really a Western outpost in the Middle East, the only one. And it's so on the back foot now. And China is the sort of great competitor to the Western ideal, or as a country competitor to the Western ideal. And it's the global reception amongst people to the idea of China is becoming increasingly positive relative to their ideas about the Western world. And that's, you know, so hard to think of a more important key driving force, major trend shaping the future of the world than the opinion data on China relative to the West. [01:17:48] Speaker 3: Yeah, we wrote in on that piece, which was only accessible to our paying subscribers. So if you want our best stuff, remember to pay for your subscription. But we wrote that in only nine of the 36 countries surveyed, did people more people have a favorable opinion of the US than of China? Because the contrast was so those countries were Poland, the Philippines, South Korea, India, Japan, Hungary, Ghana, Brazil and Israel. And of every other country. So in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Pakistan, South Africa, Colombia, Argentina, Sweden, the Netherlands, even there was a more positive opinion towards China than there was the United States. [01:18:40] Speaker 1: And very important again is where these, there might still be majorities in some countries in favor of the US, but it's where it's going. The drift of it, the swing of the pendulum that's important to read and understand. [01:18:52] Speaker 5: But that's often driven by the Western media itself. I mean, obviously China is totally a state controlled media. So the media you're consuming about the West is the Western media in these countries. And so it's a Western, it's sort of a poison from within the West itself. [01:19:11] Speaker 3: Yeah. It's a Western information operation run against the West. [01:19:15] Speaker 1: And, and, you know, it's, it's not, it's not just, you know, it's nothing. It's, it's not just information operation. It is that in material terms, China has done quite well to uplift the living standards of, of hundreds of millions of people. It's, it's taken its innovation is increasingly attractive. I mean, you, you don't see much in America, but, but in South Africa, you see the presence of the Chinese vehicles and cars, which are technological wonders. You can, you can buy a Chinese Range Rover for half a million Rand and a normal Range Rover, Range Rover costs 3 million Rand. And, you know, I don't know much about cars, but the Chinese one seems very, and people who have bought them, friends of mine say, they are so impressed at how, at how incredible these vehicles are. They're better than what they had before. So China is actually materially attractive as well. It, it also hasn't, uh, uh, dumped the merit basis of its economy to the extent that many in the West have done. It hasn't embraced some of the other destructive, um, social justice stuff. China is not having a debate about what a woman is and, and, and spending hours of university time seminars, trying to figure that out. There's no confusion. Um, and I mean, there, there's, we, we spoke a lot in the, and we write a very good piece while we being so pro, so pro in China. We go read a piece we wrote last week about China's debt and, and the Chinese deficit and that there is a crack in the Chinese economy, which is that as its growth rate has slowed, stimulus has expanded to a point where the, the practical in practice, the deficit is now double the rate of economic growth. And there, there's great risk in that, which we deal with and how to overcome. But it's, it's also that, um, you, the, uh, I, I think the, the Chinese offer of, well, what is the, what is the Chinese communist party's kind of thing? It's, it's prosperity and safety. It's very, very attractive, I think, a seductive idea that they do it quite well. Um, so, so, so, yeah, sorry. [01:21:34] Speaker 5: But in, in partly it's because, because the Chinese moved away from sort of Maoist sort of craziness and, and the West has decided to embrace, or, well, maybe not exactly the same equivalent, but sort of one lunatic idea after the other. It's, it's, it's, it's almost, it, it, it like merit, the merit system and not pursuing net zero and, and focusing on uplifting, you know, your, your, your population materially, which has all been sort of lost in the West. And, and so, so in a sense, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, the sort of failing of, fading of the West, well, America's reputation or the West's reputation. Is, is, is, is self-inflicted. [01:22:23] Speaker 1: Yeah. And, and China wouldn't allow that self-infliction upon itself. You wouldn't be allowed to be a, a, a hard left agitator arguing for something that China sees. I recall as we speak now a conversation I had with a very senior diplomat from Singapore a long time ago. And I said to him, you, you guys were so successful and, and, and you weren't kind of democratic at first in that. And he said, well, we were, and I said, well, not entirely. And he said, well, he said, well, at the very least, we, we, we allow people to think and do whatever they wanted to, as long as it was within boundaries that were clearly in Singapore's best interest. We just didn't allow, we didn't allow, we didn't allow ideas that were not in the national interest. And then they achieved that and great success. Um, but yeah, I think, I think, I think that you're absolutely right that the, that, that the cancer in the West is doing the erosion of the West. Whereas the nature of China system is, is it would not allow the same internal cancer to exist at all. Uh, if the state judged it to be, to be at odds with the long-term interests of the society and the stack. Well, Simon, did you want to say something? [01:23:45] Speaker 2: No, I'm sorry, guys. [01:23:46] Speaker ?: I've got to go. [01:23:46] Speaker 2: I've got a meeting at four. Um, I just wanted to say that, and we didn't discuss Richard's, uh, Marco Rubio's speech, but we've covered it in the, in the common sense this week. So people can go and see what, what happened. Um, and as it relates to, to left-wing terrorism, guys, I'll see you next time. [01:24:04] Speaker 3: Thanks very much, Simon. So I think we'll end on a good South African news story, uh, as we sometimes want to do. And France, uh, we've published in the common sense, some interesting data on the change in the number of black engineering students in South Africa. So what was that? [01:24:26] Speaker 2: Give it perfect square little corners and it's good or it's bad. [01:24:34] Speaker 1: And the reality often lies in the middle. And the same is true for South Africa. Great problems and then enormous progress. And, and one of the pieces of progress is something we highlighted this week, which is engineering graduates. I mean, you can't say the country hasn't changed. In, in 1991, our data shows that there were 14 whites who got an engineering degree for every one black engineering graduate from a South African university. And, um, um, now there are five black graduates, six for every one white graduate. And the overall number of engineering graduates is, is up threefold over the last 15 years. And, and that's all very good and speaks to a country that has in many respects made a lot more progress than its critics give it credit for. And in developing a sort of fair assessment of the state of the place, you've got to, you've got to weigh up these sort of competing ideas, the obvious problems versus the sometimes less obvious, obvious progress. [01:25:58] Speaker 3: And, um, yeah, you know, I think it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a theme that we develop in a lot of our podcasts that we don't often make, uh, bring to the front, which is, uh, something that Carl Jung, uh, wrote that I've been, you know, thinking about ever since I read it, which is that at the bottom of every truth, there lies a paradox where two opposing things are true at the same time. [01:26:26] Speaker 2: Yes. [01:26:27] Speaker 3: You know, and we, we, we, we use this test in our polling data as a means of substantiating that we're working with human beings, which is, do we have two questions when the answers are put together that make no sense? Because you can't, if, if people were rational, they can't be in favor of, you know, uh, getting rid of BEE, but they think, for example, the size of the state should be bigger to pick a random example, or that the, you know, we did everything like this, or that we, that we, that we asked people if they felt that the, uh, an, uh, a, the moonshot pact would work and 60% of people said yes. And then we said that if the opposition parties were to all come together, that they would be, uh, too much infighting and it would immediately fall, fall apart. And then 60% of people say yes. In the same survey, one question after the other. [01:27:17] Speaker 1: They must be very careful of analysts that make things seem too clear to you. It's often because they don't understand. I, I, I, I found over the time that the more you understand about, the more you learn about an issue, the more, you know, of it. Sometimes the more difficult it becomes to understand. And Gabriel's point to our polling is very good too. We, uh, a sort of foolish person might say, but your polling finds people think B is very important. Uh, but at the same time, they say that if a, if a school is built in their community, it should be done by the best contractor, regardless of race. So you're wrong on something. And, and no, you're not, you're actually right. You, you remember you're polling people, not, not computers and people are able to hold to opposing ideas at the same time. Um, and, and you must obviously try and get to the bottom of what they really do think or believe, which I think we were able to do often. But the same kind of idea exists for any social economic analysis that South Africa's school system as a whole is a complete disaster. We published the data on math graduates in high school last week. It's almost too awful to, to mention. But that data is true at the same time that it is true that in a tech field like engineering, the country has made such substantial progress and really good analysts are people that can walk that line without feeling too uncomfortable. And anyone wanting to make a strategic decision, I think about a volatile economy or market or investment or whatever, it needs to be in a position where they can do the same, where they can understand that there are, are competing trends and that many of those trends can be true at the same time. And that, and that a good analyst is someone who can define out of that, what the correct decision to take is likely to be. Thanks, Gabriel. Thanks, Gabriel. Thanks, James. We're the last three standing. Okay. [01:29:24] Speaker 3: Indeed, we are. So thank you very much, France. Let me wrap this up incredibly quickly so we can get on our way. Um, so I would like to give me, let me give a huge thank you to our brilliant panelists for their contributions this week. And thank you to you, the ladies and gentlemen at home for tuning into this week's episode. Make sure to tune in again next week for another episode of South Africa and the world's finest current affairs broadcast. I've been Gabriel Macon, and we've been Talking Send. - Yeah.