The Bugle - The World Drifts Into Anti-Semanticism
Episode Date: November 18, 2023The APEC summit in San Francisco gets people onto the streets, except the homeless. Also, Bernie Sanders gets cross, the Middle East is very complicated, and David Cameron has a new job.Plus, is there... a god?PLUS: Become the owner of an exclusive episode of The Bugle, on 12 inch vinyl! Become a premium member NOW! https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donateThis episode was presented and written by:Andy ZaltzmanNato GreenAlistair BarrieAnd produced by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.
Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 4281 of the Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world
albeit an audio newspaper in which you can't trust what you hear for a visual world
in which you really shouldn't believe what you see.
Don't shoot the messenger,
or don't shoot anyone just a general piece of life.
I'm Andy Zoltzman, the undisputed champion
of disputing things, oh no, I've just lost my title
by saying that.
I'm here in London, or as the Romans called it,
how's the Romans before they founded London?
After they invaded our God-given Britishly British land
in 43 AD, thank you Brussels, hashtag take back control.
And I'm joined today from San Francisco,
a city which escaped Roman colonization
by a mixture of luck, geography, non-existence at the time,
and exorbitant property prices.
Joining me from there, NATO Green, welcome back NATO.
Hello Andy, hello bugleers. How have you been since you were last
last time? A few happy weeks ago for this planet.
miserable, alternate jags of uncontrollable sobbing and binge drinking.
I did discover something Andy. I was, you know, politics is so stupid
and we end up having to write about the same things again and again. And so, do you have
this experience where you're like, did I write this joke already? And so, I went back
to listen to older Mugles to see if I had done a joke already. And I was switching between
a few episodes. You know how like DJs will cross fade between records?
And I realized that if you start any Andy's Altsman joke in the history of the bugle and at
some point switch to any other Andy's Altsman joke, it will still play.
So Chris could remix the entire bugle back catalog by just splicing
Andy setups and punks lines together in a free-for-all manner and it would
still sound like Andy.
Right, okay, well I mean it's good to know that I've got such incredible theatrical
range.
Also joining us on the bugagle for the first time.
So bringing something fresh to this, what evidently is a tidal format.
Someone I gig with for the first time, literally a millennium ago, or at least in a different
millennium.
Uh, well, well, welcome to the Beagle to Alistair Barry.
Hello, Al, how are you?
I'm very well, my friend, how are you?
Very good.
Welcome to the show.
I feel slightly awkward that we've got one guest coming
from the glamour of San Francisco,
and I'm speaking to you from the holiday in Express Hall
that you attach to a large multi-story car park.
Levels of glamour that Alan Partridge
would genuinely look down upon.
I must say, I very much like what NATO said about your jokes
and I don't mean that in a bad way.
I've always been a very big fan of your wordy introductions
of your, especially when we used to do political animal
and those very long, I've always thought you could actually
do 20 minutes off stage just splicing your introductions
together and actually not bothered with the gig at all.
So I think we we spotted an opportunity.
Yeah, but if only I'd done that during my brief
not particularly successful clubs,
Dan Lupker here, then I think my 20 minutes
actually would have gone a lot better.
We are recording on the 17th of November 2023.
On this day in 1810, Sweden declared war
on the United Kingdom.
Thus beginning the Anglo-Swedish war.
One of my all-time favourite wars.
It raged from November 1810 until July 1812, and when I say raged,
it raged like a bench in the park.
No fighting ever took place.
No one was killed in it and trade between the two countries continued largely unaffected.
Why can't all wars be like that?
But there were still surely English people making jokes about having five weapons left over at the end of the conflict.
I mean, I thought the films, they films wouldn't be so exciting,
but, and maybe the poetry wouldn't reach Schultz Heights,
but other than that, that sounds like the ideal blueprint for a war.
It seems like a very like Swedish thing.
Yeah.
That just so that they would have a war and not show up.
Like, Sweden seems to be really committed as a nation
to not doing war effectively.
Like to non commitment.
They have in Stockholm there's a giant museum of the Vassa museum
Have you been there? Oh, yes, they're greatest worship. Yeah, yeah, that they like built to defeat their enemies and then immediately sunk
Yeah, I mean it lasted us. I think about 20 minutes, didn't it?
Longer than your club
No, no, no, no, no, they went on far longer than 20 minutes.
As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. This week, Napoleon Bonaparte,
to mark the launch of the new Ridley Scott blockbuster Napoleon featuring Wacken Phoenix. We ask some searching
questions about Napoleon, including did Napoleon actually exist or like Maximum's Desimus
Meridius in Gladiator also featuring a Wacken Phoenix directed by Scott. Did Ridley Scott
just make him up? I mean, it's quite possible, isn't he? He's got a bit of a track record
for it. Maximum's known as Maximum's, of course,
because there's remarkable consistency
throwing 180s when playing Darts.
Also, we ask, if Napoleon had invaded Russia
from the other end in 1812,
would he have been any more successful?
And he answered, no.
Also, we asked, could the rumors be true
that Nappy, as he was known by his mates,
escaped from exile on Centrelayne,
and before his alleged death in 1821,
and it's now making a living in Vegas
as an Napoleon impersonator.
Plus, we ask who would win a battle craft,
gymnastics mashup competition
between Napoleon and Simone Biles,
and I personally would definitely tune in for that.
Also, we give you tips on how to make your own Napoleon at home.
We have an advice from a leading historical figure,
modeling expert. You can make a decent bicorn hat out of some old underwear and a coat hanger apparently.
Plus we tell you how to divert electricity from your home circuit to bring your model
Napoleon to life. You will of course need the Bill Peers permission to do this and you will
also need a live chicken and five gallons of vinegar. Don't ask, just do it. That section in the bin.
The fact you managed to get through a whole bit on Napoleon without mentioning Wellington once means you have to be hounded out of Britain
to return, I think. Absolutely great.
Played by Rupert Everett in the film apparently.
Oh really?
An interesting portrayal having essentially someone who's quite well known for his sort of slightly flamboyant
and often I think he's played drag quite a lot.
I'm looking forward to the film enormously, but I think it would add a certain historical level to really annoy those people who fetishise your
churches and your Wellington's if he did turn up at Bought Waterloo wearing Wellington boots in a dress.
I always think that the reason they don't go to full historical accuracy in film is that then
like 80% of the film would be taken up with characters saying
you have horrible breath because no one has invented toothpaste.
Top story this week.
San Francisco has been the center of the world. Exciting times for you, NATO is your home city as host to the APEC summit.
APEC I think is basically a global cartel that artificially fixes the price of advox,
but the summit in San Francisco this week, I mean, it's brought your city to a standstill,
hasn't it?
Have you enjoyed the grand jamboree?
It's, so the apex summit, the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum has brought 20,000
diplomats and businessmen to the San Francisco Convention Center to plot the further plunder of the world.
And so we, it has totally jacked up traffic.
Everyone from here is staying away from downtown
unless you are going there either to plot
the aforementioned plunder of the world
or protest people doing that.
One of the other, there's no other activities
happening in San Francisco right now. The city has, we're excited to welcome the 20,000 delegates
to the city to enjoy the culture for which we're famous to try some of our drugs and the fentanyl
that people we've been overdosing on at record numbers.
There was, you know, there's been all these news stories about the decline of San Francisco.
It's a failed city homelessness and they managed to make all the homeless people disappear and
clean the city city and people ask two questions.
One is, why didn't we do that last month
if you could just do that?
And two is, where did you put the homeless people?
So we think that they're being fed to the APEC delegates.
So because our mayor sort of has like a case of Munchausen
by proxy towards the city,
where she sort of goes in cycles of like
trying to destroy the city
so that she can take credit for saving it.
And you know, we didn't want people to lose out.
There was a check camera crew that was robbed at gunpoint.
So while they were filming,
so that's exciting.
San Francisco famous for our
gaze. We had a gay event called gay pack, so that the delegates could come and
enjoy the fisting that we invented. I don't know why they called it gay pack when
Pacific Rim was sitting right there. Family show. Family show. We have people
chaining themselves to delegates, getting arrested, not getting arrested,
wishing they could get arrested because it's cold and wet and they want to go
home and their butts are getting cold. So it's been an exciting week.
Tell us what they've been doing with the homeless people then, is that how it
works? Basically they've managed to turn them into protesters because that
way they can be corraled into some sort of prison cell and kept warm.
So you've managed to kill two problems
with one fell swoop there.
That was sort of the genius of occupied Wall Street,
if you recall, is we're not homeless, we're protesters.
You're a whole...
I like the fact that a check camera crew
was robbed at gunpoint.
I have to say, I've never been to San Francisco,
I've been to America quite a lot.
And I have to say, if I was robbed in America
and it wasn't at gunpoint, I would feel short-checked.
I feel it's only fair that fire arms
were involved at some point.
And you can't come back and go, got mugs,
what did you have?
Just an attitude, I think that would work.
I was particular, another story about the impact
on the city.
There was a couple that was due to get married,
found that their wedding venue was inside the Summit Security Zone.
The last thing you want at a wedding is delegates
at an international economic conference milling around.
It just devalues the entire concept of making long-term promises
and sounding like you actually mean them. I think that's a very inauspicious start to a marriage.
It depends on what you registered for, Andy, because if your bridal registry included trade-related intellectual property rights, you might have hit the jackpot.
Elon Musk pulled out of his planned gig at the summit,
the fictitious Tecdra Brunnor and Cartoon,
Badi had a schedule change apparently,
and had to spend the afternoon stroking his white cat
and fostering anti-Semitism instead.
So, it's not been all that,
but I do think this idea of solving the entire homeless problem
could be something that, I mean, this might be the big positive for the world to emerge from this summit.
And we just need more global summits everywhere all the time.
And we will solve all street homelessness.
It seems like that solution has been staring us in the face for.
How's the world's homeless through protest and basically removing from
the streets that way? Yeah. That is it. That is it. That is it. Well, because obviously
over here, I don't know if no, you've followed this over here. It turns out homelessness in
Britain is a lifestyle choice. Yeah. According to our recently departed home secretary.
And I've always thought, you know, pitching a tent at the Glastonbury Festival is a lifestyle
choice. Pitching it on the high street, I've always felt slightly less of a lifestyle choice.
And I don't know if you've seen, you may have seen our very famous homeless lifestyle magazine, the Big Issue, featuring, you know,
centerfolds of men on, you know, various levels of heroin overdose and a special supplement for partwentures you can buy nearby. The British... it turns out that you know I'm going to blow your mind. Do you know how
they solved the homeless problem in San Francisco for the summit? Are you ready?
Go on then.
They put them in homes.
Oh.
And somehow that works. In terms of the meeting between Biden and Angie, so I mean, a few slight moments of
awkwardness, for example, when Biden called President-G a dictator, which apparently he doesn't
like very much.
Biden said he's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country based on a form of government
that is totally different from ours,
which, it's a bit of a,
that's a slightly restricted definition of dictator.
I love that Biden backpedaling on the dictators,
like, oh, it's just different,
I don't mean dictator in a bad way,
some of my best friends are dictators.
It's such a significant meeting
that the leaders of the United States and China met that the world's largest superpower
met with the United States. Well, I did like, there was one quite saying that they agreed
and this was a huge step forward, that they agreed to share military intelligence.
And I was kind of under the impression that they had actually been sharing military intelligence for many, many decades now. It's
just they didn't like to let each other know that that's what they were doing. You've got,
you've got Trump, who basically is there calling anyone who doesn't vote for him vermin. I
almost think that Biden saying that she might be a dictator is almost a term of endearment.
almost the term of endearment. In other American news there's been a highly entertaining squabble NATO which made Bernie Sanders from a presidential candidate
gets as cross as I think I've ever seen him be and bearing in mind that his
fundamental state of existence is being crossed about the entire state of America and the planet.
That was quite impressive.
Just bring us up to date with the scuobble that provoked Bernie Sanders to get.
I think a repetitive gavill banging injury.
As I may have said before, Bernie Sanders is a 82-year-old bald Jewish socialist grandpa
who went to University of Chicago in 1962, which is also
a description of my dad. So when people are like, oh, I really love Bernie Sanders, I'm like,
I get it, my dad is cool too. So, but so it was it was at a hearing of there's a Senate committee
that Sanders is the chair of. It's the Senate Health Education Labor Pensions Committee, aka the Help Committee, because they mean well. And the title of the
hearing was standing up against corporate greed, how unions are improving the lives of working families.
And the Republicans on the committee couldn't have that. So Mark Wayne Mullin is a senator from Republican Senator from Oklahoma
who challenged the president of the Teamsters Union to a fight during the hearing.
Sean O'Brien, the teamsters president, and Sanders had to bet repeatedly gavill to
call the hearing back to order. I love the whole exchange because
to call the hearing back to order. I love the whole exchange because,
I guess Sean O'Brien had tweeted at some point,
you're a punk anytime anywhere,
and Mullen wanted to fight him and said,
stand your butt up right now.
And O'Brien said, I will.
And Sanders said, we're not fighting.
We're here to talk about working
families and and so here's my favorite part is is Senator Sanders in
attempting to redirect the scuffle said to Senator Mullin this is a hearing
Sean and Brian is the witness do you have a question for the witness and then
Mark Mullin said you said any time any place
This is a time and a place and Senator Sanders said that's not a question
So then that is a dumbest thing about what Mullin did was he brought he he brandished color printouts of
He brought, he brandished color printouts of, of Sean O'Brien's tweets. Like he had had the presence of mine to print out in color.
That is like some very much like okay boomer energy.
He's like not understanding how the technology works.
That you had to print out color copies of tweets in order to make a point.
But here's the thing,
Mark Wayne Mullin is a former MMA fighter.
Not very successful one, he had five matches, I believe.
But a former MMA fighter nevertheless,
Sean O'Brien is a teamster from Boston.
And, Aleister, I don't know if you know anything
about teamsters or Boston,
but if you had to bet on a fight,
and your choice was a professional MMA fighter
or literally any teamster from Boston.
You go with the teamster from Boston.
You go with the teamster from Boston.
I was driving the outpair tonight to do this and listen to a couple of politics podcasts
in the car and I listened to the last bugle and it struck me that actually the bugle
was by far the most sensible one because everything else is so utterly bad shit, crazy, that
it doesn't make any sense to do anything apart from comedy.
I read that exchange, you know Bernie Sanders in the middle banging his gavel while you stand your butt up,
you stand your butt up and him, I think Bernie Sanders said, the American public think little
enough of us as it is. He's got a point there.
So you're suggesting that these kind of exchanges are not high level political discourse,
Malin. I don't like thugs and bullies. O'Brien, I don't like you.
Because you've just described yourself zing.
And then they went on to say, do not put O'Brien,
do not point at me, that's disrespectful.
Mullen, I don't care about respecting you at all.
O'Brien, I don't respect you at all.
I mean, this is, we mentioned Abraham Lincoln earlier on,
and the great history of American rhetoric and the other back and forth between politicians
and political figures. I mean, it's hard to see where American political rhetoric can go
from here. If you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, if you think, do mosthenes did with famously cured
its stutter by chewing pebbles, whereas of course
American Republicans now famously sort out
their squabbles by taking the pebbles out
and just chucking them each other across
Bernie Sanders. Yeah, I mean, I think, you're
probably not far off. The, what I saw in a, in a
local zoo here in London that show you to take my kids
when they're about the age of that your kids are now
Alistair and I was taking my kids round and a monkey
uh,
shot on its hand,
ate some and then threw it across the cage at another monkey.
And that monkey is now a senator for Arizona which I think is important to remember. You have taken part in what's been described as one of the largest acts of Jewish civil disobedience in Bay area history.
I'll give it bigger than when Moses turned up with a large number of people saying,
I think we should have gone right rather than left.
But so what exactly is this huge act of Jewish disobedience? So, hello Alistair, good to meet you. I'm staying in the streets with the people.
I have gathered. The destruction of Gaza has come at great
human cost, but none greater than the fact that I lost 3% of my followers on social media.
Due to my controversial and provocative stance of being unequivocally against killing
children.
So that is aligned too far.
As a Jew, it was been sobering in recent months to discover that I am in fact anti-semitic.
I have been informed that I am an anti-seite because for using words, apartheid occupation genocide
war crime fascist context, anti-signism, colonialism, ceasefire, and morality. I've also been called
anti-Semitic for not simultaneously in every utterance about anything. Also saying Israel has a
right to exist in defended self, I condemn Hamas in the events of 10-7. Hossages Yemen, Weger, Armenia,
Kurds, Darfur, Kony 2012, and Sudan.
Apparently, my controversial anti-killing
of children views are secretly a dog whistle
that I am knowingly doing to Nazis
to invite them to kill me and my family.
I have inciting violence against myself
because I didn't realize that Jew haters the world over are in their layers
waiting for the signal
from the obscure left-wing Jewish community in San Francisco to launch their attacks
So it's been very weird on my social media. Some people are legitimately upset about
about the war and some people have lost the plot.
Like, did you know, Andy, that Hamas kills and beheads people?
I'm against killing. I'm not more against beheading.
Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm not like, oh,
they just bombed everybody to death. At least they weren't beheaded.
So, this past Monday night, I was one of 650 Jews
who occupied the Oakland Federal Building
to demand a ceasefire for many hours. And it was a very Jewish action. Is it an anti-Semitic trope
if it's just our personalities? Like the protesters, there was a lot of anxiety, like there was a lot
of discussion about how to center ourselves and calm ourselves while people were chanting. There was a lot of anxiety, like there was a lot of discussion about how to center ourselves and calm ourselves while people were chanting
There was
Everybody, you know, there was a lot of like did you bring snacks?
Of course, Jude planned to bring the enough food to the protest
We're gonna be there for a while. Do you have a snack? Do you want something to get you a snack?
Do you want us to bring you a snack? Do you have a layer? Are you gonna be cold?
Do you have your allergy medication?
It was very stereotypical.
But I'm optimistic that the Palestinian peace movement
is ultimately gonna be successful
because it's the only movement that has a signature scarf.
And I think you can't underestimate the power
of effective accessories.
But the thing that you don't realize about protesting
in civil disobedience is that it's fucking boring.
One thing you should know is that it's not difficult
to overwhelm the police.
If they're about 40 Homeland Security police
and 600 protesters.
And in other protests, like police overreact with violence
and then they say after the fact that they feared
for their lives
Not this time I can say
Infantely that when police are confronted by 600 Jews
Singing low Yessigoy dancing the horror. They're not afraid of anything
Unless there's so many snacks that slightly afraid the cholesterol might be in serious danger
Yeah, they were afraid of picking up some contact diabetes.
Yeah.
The cause for a ceasefire have, well, cause massive fractures in the Labour Party here.
Labour must be getting jittery at this point with a general election due in the year or
so's time, and it does seem completely unloosable. And they're having
to try and find ways to make things more difficult for themselves in the traditional Labour
Party manner. Eight shadow junior ministers have resigned after refusing to back the party
line on not calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Kirsta, more wants a humanitarian pause before then unleashing the forces of
unhumanitarianism again and so eight shadow of junior ministers have resigned because
they want a ceasefire. So it's essentially, I mean, it's a lot to a large extent as we
talked about on the people before, a semantic argument about what ceasefire and what pause means. And it
does seem a bit disappointing. And the idea you can say it, to your anti-Semitic.
In, well, let's talk a bit more about UK politics. Now, Alistair has been a tumultuous week,
not just for the opposition, but for the government,
home secretary, Suhela Bravenman, mentioned earlier on,
was sacked by interim prime minister Rishi Sunak.
She then issued a scathing resignation letter,
or departure letter, accusing Rishi Sunak of betrayal.
Bravman much fated by the right wing of the Tory party for being consistently even more
wrong than all the other Cabinet ministers and doing so, more provocatively and divisively.
And she reacted to being far-doll, the restraint diplomacy and sensitivity.
We've come to expect from her time
in Cabinet, chundering out a furious letter that said in several hundred words what she clearly meant to say to Soonak in four letters, one vowel and three consonants. It's, I mean, the bizarre
thing about Suella Bravenman being fired is not so much her being fired now because she's been fired
previously and then reappointed within a week
last time. I've lost slightly lost count of the number of times she's been fired.
But the fact that she is in politics at all, I mean, something's gone wrong.
As it not, Alice.
Something's gone horribly wrong. I mean, I particularly like the fact that the Conservatives
are meant to be the party of law and order. And she was kicked out, stoked, resigned,
stoked, sacked by the least successful Prime Minister in British history. And six days
later, she was back in one of the great offices of state. And you do think, I thought the
punishment should fit the crime. I thought that was one of your sort of shit. But no, no,
let her back in six days later. I mean, she is astonishing having achieved, I don't know if Nita you're aware of the previous incumbent of the role,
pretty Patel, who I was under the impression was the most evil woman on the planet,
and Suella literally was like, hold my laughter. And it's a piece, with what we were saying
about the cage fighting Americans, that we're now purely in the realms of fantasy.
And Suella Braverman, I mean the lifestyle choices thing,
she is a populist who seems also
to have massively overestimated her own popularity.
I'm a populist.
Is the term I think that should be used for most things?
And there's that kind of widget,
she's just saying what people are thinking.
And you think, God, if this is really what people are thinking,
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
It's absolutely a bit horrent.
Well, she said in this resignation letter,
she said, I may not have always found the right words,
that is a little bit of self-knowledge
in a way, but I've always driven to give voice to the quiet majority that supported us in 2019.
Well, a couple of things to pick up there in the two word term, quiet majority.
But the kind of people that Suella Bravenman speaks for are the least quiet people
in the cut they generally scream often from within a weekly newspaper column.
And also it's not a majority, I mean in that 2019 election 14 million people voted for
Boris Johnson's Conservatives which is a lot of votes by historic standards in a British
election but not a majority it was 43% of people who voted 30% of people who could have voted
and around about 20% of all people in the country.
So I mean that's classic bravaman for me to use two words and for them both to be fundamentally wrong.
Absolutely wrong that the quiet majority is in fact the hysterical minority.
It is literally you have to think the opposite.
I mean, the whole thing about this Rwander scheme is that they were told that it was against all,
but it's not just, oh, you can't do this, it's against all our international obligations.
And now they've got this idea
that they're going to rewrite a treaty
that's going to change it.
They knew years ago that this wasn't gonna work,
it wasn't Bravaman's policy,
it wasn't Sunax policy,
yet they nailed their colors to this,
particularly unpleasant mask.
In order to, and this is the thing that really gets you,
in order to, and this is the thing that really gets you, in order to shift 200 migrants,
this is not a serious policy on any level apart from it within the pages of the Daily Mail,
you know, hysterical minority area, but what I did know, so I don't know if you saw it today,
Andy, in the telegraph, the, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that that Suveta Braverman has introduced a five point plan to get the Rwanda deal over the line.
And you do think if only she'd recently been occupying
one of the great old-fashioned states
that have given her the power to achieve that.
Upon search threads, Alice.
Can I ask a question?
Yeah.
So I'm trying to brush up on what's happening here.
And am I understanding correctly
that what has been called the Rwanda scheme
was a plan to deport migrants
away from the UK to us location most known for genocide
and they're surprised that that was determined
to have humanitarian problems.
Do I miss something?
No, well, I mean, there's a couple of things.
That's pretty much it.
You could have added a couple of things to it.
Basically, these are people that we say
we don't have room and space and capacity for them.
We're sending them to a country
that is more densely populated
and considerably less well off than the United Kingdom.
So you can throw that in.
The Supreme Court rejected the policy this week
as unlawful, which is a kind of legal term.
They could have gone with unhinged, unenforceable,
unjustifiable, unaffordable, and unfathomable,
the five use of modern conservative party policy making.
But what's most frustrating, as you say,
it's the time, money and effort
splarged on this policy, could, if I've done my calculations right,
have paid for and produced any number of alternative solutions
to the global migration crisis.
Now, as I've said before, we in Britain have to take the global migration crisis
particularly seriously because of all global refugees and other asylum
migrants, approximately 99.94% end up here in Britain,
if you only count the ones who end up here in Britain. So, I mean, it does affect us
disproportionately to all other countries. So, but the amount of money they've spent on this
row under policy, they could have built spring-loaded rebound cliffs to replace the white cliffs
of Dover to then just twang people back in the direction from once they came. They could have
spent it on a giant space hologram of Suella Bravaman,
saying the words, are you sure you want to move here?
We could have built a moat to go with our current moat,
or we could have installed giant space magnets that detect people
with an insufficient level of inherent potential Britishness,
splurps them up and plunk them somewhere in foreignania,
or the rest of the world is also known.
Or we could have just hired more sharks, bigger ones, like the ones we used to have to defend our shores until we joined the EU.
And they made us replace the sharks with baguettes, which got very soggy very quickly.
So, I mean, so much time and effort and money has been wasted on this obviously unneeded,
the wrong solution to a, clearly, a massive, intractable global crisis.
And we, it drives me mad that the narrowness of the way that our politics approach is.
It's happening all over for an ania, and that is a word that I am going to be taking from
this podcast and enjoying tremendously to basically signify anything outside the coast of Britain
is for an ania, although I think Wales and Scotland should probably be included, and certainly
parts of Cornwall.
But I think that you're absolutely right, it, we come back to the absolute post-post truth.
It's so patently a ridiculous...
I mean, they could have genuinely...
I mean, the jokes that you provide there aren't the absolute...
They genuinely could have provided a luxury hotel built for each asylum seeker they're planning
to send for the money they've spent.
140 million and they haven't sent a single asylum seeker they're planning to send for the money they spent 140 million and
they haven't sent a single asylum seeker. And I do think it's quite, the rationale behind
the Rwanda scheme is apparently that the idea of being deported to Rwanda would be enough
to make people too scared to travel to Britain so it was a deterrent. And yet at the same time, they were keen to insist
that Rwanda was a simply delightful place
to be deported to, and frankly,
the holiday destination of choice for anyone with any taste.
And those two things cannot sit in the same mind,
especially as NATO says, if you say to 99% of the world,
Rwanda, word association, Rwanda,
was the first thing genocide?
So it's not really somewhere that you want to go to,
either by choice or deportation.
As a result of Bravman being sacked,
there was a cabinet reshuffle.
And I never thought I'd say these words,
but David Cameron is back in fucking cabinet.
And I think fucking cabinet is now how it is officially
known after what's happened in recent years. Now it's been described as one of the great
political comebacks. Now I really want to pick up on this use of the comeback. Now come
back is someone who's worked their way back from retirement or obscurity. They've earned
their place back through achievement or re-honed their skills to enable another shot at success.
In David Cameron's case, what he did to earn his comeback was sit around doing absolutely
f*** call apart from some chunky lobbying, some corporate free loading and just sitting back and watching the chaos he bequeathed the nation unfold.
And now he is, this is not a comeback.
I read that he was in a shed, Andy.
Yes, very much like me.
Yeah. I mean, basically, I mean, since he jumped into the first lifeboat
after ramming RMS Brexit, and it snouted first into that iceberg,
it's basically, I mean, he hasn't been very invisible in public life.
And this is the weird thing about it.
I can't understand,
but Rishi Sunat's logic thinking,
oh, I tell you what we need to get those wavering voters back,
is David fucking Cameron.
I mean, what voter is gonna think, oh, Cameron's back,
that changes everything.
The thing with Cameron is, he left office,
massively unpopular with people who were against Brexit and massively unpopular with people who were
in favour of Brexit. And also he's not an MP because he, as I said, flounce that of politics
both wrongly because he had a duty to sort out his own mess and rightly because we needed
to be rid of him, a kind of shroding a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,
a, a, a,
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boss to an ego maniac.
And for our special competition this week,
Bueglis, you need to explain why that is
a just sensible and democratic system
without using the words absolute fucking travesty,
putrid parody of a political system,
or I thought we fought three fucking world wars
to save our democracy two hot, one cold.
I do send your answers in on the nearest available pigeon. The New York Times
Sports and the non-existence of God news now and two things I'm really into, to be honest.
The American Football legend Megan Uropino's retiring as facing, has been criticized after getting injured in her final match.
She had to leave the field after six minutes
after injuring her Achilles and said afterwards
that this was proof that God does not exist.
Now, this is, I mean, this is a fascinating story
because I mean, it gets to the very heart
of what it is to be alive.
A, because sport is the greatest thing humans have ever invented and b because ever since
that famous day in what was it 4,000 and 4 BC when Adam found himself unexpectedly existing
and said who am I what year is it and how do I get here and an opportunistic bearded
guy and a cloud said hey but I just made you and do mind those dangly bits I probably
should have pop money inside for both logistical and aesthetic reasons. Ever since then, people have been searching for proof
of the existence or non-existence of God and all God's. Thus far, the most
conclusive proof often in favor of God's existence is the number of athletes who
thank God when they win, minus the number of athletes who blame God when they lose.
Suggestion that God A exists, be like sport and see really
hates losing. The main proof that God does not exist on the other hand includes pretty
much everything that's ever happened in history, dementia, wasps, and the results of the 1954
and 1974 football World Cup finals. And indeed football may now have provided that clinching
evidence that could see bishops, imams and rabbis and other priests from all the different
religions just quitting their posts in droves because in the final match of a phenomenal
career, Rapinah was forced off by an Achilles injury, as I said in the first few minutes,
not quite such a serious Achilles injury as Achilles himself suffered in the famous
trovers as Grecionite had matched back in the mythical day, but serious enough, a Rapinah,
one of their most influential sports people of her time to cite the injury as the final
nail in the pumpkin of theistic belief.
Pears Morgan, whose career many prominent theologians have claimed also is incontroversible
evidence that we live in a godless universe, claimed that her injury was in fact proof that
God does exist and accused Rapinoe of brace yourselves are any being arrogant, self-promoting, pre-Madonna.
So we're still waiting for verdicts from the world's religious leaders on whether Rapinoe's
injury is or isn't proof of God's existence, or indeed of God's misogyny and homophobia,
of which to be fair, there's a witty body of historical evidence or merely God's opposition
to unnatural hair colors.
What did you guys make of it?
I don't know if you know where you stand on
whether or not God exists.
But I mean, if he was to, you know,
to prove his existence or otherwise,
and he could be in deep cover
and trying to make people think he doesn't exist
by injuring Megan Rapinoe,
is this the way that he'd do it?
You have to say in this situation,
it does seem that she was joking.
Oh, yeah.
And there has been a phenomenal sense of homophilia
from everyone who would have thought
Pears Morgan would grab the wrong end of the stick
just to make some sort of controversy.
And she did, she snapped her Achilles.
And of course, this being the world
of absolute literal response where tone is missing
from Eddie Reported, she has in fact denied the existence
of a theistic universe. And I'm not quite sure what she did. I think she was just a bit pissed
out. Well, you say that, Alistair, but this is 2023. It's one of our fundamental human rights
enshrined in the 21st century social media convention that has replaced all other previous
form guidelines for how humans should behave. We can take everything that some people say completely, literally, whilst excusing everything
that other people say on the grounds that they didn't really mean it, depending on whether
or not we agree with them.
So that's the world we live in.
And that is proof that God is this.
That brings us to the end of this week's Bugle. Thank you very much for listening. It's
Plugs Time. Alistair, you've got a show coming up in London.
I have. I'm on tour at the moment with my show Woke in Progress, entitled Woke in Progress,
specifically to annoy my mother, to be honest. But I've been on tour for a little while, it goes on into December. But the big date coming up is November the 28th at the comedy store. And
sales are looking good, but it's quite a big venue. And so I still have plenty of tickets
left to sell tickets for 28th November at the comedy store at www.alistabary.com.
NATO, plug away. Well, bugleers, if you're in San Francisco and this comes out on Saturday night, I'm at
the San Francisco punchline.
In January, I have a few shows for SF Sketchfest, a political stand-up show and a live podcast
of the BITUATION room and then in February I'll be on tour in Portland, Oregon, within a
way date. Check me out there. Very important dates to alert you to
bugle us. We are on tour next year in March, various places around the United
Kingdom. Chris, have you got the list of, I haven't got the list
in front of me.
Oh, and the listeners can go to thebugalpodcast.com forward slash live and see for their
f***ing selves.
Alright, there. We'll just leave it at that. Also, if you want to help keep this show free
flourishing and independent, do join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme.
Details on the Bugle website, and if you join
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when I answer all or some of your questions.
Until next week, goodbye.