The Duran Podcast - Keir Starmer, AI SUPERPOWER and gas shortages

Episode Date: January 19, 2025

Keir Starmer, AI SUPERPOWER and gas shortages

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what's going on in the UK, and maybe we can also discuss a little bit of what's happening in Germany, specifically with Alice Vidal of the AFDE, who just did a Twitter ex-bases, not Twitter, X-Bases with Elon Musk. And she's getting a lot of attention recently for good reason, for good reason, but she's saying some very interesting things. But let's start off with the UK. The soon to be, according to Kirstehmmer, the soon to be AI powerhouse of the world.

That's Dahmer's way of getting huge growth in the British economy. He's going to bet it all on AI. It does not sound like a very solid plan if you ask me, but, you know, what do I know? What about also what about the reports of gas shortages? Yeah, a couple of days. A lot of people are talking about that as well. I thought that Ukraine gas did an effect, that Russian gas transiting via Ukraine was not going to affect the UK.

That's what they were telling us. First of all, can I just say, you're absolutely right to highlight all of these points. Because let's start with Britain actually, because it's a sad story, but never has the Elensky curse acted faster than it has in Britain on the Starma government and indeed on Kirstama. So we have a situation where we, well, we discussed the government's budget, the one that they presented a couple of weeks ago. I said that it was basically a case of ticking boxes in order to please client groups, paying large amounts of money to certain sectors, certain workers, public sector workers, who are an essential part of the Labour coalition. Oh, you can find

reasons, by the way, to justify each and every one of these payments. But, Anyway, that is what they did. They did that in order to, as I say, keep these people happy because they're part of the later system. They've raised taxes. They borrowed more. They have done all of the various things that they said they wouldn't do. They claim that there's a big hole in the budget.

They don't want to explain where that hole comes from. So they don't want to explain one of the reasons why the public funding, the state of the public funds is so poor in Britain. The fact that we've been giving billions to Ukraine, that's not something you can talk about in Britain. That's not something that Stelmer wants to change. They want to spend more on defense. They don't want to explain why the military is in such a parlous state. The fact that we're given away huge amount of our best weapons to Ukraine and that the military is now desperately short of weapons and is in a state of crisis. They also don't want to explain why we've got gas shortages, which we do. I should

explain something about Britain, by the way, which is that we don't have in Britain big underground gas reserves in the way that they do in Germany. The ones in Germany, having been created, created by gas brought. To just to say, we don't have that in Britain. We rely very much on gas being supplied, basically as needed on tap. We generally have very, very few reserves. Now, what's happened, and again, I'm sure a lot of people will come back and will say that this isn't correct, is that we've got a cold winter.

We've had interruptions in gas supplies because the Ukraine. Ukrainians are turning off the tap of the gas that's passing through Ukraine, the gas from Russia. We've had problems with the gas markets altogether. We've seen gas reserves in Europe fall very, very fast so that it's becoming more difficult to import gas from Europe because the Europeans also need gas and our Hasboding gas for their own needs. and that is already having an impact in Britain. So there's talk of blackouts. I think we will probably avoid blackouts.

To talk of gas shortages. There's no real plan on how to deal with that. Because again, you cannot talk about the proximate issue that lies behind all of these problems, the problem that we've been overspending and overinvesting on Ukraine, that we've been running down on our armed forces because of it. of Ukraine, the fact that there are gas shortages and problems in the energy system because of the conflict in Ukraine, you can't talk about any of these things. So talk instead about AI.

You don't have a plan. You talked about plan, but we don't actually have a plan for developing AI. There isn't such a thing. In the meantime, the bond markets had been looking at the overall situation in Britain, they notice that the government, as we said, when we discussed the budget, is borrowing an awful lot more, that is raising taxes on business, which the various economic forecasting agencies, including the government's own, say will reduce economic growth. They've seen that real wages are now again starting to fall. They see that there's good signs that Britain is perhaps already

in recession. There are reports on the high street that even discount shops. Those are the shops that people who cannot afford to buy things in ordinary shops, even discount shops, are now losing business because people don't have enough money to spend in them. So the bond markets has seen all of these things. They're beginning to worry whether the British debt is sustainable. And last week, There was a flurry of activity on the bond markets. Yields on British bonds started to surge, which is the sign that the markets are becoming more wary about buying British debt. And in the middle of all of that, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves goes to China.

She doesn't say anything about it. She goes to China. but he quite knows what she's going to be doing there. Presumably, she's going to go to China to discuss Stama's plan about making Britain the great AI power, because nobody else can find any reason to explain why she's going. Yeah, she's going to China to beg. De Beg. Debeg, yeah.

Distractions, all of this, the AI's distractions. Ukraine is a distraction. The word is that Stammer is going to fly to Kiev. Yeah. What in God's name are you going to do in Kiev, Stammer, when everything is crumbling around you? Yes. And Musk is going after Stammer very hard. I would say, and I have said it on my channel, actually, that Stammer is undergoing a regime change.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it doesn't feel too good for Stammer. It doesn't feel too good, but it doesn't feel particularly good for the Labor government. I mean, there's already talk now that Stammer might be replaced. to this talk about West Streeting, who is the health secretary, perhaps taking over. I should quickly say that West Streeting is absolutely the globalist neocom candidate. I mean, he's even more impossible, even more wedded to these doctrines than Stama himself is, though he's slightly more charismatic than Stahler.

I don't think he'd be any more successful than Stahman. In fact, I could definitely say he wouldn't be. But anyway, there's already issues about Starmus, the solidity of Starmus position. But basically, we are landed in Britain with a government with a huge, a lopsided majority. It isn't at all popular. It's presiding over a recession. The problems are accumulating on all sides. As you absolutely rightly say, it's becoming increasingly criticized by Musk.

and by the Americans, it's already spoiled relations with the Americans because don't forget, they sent 100 people that aid Kamala Harris in her election bit. You know, they imagine that that could be forgotten or talked away. The Trump people are not going to forget that. Why would they? They have no particular reason to like Stama anyway, and they're going to like him even less after he did something like that. So all of this is going on.

There's growing unease in Britain about the problems, the problems, the criminal problems, that Musk has talked about. Again, I'm sorry I'm using careful language, but, I remember I was speaking from Britain, but there's been considerable unease and unhappiness right across Britain about the way in which the government is responding to this, refusing to hold a public inquiry, which of course is feeding questions as to why it is refusing to do that. So nothing looks good. It all looks very, very bad, and the Prime Minister looks completely out of depth and out of touch.

And nobody wants to discuss perhaps not the underlying cause of our problems, which in Britain are structural and have a long history, but the proximate course of our problems. problems, which is the war in Ukraine and the role we're playing in it. And of course, Starmory is now going to Kiev, where he gives every indication that he wants to prolong it. Well, the whole in the budget is from Ukraine. Absolutely, yeah. The gas shortage is from Ukraine.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, all you need to do is join the dots. I mean, you'll find all kinds of people who will explain to you at tremendous length why it isn't true. But sometimes cutting through all these things and looking at the simple facts. It shows immediately that it must be true. Do people on the street and the pubs, do they say this?

No, not as straightforwardly as we have just put it, because there is a huge omerta, a code of silence in Britain amongst the British media and political class talking about this thing. Farage, who will remember now, I mean, you know, the latest opinion polls put labor at about 26 percent, conservatives, perhaps also at about 26 percent, reform UK between 20, 24 percent. He's not that far behind. Farage has talked a little about it, perhaps not as much as he should do, if I have to be honest. But because it's not being talked about in general politics, it's not become a media story. And bear in mind that in Britain, we don't really have very much of an alternative independent media, as there is, for example, in the US. It's not really percolated through.

I get the sense that there's a wider niece about this. But I do think people yet have joined the dots. Eventually, they will, by the way. But I do think it's happened for the moment. And bear in mind, you also have constant rhetoric about how important it is for Britain to continue to stand by Ukraine and how the Russians are coming and we must prepare for all of that. And I mean, I think that still has some effect. Yeah, but for Farage, for reform, this is such a simple message to get out there.

Well, you would have thought so. Very simple measure. We have a hole in our budget because we've sent, God knows how many billions to Ukraine. Everyone could easily connect the dots there. Yes, we've sent billions. And we're losing the war. And as the UK, our proxy war, which the UK is very much behind this proxy war.

We're losing it. We're losing it bad. So all these billions are gone. And we want to send more, but we have a huge hole in our budget from that. And even, I was reading, even the gas company said, that a lot of the shortage is due to the higher prices. Well, where are the higher prices coming from? Exactly.

What happened a couple of weeks ago to cause the higher prices? I mean, but these are easy messaging points for a political party to get out there. You would have thought so. And I think, I mean, my own sense is Farage is making a mistake by not pressing forward with them. I don't know why he's not doing so. I mean, he has always shown a tremendous instinct for speaking out at the right moment. And it may be that he's still waiting or waiting for that moment where this issue congeals

and people begin to understand it. But for the moment, he's not saying it anywhere near as much as he should do. And you're absolutely right. It's a simple talking point. It would cut through. I think it would make a big difference. You mentioned Alice Vidal in Germany. The contrast there is extraordinary because she, on the contrary, is talking about these things.

She's immediately identified that there is this massive problem in Germany, which is caused by the disruption of the gas trade with Russia. She's talking about reopening the one Nord Stream pipe that still works, perhaps ultimately rebuilding the North Street pipelines. She's talking about doing away with the windmills and all of that. Within Germany, this is electrifying, and it has changed the entire terms of the debate in the election that is underway in Germany. And she is driving the election.

She is the politician that people are talking about at the moment. Nobody really cares. what Olau Shultz is saying because nobody pays much attention anymore to Olauuf Schult. Nobody's paying much attention, I think, to Friedrich Nets, if I have to be honest. But what Alice Vidal is saying, because she is actually talking about the real proximate causes of the crisis in Germany, it is, also it seems to me, cutting through. Asara Wagenek is saying the same thing. Absolutely.

She's also saying Nord Stream should go back online. Absolutely. And she's actually taking it, maybe you could say she's taking it one step further. And she's saying that much of the conflict in Ukraine is about destroying Germany and Germany's economy. Yes. I mean, she's actually saying stuff like that. Absolutely. Absolutely.

This is getting into the public discourse, the public domain in Germany. Maybe they're three years too late, but at least they're starting to talk about it now. Correct. That is the fundamental difference between Germany at this moment in time and Britain. In Germany, there is now a public debate, which is right out in the open. It is there taking place during the election. You have political parties. I mean, the IFDA, there's some, I mean, before, it's all the issues about its actual poll rating. Some say it's 18%. Others put it much higher, up to 24%. We don't know. But there's a general sense that the IFD has momentum and quite possibly Zahavaget Gnecht's group has it too. Nobody's really sure and we won't know for a little while yet. We're still in the pre-election period in Germany, remember.

But the debate there has been thrown wide open. It hasn't been so far in Britain. So Britain is going down slowly. Perhaps what's galvanized people in Germany is that, of course, Germany has been going down fast. Going down very fast. And my final question is, would Germany be able to survive Chancellor Frederick Mertz? That's an excellent question. I don't know.

He's going to be bad. He's going to be really bad. Absolutely. Well, let's just say a few things about this. this. Firstly, of course, Germany will survive as a nation. It's a nation. It's a state. It's been far worse things that anything that Friedrich Mao can do. The economy, the... But Germany's place in Europe, its economy, it's the prosperity of its people,

its internal stability. All of that now has a massive question mark of over it. And of course, if you try and prolong this system that has brought Germany to this crisis point, then of course you're going to make all of those things in Germany far, far worse. Germany absolutely needs a radical change of direction. But of course, in Germany, as in Britain, you have a political class that is very entrenched, doesn't want to hear these things, and is trying to push. back in Germany, there's still talk, as we know, about banning the IFD.

Yeah. All right, we will end the video there. The durand.locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, pitch, Telegram, Rock, Finn, and X. Go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video update. The link is in the description box down below. Take care.