The Duran Podcast - Keir Starmer, leader of the Collective West w/ Dr. Neema Parvini (Live)

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Keir Starmer, leader of the Collective West w/ Dr. Neema Parvini (Live)

All right, we are live with Alexander McCurice in London and joining us once again, the man, the legend, Dr. Parvini. How are you, Mr. Parvini? I'm all right, thanks, Alex. I mean, I think like a lot of people in this country, I'm just trying to keep myself from being sent to the gulag. Just trying to survive. Okay, before you're sent to the gulag, where can people find?

you are there any links that you would like to promote or plug yeah well you can find me uh my youtube channel is called academic agent but i also have a website called the academic agency where i sell courses and uh i recently returned to shakespeare for the first time in quite a number of years i think six or seven years since i worked on shakespeare and i've released a course called foundations of shakespeare came out a couple of weeks ago lots of people have taken it already but some Some people may like to know where to find a university level, non-woke, kind of no-nonsense Shakespeare course. And yeah, plenty to learn about politics from Shakespeare too, of course, and power and people

and everything else. And everything else. Sounds amazing. Sounds amazing. And I will add that as a link, as a pin comment link. When the live stream is over, I will also add that link to the course in the description box down below so definitely everybody check out those links where you can follow dr parvini and also where you can take part in his new course so uh gentlemen before we start let's just say a quick

hello to everyone that is watching us on rockfin on odyssey rumble youtube and on our locals community the durand dot locals how is everybody doing on locals how are our moderators doing Peter, good to see you with us. I believe I saw Zareel somewhere in here, or maybe not. All right, Peter, Peter is with us. Okay, great to have you moderating with us, Peter. Alexander, Alexander McHurice, Dr. Parvini, we got a lot to talk about when it comes to the UK and Kirstammer.

So let's begin. Absolutely. And Dr. Parvini is now doing a course on Shakespeare. Well, of course, he made his plays in a time of politics very, very different from ours today, almost as different as you can get. Well, we had an election. Oh, hello. We've lost him. Are we lost him?

No, we haven't lost him. We've had an election. We have a new government. The government's come in. It's got an extraordinarily radical program in some ways. and the country is sunk in gloom, and I personally believe it is in recession. I mean, I can't prove that

because the economics are difficult to get, but certainly in London, Christmas was a complete flop from what I can see. I get the sense that people are not, whatever flickers of economic activity that were before the election, they've been extinguished. And the government has lost support at a speed that I have never seen any government do,

especially one, which has won a landslide. Dr. Pervini, do you agree with that view? And perhaps you can tell us a little bit about, I know you've done a timeline you wanted to discuss how busy they've been. Perhaps we can start that. Yeah, I mean, I have to say your rights about the assessment of the unpopularity of this government. It's probably the least popular government I've lived through. And considering I grew up in Wales in the 80s, my mother is from a small coal mining town in Wales. So I was a child during the Thatcher years.

And Mrs Thatcher, she was popular in some parts of the country, but where I grew up, she was hated. I still think Stama, even compared to that, is, you know, absolutely despised. Before I start, gentlemen, I have to do something which I very rarely do. do and that is admit I was wrong. I was wrong and you guys were right because the last time I was on this show I said that there was a chance. I said there was at least a chance that this Starma government would be sensible. Do you remember I said you know there were some signs and you guys said no we think he's going to be authoritarian we think he's a radical leftist etc and he's practically been a Stalinist. I mean he's even he's even gone too far

to attack the Kulax head on. To be honest, it's a little bit harsh on Stalin. He's more like kind of Chichescu or someone like that, you know, like a kind of horrible system bureaucrat and enforcer who's somehow risen up the ranks and is now elevated beyond his capacities. I mean, in terms of the timeline, I mean, I think it would be beneficial,

especially for your non-British viewers to remind everybody of what they've got up to since last June when they first came into power. If you remember, they came into power with only 19% of the vote. So they didn't really have a popular mandate, but due to quirks of the electoral system, they had a landslide in seats.

So they had a huge seat majority, but they had a tiny, you know, very small, majority of the actual electoral votes. So they needed to, in a way, win over a popular mandate or to get the mandate of heaven or something. Starman needed to kind of hit the ground running to win the country over.

Because even though he'd won this election, he pretty much wasn't liked. And in a remarkable move, the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, I don't know if you remember, I took note of the date. It was the 7th of June. So that is the Sunday following the election. Tony Blair wrote in one of the major newspapers

an entire article basically telling Stama what to do, right? Which is, I mean, in one respect, a tremendous undermining of Stama's authority for the former Prime Minister to come and give this advice. But it's worth reminding ourselves what advice he was given. He said, first thing you have to do, you have to put the woke away. Stop all this woke nonsense, okay?

Then he said you have to get tough on immigration, get tough on crime, and also, surprise, surprise, go full steam ahead on AI and digital ID. Those were the five things Blair told him to do. Okay. And in that first couple of months, I think that the Stama government wanted to tell the country, no, we're not Tony Blair. We are not new labor redux. Stammer is his own man. Okay. So, There were plenty of articles around that time saying, actually, Starram was not taking Blair's advice anymore. And there was even an article in the Independent saying, why is Starrma sticking two fingers up at Blair's advice? And then on August 2nd, there was a shock snub to Blair's AI plan, which was £1.3 billion down the drain that was reported in the Express. Now, so what happened during that three-month period when they first came in? Do you remember I mentioned there was a character called Sue Gray before, who was close to Stama during this time? Well, around that time of the snub of the AI plan, the Southport's riots took place. And on the 4th of August, Stama gave a now fateful speech where he attacked the quote unquote far right.

They arrested over a thousand people, and they sentenced them in what I would describe as turbo trials. Now, you're someone who's been involved in the legal system. I don't know how unprecedented it is to process that many people in the space of a week, but they got them sentenced and put in jail in record time. Then on top of that, in September, Labor announced they'd be cutting the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, which provoked many means of pensioners freezing, which provoked a furious backlash in the country. Then they suggested doing an outdoor smoking ban.

So smoking has been banned indoors in Britain since the time of Blair. But now they were suggesting if you smoke outside in a pub, you're not allowed to do that. Why, I don't know. And that provoked a big backlash from the hospitality industry of hotels and pub saying, Listen, we're already struggling. This would completely sink us.

Then in the middle of all of that, there was an expensive scandal involving a man called Lord Ali, where Stama seemed to have been taking money or gifts from this character, Lord Ali. And by this point already, Starma was at historic lows in the approval polls. And many of the actions during that period were blamed on this woman Sue Gray,

who was known to dislike Blair, she was known to have restricted access to Stama, certain bits of advice weren't getting to Stama. And finally, she was given the boot in October. If you remember, Sue Gray was really the scalp of that Lord Ali scandal. But then there was another double whammy, because Rachel Reeves, who's the Chancellor, announced then an inheritance tax on farmers,

which provoked a large farmer protest fronted by Jeremy Clarkson, you know, the world famous top gear presenter. Stama then announced he was going to abolish the triple lock on pensions, which, you know, again, was hitting the old. And dissatisfaction with Stama by that point, which was still before Christmas, had reached 61%, which I think is a 40-year record by that time. Okay. Now, I believe that at some point between C. Gray leave,

and this 61% that Blair, who is a more significant figure than he appears on the surface of things, came back into the picture. There was an event called COP 29 in November, I don't know if you remember that, where Stama and Blair were photographed together. And astonishingly, Blair was not actually there as Stama's guest, or as a representative of the British government, he was there as the official advisor to the government of Azerbaijan wearing one of his other hats.

I don't know how he gets away with this, but this is something that he does a lot. Now, shortly after that meeting, Stama gave an historic speech on immigration. This was on the 28th of November, 2004, where Stama came out and he said, the Tories have been conducting over the past 14 years, years, a radical open borders experiment where they deliberately change the immigration rules

to liberalize them and accepting record numbers of people post-Brexit and post-COVID. That's all true, by the way, what Stama said. One of the only true things Stama's ever said was that speech, which is one reason, of course, where I was so keen on zero seats, you know, coming in, you know, in the last election. Now this speech was remarkable by Stama because this historically unpopular Labor Prime Minister was suddenly giving a speech that was flanking Nigel Farage and the Tories from the right.

This speech was more hardcore in immigration than Farage has been prepared, you know, as the leader of reform. And to me, this was the big signal that Blair and friends are back in the picture now that Gray is out. It's the Blairites running the show again. And there are quite a number of other signs. Like, for example, the presence of Lord Mandelson who's been selected as the ambassador to the US

to try to smooth things over with Trump. Okay? The trouble is for Stama is that this plan, the old Blair strategy, is too late now. It's not going to work because the damage has already been done in those first few months. I think it's basically fatal.

His unpopularity is at a level where, I think it's basically unrecoverable. Now, to compound all of those, things that I've talked about, Stama then picked, and a completely unnecessary fight with Elon Musk, and Fewed, Stama and Musk were feuding all the way through Christmas. I remember I was like, you know, eating my Christmas sandwiches and watching the Prime Minister fighting with the world's richest man. Then he picked an even more unnecessary fight with Donald Trump when it transpired that Labour had sent activists over to campaign for Kamala Harris. Completely unforced error,

a completely stupid thing to do. And now it's even being reported that because of all of this, Trump may reject Mandelson. They've got problems with some of Mandelson's business dealings in China. So he may be rejected as the ambassador. Now, the feud with Musk has brought another problem for Stama because Musk suddenly started talking about Rotherham and the Grooming Gang scandal, which has been back in the news after a decade. And then in the middle of all of that, Stama thought it would be a great idea to announce that he was cutting welfare, losing many of the people further to the left, if he's got any of those left, and some of the working class.

And at the same time, pledged billions of pounds to Ukraine and signed an absurd hundred-year partnership with Ukraine. I mean, at a time where he's lost practically every section of society, I mean, it's a time. a remarkable thing. And now, just in the past 48 hours or so to compound matters even further, the Southport Killer's court case has been revealing details of a possible police cover-up of what they knew and when they knew it. Turns out that the Southport Killer was known to the counter-terrorism unit, he was known to the authorities, he was known to have various psychological issues. And now, rather than facing the elephant in the room, Labor have blamed, I mean, the far right online radicalization, in-cells, Amazon now. They're blaming Amazon.

I hope Jeff Bezos sees them, by the way. They're trying to, like the press, they're trying to call in the Amazon killer, as if it's got anything to do with them. They're blaming the availability of knives in shops. Elon Musk is being blamed by some people. Anything. You name it anything, but face the real problem that has produced situations like the one in Southpore. And this is just the latest in a series of completely unforced PR errors. And frankly, I mean, I think Stama's position is unrecoverable. The trouble is, Alexander, that there's no mechanism to get rid of Stama. Even now, I mean, he gave an interview a couple of days ago where he was talking about,

oh, I expect to have 10 years in power. I'm going to be in power for 10 years. We're dealing with some sort of psychopath, I think. This is not a man who can be, he's not operating by the normal rules and politics. Now, unless Labour give a no confidence vote, which is not typically Labor style, it's usually Tory style to knife their prime ministers,

Labor tend not to, or King Charles does something practically unprecedented in the modern era and intervenes to recall Parliament, which let's face it, he's not going to do that. we're stuck with him. Unless, unless the powers that be decide that Stama is personally putting our relationship with the Americans under so great a threat that Stama is a liability, in which case, I think they'll find a way and he'll be gone. In the same way that Liz Truss gave an interview in the past couple of weeks where she basically said,

listen, the Prime Minister does not call the shots. There were things when I was the PM, I was made to do that I didn't want to do, and I was told I had to. Boris Johnson has given an interview with the spectator where he more or less said the same thing. The point is, is that if these mysterious higher powers that they're alluding to want the PM gone, the PM will be gone. However, for whatever reason, it seems that they're happy with Starma. And this is, I think, a feeling that a lot of people have. I mean, you guys can tell me if you agree with me or not. It feels like Starma is in there to do a job, right,

to force through some agenda, let's say, by the year 2030, right? I compare it, I compared him in the past to Darth Vader or to somebody like The Terminator, right? This will be a bit obscure to some people. Do you remember in Pulp Fiction there was that character, The Wolf, Harvey Kytel? You know, they, oh, we're bringing in the wolf, you know. It feels like Stama is this. sort of figure, like an agent of the system that's been brought in to do a job. He's honestly quite scary to me. Last thing I'll say, and this is where Blair is super relevant, is that now,

after saying they weren't going to do the AI plan and digital ID back in the summer, Stama is now going full steam ahead with Blair's AI plan. The Tony Blair Institute released an AI document, you know, our plan to plan for artificial intelligence. This document was copied practically word for word. Whole sections just copied and pasted. I don't know if the government even bother to try to mask these things into an official government plan now for artificial intelligence

and how to update all of their systems to utilize AI. Also, his 20-year project of introducing ID cards or digital ID is now being done around the back door. Okay, they're talking about driving licenses going digital. They're talking about shops to start accepting digital ID as age verification. And in fact, just before I came on air, they're talking about if you want to buy a knife on a shop now, you need to show two different age proofs. Okay. Well, you can imagine, let's make them both digital.

So you've got your phone, you've got one app, you've got a second app. Okay. Now, just think about this. It won't be long before you've got all these different apps. apps on your phone, there's my driving license, there's my age verification, etc. Some bright spark will come along and say, oh, wouldn't it be convenient if we combine all of these into one all-purpose ID and there's your digital ID? Now, this is where there's a bit of a kind of an interesting thing with the Trump administration right, because I don't know if you

notice at the inauguration, but there were a lot of tech oligarchs there. One of them, the founder of Oracle, is a man called Larry Ellison, been around a long time, who Trump is now touting to buy TikTok, probably for the US security state, if I had to guess. So Larry Ellison controls a lot of infrastructure as the owner of Oracle. Larry Ellison also happens to be the number one founder and funder, sorry, of the Tony Blair Institute. Where does Tony Blair get his money? Larry Ellison. The number two, by the way, is Bill Gates, who also didn't interview the other day saying,

all that stuff about calling Trump Hitler, forget about all that, I'm cool with him now. I can't wait to work with the Trump administration. And they were all, I mean, at the inorganization, they were all sitting in a line, all of these like multi-billionaires. And this is the one area where I think that the Stama administration, or certainly Blair, and the Trump administration will actually see eye to eye. Because if you think about Larry Ellison's agenda and Blair's agenda or what Starmo's do, they're basically the same, that they offer these technocratic solutions, essentially.

It's the same agenda. The other link between Blair and the Trump administration, again, a little bit hidden, is if you remember the Abraham Accords, was actually, that was a Blair plan. And Blair worked directly with the Trump administration and general. Jared Kushner on getting the Abraham Accords up and running. Okay. So that's the kind of second in. Now the point here is that if anybody can make peace between the Stama government

and the Trump government coming in, it is literally Tony Blair himself. He has got all of these people on speed dial. The question is, would Blair sacrifice his own political capital and his relationships? is he prepared to sacrifice those for the sake of Stama, who in his own mind would have betrayed him last summer, right? Is he prepared to do that? And I would suggest that if Blair is not prepared to do that, these are the circumstances that might actually bring Stama down.

Because if the special relationship becomes too frosty, it will actually come to be seen as a national security risk by the British deep state or something like that. That would be my assessment, but I've said a lot there, but let me know what you think. Well, first of all, first of all, I thought that was a masterly account, and there's a few things I wanted to say. First of all, about turbocharging court cases and the way that was done in the summer.

I was absolutely horrified by it. I have never known anything like that on that kind of scale. I found it a most ominous development. When you rush through cases in that kind of way, conveyor belt criminal justice, you can almost guarantee that there's been wrong decisions made, miscarriages, if you like. It was an astonishing thing to do. And the other thing is that we discussed these so-called riots, Alex and I on the Duran.

And I made my view perfectly clear. I didn't think that it was such a big phenomenon anyway. I thought the whole thing was being talked up and made it to sound, you know, like there was some, you know, event, huge event going on, massive things happening a lot. and all the cities. I was phoning around all my friends and acquaintances across England, and they were telling, no, there's no one here, nothing. There's a few people in one or two places, but nothing on anything like the scale that the media said. And of course, as you absolutely

rightly said, the actual Southport affair was absolutely horrifying. And there is still a huge reluctance to talk about it, just as there is a huge reluctance to talk about the grooming scandal, by the way, which my wife Catherine got fairly close to a kind of a fashion, because in Oxford, she actually was familiar with this hostel where it was all happening, and was I remember telling me about it. It was very disturbed. Anyway, there we go. About Stama, having been brought in to do something, I think what we are seeing with the Stama government, is basically the national security state. I think this is what this is all about.

It is about establishing a network of controls over the British population. I think the British political class were deeply horrified by the Brexit referendum vote. They were very, very alarmed by the Jeremy Corbyn movement. I'm not making people may not like Jeremy Corby, they may think that that was wrong, but it was not what British political class,

the British elite wanted to see. They didn't want to see Brexit, absolutely. And so he's brought in, basically to create a structure of control that will enable the British state to continue without being as affected by the kind of pressures that we see. So digital IDs, all of those sort of things, convey a belt justice, and targeting sections of the community, which are famously, cantankerously independent and willing to stand up for themselves. And of course, the farmers, that's exactly where the farmers come in. Because the inheritance tax rate on the farmers is not going to produce any money on anything like the kind of scale that would make it worthwhile to do as an economic measure. And you could argue that it's going to do much more damage economically

than it's going to do, you know, gain the government money. But I would argue that. So as I say, I think what they're doing is they're hammering away at people who are independent-minded, groups that are independent-minded, and they're creating a structure of control. And again, this is one reason why this anger about Elon Musk, because he's coming along, he's, taking a different line he wants a more open use of the social media at least that's what he says and this goes completely against what the starma people are what the starma government what the whole star government is about now whether they will succeed in all of this is another matter it could very well provoke a backlash eventually but i do get the sense that people are very

demoralised in Britain at the moment. We've had huge amount of movement over the last 10 years. We have as a Brexit, we have Corbyn movement. They've all been beaten, but beaten down. So in this mood of demoralisation, however unpopular Stama is, he's able to move forward with this agenda quite effectively. So those are my thoughts. I don't know what you would say about this, but that's my thoughts. I think it's much more,

creating a network of controls is much more important than making the economy grow or any of these things that people are talking about that the Starma government is supposedly trying to do. I don't think that's the priority agenda at all. You know, no, I agree with everything you've said there. And I think when you talk about the national security state,

I actually think that we've seen several times where they have blatantly taken over the newspapers. Like we're meant to have a free press in this country. I remember in about a week after Southport, there were these, you know, talks are, oh, there are going to be demonstrations in this place and that place and the other place. and every single newspaper ran with the front page because there was a counter protest, you know, against racism or something, unite against racism it was called. And I remember it was the sun, it was the Guardian, it was the telegraph. I mean, whenever you ever seen all these newspapers on the same page, all at the same time?

You know, it's blatant sometimes when it's like, okay, right, you're free press, that's suspended for today. Now you're all on the same page. And I actually think that we're seeing another one with this Amazon business where they're all in unison. They're trying to reframe what Southport was as something to do with the availability of knives on Amazon, as if that's the issue. And I mean, it would be very interesting if Bezos, who is one of the world's richest men and Elon Musk and all of these other people who the Starma government are picking fights with, actually started combining forces. And, I mean, again, you would know more about the legalities than me, Alexander, but I'd be very surprised if Amazon didn't have some legitimate legal complaint against every newspaper in the country, smearing them, basically,

as being in any way culpable for what happened. I mean, it's ridiculous. Well, absolutely. The people who are culpable are the police and the other authorities, who knew all about this extremely dangerous. dangerous man, who was an extremely dangerous man with psychological problems, and who did absolutely nothing about him. They weren't concerned about that. If you want to look for blame, that is where you look for. He could have got his weapons anywhere. I mean, he just happened that he bought

them from Amazon. If Amazon didn't exist, he would still have found a way to do it. That's the reality of it. If you know people like this, I mean, by the way, I should just quickly say I've actually had the unattractive task in previous periods of my life of having to interview people of this kind. I have. I used to work in the Royal Courts of Justice. They used to come along. I used to see them in the cells. These people are very, very determined, very ingenious. They will, or if they decide to do something like this, they will find a way. The Amazon thing is absolute nonsense. It is simple and straightforward. It is simple. It is simple. forward distraction. But they're not worried about controlling people like him, but they are worried about arresting people that they simply label as far right, a term that's never defined.

And if we go back to the so-called riots, I've never seen to this day a number given for the number of people who were supposedly protesting in the aftermath of the Southport affair. I've never seen one. I mean, was it 1,000 people across the country or 10,000 or 100,000? I've never seen anybody give a number for how many it was. In my opinion, the whole thing was just spun out of nothing. And obviously, there were some people who protested in some places. But the crackdown that took place, that is the real story.

Yeah, I think one of the biggest questions for 2025, going forward is how long is the British establishment going to be able to maintain these positions with America following a very different course? Because the story of this country since World War II has been that we kind of walked in lockstep. You know, when Britain and America traded places, when the British Empire went from being the world hegemon to being, in effect, America's point man in Europe, which is essentially what Britain has been since 1940, since Churchill really. You know, we've never been too far apart. You know, when America went to Keynesianism, we went to Keynesianism, when Thacher came in, when Thacher came in,

when Brexit happened, Trump happened. You know, there's this parallel story. I mean, even down to when they passed their civil rights legislation and liberalize the justice system under LBJ, we had a raft of extremely similar policies in the mid-60s that happened. There's been a harmony between Britain and America. This feels like the two countries are on opposite courses at the moment. And I don't know whether that is going to be acceptable to the American Empire, frankly. I mean, who knows what's going to happen with. NATO going forward. You've called this stream Kiyostham, a leader of the collective West.

I mean, he can barely run the Labour Party, let alone the collective West. So, yeah, I mean, I have a bit of a theory that the forces who, the elites, let's say, who backed Trump or who kind of helped Trump get back into power. May I had a theory that they wanted Robert Kendrick remember when it was Kemi Badernock versus Kendrick

and Kemi Baderk won Okay Since that has happened I think they they now want somehow to bring Farage in Farage to be a kind of British Donald Trump

There's some weirdness there because Farage seems quite reluctant to fully play ball for some reason I don't know he is not doing the saying or doing the things you'd expect at this time. He's actually moderating at exactly the moment where you'd expect him to be stepping up the rhetoric.

So it, I mean, it remains to be seen whether Britain even could go in the direction of America because the energy that was built up around Brexit, like you said, has been dissipated and the people have been demoralized. and there hasn't been a figure like Trump to galvanize the so-called populists. The left have been crushed. The Corbynite left have been crushed. Everybody from Pierce Corbyn to all of us and everybody else has been labeled far right. You know, anybody who's against me. I mean, all far right means is you're an enemy.

You're an enemy to the project that Stama has. It's just a Schmittian friend enemy distinction. you know, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them label the farmers far, right, for example, or the workers or even the pensioners now. You know, it just means you're an enemy group that don't help our project. The trouble is, is that I start to wonder who, like in politics, you have to have a base of people behind you. Okay. Now, you'd think, well, traditionally, Labor would have certain ethnic minorities, you'd have the working classes

and you'd have the trade unions behind you. Well, he's been picking fights with every single one of these groups. Even when you'd say the ethnic minorities, Stama, as everybody knows, is a hardcore Zionist. So he's not popular in the Islamic community. But at the same time, he's not hardcore Zionist enough for the other side. So he's not popular with them. It's like I don't know who likes him.

I don't, I mean, I think it's just the permanent civil service, the permanent bureaucracy, but you can't have only that as a political base. I mean, you know, even in elite theory, you need some base of power. You need some portion of the population behind you. And, I mean, what he started on 19%. I wonder how low that. I wonder if the election was held today, how many people would, vote for Labor.

I mean, there's a left-wing channel I watch called Navarra Media. They don't like him. I mean, that's the left-wing base in the country. They don't like him. So who's going to vote for him? And more importantly, do they even care? It feels like they're doing like a post-liberal,

post-democratic government where it actually doesn't matter. We're just going to do it anyway. You know, anyway. No, I agree with that. Absolutely. I don't think any... I don't know any section from the British population or part of the political, you know, political spectrum that likes him. I mean, working-class people, ethnic, I mean, the historic coalition of the Labour Party is not supportive of him. I don't know anybody who is. I don't think this is sustainable.

And here, perhaps, I'm a little bit more optimistic than you are in the sense that. that this is so unsustainable that even if you allow for the fact that he's the prime minister with a huge majority, which puts him always in a strong position, who's won an election, and he's a Labour prime minister as well, and the Labour Party, I don't have any situation. I cannot remember an occasion when the Labour Party ousted a leader. But we are looking at absolutely extraordinary times. I think something that is unsustainable in this way cannot be sustained. I understand that there's already talk within the Labour Party

that he will not lead the party into the next election. And when people are starting to talk in that way, then sooner or later they will start to say, well, if he's not going to lead us into the next election, why do we need to have him now? The problem is who would take over from him? You look at the people who are running the Labour Party now And I cannot see any single one who I think would be more popular, more effective or more successful than he was.

I mean, we're streeting people the same. Well, really? Genuinely, this is going to sound ridiculous to everybody listening to this. But I honestly think that if it's popularity they want, honestly, then the closest thing is Angela Rainer. As sorry as that sounds. I remember during the summer she went to Ibiza. Do you remember she went disco, nightclub, whatever. She was dancing, right?

And I remember that the right, the political right, trying to make pay with this. But it actually played quite well. Because she is working. She's working class. She's from a council estate. She was a teenage mother. And there's a she's got kind of, you know,

she's kind of the John Prescott figure. I know he passed away recently. She is meant to be that, I mean, talk about political decline. We've gone from Jack Straw and Prescott to Rainer. And she's popular within the – I mean, Rayner, I believe, is in the cabinet because the unions put her there. I think the deputy prime minister is selected by the party, not by the prime minister, I believe in Labor rules. So, I mean, whether that would be acceptable or not, I don't know. but Rainer, I can see, especially in the internet age,

she's quite memeable, you know. I could see her playing well, especially at a time where, you know, I do think the future trajectory of the left, right now that Woke is kind of going away, it's obviously dead, that whole thing. They're not going to be talking about trans and LGBT stuff anymore. I think the left are going to go much more back to a classical mode of talking about oligarchs and billionaires and the rich and much more like that.

Where else can they go? They have to go there, especially with Trump surrounding himself with all these Uber wealthy people. And I can see, again, someone like Rainer, they could just go back to the old-fashioned rhetoric. I didn't go to a public school. I'm from the streets and it would actually be true for once. You know, whether that happens, who knows. but if I was there, I mean, it's slim pickings. You're looking like, you look at the bench and she's the only one with any personality.

But yeah, I mean, this has been a problem though, Alexander, is that one of the reasons that the Blair plan is not working at all now is because of the degradation of talent from 1997. to know. If you look at that 1997 cabinet, there were heavyweights in there. There were people who could think. I mean, you say what you want about Gordon Brown. At least he was kind of, you know,

a history buff and, you know, he really knew his political history. Like, I don't know anybody, you know, we've got Rachel Reeves and a vet. They're awful, all of them. The whole cabinet is awful. But this is,

actually a wider problem. It's an absolute problem. of the Labour Party. I mean, I remember Blair's first cabinet, you're absolutely right. I mean, all kinds of strong personalities. I like many of them, but they were strong personalities, definitely. The Conservatives as well. I mean, they historically had strong cabinets, all kinds of, you look at the Conservative Party today. Again, you have the same problem. I mean, Kemi Badenot is making no kind of impression against the most unpopular government that anybody

can remember. You talked about degradation. It is a degradation throughout the party system. Labor, conservative, liberal, none of them really are at all convincing now. There's reform, but reform is based around Nigel Farage, to a great extent, and his personality. And I sometimes wonder whether Nigel Farage actually does want to become

Prime Minister in all honesty. He's somebody who's always been most comfortable in opposition, it seems to me, than actually aspiring to govern. And when a political party system has degraded to such a degree as it has in Britain, you do have to ask why. Now this is a huge question, which we're not going to be able to answer on this programme. But it does, it does require some discussion and analysis over the long term. I mean, why have we seen the parties declined to the extent that we have? Why cannot we in Britain produce Donald Trump? Yeah, I mean, the on a short answer, we're not going to have a long answer, but the on a short answer is, why? would anybody with brains, talent, want to go into politics?

Yeah. You know, why would you want? I mean, if anybody with a hint of that would just go to work for an investment bank, wouldn't they? Or they'd go into big tech or something. This is where the people with dynamism and drive are. And, I mean, who knows? Maybe that's the future of politics is just a kind of big tech oligarchy.

But it hasn't taken over here yet. But I mean, certainly, I mean, you can say what you want about Elon Musk and all these people. At least they've got ideas. At least they've got vision. At least he wants to go to Mars. You know, these guys can't even fix the Hammersmith Bridge, as I talked about last time. It's absolutely true. Well, just quick question.

I mean, where do you think we're going to go in terms of mood? Are we going to see continued decline or will there be a pushback? And could it be, because you're now going back to Shakespeare courses, will we perhaps, as has happened in other countries, in other places, will we retreat into our culture, maybe? I mean, is that where we're going to reorganize and consolidate and come pushing back? I've seen that happen. I saw that happen in Greece, in Russia, of course.

it's also happened. Well, one of the writers who interest me, I've written a few books, but I have a chapter on him in a book called Prophets of Doom, is a historian called Arnold Toynbee, who talks about heroic withdrawal and return. And he says that every once in a while, countries, especially great powers, need to take a bit of a timeout, timeouts in history.

And I mean, I would like to see Europe return to world history in some way. I think Europe has actually had a timeout since World War II overall. I remember the neocom Robert Kagan talked about Europe living in a postmodern paradise while America had to deal in the grubby real world of realpolitik and power. I mean, it was a justification for the Iraq war, but there was an extent to which that is true that there's been a kind of Europeans haven't had to think about war or defense or whatnot. And Trump may now stop that. It seems like America is moving in the direction where it's withdrawing a little bit from Europe and, you know, from Europe and, you know, he's talking about his own borders and Canada and Mexico and so on and they're thinking more and more about China.

So it may be that Europe comes back onto the world stage. Britain, however, is different. Britain, despite, you know, the British Empire winding. down since World War II has decided to go along with every single thing that Americans have wanted to do. There hasn't been a war that Britain has not been involved with, whether it was Afghanistan or Iraq or, yeah, they were there every step of the way. I would like to see, now this is not what's going to happen, it's just what I would like to see. I would like to see Britain take a bit of a timeout, okay, even if it means having a few years of experiencing being a bit of a backwater or something,

something like that, or not being the centre of action, where, yes, they could withdraw into their own culture and their own history, you know, going all the way back pre-Roman times. You know, Shakespeare wrote King Lear set in 800 BC. So there's a long history to draw from, just to rediscover itself a little bit and have a period where it's just on the kind of edges for a while, and then it can come at some point come back. This is something that has happened in history. You mentioned Greece. I mean, my dad is from Iran. Iran have had times where they've taken time out and then they come back, you know. I think this would be a fantastic thing for Britain to do.

Trouble is that would necessitate the country actually being, I hate to say this, mostly British. And that is the thing that, especially the last Tory government, have rapidly changed. You know, if you keep on bringing in people from other countries with the best will in the world, they're not going to care about King Leia, not going to care about the thousand, two thousand year history because people tend to care about their own history and anybody who's from a country with a rich history

like my dad from Iran or you guys from Greece or whatever will know that people care about their own stuff, not about some place that is foreign to them. And that is something that needs to be sorted out one way or the other, whether it will be. I don't know. I mean, I'm a realist, which often means being a pessimist, sadly. Pessimist is often a realist. Dr. Parvini, thank you very much.

As I said, a masterly, can I just say a masterly summation of the state of Britain today. Cheers, perhaps. Dr. Parvini, real quick, do you have five minutes for some questions? Sure, yeah, quick. Okay. Your thoughts on the millionaires leaving London, leaving the UK. Yeah, I mean, it's happened before, isn't it? Beatles taxman, do you remember? So, yeah, this is something that happens,

especially when you get old, old fashioned style labor coming in, which Starma seems. I mean, I really don't know, I haven't got a handle on what the government's trying to do. I think they're caught between the Blairites and the Brownites yet again, labor, and the Brownites, if you remember, are always much more, they're basically more up for doing old-fashioned socialist things. But of course, we've had a very neoliberal financialized economy.

So that is, I mean, any step in that direction is going to lead to capital flight, and it's going to lead to, you know, a decline in the standard of living that you used to. Controversially, and this will upset many people, it may not be a bad thing. It may not be a bad thing. I mean, we were talking about how a country rediscovers itself. A little bit of suffering, a little bit of decline in standards, you know, could go a long way. You know, I mean, imagine, I mean, I've been thinking of scenarios.

You know, some of me and my friends talk sometimes. Imagine if Google pulled out of Dublin. Would it be that bad for the Irish people overall? Okay, they'd suffer like a loss of wealth. but for the long-term benefit of Ireland, it might be good. Would it be such a bad thing if all the McDonald's in the country closed down? Well, you may miss your big max, but in the long run, and this is, I mean, when you're thinking civilizational as people like Putin have been doing, right?

I mean, the Russians have experienced this. All the McDonald's closed down in Russia. They were reopened to something else, right? But, you know, and I mean, you guys mentioned Greece. I know Greece has gone through, you know, a surveillance. severe economic downturns in the past, but it can help the people rediscover themselves a little bit more. So whether this government doing it will do that, I don't know. But I'm not kind of so bothered by capital flight, as I may have been a couple of years ago.

From Wade, question for Dr. Parvini. Is Brexit just a relic of the past? Amazing how Brexit had more impact in the US than in Great Britain? Well, I mean, I should mention, and this is where I often get people turning again, I voted for Remain as a kind of, I was a Remain voter. So I never really supported Brexit. But I came to understand why people did vote for Brexit. And unfortunately, I think there was a bit of a trick. I think the elites turned Brexit.

I mean, what Brexit really was was a revolt against. It was the first time the British public had been asked the question, are you happy with the direction of things? And do you want to change it? Okay. Yeah, there were questions about, you know, being sovereign. And there were questions about not being beholden to Brussels and all of that. But I think the major thing, I remember the Nigel Farage poster

with all the hordes of people coming in from Turkey and elsewhere. It was really a referendum on immigration, if we're honest. a huge number of people voted for Brexit because of that. Now, what the Tories did when they came in is that they reframed the whole thing about, oh, actually, the real problem is, is that the EU is racist, and it's not global enough. It's not, and what Brexit really means is a more global Britain, which in practice means, instead of it being Polish plumbers and people from, you know, the former Eastern bloc and Czech, and so on coming in.

I remember them in the Blair era. Now it's going to be hordes and hordes of people from what people call now the Global South or the third world, which is more noticeable, especially in rural parts of the country, is more noticeable. And that's essentially what the Tories did. I mean, in record numbers. So I think they, I think. I think they really tricked, I mean, they used it to trick the public in some way, or they

betrayed the public by, because almost nobody who voted for Brexit, where the left or right voted for that. Nobody was voting to bring in record numbers of people from foreign nations. You know, there may have been a handful of, you know, people involved in emerging markets, like Jacob Rees-Mogg or something, but that's not most people. One more question from Marco. Is the UK becoming the canary in the coal mine for this new integration of future technocratic governance? Yeah, well, I mean, it's hard to say.

I do think they want to, I think, I'm less optimistic about the Trump administration the most because I think that Trump is going to be used as a vehicle to do a lot of this stuff in America, right? only that right it'll make a difference though because if you put a red hat on it it's easier to accept for his voters right for the for the Trump base we've seen a couple of little

clashes with Elon Musk and the base already over the H-1B issue around Christmas as well and I mean again call me a cynic but he's kind of being booed loudly by the base and all of a sudden he starts talking about grooming gangs in in Britain and

everybody stopped talking about the the H-1B thing and let's shunt Vivek Ramoswamy off, never to be seen again, you know. But that issue is not going to go away in the long run. You know, you think, well, you've got to look at some of these issues. Like they're doing away with DEI, right, at the moment. But DEI restricts the labor pool. And DEI creates operational difficulties for all of these companies. If you're on the side of capital and, you know, big business and so on, anything that restricts the labour pool pushes up the costs.

That's why they're against unions because unions restrict the labour pool. You know, DEI restricts the labour pool and immigration restriction restricts the labour pool. So if you're, you know, if you're those big tech billionaires, you want a wider talent pool as possible because it drives the cost of labour down. I mean, these are these, I mean, I don't want to sound like Lenin or something, but this is just ABCs. So, I mean, I don't know how they square that circle come, because either Trump has to betray his base or he has to betray Elon Musk. And that battle is coming, whether we like it or not. It's just inevitable, because their interests are not aligned at the end of the day. So, yeah, it is Britain the Canary in the coal mine?

I honestly think this stuff is coming everywhere. I think it will come in Europe under the EU. I think it will come in under this Starma administration, and I think it will come to Trump's America, whether any of us like it or not. Because the whole thing, if you think about the internet, it's one big network, it's one big matrix. If you think about Twitter,

everybody thinks about Twitter is a free speech issue. I think much more of it in terms of a kind of network with data on it, right, which is now owned by the American security state. This is why TikTok being owned by the Chinese was intolerable, which is why they want TikTok to belong to, again, the American security state because it's data. It's an ability to see what is happening. And as long as you're on that grid, it doesn't really matter what you say. the point is you're on their system. Okay, and you've seen how important. I mean, if you think about when they try to stick Russia off,

Russia is off Swift, you know, you're no longer, Russia's off the grid now. They try to de-platform Russia, right? It's the same thing, though, with the internal domestic policy. One of the most astute commentators on this is actually Alistair Crook, who has seen the, the foreign policy and the domestic policy actually go hand in hand and are two parts of the same of the same thing. Everybody thinks that Trump is a massive signal change in all of this. I am less convinced because it's literally exactly the same people.

You know, when we're talking about Ellison and Bill Gates and these sorts of characters, these are exactly the same people, you know, who four years ago were pushing COVID restrictions and, And, you know, it's just more than one way to skin a cat. You know, and in America, I think the Democrats had lost their way so, and they were so unpopular and they were so unpopular and they so lost their way with all the woke stuff, that it was untenable. So they had to change courses. And after 10-7, that became doubly the case because now you had the Palestine issue,

which was completely intolerable to the likes of Bill Ackman and, you know, various other people. I don't buy that Mark Zuckerberg just started, Mark Zuckerberg just started, you know, weightlifting and now he's red pill. No, come on. It's the same. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg gave $300 million to Biden last time, you know, in the fortification, etc. So I do think, I mean, emotions are high in America at the moment for understandable reasons,

but I still say people should be cautious and all of these things that are happening here. may happen in a different form over there. Only there will be waving the American flag and talking about family values while you're doing it. Here it will be another way. So, yeah. Brulaham says, great to see Dr. Parvini on again. Excellent commentary.

The panel ought to be a regular event on the Duran. Fantastic. Well, we've had Dr. Parvini a few times. I hope we'll have him again. I do agree. I do agree. It's an excellent to do programs with Dr. Falvini.

Thank you. One more time before you go, Dr. Pravini, where can people find you and tell us about your Shakespeare course, your online course? Yeah, so, well, that's at the academic agency, which you can just Google, or it's academic, hyphen agency.com. You'll find it there, or I'm academic agent on YouTube, and you can find all my links on any of my videos. And I guess I'll stick them in the private chat before I go, Alex, right? Yes, I will have all the links in as a pink comment and in the description box as well. Thank you very much, Dr. Parvini, for joining us once again. Thank you. Thank you very, very much.

Cheers. All right, Alexander. Well, that was a mass. That was a great. That was a great. That was absolutely masterly description of the stage of Britain today, if I may say. And I thought the way he took us through one thing at a time, all the way from the beginning, all the way up to the 100-year treaty with Ukraine.

I was just astonishing, actually. I thought that was virtuosity in the best sense. Absolutely, absolutely. Alexander, you have some energy to answer the remaining questions? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's do it. New two, you say note reference provided above, if haven't seen, Cheers, doing good.

New two, I'm looking for that question, but if you could put it in the chat once again, that would help me out a lot. It doesn't have to be a super chat. just put it into the chat once again and we'll get to it. Elsa says what about the 100-year partnership with Ukraine and the peacekeepers there? Well, we've discussed it. I mean, it's an absolutely terrible document.

It basically goes completely contrary to what Donald Trump seems to be trying to do. So going back to what Dr. Parvini says, it's a sign for the first time on a major foreign policy issue a British government taking a contrary position to the US government and it makes a commitments it makes commitments on behalf of Britain to Ukraine which we can never fulfill and which the Russians will see not just as provocative but as a confirmation of our deep hostility to them like you know patrol the sea of Azov together things like that I mean it It is ludicrous thing to do. Right.

Miss Texas G, I missed your question for Dr. Parvini. What is the good doctor's opinion on the authorship question? This is presumably about Shakespeare. Yeah, it would have been a good question for it. It would have been a good. Well, we'll save it up to him for him next time. I'm going to give my own personal view about it. I think that all the plays are actually written by one William

Shakespeare. That's my own view. And I think William Shakespeare also wrote all the sonnets and all of those things. He's not widely known, but we now have quite a lot of information about him. I mean, he was a party to a court case, for example, and we have his testimony, and we have all kinds of things. So he's not quite the sort of vague, grey personality behind all the plays that he used to be. So that's my own view. I think that, I think he was I think he was the author. Dr. Parvini, if you're watching, maybe you can put in the comments. What is the good doctor's opinion on the authorship question?

I would like to tell. So here, Dr. Parvini's view on this as well. Thank you, Alexander, for answering that. Nicholas Walker says, The Telegraph published a report saying, one in 12 people in London are illegal immigrants. When does the British public have? British public have enough.

Well, I think they showed that they'd had enough when they voted for Brexit. And because, as Dr. Parvini said, I do myself think it was exclusively about immigration, but immigration was a significant part of it. And Dominic Cummings came up with this tremendous slogan, take back control. They haven't taken back control. Immigration has increased. people showed that they had enough, but the political class, who is the power in Britain,

decided otherwise. Commander Crossfire says, how are you feeling, Alexander? Better? Well, better, not well, but it's always good to be back on our doing programs again, I have to say. Otherwise, you're just spending all your time in bed, and that doesn't do me. any good. Zis Karayani,

thank you for that super sticker. Polly says the Dutch have a former head of intelligence as prime minister who nobody voted for. True. Seems to be the pattern. Absolutely.

Nikos. Nikos has some questions, Alexander. Kirstammer is like Pierce Morgan. Arrogance and narcissism personified. The British think that everyone must be on their knees

like Russia in the 90s. Every nation must be stepped on by the West and give them their ship because we are above you. That's the mentality that destroyed my country, Greece. Unfortunately, Trump continues this policy. I no longer believe that Trump will end the war in Ukraine. He is going to get mad and then lash out.

Instead of threatening and insulting Russia, all he had to do is to understand them. Just visit Moscow and see their economy and what their people are like. I recently watched a video of Russian blogger that showcased the demolition of old Soviet buildings and the construction of new modern ones. Besides technological advances like robots and skyscrapers, they also keep churches and build new buildings on top of the Soviet breweries. Why is it so difficult not to treat Russians like Soviets? When the USSR dissolved, there was a poster of Mother Russia saving its people from communism.

Moscow and Putin reflect this mentality as the old Soviet world is gone. The new Russia is being built. unfortunately doesn't understand this. The video from Lisa with Russia vlogger finally made me understand and see Putin's famous words, those who forget the Soviet Union have no heart. Those who want to return to it have no brain. Right. There's lots of things here. Let's start with Pierce Morgan and Kirstama. I would agree with you on many points, many points of similarity between the two. All I would say is that Piers Morgan makes, compared to Kier Stama, is a man of tremendous charisma and personality and intellect.

I mean, there's just no comparison. I mean, the one, however ridiculous you may find him, that's to say, Piers Morgan, does come across as a real vital. A person. Kier Stama is just, I mean, he's machine-like. He's so dull. You can't say that about Pierce Morgan. Now, about Trump and the wall and Ukraine, I'm going to take a contrarian view.

Exactly. I'm going to take a contrarian view. Now, look at what he's actually done. Firstly, he's suspended all military deliveries to Ukraine. It's not been widely mentioned, but he has. For 90 days, no more weapons being sent to Ukraine. he's also apparently stopped intelligence sharing with Ukraine, which makes it impossible now for Ukraine to conduct more missile strikes on Russia.

So he's doing all of these things. He's saying to Putin, let's do a deal. He's given himself apparently 100 days to do that. This is what I think is going to happen. I may be completely wrong here. I think Trump and Putin are going to meet. Trump and Zelensky are going to meet. Trump, after all of these meetings,

when he realizes that negotiations realistically are impossible and cannot end the war within the 100 days that he is expecting, he will say at the end of those 100 days, okay, I'm out, I've done what I can. I'm going to cover my back, though, by imposing some more sanctions on the Russians, and I'm just going to move on and deal with other things. I think this is what this is all about. Can I add something to that? Do you think that Trump, with the post that he made yesterday, he talks a lot, even when he was signing the executive orders, he interchanges the words sanctions, taxes, and tariffs.

To him, there's no real difference, but we know that Trump's policy is all about tariffs. He wants tariffs. And when he was asked about sanctions by a reporter and in his post yesterday about Russia, where he says he loves the Russia people and stuff like that, he once again mentions tariffs, sanctions, taxes, and tariffs. Do you think that Trump may be looking to place tariffs on Russia's secondary tariffs, secondary tariffs, not so much on Russian goods coming to the US because that's insignificant, but secondary sanctions, which are actually just tariffs on other countries and

just use the excuse of Russia. I think that's a great point, actually. That's a very, very great point. I think that's exactly what he's going to do. I mean, it gives him a nice excuse to impose more tariffs and pretend that they're sanctions. Yeah, pretend that they're saying you can impose them on LNG, on energy, on oil, on whatever, on whatever you want. Whatever. Exactly.

Exactly. Anyway, just a thought. All right. I think that's everything. New two, I still haven't seen the message that you, the question that you have. I'll keep on looking. Alexander, here's a question. Your thoughts on NHS from J.C.

NHS, what do you mean, the National Health Service, is in deep crisis. It has been steadily moving into further and further crisis for many, many years now. It's become enormously overcomplicated and very bureaucratic. I can remember once upon a time when it was actually achieved, cheerful, easy, you know, service to access. people who worked for it were in a good, you know, high morale. All of that's gone. It is very good at some things. It's still very good at some things. So it's maternity side, for example. There I have to say, having experienced it, seen it in action myself, it's able to do things quite well there.

It's also very good at dealing, you know, with the very simple things. You know, people, you know, hit by a car or whatever it is and they have to be taken. But long-term care, it's lost its way in. And I don't really see any sign that it's going to be revived or improved. And I'm going to make a further guess. I think gradually you'll see it chipped away at. And before long, it will cease to be the comprehensive health service that it does. just about still is. In other words, it will focus on a certain number of areas. And if you want to

get health service outside of those areas, you'll have to go private. All right. Elsa says, I had the impression during the speech and interviews in Davos that Zelensky is imitating Trump. It's like he's trying hard to get Trump's attention. It's trying. It's absolutely true. It's You're absolutely right. Yeah. All right. Alexander, final thoughts as I go through the questions one more time? That is a, as I said, I mean, that was exhilarated by our program.

I thought Dr. Parvini has got the state of Britain incredibly well. I have never known it like this, just to say. I mean, I've lived in this country continuously since 1968 when I came here as a boy, seven. So, I mean, I've seen it go up and down, but I've never seen it in this kind of state and mood as it is in today or with this sort of government. Yeah. All right, we will end the live stream there. Alexander Cruz, thank you for joining us. Dr. Parvini, thank you for joining us.

Thank you to everyone that joined us on Rockfin, on Odyssey, and on Roeuvre. and on Rumble and the durand.locals.com. Thank you once again to our Durand community. Thank to everyone that watched us on YouTube. Thanks a lot, Peter, for helping to moderate as well. And I think we will call it a live stream, Alexander. Indeed.

Let's get some videos up. Absolutely. All right. Take care. Right.