Northstar Politics Show

Noah & Sean discuss a range of topics from Trump's Ceasefire in Gaza, to the politics of Screaming Clubs in London and connect Fanon's philosophy to the act of selling out. Listen along as we also dive deep into the semantics of political messaging, the launch of Your Party and Police and MI5 Scandals. 

What is Northstar Politics Show?

Noah & Sean are on a mission to push political imagination. Since becoming best friends at university they've both taken unconventional paths and supported various political movements behind the scenes. Watch weekly as they break down about hot political topics using their knowledge and lived experiences.

Sean:

Welcome back to the North Star Politics Show. And if you're like me, you're probably a bit too political. For example, I think that run clubs are a response to the decline of community and third spaces in London. But if running is not your thing, well, a new club is now on the rise, scream clubs. Yes.

Sean:

Londoners are meeting up in parks and screaming together, which I'm sure indicates we're doing just fine. Screams for joy, though, has also taken place across the world as well with the Gaza ceasefire allowing Israeli hostages to return home and Palestinian hostages to return or back to rubble. And whilst Trump takes credit, let's not forget he has been in the pocket of Israel for a very long time. I mean, remember the Epstein files we never saw? And speaking of Epstein, remember Peter Mendelson, British politician and Epstein's lover?

Sean:

Well, his protege, Morgan McSweeney, who is Kirstjarma's chief of staff, is in the news for dodgy donations. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But thank God because we have an alternative. Your party has just officially launched for the third time. Let's get into it.

Noah:

Welcome back.

Sean:

Damn. First week done. Can you believe it?

Noah:

I cannot believe it. Episode two. I didn't think we make it episode one, and here we are.

Sean:

No. But you know what? I'm actually gonna give you a hard question straight off the bat.

Noah:

Woah. Woah. Woah. I was the send it on the podcast. I'm gonna go and get grilled.

Sean:

Just let me land. Let me land.

Noah:

Land.

Sean:

Okay. A thousand followers on Instagram Yep. 3,000 followers on TikTok. I think 250 k views on clips

Noah:

as well. It.

Sean:

Noah, can you actually go to Tesco's anymore without getting recognized?

Noah:

You know you know it is. Yeah. I'd seen I've been a backseat driver to your to your fame, your abundant fame

Sean:

Once upon a time.

Noah:

And I was getting the messages early doors when you were getting recognized in the streets and these sorts of things. And it's just been strange because, as you know, I very much don't really like to be out there in public. One day, we'll get into the backstory of how this podcast came to pass.

Sean:

Of course.

Noah:

But a big part has been Sean trying get me in front of camera for a couple years now. So it's been a strange week

Sean:

for me. And you know what? The algorithms, they love your bobblehead.

Noah:

They love it.

Sean:

They really do.

Noah:

They're loving it. Just love the way it just feels like that camera is shaped like the phone screen. They love it. Oh. Bro, I was running in in Stratford on when would it have been?

Noah:

Let me even say when I do my running schedule. Okay.

Sean:

People so people don't follow along.

Noah:

People don't follow along. Okay. Sure. They couldn't they couldn't keep up. But I was running in Stratford on Saturday, and Stratford's an area near where I grew up.

Noah:

So I'm I'm used to thinking I see people there, maybe I don't remember them. I don't I don't know where I know them from. But I'm running down the canal path, and a guy's coming towards me on a bike. Shout out you. Shout out you.

Noah:

And I'm looking at him. He's looking at me. I'm thinking, where do know this guy from? Because he's looking at me like he knows me. Yep.

Noah:

He gets even closer. I'm now I'm kind of I'm half screwing because I'm forgetting that that I'm a podcaster now. He's gone, yes, Noah. I'm going, yeah. What are telling me, g?

Noah:

He said, no. I know you from the podcast. I'm just going, what?

Sean:

And then you switched back into your podcast voice. Oh, hello. Nice to

Noah:

meet you.

Sean:

Really nice to meet you.

Noah:

Immediately, podcast voice. Wanna say, oh, welcome back to North Starboard. I honestly, it was it's been beautiful, the response we've had. People that we've known from childhood reaching out again. Yeah.

Noah:

Of The support's been lovely.

Sean:

And I think just just on a very serious note, as if we're not serious all the time, we have the sincerest intentions with this podcast, and we hope it does grow, inspire conversation. And we wanna build a community as well. So please like, subscribe, follow along, all of that type of stuff. It's going to be on Apple and Spotify soon if Tariq, our producer, actually reads his WhatsApps for once in his life. But, yeah, excited.

Noah:

No. Honestly, like, we've we've mentioned a bit before, and at some point, we'll get our our full manifesto thesis on what we wanna do with North Star.

Sean:

Yep.

Noah:

But a big part of it is creating that, like, community lifestyle of politics, where politics isn't something that just happens on screen or in Westminster. It's something that we can all engage in in an enjoyable way. So it's been brilliant to see people getting involved in the discourse, debating in the comments, reaching out to us.

Sean:

For sure.

Noah:

And I've been getting absolutely cooked because immediately when the podcast has come out, about half of my boys have just messaged me saying, I said, so what voice is that? But what

Sean:

was As in we share the same friendship group, so everyone was asking me the same thing.

Noah:

Right. So, you know, but the person who wasn't yet asking me about where did you get that voice from is the woman who taught me to code switch.

Sean:

Okay.

Noah:

My mother.

Sean:

Come on.

Noah:

Yeah. She was

Sean:

Wonderful lady, may ask.

Noah:

She was watching on Proud. But I think it was funny to see because people might not know, but I have a background when I was younger in, like, world level debating. So I think there is some level of a muscle memory when cameras go on, you're in a public space and you just get into that articulation.

Sean:

But I think over time as well, like, as someone who's actually been on camera and, like, you know, have has done this for, two, three years now. Yeah. You are able to find that equilibrium where you can actually get your personality out a bit more, but then also sound like who you are. But at the same time as well, I think being on a podcast, you are sort of I feel like especially from coming from our backgrounds because again, working class state school communities, you do have that sort of level that you need to try and hit of trying to actually sound articulate. And sometimes I do think if I sound a bit more posh, I do actually become a bit more eloquent, to be honest.

Noah:

No. Precisely. And I think, you know, obviously, I'm raised in the Caribbean family. It's quite a Caribbean thing as well, especially quite a common off thing I maybe extend it to.

Sean:

They probably don't even know I'm from the Caribbean family as well. So let me just say right now, Trini to the bone. Okay. Yeah. Even do you think the North Star colors

Noah:

There we go.

Sean:

Are red, white, and black?

Noah:

Yeah. Myself. Dominique and

Sean:

What is that again?

Noah:

Come on. This guy, man. But native East London. But it's it's funny because I was thinking about the code switching thing.

Sean:

Mhmm.

Noah:

And one thing my mom always rejected was the idea that it's a posh thing to do. Not articulating yourself is just a Mhmm. An important thing to do for anyone to get your ideas out. Someone we we look up to both autobiography from the table, Malcolm X, had a reflective time in prison where he managed to understand the power of words and the power of communication. And speaking of your heritage, I'll never forget when I first came to your house and I met your your grandma, May she rest in peace.

Noah:

And you walk in and this sort of Indian looking lady is just there. And I say, oh, good afternoon, auntie. She go, what?

Sean:

Yeah. What? Oh, yeah. It's boy. Oh, yeah.

Sean:

It's boy.

Noah:

And then when you spoke to her, she wouldn't have passed the put on the most thick, trainiacs and to have that kind of lucid discussion with grandma. So code switching is it was something maybe we'll delve down into more later, but it's not necessarily where what might meet the eye.

Sean:

No. For

Noah:

sure. Also, speaking of the impact we've had this week, we've we've got on a couple of radars. Obviously, we had a we had a little self help clinic or a not self help clinic, a clinic for Gary's economics. And in fact, Gary was lurking in the story views on my story. I Now didn't have that many followers.

Noah:

Follow my Instagram.

Sean:

And that's the guy you look up to as well, you must be kind

Noah:

Speaking of my my my shout out to myself, follow my Instagram, Noah East nine. But, yeah, we've got so much love for Gary. We're giving a little bit of critique and he was there. He parked the the SUV across the driveway from my house and he said, I'm watching you. So, like, Gary, we appreciate that.

Noah:

In fact, Gary, just so you know that we're on your team, we had some some bozo reach out to us who claimed what he actually is. He was your your boss at Citibank saying he wants to come on the podcast. Honestly, thirsty bread up. This is not what we're about. Starving Marvin.

Noah:

Yeah. Keep your thoughts to yourself. We're team Gary.

Sean:

But I also think, like, it's quite interesting putting out these clips because people actually get so animated when it's like, guys, come on. We're just trying to bring some conversation to the place. Everyone just relax. Yeah. You know, for once we actually wanna have a nuanced discussion around these, obviously, very topical things.

Sean:

And so, yeah, it's always interesting to see how animated people get in the comments.

Noah:

Yeah. And I think when we talk about the North Star ideal ideology around what we're trying to build is that ability to have well intentioned conversations where you can disagree, and that's totally fine.

Sean:

That's fine.

Noah:

So like I said, there's never really any malice in what we're saying as long as we understand someone else or our co lock to whoever we might be talking about is well intentioned

Sean:

themself. And just just just to mention on that point as well, we're always right and you're always wrong if you disagree, by the way.

Noah:

Precisely. I always say a good way to know you're wrong, do you disagree with me? But someone who is at the moment, in in our rankings, we're working on rankings with who our top supporters are. And there's one woman I gotta shout out again.

Sean:

Go ahead.

Noah:

My mom. Because my mom, yeah, is she just come back from Cuba, and she's had a spiritual awakening. She is in the comments here spitting the most mythical mystical mythology, that mystical math.

Sean:

Share share them with

Noah:

the stuff we love. So my mom is in the comments here under a pseudonym. Some of the quotes she came out with is she just quoted randomly, is the enemy of my enemy my friend? Okay, Ansie.

Sean:

Okay. Okay. What else you got?

Noah:

She came again with, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. You know about that one. And then the last one, yeah, but she she actually commented this three times on one post. She wanted this one to land. In the time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Noah:

So everyone, that's the bar you need to meet when you're commenting.

Sean:

She's reading these books.

Noah:

She she come on. Stay woke.

Sean:

Do know what my mom said?

Noah:

What?

Sean:

Oh, gosh, boy. What that podcasting you're doing there is, boy?

Noah:

See, there's levels to it, but as long as you're supporting, we're loving it. But if anyone can, next week, we're gonna be looking for some top top comments. People come with that real mystical math, and you maybe get a shower next time. But aside from all the jokes, you upped some serious stuff this weekend.

Sean:

Yes. I was. So I actually went to the Palestine March, the March after the ceasefire to actually just get an understanding of why people are still marching. Obviously, we have our own opinions, but it's always really good to understand from the protesters themselves, particularly as well, given that the discourse around it is quite condescending, actually. You know, actually, the fact that you have politicians from both sides, so labor and conservative, believe, Shabbat Mahmoud, Kemi Bayden, today, basically, he's saying practically the same things around how, you know, them marching, shouldn't it be perhaps a celebration or something like that because they have the very superficial view that all of this is over now because there is a ceasefire.

Sean:

So that was pretty interesting.

Noah:

That makes sense. And I think we're gonna get into it in the state of play the real, like, meat and two veg of the ceasefire agreement and what the implications are. But as someone who was there on the protest on the march on on Saturday, what was the vibe? What was the feeling on the ground?

Sean:

It's always amazing to be part of a protest because you really do get quite easily swept in the the sort of charismatic community that's there. Also, actually seeing the the kind of wide spectrum of all the different people to attend. I think the media headlines want you to believe it's people who look like me or a bunch of probably silly angry Muslims. Or actually, most people there were actually English white people, a lot of old people as well. And so it's really nice to be part of an environment where people are so inclusive, understanding.

Sean:

Because I feel like on the day to day in London, things are quite alienating. You know, you're always things are very individualistic, perhaps. Yeah. But when this protest happens, people are united across a common cause and actually have you know, it gives them the in that environment, the ability to reach out to each other and actually just have conversations with a lot of people. So I got into great conversations with people, and we've start posting some clips on our social media as well.

Noah:

Okay. Lovely stuff. And as I say, think it's really important that people don't lose sight of, what they might have built, that community energy they might have built over these past few years protesting quite a specific issue and carry that forth both in terms of further pursuing the Palestine issue, but also in other areas. But with that said, we're gonna get into the state of play where we'll be discussing the the the ceasefire issue. We'll be discussing a recent book about Kirstymer, and we'll also be discussing the Your Party launch.

Noah:

So let's get into the state of play. So welcome to the state of play, the part of the show where we're gonna discuss the more mainstream topics, things that you might have seen in the news cycle already, and what really are on the main roads. So, obviously, the most important topic for us to discuss this week is the Gaza ceasefire deal that's been agreed between The United States or led by The United States, Israel, and Hamas representing the citizens of Gaza. And what I'll do is I'll give a little bit of explain about what's been agreed, the timelines. We'll talk about the implications, and we'll also talk about a few of our concerns and hopes for what might come from this.

Noah:

So president Donald Trump and Netanyahu agreed the deal in Washington. It was then put to the leaders of Hamas under a timeline to consent to this deal or not. And what they've consented to is only the first stage of this plan, but there are three stages that will go into effect if negotiations go well. So the first stage, which is now underway, will last six weeks, and it is the release of hostages and the withdrawal of troops from certain sections of the Gaza Strip. Going beyond that, there will be a permanent end to the fighting and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.

Noah:

The third state, which was a bit more obscure and contentious, is an entire rebuilding of the Gaza Strip, which weird enough will be overseen by a committee of which Tony Blair will be a part. In the inter intermediate period where the agreement has been made up until today, there have been multiple Gazans killed by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip, including six on the day of filming. So this is by no means perfect. A ceasefire also is not permanent. A ceasefire doesn't contain within it an Israeli consent to Palestinian sovereignty, respect for boundaries, nor does Hamas agree to this being a permanent state of affairs.

Noah:

So there's a lot up in the air, but we can be grateful at this point in time that there is some level of progress in terms of an end to the killing. A few interesting points I wanna draw up for discussion. One, the fact that this war started or this genocide, in fact, started because Israel, the the Lakud party, Bibi Netanyahu were not supporting or not consenting to the control that Hamas had over the Gaza Strip as a representation for the Gaza people. Hamas were framed as terrorists. Hamas were framed as illegitimate leaders.

Noah:

Hamas were framed as people that would not be negotiated with. The fact that this deal has been signed between Israel, the state of Israel, and Hamas shows a legitimacy to Hamas rulership there and puts into question the entire motivations that, although we're already skeptical of, have underpinned this, invasion, this genocide. The second thing I'd want to get your thoughts on is the feasibility of this being maintained. Wanna I bring people's attention to the state of Israeli politics. With within politics, sometimes we talk about hawkish and dovish actors within politics.

Noah:

So hawkish are those that are, more inclined for warfare. Dovish are those that are more inclined for, peacemaking. Within the Israeli government, surprising to many people as it might be, Netanyahu is quite moderate. There are significant actors such as Bezalel Smotrich or Itamar Bengevir, ministers within his government who are far more to the right, far more hawkish than him, who will seize on this opportunity and the, although limited, concessions that have been made in terms of putting an end to the ceasefire and respecting some level of Palestinian territory as an opportunity to depose him and then reignite. The second thing I wanna get your thoughts on, and we'll get we'll get into this further, is how trusting we are of this.

Noah:

Mhmm. Because we know and as most people at this point be aware of, this this this problem, this contention, this conflict didn't start on October 7. And we've seen a history flowing all the way back to the thirties in the Nakba of Israel reneging on agreements they have made. So the first thing I wanna get your thoughts on is initial reactions to the ceasefire being called.

Sean:

Well, look, I think the end to violence anywhere is objectively always a good thing. The fact that, you know, we don't have to sit by idly on our phones and watch or supposedly, we we won't have to watch again the absolute bombardment, destruction and erasure of Palestinian identity in the Gaza Strip. I'm just personally happy at least that those the people living there actually get some sort of relief. And also, of course, you know, I think if we wanna actually just bring it all into perspective, right, 40 Israeli hostages are going back home. 2,000 Palestinians, 2,000 Palestinian hostages are going back to rubble.

Sean:

Right. And so the the false equivalence, the asymmetrical relationship of all of this is still heartbreaking, and it's still galvanizing people to go in the streets. And it's why I was also there in protest on Saturday. And it feels hopeless and it does feel very pessimistic. And that's why it's important at the very least, right, when we ask about this question, what can we do?

Sean:

At least in our in our capacity, we're trying to push this conversation to actually open it up to people as well. Those are my initial thoughts. I can definitely talk a bit more about what I saw on the march and how trusting I am of this in general. But first of all, yeah, pleasant about some sort of relief, but then at the same time, yeah, definitely quite worried.

Noah:

I would say one of the reasons I'm skeptical of this progressing into a fully fledged peace and solution is because inherent in the Israeli mission is this ethnocolonial expansion. In the Lakud with the leading party Lakud party, manifesto, they have the, purpose from the river to the sea, there will be only Israeli sovereignty. So very much within the founding fathers of Zionism, within their mission statement, is this ethnocolonial expansion. And a lot of times what we've seen when there's been ceasefires or ends to conflicts in the seventies and the forties is that they take this as merely a stepping stone or a speed bump in overarching conquest. And I worry about what we've seen from Western states, The United States, European states, how much consent or slack has been given to Israel that they won't take this as a sign that three years from now, we go again.

Sean:

No. 100%. And I think that everything that we've seen in terms of progression so far has been very nominal in its value. Right? Okay.

Sean:

Cool. Britain, they recognize a Palestinian state. So what? Was that actually done? Of course, I'm happy that that happened.

Sean:

But realistically, from a a diplomatic perspective, sure, it gives them street cred. It gives the labor government some sort of bypass for the next election. But ultimately, it hasn't led to any material difference in Palestinian lives. And even when we talk about the coverage of this, for the longest while, no journalists were allowed in Gaza. Is that gonna happen now?

Sean:

Can anyone go back to Gaza? Can I go can I go visit Gaza? Like, there's so many questions that need to be answered. But also, I'm very unsure about the level of actual transparency we're gonna get in this conversation. And also, just think that in all of this time and time of again, right, Palestinians and their and their ideas and their decision making is not being centered on this.

Sean:

We're outsourcing it to some sort of imperial leader, Tony Blair, right, architect of the Iraq war. And lest we forget, what about West Bank settlements? Right? Louis Theroux did the whole documentary this year about it, which actually brought some light to it. And since then what?

Sean:

Sanctions? Has that happened?

Noah:

I think there's something interesting you bring up there when you talk about you talk about the recognition of Palestine as a state. And if you allow me to get a little bit esoteric into the international relations

Sean:

Please, I invite you to get esoteric.

Noah:

Into the international relations of it, is that the problem for global coordination, and this is a long studied theory within international relations, is that in reality, if we grant that every country has sovereignty, by which we mean they have self determination over their own land territory, Then when they come to interact with one another, they actually are in what Hobbes would describe, what we'd formally understand a state of anarchy, where there is no power above them because they have sovereignty themselves. So what that means, and especially for modern theorists, even liberal theorists of international relations, that the only way we can start to exert some control over what is acceptable within the global realm is through the development of norms. And as we'll see within The UK society or UK politics, norms are only powerful insofar as they are respected. Norms are only powerful insofar as they are respected, and marginal infringement upon the norm leads to marginal weakening of that norm. And my big concern is that what we've seen here, if the ceasefire goes ahead and even if we progress to a state of sort of intermediary peace as we'd as we'd hope, is that a new globally understood norm has been cemented.

Noah:

If Israel is not held to account, if the actors who have aided Israel are not held to account, then a new globally understood norm has been cemented. And what I mean by that is this, is up until this genocide, there's obviously been countless cases around the world of humanitarian abuses, but they have been quite rightly critiqued a lot of times by The United States, by global leaders. In this instance, however, there has been clear weaponization of famine, clear suspension of humanitarian aids, ethno colonial expansion, murder of innocence. And the fact that we've arrived at a ceasefire doesn't undo those ills, And if we progress from the ceasefire into a world where Israel is a normalized state and they're the actors who have done this, Netanyahu, Bengevir, Smotrich, are allowed to continue within the political realm, then that has put in place a new norm, which is incredibly concerning.

Sean:

Precisely. And it also comes back to Hannah Arendt's theory of, like, the banality of evil. Right? And how actually evil and the ability to commit genocide and all these things isn't some sort of faraway concept of the boogeyman, the supervillain, but evil is in like the thoughtless actions of the ordinary and the very nature of our own politicians as well. Right?

Sean:

So when we talk, I feel like on this conversation, it's very hard to imagine how we can actually have any sort of impact in the sort of political realm. But at home, our politicians in their rhetoric of like normalizing, as you say, right, Not being willing to actually hold these politicians to account, not being willing to, you know, actually enforce ICC warrants for arrest for Netanyahu and his cronies is that we're getting to a very dangerous place where all of this, like you said, is normalized, and that's because evil has become very banal. And

Noah:

you you talk about things that become ordinary and holding politicians back home to account, like, what can we do, the the little people? And that was one of the comments I made last week when I spoke about the relationship between the the who does the accounting and who's held accountable. A lot of people were drawn to that. And in this instant, I think because of how publicly understood the Palestine Conflict is, because how many resources have been expended by different institutions, a lot of whom we'll list in the description below to show who is culpable, there is an opportunity here for people to become politically animated on a ground level whereby you we can find out. You know it is publicly understood which members of the government, members of the leading party in Britain have taken money from Labor Friends of Israel.

Noah:

And the best way to animate your consciousness about that is think, would I want to be represented or have leading my country someone in the eighties and nineties who was taking funds from, labor friends of South Africa during a during during an apartheid state. No. Of course not. And to fight against the norm that's being set that we are ruled by people who are, arm in arm with genocide committers and, culpable for aiding and abetting a genocide, we need to push against that by holding this new account.

Sean:

And and that's the thing. People think it's impossible. So one of the big, debates that you get into with, like, the liberals who might still, you know, support labor, but still sort of say or claim that they're anti what's going on is that, oh, but this is just politics and they just kinda have to do this. Like, this idea that actually sort of, you know, taken a position a principal stance like the countries of Spain or Norway. Right?

Sean:

Britain being able to do that is like a far away concept or fantasy because we have to be intimately tied with The US on global politics.

Noah:

And we get back to where we are on our our discussion of the the first principles of politics. The police, people moving in concert. The the politics you see on TV is no more represent is only a representation of the politics that we create on the ground level. And if we as a population are apathetic and totally uninclined to do anything, then you will have people that are totally devoid of ideology running the show.

Sean:

Precisely.

Noah:

I think you look at things that are being normalized. I don't know if you know, but Meccaabe Tel Aviv, an Israeli football team is about to go and play a Europa League game in Aston Villa in Birmingham. Why is an Israeli team playing in a European competition, first and foremost? Second of all, why are we allowing a team that is part of a state that's committing genocide to march around Europe playing football games if nothing else going on?

Sean:

Lest we not forget that Eurovision as well.

Noah:

Yeah. I mean, Eurovision is and it but all of these are tools of soft power, tools of normalization, normalizing a state as if it were not committing genocide. The playbook's out by various different countries. And on the ground level, we can protest this. We cannot support companies that are involved in this.

Noah:

We can isolate Israel as a state economically and socially. But as I say, the the politics you see on TV, the politics at a high level is only representation of the politics you endorse or allow to allow to happen on a personal level.

Sean:

And the historical narrative's going to change. Right? Once upon a time, Mandela was literally considered a terrorist by the likes of Thatcher. And even I think Theresa May, right, there's that famous video where she couldn't sort of commit to the idea of her saying that she didn't think Mandela was or didn't say Mandela was a terrorist back in the day. And so it's only a matter of time, twenty years, ten years, maybe even thirty years down the line, where people will look back on us in shame because we didn't speak out against it.

Sean:

Our countries didn't stand up for what again, coming back to this this hip hypocrisy of the liberal kind of global order. Whatever happened to human rights, whatever happened to democracy and freedoms, I guess it only applies to us who live in the West and not.

Noah:

Precisely. And and that sort of marginal dehumanization was was evidenced today when I walk into my local supermarket and you see every front page littered with the Israeli hostages at home. And I think that just shows, even though it's not explicated clearly, the implication is that these are the higher humans. These are the hostages who are really suffering because they are more human. They're more like us.

Noah:

They're more of that imagined Eurocentric nature. And, you know, we'll wrap up here, but I think for us, we're obviously gonna be following closely how this But as we say, because of the deceit that Israel has shown for going on a hundred years now, this ceasefire is something that we really, really wish takes hold and progresses into a full successful solution of peace, but we watch with hopeful hearts but bated breath because we understand and we've seen time and time again how Israel maneuvers. Yeah. The second topic we're gonna move on to is a look at the Your Party launch. I think this is something that is obviously intimately linked to

Sean:

Which which one? Sorry.

Noah:

The Your Party launch. I didn't you maybe heard of it. It's come and gone and come and gone.

Sean:

It's The third. Oh, the third.

Noah:

The third. Your Party, the third. The trilogy. The trilogy. Very much so.

Noah:

All good things come in threes, and hopefully, will be a good thing long term. But at the moment, it has become sort of the laughing stock of politics in The UK. So your party. During this summer, Zara Sultana, formerly of Labour, having left the party, launched her new party endeavor with Jeremy Corbyn. The reason we're referring to it as your party is because within this political ideology, they had committed to the party being named at a later date by its members.

Noah:

In the intermediary period since then, there's been a lot of problems with the party. Zara Sultana posting certain links, which have been alleged to not be totally tied to the party central structure, but to her own support pages. Jeremy Corbyn then coming out and disavowing that. Zara Sultana coming back and saying that she'd been sort of bullied within a boys club. And as the dust settled, last week, we had your party.

Noah:

So we're formally having a launch where Arm in Arm, Zara Sultana, and Jeremy Corbyn were there to talk about the next steps to say that they put differences aside and we're moving from there. A lot has happened. We've been following it closely. We were so excited when we saw the the initial launch of your party as so many were. About 700,000 people signed up to the newsletter.

Noah:

And initially, like, within two hours, tens of thousand people signed up to members. You are someone I know was incredibly hopeful about the prospects of this this this party endeavor. At this point, what's your appraisal?

Sean:

Yeah. Look. So I think it's obviously an incredible shame what's happened. And I think it really will have deep deep ramifications for the party itself. I do wanna give a mini hot take though.

Noah:

Okay.

Sean:

And I don't don't think we should lose hope just yet. And the reason I don't think we should lose hope just yet is because last week on the podcast, I said that this movement on the left, so to speak, is not a zero sum game. And I actually think there is space for coalition and coalition building between your party and the Greens. And it's if it is the case that, sure, the Greens sweep up in some certain areas of the country, I still think Corbyn's name is definitely big enough to actually attract a lot of different names across across the country in different parts as well. And so I do see a positive future if they have some sort of agreement, electorally, that is.

Sean:

But of course, internally, I think it's yeah. It's quite embarrassing to be honest. And it's made yeah. Like as you said, us a laughing stock.

Noah:

Yeah. And I think like, honestly, the loss of momentum is frightening to see. Pardon the pun. But the fact that now, you know, they didn't disclose their membership numbers at the time, we can assume because they were particularly noteworthy. And even coming out of this launch on Friday, very little has been written about them.

Noah:

The speech themselves given by Zara and Jeremy Corbyn were were lovely and, as you'd imagine, very inspirational. But the biggest thing I've seen is them critique them being critiqued, especially Zara Sultana, being critiqued for trying to delineate themselves from the Green Party with the standout piece of sort of policy ideology being that they want to leave NATO.

Sean:

And it's kind like Sorry. Not to cut you off. But there was also the idea that they actually won't have any diplomatic relations at all with Israel.

Noah:

Precisely. And I just sort of think the fact that this hasn't captured the news cycle, the fact that this hasn't been taken on within, like, leftist circles or something that's an important building block for your party to develop kind of shows how much groundwork they now need to rebuild. And I think and, you know, my sort of take on it is I was super impressed by the underlying spirit of your party. There was a brilliant interview with James Schneider who who who we know well well enough and was formerly of the Corbyn year labor party and has been involved in in different capacities with your party, where he spoke about pushing the political imagination as we always talk about to understand politics as more of a lifestyle, not something that people don't partake in for four years and then go to the polling booth and do, but to develop from the ground up an association way of life through people restoring club atmospheres, social gathering atmospheres, political communitarian atmospheres, such that the top of the party just becomes the outcome of that rather than top down. And I think ironically, your party has fallen foul to the type of politics they came to solve.

Noah:

Mhmm. People have been sort of physically petrified by the stasis or the stagnation of the leadership. The the disjointed way of the leadership has totally undermined any level of community building at the ground level. And I think the leaders have concerned themselves with how to divide a pie without realizing it's kind of rotting in their hands.

Sean:

No. For sure. I also think there's there's a in a sense that they are quite out of touch. And and let me explain what I mean. So myself and you, and we'll talk about this in-depth at some point, is that North Star is not just some sort of talking heads on camera, but we were really in these streets trying to campaign and do this coalition building for the last two years in the pro independent movements, etcetera.

Sean:

And so we've worked directly with a lot of figures independently before the short party stuff and have built connections through that. That's how we know James Schneider. And one of the things that we've felt is such an obstacle is actually how insular they all are. Now, you'd obviously expect them to be quite open to new ideas, new people, etcetera. But the risk appetite to be politically ambitious is actually quite it's quite underwhelming.

Sean:

Mhmm. And so Do you think a

Noah:

big part of that is what happened with the the the Corbyn years in labor? They're of scarred.

Sean:

No. For sure. It definitely is. And I'm not trying to play like this kind of blame game, perhaps. But I do think look.

Sean:

When we were at Oxford, who was banging down our college doors twenty four seven trying to get us to be part of them? JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, the top firms. Right? Politically, who actually had presence? The Labour Party, Conservatives, Lib Dems, etcetera.

Sean:

Right? People put in such or these top organizations put in so much investment into young talent and young pipelines to the point where even reforms doing it. Who has the youngest counselors in The UK right now? The reform party. Yeah.

Sean:

Right? They're bringing young people into into their movement to actually galvanize some sort of fire and some sort of momentum. Again, pardon the pun.

Noah:

Bro bro, when I was a campaign manager for one of the the independent well, we could say yeah.

Sean:

Yeah. We could say it.

Noah:

When I was campaign manager for Tasman MacKenzie when he was running for parliament, we would frequently head to GB News for him to debate Nigel Farage.

Sean:

Mhmm.

Noah:

And the producer in the back while we're sat behind the scenes, which also say to me, oh, so, boy, you're younger. And they're literally trying to, like, tap me up to get involved with GB News even though I'm clearly here like a pro palate, but they're just so obsessed with promoting talent because they understand that's how movements get.

Sean:

But that's what I mean. And that we are this movement here is it lacks that so much and it's frustrating because we've seen it. Right? And not even to sort of expose private conversations, but there's other young people, part of these movements that we spoke to that have big social media followings, and they've said the same thing.

Noah:

Yeah. So And and when I say scarred by the Corbyn years, a lot of you will know, but some of you might not know that during the the time when Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party, there were factions within the Labour Party, further to the right of the Labour Party, who were leveraging certain cancel worthy topics to seize power. So this is like levying the ideas of antisemitism against a lot of the left wing of the Labour Party to essentially oust them. And we'll talk about that in a sec when we talk about Morgan McSweeney and Labour Together, which one of the big think tanks who really sort of essentially ran a coup within the labor party to then bring about this beautiful mess we have with Keir Starman running it. The final thing I wanna say on this topic is from the start, there's a concern I've had with your party.

Noah:

So, you know, me and Sean, just like any normal people will sit around discussing, like, theoretical politics.

Sean:

So normal.

Noah:

Like, we will like, nightmare blunt rotation people we are. And early this year, towards the start of the year, I developed the theory that within by the time of the next election cycle, people are only gonna vote for ideologues. And what do I mean by this? So an ideologue is someone who is devoted to a particular idea, devoted to a particular ideology. And the reason why I think people are only gonna vote for clear ideologues is because of voter fatigue.

Noah:

Voters have lived within a duopoly where there's really only two parties to choose from, labor or conservative. And what they've seen, because a lot of this top brass of the political elite are in the pocket of corporate interests, is them vote for change each election, and the elected party, the incumbent, then go against their word, go against their mandate to end up appeasing their corporate interests. So what they've realized is that when the wind changes, you will change their view. You know, one of the clips that did very well last week when we talk about the Jekyll and Hyde generation of labor, and that's precisely what underpins it. People are realizing that there's actually no value in my vote because I'm voting for a bunch of ideas that will never happen because people just flip flop with the wind.

Noah:

So then what starts to happen? People say, okay. Well, maybe I'll look at this character who, even if they're not perfect, at least I know that I'll get what I'm voting for. This is Nigel Farage. This is Jeremy Corbyn.

Noah:

When Brexit wasn't popular, Nigel Farage was screaming Brexit. When it was popular, he was screaming Brexit. When it's not popular again, he'll be screaming Brexit. This is the the the underpinning of him laughing in the European Parliament. You laughed at me, but you're not laughing now.

Noah:

Mhmm. Same with Jeremy Corbyn. When it wasn't popular, Jeremy Corbyn was supporting Palestine. When it is popular, he's supporting Palestine. And going to the next election, people are increasingly you see the sentiment already.

Noah:

They don't wanna hear the same platitudes. They just wanna vote for an ideologue that we know will do what they say they're gonna do even if the wind turns.

Sean:

Yeah. And I think, like, even just to kind of bring it back to first principles, let's suppose I'm just a political voter. Right? I'm not a rational voter. I'm an irrational voter.

Sean:

Right? That's the actual kind of political theory that we need to be talking about. So all I'm seeing is the fact that my bills are going up, can't put food on the table. And also I just see all of these politicians, like you say, talking the big game, but they're actually not backing up their chat at all. And so for me then as an individual who's voting, I'm looking for explanations as to why my material conditions are worsening.

Sean:

And so the people who win are the people who who are able to actually articulate that in an effective charismatic way. And, yeah, and that brings you on onto my final point. We need those leader we need those leaders on the left.

Noah:

Which and remember what me saying when your party was first announced, it's like, this is the wrong way to go about it. People want to get people want answers, and they want to see that you've got some ideology behind you. Even under the name being a way it could be whatever it can be. No. No.

Noah:

You're the politician. You're the smart political strategist and creator. Tell me the solution, and I'll let you know if you've my support.

Sean:

And I think it comes across as lazy. Right? It literally comes across as lazy. You're you're trying to tell the populace, alright, to say, actually, you give you give me the ideas. Give me all the ideas.

Noah:

And there should be obviously some level of democracy, but, you know, is this gonna be a totally amorphous malleable creature where there could be loads of entryism from a bunch of far right people and now Jeremy Corbyn is leader of it's like, it wasn't clear. The ideology wasn't set in stone, and, understandably, people are slightly confused. So, yeah, we obviously are incredibly hopeful about what Jeremy Corbyn, Zara, and your party could do. And I'm sure they'll understand if they're watching. It'd be insane if they're watching.

Noah:

Hop on the pod. If they're watching, they'll understand why we're a bit concerned with what we've seen thus far. But, again, you have our support, and you have our our hopes and prayers.

Sean:

Also, just shout Jeremy Corbyn, man. What a guy.

Noah:

One time for the one time.

Sean:

Yeah. You're always just just grand out of the streets. Like, Love to see it.

Noah:

Literally. Yeah. Don't think there might not be a bigger hood celeb than Jeremy Corbyn in Frisbee Park.

Sean:

No. Of course. And I think, like, people need to remember and give him some grace and mercy as well. And I also think that if people actually wanna get more information around this kind of particular topic and the kind of trauma that the left has faced, I actually wanna shout out on Al Jazeera, the labor files.

Noah:

The labor files.

Sean:

So Tazmee Mukunji, the guy we worked with, was actually one of the lawyers who helped release it. And so that in and of itself was never covered by the mainstream, but it is fascinating to actually understand the inner workings of the Labour Party.

Noah:

And speaking of the inner workings of the Labour Party, our third topic gives a bit of a characterization of what's going on in the Labour Party of the past few years and the character at the top of it all, sir they're giving out knighthoods like chicken change at this point, sir Keir Starmer. So a book was released on Friday by an investigative journalist called Paul Holden called The Fraud. And through Labor inside internal documents and Labor insiders leaking, Paul Holden's been able to develop sort of a 550 odd page book accounting some of the most fraudulent, cronyistic, and sort of a pathetic behavior you can imagine from the top brass of the Labour Party, which now is the top brass of the British government. Some of the things that you've seen, Morgan McSweeney, who is the chief of staff to Keir Starmer and former director of the think tank, Labor Together, is now under scrutiny for having not disclosed around £700,000 worth of, electoral donations. Myself and Sean have worked on elections.

Noah:

There isn't much money in British elections. And by goodness, there should not be that much money undercount. Thousand. 700,000. You could buy a good league two footballer for that kind of money.

Sean:

How how many numbers moves can

Noah:

you get with 700,000. How many El Caps could you get for that? Alongside that, there's also been clear documentation of the bullying, corruption, and sort of strategic cooption of the Labour by this Labour Together faction, setting up backroom tactics and really sort of the word I'm looking for is scare tactics as well as blackmail to oust the leadership in the Corbin years to then allow for this entryism from the Labor Together think tank members. So, look, I haven't been following this story that closely, but let me ask you a question. Right?

Sean:

Who is the mentor or, like, the sort of godfather, so to speak, of Morgan McSweeney?

Noah:

Who would you say?

Sean:

Have a guess.

Noah:

Who? Pedal Pedal Manderson.

Sean:

Look at

Noah:

that snap. There we Pedal Manderson. But you'd expect that, wouldn't you?

Sean:

Yeah. I know.

Noah:

Mean Could

Sean:

imagine that.

Noah:

Birds of a feather.

Sean:

Flock together.

Noah:

Precisely. And I think, you know, I I haven't finished the book. I've only just started it, I've looked at some of the interviews that Peter Holden's given. And it is worth worth a read for anyone because these things that we we know about and we've heard from insiders ourselves before. But the state of play and the lack of, again, ideology in the top brass of political of politics in The UK is just on show for everyone to see.

Noah:

These people, they view it as a career and not a career in the sense of a good honest day's work, a career in the sense of a game to be played. The the the we see this in the the actions of David Lamy. We see this in the actions of a and let me know even just stick to the Labour politicians. Osborne, the the coalition years, he's from a lot of the political actors going on. Boris Johnson, there's a stepping stone to a plus job after with the political interest they catered to.

Noah:

Rishi Sunak recently just landed himself a job at one of the top technology companies.

Sean:

Do you know who I always parade as the top figure for this type of behavior? Old school name.

Noah:

Nick Clegg.

Sean:

Oh, Nick Clegg is one of them.

Noah:

He's done it already.

Sean:

Chukka Amuno.

Noah:

Chukka Chukka, where's he

Sean:

at now?

Noah:

Do you remember?

Sean:

I think he's at just some sort of like top financial firm.

Noah:

My god. And didn't have that that great career in politics. Yeah. I know. Fair enough.

Sean:

But you know one thing I do wanna mention, and that's for viewers on the pod because obviously, look, we've been blessed to actually have like a privileged education. And so we've studied the theories on all these kinds of theoretical politics. A good theory to look up is Captain Mayor's party cartelization thesis, which actually talks about how structural reasons are why also politicians are incentivized to adopt their careers as just that careers. Right. It's not actually about having ideology or an idealistic vision to change the world, but rather because politicians on both sides have the same incentives, there's a lot of it turns into some sort of like collusion game to keep outsiders out.

Noah:

No. Precisely. And strangely enough, I'm gonna pull a deep one here. Dominic Cummings, in his sort of like fundamental thesis called an addition education, which again, like I say, as much as we might be two guys from NZ, we're also nerds. I I happen to read Dominic thesis.

Sean:

Speak for yourself.

Noah:

He talks about like the the plague of similarity in the education and ideologies of the top of British politics. And this is why he entered politics because he said like, listen, we've got people at the top of our political spectrum totally with the same uniform way of thinking. And he thought a bit about it like a lack of genetic diversity. If population has a lack of genetic diversity, then one single disease can come along and wipe out the population. Similarly, if there's no intellectual diversity within the political leadership, then one problem can come across and stump all of them.

Noah:

And and that's what we're seeing today where we have these problems with people from the outside are shouting in of wealth inequality, of the the ailments of globalization, of the failures of neoliberalism. And because everyone in the top major parties right now is totally beholden and well baptized within that that school of thought, They're just looking around saying, should we penny pinch off the the small medium sized enterprise? Should we penny pinch off the middle class? Should penny pinch off of it? Because they just haven't got the intellectual capacity to look beyond that.

Noah:

So again, two two different theories for you guys to look up, but we'll wrap up the state of play there. And we're gonna get into a bit of a meatier back road section. We didn't know you do the back road last week. There's a new section.

Sean:

So Give it a little applause. Yeah. New section.

Noah:

New section, guys. Look at that. Week by week, look at that expansion. You know, as a start up, yeah, venture capital should be looking at us thinking, wow.

Sean:

Tareek, you need to earn your free paycheck and do a proper little transition for the Backroads. Yeah?

Noah:

Thanks. So what the Backroads is is the part of the the part of the show where we're gonna start highlighting some interesting news stories that you might not have seen. We'd expect that some of the stuff we've spoken about in the state of play people have seen before. On the back roads, it will be some really important serious stuff, but maybe also some weird and wonderful stuff. Let's get into the back roads.

Noah:

So as I say, it is maybe again a bit of London terminology for those of us listening around the country and around the world. In London, we have you got the main road where the main stuff goes on. You take off the mains, go to the back roads. So these are some topics that me and Sean have sourced, I think, maybe be of interest. And the first one is quite a concerning one.

Noah:

There was a Panorama. Panorama is a investigative news part of a BBC show that we have in The UK that has done an undercover documentary on the Metropolitan Police, which is the London Police Service. And they've really uncovered the leaps of the levels of depravity and institutional misogyny, racism, xenophobia, any ism and schism you wanna say that pervades this particular police service. There was instances, and I I can't even recount all of them, but those instances where police were making light of rape, police were overusing excessive force, police were, admitting to turning off their cameras so they could do god knows what when the cameras go off, discussing immigrants as scum, talking about people that they we should put a bullet in their head, talking about people that might have committed certain crimes, we should cut off their penises and these sorts of things. And, you know, the Met Police has a pretty tarnished history.

Noah:

And I remember my family of police officers who could behind the scenes sort of confirm to me, yes, it is all true and worse. And I think it's honestly incredibly worrying, incredibly concerning, but also just something that is, at this point, quite unsurprising.

Sean:

Yeah. I I I really wonder what it is about the psychology of being a police person or, you know, if it's a self selective issue of the types of people who officers that actually engenders this behavior, it's it's incredibly shocking because quite clearly, we have not progressed from the times of, like, Stephen Lawrence, right, where there's so many documentaries about that online, where the police literally even spied on the family after the fact and were tracking down the the whole the ins and outs of what the families were doing post the case and things like that. And so, yeah, just like an open question. What do you think it is about being a police officer that makes them act in this way?

Noah:

I think there's a couple of things where it's like, I don't think the police hire from the best of us in the sense of I think the the police oftentimes can be a last resort for people. So you end up having people join the police service who aren't sort of They don't have it as a goal in mind. They're not even really committed to the service. I think also like built within like the institution is a level of like class violence, maintaining certain interests at the expense of others. Obviously a psychological aspect that you're talking to

Sean:

them. I I think there's like a thing of human nature as well where they think they're warranted or they're allowed to get their ugly side out in a way that's sanctioned.

Noah:

It's a bit Stanford prison experiment sort of thing.

Sean:

You know

Noah:

I mean? Yeah. When given that power, you're gonna start using, powers is corrupting in and of itself even if maybe you're a normal person before.

Sean:

Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Noah:

There we go. I also think like so beneath this, maybe the subtext is, I think in The UK especially, we have a very, very inverse or perverted understanding of what policing does. You see that, you know, crimes on the rise in The UK right now in a lot of and we're not not in general necessarily, but in a lot of areas. And people said we need more police. I I I don't know what people think, like, if they were living in an era of, Pink Panther and detective inspector Cluedo and these sorts of things.

Noah:

But police don't solve crimes before they happen. Police actually very rarely solve crimes crimes after they happen. And in fact, like, the increasing crime is not associated with a lack of policing. Increasing crime oftentimes is more strongly correlated with impoverishment, is more strongly correlated with disenfranchisement. And, yeah, cool.

Noah:

There's certain people who may be built in criminals and do it for the love of the game. But in fact, when a lot of, like, sort of material interests are resolved, you will see a change in crime. One of the biggest things that were stolen last year, baby formula.

Sean:

Yeah. Well, I think Carl actually talks about it a lot as well. Right? Where how back in the day, Glasgow actually had the highest gang violence rates. But then what the Scottish government did was do a massive investment.

Sean:

We're gonna have to fact check it, but massive investment into public health services and, you know, sort of broadening out that kind of welfare state accessibility. And so what we actually saw is that now Glasgow isn't known for being one of the most dangerous places in the country anymore.

Noah:

And even to sum up, maybe even better, as Vibes Cartel said, what them call police for? Them can't stop the crime. Ghetto you want money for spend and that's why so much man are dead.

Sean:

Goodbye to our sponsors. We're never gonna sponsor

Noah:

anyone. Vibes, sponsor us yourself. First. I met you in Miami, like, come on. Shout your boy.

Noah:

The next topic I wanna talk about is, you know, we say that, like, we've we've gone from, like, the police level of, like, the on the on the job Bobby Peelers. We're gonna go all the way to the top where m I five has had to get involved with, UK parliament obstructing investigations. And this has just not been in headline news. I don't know how, like maybe they had just had, like, a super injunction placed on it because someone's already bought the rights to the movie.

Sean:

It's too embarrassing.

Noah:

It honestly, I mean, me myself, like, as a British person, I'm slightly embarrassed, but I'm also not surprised.

Sean:

Can I tell you something about m r five? So I first started out my career in the civil service, as you know. Yeah. And I was just trying to figure out which kind of career to go into. And obviously, the secret service is part of, like, you know, the civil service.

Sean:

And so I was asking around, oh, maybe I should try and just check this thing out. And everyone just laughed at me. Even the civil service knows just a joke. They even told me like, okay, aren't you like, you know, thinking about wanting to become a Muslim? All you're gonna do is basically just crack down from Muslims for your entirety of your career.

Noah:

But even this one, I'll give you I'll give the explainer. It seems like more of a matter of national interest that hasn't been taken seriously by the British government. So m I five had to issue a warning to members of parliament last Monday, where they basically said that they had to give up on a case where they were looking to convict two men suspected of spying and releasing national security information to the the the state of China because the British government hadn't allowed for the evidence to be provided that that national security was at risk. What that means, like, in more simplistic terms is two guys who were involved in British politics at this point is the best we we know, were being put under investigation by m I five because there was reasonable plausibility that they were spying for China, releasing state top secret information to the Chinese government. They then approached the British government to say, we need certain evidence to pursue this conviction, to pursue legally this conviction.

Noah:

And the British government said to them, no. We don't think it's of national concern. We don't think it's of a national interest. And they've they've gone back and forth to the point now where, like, the case just had to be dropped. Because even though these people are pretty much certainly spying for China, Kirstamer and and the people around his table have decided, no.

Noah:

There's not a matter of national interest. And the implication that a lot of people have taken to it, people commenting on it, is perhaps at some level of, like, sort of culpability or compromisation of Kirstjarma. Because why on earth would you obstruct m I five getting on with their job of stopping national secrets being spread?

Sean:

No. I mean, listen, all we can do is speculate anyways. But I think one interesting thing I saw in the articles from the kind of director of MI five talking about why it's so important and talking about how we need to give this case importance because it will compromise democracy. It's threatening our democracy. Mate, the calls come from inside the house.

Sean:

I think there's so many other things that we actually need to be worrying about and cracking down on in this country that our politicians are allowing on the streets, which is undermining our democracy. For example, two weeks ago or three weeks ago when the far right were marching, do you know who Tommy Robinson had on the big screen? Elon Musk.

Noah:

Oh, yeah.

Sean:

Richest man in the world, literally telling people, if you don't fight now, they'll come and fight and you will die. And, of course, that doesn't have anything to do necessarily with m I five, but I'm just saying, like, we need to actually get our priorities in check-in this country.

Noah:

And I mean, like, I'm sure a lot of people at home have the same feeling that me and Sean do. As I've been looking at the country thinking, why is nothing work? Like, why is everything just getting worse? And, like, why are, like, everything is getting more inefficient? And a big part of it, like, the underlying theme that tracks a long course for this is, like, the reduction in the public space because everything's falling into private hands.

Noah:

The ultra rich ultra rich are buying up purchasing power. They're buying up assets. They're buying up institutions. And to a certain level, like, industry within The UK, such that naturally inefficient is gonna happen because not enough money is floating around the public sector.

Sean:

It's almost as if it's like people who go into private equity real estate are ruining our country. So what was unrelated question. What was your first job?

Noah:

Job I left because I realized I've seen I've I've been inside those towers. I've seen what's really going on. I'll come down to tell you. Yeah. They're onto you.

Noah:

They're like, that's the real enemy. It's not people doing like Sean. You know what I mean? Some good news on the back roads.

Sean:

Okay.

Noah:

This week, the green party, which we've spoken about before on the podcast, if you wanna see where we spoke about that, we only have one episode before this, so it should be quite easy to find. They passed over a 100,000 members.

Sean:

So up to them, you know.

Noah:

Big up. So, know, while while your party's floundering and trying to get their act together, the Green Party are making serious headway. But did you know the leader of the Green Party, Zach Polansky, that's not even his real name. Really? Well, in fact, it is his real name, but he's been under pressure from a lot of tabloid media recently because what's been discovered is this, and I think it's an incredible story.

Noah:

Family come from Eastern Europe in the early nineteen hundreds to settle in The UK, fleeing a lot of the antisemitism that was going on in Europe at that time, pogroms in Russia, and antisemitic racism and violence in Eastern Europe. So they come to settle in The UK. Fearing further antisemitism and further violence in The UK, they decided to change their name to Pauldin, which is a lot more British sounding. Then in the early eighties, I don't wanna age Zach too much here, David Pauldin is born, a young boy who's born in Salford in Manchester and incredibly politically conscious from an early age. At the age of 18, he makes the very, very impressive decision to change his name to the original familial name, Polansky, clearly Jewish, marking him out as a Jewish man, something he wanted to be proud of, and then changing his first name to a fictional character, Zach, also a Jewish character, who he wanted to embody.

Noah:

And even though there's been levied by a lot of tabloid media or something to criticize him as if he's faking, I think that's an incredible story of, like, pride.

Sean:

Wait. So the tabloid media are actually criticizing him for that?

Noah:

They're trying to make something out of it as if he's hiding or but it is literally the opposite. In no way is he hiding. He's showing himself to who he really is, a proud Jewish man. And I just think that's an inspirational story for us all this week.

Sean:

Yeah. No. For sure. And I mean, obviously, at the top of our bookshelf here out here is Malcolm x biography. He obviously down a very similar path.

Noah:

And and at this point, we might have also put out our our first essay, subscribe to our substack, North Star Politics, where I've written about what's in a name, what can be used in a name where we document the link link will be in the bio where we document the nominative movements of El Hajj Al Shabazz El Hajj Malik Al Shabazz or Malcolm X as he might be better known and Zach Polanski himself or David Pauline as he was formerly known. A beautiful story. Really, really poignant stuff we've discussed so far. Sean's brought something to talk about

Sean:

I do. I

Noah:

do. Just to to to to lower the tone a little bit.

Sean:

No. So, Noah, you mentioned you like running. Is that so that's correct. You like running?

Noah:

Love running.

Sean:

Yeah. And do you like screaming?

Noah:

Actually, my sister sat behind the camera who grew up with me. I'm not the most emotional in that in that sense. So, yeah, not the biggest screamer.

Sean:

Right. So the new trend in London town is not running clubs. Right? It's screaming clubs.

Noah:

Days of Kiama.

Sean:

Screaming clubs. People are linking up together to go to the park at night perhaps and just scream. Actually, it's not even at night. 3PM at Hyde Park, I think, is gonna happen this week on Saturday.

Noah:

So we rolling? We rolling?

Sean:

I might be a bit busy that day. You can roll.

Noah:

I might have step to the Scream Club. Scream Club and then Speaker's Corner after.

Sean:

A 100%.

Noah:

Full Nightmare Blunt Rotation Circuit.

Sean:

It's where we belong to be honest.

Noah:

Here we go.

Sean:

And I just find it such an interesting story because kind of like what you were saying about how much of the public space is sort of being co opted by private hands. I think both of them are linked. I think the political the political contexts are quite similar. So how how should we begin this narrative? Okay.

Sean:

Cool. So you have austerity. Right? Twenty tens. That means governments retreating from having its role in civil society.

Sean:

It's not spending on public services, community organizations or third spaces or anything like that. Right? Then you have COVID. Right? We're locked away for two years.

Sean:

And then on top of that, you're coming out of COVID and the economic situations die or we're still struggling to overcome the inflationary effects and all these sorts of things. And then now you're in a political context where people are impoverished and they don't have places to go and we're social animals and we're all yearning for community. So what's a very cheap and easy thing to do to actually gain community? Well, you link up together and you go running. Right?

Sean:

And then now I feel like in a very sort of, I guess, poetic way, a screaming club is just the natural kind of logical consequence.

Noah:

Primal.

Sean:

Yeah. Primal.

Noah:

I I I like your logic. I like the narrative there. Yeah. And honestly, like, welcome to North Star politics where we're gonna get theoretical about scream clubs, but I might take it a bit further.

Sean:

Go on then.

Noah:

Well, I think within the fundamentals of capitalism, as Marx would have it, as a lot of socialist theorists would have it, is this abstraction from the products of your labor. As we, you know, within the mold of Adam Smith and industrialization, separate ourselves up into different desks and different roles within the production chain, you become abstracted or removed from the actual product of your label. We're no longer crafting artisanal mugs from start to finish. We're now just adding buttons to shirts. And within the modern information economy, we're even further abstracted where, let me know.

Noah:

You talk to my friends, they'll happily admit. I don't even know what I do. I do what I do, and the company makes money, and I get paid, and I'm happy with that. And it's quite abnormal within human history. Like, there is very much a little speck at the end of human history where people have no contact with the physical realm in terms of producing something.

Noah:

And I think as we get into, like, so maybe the two thousands, you have this, like, economy of abstraction from productivity. But then as well, I would describe this era as as financial totalitarianism where everything becomes financialized. What then happens is the ability to function within a public space producing things then becomes limited because as rents start to rise and wages start to stagnate, then then becomes a lack of financial rationale for pursuing extracurricular activities.

Sean:

Precisely.

Noah:

People no longer attain attend sports clubs or attend music festivals because, one, they become too expensive. Two, they need to work themselves to the bone. Three, rent's too much. So then now we get to a place where people, not only within their work, have no access to reality or a connection with reality. Also, outside of work, there really is no outside apart from just interaction with social media in this techno feudal ballpark living in.

Sean:

Exactly. I think it's not even people like to talk about capitalism or late stage capitalism, but it's actually more of like we're reverting back to a feudal society

Noah:

where I mean, Yanis Fairfax's big theory, Exactly. I'm sure we'll dive into one day when Yanis comes and sits here, get on the pod, Yanis.

Sean:

It's right here.

Noah:

Right here. Yanis, I actually came to see you at one of the Navarre events a couple years ago. And I just thought this guy, he needs no no no hate to Navarro, he needs to sit with the North Star boys. But now, yeah, I think it's weird, wonderful, but naturally there is some interesting underpinnings.

Sean:

And I think our next video is that we will be attending the screen club. I'm joking. Are we do?

Noah:

It's good. Well, it's screen screen club guys. Hold tight you boys.

Sean:

That shit it's mainly girls, you know.

Noah:

Is it mainly girls?

Sean:

Yeah. It's not even

Noah:

guys going. Mainly girls. Yeah. Understandable. We won't be there.

Noah:

But keep doing your thing. We'll keep doing ours, and let the two not mingle. So that was the back roads where hopefully you've been illuminated to some weird and wonderful topics that have going on this week. We're now gonna get into my favorite part of the show based on the one experience we've had, Let Me Land. Last week, you saw me victoriously land my hot take against Sean, Sean Floundering.

Sean:

See how fake news happens in real time. Misinformation just out on the airwaves.

Noah:

That norm. Just trying to build that norm. But this week, Sean has a hot take that he's prepared. So let's get into it. Sean, what is the hot take?

Sean:

Right. So I know I'm gonna get absolutely flamed for this, but let me land. Alright? I don't think that left wing parties in their public messaging should call themselves socialist and actually use that political terminology.

Noah:

Interesting. Build that out for me, please.

Sean:

Okay. Cool. So what is socialism? It's the social ownership of the means of production. So what does that actually mean tangibly?

Sean:

Well, it means that obviously you're passing policies that actually are geared towards the community. So you're investing in things like the welfare state, public education, controlling rents and housing, and so forth. And so what we're seeing, and I think there's an interesting dichotomy in messaging that I've seen from the Green Party and your party, is the following. On the one hand, your party is talking about galvanizing a socialist movement, where they want where I I suppose the calculus is that because they're so open about the fact that they want to bring socialism to this country even though, you know, it's defined differently by a lot of people, that they want to get support in that way. However, the Green Party now, they're not actually saying on the public or political messaging, well, I haven't seen it being said that they're explicitly socialist.

Sean:

Rather, what they're talking about is actually just being able to control bills, put food on the table, that type of stuff. And I think it's not a problem being a socialist. That's definitely not what I'm saying.

Noah:

Tower Hamlets. Yeah. Definite I mean, what you could if I can hear it. BMW likelihood

Sean:

In a social authoritarian country, this wouldn't be happening.

Noah:

We need the social

Sean:

we need

Noah:

the social ownership of his whip.

Sean:

But what was I saying? So yeah. It's not a problem being a socialist. That's definitely not what I mean. Right?

Sean:

We both align ourselves with a lot of socialist principles. It's just that to what extent is this actually cutting through to the electorate? I think it's a bit of a hindrance.

Noah:

Okay. I understand where you're coming from, but are you losing sight of the North Star?

Sean:

Go ahead. Go ahead. Should we be

Noah:

making those sort of semantic concessions rather than just staying firm and true to our course? If we are socialist and we think that socialism should be something that's normalized within public discourse and be the predominant way of doing politics, should we not stay clear to that? Should we not be explicit? And isn't it a bit duplicitous trying Trojan horse our ideals in under different guises?

Sean:

No. So I don't think it's the case that what I'm arguing for is to say that we're not socialist. Right? So you can be very honest about the fact that you are socialist. So if a politician or leader sits down and they get questions, are you a socialist?

Sean:

Then you say, yes, of course. But one of the big problems and something that we referred to earlier in the podcast is this idea of the irrational voter. What do voters actually care about? Voters don't care about or most voters don't care about political theory or this kind of theoretical concept or ideas. They want to understand how things are going to better their life.

Sean:

And so actually, even taken from the Zohr and Mundani method, albeit it's a mayoral election, so it's a bit different. The big posters wasn't let's bring socialism here. It was let's lower bills, make rent affordable. And I think that's the more effective messaging, which I think the likes of Zara Sultanah, not to, you know, explicitly criticize her, but she's missing that.

Noah:

Okay. So I get what you're saying then is that Yeah. We should do socialism by all means, but understand that that part politics is communication. It's not just strategy.

Sean:

Precisely.

Noah:

Okay. I think I'm I haven't brought in a room with what you're saying. I do think that there's a little bit of different political and cultural context between The US and The UK.

Sean:

Okay.

Noah:

In The US, yeah, Red Scare, Reaganomics, which things like, you cannot get away with saying I'm so McCarthyism. McCarthy. They're literally just saying, you're a communist, like, off you pop. Whereas in The UK, I do think The UK should be a bit more proud of its socialist heritage Okay. Of, like, the NHS, of things like this, of, like, the weekend, of all these sorts of trade union achievements.

Noah:

So I think in The UK, there isn't that same, like, negative connotation with socialism. I think for a lot of it is something they want to hear loud and clear. But I do think that's a really interesting point you bring up. And I guess that the thing that we can build consensus on there is that parties and political leaders should be a bit more aware of how they're perceived. I guess what we're trying to bring to light is that your your your policies are good for a lot of you politicians out there, but you're not packaging them well because you're kind of out of tune with people's impression of them.

Noah:

And you're trying to force onto people this homo politicas, if I could offer a portmanteau, where people are totally rational political agents. When in fact, it's kind of the secondary job for the politician is not only to come up with the policies, but also package them in a way that I like Yeah. Precisely. The electorate.

Sean:

And I think that is actually one of the principal problems of the, quote, unquote, And because it can cement into a bad branding issue. Right? So even the idea that to kinda move away a bit, this idea of the Green Party, people still in their minds have them as a has an idea of them as just basically tree huggers. And so

Noah:

Another And connotation with socialism, maybe in The UK, we're like the core being like propaganda against him is that socialism kind of means poor governability. Like, they're not really governable.

Sean:

Exactly. And it seems a bit unserious and silly. And even though a lot of us understand that and know that, I think those of us who do understand and know that should actually not be applying pressure as well for them to co op themselves under the kind of socialist label explicitly.

Noah:

I kinda like that. Like, I get what you're saying. Me, personally, I kinda think he landed that. But as always, like, everyone in the comments, let us know if you think he landed. Let us know your opinions as well because a bit more a nuance one.

Noah:

That's not really cut and dry. So please do don't DM us personally because that is cyberbullying. But definitely get in the comments below hashtag engagement. We're now gonna get on to probably another part of the show that I've really enjoyed, echo chamber, where one of us is gonna bring an idea that's been rattling around our our heads, the echo chamber itself, and cast it to the light.

Sean:

Can I cut in here? Yeah. So me and Noah had a big debate over WhatsApp. Right? What does echo chamber actually mean?

Sean:

So, you know, let's not define it for them. You put in the comments what you think echo chamber actually connotates. Right? And then next week, we're gonna review it because I think I'm right.

Noah:

And just remember what I said at the start. You know you're wrong if disagree with me, so try and be right in the comments. But let's get into the echo chamber. Welcome to the echo chamber. This week, we're gonna be in Noah's echo chamber, and I've got something to present borrowing from one of my favorite political thinkers and probably yours as well.

Noah:

And it's based on an essay I wrote on my Substack, Noah East nine, tap in, coming from the Martinesian psychiatrist, Frans Fanon, who a lot of us will be familiar with. Frans Fanon, born in Martinique, the island actually across from my family, Dominica, who went on to become a psychiatrist during the Algerian civil war and looked at the the philosophy and the political underpinnings of decolonialism. And his book, The Wretch of the Earth, really, really famous book, and it's one that I think a lot of us on the left have, like, what I call a contextual understanding of. We all kind of we all kind of know what he means, and we kinda get it. So we kind of even wonder ourselves, is there anything more to be garnered from reading it?

Noah:

And I I actually sat down last year, around this time last year, read it, end up reading a second time, and so much to be gleaned from reading it. So please please do so. But there was a part of it which just came to mind when I returned to London this summer. In the opening chapters of the pitfalls of national consciousness, Fanon looks to highlight those members of the native, population who might undermine the independence movement once it's been gained. So what do we mean by that?

Noah:

So for Fanon, he looks at when the, colonial, rulers have been pushed out by the native population, there will be those members of the middle class who look to undermine the achievements of nationalization over independence by profiteering. They will look to replicate the previous bourgeois colonial class in their own image. They will be the black faces on that system. For them, nationalization isn't the restoration or the implementation of, national industry, putting the industry at service of the population. To them, and I'll quote Fanon here, nationalization quite simply means the transfer into the native hands of those unfair advantages, which are a legacy of the colonial period.

Noah:

He's incredibly critical of these kind of people, this faux bourgeois who look to embody a lot of the traits of the, colonial middle class but have none of the economic underpinning. They didn't develop anything. They didn't innovate anything. They literally are intermediaries. And what they do quite materially is they carry on cementing that colonial pipeline just within a new framework.

Noah:

Neocolonialism. They carry on being the business owners who help export raw materials from the previously colonized country to the metropolis rather than allowing the country to push towards self sufficiency or nationally centered economics. That in and of itself is an incredibly powerful idea. And, of course, it relates most pertinently to a decolonial environment. But what I was thinking is that when we look at class mobile people within the West, which is what we're most acquainted with, and especially, like, ethnic minorities, but also working class people who have achieved some level of, like, class mobility, maybe gone on to great universities and then got into, like, really high corporate jobs.

Noah:

I think some of these same sort of faults are present. These people, whether because of they are born into, like, sort of an ethnic minority background or a working class background, probably were raised with an understanding that they are pushing for some level of liberation from whatever oppression they suffer from. But along the road, they have been sort of rewarded financially, materially by their taking part in the same system, which they at one point sought to sought to scupper. And I look at our some of our peers who've left Oxford University or some other great universities and gone into the the glass towers of whatever location you wanna say, this side of the Atlantic or in New York, And they are following the same playbook of undermining the movement for liberation. And even that might sound like a haughty term to use, that is what we're talking about, the movement for liberation of their class, of their people.

Noah:

Such that if they really had that self reflection within this battle between the oppressed and the oppressors, they might end up facing their own family on the battlefield in what they do, in the actual material implications of what they do.

Sean:

No. I think that's that's all very, very fascinating, very eloquent as well. May I say so myself?

Noah:

Trying to.

Sean:

Look, I think one of the big problems with this mentality is this fundamental assumptions around, is my outlook rooted in the individual or the community? And so, look, even if we just kind of bring it back to very, like, first principles that people can understand very easily. Listen, you're growing up in ends. It's hard, man. You're seeing your mom struggle.

Sean:

You're seeing people go to prison. You're seeing people do a lot of nonsense growing up.

Noah:

I've seeing your dad for some of us.

Sean:

Well, for both of us. Anyways, that's another topic. And you get blessed with this privilege to go to Oxford University. And then as we said earlier, who is knocking on your door constantly 20 fourseven is all these opportunities that are tempting you to basically come and serve their kind of institution, even though it undermines those kind of principles of community building and, like, grassroots organizing that you might sort of believe in. And I think

Noah:

And even more materially, it literally might be part of the system that just puts your mom's rent up.

Sean:

Yeah. No. Of course. Right? Because you've had these experiences growing up where you can't or maybe you haven't seen mom put food on the table, and now you can be in a position to put food on the table.

Sean:

But then I think I'm just interested in understanding, like, from the individual's perspective, how do you battle that self interest?

Noah:

I think it takes discipline, man. And honestly, I like obviously, we both know that it's incredibly hard. Like, it is so alluring material desires of this system. But I think the thing to think the thing to think about is if you're one of these people out there who recognizes that the system within which you were born is racist, is classist, is exploitative, is sexist, yet the majority of your day is spent being successful within that system. You're gonna have to be quite honest with yourself that you are culpable for promoting all of those things.

Noah:

And we talk a lot about structural injustice, me and yourself, and it become a theme of this topic. That's how you become aware of the structural injustice you are part of. You are trying to be the king of this structure. Therefore, you're really promoting it.

Sean:

And I think that change, though, that real change, it doesn't happen top down, but it happens bottom up from everyone's micro decisions to do just a bit of good in the world. And so I would encourage people to just really sit and think about what is it that I can do to kind of unroot some injustice in my capacity. So perhaps if you are a big corporate lawyer, well, maybe you give some pro bono work to charity. If you're like us and you talk or trying to make a career of talking, then talk about the issues that matter.

Noah:

And I mean, also is the discipline as well is like, do I need this much money?

Sean:

Yeah.

Noah:

Do I need more and more? And I think we talk all the time about when money's on the table, there's an allure to try and lie to yourself that, oh, I'll do this for ten years, then I'll come out and I'll make the change I want. But we say a lot. The practice is the person. You know, you see sometimes Muslim scholars a lot will talk about, sometimes people don't feel worthy to pray when their imam, when their faith is low.

Noah:

But that's the point that you need to find yourself on the mat in sujood because it is the practice of praying that will increase your imam.

Sean:

But who is the Muslim here? Me or Noah? Gosh. I'm I'm

Noah:

just a Tal Hamdulillah man. No. In that same sense though, the practice of doing these engaging this exploitative behavior, being part of a structure which is counterproductive to your original goals will end up becoming out the other side a different person.

Sean:

But even I think it's about this accountability matrix. Right? So I know that every act that I do, because I'm a practicing Muslim, will one day be accountable to God. And so it's very difficult for me to actually gosh, there's so much there's so much crime down here.

Noah:

I know.

Sean:

I wish people would actually feel like they're accountable to God because maybe then we wouldn't hear some of these hymns.

Noah:

Who I mean, speak about the panorama doc for you. Who knows where they're going right now there's police?

Sean:

But I think like having a spiritual background as well and a spiritual outlook for something that's very lost in this world. Not necessarily, it doesn't necessarily lead to this conclusion, but it can be sufficient for it is to be able to actually get you to those conclusions that allow you to stay true and stay firm on those principles that you might be raised with.

Noah:

And it's also just reinforcing the idea that glad I'm glad I was raised with that money is not the only metric. Yeah. Obviously, there's a very religious thing that people that were raised religiously will understand this, but money really isn't the only metric. And a lot of times, you know, the society we live in might judge you a lot by money because we're living in an age of, like, like I say, financial total debt totalitarianism. But for your own self, don't only value yourself by the money you earn, which would allow you to pursue other more ideological goals.

Noah:

I think we'll leave it there for the echo chamber, and I hope I've been able to get those ideas out a bit more. As I say, we'll be putting out a couple essays or essays on North Star. So head to the North Star politics sub stack. Also, it's my personal sub stack, Noah East nine. There's loads of stuff on there.

Sean:

I write too, by the way. Can you chat

Noah:

with Yours as well. Yeah. Sean going to write as well.

Sean:

Sean Remy's Sean Remy's

Noah:

sub stack.

Sean:

But everything's gonna be in the link anyways.

Noah:

And I mean, it's a lot more thought out than the words. These these are off the dome. Yeah. The words you write are a lot more thought out, so we hope you'll enjoy. There we go.

Noah:

Another episode.

Sean:

Another sort of step to greatness, hopefully.

Noah:

Greatness. Wow. Lofty, lofty ambitions. No. But honest

Sean:

What's our name?

Noah:

North Star. You go, man. All eyes on the North Star.

Sean:

There you go.

Noah:

No. Honestly, like, I think I just wanna reiterate how grateful both myself and Sean are for the support that we've seen over this past week. It has been honestly incredible. Like, people reaching out to me who just, you know, people I knew from school or university, told people I don't even know, messaging me privately. For me, I'm sometimes quite pessimistic person, but just seeing that outpouring of, like, support and love, I I can't thank you guys enough.

Noah:

And every little bit helps. Like, you guys are the early people here. We literally read all your comments. Please keep commenting, share, like, all that kind of good stuff because I don't think you understand how much it helps.

Sean:

Yeah. No. I and I just kinda wanna echo those sentiments, of course. Because for a long time I've been creating and my followers were pushing me to do something like this, do something like this. And so, I mean, hope I'm doing right about my old followers and the new followers that we're having together.

Sean:

And also I think like not to get mushy and emotional, but I wouldn't wanna be doing this with anyone else other than my brother, my best friend right here.

Noah:

Come on man. And likewise, like, as we've said before, and we'll say time and time again, like, the North Star community we're trying to build, we'll be trying to push to do in person stuff as soon as possible. Yeah. We're we're we're trying to connect with people as much we can online. We're trying to build something quite special and expand into loads of different areas.

Noah:

At the same time, because it is a two way street, us what you wanna see. Please. Tell us what you wanna be involved in. Like, this is not just meant to be me and Sean sat here at a table drinking coffee, chatting. This is meant to be a much broader thing involving multifaceted endeavors with multifaceted people.

Sean:

And look, I have the background or we have the background of doing videos in real life, going outside, talking to people. So if you want us to investigate something, if you think there's something that's coming up, tell us about it and we'll be there.

Noah:

Speaking of things to know, in this part of the section, we like to just sign off with, like, put the people onto something. What what what things should the people would know about? What should they be looking out for?

Sean:

Look. So myself and Noel, we've been recipients of charity all our lives. And we wanna make sure that this show, wherever it may go, even if it reaches the North Star, is always gonna be grounded in the community. And so I want to shout out some charities and community organizations that I think people should know about. So one follower reached out and said, can you shout out the work that Solidarity Sports are doing, which is a young charity based in West London that puts on sporting activities for vulnerable young people.

Sean:

I also wanna shout out a community organization that my friend is running. It's called the Fajo Club.

Noah:

Oh, top top club. I've been seeing that all over socials.

Sean:

Well, listen, at this rate, you're probably gonna turn up to one. And what they do is is all for the love of the game. They don't even have sponsors yet, but they're getting young Muslims together for the Fajr prayer in the mosque, etcetera, and, you know, having a nice little lecture and food. So shout out to them. Shout out to Anas as well.

Noah:

Yeah. Nice. We'll leave links for that in the description. For me, the things that think I wanna put on people's radar is I went to a great event last week after filming. One of my dear friends, Ezra Ola, follow him on social media, brilliant writer, brilliant multifaceted creator.

Noah:

He recently left the job in, like, corporate, like, in finance to pursue something more more

Sean:

Probably because you're in his ear talking about France France

Noah:

To pursue something more more fulfilling. Yeah. And he put on a a poetry night called burning questions where he talked about the burning questions that the corporate life had left him with, and it was absolutely brilliant. So I'm sure the poems are up on his social, so go and check that out. The other thing is I read a beautiful little passage from one of my increasingly favorite authors, a Sudanese author called Tayeb Salih.

Noah:

A short short story called A Handful of Dates, which encompasses a lot of topics we talk about a more succinctly and beautifully than we could. So go and find that short story. It's literally a couple pages. So that's the thing we should put you on your radar.

Sean:

And one last thing is that this Saturday, if you see this now, we will be at My Life, My Say, talking to young people about engendering a better sort of understanding politics.

Noah:

So we're gonna wrap up there. Thank you so much for watching. Again, thank you so much for all the support. We'll be back again next week, and keep supporting, keep liking, keep following. Thank you very much.