Welcome to another edition of The News Navigators with me,
Jeremy Deacon. And me, Jonathan Starling.
We're back with a podcast special because the Oba saga
shows no signs of slowing down, so we thought it was worth
having another chat. This is on the back of the
caucus meeting last night. That's Friday.
We were recording this on Saturday where there was quite a
substantial majority in favour of electing Ben Smith.
There's a leader of the party and the leader of the
Opposition, which means now that Robert King is neither.
Thoughts Jonathan? Tea leaves, What are they saying
to you? From the Oba members, the lay
members that I have spoken to, a lot of them are still very upset
about the situation. They they think that it is a
counterproductive move by the OBAMPS.
They don't understand what their issues were with Mr. King.
No one's really articulated. They're like, what leadership
issues? He was doing a good job.
We wanted him to be more out there, but we understand he was
having his hand tied by the other M PS That's just what I'm
hearing from Oba members. There's a general upsetness and
anger about what has happened. They feel that their vote has
been ripped up by the OBAMPS and they feel that they are being
denied a say in how this is going.
That someone caught it a stitch up to me when I was talking to
them this morning, they said this whole thing is a stitch up.
We've been denied our voice. And I think that narrative is
being fed a lot by a lack of information coming from Ben
Smith, in particular, the new leader.
If you look at the the answers that he gave in a press
conference last night, which I think must have been after the
caucus meeting, he was saying that it was up to Robert King
for him to come in and heal things.
He did those things. He says caucus members did not
appreciate that. It wasn't the behaviour that we
wanted. But throughout that press
conference, he didn't elaborate on what those issues were.
What does he have to heal? He did those things.
We don't know what those things were.
We don't appreciate it. Well, why not?
And I think the problem with it that their lack of candor, their
lack of honesty, and I'm going to come on to Bo.
What I mean about that is fuelling all this speculation.
Now, what I mean by honesty is I'm sitting, as people know by
now, I'm in the UK and Keir Starmer, UK Prime Minister, has
been put through the mill over the Mandelson affair.
And I was listening to a radio interview with a former advisor
of Tony Blair, former UK Prime Minister, and he would say a
comms advisor and he would say, look, you should be honest as
far as you can be. There seems to be a lack of
honesty in terms of coming out with a full story.
If they came out with a full story and the message would
write, they would help to put this to bed.
Their answers aren't good enough, so it fuels constant
speculation. Yeah, I mean, when I heard those
Ben Smith's comments after the the caucus last night, my
interpretation was he was talking about the interviews
that Robert King had given earlier prior to the caucus to
both the Royal Gazette and to Bermuda Broadcasting.
That's only one. Reception.
Wanting that. There were two interviews and I
think they happened yesterday morning or yesterday afternoon.
That's Friday afternoon before the caucus.
My my reading of what Ben Switzer was saying that this was
ongoing issues. Well, I mean, this comes down to
our what? You were just saying we don't
know what they're referring to. It's a lack of clarity and it
fuels the story and it fuels the unrest.
I think of those people, those friends of yours who are UBP
members because they don't know. I mean, one thing that struck me
is, you know, obviously we're all human, right?
We have human emotions. Robert King, when he was giving
his interview, especially to the Royal Gazette, you could you
could see the emotions flowing through him as he was processing
what has happened to him. It was a big shock to his
system. He was a bit more composed for
the Bermuda broadcasting one, I think 'cause he already got the
IT out of his system. But at the same time, you can
see Ben Smith and even Scott Pearman when after the swearing
in the Government House and they spoke outside, well, not
Government House, the acting Government House.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They, you could see the motions
with them as well. But they're very defensive and
almost aggressively defensive. Agree.
We're not going to take questions.
We did this for democracy. Now an Oba member said to me
that they found these comments highly ironic, saying that you
did this for democracy by ripping up democracy.
Exactly by stating honesty. And transparency and discipline
when they themselves did the exact opposite of.
It that was hugely ironic, Yeah. Yeah.
Nobody really picked up on that, I think.
But you're right, it was heavy with irony.
East Asia Palace coup which is not democratic.
Not, not good discipline. And I mean, I mean, we, we had
Robert King on the podcast last year around November.
And at that time, one reason why we had him on was because we
were aware of resistance he was facing within the party
following his. Yeah, it was quite clear at that
time there were factions. Yeah.
And our interpretation of the time was there was an attempted
kind of palace coup at that moment, but for whatever reason,
they were able to broker like a a temporary peace, which
obviously didn't last for for much longer after that.
Well, they should have got Donald Trump in that.
They should break her a piece. Yeah, being sarcastic.
Being sarcastic, Sorry. But the reason I mentioned that
is because Robert King in his interviews with the RG and
Bermuda Broadcasting yesterday, he didn't speak directly, but he
was asked if he was facing resistance of people who were
not answering his phone calls or not responding to emails.
And he didn't say yes clearly, but he he gave a strong
indication that that was the case it.
It was clearly a yes, yeah, in a roundabout way.
And this, this, this fuels what we've heard, hasn't it, that
people were not taking his phone calls or replying to his emails
almost from day one after the election?
And so from my opinion, he his hands were tied almost from the
his election. Yeah.
Every time he tried to be leadership or to do what his job
was supposed to be, he faced resistance and wasn't able to do
that. Whether his ideas were good and
it was a good idea to resist it, I don't know.
I don't. I can't say neither of you nor
has. Been made public.
Has he? We don't know.
Yeah, From the outside it just looks like people were upset
that they didn't win and kind of picked up the ball and went home
in a sense. Whether that's the case, I don't
know. That's just how it looks from
the outside. Well, again, it comes back to my
point that they're not releasing the information that would put
this story to bed, so it's going to carry on looking like that.
Now, you've heard, and it was reporting The Gazette as well,
that the leadership election was decided by 17 votes.
Now that's fine, it looks close, but we don't know how many
people voted. Yeah, I was trying to figure
that out because the way the Oba voting system works as I
understand their constitution is they have A1 member one vote
system. So I don't know how many members
the OBAF per. Who were present at the meeting?
Right. And we've heard that the the
election where Robert King was elected on September the 6th was
a large turn out, Whistler's turn out 105 hundred.
I have no idea. You don't know.
So I don't know if 17 doesn't sound like a big margin, but it
might be. I don't know because 100 votes
has a. 100 votes in the 17 becomes a big margin.
Yeah, exactly. So I don't.
Know. If that even if that's the case
and a win is still a win, mean exactly Mr. Smith is in sports.
He's our national swimming coach.
I believe he understands a win is a win.
And. I I raise that because Mr. Smith
made a big song and dance in his election campaign for leadership
that he was a, you know, a good sportsmanship.
So I'm just raising that because I'm like, OK, you made a song
and dance about that, but have you demonstrated that I wouldn't
even bring it up? And he's probably never going to
come on our podcast now because I said that.
No, no. But it's like, it's like one of
his swimmers losing by 17 seconds and saying that wasn't a
fair result. I mean the the sportsmanship
response is to be like, OK, I lost.
I will learn from this and I will work hard and train and do
better and in the meantime I will be a good team player and
help my team help the winner be the best leader he can be.
Yes, that's the way I would have interpreted that.
I I agree 100%. And this is also what I've been
hearing from a lot of Oba members.
So it's like, it's me saying this, I happen to agree with the
Oba members on this, but I'm hearing this from people on the
street. So it's it's interesting.
It's interesting. Sorry.
What I'm hearing a lot is people are asking me or indirectly
asking me, what did he do? People say what did he do?
He won when he shouldn't. He won when he shouldn't have.
Yeah, Yeah. That's basically the answer I'm
giving. I say, well, as far as me and
Jonathan are aware, it's didn't like his leadership and people
are going. Is that it?
They were thinking, well, he must have stolen from the Oba.
He must have done something egregious against the Oba.
Now, I hasten to add, there is absolutely no evidence of that
happening whatsoever. So you got this.
Also, you got this situation now where his reputation is actually
suffering because they honestly, people were thinking he must
have done something really bad. And when he told them, well, I
think it was just leadership, they're going, what is that it,
you know, and these are serious people in business.
And you? Know who are bosses they don't
get on with or whatever you know I.
Mean, I, I can't necessarily speak to Mr. King's leadership
ethos. I don't know whether, I mean,
we've all had, you know, bad bosses.
Yeah, we've all experienced bad leadership.
But whether that was true with regards to Mr. King, I don't
know. The one thing I will say is yes,
he was relatively green in the sense of being new to
Parliament, but that doesn't you can still be new department and
have a lot of experiences of leadership or even be a natural.
So. So I really don't know if his
leadership was actually bad enough to warrant this coup or
if it was more, you know, sour grapes.
We don't know because they haven't been upfront about it.
Mr. King in his interviews yesterday was like, look, I knew
there was resistance, but no one would come and talk to me and
say what the problems was. I welcomed constructive
criticism and he was like, this kind of came out of the blue.
I'm a bit surprised that it came out of the blue because we all
knew there was a resistance going back months.
Well, what came out of the blue was a vote that went to the
governor. I think that came.
Out and you know, I get his point.
If if people have an issue with someone, they should be willing
to be assertive enough and say these are the issues I have and
try to work well. Maybe they did.
Maybe they. Did they?
Did We don't. Know again, we don't know, which
is very frustrating not knowing at least some of the story.
And again, as I said in my intro this or earlier on, it just
feeds the speculation and it it it will carry on feeding that
speculation. But what's the nature pours a
vacuum, and in the. So when there's a vacuum of
actual information, it gets filled by speculation.
Just segwaying into that, I'm taking over your Segways here,
Jonathan. I'll have a couple.
Of Spin did say there was not going to be a special meeting in
the Oba to hold a vote. It's going to wait until
September. Now, is that a good or a bad
thing? Well, there's definitely pros
and cons and, and just for our listeners, just so that they
understand, I have the Oba constitution here.
So they do have a regular general conference in September,
just like the PLP as a regular annual delegates conference,
usually in October. Yeah, but both the PLP and the
Oba have the ability to trigger special conferences.
Now in the PLPI don't have their constitution in front of me, but
it can be triggered by a vote of the Central Committee.
They can be triggered by a certain number of branches
calling for it in the OBA's constitution.
It's interesting. It's section 3.6 and you know,
maybe we'll get an Oba member who knows their constitution
better who will correct me. But my reading of 3.6 says that
the special conference can only be called for specific purposes.
It can include any, you know, a vote for leadership.
But it can only be called by the executive of the Oba voting to
trigger it. So there's no real mechanism for
the Oba membership as I can, as as far as I can tell from their
constitution, to trigger anything.
I mean, they could yell and harass members of the executive
until they do trigger it, but there's no actual formal
constitutional mechanism for your average Oba member to say
we want a voice, we want to vote on this issue.
Yeah, yeah. And we saw the executive voted
last night. I think it was some like 24 to
19 or something, I can't remember.
The 24 to 9, it was pretty overwhelming actually.
I was quite surprised. To to kind of rubber stamp the
the coup. At that point, it was a fait
accompli and I think they were just trying to work out the best
way to move forward. Now, as you mentioned, is it a
good idea to wait till the September conference?
Right now, their membership is angry and I think if they did
hold a membership vote right now, a lot of members would
probably vote not for Mr. Smith. However, to be put to have your
name put forward for as a leadership candidate for the
Oba, you have to be an Oba MP and you have to have the
signatures of three OBAMPS. And we saw so Oba currently has
11 M PS and we saw that what, nine of them supported this
coup. Yeah, it was originally 7, then
turned to 9. Right.
And it's not clear to me if if the one of those 3 signatories
can also be the candidate put their name for it or it's damn
plus three, I don't know. But either way, there's not
enough M PS at the moment who would seem to be willing to
support an alternate candidate, And in that situation, as I read
their constitution, that means that there's only one candidate
and it's a vote by acclamation, which if I was an Oba member, I
would be rather upset about. But if I was, if indeed, But if
I was perhaps advising them, I would probably say let's get
this over with now. You know, you call a special
meeting, you're you're voted in by acclamation, you have the
discussion behind closed doors at the at the special meeting
and it's done and dusted quickly.
I think the problem with delaying this until September is
that from a journalistic point of view, if nothing else, keeps
the story going, keeps the story going, it brings everything back
up in September. Now that is not a good timing
given we know that David Bird is stepping down in October.
So this whole thing is going to be front and centre in September
all over page one, all at the top of the TV news, etcetera,
etcetera. Theoretically, it also gives
somebody else time to perhaps get those 3 signatures, which
there won't be time now. And so if it does open the door
to a challenge, it's if Ben Smith does not perform well.
Yeah, he might this time. Maybe a rope to hang himself
with? It could well be.
So why not just get it out of the way?
You know, if you do it now, you're going to get voted in by
acclamation. They'll get everything out of
the way. You've got a clear run in then
to focus on when David Burt leaves as PLP leader and premier
to focus on getting your act together, the party's act
together with no distractions for what will probably be a
fairly an election fairly soon. I mean, personally, I suspect
that that a lot of the Oba members who are unhappy with
this action, probably half of them, not all, some are just
going to stay with the Oba through thick and thin, but
they'll voice to, but a good chunk are going to just leave
the party. And so they won't even be there
in September to have a vote. The OBA's risk is that those
members take their human capital, their knowledge to
either the Free Democratic movement or to the People's
Independent campaign movement or create a whole new party.
You could have to bring you to Democratic Alliance Reborn or
some other iteration of that. You have at least one MP who did
not participate in the coup who abstained either formally or
said I wasn't going to participate and legitimize it.
We don't know if they formally abstain or just wash their hands
of the whole thing. You have Robert King, who is
obviously going to be unhappy, and it sounds like he's going to
be facing disciplinary action. Well, that depends if he if he
comes forward doesn't it and help heals it himself, whatever
it is. But my my point is that there's
at least two OBAMPS in the house who may not necessarily have an
incentive to toe the party line. They may even decide to do what
happened with the UVP and the BDA when there was a Hunter, and
they may be able to take a lot of the the membership with them
and build a momentum between now and the next.
Election. I agree.
We then comes back to my point. Get the painful bits out of the
way first. Move on, Build momentum.
Yeah, it's a. It's a strange strategy to me.
I can see both sides but I I if it was me I would get the
painful stuff out of the way quickly.
Get it done. So 1 interesting thing you
mentioned about a bad strategy. So one thing that came out in
the interviews with Mr. King yesterday, Friday, February the
6th, was that he was in this whole kind of coup actually
happened on the Wednesday. Yeah.
It only became into the public light on the Thursday when they
were able to go up to Government House and formally do the
swearing in. That's right.
So. Just me?
From being on the outside, it sounds like they may not have
crossed their TS and dotted their I's when they launched
their coup on Wednesday, because where was the governor on that
case? Did they not think ahead and how
to do that? I don't know.
It just seems like it was a very badly thought out strategy.
Yeah, overall is all I'm trying. To on that, yeah, no, I agree it
hasn't. I think a lot of this hasn't
been thought through to my point about, you know, having a
special conference to elect a new leader.
It seems to have been very, very sudden.
But again, you know, we don't know why.
And not knowing why, as I've said ad nauseam, fuels a
speculation, keeps the story on the front page, which is not a
good look for the Oba because it's always going to be on the
back foot. They're never going to be able
to enunciate their policies properly if they do, because
this is always going to be in the shadow.
Always. People will go to Robert King
and say what do you think? As a former leader?
It's it's going to, it's going to hangover with him for a long
time. Now.
Talking of Robert King, he said in the RG interview, in the ZBM
interview, I assume that he's going to stay within the Oba and
stay as an MP. Good or bad for the Oba?
Well, on that I'll say a day is a long time in politics, as is a
week. He was giving those interviews
prior to the caucus vote last night.
My interpretation of his interview, why he was doing it
and again, there's pros and cons.
He might have been advised that it was probably a bad idea.
It might have been a good idea. My thinking was he was trying to
communicate, talk over the Oba and talk directly to the Oba
members to say this is what happened.
I think that the Oba members vote should be respected.
I told to me he was trying to talk directly to the members in
preparation, kind of put pressure on the caucus vote.
Now the caucus vote voted against him.
So now does he now go to the members that support him and
break away with this new party splinter, or does he suck it up
and go back to this place and caucus with a group of people
that have not treated him very well?
And you know, I don't know if I would want to go back in a room
of those people if. That, well, especially,
especially as Ben Smith came out and said he's up to to Robert
King to heal whatever has happened if he comes back into
the room. I get the impression that Robert
King's a very proud man and may not want to do that.
Who lives on his principles and is principled enough to believe
that what he has been doing is the right thing.
I think this could cause quite a lot of problems.
Now, whether it'll come to the fact, come to the point where
the Oba will withdraw the whip, that could be really
interesting. That's a disciplinary measure,
isn't it? If Robert King does not come
back and try to heal whatever it is he has to heal, then you got
a loose cannon former leader, democratically elected by the
members, who is free to talk about what he wants to talk
about. And that could be a very
dangerous thing for the Oba, especially in especially in the
House where everything is privileged.
So you can say pretty much what you like and what you say can be
reported on because it is does carry what's called absolute
privilege. And it's not just King, as I
said, there's another MP that kind of washed their hands in
this. I don't know who that MP is.
Well. We do because he's being named.
It's Mike Faye, right? He came out and he was reported
in The Royal Gazette. Was it OK?
I must have, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was
reported. OK, so you've got 22 MPs, one of
them a particularly big name 2 may or may not have any
incentives to play ball anymore with the Oba, but.
That's and that's a really big problem for them.
You know, Mike Fays, my friend, I've, I've always said this all
along. He's a friend of mine.
So take what I say with a pinch of salt and I forget this wrong.
I'll get a phone call in a couple of hours.
But he's a lightning rod, isn't he?
So he says. Something for good or bad.
For good or bad, he's a light. I've told him that he knows, but
he's a lightning rod and if he feels free, could be pretty
tough for the FBA. You know it would be.
No, I I have to say I want to qualify this, but I don't know
what he's doing, right? He's a friend, but I've no idea
what he's doing. Yeah.
I just had a funny picture of what happens if King and Faye
defect to the PLP. What would the PLP do with that?
Oh, Jonathan, you're going to kill me by joking with that one,
can you? Imagine I don't know what the
PLP membership will think about that.
They're like what? Oh my Lord, what if I'm going to
make sure Mike Faye listens to this that we proposed.
Thought sorry, I could have barely get it out.
He crosses the floor to the PLP. Well, I think Faye's got some
Irish ancestry to him, so Green will look good on him, right?
I'm going to message him after this.
You've got to listen to this one.
But yeah, there we are. Sorry, Jonathan.
Sorry, but here we are. Here we are talking about the
absurdities of all this anyway. Yeah.
Well, you mentioned discipline. So the Oba does have a section,
Section 12 on their constitution that talks about the
disciplinary committee. One interesting bit is Section
12.5 which reads that the Oba leader and the Oba whip will
have disciplinary discretion over parliamentarians and their
decision will be final as it relates to parliamentary duties.
They can they can also refer that the member, the NMP to the
disciplinary committee, but the Oba leader has the final say on
on that. Another interesting thing is of
course the Oba leader or the Opposition leader technically
under the Bermuda Constitution order, is the one who sets the
shadow cabinet and also appoints the opposition opposition
senators. So it was interesting, if you
look at the Wednesday press conference outside of the of the
Acting Government House, there were two former Oba senators who
were there in the shot. Yep.
They're not centers right now, but, well, at least one of them
was a cent of Marcus Jones. The other one was John Seymour.
I can't remember if he was ever a senator.
I can't. Remember, but I don't think he
was a. Senator, he was a candidate for
sure, though. So, you know, maybe they're
angling for for a Senate seat. Both of them are somewhat
controversial, but you know, that's I'm just saying we're
going to have a new Senate appointment likely they may wait
till after the the budget which is coming up on February.
I want to say the 20th which is also.
Around about that time. Yeah, and that's also the first
sitting of the house from this debacle.
So it's going to be interesting to see how the PLP plays this.
Well, the PLPS, David Burke's going to stand up and say, will
the real leader of the Oba please stand up?
I'm going to play some M&M and some shady with that, but.
That's what I would do. I mean, you know, you got one
Democratic democratically elected and one not
democratically elected. So that's an interesting thing.
What the Oba has done here is now set a precedent.
They've kind of broken the taboo and now it's going to be easier
going forward for any future palace coup.
So there is the risk of, you know, that saying if you live by
the sword, you die by the sword. Ben Smith might face a coup of
his own, you know, against him in like 6 months because now
it's, it's being done. That mental taboo is being
broken is going to be easier now.
The PLP had this in 2003. It was almost a bit of it when
the PLP was in opposition with Mark Bean as the opposition
leader, because there was tension between Mark Bean and
the rest of the PLP, as we've seen by his creation of the free
Democratic movement and the libertarian ideology.
In that, you see, Mark Bean's ideology was rather different
from the. General, it was totally
different. Yeah, yeah.
So you can understand why there was tension there?
Yeah, I think that was only avoided by the fact that Mark,
Mark Bean, he had, I forget the proper term, it was like a mild
stroke or something. He had he.
Did Yeah, he was taking. That to him having to, you know,
retire from opposition leadership Ness and so David
Barrett became the opposition leader kind of by.
Default. I think it would have been a
coup. I think things were probably
building up to that. I'm not sure, but that was
certainly my perception because every almost every every other
week during that period, you heard rumblings about problems
going on in Alaska Hall. So yeah, there was definitely
tension building up to that. But this is the first time where
it's actually happened. 2003 kind of happened, but not quite.
It was a fudge. This is the only time where the
actual party constitution and the Bermuda Constitution have
have clashed. And of course, the Bermuda
Constitution takes primacy. But Trump's?
Everything, yeah. Yeah, but this is the first time
it's actually really, it's been talked about before.
It's never been done. It's.
A very good point. That's a very good point.
It does create a bit of a precedent, doesn't it?
And. Not just for the Oba, it it has
that same thing for the PLP now as well.
Any political party. So it is.
It's not a constitutional crisis, but it is like AI don't
know an Amber Alert. It is, but it's a party
constitutional crisis? Perhaps not.
A constitutional crisis? Yeah, and the two clashing like
that is really interesting. You raise a good point though,
Jonathan, that, you know, could Ben Smith face his own coup in
six months time? There is a lot of pressure on
him now. I mean, clearly he wanted the
leadership because he stood for the leader at the last Oba
general meeting. He clearly wanted it.
He's now got it, he's got to prove himself, hasn't he?
There's a lot of pressure, there's going to be a lot of
scrutiny and a lot of watching of his performance to see if he
really can do it. Well, he's, he's carrying a lot
of political baggage now. I mean he he was already
carrying the the xenophobic anti Jamaican slur from which is the
20. 20 election which the PLP brought up.
Yep. And now he's going to be like,
how can you trust this man? PLP is going to bang that
narrative, and it's a narrative which is also being banged by a
lot of the Oba membership. So now he's in a relatively safe
seat. But is it still a safe seat in
this situation? I don't know.
Well. I mean, I'd imagine that the
gamble will be that this is quietened down by the time the
election comes around and it will be forgiven.
And as we said, a week is a long time in politics.
But there's going to be a scrutiny on him.
There's going to be scrutiny from internally.
He's got what he's wanted. Is he up to it now?
Yeah, no, I mean hopefully a lot.
Of pressure on him to perform. Hopefully we will get Ben Smith,
the opposition leader, on the podcast at some point in time.
He may. Not want to right?
Now, especially after our kind of jokey comments, but you know,
the invitation is out there, right?
So. It is and I will and I've
emailed today and I will carry on and I'll approach them
personally to see if we can get them because I think.
Well, we want to hear from him, his own words and give his
rationale. And I would like to press him,
you know, on why, why we've not had specifics.
I mean, you know, maybe they can't, but I mean, you can
intimate. You can intimate more.
Yeah. It's interesting times,
Jonathan. I think there's a lot more to
come out of this, which I said the other day as well.
This hasn't finished Shadow cabinet, you know, what is Mike
Faye going to get the one to abstain?
What is Robert King going to get?
They've only got 11 MPs. They've all got different shadow
cabinets at the moment. Are those two going to be frozen
out or other people? They're frozen.
Out cabinet ministries that they don't want and I don't think you
can force anyone to take a ministry up.
That's a good point actually. Can can those, can they say no,
we don't want it and just I think back.
Then I mean, in that case they'll be referred to the
disciplinary committee, maybe have the whip torn, but that
might be even worse for the Oba to have two rogue MPs.
Exactly. But you're not going to reward
Robert King with a prime shadow ministry, are you?
No. No, you're not.
I mean to to the victors go the spoils, right?
Including the opposition leader's office.
I I imagine Mr. King has vacated that by now.
There's patronage. You can appoint your senators.
That's a paid. Job consultants.
You can hire a couple consultants in the office staff,
so patronage is there now we The same goes for the PLP.
Of course, that's true for any political party.
We know that's. For the government and the
opposition. But those those appointments are
going to have particular interest, especially the shadow
cabinet appointments, that's going to have particular
interests because it's going to tell political watchers like us
a lot. I've actually been surprised we
haven't heard from the death the chair of the Oba, anyone from
the executive who's only being the MPs.
The chair of the Oba is William Soars.
William Soars, old school friend of yours.
Yeah, yeah, he's a good guy. He's interesting actually on
politics, but he's a good. Clear, clearly.
It's interesting actually that no leaks as far as I know.
Quite a tight ship. It didn't used to be like that,
the Oba. It was the leak use of ships.
Give it time, Give it time. I'm not going to hold my breath
for us, mate. Yeah, well, we'll see what
happens. Indeed.
Look, Jonathan, I'm going to drown my sorrows.
Man United beat Spurs. Bad news, Hull City lost at home
to Bristol. Mackey Wells, his old team.
The only silver lining is Wales. Wales got smashed by England, so
at least I can go and toast that.
And I'm afraid to say that the country of your birth got
smashed by Italy in the Six Nations.
Well, yes. And I'll, I'll say what I said
to you before we started. It's because the incentives are
wrong when it comes to the Six Nations.
Go on. Because the losing team gets a
wooden spoon. That's like the joke.
Trophy Metaphorically. Metaphorically Scotland.
We eat a lot of porridge. We need wooden spoons for that.
You gotta make the wooden. Spoon the winning trophy.
Then Scotland would be like, yeah, let's do this right now.
We're like, let's win a wooden spoon.
So what you're saying is, Jonathan, you're still in the
Stone Age and use wood instead of steel?
Hey, we like our porridge. Why can I say it's good for?
You, yeah, but you use a wooden spoon.
Everybody else has kind of caught up that you can use a
nice steel spoon nowadays we believe in.
Sustainability and a low carbon. Not recently.
Scotland has the highest renewable energy of all of the
UK. There we go.
I'm not buying your argument. I'm actually going to go make
some porridge now so you know I'm out for breakfast, but I
haven't had lunch yet. So me neither, I haven't had
breakfast, lunch or dinner and it is look my laptop which I'm
on is 3:38 PM which is why I got confused the other day.
So what is that 738? I'm hungry.
Well, pleasant appetite, and let's see if there's any more
breaking news between now and our regularly scheduled podcast.
I have a seeking suspicion the next couple of days will be
quite quiet until we see Senate and shadow cabinet minister
which will be sometime next week, which might necessitate
another podcast special. Indeed.
All right mate, on that note, au revoir.
Cool.