Be Vigilant (with Phil Wang)

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Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to Strong Message here from BBC Radio 4, a guide to the use and abuse of political language.

Speaker 1 I'm Amanda Inucci, or if you're listening to the Spotify transcript of this program, I'm Maddie Nucci.

Speaker 1 And I'm joined by comedian and host of Radio 4's Unspeakable, Phil Wang. Hello.
My phone has autocorrected my name as Phil Wand. Phil Wand? Yes, because

Speaker 1 like a wizard,

Speaker 1 which is more likely than a Chinese person to my phone.

Speaker 1 And this week, the phrase we're going to look at is be vigilant, which is one you picked up on Phil from an interview Defense Secretary John Healy, I think. That's right.

Speaker 1 After the incident on the train over the weekend, the terrible incident. Yeah, the terrible attack on the train in Huntingdon.

Speaker 1 And he said, the British public, you know, we would go about our daily business, but we would be vigilant. Stay vigilant.

Speaker 1 That was the recommended response from the public

Speaker 1 to fear of random violence. Okay.
Well, for one thing, I don't think you can live normally and be vigilant at the same time. Well, that's the thing, unless you are a beefeater.

Speaker 1 Then that is within the normal course of your day to stay vigilant at all times. That's normal.

Speaker 1 The rest of us, a normal life would include relaxing.

Speaker 1 Yes, it pulls against that idea that actually after sort of terrible incidents that one of the defaults and quite understandably is we're not going to be deterred by this we're not going to be affected we're going to go about our normal business which and it's difficult to go about your business normally when you're also being told to be on a high state of uh awareness that's right and i think it was something that could be more easily said when there was a higher general level of trust in institutions and policing.

Speaker 1 Currently, there's a very low amount of trust. Okay, we will look a little bit later on in greater detail at the language politicians have been using after last week's events.

Speaker 1 But first, I saw a headline, a banner headline in the Daily Telegraph. Do you want to know where it was? What the headline was? It was, Why British Chocolate is Getting Worse.

Speaker 1 And I don't know.

Speaker 1 I didn't read the accompanying article, but I just thought, what is that saying about the UK right now that the Telegraph thought, actually, what would sell more newspapers is if we put the headline, why is British chocolate getting worse?

Speaker 1 What domain of everyday life are people starting to take for granted and feel too safe about? Well, clearly, chocolate, I think. Yeah, the chocolate domain.

Speaker 1 Is it, I mean, is it summing up the state of Britain now that we feel everything is falling apart? Even our chocolate is falling apart.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think the intended reader here is someone wandering about somewhere in the UK thinking, oh, the economy is in the pits, the social fabric is fraying.

Speaker 1 Well, at least I can find some solace in my buffed. Oh, for God's sake.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 this too. Yeah.
There is a hungry appetite, I think, from

Speaker 1 newspapers at the moment to betraying things even worse than they already are.

Speaker 1 It seems to sell. Well, it's addictive, isn't it? Bad news is

Speaker 1 chocolate.

Speaker 1 Right, of course. So it's bad news about an addictive substance.
You can have your chocolate and eat it, I think.

Speaker 1 If you're feeling low, why don't you have some chocolate? But by the way, it's terrible. And the story that they are, in fact, telling there is that is it the cocoa content of chocolate.

Speaker 1 I don't know that's it. I didn't buy it.

Speaker 1 I didn't follow the story up. I know it's bad journalism.
I'm

Speaker 1 following here. I suppose.
What are they doing? What do they want from me, these people?

Speaker 1 To be upset, to be angry, to keep up with this chocolate story. Yeah, yeah.
To be choco-conscious. And is chocolate a gateway headline for other terrible news that they want to hit us with?

Speaker 1 Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. The chocolate was the last thing we could be proud of as Brits.

Speaker 1 It is better than the Americans. Oh, my God.
But even that is getting worse.

Speaker 1 What next? Cheese? Right.

Speaker 1 Well, talking of cheese, what have you been up to this week then, Phil? Nothing cheese-related. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 I had a Halloween party on the weekend. Oh, did you? It was Halloween this weekend.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, this is cheese-related.
I'm so sorry. It does become cheese-related.
I'm so

Speaker 1 out of sorts. While they did the link, yeah, yeah, you're so far ahead.
Even hook me up a cheese-related incident. And the theme of the party was 2025 moments.
So coming as 2025, a moment in 2025.

Speaker 1 So we had, you know, a lot of Amazon Space ladies, Katie Perry and the like, who went up to the family. Oh, wow.
That was this year. That was this year.
Hasn't it been? That was so long ago. I know.

Speaker 1 Right. So, you know, on that end of the spectrum, we had the sort of large mainstream cultural moments.
Andrew Monbatten was someone there dressed as him.

Speaker 1 That would have been good. But on the Morning Times.
He's just turned up himself, thank you. I've got nothing else to do.
Yeah, we were going to talk about it.

Speaker 1 What a good costume. That's spot on.

Speaker 1 And then on the other end of the obscurity spectrum, my friend Donald came as a wheel of unpasteurized camel bear because unpasteurized cheese from France was banned in the summer because of bovine lump disease.

Speaker 1 Some cows are getting lumpy in France and we banned the import of their cheeses. So yeah, so the full breadth of profile with stories.

Speaker 1 What particularly about Donald's costume indicated that he was unpasteurized?

Speaker 1 The sort of smell coming off him.

Speaker 1 He very skillfully produced a very round cardboard wheel of brief on his head. Oh, right.
A camera bear on his head. And on the back, it just said in French, unpasteurized.

Speaker 1 So you have to pay attention. Oh, by labelling.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Clear labelling. Yeah, I guess that's a bit of a list issue, isn't it? It's kind of like those old political cartoons where it's a big stormy cloud labelled the economy.
And you think,

Speaker 1 I think you shouldn't have to write what it represents. and what did you go as I went as an Indonesian boy who went viral in July

Speaker 1 for for dancing on a boat he he was called the aura farming boat kid and he was stood on front of a boat doing a little dance how did you indicate you were on a boat that would have been good I'd learned the whole dance routine and I had the outfit did people get it maybe three people

Speaker 1 got it one of whom was the boy who was on a link

Speaker 1 a live satellite moved to Indonesia You complimented me on my clever linkage. Yes, sorry.

Speaker 1 Here's a far more worn connection because I was thinking of the title of this week's one being Alarms and Alarmism because the alarmism is the response to the train attack.

Speaker 1 But alarm, I wanted to bring up alarm because Nigel Farage, remember him, did a big speech on Monday. about the economy, trying very much to present himself as being rather sound on economics.

Speaker 1 And he talked about alarm clock Britain, that that's who reform are the party for, alarm clock Britain, which is a phrase I think first used by Nick Clegg.

Speaker 1 So, you know, and we know how successful that was. Yeah, Farage saw the success and the political successes of Nick Clegg and thought, I want some.
That's right.

Speaker 1 Nigel Farage, trying to look like the maverick politician that he is, steals a phrase from Nick Clegg.

Speaker 1 But it did remind me of the continual use by politicians to come up with with phrases that describe I don't know who it describes it describes the broad middle of Britain that they really want to appeal to without saying broad and middle so uh Nick Clegg had um alarm clock Britain I think Ed Milliband had the squeezed middle

Speaker 1 which sounds slightly unsavoury quite painful yeah every politician has their attempt to appeal to

Speaker 1 the normal people.

Speaker 1 Of course they can't you can't say normal normal is interesting.

Speaker 1 It's insulting both to be called normal and abnormal. Right.
If I were to say, Amando, you're pretty normal. You drink a lot.

Speaker 1 Or like, Amando, you're not very normal. Also, not nice.
No, no. So they're always trying to aim at some imagined median Brit.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And because we're British, it has to sound a bit like we're struggling in some way. So working people, alarm clock Britons, squeezed middle.
Squeeze middle.

Speaker 1 We need to sound heroic in the face of some kind of difficulty. Theresa May had jams.
Do you remember that? Which stood for just about managing.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 David Cameron had, I think, piggies in the middle. Piggies in the middle.
Piggies in the middle. Yeah, we should come up with some of them.

Speaker 1 Something like

Speaker 1 the Costa Coffee kind. The Costa Coffee.
Yeah. Kind.
Yes. Yeah, the Costa Coffee kind.
Yes.

Speaker 1 You know, you're not doing terribly. You're not doing great.
You're having a Costa. The majority.
Yes. The majority.
The majority. Yes, the majority of the people.
The majority is great.

Speaker 1 And the thing of it, we had quiet Bat people.

Speaker 1 I can't quite remember how we arrived at that, but it seemed to make sense. It was the people.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 they were trying to think of people who are heroic, but quite bat people. They're not.
Quiet about it. Yeah, Batman, but quiet about quiet Bat.
Yeah. I think you're right.

Speaker 1 They can't call us just normal or average.

Speaker 1 We can't be called average because we're all special. We're all special, but also we're not arrogant and we're doing all right, but we're not doing well.
No, so we're not

Speaker 1 the non-opity clump.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. The better.

Speaker 1 The non-complaining little bastards.

Speaker 1 They should go with that. You see, if somebody had, if somebody had the just effrontery and gall to say, I speak to the non-complaining, was it little bastards? Little bastards, yeah.

Speaker 1 Non-complaining little bastards. I'm sure he or she would get a lift, I think, for a day or so before it then dawned on people what they just said.

Speaker 1 Oh, and there is another one that I hear, which I think sums up what you were saying about how there has to be some adverse effect, which is the melancholy middle. Have you come across that one?

Speaker 1 Wow, no, who said that? Um, opinion pollsters, but you know, they put people into different tribes of cat, and apparently, the melancholy middle are now the key demographic that the parties are.

Speaker 1 And that stands for higher-educated, hard-working, decent earners who are still going,

Speaker 1 What's that all for when they get home? Yeah,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think what's tough is the government used to be able to say working class people. Yes.
But the working class in this country moved mostly into the lower middle class. Yes.

Speaker 1 But you can't call people lower middle class. No.

Speaker 1 They dropped the class and added people to working people.

Speaker 1 But then everyone's.

Speaker 1 Everyone's a working person.

Speaker 1 And therefore, as Rachel Reeves is about to find out, it's very difficult to say you're going to protect them while putting up taxes or or affecting the income of those outside that bracket because it's a fairly big bracket so she's going to have problems there.

Speaker 1 I thought the other interesting thing about the speech that Farage gave on Monday about economics was, and I kind of highlighted the dilemma reform are going to be in, which is he still wants to portray himself as the Maverick, the one who's different from all the usual politicians.

Speaker 1 But actually, when it comes to laying out his stall and credibility, he has to start to appeal to, you know, the city, the markets, the whatever.

Speaker 1 He has to then start sounding like a normal boring politician.

Speaker 1 So his speech on Monday, which we were told in advance he was going to perform apparently in the press release rather than say, which indicates something.

Speaker 1 He dropped his manifesto commitment of tax cuts of 90 billion. He's dropped that, saying that was now an aspiration rather than a commitment.

Speaker 1 And he said that the pledges were no longer realistic and that he would only cut taxes once he had achieved substantial reductions in public spending and reassured the markets about the size of sovereign debt, which is what most party leaders and party chancellors and shadow chancellors say all the time.

Speaker 1 Yes, and that's the dilemma he's in now. Well, he's suddenly come into contact with the reality of being a potential prime minister and politician and an actual

Speaker 1 legitimate politician. And he spent a whole career telling everyone, oh, these politicians are all the same.
Yes. And now he's profitable.
And now he's proving it.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 He's saying the same thing. Obviously,

Speaker 1 he's demonstrating how honest he is by proving it. Well, we're on the subject of Nigel Farage and the economy.
Of course, lots of speculation still around the budget.

Speaker 1 Rachel Reeves, more and more headlines on what she is refusing to rule out or what Kier Starmer is refusing to rule out, which is a new trope that's coming through in headlines, which is the things that politicians haven't said.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 And yeah, which is infinite. Yes.
Yes. If you think about it.
Gosh, as if the things politicians have said wasn't enough to contend with. We now have to think about what they haven't said.

Speaker 1 All the words.

Speaker 1 That encompasses all the words. Yeah, all of them.
All of them. We have to think about all of them.
Not just words, concepts, you know.

Speaker 1 So headlines like, you know, Rachel Reeves refuses to rule out daffodils as legal tender. I mean,

Speaker 1 you know, it's one option. Yeah.
Why hasn't she ruled that out? I feel like she should rule that out. Yeah.
They don't keep. They dry up and wither.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm sure a think tank has got a paper in this.

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Speaker 1 Shall we get on to alarmism then? Be vigilant from John Hilley. So what's your take then on that? First of all, yes.

Speaker 1 Because I think various politicians were asked, should we be putting metal detectors in trains and at railway stations?

Speaker 1 A, that's going to be very costly. And B, can you imagine how unworkable it'll be just trying to catch a train, but having to go through security like that?

Speaker 1 So, yes, the solution is just to be vigilant then.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, just sort it out yourselves, guys, because we're stumped.

Speaker 1 Yes, it sort of follows a general trend that's been sensed in the country of that these institutions are falling apart and they were kind of on our own.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I got a similar feeling a couple of weeks ago. I went to see

Speaker 1 a movie at the cinema, and one of the ads before the movie was it was a TFL campaign and it was called act like a friend tfl transport for london i'm just doing the footnotes oh yeah yeah in case people were wondering yeah in this little film there were people being sort of harassed and sort of verbally assaulted on the tube and on trains like a lady gets shouted at by a man she spilt a bit of something on another man is subject to sort of homophobic abuse on a train platform because he's wearing a sparkly outfit and instead of showing british transport Police intervening they show members of the public going sorry can I just say lovely sparkly outfit yeah or do you want to come sit next to me yeah by the end of the video the message is uh we can't help you yes if someone's verbally assaulting you in public on the train uh you better hope that someone nearby is incredibly brave and then at the end of the appeal you know in the quick in the little messages that come up on the screen at the end it said only intervene if you feel safe yes And so I thought, well, that's me never intervening then.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so the headline is, you know, intervene. And underneath it, it's like, but only if nothing terrible is going to happen.
Intervene,

Speaker 1 be brave, but careful. Yeah, be relaxed, but anxious.

Speaker 1 Be brave, but keep your distance. I think the thing with all these cameras, and I've said this a few times in the show, is

Speaker 1 these are cheap policies. They don't cost money.
Exactly. That's the thing.

Speaker 1 You can, whether you say a certain organization is terrorist or whether you say a certain word is part of a definition of a hate crime, these are easy laws to pass because they don't cost money.

Speaker 1 I mean, they give the police more to do, but that's the police. You know, it gets it off your desk if you're the minister.

Speaker 1 What is harder is to say we're going to spend more money on cameras or more police or more guards on the trains. Or that's the hard bit.

Speaker 1 So that's why I think increasingly over the last five, 10, 15 years, there has been this sense of being told we're all responsible enough adults to sort things out ourselves. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And we're sort of being told to just be better people.

Speaker 1 The only hope at this point for the countries where we've got so little money, the citizens of the UK, just become better people, if that's all right, to really take a load off the bill that we're paying you.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It reminds me, actually, growing up in Malaysia, we would have these songs come on in the morning on the radio to school.
Oh, yeah. And they were often appeals to being a better citizen.

Speaker 1 Oh, yes. I think that I don't think they understand anything similar here.

Speaker 1 No, it's so funny. When you were talking about appeals for us to be better people, I was thinking we should have kind of morning.
Well, yeah, I remember going to school.

Speaker 1 I was like, load hailers all roamed up and down the street. I remember going to school, and you know, there's a big song about recycling that would come on the radio between songs.

Speaker 1 Recycle, it's good to do, recycle, tell your mummy to recycle. And your daddy too? No, leave your dad alone.

Speaker 1 It was the 90s in

Speaker 1 tell them to stop shouting, but only if it's safe. Yeah, that's what we're getting now.
Yeah, so now we're having the equivalent that intervene if they're not on the body.

Speaker 1 Unnecessary, yeah, but within limits. Hold your distance, but make it plain that you're annoyed, and then explain why you're annoyed, but not too long, because then they'll get annoyed at you.

Speaker 1 It's a long song it's a long song

Speaker 1 yeah i had an opportunity to to intervene this morning to a much lower level because the person next to me on the tube on the way here was playing obnoxious things out loud on his phone

Speaker 1 and i thought of the ad

Speaker 1 and did you intervene no i walked on the carriage and sat somewhere else yeah

Speaker 1 and this is i would say that's at the low end of the risk spectrum yes for intervention and i still i still wouldn't do that because that's what we do that's the thing we just quietly walk away because we're british yeah yeah yeah so yeah it made me sort of uh despair at the state of policing in this country well in in sort of contrast to that i think some of the language politicians used especially immediately uh after the incident uh occurred is interesting because

Speaker 1 in compliance with this trend we've been spotting on this show about language getting more and more over the top maximalization of language i think some of the responses as soon as things happened were

Speaker 1 down that road. Obviously, Farage, first of all, was saying we need to know the identity of suspects as soon as possible.

Speaker 1 I then was thinking, okay, I mean, it's not like we'll never know who this is. Why do we need to know as soon as possible? Yes.

Speaker 1 Is there another... He can get ahead of his social media output.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also raise.

Speaker 1 that suspicion if we don't get the names of the suspects as soon as possible there must be a reason why they're not telling us yeah So again, it's a way of arousing

Speaker 1 suspicion without actually saying, I want to make you suspicious. And it sort of worked because now it is police policy to release the ethnic identity of suspects in this.
It is after that. Exactly.

Speaker 1 But I'm not sure how I felt about that, especially after this incident where they released the ethnic identity of two people. Yeah,

Speaker 1 they released this information so quickly they hadn't actually realized who was the attacker. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So it's not just as soon as possible, it's like sooner than as soon as possible.

Speaker 1 And that throws a question onto the pressure put on the police now to somehow be arbitraries of the law in areas where it's all a bit fuzzy. You know, when is a word a hate crime?

Speaker 1 When is it the right time to release the ethnic identity or the ethnic background of a suspect? And when

Speaker 1 it's putting a lot of responsibility on them, again, because, as I say, it's a cheaper thing to do for politicians because it means they don't have have to.

Speaker 1 Well, but it's also a response to how social media has affected these events. I mean, everyone's very tense about how you deal with this when this happens.

Speaker 1 And so the police will release this information to hopefully quell any sort of violent reaction. But it depends very much what the information that comes out is.
I know.

Speaker 1 And my concern was actually in release of that information, but without any explanation yet of the cause or what had happened.

Speaker 1 It just led to more questions being asked. Kenny Biedenock's response was interesting.
On Sunday morning, in the same interview, it was on the Laura Koonsberg show,

Speaker 1 she said, both, we should wait until more facts emerge rather than speculating, but also she said, there's clearly something gone wrong in our society right now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we should wait for facts to emerge. But before they emerge.
Before they emerge, let me tell you right now, it's very clear from this that everything is wrong. Not just chocolate, everything.

Speaker 1 And this starts at chocolate, but it goes right to the top. Yes.

Speaker 1 And then that thing that I think all politicians use when they want to prod you without saying specifically why they're prodding you, which is we need to have a conversation.

Speaker 1 She said, something has gone wrong in society right now, which I believe all politicians of all parties need to have a conversation about.

Speaker 1 I hate it when politicians say we need to have a conversation about. You're having a conversation now.
This is the conversation. Just say it.
Say it and want to say.

Speaker 1 We need to have the conversation that you, listener, are having in your head right now. Yes, I'm talking to you.
What you're thinking about.

Speaker 1 That reminds me of Michael Howard, when he was leader of the Conservative Party, was always regarded as a slightly cold fish. There was something odd about his manner.

Speaker 1 And his party campaign slogan for the general election that he took part in, which was, I think it was the 2005 election, you'll like this when his campaign slogan was, are you thinking what we're thinking?

Speaker 1 I know. I mean, it was right.
It's quite sexy. Is it? Yeah, you think it's it? Well, it did work, but

Speaker 1 it just sounded bleak.

Speaker 1 Are you thinking what we're thinking?

Speaker 1 God, that is so sinister, isn't it? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wink, wink. Did they add wink-wink at the end? If I ever ran a campaign.

Speaker 1 Before social media, if they had social media, no, there'd be wink emojis all over the place. Yes, at the end of that.
Yeah. Yeah.
If I was running a campaign like that now, it would just be

Speaker 1 you get it, wink, wink, and we get it. Yeah.
They don't get it.

Speaker 1 And then it it was put to Zia Youssef of reform. It was that actually overall violent crime has gone down.
It's a third lower than it was a decade ago and 75% down on its peak in 1995.

Speaker 1 And it was put to him and he said, while it might be good that it's going down, assuming that the statistics can be relied upon, it's still far too high. So again, it's that.

Speaker 1 He's also quoting, he's trying to create a disbelief in statistics while citing a statistic.

Speaker 1 So he's saying, while it's down, if you believe that statistic, believe the statistic that is also very high. Yes, there is a sense of the language now being used no longer being,

Speaker 1 we take this in our stride, we carry on, we will not be deterred by this. It's not, oh my God,

Speaker 1 everything's gone to pot. Well, I suppose it depends if the politician questions in the government or in the opposition.
The opposition wants you to feel tense. Exactly.

Speaker 1 The government wants you to feel like everything's fine. Yes.

Speaker 1 But both are sort of wrong. I mean, you know, violent crime is certainly down, down, but petty crime is way, way up.
And the more visible crime is up. So fare dodging, phone snatching,

Speaker 1 shoplifting. These are things we see every day.
And of course, you know, these crimes in themselves are not life-threatening, but it gives a lot of people the sense that the social fabric is.

Speaker 1 And so they pick up on that. They recognize that that's what people are saying.
And therefore, they use that to be used against the overall figure.

Speaker 1 But then when a terrible attack like what happened in Huntingdon happens, it fits into that narrative that everyone's feeling that everything's falling apart.

Speaker 1 I want to quote something that Leah Cunningham, who's a reform London councillor and talked about as being possibly reform's candidate for mayor of London,

Speaker 1 after the incident again, posted that Labour want people to shut up and die.

Speaker 1 Cunningham's words were in response to something the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmoud said, I think, in a post on X, which was, I urge people to avoid comment and speculation at this early stage with regards to the attack.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And avoiding speculation is one thing, but I think it was unwise to say, I urge people to avoid comment, because I think it's quite hard not to comment.
It's quite hard, yes.

Speaker 1 And I think there are, you know, the research Cunningham's response was in response to that.

Speaker 1 Yes, but I mean, but her response was, Labour want people to shut up and die, which, you know, making the point is making it very, very forcefully in an unexpectedly maximalist way, I'd say.

Speaker 1 But sure, yes. But I think there's a mistake saying I urge people to avoid commenting.
It's like saying, at this early stage, I'd prefer people didn't think about it. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I think that was probably a known goal. Yeah.
But to say that that meant that the government wants us all to die is...

Speaker 1 No, to shut up and die. Shut up and die.
Which is some kind of game, isn't it? I don't know.

Speaker 1 I mean, there are no winners in this sort of event, either, because either if you're in a position of power and responsibility, you have to act responsibly.

Speaker 1 And, you know, the police are telling you, please, we don't want the wrong bit of information to get turned into rumor and counter-rumor.

Speaker 1 And before we know it, we have people agitating on the streets.

Speaker 1 So politicians who are serving politicians at the time have to do a kind of the statutory, please, well, until we know the facts, can everyone not jump to conclusions, which does sound a little bit kind of boring and safe, but that is, you know, any party in power would probably say that.

Speaker 1 But it also gives now the opportunity for anyone in opposition to say, well, well, I mean, I think we should know everything now. I don't know why and why has this happened or you're what?

Speaker 1 Why can't we talk about it?

Speaker 1 I'm thinking about it. I'm definitely thinking about it.
And I know you are. And this dynamic has always been the case, but

Speaker 1 the news process was slow enough that by the time the first piece of news story came out, there was a certain amount of information available about what actually happened.

Speaker 1 Now, as soon as an occasion happens, the speculation begins straight away, and the whole process is at a thousand miles an hour straight. Exactly.

Speaker 1 And that is, you know, the next time somebody, you know, God forbid something like this happens,

Speaker 1 their language is getting going to get even more heated either way.

Speaker 1 It's a bit of a no-win situation we've got with our responses to this in terms of public pronouncements.

Speaker 1 And also the problem is the heroic aspects don't get spoken of very much, and the positive aspects, I mean, you know, the trained staff intervened. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yes. One of whom I think is Algerian originally, which would, I think, somewhat confuse the narrative that certain politicians on the right are going for.

Speaker 1 But that detail is not going to be as far.

Speaker 1 And it is always harder to outline what didn't happen as opposed to what did happen

Speaker 1 or to comment on what didn't happen as opposed to what did happen, which is, you know, I'll tell you someone who was very, very good at all of this was Dick Cheney, who died.

Speaker 1 Yes, yes, yes. Who died this week.

Speaker 1 Former vice president to George W. Bush.

Speaker 1 Really the one who everyone thought was running the White House at the time and was instrumental in the invasion of Iraq. Known for several historic quotes.
I think you've got one there.

Speaker 1 If we remember Dick Cheney, we will remember him for these words. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. And that's March 16th, 2003.
Yes. Which does remind me of a thing that George W.

Speaker 1 Bush said some months later when things in Iraq were going terribly. He says the insurgents are losing.
That's why they're continuing to fight.

Speaker 1 Which I added at the time to my book of quotes of politicians that make no sense.

Speaker 1 He was good at getting to the number things, wasn't he? Well, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 So on the inspirational words of Cheney and Bush, I think we've sorted everything out for another week. Thank you very much, Phil.
Yes, well, thank you for for having me.

Speaker 1 And everyone, you know, the world is full of misinformation and gaslighting and misleading headlines. So please just stay vigilant out there, folks.
Yes, against that.

Speaker 1 Not just with your eyes, but with your lips. I mean, watch what you say.
And intervene, but not of.

Speaker 1 It's dangerous too. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because the government can't help. Thanks for listening to Straw Message here.
I'll be back next week.

Speaker 1 All of our previous episodes are available in our feed, so make sure you're subscribed on BBC Suns. Goodbye.
Goodbye.

Speaker 1 Hi, I'm Phil Wang, and this is a podcast to podcast trailer for a different podcast than this podcast that you've listened to or are going to listen to.

Speaker 1 But nonetheless, I'm talking about another podcast that you should also definitely listen to.

Speaker 1 The podcast I'm talking about is Comedy of the Week, which takes choice episodes from BBC sitcoms, sketch shows, podcasts, and panel shows, including my own show, Unspeakable, and puts them all into one podcast.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'll trail this podcast on that podcast. Who's to say? I'll do what I like.
Listen to Comedy of the Week now on BBC Sounds. Podcast.

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