Welcome to this Special Episode of the Sceptic, with Andrew Orlowski, business columnist at the Telegraph and writer for publications including the Critic, Spiked and UnHerd.
Host Laurie Wastell and Andrew discuss Andrew’s work writing on business and technology, AI and whether it’s all it’s cracked up to be, the strengths of British innovation and why we fail to commercialise it, why the Left sneers at business, how Net Zero and mass low-skilled immigration are damaging our productivity and the rent-seeking of Amazon and Big Tech. In the premium section, they discuss why the policy-making class needs more engineers, whether the Conservative Party has a future, the impact of Trump 2.0 and Elon Musk’s coming war with Ofcom.
Donate to the Daily Sceptic to access our premium content. Follow Laurie on X. Follow Andrew on X. Subscribe to the Daily Sceptic YouTube Channel. Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.
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Thoughtful interviewee, Telegraph articles well thought out.
Meanwhile out here on the digital receiving end, all about trust and lack of…
…I don’t trust human rights lawyer Sir Two-Tier anywhere in the vicinity of the statute book. I don’t trust the Princess of Theeves with my taxes, just as I didn’t trust Mr Rishi Buoy or Lord Chunt – if I’d squandered our family’s finances like the £2.8 trillion national debt they and their ilk have sluiced away down the decades, the family would have been out on the streets years ago.
I don’t trust Ms Phillistine to educate little socialists. I don’t trust Ms Nobrayner to build houses, just as I didn’t trust her story about double dipping on voter registration and cashing in on a former council house. I wouldn’t trust Miliband Minor to change a light bulb. I don’t trust Ms Pixie to know her valid passport from her rubber dinghy.
I didn’t trust de A. B. Pfeffel to manage a Brexit or a Pandemic That Never Was. I didn’t trust Lord Sir Sir Unvallanced and future Sir UnWhittingly at the podium. I don’t trust latterday Science Minister, Lord Sir Sir, talking out of his bottom on climate claptrap. I didn’t trust Handcock’s maskeradery or Cunnin’-Dominaigh’s eyesight.
I don’t trust Tedros the Dodgy. I didn’t used to trust General von Trumpff but now I kinda do. Unlike Sleepy Joe, does still have set of functioning marbles. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to own up to being duped by Warp Speed. Doesn’t do humility, but maybe RFK Jr will do it for him. Mr Musket said to be on the spectrum, whatever that means – Musket’s five minute take down of pompous Commentariat oaf is priceless.
Rant for the day over.
And in the absence of anyone better to trust, I provisionally trust Messrs Farago and Thrice, if only because they profess not to play fast and loose with the energy policy that’s fundamental to the entirety of the modern world. Suck up to sunbeams and breezes at our peril.
Just received a government ‘response’ to the petition to repeal net zero.
Pretty sure Mad-Ed wrote the reply.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/701600.
“There is no ‘two-sided’ debate on anthropogenic climate change. The Government’s policy to support ambitious action on climate change reflects the overwhelming scientific consensus…”
…Overwhelming scientific bollox.
Another good episode. A note of optimism there.
Orlowski is very plausible but didn’t half talk a lot of nonsense.
He claimed, for example, that the average family paid more in additional costs of IT services (he quoted £1,000 per year) due to monopoly suppliers than they do in environmental levies. The truth is that environmental levies cost the average family a lot more than that, and it is anyway impossible to measure the additional cost caused by a monopoly.
He also exhibited a breathtaking complacency about Chinese products (basically “they’re junk that doesn’t last”) when actually they are often very well made these days and pose a very serious threat to our own industries for that reason. Especially considering our own industries often choose to manufacture their products in China anyway.
Our problems are a lot more deep seated than he seems to recognise.
Good points.