Francis Foster

Yeah, it comes in handy.

I just want to say thank you because when my life exploded in London, you just happened to be on the way to this pub and I was hanging out with Francis Foster and I looked at my phone and TMZ had just blown up my shit.

And you walked in, I don't know if you remember that you said this, but you go, oh, I'm getting a divorce, huh? And then you go, you go, yeah, Bert just called me and told me, shit, I wish I would have known that before I agreed to come here.

That was probably the most sincere and funniest thing.

Hello everybody, and welcome to this week's Off the Fence with me, Constantin Kissen, and of course, my trigonometry co-host, Francis Foster, our friends Winston Marshall of The Winston Marshall Show, and Tom Slater from Spiked.

Welcome, guys.

Uh, we're gonna get straight into it.

Uh, and, um, l- you know, more relaxed, uh, Pittington in England has voted to leave, uh, the United Kingdom in a referendum 'cause they don't want, uh, migrants, uh, in a camp right around the corner.

Uh, let's get straight into our first story which is, of course, Ed Sheeran and his opening acts dropping out after Free Palestine controversy.

Francis Foster, take it away.

Well, this, uh, Constantin, is very much a story that has captured the cultural zeitgeist.

So I'll lead you through everything that's actually happened.

That's just counting, mate.

So the question that I have for callers today is should Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster stop speaking altogether, and how does it make you feel when they do? How does it make you feel?

And James, how do you manage to stay so humble?

When it's time to admit that I'm a mug, uh, uh, basically.

So I'd like you to do me a favor and just grope your ha- hands together and just flaccidate yourselves and close your eyes.

And do not open them until I've instructicated you after I've whispered prayer into the Lord's ear hole.

[exhales] Heavenly Father, shine both of your breasts on these two podcasters, Francis Foster and Constantine Kissing, and forgivicate them, for they know, know not what they do.

They do not know what they do.

Grab a Pepsi Zero Sugar today.

Hello and welcome back to Off The Fence with myself Constantin Kis and Francis Foster of course Winston Marshall of the Winston Marshall Show show last but not least Tom Slater from Spiked Welcome back lads good to have you Our four stories for today are war with Argentina potentially Javier Milei says Argentina will prevail over declining Britain We've got the reform donation scandal the Lindsay Clancy case And of course Andy Burnham is back and better than ever presumably we will find out So let's get into our first story that is of course Javier Malay Saber rattling saying that he will prevail or Argentina rather will prevail over poor declining Britain Could we be facing war over the Falklands with Argentina Well a few quick things introducing the story There may be other dimensions going on here so President Trump very bitter against the UK's lack of involvement in trying to reopen Australia From his apparently has signaled that he is prepared to reconsider America's neutrality on this There's some oil considerations which we'll talk about and of course we will discuss Britain's military capacity to actually deal with this problem So first and foremost win how do you feel about Argentina saber rattling over the Falklands You're gonna start with me Are you brilliant well I'm extremely triggered about this issue i'm sick To death Of This What Is Essentially Latin american palestinianism the falklands are british we saw it First right the First Written european sighting is john davis in fifteen ninety two we were the First to set foot there In sixteen hundred no sorry i Got that date wrong In uh Sixteen Ninety With John Strong Right This Is British Now It's Been British Longer Than The Argentines Have been argentinian it was british before argentina existed Not only that they've been several polls Where Ninety Nine Point nine percent of the people of the falklands want to be british They are ethnically british The indigenous People of the falklands are british Not Only That we have had considerable blood spilt Because of this Continued Claim By the argentinians of Course Talking About the falklands War i Was At the argentina game in the world cup and i Had these argentines shouting my face about las malvinas and argentinos nonsense they're british and it's Actually Offensive i Have Friends Who are veterans from that war But they're still banging on about this is Just makes Me Very Angry and i just Want to add that there's A Few Other Things That Have Come Out In This Story benjamin netanyahu's Son Which i know You Got On A spat With Him kk this week Has come out on the side of the argentinians Trying to provoke us because of the british government's response to israel Throughout The War of hamas But it's completely contradictory from him His point of view because it is palestinianism firstly we have the longest claim to the island secondly the people there want to be british they are british and thirdly like Hamas argentine keeps starting wars they can't Win and a lot of people die along the way so it's not entirely a joke so anyway i'm pretty annoyed about this whole thing and i'd Add to it i'm not confident that our prime minister burnham is Going to have the balls of Thatcher to stand up to this antagonism Well in addition to lacking the bulls one of the things that I did is I was quite curious because I don't know if you saw there was a story in I think the Telegraph earlier this week about the fact that the British army is now cancelling live fire drills and we're not talking about for reserves this is a prominent front fighting division they're cancelling live fire drills to save money so the preparedness of the British armed forces to do anything about this irrespective of the political will is an interesting question so I actually looked this up on Venice AI and it's a mixed picture the garrison on the Falkland Islands is much stronger than it was 40 years ago at the time of the Falklands War so at the time there was only 80 servicemen on the islands Today we have somewhere between 1300 and 1700 including helicopters fighter jets etc The problem is the navy so the 1982 task force had 127 ships there is now only 63 Ships in the entire British Navy so we are at half of the Task Force now and so Britain could realistically Can I just answer that Yeah, go for it

Constantine, just on the 63 ships in the Navy, if you actually look at aircraft carriers, frigates-

Yep

Hello everybody, and welcome back to our weekly show, Breaking Down the News with, of course, Francis Foster, Winston Marshall, and Tom Slater, editor of Spiked.

Welcome back, guys.

Great to have everybody back.

I do-

We're, we're pro-Palestine

... there's been an interesting, there's been an interesting concept creep as well, because look, I think I remember when, uh, early in the days of Trigonometry, Francis mentioning that there was a National Front pub down the road from him when he was growing up.

Uh, and, uh, he r- I remember him repeatedly saying they would fly the England flag.

There was a time when the England flag specifically-

I'm Lara Prendergast, The Spectator's executive editor, and the latest issue of the magazine has just gone to press.

To discuss what's in it, I'm joined now by our economics editor, Michael Simmons; the author and critic, Philip Hensher; and the author, comedian, and co-host of the Trigonometry podcast, Francis Foster.

Thank you all for joining.

This week's cover has the headline "The Revenge of the Blog," and in it, our editor, Michael Gove, says that good teachers are increasingly under siege from the education establishment.