Neil Oliver meets Tucker Carlson

STRAP IN.

Early this morning, after a warm salty gargle, (not the fun kind), I settled down to watch Tucker Carlson’s interview with Neil Oliver.

Mary, Mother of God.

Within about two minutes I had shaken myself awake with disbelief. Nevertheless, I ploughed on through just over two hours and twenty minutes of rehearsed, carefully curated, falsely modest, virtue-spunk.

Throughout the cosy wood-panelled discussion in Tucker’s dacha-like room, the bearded, lyrical whisperer proceeded to dollop ejaculatory praise all over… wait for it… Jordan Peterson, Russell Brand, and George Galloway. The cumtastic Jordan Peterson reach-around was for Peterson’s recent proclamation that those who actively participated in the crimes of the last four years could be compared to Germany in the 1930s.

If only other less famous people had consistently pointed this out.

For those who might not know, Peterson angrily told millions of viewers, including the young, to “get the damn vaccine”. It’s particularly difficult to forgive this, regardless of his own well-publicised personal problems. Let’s not forget his Israel/Gaza commentary. For a man who has suddenly recognised historical, genocidal parallels with the last four years, isn’t it absurdly morally inconsistent that he tweeted “Give ‘em hell” to Netanyahu before he unleashed unholy hell on innocent men, women and children?

I scratched my sleepy, sun-kissed head. Why would Oliver single Peterson, of all people, out? I believe that the only reasonable explanation is that Oliver is signalling to the approved™️ commentariat bat cave. Like Peterson, Oliver has learnt whose arse to kiss publicly. You can rock the boat, and even tacitly call for revolution on Twitter (twice), but whatever you do don’t correctly call genocidal murderers evil cunts or you definitely won’t get asked on Rogan or Carlson.

Dear reader, at this point I must confess to a lingering personal disgruntlement. In January 2022, when Jon Gaunt savaged me live on GB News - Gaunt was defending mandatory Covid vaccines for NHS staff and saying children should have them – Neil not only didn’t pull Jon up on his bullying behaviour, he said nothing about it to me directly afterwards. In fact I remember he was very matey with Gaunt in the studio afterwards. I couldn’t believe it. When I messaged him to say how upset I had been when I got home, Neil replied to say that I shouldn’t worry, and that the incident hadn’t affected the show.

It was then that the scales properly fell from my eyes.

The important part was nothing to do with a moral obligation and everything to do with keeping GB News bosses happy.

So this doesn’t come across as ‘poor little Abi’, I had lots of supportive messages from both men and women directly after the show saying that they were shocked that Neil hadn’t said something to Gaunt at the time, or subsequently. I was ‘dropped’ shortly after this incident, and my public commentary on the ongoing testing procedure at GB News. Make of that what you will.

One lesson I seem to have to keep relearning is that most people won’t stick their necks out if it affects their immediate self-interest; even if the moral stakes demand that they do.

Also, despite mumbling wistfully about Free Speech and inalienable rights, Oliver stayed silent when I was put in a police cell for 17 hours after my arrest outside the Covid ‘Inquiry’. The part where I held up a Yellow Board behind Tom Harwood with Francis O’Neill was on Bev Turner’s show on GB News – and all over Twitter – so he must have been aware of it.

Would I draw attention to Neil Oliver being arrested and spending 17 hours in a police cell for one of his lyrical monologues? You bet your sweet arse I would.

Where do I even start with Russell Brand, except to say that apart from his terrible treatment of women, he was nowhere to be seen on the marches. He wasn’t a name I ever heard mentioned in the bona fide resistance circles. Brand is a text book example of nominative determinism; he is literally a brand and that brand is opportunistic, bauble-chasing, slippery, mockney, quasi-religious philosopher. At one point, the softly-spoken Scottish revolutionary poet agreed with a giggling Carlson that they had both watched Brand a lot. Of course they would say that, Brand is a member of the approved™️ commentariat.

As for Galloway. Crikey. With regards to da Covid shite, George was publicly calling for a Chinese-style 'militarised lockdown’ for the UK and the US. He did talk to a few awake folk on his show in late 2020, then in a poll on Twitter in December 2021, he was asking if Covid vaccines should be mandatory. In 2022 he then stated that he didn’t support Covid passports or mandatory vaccines. I think he’s been on the money over Ukraine and Gaza, but his moral outrage definitely did not spill over into calling a halt to any of the barbaric Covid restrictions, testing, masks, or injections. Like many dyed-in-the-wool socialists, he put ideological purity before objective moral duty.

A recurring theme in this interview is that Oliver claims he’s just like us: He hosts his own show on a popular new channel, has thousands of Youtube subscribers, and is in the US talking to one of the most prominent media figures in the world. So, exactly like us then. Looking like a diminutive wizard in a pale blue linen shirt and trademark tinker’s neckerchief, he humbles himself before Carlson; telling him that thousands of people have written to him because, he says, he is relatable. He’s got a mortgage and everything. Luckily, I hadn’t had anything to eat, or I might have puked all over myself.

Despite his GB News show being on a Saturday, as far as I know, he never attended any of the weekend marches during 2021 or 2022. ‘Vive la révolution, but keep it down, I’ve got a show to do.’

Out of some respect for objectivity, Oliver does say much of what I have said, or written, many times. He talks about this being a fight between good and evil; he says he believes in a higher intelligent being, but stops short of saying he’s a Christian. It may surprise you to know that I applaud him for that. He’s being honest about the extent of his no doubt ever-evolving faith. Meanwhile, Brand has been baptised in the Thames, (an appropriately filthy body of water for the occasion), and Peterson has recently turned his sights towards God; but stops short at going all in, preferring to intellectualise in his Kermit-like voice. I’m not sure where Galloway stands on God.

Turns out some things really are too sacred, even for media opportunists to dissemble about.

Somewhere towards the end of the interview, Oliver fumbles for a few seconds and gets Sucharit Bhakdi’s name wrong. As soon as he started to describe Bhakdi, I knew exactly who he meant. I said his name out loud into my phone, sure in the knowledge that, such was the importance of the man he had just described, he had to get it right. The charitable explanation is that Oliver was suffering from brain fog as a result of jet-lag, but given the assortment of dubious characters he had just spent time spaffing over in the previous two or more hours, I’m afraid my charitable explanation dissolved into the uncomfortable realisation that I was watching a very shrewd media operator who finds the lure of those shiny baubles too great.

If you’d like to hear gently lilting phrasing, interspersed with slightly deranged giggling, the full interview is here

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