C (2:20)

Yes.

A (2:21)

Well, okay, I'll give you the top, just the top score. I was most recently at Leighton House in Holland park, the former residence of a very well known Victorian painter and

C (2:33)

lunatic who just collected loads of mad stuff.

A (2:35)

I mean, I think that's actually a sign of sanity, personally. But yeah, amazing collection. I mean, he basically transformed this whole mansion into more or less a one bedroom flat and with, you know, grand Arab halls and they purloined or maybe bought lots of antiquities from around the world. That was very fun indeed.

C (2:56)

So There's a nice garden out the back as well.

A (2:58)

Lovely garden. Yes, I recommend it highly. And next week I shall be at the Parisia International Journalism Festival, where alongside much work and networking obviously and discussing with my journalist chums, there is a museum in Parisia that I have failed to explore and it is the Museum of Stained Glass.

C (3:19)

Oh, fantastic.

A (3:20)

Right, Yep, I'm selling it.

C (3:22)

It sounds smashing. Anyway, we will start in Lebanon. As the world puzzles over what the alleged ceasefire in the Persian Gulf does mean, Lebanon is learning what it doesn't. That is any let up in Israel's ongoing operations against it. Indeed, within the last few hours Israel has carried out its largest wave of airstrikes since the present war be began, hitting more than 100 targets amid a 10 minute blitz on Beirut and elsewhere. Israel claim that they were hitting what they called Hezbollah command centers and military sites, though did acknowledge that many were in civilian areas. Lebanese authorities say that dozens of people have been killed and hundreds injured. Yossi, we will be talking at length about the consequences intended and un of this so called ceasefire. But is one of them going to be that Israel now feels its yourself rather at liberty to concentrate on Lebanon?

B (4:19)

I think that's what they say and they are contradictory version what the ceasefire entails and the Iranian says Lebanon is included and hence they threatened to close once again the Strait of Hormuz, assuming that it opened it and Israel said it doesn't and actually intensify today the attack in the Dahya in Beirut and in south of Lebanon there are ground troops inside, deep inside the south of Lebanon. So as far as Israel is concerned, the Lebanon war is not over. But there is an element here, both Iran and Hezbollah, as far as the Israeli society is concerned, I won't say it's popular, but there is some consensus and actually interestingly enough, the criticism of the government from the opposition, not from inside the right wing coalition, that the job has been done because nuclear ballistic missiles in Iran in supporting of the proxies, no regime change, but also the Hezbollah is still launching missiles and rockets. So the expectation is actually that Hezbollah will intensify, probably try to bring Iran back into the conflict and Israel will try as quickly as possible to finish as many targets that it set itself in Lebanon. So we actually might see intensification of the war in Lebanon.

C (5:45)

I mean Daniel, as far as it's possible to tell, is there an actual defined objective here to what Israel is doing or is Benjamin Netanyahu simply intent on smashing up as much of Lebanon as he believes he can get Away

A (6:02)

with, oh, it's a very, very defined objective, which is just destroy Hezbollah and any threat to Israel and the north of country. It's very well defined, but obviously it's impossible. I mean, the oppositioner is in a good position criticizing him for not getting the job done because it's an impossible job. And it's a job that Israel has been trying to do in repeated waves and against repeated adversaries for decades.

C (6:25)

I mean, is it impossible now, though? Because Israel's thinking is, of course, that if there was ever a moment, this is it. Because, you know, Hezbollah's patrons in Iran have been diminished and defanged. Hezbollah itself greatly reduced, possibly incapacitated. If not now, when?

A (6:43)

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, their adversary has been weakened. And we saw that, you know, the result of the fall of the Assad regime was very much connected to that. But Iran was also weakened as well. And, you know, in other parts of statecraft, one might think when your enemy is weakened, that might be the time to negotiate a broader solution. The idea that you're going to destroy your enemy. Israel assaulted Gaza for the best part of two years and failed to destroy that. So I think if you have these. But no one can argue with these objectives. I mean, in Israel, it does remain fairly popular. There's a consensus that the people of the north cannot carry on living under threat of attack, and that justifies whatever progressive action. But I think people are so used to the idea that something must be done, something must be done that allows for an awful, awfully large room for maneuver.

C (7:43)

We will talk about the mechanics shortly of how the ceasefire, such as it is, came into being. But, Yossi, would you be betting heavily on it just yet? It has been reported today that there have been further Iranian strikes in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Iran has, in the last few minutes, announced that they have closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israel's attacks on Lebanon. And in the last couple of minutes, Iran, it says here, now warns that ships pass, passing through the Strait of Hormuz without permission will be, and I quote, targeted and destroyed.

B (8:21)

There's a lot of posturing here. I'm sure that if we sat here 24 hours ago, we'll talk about an American president threatening to obliterate an entire civilization. Seven, eight hours later, there was a ceasefire. It's so anarchic, it's so chaotic. There is no real ceasefire agreement. Is it that the 15 points, the five points, everyone throw all sorts of an agreement, but you don't know exactly. There Are no details because you know, in Washington there's not people that deal with details. So in this kind of situation there's always the side that sustained most damage will try to show it's still standing. So firing few more missiles, it's Hamas in Gaza, it's Hezbollah in Lebanon and now the Iranian. You see, despite all what we suffer, all what we saw at us, we can do that. The question what happens, you know, the day after, are they gradually coming down the situation? And bear in mind this is a very temporary ceasefire. We're talking about two weeks.

C (9:28)

Cesfar, Donald Trump's favorite time period. Yes, two weeks.

B (9:31)

And in between your two weeks with Donald Trump, it's a long time. A few hours. It's a long time. And he might change his mind and God knows what happened. I don't think he wants to go back to war, midterm election, petrol prices and the rest. But depends also how the Iranian react to all of this. So there is a possibility of the resumption. It's a problem for Iran if they are seen as completely abandoning the Hezbollah. Israel would like to show Hezbollah that they are on their own. But something about Lebanon. There is a solution for Lebanon and it's not that difficult. But you need the Lebanese government that is empowered and you need to differentiate between what is the international border, which we know the blue line, give or take, and what is the security border which without presence of Israeli forces, which is the Litany river. It's basically UN Security Council Resolution 1701 with 2006 and you will implement it and you have Lebanese forces all the way to the border, you can do that. But much of it is basically an internal Lebanese issue. And this Israel can't resolve and definitely can't resolve by using force.

C (10:46)

Well, except, and just finally on this, and I'll put this to you, Daniela, Israel's argument would be, and indeed is that that UN Security Council resolution which calls for the disarming of all non state actors apart from unifil, the peacekeeping mission in between the Litany river and the Israeli border has been in force for years and nobody's enforced it.

A (11:09)

Well, the alternative that Israel is coming up with is what a permanent security zone. And we have been here before. Yossi remembers all too well. Unfortunately there was a very, what was it, 15 years?

B (11:20)

18.

A (11:21)

18 years of a whole generation grew up with a security a so called security zone in south Lebanon and hundreds of Israeli soldiers were killed, hundreds are injured. It became a domestic issue as well. It's another short term solution and the army itself says that it's not possible to defeat Hezbollah militarily. But I think this very much feeds into the, this Israeli idea of Ain Bera. There is no choice. This is the only way to do it. No other state, no other regional actor can be trusted. Maybe the US can be trusted. But AP from that we're on our own and we have to take some short term tactical solution to a really long term problem.

C (12:05)

Well, sticking with the subject of whatever the heck is happening now, it would appear that if any credit is due to anyone, it may be to Pakistan, a perhaps unlikely mediator much more often seen brawling with its own neighbours than attempting to persuade other combatants to leave it, not worth it, etc. It is known, however, that US President Donald Trump has a high opinion of Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan's Chief of Defence Forces. And Pakistan has at least some sort of relationship with Iran. Yossi, do we understand entirely how this worked?

B (12:38)

It worked because you look for a mediator and it doesn't matter who. It's someone that relatively speaking, both sides trust. And Pakistan, it can be Egypt, it can be Turkey, for instance, because Trump has good relations, whether with Assisi or with Erdogan. So in this case also Trump likes generals. Maybe his lack of military experience makes him really admire people that sell him all sorts of military solution or have a lot of metal on their shoulders. So that's the kind. So Pakistan make in a sense sense because of the relations with Iran, because they have good relations in the Gulf. And from Israel point of view, it's not the country that Israel would like to see mediate there. But I don't think Trump really asks Israel. So it's good as any. The question what we call mediation because sorry for being boring, but in the theory of mediation, you know, it's between the good offices that all what they do is basically host the negotiators all the way to offering actually something more substantive about kind of the solution that is on the table. And I don't think Pakistan will play this kind of role. They probably will just make sure that they pass because there is no direct negotiation between the United States and Iran, that they will pass the messages and try to mitigate certain things.

C (14:02)

Does Pakistan, Danila, have actual advantages in fulfilling this role that the usual suspects don't? Because when we think of the countries who dispatch people to mediate, it's usually those, well, Scandinavian countries whom no one's really got anything much against. You see a lot of Norwegian, Swedes and Finns Turning up at these things.

A (14:22)

Yeah, and the Swiss, remember the Swiss.

B (14:24)

And the Swiss, 1990s.

A (14:26)

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I agree. This is, this, they're yesterday's negotiators. I mean, if you look at the modern group of negotiators in the Gulf countries, for instance, and certainly it's also, it's sort of a feather in the cap of the negotiator, of the mediator. You know, after any global conflict of any note, you see this rather unseemly scramble of people wanting to get involved. And because that's, it's a great way to wield your own soft power to be a mediator. And Pakistan has got, I mean, no one could accuse it as you, you know, of being a, an ally of Israel. It has good relations with the US it's got good relations with Iran. The fact that it's only just been recently wrestled off the precipice of a confrontation with India doesn't seem to have deterred it or is actually now actively engaged in, well, scuffles and skirmishes with Afghanistan. So it probably thinks, well, hey, you know, why not? Yeah, I'm here.

C (15:30)

I mean, there are talks supposed to begin, Yossi, in Islamabad on Friday. We're not sure yet exactly who is turning up. But is it strange, and I realize I'm about to ask the question, is it strange pertaining to something that Donald Trump has done or said, but is it strange that he does seem so upbeat about this 10 point plan which was pitched by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is basically Iran's wish list.

B (15:58)

It's again, use the word, you know, strange, bizarre. But we live in bizarre time.

C (16:04)

True.

B (16:04)

And you know, all of a sudden, again, the great achievement is to. Opening a strait that was open before is a great achievement.

C (16:12)

It's closed again now, though.

B (16:14)

It's closed again now and we open again. So there will be a lot of achievements every day that you close and open will be regarded as an achievement. And now they actually ask for money that no one asked before that to pass in the Strait of Hormuz. And Trump seems to be happy with that. And you already think, because he can hear the dollars ringing and he says, oh, we can, it is a business, a business plan here we'll share probably how much we collect in the Strait of Hormuz. Yeah, I mean, who knows? What is this negotiation tactics? You see, again, 24 hours he put again a negotiation tactical. The other side. We are basically going to completely obliterate you. We'll commit a genocide in Iran. The next thing he's so happy we've go and negotiate about sharing the Strait of Hormuz. It's impossible to know what they really want there because I think from the beginning again in the head of Trump there was a regime change. No one else thinks part of this administration. There was a regime change in Iran. There are some people changed because they were killed, but they were replaced immediately. I don't think there is a single Iranian that think the regime changed in Iran, but they create a new reality and probably in Netanyahu it's a holiday in Israel today, probably in an hour or two we'll give a speech and we'll say yes, there was an absolute victory and there is a, you know, regime change in Tehran and all of this just following Trump.

A (17:44)

Don't forget that Tehran will also claim has also claimed as a victory as well. So that's an advantage of a post truth world that everyone can claim, can claim victory as and when it suits them well.

C (17:54)

Everyone's happy then to the world of journalism in which every practitioner knows or should know that there is no mileage whatsoever in paying the least heed to the bottom half of the Internet, I. E. The comments by seething troglodytes which may appear under any article you the writer's job is in this respect analogous to that of the zookeeper. Once you've tipped the mangoes into the macaque enclosure, walk away unless it especially amuses you to watch the subsequent screeching and feces flinging. However, an Italian court judgment may shortly enshrine the splendid notion that there should be no comment sections at all. Back in 2018, an Italian reporter was adjudged legally culpable for the comments underneath his post and stung for €33,000. The matter has now reach reached Italy's top appeals court with a decision expected on Friday. Daniela, is there any way at all this isn't as mad as it sounds?

A (18:51)

Well, 2018 was a lifetime, I know in the world of social media and

C (18:56)

online platforms, testament to the brisk efficiency for which Italy's bureaucracy is justly famed.

A (19:02)

Yes, well, well, quite. I think in 2018 the social media platforms are also still desperately clinging to this idea that they were just facilitators, they were just platforms, they were just sort of places where people could share, could share information without any restrictions. And this is still an argument that's going on, but it increasingly being lost because it's very clear that they aren't just these neutral spaces for people of goodwill to come together and share their

C (19:35)

stories Yossi, the original judgment, as I understand it, was that somebody posted, you know, actionable commentary under his post and the court held that he must have seen them and didn't delete them, which, which seems extraordinary to me. Unless there's. There is some nuance here I'm missing. That just seems bizarre because you have no control. Well, you have limited control. If you post anything in the public realm, your control over what happens next is. Well, it's not absolute.

B (20:08)

I mean, this is the second time we used the word bizarre in one program. I went to see if the date is not 1st of April and if this is kind of not a hoax, it's impossible. I think there is a great business model for that. I just thought about it. Everyone that insulted me because what I said in the media and didn't delete some of these comments, I mean, I don't need to do anything anymore. Just keep suing people for saying some awful things.

C (20:34)

I mean, I'm quite looking forward to that aspect myself.

A (20:37)

But you would be the one being sued.

B (20:40)

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you can have libelous.

A (20:44)

If somebody insults you on social media.

B (20:46)

Yeah.

A (20:47)

And then you're responsible for it, then you'd have to see yourself.

B (20:50)

They're responsible for death. Because I'm the one that insulted.

C (20:53)

No, I think we both can sue, Daniela, as I understand already, but I

B (20:58)

mean, this makes no sense because all what you see, you look at any post on social media and start deleting and just imagine what happened. Because I can just imagine, not only in Italy, so many people are going through their social media and saying, oh, this is something. Was it like €33,000?

C (21:16)

Yeah.

B (21:16)

And I said all what you need. Just imagine once a month finding someone that really said something libelous or you didn't delete. You didn't even say that. I didn't. Something with freedom of speech there is very. Really skewed. I don't know this is sustainable.

C (21:30)

If this sticks, Daniela, he asked wistfully, if not excitedly, doesn't it. It destroys the business model of social media platforms, doesn't it? If anybody can be held legally liable at 33 grand a go for anything anybody posts under anything they post, then surely people just stop posting anything.

A (21:51)

But if you look at it a bit more, sort of boringly looking at how the industry is developing and how content creators now have responsibilities and, and huge audiences, and in many countries the idea of a journalist is. Also. Also includes people with a platform on, on social media, then I suppose you could torturously make the argument that they would. It would be a question of like repeating a libel which, you know, journalists are not supposed to do, etc, etc. But I think still this, this comes back fundamentally to the fact that we haven't really absorbed the reality and the role that social media platforms play as mass media outlets. And I mean libel is one thing, but disinformation is a much greater issue. And I think that's, that, that's a greater, that's a greater danger and one that's being blithely exploited by all kinds of malign actors. And I see this is a kind of a continuation of it. Who are you going to hold to account for this content? I guess maybe the court is arguing as a journalist should have known, as a journalist, his page is perhaps an outlet.

C (23:06)

No? Yossi, if another consequence of this judgment is the end forever for all time of the comment section, would you miss it?

B (23:18)

No, I mean you see at the early days in kind of the very naive, optimistic way. So that's great. You can have a wonderful, a wonderful discussion. And then you see two things. A, most of them don't actually refer to what you write. No, they start fighting with one another. So this is no good. And if they say something, they insult and it's not actually something of stuff that you can learn. And I learned many years ago I wrote something for the CNN website and I saw no comment. I said, wow, either I bored everyone. And then so I said to how come the previous one there was so like 200, 300 and they start fighting with one another. So oh, we start to take at the time comments on two subjects, Israel, Palestine and Ferguson in St. Louis. So at the time, because there was no point to do that, it's just again, probably they even thought probably a long time ago there might be a lawsuit somewhere about it.

C (24:17)

Well, to Seoul now and to something of a boon for the Grand Hyatt Hotel therein. At least if we extend the definition of boon to being plagued by credulous yahoos taking pictures of them. Word has got out that the hotel's lobby and especially its stone statue of a turtle are auspiciously lucky locations and or artefacts. With many pilgrims hastening to social media to report sudden upswings in their general fortunes after visiting others have made similar claims for other locations. The management of the Grand Hyatt, rather than rolling out the fire hoses as might be expected, is thus far indulging the stampede, even boasting that the site of the hotel was chosen for its propitious feng Shui, Daniel, with your long experience in journalism, do you suspect that the source for this story may lurk somewhere in the Hyatt press office?

A (25:09)

Well, fair play to them. It's a genius one. It's a genius one. Yeah. Well, you know, it's also sort of plausible because people can't see. It's not really. No. People can't see a statue without sort of rubbing its stomach and thinking this is going to make a difference. Like you can't see.

C (25:25)

I can. I have seen many, many statues in my time and never once felt the mildest urge to rub their stones.

A (25:32)

You're an unusual man, Andrew. I'm sure you've never thrown any coins into a hole in the ground containing water, which seems to be another sort of human impulse.

C (25:41)

Not that I recall.

B (25:41)

So what did you do in Rome?

C (25:43)

Well, I mean, there are other things to do in Rome, Yossi, than hurl your spare change into a sink or rub the stomachs of statues.

B (25:51)

Yeah, makes sense.

C (25:54)

Are you suddenly keen to visit the Grand Hyatt in Seoul? I've never stayed,

B (25:59)

no.

A (25:59)

Yeah, and I don't know, perhaps if

C (26:03)

I had, my life would be vastly improved.

B (26:05)

I. I've been to the Hyatt hotels in different places. I didn't feel that, you know, my fortune changed that dramatically, but they weren't the right one.

C (26:13)

I mean, I've stayed in Hyatt hotels, Yossi, but I, I. Definitely not the right one.

B (26:17)

Exactly. So you need to go to the. Listen, people do a lot of thing, but I don't want. Because I mentioned it, so it will sound disrespectful of people, for instance, put notes in walls that were supposed 2,000 years ago being part of a temple. People go to all sorts of, you know, other temples around the world and think that there will be a second, third coming, Nirvana and the rest whenever makes people happy. Now, I don't know what you say about Hyatt after the previous item. I don't know. You have to be very careful not to put it on social media because who knows what will happen if it, I mean, if it's a kind of publicity stunt. Good luck to them.

C (26:58)

To what do we ascribe this desire, though, Daniela? Among the people who want to believe that there is something going on here, because as Yossi points out, there is not really any great difference between believing that a hotel lobby or a stone turtle is lucky and, I don't know, thinking you've seen the face of Jesus in toast.

A (27:17)

Well, the good thing about visiting hotels and rubbing Statues is it requires no moral commitment whatsoever. You can still, you know, you can still you. Yeah, you don't have to sign up to any. It's very pick and mix version of. Of luck. And it can be a bit of fun. You do it with other people. You know, I've been to the. I've been to Blarney Castle. A whole jolly, jolly queue of people queuing up to. To climb the. The castle stairs and kiss the Blarney Star Stone. Yeah, I mean, I did it and apparently supposed to give you the gift of eloquence, so who am I to say it didn't work?

C (27:59)

Exactly. Give it another shot. Maybe I did. Want to ask you both in closing whether you do have any superstitions of any sort that you're willing to admit to. Yossi.

B (28:11)

I used to play football.

C (28:13)

That's not a superstition so far.

B (28:14)

No, no. But if you play in a team football, there are so many superstitions. Sure. You know, doing that from, you know, scent that comes. You put on your shoes before. I didn't do it as such. People put. Some of my teammates put, believe it or no, garlic inside their shoes. They went to visit special rabbis. Special rabbis. Rabbis that they thought they have special powers to bless them before the game. How'd that go? Sometimes we won and sometimes we lose and sometimes we throw. So how. It depends on the day.

C (28:48)

Daniello.

A (28:49)

Well, as you know, whenever I land in a foreign location, I immediately search out the most immediate source of local history and the primary source of local carbohydrates. I would say that would be my most closely guarded superstition, whereas I have

C (29:06)

none other than, of course, the fez I wear to present every one of these programmes. Daniela Pelled and Yossi Meckelberg, thank you both for joining us. Finally, on today's show, our on this date historical series recalls the day that Western Australia's people spoke and nobody listened. Vox populi, vox dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. It is a tag cited frequently in defence of democracy. Sometimes it's with a suitably philosophical shrug, usually after a given electorate has made what may well seem to lofty, educated liberal opinion a decision which is any combination of spiteful, eccentric or self defeating. We are now projecting that Donald J Trump will win the state of Pennsylvania. Former President Donald J Trump will win the state of Pennsylvania and thereby he is on his way to becoming the 47th President of the United States. Sometimes it is delivered with a resonant thump of fist on lectern, usually in defence of a given electorate which has just made a spiteful, eccentric or self defeating decision. This election means that getting Brexit done is now the irrefutable, irresistible, unarguable decision of the British people. The context of the original remark is usually conveniently forgotten. However, we owe it to Alcuin of York, an 8th century English scholar who became an advisor to Charlemagne and who was actually trying to warn the Carolingian Emperor off, paying over much heed to the riffraff.

A (30:57)

The full quote is Ne audiendi qui solent de cere vox populi vox DEI cum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.

C (31:09)

It translates as All Monocle radio listeners doubtless understood as those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, because the tumult of the crowd is always close to madness.

A (31:27)

Alrighty,

C (31:31)

Carolingian empire did not hold elections. Charlemagne, king of both the Franks and the Lombards, was crowned Emperor by Pope Leo iii. But his advisors council was nevertheless astute. Just because a majority of people want something, it does not necessarily follow that it's a smart idea to let them have it. This lesson was heeded, if more absent mindedly than deliberately, by the government of Australia in the weeks, months and years after April 8, 1933. This was the date that the people of the State of Western Australia, or a convincing 66% of them, voted to secede from the Federal Commonwealth of Australia, established just 32 years previously and become an independent nation. And the Federal Commonwealth of Australia just sort of ignored them from that day. To this. Western Australian secessionism is, as such tendencies go, an unusual one. There are no meaningful ethnic, religious, linguistic or cultural differences between Western and non Western Australian. There's not even a different accent. It would require an especially hyperactive persecution complex for any Western Australian to claim that they struggle to breathe beneath the Canberran jackboot upon their windpipe. It seems mostly just born of a sense that they're a long way away from Australia's centres of power, which is true enough, and that everyone else forgets about them, which is also probably about fair. A few days before the vote, Western Australian newspaper the Sunday Times, owned by pro secession meeting media baron and State parliamentarian James McCollum Smith, agonized as follows. We are too remote from the Federation. We are of it, but not in it. Smith established the Secession League, initially the leading lobby for secession, before being superseded by the Dominion League, founded by accountant and as yet unsuccessful Office seeker Keith Watson. The Dominion League were better organized, more determined and even had a song, a hymn to the budding nation they hoped to call Westralia. Land of the swan, jet plumaged of fairy crystal cave. What in the interests of allotting equal time, so did the pro union Federal League.

A (34:04)

From the desert to the ocean brothers lift the mighty chorus for Australian unity.

C (34:12)

One of the difficulties of heeding the vox populi is that it is not always altogether clear what it is saying. Western Australians voted in two polls on this day 93 years ago. One was the secession referendum. The other was for the state Parliament. In the latter, the pro secession state government of Nationalist party Conservative Sir James Mitchell was voted decisively out. Sir James even lost his own seat. And the Labour Party of Philip Collier, who were very much anti secession, voted in. It is plausible that these apparently contradictory votes were in fact congruent that a population exhausted by the Great Depression were taking whatever anti establishment stand was available. It did however deposit all concerned in quite the pickle. Not least as by the political settlement of the time. The final call on such matters rested with the Parliament of the United Kingdom. A delegation including Keith Watson and James McCollum Spencer Smith was dispatched to London. This took ages, as did British politicians probably and astutely deciding that making any decision would incur years of complication and recrimination. They declared that they could not act without the nod of Australia's federal parliament, styling out as generous humility, the anxious passing of a ticking parcel, after which it all sort of fizzled and by the end of the decade everyone had more pressing concerns. Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her and that as a

B (35:59)

result Australia is also at war.

C (36:03)

But it has never entirely abated. In the 1970s, the late mining magnate Lang Hancock founded the the Westralian Secession movement. A waxit party ran in Western Australia's 2021 state election, attracting just short of 8,000 votes and winning well short of one seat. In early 2026, a trio of boffins launched a new manifesto for secession. And yet we as a nation and people do nothing about ejecting Queensland. That is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Yossi Meckelberg and Daniela Peled. The show was produced by Chris Chermak and researched by Josefina Astrid Nagla Gomez. Our sound engineer was Steph Chungu. I'm Andrew Muller. Here in London. The daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening,

B (37:05)

Sam.