The Grafter’s Baccalaureate feat. Devon

Summary

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TRASHFUTURE — "The Grafter’s Baccalaureate" feat. Devon

Date: August 4, 2026
Hosts: TRASHFUTURE crew (Riley, Hussein, Milo, Devon substitute-hosting for November)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the psychic and material absurdities of modern British capitalism, focused through the lens of recent political, educational, and technological developments. The hosts critique Andy Burnham's new education reform ("Manchester Baccalaureate"), the performative futility of shifting “vibes” in British politics, and the insidious incorporation of AI slop into corporate and policy discourse. They analyze how economic and social challenges are being dodged with surface-level solutions and satirize the bizarre grifter economy thriving in the UK.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Vibe Economy, Andy Burnham, and British Identity

• Introduction (00:15-04:29):
  • November is absent; Devon stands in as guest.
  • A riff on British white boys, social media culture, and the peculiar hybridization of slang, e.g., “Wagwan Alaikum.”
  • The hosts note cyclical, exhausted British social media discourse and the recurring emergence of new meme "white boys with juice" to "bring back the energy" to a tired online scene.
  • Andy Burnham (current Labour leader/PM) is framed as an avatar of pure "vibes" politics:
    • "Andy Burnham can harness a British rizzler." (03:35, Riley)
    • New politics is superficial, driven by relatable young social media personalities, not actual policy change.

2. Corporate AI Hallucination & Erosion of Consensus Reality

• The AI Slop Zone (05:11-21:15):
  • Riley introduces the recent trend of corporations (KPMG, PwC, EY) generating “authoritative” reports almost entirely with AI, riddled with hallucinated facts and citations. He frames this not as inconsequential, but as deeply corrosive to shared reality:
    • “It’s just magicking an asteroid into existence and then just allowing it to smash into Earth." (10:12, Riley)
  • Fake Research Reports: KPMG's “Total Experience Redefining Excellence in the Age of Agentic AI” and PwC’s “Citizen Pulse” are revealed to be built on fabricated or hallucinated claims, now being recited and cited by other organizations including media and AIs.
  • Google/Adoe User Hostility: Everyday users are tricked into using AI tools they never wanted, e.g., Google Sheets’ Gemini features and Adobe’s impossible-to-use PDF tools.
  • Problems Multiply: The self-referential loop of garbage produces a “Habsburg AI Ouroboros,” eating and regurgitating its own fake sources:
    • "Just Ouroboros just eating itself, puking up this slop, and we all have to just wade through it." (11:42, Devon)
    • "This is how you want to talk about, like, Habsburg AI? This is a perfect example in microcosm of that process actually happening." (11:34, Riley)
  • Zone Flooding: Accounting and consulting firms are flooding the ecosystem with AI-generated “authoritative” nonsense, creating a zone where fact and fiction collapse.
    • “Professional services firms are engaged in the single largest act of zone flooding possibly ever.” (17:08, Riley)
  • Citizen Pulse Parody: The hosts mock PwC’s vaporware “Citizen Pulse,” a supposed AI service that no one can describe or prove exists.
    • “Citizen Pulse is the only thing holding this damn society together.” (18:26, Riley)
    • (Entire parody on what Citizen Pulse does, 18:26-20:16.)

3. Andy Burnham’s Policy: Surface Solutions, No Substance

• Burnham’s Education Reform: The “Grafter’s Baccalaureate” (21:15-34:25):
  • Burnham’s polling rise is attributed to improved “vibes,” not substantive change.
  • His main concrete policy: a new vocational baccalaureate that seeks to “raise the prestige” of trades to that of academia, with local employers developing gateway curricula.
  • Host criticisms:
    • The reform perpetuates shaping individuals to suit capital’s needs, rather than changing underlying economic structures.
    • "The economy determines what's prestigious, not the other way around." (26:56, Riley)
    • Vocational training's prestige can't be arbitrarily assigned without shifting the real returns, union power, and investment shaping those jobs.
    • The model is limited: few big employers remain; few apprenticeships are genuinely available outside headline companies; and vocational pathways are mostly exploitative.
    • Cynicism about Burnham’s reforms being “tinkering” rather than true transformation:
      • "That doesn't seem like ending neoliberalism to me. That seems like putting a flat cap on neoliberalism." (30:21, Riley)
  • “Reindustrialization” is compared to WWII-level social mobilization; current policy is shallow by contrast.

4. The Absurdity of Educational and Local Economic “Solutions”

• Academies and Authoritarian Education (34:25-36:46):

  • Host outrage at the extremity of discipline and privatization in UK schools, especially under the “academy” model where schools are removed from local control in favor of quasi-corporate management.
    • “That’s actually what the policy is.” (35:16, Riley)
    • State schools in working-class/more diverse areas are most affected; local privation dovetails with authoritarian schooling.

• Tom Skinner and “Common Sense” Grift Policies (36:46-45:40):

  • Enter Tom Skinner: ex-market trader turned vibe entrepreneur and Twitter ranter, now pitching random “common sense” fixes to Burnham via social media.
  • His ideas:
    • Nationwide allotments scheme to give surplus food to foodbanks.
    • “Back Britain Bosch card”—£25 for butchers and market traders.
    • Council tax rebates for picking up litter or leading “mental health walks” (with a personal hypnotist in tow).
  • Skinner’s proposals are lampooned as delusional nostalgia (“Actual butchers are halal butchers now,” 38:26, Devon) and a sign that only grift or influencer work is thriving in the UK’s economy.

• Eccentric Grifter Class (41:39-44:25):

  • Discussion of Skinner’s “hypnotist” team-mate, Robert Hisey ("the UK's number one unconscious mind therapist"), leads into a riff about the weird, marginal grifter economy in the UK.
  • British society is better at creating “weird sickos” (consultants, grifters, hypnotists) than skilled tradespeople.
    • “Actually, what we’re good at is producing weird sickos.” (43:47, Hussein)
    • Hosts suggest an education system geared towards internet eccentricity might be more in keeping with current economic reality.

5. The Skinner Plan vs Burnham’s Plan — Both Miss the Core Issue

• “How to Graft” Parable (45:49-52:57):
  • Skinner’s “teach grafting in school” plan (climbing trees, monkeys and sharks, practical “life skills” in school) is revealed as lifted from the apocryphal “Einstein fish” parable.
  • Both Skinner and Burnham are critiqued for targeting “vibes” (prestige, opportunity-spotting, practical skills education) without changing the actual incentives or wealth arrangements.
    • “If you're not going to change the incentives at the core of the actual economy, then you can teach as many opportunity spotting classes as you want.” (50:20, Riley)
    • The futility of teaching kids “how to do taxes” in an economy set up to frustrate them anyway; teaching “grafting” turns into a parody of criminal entrepreneurship (“Lesson one: here’s how you steal a bunch of mattresses.” (50:46, Hussein))

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• AI Slop Cynicism:
  • “Just Ouroboros just eating itself, puking up this slop, and we all have to just wade through it.” — Devon, (11:42)
  • “Professional services firms are engaged in the single largest act of zone flooding Possibly ever.” — Riley, (17:08)
• On the Citizen Pulse Nonsense:
  • “Citizen Pulse is the only thing holding this damn society together.” — Riley, (18:26)
  • “What is Citizen Pulse? What does it do? How does one use it?” — Devon, (20:12)
• On Burnham's Education Reform:
  • “The economy determines what's prestigious, not the other way around.” — Riley, (26:56)
  • “You can't just be like, this has prestige now… put a bunch of banners on it and stuff or like medals.” — Devon, (29:25)
  • “As much as Burnham likes to declare 40 years of neoliberalism over, what it looks like with this education policy is… putting a flat cap on neoliberalism.” — Riley, (30:21)
• On Eccentrics and Grifter Economy:
  • "Actually what we're good at is producing weird sickos." — Hussein, (43:47)
• On Skinner’s “Monkeys and Shark” Parable:
  • “ChatGPT stretch this into a paragraph. Make no mistake, Shark ain’t stupid. How to build something. How to change a tire. How to deal with failure. How to spot an opportunity. How to get on with life.” — Riley, (48:19)
  • “Lesson one: Here's how you steal a bunch of mattresses.” — Hussein, (50:46)
• Eviscerating the Pointlessness of Education ‘Reform’:
  • “Both the Tom Skinner plan and the Andy Burnham plan are swimming around the core thing — if you’re not going to change the incentives at the core of the actual economy, then you can teach as many opportunity spotting classes as you want.” — Riley, (50:20)
  • "Maybe it's not on them…" — Riley, (51:53)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:15 — Introduction, absence of November, instant banter about prayer rings and social media slang.
• 05:11-21:15 — Main discussion about AI-generated corporate reports, “Citizen Pulse,” and the collapse of reliable public information.
• 21:15-34:25 — Andy Burnham’s education policies and why they're nothing but “vibes.”
• 34:25-36:46 — State of UK education, authoritarian discipline and academization.
• 36:46-45:40 — Tom Skinner’s social media grift-policies and the world of hypnotherapy eccentrics, Robert Hisey.
• 45:49-52:57 — Skinner’s “graft” education plan vs. Burnham’s “white cap on neoliberalism”—critique of educational and economic policy dead ends.

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Tone & Style

The conversation is relentlessly sardonic, self-aware, and steeped in internet and British cultural references. Satire, exasperation, and black humor pervade the episode as hosts dissect the circular futility of the UK’s current political and economic “solutions.” The underlying sense is one of despair laced with wit: the country is overwhelmed by grift, AI garbage, and performative leadership, but instead of revolution, the public gets culture war memes and fake prestige.

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Conclusion

The episode closes with mock-optimism and bleak humor. The only things thriving in Britain are the grifters, opportunists, and “weird sickos”—the eponymous “Grafter’s Baccalaureate” is a joke about how “opportunity-spotting” is all that remains for a generation left behind by structural economic failures that no politician seems poised to address.

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Transcript

[A]

All right, prayer warriors, look, everybody get out your glorify prayer ring because it should be buzzing right now. We need intercessory prayers on behalf of our beloved unwell comrade colleague, your friend and mine, November Kelly, who is out of action, still feeling unwell. So I need to hear those prayers echoing throughout the godosphere. However, we are still bringing you an episode, and that is going to be with me and Hussein, joined ably by Devin. Devin, thank you so much for coming in and filling in today.

[B]

Wagwan Alaikum, boys.

[C]

I've been saying spicy. I've been saying that. No, no, I give him the password. I've been saying it at home and, like, my wife has sort of banned me from saying it anymore because, number one, she was like, you don't have the voice to do that convincingly, which is fair enough. But the second is also just like, it's a very sacred term and I shouldn't be not giving it justice. So I've been banned from that. But also I've been banned from saying there's another clip that I've sort of been obsessed with. I don't know whether you've seen it. So these two, like, South Asian guys were doing like, one of those bro podcasts, like, just kind of like guys shooting the ship. And, like, they released like, one episode and it went like, super viral. Only because of this segment where they're like, oh, like, you know, what's, like, we're talking about, like, your favorite sides, like, at Nanvis, and I really can't give it. Can we, can we add a clip? Can we add a clip into this?

[A]

Of course we can add a clip. We can do whatever we want.

[C]

Right? Because I'm not going to do the voice because I can't do the voice and people just yell at me if I do.

[A]

You know, Chips here is generally the best side you can ever have in your life. Yeah, I've been on MASH recently.

[D]

Mash.

[C]

I've been banned from saying the phrase. I've been on MASH recently. Those are the two. I, I, I've, you know, I, I'm just not allowed to say those two phrases in my house, so.

[A]

Well, a fine, I guess. Are we saying that Wagwan Alaykum is actually like a traditional white boy expression combining two non white boy expressions.

[B]

I think it's an expression of the beautiful melting pot that's all in a Scouse accent.

[C]

Oh, there's something going on on Insta reels and TikTok and stuff where you've got A certain kind of white boy with a white boy with a bit of a juice.

[A]

Right now the sort of 22 year olds that Andy Burnham's employing and the people who used to work, who would have otherwise worked for social change, they're

[B]

cooking up white boys with motion.

[A]

They're all in Liverpool looking for that white boy so that he can become like. So Andy Burnham can harness a British rizzler.

[C]

I mean, I mean effectively that's. I feel like what we're going to. And there's like this other like British white guy, white kid who like, whose name I can't remember. But his whole thing is that he does versions of Sean like, you know, Sean Paul, like when he just like just before he does the thing. And I'm not gonna just, I'm not gonna do that either. But he does like, he does like the Sean Paul like pre rap, like pre patois thing. And it's like I don' to describe it but it's just I think there are these moments where I often think to myself that like we're sort of at the end of social media. Like we've said everything that we can say, we've done everything we can do. We're just sort of repeating. And then a white boy with a bit of juice will show up and he'll start doing a Sean Paul patois. And I'm just like, no, it's still there. We've got the energy. Andy Burnham needs to like harness this energy if we're going to like get our country back. I feel like, yes, you know, and I'm teasing like a lot of the episode like content here but like what we're really talking about in this episode is about like where the energy in Britain is and where it, where like and where it should be and where people think it is. And I feel like the energy is actually in the sort of white tracksuit laden boys of Liverpool, Manchester, Doncaster who can do a perfect Sean Paul pre patois wrap.

[A]

It's like, oh, how are we going to beat Farage? How are we going to beat Farage? And like, honestly the press has been taking him off tutorial island by asking him follow up questions and it's been beautiful to watch. I've loved this and this is the power. Whether it is like a British light side Chet Hanks or like a homegrown sovereign British rizzler. This is going to be the Andy Burnham look because he's not going to change the funny fundamentals of the economy. Obviously no one could. Why? Why would anybody do that, but at least he could make some good tiktoks.

[B]

Yeah, it's gonna be vibes. But if the vibes are a small Scouse kid going Wagwana Lakem and by all of that spicy while eating like a spicy pot noodle thing, I think the vibes are there. I think we fucking got it.

[A]

Yeah, like, we've nailed. Like, if that's gonna be the vibes, then you know what? Yeah, they're nailed. Everything else not nailed. Those nailed. So I've got a few things to talk about today. One of the big ones is Burnham and what he said he's going to do, what his most worked out. I don't just want to talk about all the stuff that he's speculating about or that's not very well worked out, like the national care strategy or, or things like this. That's all going to come. Like, we'll, we'll deal with it when it comes up. But there are a few things that are discussable that I think are worth thinking about because they're going to give an insight into. Okay, well, how is he going to try to become the mayor of an entire country? I wish we had a name for someone who's the mayor of an entire country, but I can't think of one.

[B]

No, I don't think so.

[A]

But there are a couple of. Couple of things I did want to discuss. News items. Number one news item. This is a quick one. Quick hit. You used Google Maps.

[B]

I do.

[A]

Do you like Google Maps?

[B]

I love tooling around on Google Maps.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

I used it the other day. It was a.

[B]

All right.

[C]

Experience.

[A]

So Google loves to invent 1,000 products, have two of them be vaguely usable, and then cement them into everybody's digital infrastructure basically forever, while slowly making them worse.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Google Maps is one such example. Like Search Gmail Maps are three such examples. And recently, because no one really wants to use AI voluntarily, most of the companies that are behind AI, that are like, you know, and so on, are trying to trick you into using it. I tried to make a table on Google sheets and they have hidden like for episode planning because I'm going to be taking a vacation soon. And so I'm trying to like give the rest of tf, like, here's, here's what. Here's the schedule for when I'm gone. It was. I was one click. I accidentally clicked on the thing that was like, turn on Gemini features. And she's like, no, make me a fucking table. I don't want to. I don't Want to talk to my table?

[C]

Whatever problems Google has with like, it's Gemini AI, Adobe is so much worse. I feel like anyone who's used Adobe products, like, try open a PDF and see how difficult that now is.

[A]

It looks like you were trying to rotate the PDF. I'm so sorry, I misunderstood. And I'm afraid your credit card information has now been published online.

[B]

It's like there's no button to rotate the PDF anymore. There's just a text box where you have to describ to the AI, but you want the PDF rotated and it's like, I don't know what the fuck you are talking about. I've never heard of this in my entire life.

[A]

Google Earth now has an AI feature that lets anybody have a little bit of fun with it. You know, say, hey, like what if you could customize the Earth with conversational interface using Nano Banana to say, I don't know, make it look like there is a huge violent protest in the middle of a city that you might like to fear monger about. How about. And then it has the Google Earth watermark on it. That is definitely not going to be a kind of cosine of anything that you do. How about that?

[B]

Sorry, can we get this fucking straight? Are you telling me that random people now from the town can just generate satellite imagery with, with the Google Earth watermark on it?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's incorporated into Google Earth now. They enabled this feature.

[B]

I don't like that.

[A]

And then immediately people like, well, wait, couldn't you just use this to like I say, generate a violent protest in a city that you, that you like to fear monger about? For example, race of protesters. When am I going to make the race of the protesters? Can we add some blue hair to some of the protesters? Like just little blue specks? And you also like say, make it look as though like a missile has hit somewhere. Say, could you add some destruction to here? You know, just to really make reliable, asynchronous communication between people and having a shared reality utterly fucking impossible.

[B]

I love the assault on reality that they're living through. It's so cool, man. There's no consensus anymore.

[A]

This is, I mean, this is back to like the AI is the reverse printing press thing, right?

[B]

We didn't need it. We'll see.

[A]

Hey, you know what? If the consensus reality got you here, of what use was the consensus reality? Don't worry about what attacked it. Anyway. Google has since been pointing out that this could be really bad. Removed this feature. But they really, everybody who has an AI product to push wants to just sort of trick you into using it in some way, especially Google. I have another thing, so I'm starting another file. It's like, by the way, if you're wondering, oh, am I checking on the Charlie Kirk Fund Weekly? I am checking on the Charlie Kirk Fund Weekly. You will have updates when I find them. This is a new file that I'm calling it the Sloppies, which is a new award for, let's say, corporate. You'll find out.

[B]

So this is.

[A]

There have several investigations recently that have been conducted by an organization called GPT0, which is investigating essentially the use of AI in big companies, looking specifically at consulting firms. So this is all sort of from GPT0, but they had. There was a. KPMG released a report in October 2025 called, I quote, total Experience Redefining Excellence in the Age of Agentic AI, which, like, summarizes an annual global customer experience study. Like, consulting firms do this all the time. They'll have, like, they'll do a survey and then they'll say, okay, well, insight from this survey is this, this, and this. Call us if you want to talk about it more. It's like a standard marketing tactic they've done forever. But writing those surveys and doing them and writing the reports costs money. And it creates marketing tools that are then used to make money. It doesn't directly make money itself, so there's a huge incentive to make them as cheap as possible. And so GPT0 found that in the Redefining Excellence in an age of agentic AI report that KPMG put out, 40 of the 45 sources were basically hallucinated by ChatGPT.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[C]

Sick.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

Yeah, good.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just in a room discussing things that don't have any impact on reality. Well, actually, that's not true. They have impacts on reality. They just have no bearing on it.

[A]

Yeah, huge impact on reality. It's like sort of just magicking an asteroid into existence and then just allowing it to smash into Earth. But half the factual claims this is quoting from them, supported by the 45 citations, appear to be false or at least misattributed. For example, its initial report cited examples such as a 2019 East Japan Railway press release as evidence of agentic AI usage. Despite agentic AI only entering the public discourse in 2024, honestly doesn't surprise me. The Japanese railways are years ahead of us. Like, they had agentic AI back when we only had GPT2. So the other one, they also found that KPMG's LLM persistently mistakes article subjects for its authors. A blog post about TFL written by a blog based in Surrey is credited to tfl. Or a retail news piece about Uniqlo is credited as written by Uniqlo. And then you talk about impact, right? Dev the AI checkers. The KPMG reports claims have already been recycled by industry publications in one Czech newspaper and are now because AIs know what to look for as authoritative sources such as PDFs published by Big companies. Those claims are now being cited by other LLMs.

[B]

Right, I'd love it if we could just stop doing this and like, get off and maybe like, just take a fucking breath and think about this.

[A]

This is how you want to talk about, like, Habsburg AI? This is a perfect example in microcosm of that process actually happening.

[B]

Just Ouroboros just eating itself, puking up this slop, and we all have to just wade through it. I worry I can't be. I worry I'm not funny at all when we talk about AI, because I just get too legitimately angry. I'm just like, this makes me feel sick.

[C]

I do sort of feel like there's sort of the point where AI stuff was funny, like, finished really quickly, and now it's just like. And I don't know how much of it is just because it's like, oh, no. The way that most AI stuff works is that companies will sort of build things or they will sort of make stuff it doesn't work and hallucinates all the time and sort of presents bad information, misinformation, stuff that doesn't exist. And it's sort of become characteristic of pretty much every AI company sort of producing a product anyway. But you're sort of being told that, no, this is the future, you have to accept it. But also if it goes wrong, that's on you. And so if your AI enabled Google Maps kind of keeps taking you to a dead end and tells you that you need to drive through the wall to get to the next place. And once you drive through the wall, you realize that it's actually someone's garden, that's your fault. That's not the AI's fault, that's yours.

[B]

That's on you.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. And research to sort of suggest that this is a bad thing kind of operates at a slower pace. And also so much of that research is kind of imbued with AI because of the demands that universities now place on researchers and institutes place on researchers. You're right. Just in the Sense of like, we're using bad information to generate bad information. And in doing so, like the bad information, like can't even be called as such because you have nothing to kind of compare it to.

[A]

Think about what a great step forward for just like the advancement of humanity in general. The possibility of asynchronous communication was right before you have the printing press. That's basically not possible, or at least not at scale. And to systematically undermine the thing that every. That like not just consensus reality, but the concept that there's such a thing as consensus reality is quite alarming. Of course, a spokesperson for KPMG was contacted by GPT0 that said, KPMG International takes the accuracy and integrity of its published content very seriously. This report has been removed and we are reviewing the circumstances surrounding its publication. We expect all our people to follow our guidelines and the responsible use of AI, including human oversight, to validate content and verify independent sources. And again, it's like, no, you're. No, you don't. No, you're not. No, you're not.

[B]

No one's looking at this.

[A]

No one's looking at this because it's an ad. But it's an ad that other things will cite because then maybe a story in there or something. It's a very, very pernicious form of communication. And that all these companies, their guidelines and responsible use of AI until about 10 minutes ago when it became like charged. What it was worth was, you should use this for everything. Leave no stone unturned when you could automate the turning of it.

[B]

Yeah, responsible use of AI was just as much as humanly possible. Maximal usage of AI.

[A]

And then another one. EY had to withdraw. Ernst Young had to withdraw a study on loyalty programs that contained AI hallucinations and fake footnotes. But it's not just those two, because according to them there was. They rate an 84% chance even then, like AI writing checkers are not entirely reliable. But when I look at this, it's like, okay, well this is probably true. That 84% chance that PwC's 2025 report Transforming Governance was entirely AI generated. This report promoted a PwC data driven frame where this is just by like how fake a lot of this stuff is. This is whatever. Even, even without the AI element. This is the fakest thing that's ever been. The report which promoted a PwC data driven framework called Citizen Pulse, claimed it was being used by the governments of Denmark, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Australia. However, GPT0 found no public evidence that this product was used, nor that these government deals ever took place. And so, like, it appears that what they've done is they have invented a PwC consulting service or like some kind of framework that they use to sell to governments and then claim that they sold it to the United States federal government. And then it's sort of unclear what it is. But we're all living in, or at least many of our listeners, because I don't think it's in the UK yet. I mean, Citizen Pulse is sweeping the world. Appear to be living in, living in the world of Citizen Pulse, they say. Additionally, the report seems unsure if Citizen Pulse is an existing PwC product, a vague exercise in thought leadership, or cycling between describing the potential benefits of the Citizen Pulse framework and concrete claims of its current use. So, like, that's. Yeah, that's it. We live in Citizen Pulse.

[B]

It's over now. Every single person in the world has used Citizen Pulse.

[A]

Well, you know what? We're all better for it.

[B]

I'm using it right now.

[A]

Hey, everybody, just pause the podcast in a second and just like, turn to someone next to you and just whoever's next to you right now, it doesn't matter. On the bus, in the gym, maybe you're like, with your family and just say, are you on Citizen Pulse? Or more accurately, what are you doing on Citizen Pulse? And what has Citizen Pulse done for you lately?

[B]

Hey, brother, let's start a Citizen Pulse right now.

[A]

So the other three PwC Middle east reports covered by the investigation also contain multiple fabricated claims, including invented statistics, unrelated sources, and confidently false correlations. One of the reports quote, building a cyber resilient e mobility ecosystem, even includes URLs that just are chatgpt. In response to the findings, a spokesperson for PwC Middle east was contacted. PwC Middle east, they said, takes the accuracy of our published research seriously.

[B]

Motherfucker, it's the same line, it's the same statement. It's whack a mole shit. Just like that one's AI. And they're like, all right, we'll take this one out. Meanwhile, they're publishing like 20 more.

[A]

Yeah, if you want to see zone flooding, professional services firms are engaged in the single largest act of zone flooding Possibly ever. PwC Middle east takes the accuracy of our published research seriously and is updating a limited number of supporting citations in the reports mentioned. So Citizen Pulse, that was the least

[B]

AI generated part of the thing was the citation.

[A]

So consistent with our approach to responsible AI, we have quality control processes for research and content development. We expect all our People to adhere to. That's good. I was worried that they didn't because of all that stuff they published.

[B]

I keep astral projecting to watching myself in 2020, like on Dall E or something. Generating like a three by three grid of tiny like thumbnail images of like pencil drawing of an ape smoking reefer and being like. No, like slam it on the wall. Like interstellar. Stop.

[A]

You don't know what you're unleashing. It's not that funny. So Citizen Pulse has not been taken down. It's still up on PwC Middle East.

[B]

That's fair enough. I mean we're all using it, so that makes sense.

[A]

Yeah, of course.

[B]

I mean, look, I'd know if it was down.

[A]

Oh yeah, like if Citizen Pulse came down then like I know my neighbors would be crawling over the fence to tear me limb from limb.

[B]

It'd be bedlam.

[A]

Citizen Pulse is the only thing holding this damn society together. Well, it's that governments today face a critical challenge. You know that.

[C]

I didn't know that. This is the first time I've heard it. M Dash Stuff that you don't realize until you read a copy of the Economist. I guess.

[A]

Meeting the ever growing expectations of their citizens, people demand faster, more personalized services along with greater transparency, responsiveness and efficiency in governance. However, traditional decision making processes are often slow and rely on outdated data. They create a gap between what citizens expect and what governments can deliver. Citizen Pulse transforms governance. We all know about this. This is for I guess like the two or three people who are listening who aren't in the warm embrace of Citizen Pulse. By using AI driven insights, real time feedback and predictive analytics to shape policies that truly reflect citizen need. This enables governments to enhance transparency and trust through continuous engagement, optimize public services with real time data and deliver personalized inclusive policies tailored to diverse communities. Could you falsify any of that? Could you?

[C]

This is.

[A]

This is the most I have.

[B]

Just nothing.

[A]

It feels. I don't know if like hearing that. I don't know if like you again, I'm talking a lot to the listener directly, but you too, and you, the listener. If you could just like hear an almost painful high pitched whirring in the back of your skull a moment, I started saying deliver personalized inclusive politics tailored to diverse communities. Could you hear that? That was. That was a part of your. Of your brain stem literally burning out. Because what you're doing is processing like floating signifier after floating content lists.

[B]

Nothing cerebellum trying to escape like a cornered animal. Biting off its own arm, tearing itself apart. What is, what is Citizen Pulse?

[A]

What is Citizen Pulse?

[B]

What does it do? What. How does one use it?

[A]

Well, I, I don't think it is anything. I think they invented a service.

[B]

Okay, but what is it? Well, I suppose. What does it claim to be? It claims to unite diversified groups together.

[A]

Is it a survey tool? Is it like a digital twin of your electorate? Which would require, like, the only thing. Way that works, by the way, the only way you can use AI to gather information on a whole population to make tailored policies for diverse communities is if you have like a digital ID level, like a Blair digital ID level of like connected government databases and, you know, fucking everything about everyone. That's the only. And even then it would hallucinate constantly. So that's the only way that works. So basically what they're saying is, hey, do you already have like a kind of encyclopedic spa like, like spy level database on everybody who lives in your country? What if you used AI on it? I think that they invented a product PwC sells.

[B]

What if you fed that shit into our AI?

[A]

Our AI, which by the way, is just Skin of Claude. Perfect. All right, all right, all right. Look, I want to, I want to talk about our main. Our main event today. Yes, I know that the, I believe, Shadow Policing Minister was recently shelled by the French Coast Guard at Nova's request. I'm waiting until she gets back to talk about that. However, we're going to get to our new, also recurring segment, Andy Burnham Is not the guy, part 1 million. We specifically not talked a lot about it because there's. Because very little is certain yet other than just he appears to actually be better on social media than Keir Starmer and has been able, he's been able to fit better until we saw. One thing we're going to talk about later on in the segment, which was a real, A real misstep, but that fundamentally, even though there's been this flurry of announcements that are aimed at the cost of living, like capping bus fares at 2 pounds nationally, which is good. Cutting VAT on energy bills, which is fine, and like this new educational pathway, which is kind of what we're going to focus on for a few reasons today, which, unless they're accompanied by actual structural change, meaning, like, we change the way investment works in the economy, we change the way that ownership works of, like business or housing stock or whatever, are ultimately going to be more tinkering around the margins. That won't do much. It might Be much better tinkering around the margins than Starmer. But that's like asking if you're. If you want to die by drowning now because you're struggling, or if you want to competently and calmly tread water and die by drowning in five minutes.

[B]

Yeah, it's like we said earlier, it's only ever gonna be vibes. Like, all he has to offer is a vibe shift. And it seems like the vibe shift he's doing has been more successful than the vibe shift Keir Starmer tried to do at the start of his premiership. But that's all that we can really say.

[A]

Yeah. And, like, look, if the National Care Service comes in and it's like the National Health Service, I will eat my hat. But we have a lot to see. Any case, firstly, right, it's looking like Burnham's first couple of weeks are actually returning political momentum to Labor. They are now beating Refor in the polls in a couple polls for the first time in, like, a year and a half. But that's also largely because the press started noticing Nigel Farage is like, hey, how come you're like a house pet to this family of aristocratic criminals? That's weird that you're.

[B]

That it's so good. It's Nova's line. But, fuck, when the state defends itself against the right, doesn't that hit? Doesn't that hit like nothing else? I love seeing that guy, like, weaseling out of things or attempting to weasel.

[A]

Yeah. He hasn't had to weasel since, like, 2010. He's been weasel since time.

[B]

He's been on.

[D]

He's been.

[A]

He has been on Tutorial Island. He has been with. He's. He has had a Mario star, and that Mario star just turned off and suddenly he is taking damage. And it's very satisfying to watch. It's also partly easy to think that. And I say it's easy to think. I don't mean us. I mean, like, the broader political press that was loved Starmer and then was disillusioned by Starmer. It's easy for them to trick themselves into thinking this is going to be better, because it is also true the previous team was a gaggle of idiots and amateurs who had no idea what they were doing. Starmer became an MP in 2015, and the only political theory that that entire political project had, and that we've been hammering for years about it, was that Dagenham in 2013 could be generalized to the whole country forever, and that a sufficiently ruthless operation for its own sake would project seriousness. What people would like that was genuinely probably the worst idea in human history and it was received by the electorate as such. The simple fact that Burnham hasn't yet forced a friend of Jeffrey onto the country out of spite of yet is doing also a huge amount of heavy lifting to differentiate him from a political landscape that was either, yeah, panicked amateurs like Starmer, obvious charlatans like Farage, or Internet poisoned esoteric fascists like whoever's like, writing bad knock speeches, or Ed Davy going down a log flume holding a placard that says New North Sea oil licenses. So instead, I want to look at the one concrete thing Burnham has proposed, which is this education reform that he's. That he wants to do. So let's go into it. The Manchester Baccalaureate is now going to be a thing. We're doing it a little differently. We recommend two or three smaller courses and then maybe one big one. But Burnham said, for too long in this country, students have been told that you must take an academic path to do well and be respected, but that under him, the country would, quote, value the hard hat every bit as much as the graduation cap, which on its face sounds fine. There should be a parody of prestige between these two jobs, these two types of career paths, obviously. But you're not going to do that by just saying, hey, we've invented a new career path that is, we actually checked. It's as prestigious as going to, like, a top university. We can't promise. Yeah, the thing is, this is all great, but it is ultimately like the rest of the Burnham project, a vibes one, because it says we're going to change the education that we're giving kids. And it says the scheme enables these students who are choosing to go into a vocational path rather than an academic one to pick a chance to pick from seven gateways developed in collaboration with local employers, including construction, technology, education, health, culture and sport. Again, where the, I think the tell in that sentence right, is developed in collaboration with local employers. Because what it's saying is people who are living in this, whatever economy you happen to be dropped into, that's the one that you're going to have to live with. And what we're going to do is we're going to try to fix the economy of your local area, we're going to try to fix your life by changing you around the needs of whatever capital happens to want in your area. We're not going to identify that, like, maybe these vocations are less prestigious because we live in a super financialized economy where the only way that you can. Where all the wealth accumulation happens, where people are close to the fire industries. And that because the economy is highly financialized, which rewards speculation and ownership and activities that support speculation and ownership and apprentices already earn a fraction of the national living wage. You're not going to be able to fix that by saying we've created a course that we think is the equal of going to basically train for one of those professions that's more proximate to capital. And we think that's going to fix the vibes problem, that we're going to think it's going to fix the vibes. To me this is completely backwards. Prestige doesn't determine the economic outcome. The economy determines what's prestigious, not the other way around.

[B]

My real concern with this also as well is that when you're thinking about industries that have a vice grip over a local area, there are not that many industries that do that anymore. There's really like one steel plant left in the country. There aren't these great big things you're only really looking at like arms factories and like data centers and things like that. Like the big local. The big local ecosystem. Is it. I don't know. I don't know.

[A]

You're looking at universities.

[B]

I don't think we had those anymore.

[A]

Oh yeah, no, they were soy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think that they were talking about women briefly.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In like the 2010s.

[A]

Yeah. So we got rid of them in the 2010s. Some of them mentioned women and some of them even mentioned non white women. And that couldn't have that. So had to get rid of those. I mean realistically. Right. This is back to trying to do reindustrialization like and the sheer magnitude of what you have to do to re industrialize a country that has become a service based economy is like comparable to like post World War II mobilization. There has to be a whole of society effort to for some reason start doing manufacturing jobs again because things were generally better when that's what we were doing by some metrics. And, and again the reason for that mostly is the fact that those are unionizable because the factory is there and the guy owns the factory can't like go in, dismantle it and move it to another town. It's just the factory is there and you can use that over the guy. Like there's a reason that people remember those jobs is better because they were present and physically tied to where you were and you could unionize around them. Whereas the idea that you're going to be able to re industrialize by trying to shift people's attitudes about what kinds of jobs are prestigious is like again, completely laudable that these things should be seen as equal. But if you're not going to address the actual economic realities around why they're not, it's not going to work.

[B]

You can't just be like, this has prestige now. Yeah, we've decided this is prestige. And like you put a bunch of like banners on it and stuff or like medals.

[A]

This is a crusader king. You get to spend prestige to change a cultural policy.

[B]

The prestige of these institutions is because of their like, like they've accumulated it over a very, very long time. Like if you're changing an educational outcome, you're thinking like, you're thinking kids that haven't started school yet are going to be affected by this. And then it takes like 15 to 20 years of education for them to come out and start having an effect on the world. And only after they come out and start having like a solid positive effect on the world does any amount of prestige accrue to the institution that like sallied them fucking. It doesn't. You cannot do it the other way around.

[A]

And, and even then it would have to be something people would choose because of its like, proximity to capital. If you're going to want to live in this hyper neoliberalized system, you have

[B]

to make money to live. That's one of the main things.

[A]

As much as Burnham likes to declare 40 years of neoliberalism over what it looks like with this education policy is trying to alter economic outcomes by changing the people rather than intervening in the economy. Me, I'm just putting it out there. That doesn't seem like ending neoliberalism to me. That seems like putting a flat cap on neoliberalism. I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. And also, right, there are apprentices that could accumulate the same kinds of wealth as professionals and their later career. I'm thinking of Rolls Royce, Google, these places all employ apprentices, which doesn't solve anything for most of the country because that's not a question of are vocations prestigious, that's a question of where's the investment in the value chain in the country. And it's in the Rolls Royce factory. And aren't those in every fucking postcode as far as I'm aware?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Also the apprenticeships have their own sort of status imbued in them. Right. Because there are so few of them. From what I sort of like the last time I sort of Looked into it like this isn't the apprenticeship thing is sort of seen as like the model of where sort of secondary and post secondary education should go. But like my understanding of like why it's like a failure is because like it was kind of done for performative, like lots of places kind of said, oh, we're taking on like five apprentices, we're taking on 10 apprentices.

[A]

I was like, that's not allowed to legally underpay.

[B]

It was a minimum wage thing.

[C]

But you know, but you're also kind of allowed to frame it as like, oh, this is so prestigious that you get to be an apprentice at Google or you get to be an apprentice at like, you know, my, my sort of industry. Like some newspapers kind of like brought on apprentices and it was just like the Times had like three apprentices and the evening standard had like maybe five. And it's like that's not like a huge number. And so but like, you know, you can sort of like position yourself as kind of like saying that, oh, we support like, you know, non university sort of related education and training. But it's like, well no, you've just kind of given a couple of kids like a pathway to earning a bit of money without sort of taking on the debt. But at the same time, like again, as you mentioned, like none of the structural things sort of really change and like once those apprentices, once you're sort of done with those apprenticeships and like there's no guarantee of a job after you've sort of thrown these kids into a job market where they're competing against like lots of different people with like various forms of experience and everything thing. And so the apprenticeship model sort of seems to kind of be, even if you wanted to be charitable, it's like, okay, good intentions but not particularly good outcome. But I think the fundamental problem is very much like a sort of structural and economic one in the sense of like, well, unless you sort of build the infrastructure that can sort of absorb all these kind of trainees and apprenticeships and everything and can do it without using the university as a means of sort of doing training, then what are you going to. Because I think that's also another part. I know this isn't like universal universities is not something that we're sort of focusing on entirely today, but it's just like, well no, these institutions were designed to train people, right? To like train people in disciplines and in trades and like, you know, various sort of structures. And if you want to make the argument sort of say that, okay, the university system is not working at like producing people that are sort of ready for the job market and everything. That's like one thing, but you're not really replacing it with anything else. You're just kind of, you know, at best you're sort of saying that, oh, you know, we should kind of give training to people younger and that's fine. But it's, but you're not really solving the problem because like, well, once those, once those kids are out, like, okay, they've sort of done like a kind of, you know, something akin to an engineering degree from the ages of say like 15 to 18, but once they're out, it's like, well, okay, they're still facing the same fucking problem, you know, like they just, they're just younger.

[B]

Worse problems too, because again, we're talking about preparing them for the job market that they will enter into at the end of this, this process and as like decade hence.

[A]

If you want to really call time on 40 years of neoliberalism, improve their life chances by intervening in the job market, improve their life chances by investing in say like state construction projects. You can't just change the people and hope that by that, that like the demand will create itself. You can't, you just can't. And also another thing, I feel a bit ranty here, but honestly, again, this comes from an article I read earlier this morning. If you wanted to fix education in the uk, you could do a lot worse than by making excessive discipline enforced at academized schools. A criminal offense like this scandal today emerged. They have recording on the Athena Trust in Devon and Cornwall where like again, the extreme disciplinary measures that are pretty common across these like semi privatized schools where it's a bit like a sort of Texas school choice activist wet dream where like if a state school slips below a certain level in performance then it will just get like taken over by a private company that will then build the state but be accountable to no one in the local community and just deliver a, deliver education the way it wants and then just basically all it has to do is keep test, test scores high by any means necessary, including by like using the fucking like nail coffin from Matilda. Right, cool. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Your outcomes aren't good enough. We've, you've been taken over by a multinational that are going to start hitting you.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. This is again, if you're not in the UK and you think that sounds far fetched, fetched, that's actually what the policy is. And we've talked before about Catherine Burble Singh, who was touted as this huge hero for being the most strictest, most disciplinarian headmistress in all of the uk, in all of England. And now it's like scandal after scandal after scandals emerging in academies as. It's like students are being suspended for looking out the window or coughing, right? And so, like, if you're Andy Burnham and you want to genuinely fix something in the education system, system, private schools aren't being academized, by the way. Eaton's not getting academized. Nowhere like that is grammar schools in wealthy neighborhoods aren't getting academized. But state school, like, comprehensives are, especially in, like, rural or, like, more working class areas, they're getting academized and especially like less white areas. And those kids are being subjected to, like, the fucking child catcher. So why not fix that today? And again, you could do it a bunch of ways. You could just say, okay, they're under control of local authority. Again. Again, you could say, okay, if you're like, actually, we're introducing excessive discipline as a criminal offense. Anything, anything to get this pernicious shit out of our education system. That's how you can actually fix it, to make things better for people. Anyway, there's another thing I want to talk about here, which is, of course, Tom Skinner has decided that with reform dropping in the polls, this is literally a change. In the last few weeks, he's done saying, you know, oh, not racist, just wondering about cultural assimilation. Bosh. And now essentially uses his Twitter to text policy ideas to Andy Burnham every day.

[B]

This is really cool. This is a good thing to be doing. This is healthy. It looks like he's, like, really surrounded by family and well loved. I also like that it took about four of them before he got any kind of acknowledgment from Burnham.

[A]

Yeah, should have taken a lot more.

[B]

He should have just let him scream into the void, man.

[A]

Yeah, Burnham, we alluded to social media misstep that indicates early. Early washed ness. I'm afraid responding to Tom Skinner, not advisable.

[B]

I'm sorry, Burnham, that's the wrong boshman.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You have made a categorical error. You've made a massive. You fucked up, brother.

[A]

And so one of these ideas that Skinner has is also an idea to fix education. Before we get into that one, I'll say I've summarized a couple of his others.

[B]

Hit me, hit me.

[A]

Open up allotments for everybody so people can grow their own food and give the surplus to food banks, which Skinner Says it ain't a handout, it's just a way to be healthy and help out. Burnham replied to Skinner on this one. The Back Britain Bosch cards. So he wants the state to brand things using his catchphrase.

[B]

That's a good idea.

[A]

His catch? Onomatopoeia. Honestly, what he really wants is, and I think the Starmer administration would have been more vulnerable to this than the Burnham one is. He wants to be made like the bosh minister whose remit is sort of like a duchy of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, but for like, just common sense. The Back Britain Bosch card, which is 25 pounds to spend every week at the good old fashioned butchers and market traders. No multinationals. Oh, God, yeah, yeah. The kinds of stores that just don't exist, exist anymore for huge swaths of the country. Like £25. What to spend on, like the vape shop. The sort of dead high street.

[B]

He doesn't believe this. Every actual butcher that exists is a halal butcher. Like, there aren't. There's no Tom Skinner type blokes doing this.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Everything within walk. Every single butcher within walking distance of me, he would be too scared to go into.

[A]

Or my favorite of them, which is a scheme where you can earn back your council tax by like picking up litter or crucially holding a community mental health walk. Which he does.

[C]

Yeah, he's got. Is he the one? He's the one who has like, there's like a magician or like a hypnotist as part of his, like, crew. I remember talking about this on another podcast.

[B]

Runs with a hypnotist.

[D]

He's crew.

[A]

He's crew. Deeper. The hypnotist. He's so dangerous. He's forming a gang, like the craze of like, mental health guys.

[C]

I'm so sure that he has a hypnotist, like, as part of his group. And like, the hypnotist, like, does like bespoke mental health sessions for, like, people who go on his walks.

[B]

That's really good. You are feeling very supported.

[A]

You can talk to your blokes.

[B]

When I snap my fingers. You will check in on your blokes.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

There's a guy, he's like Robert Hisey, the UK's number one unconscious mind therapist.

[A]

Oh, my God, that's awesome. Yeah. Tom Skinner's like, next idea is they're all probably campaigning on the mental health walks to Tom Skinner. Like, hey, can you make my thing, like, council tax exempt next? If Andy Burton makes you the bosh

[B]

minister, this guy's got a website, the hypnotistman.com.

[A]

okay. I had other things to talk about, but we are talking. Okay. We can include a picture of Robert Hissy in the episode art because I am fucking loving the shade on this man. I, he's a beautiful color.

[B]

You know what this really does look like if you, if Thomas Skinner was a magician. I can't believe it.

[C]

Yeah, but he's not a magician. He's a hypnotist.

[B]

He is a hypnotist.

[A]

Oh my God. I'm looking to make clear, I'm looking, I'm looking at some of the copy on Robert Hissy the hypnotist website. Can I tell you what kind of dashes I'm seeing a lot of? And it's not n when you work with me, you don't just get short term results. M dash you gain the foundation for continuous growth in every area of your life. I can't stop seeing it. Oh, he's got a podcast. Oh, he's got a podcast. Known across the UK as the Hypnotist Man, Robert Hisy has spent over a decade transforming lives to his pioneering blend of hypnotherapy and ground taking method, the unconscious mind therapy. Oh I, I, I love Tom Skinner's whole world, his whole universe of just like. And again, if you live in the UK this won't make sense to you, but guys who hang out at pubs that you have to drive to get to that have picnic benches out front and behind. Do you know what I mean?

[B]

I know exactly.

[C]

I, I live around a lot of them. So yeah, I do know what you mean.

[A]

Like if you are a lot of

[C]

guys, there's a lot of guys there and I'm just like one of them. One of these guys has to be a hypnotist.

[B]

He's got an as seen on at the bottom of his thing and it's like, it's all like rags. It's like as seen on Reveal. Closer. Hello.

[D]

Now.

[B]

Okay.

[D]

Hello.

[A]

What is, what is he on?

[C]

Hello.

[A]

What is he doing? Like distance Hypnotherapy. Be with the fucking Royals. What the fuck?

[C]

Well, this is actually a good point because the point about I feel like so much of the England that tends to be ignored are full of eccentrics. Like this guy who once had a very peculiar niche which would be to feature in the middle pages of Take a Break and hello and all these sort of TV lifestyle magazines where they would kind of be like, well, they would be a hypnotist relationship coach or someone Like Tarot readers, who also will give you advice on whether to get a mortgage or not. Like, just, like, these very strange eccentrics. And they kind of appear in, like, tabloid press and, like, daytime tv, talk radio. Like, that was their whole thing. And, like, some of them become, like, really, really beloved figures, right? They become, like, your sort of mainstays on Jeremy vine and everything. And I think this country has been very good at producing this kind of peculiar eccentric. And it's another thing that, like, no one really wants to admit and confront, because it's because once you do that that you're kind of like, well, okay, we can't really be a nation of, like, plumbers and electricians, because actually what we're good at are, like, producing weird sickos. And so, like, you know, you end, like. It all just ends up feeling really, really absurd. And you end up having, like, both the Big Johns. Well, both the Boshman Big John and also Tom Skinner, who actually said. Because, like, I just remember, like, Big John did put out, like, a video, I think, last week, which was basically just saying that, like, you know, it was. It was. It was like, one of his very rare political messages, but it was one where he was encouraging Andy Burnham to get more kids into trade schools and stuff. Not in a sense of like, oh, university's a waste of time. Not least because he can't say universities are a waste of time. Because so much of Big John's money comes from doing freshers weeks.

[B]

God, yes.

[C]

Yeah. He's done so many. My cousin goes to Southampton Uni, and I think Big John did his freshers week, and he had no idea who Big John was. And I got really angry with him because I was just like, how the fuck did you not go meet Patrick.

[D]

Thank you.

[A]

That opportunity, right?

[C]

And he was just like, I don't even know who this guy is. And it's like, yeah, like. But he's. He eats Chinese. And I just felt like he was looking. My cousin was looking at me like I had gone insane as I was trying to explain to him Big John's entire Chinese order. But it's just like, this is, like. This is. So much of his income relies on, like, going to the University of Hull and eating a bunch of Chinese food and then doing Leeds the next day and doing exactly the same thing, right? But he was, like, made that point about, oh, yeah, young boy. They got to go to trade schools. I started off doing trades, and it really sort of benefited me. It was like, big John, you. Like, a few years ago, you were about to go broke. So I'm not necessarily sure whether that's the right analysis. But nevertheless, I think there is this sort of sense of like there are all the, like the actual things that this country does well in terms of the people it produces are also people that are like so distinctively embarrassed to like the ruling class. We just don't really want to admit that it's fair.

[A]

So what we're saying is Andy Burnham should. Don't introduce the MBAC nationwide. Introduce the weird back. We're going to teach you. We're going to teach you how to be an Internet eccentric because in. Until we actually transform the economy with actual investment in actual projects and not just like tinkering, then, then all we're going to produce is weirdos. Also, can I ask everybody to please open the link I shared for the picture of Robert Hissy in Conscious to Unconscious.

[B]

I've taken a look at the image of.

[A]

Can we, can we. It looks like he's on the verge of tears, transforming into a star. God.

[B]

I'm on the. The hypnotistman.com forward/gallery where what there is is there's only like five pictures here and one of them is just like a snapshot of him like he's sucking in off his teeth in the street. It's like of what looks like a creep shot of him at a party. This is perfect. Absolutely phenomenal. I've also noticed that he offers sleep hypnotherapy courses to make you better at golf.

[C]

Yeah, I'm going to be signing up. I'm going to be signing up for that once we're done.

[A]

Perfect.

[B]

Football long and straight when it really matters.

[A]

Perfect.

[B]

This is the parallel economy, as you say. This is the only way to make money in this country is grifts it also.

[A]

But I didn't even talk about Tom Skinner's idea for the schools. We got so distracted. We got so distracted by the hypnotist man, Robert Hissy.

[B]

I promise I will close the hypnotist

[A]

man's websites now because Tom Skinner's idea. And we're just going to get into another guy, I'm afraid. But Tom Skinner's idea essentially is actually not originally his idea. It's an idea from about 10 years ago. I'm going to read Tom Skinner's idea and one of you two buzz in when you realize who he's coming copying. So it's about our kids. Skinner says, I honestly think we can do better for them. The classroom ain't changed for over A hundred years. But kids have he. By the way, he didn't used to write like that. He didn't used to write with, like, an affected, like, cockney accent. Like, that's relatively new. The world has changed, but jobs have changed, technology has changed, but we're still teaching nearly every child exactly the same way and expecting exactly the same results. Imagine a classroom where the lesson is climbing trees. So are you imagining that?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And you've got 29 monkeys and one shark in the classroom.

[C]

Okay, all right.

[A]

Okay. So. So imagine a classroom that's got a big tree in it. Populate that classroom with 29 monkeys and one shark. The monkeys are going to fly up the tree and everyone claps for them. But shark is going to be sitting there thinking he is thick and thinking he's failed and that he'll never be good enough. But the shark ain't stupid. He's just in the wrong place. And again, I want to remind everybody, also, Tom Skinner, I think, is very cynical and this is why I'm making fun of him.

[C]

In this world, the shark has, like, imposter syndrome.

[A]

Yeah, the shark has an imposter syndrome among the monkeys.

[C]

Okay, all right. Maybe the shark needs a hippopotamus hypnotherapist

[A]

to a Robert Hisey hypnotherapist to the shark. But if you put that shark in the sea, not one monkey will be able to keep up with him. I think I know that parable. From 12 years old, I worked setting up market stalls before school. And from 16, I was working on them full time. That was probably the best education I got. It taught me how to work hard and how to talk to people, how to buy and sell, how to get back up when things go wrong, how to graft, how to build something from nothing. I never got taught that from a textbook. I'm not saying we stop teaching English, maths and science. We need them. But why aren't we teaching kids how to open a bank account or how mortgages work, how to set, how to speak with confidence, how to cook a meal.

[B]

All right, now I'm here. Now I'm here. And I'd love to ask if we could put the outro music to this episode. The disgraced YouTuber boy in a band don't stay at school.

[A]

What are the laws even?

[B]

Isn't it crazy how they don't teach kids how to do taxes? You're supposed to do that as the parent, man.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I also love that the full first paragraph of this is just that apocryphal Einstein quote about, about like judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree stretched out over a painfully long paragraph.

[A]

ChatGPT stretch this into a paragraph. Make no mistake, Shark ain't stupid. How to build something. How to change a tire. How to deal with failure. How to spot an opportunity. How to get on with life. Yeah, welcome to opportunity spotting class. And just like, there's a little ping pong ball that just has perfect grade, but it's hidden in the corner.

[C]

I've seen so many versions of this and like, one of my favorites was just like, they don't teach kids how to like get a mortgage or do their taxes or do content creation. I was like, no, I don't. I think they kind of know how.

[B]

They know how to do that.

[C]

But it's. I sort of don't know what to say because it was. Because I guess whenever I've even sort of taken this point seriously in terms of like, okay, you want teachers to teach their kids, Teach the kids how to do taxes. Right. Once they start sort of explaining how the British tax system works or like, basically the economy in general. General, I feel like it might lead to outcomes that you may not necessarily want. You know, I did economics in school. I wasn't a particularly good student, but it took me not very many lessons to basically realize that everything I was being taught was fake in the sense of just like the way that economics is taught is, the first lesson is very much like, look, for the next two years you're going to study this and it's not going to make any sense because we talk about perfect markets and basically, like, it does not reflect the world that you live in at all. Bearing in mind that I was studying economics for the first time, first time in the aftermath of the financial crash. And so there's also this real kind of people trying to sort of actually understand for the first time that, oh, how does the British economy work when you realize that everything, the illusion of value has largely been proliferated by property values. Yeah, I don't necessarily think it's going to go the way that you would like it to go. I feel like if anything, once you have young, smart kids realizing how the British economy works, it may actually be counterintuitive to what you would like them to do next. I feel like there are very few outcomes where people learn how an economy works and they think, yeah, okay, this is a great place to start a

[A]

business, or maybe a super financialized one at least.

[C]

Well, this is a great place to go and become an electrician.

[A]

It's almost like whether it's the Tom Skinner plan of we should teach grafting in school or the Andy Burnham plan of we need to equalize prestige between all these different kinds of opportunities. You're all sort of swimming around the core central thing, which is that if you're not going to change the incentives at the core of the actual economy, then you can teach as many opportunity spotting classes as you want.

[C]

Yeah. Walking into my class of year 7s and teaching them. Okay, lesson one. Here's how you steal a bunch of mattresses.

[B]

Yeah. Lesson one. Here's where the catalytic converter is on the car.

[C]

Here's an angle grinder. This is going to be your main source of income.

[B]

This is a flock camera. It's got, got about 10 pounds of copper in there, about 2 grams of gold. Opportunity spotted. I love the next paragraph, by the way of Skinner's post. I've just pulled this up because he starts talking about like, instead of like, let kids get their hands dirty, let them find what they're actually good at instead of thinking they ain't no good because they fail an English exam. Not every kid's meant to sit behind a desk. Some are meant to build houses, some are meant to invent things. Some are meant to run businesses that employ hundreds of people. Some are meant to fix cars. Some are meant to become the next generation of market traders. Every single one of them matter. It's like you slid that last one in there.

[A]

Hey, I caught you. I caught you with your market trading

[B]

and of course market traders and of

[A]

course also game show contestants who are mostly social media influencers now.

[B]

Yes. Some are meant to be from Essex.

[A]

Yeah. What he's saying is obviously true in some ways. Right. Which is forcing everybody down in academic path. Also that was also a version of trying to change the British economy by trying to change the people who were being entered into it. Right. That was a Blair idea to make everybody go to university. So everybody is ready for all of the professional services jobs that are going to spring up all up and down the country. And instead what you get is a huge amount of like elite overproduction basically because that kind of didn't happen or not nearly enough for it to absorb all those university graduates. And so now they're just trying to do the opposite and they're flipping back and forth between how can we make the perfect like education lever as like, like person leaving education, not lever isn't like leverage, but how can we make the perfect like version of a person leaving Education in order to make society better as opposed to thinking, well, maybe. Maybe it's not on them. So this Tom Skinner finishes. What do you. You think let's change the educational system to support our kids because, of course, they're our future.

[B]

Bosh, bosh.

[A]

Anyway, look, I think that's probably all the time we have for today, but, Devin, thank you very much for your able substitute teaching.

[B]

No problem at all. I love hearing about the new developments in the technology space. They make me feel so good.

[A]

I'm just excited. I was able to tell you about Citizen Pulse.

[B]

Well, you don't need to tell me

[A]

about Citizen Pulse, of course.

[B]

I logged onto it just this morning. I logged onto. Of my account.

[A]

Well, to give continuous feedback on policy as the member of. You're a member of a diverse group.

[B]

To be fair, I am actually giving continuous feedback on policy. That is one of the main things that I do.

[A]

Maybe not in the way that sort of a consulting firm might envision as being particularly productive.

[B]

I find it productive.

[A]

So thank you very much. Of course, you know all about Kill James Bond. You can find Devin on KillJames Bond. You'll be able to find me on Kill James Bond shortly for one one episode of a movie some are calling the best episode ever made, which I'm looking forward to immensely.

[B]

An episode that some are calling cursed.

[A]

So, anyway, thank you very much to Devin. Don't forget. Also, we've got a bonus episode. You can subscribe via Patreon. It's five bucks a month. You know the deal. And we'll see you on that in a few days. Bye, everyone.

[B]

Bye.

[D]

I wasn't taught how to get a job, but I can remember dissecting a frog. I wasn't taught how to paint. Tax, but I know loads about Shakespeare's classics. I was never taught how to vote. They devoted that time to defining isotopes. I wasn't taught how to look after my health, but mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Never spent a lesson on current events. Instead, I studied the old American West. I was never taught what laws there are. I was never taught what laws there are. Let me repeat. I was not taught the laws for the country I live in. But I know how Henry VIII killed his women. Divorce, beheaded. Died. Divorce, beheaded, survived. Glad that's in my head instead of financial advice.