<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></title><description><![CDATA[Francis Foster is a comedian, social commentator, author and co-host of TRIGGERnometry. He is the author of "Classroom Confidential" which will be released in August 2025.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk</link><image><url>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!DMd0!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe163846d-b928-4118-9ecc-f3c94870962f_1280x1280.png</url><title>Francis Foster</title><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk</link></image><generator>Substack</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 26 May 2026 07:23:02 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><copyright><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></copyright><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[ffoster@substack.com]]></webMaster><itunes:owner><itunes:email><![CDATA[ffoster@substack.com]]></itunes:email><itunes:name><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></itunes:name></itunes:owner><itunes:author><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></itunes:author><googleplay:owner><![CDATA[ffoster@substack.com]]></googleplay:owner><googleplay:email><![CDATA[ffoster@substack.com]]></googleplay:email><googleplay:author><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></googleplay:author><itunes:block><![CDATA[Yes]]></itunes:block><item><title><![CDATA[Why Everyone’s Talking About Makerfield]]></title><description><![CDATA[The Makerfield By Election will take place on the 18th June 2026 what is going on?]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/why-everyones-talking-about-makerfield</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/why-everyones-talking-about-makerfield</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 07:56:07 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/198811727/411617becdd8a6a3dbefcbe08ed33ae6.mp3" length="0" type="audio/mpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Makerfield By Election will take place on the 18th June 2026 what is going on? Why is it happening? What comes next? </p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Was A Teacher For 12 Years. Now I've Written A Book About It. ]]></title><description><![CDATA[&#8220;Brutal, honest and laugh-out-loud funny.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/i-was-a-teacher-for-12-years-now</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/i-was-a-teacher-for-12-years-now</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2026 15:23:53 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FpEk!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>&#8220;Brutal, honest and laugh-out-loud funny. Francis is doing for teaching what </em>This Is Going To Hurt<em> did for medicine.&#8221;</em> &#8211; Jimmy Carr<br><br>Some of you may know, despite my best efforts to conceal it, that I used to be a teacher. <br><br>Please, hold your astonishment. It&#8217;s true. It feels good to finally say it. <br><br>For 12 years, I worked in some of Britain&#8217;s roughest schools, trying to teach Shakespeare and Marlowe to aspiring pupils who were more interested in throwing chairs at my head. <br><br>The stories I gained would make your hair whiten. Two years ago, I decided to put some of them down on paper. Before I knew it, I had a book. <br><br><em>This</em> is that book. </p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FpEk!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FpEk!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FpEk!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FpEk!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FpEk!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FpEk!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg" width="970" height="600" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/dfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:600,&quot;width&quot;:970,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Un)educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One :  Foster, Francis: Amazon.co.uk: Books&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="Un)educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One :  Foster, Francis: Amazon.co.uk: Books" title="Un)educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One :  Foster, Francis: Amazon.co.uk: Books" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FpEk!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FpEk!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FpEk!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FpEk!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfad70a9-072c-43b0-a961-e9c34b484cb5_970x600.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>(<em>Un)educated </em>is a telling of the most baffling, shocking and disgusting things that happened to me in those 12 years, when my professional life consisted of losing classroom turf wars to teenagers, refereeing grudge fights between East End grandmas and seeking to uncover who sh*t in the bathroom sink. Sparing no gory detail, this is an unflinchingly hilarious tear through the mire of teaching, a collection of tales that are only funny in hindsight and because they happened to someone else. <br><br>But it&#8217;s more than that. It&#8217;s also a polemic of our failing education system. Between the blood and the guts and the snot and the spit, I saw tragedy unfold. Well-meaning teachers driven to oblivion. Collapsing families, desperate to give their kids the best possible chance, dismissed by a callous infrastructure. Children left to drop by the only safety net they had left. This book acts as a brutal reminder of how badly our &#8216;betters&#8217; have strayed, the results of their policies seen through the eyes of someone employed to enact them. <br><br>It&#8217;s not all doom and gloom. This is also story of triumph. Of teachers doing right by their pupils, parents making the impossible happen, and kids with no hope finding it again. Of how I pushed through the most difficult period of my life, found diamonds in the rough, learned to see the bright side, and made it out alive. <br><br><em>&#8220;A great subject covered by a guy unafraid to tell it like it is.&#8221;</em> &#8211; Geoff Norcott<br><br>It&#8217;s out on May 28<sup>th</sup>, but if you want to pre-order it (and you know you do), it&#8217;s available <a href="https://geni.us/UnEducated">here</a>. <br><br>If you&#8217;re a non-reader, don&#8217;t worry; we haven&#8217;t forgotten about you &#8211; there&#8217;s an audiobook. Read by yours truly, no less. That&#8217;ll be available on Spotify and Audible on the same day. Now there&#8217;s no excuse. </p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jcDb!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe9db1431-eb86-456a-b2a0-df2e649d68b2_1200x630.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jcDb!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe9db1431-eb86-456a-b2a0-df2e649d68b2_1200x630.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jcDb!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe9db1431-eb86-456a-b2a0-df2e649d68b2_1200x630.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jcDb!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe9db1431-eb86-456a-b2a0-df2e649d68b2_1200x630.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jcDb!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe9db1431-eb86-456a-b2a0-df2e649d68b2_1200x630.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jcDb!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe9db1431-eb86-456a-b2a0-df2e649d68b2_1200x630.jpeg" width="1200" height="630" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/e9db1431-eb86-456a-b2a0-df2e649d68b2_1200x630.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:630,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Un)educated Audiobook | Free with trial&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="Un)educated Audiobook | Free with trial" title="Un)educated Audiobook | Free with trial" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jcDb!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe9db1431-eb86-456a-b2a0-df2e649d68b2_1200x630.jpeg 424w, 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stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption"></p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA["Tax The Rich" Is A Load of Sh*t]]></title><description><![CDATA[An anatomy of a slogan.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/tax-the-rich</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/tax-the-rich</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2026 12:55:33 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vDKK!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vDKK!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vDKK!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vDKK!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vDKK!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vDKK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vDKK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp" width="1333" height="1000" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1000,&quot;width&quot;:1333,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;AOC's 'Tax the Rich' Dress Could've Used a Different Slogan - Bloomberg&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="AOC's 'Tax the Rich' Dress Could've Used a Different Slogan - Bloomberg" title="AOC's 'Tax the Rich' Dress Could've Used a Different Slogan - Bloomberg" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vDKK!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vDKK!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vDKK!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vDKK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd805c3-5a5f-4cc9-8453-d2732038619c_1333x1000.webp 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>&#8220;Tax the rich.&#8221; <br><br>Initially just something AOC hollers when she orgasms, it&#8217;s now what every human being under the age of 30 is scrawling on the toilet walls of their Instagram bio. <br><br>It&#8217;s even become merch. A socialist slogan, slapped on shirts and hats like Coca Cola logos and Mickey Mouse&#8217;s ears. <em>Buy this t-shirt, make rich, crew over the capitalist pigs oppressing yo-I mean, us.</em></p><p>We&#8217;ve all seen the podcasters. The streamers and the journos, sat in their ornate studios, talking in beautifully simple terms about how &#8220;billionaires shouldn&#8217;t exist&#8221;, megaphoning their ideas into the aether on a platform created by&#8230; err&#8230; billionaires. <br><br>Rather than everyone pointing out the blatant hypocrisy, these clips are met with likes and shares galore. And why not? It feels good to click that heart button, doesn&#8217;t it? It feels like you&#8217;ve done something. <br><br>Believe me, I get the anger. It&#8217;s easy to hate rich people when you&#8217;re struggling to pay this month&#8217;s rent, or when the only way to stay warm this winter is to become morbidly obese, safe inside an insulating layer of blubber at all times. If you have a better idea, I&#8217;d like ot hear it. <br><br>And frankly, I agree! Companies like Amazon, Google, Shell, Meta &#8212; they should be paying their fair share of corporation tax. We should be closing those tax loopholes until they&#8217;re airtight. That part isn&#8217;t controversial.<br><br>But let&#8217;s not call the whole thing evil. And if we must, then act like it. If you care that much about the local economy, go buy your crap from the high street. Those blue Amazon vans aren&#8217;t driving around your local area as a kind of IRL product placement. They&#8217;re there because we&#8217;re a nation of fat and lazy bastards who prioritise convenience over everything. We&#8217;ll whinge about the lack of good restaurants, sat on our fat arses waiting for an illegal immigrant to bike a pad thai to our front door. We want the billionaire&#8217;s head on a plate, but we&#8217;ll also have a tantrum if we don&#8217;t get that incredibly important kitchen roll holder at 8am tomorrow morning. </p><p>If you want to fix things, you can&#8217;t just shout: &#8220;Just tax the rich!&#8221;</p><p><em>I mean, in today&#8217;s political climate, you actually can. And you&#8217;ll quickly be one of the fastest-growing political parties in the UK. Chant it and pray nobody notices your demented policies on taxation, immigration, spending or the fact that it&#8217;s 2026 and the leader believes a woman can have a 12-inch dong. <br></em><br>Unfortunately, the UK actually runs on numbers. The progressive left don&#8217;t like this bit. They hate money. <em>Seems a bit &#8216;Jewy&#8217;. </em></p><p>Numbers are facts and facts are boring and boring is reality. And reality is about as pleasant as the smell emanating from a toilet at a vegan restaurant.</p><p>So, let&#8217;s look at the boring, smelly, but very real numbers. The UK government spends roughly &#163;1.3 trillion a year across all public services, welfare, pensions, healthcare, defence&#8230; illegal immigration&#8212;the whole machine. And it funds that mainly through taxation&#8212;about &#163;1.1 trillion a year in total receipts. Income tax, VAT, national insurance, the rest.</p><p>They&#8217;re a mafia with U-turns. <br><br><strong>1. You earn the money. <br>2. They spend it. <br><br></strong>What a deal! </p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!W0-P!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d01aede-4a63-4528-86c5-0d0846e13b83_1117x797.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!W0-P!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d01aede-4a63-4528-86c5-0d0846e13b83_1117x797.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!W0-P!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d01aede-4a63-4528-86c5-0d0846e13b83_1117x797.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!W0-P!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d01aede-4a63-4528-86c5-0d0846e13b83_1117x797.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!W0-P!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d01aede-4a63-4528-86c5-0d0846e13b83_1117x797.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!W0-P!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d01aede-4a63-4528-86c5-0d0846e13b83_1117x797.jpeg" width="1117" height="797" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/6d01aede-4a63-4528-86c5-0d0846e13b83_1117x797.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:797,&quot;width&quot;:1117,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;I used to wonder what its like to swim like Scrooge McDuck : r/GenX&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="I used to wonder what its like to swim like Scrooge McDuck : r/GenX" title="I used to wonder what its like to swim like Scrooge McDuck : r/GenX" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!W0-P!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d01aede-4a63-4528-86c5-0d0846e13b83_1117x797.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!W0-P!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d01aede-4a63-4528-86c5-0d0846e13b83_1117x797.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!W0-P!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d01aede-4a63-4528-86c5-0d0846e13b83_1117x797.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!W0-P!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d01aede-4a63-4528-86c5-0d0846e13b83_1117x797.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Here&#8217;s where we reach the problem. <br><br>&#163;1.1 trillion is an eye-watering sum, but it&#8217;s a finite sum; you can&#8217;t extract infinite value from a fixed figure. Therefore, naturally, the system has a price-per-citizen. A numerical value they place on each other us. Take ~&#163;1.1 trillion, divide it by ~68 million people, and you end up roughly in the neighbourhood of &#163;15,000&#8211;&#163;20,000 per-person-per-year. That&#8217;s what they&#8217;re able to spend on you. That&#8217;s what it takes, on average, to fund your NHS access, your pension, and to fix just enough potholes on your road to prevent you from becoming a domestic terrorist. </p><p>Now here&#8217;s where the comedy starts.</p><p>The full-time taxpayer in the UK pays something like &#163;6,000&#8211;&#163;13,000 per year in income tax and National Insurance combined. I&#8217;ve crunched the numbers, and after a series of rigorous sums, I&#8217;ve concluded that &#163;6,000 is <em>less</em> than &#163;15,000. How much less? Ask an expert. </p><p>The point is, most of us don&#8217;t fund ourselves.  We get more than we pay in. In order for that to function, some have to get less. Much less. Our system is quietly dependent on a small number of high level wealth generators doing a disproportionate amount of heavy lifting. Who shoulders that burden? <br><br><strong>The rich. </strong><br><br>&#8220;We will find a tiny number of people and quietly ask them to replace a large chunk of the system&#8217;s funding.&#8221;</p><p>Which is fine&#8230; until the rich discover planes. Or accountants. When they do, they hide or leave. It&#8217;s already happening - so many have lef the UK, it&#8217;s starting to look like my pals&#8217; group chat when I started Triggernometry.</p><p>Take Nik Storonsky, for example. He&#8217;s exactly the kind of guy politicians say they want more of. The man built Revolut - a massive company in the UK worth roughly &#163;55 billion. But then, shocker, he starts shifting himself and his business elsewhere because he can get a better deal in Dubai. Everyone loses their shit and calls him &#8220;greedy&#8221;. <em>Gee, it&#8217;s almost like business is about making as much money as possible. </em></p><p>Think about that. Nik would rather live next door to the Ayatollah than share a country with Keir Starmer. We&#8217;re more screwed than Bonnie Blue on a day trip to Rotherham.</p><p>If a high-contributor like Nik Storonsky, who generates tens of millions in tax, leaves, that&#8217;s no leftist victory. It&#8217;s seriously bad news. He isn&#8217;t just &#8216;one rich guy.&#8217; He is thousands of average taxpayers rolled into one bloke. And you can&#8217;t replace that with a trending hashtag. I mean you can, and that&#8217;s the experiment we&#8217;re conducting at the moment in the UK. <em>How do you think it&#8217;s going? </em></p><p>Britain is a dinner party where one person is paying 90% of the bill, another is ordering champagne, and the rest are loudly debating whether the olives are organic and if we should twin a London borough with Rafah. </p><p>Don&#8217;t shoot the messenger. This isn&#8217;t a moral argument. It&#8217;s reality.</p><p>You can absolutely tax them more. But you can&#8217;t pretend they already don&#8217;t contribute a significant amount of tax, that they&#8217;re not highly mobile, that they won&#8217;t leave, or that social engagement isn&#8217;t a like for like replacements. Likes and retweets are not currency. Believe me, I&#8217;ve tried. </p><p><strong>So, how do we fix it? </strong><br><br>The answer is, like the numbers, very boring. Stable tax design, policies that work, retention of high contributor, and a state that spends money responsibly. No wonder it doesn&#8217;t go viral. </p><p>But that&#8217;s just it. This is where the Gary&#8217;s Economics of the world fall apart. They talk about &#8220;wealth&#8221; as if it&#8217;s a physical pile of gold coins hidden under a billionaire&#8217;s mattress. It isn&#8217;t. It&#8217;s  a highly liquid network of investments, and it can all be moved to Singapore, faster than you can say &#8220;guillotine&#8221;. </p><p>So sure, &#8220;Tax The Rich.&#8221; Say it, wear it, print it on a tote bag. But understand what it means in a &#163;1.3 trillion economy. Understand that, when we lose a billionaire, we don&#8217;t get richer. When he leaves, he takes the funding for a small town&#8217;s primary school with him. If you want the rich to stay, consider not yelling at them. <br><br>And definitely, <em>definitely</em>, don&#8217;t eat them. </p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i3gq!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc781b3c-5a0f-4156-99e5-e8f8c2b69b6f_1200x799.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i3gq!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc781b3c-5a0f-4156-99e5-e8f8c2b69b6f_1200x799.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i3gq!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc781b3c-5a0f-4156-99e5-e8f8c2b69b6f_1200x799.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i3gq!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc781b3c-5a0f-4156-99e5-e8f8c2b69b6f_1200x799.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i3gq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc781b3c-5a0f-4156-99e5-e8f8c2b69b6f_1200x799.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i3gq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc781b3c-5a0f-4156-99e5-e8f8c2b69b6f_1200x799.jpeg" width="1200" height="799" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/dc781b3c-5a0f-4156-99e5-e8f8c2b69b6f_1200x799.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:799,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;My new op-ed in @nypost: &#8220;Tax the rich&#8221; (or as de facto Democratic Party  spokesperson Hasan Piker would probably put it, &#8220;Kill the rich&#8221;) has become  the rallying cry for a party&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="My new op-ed in @nypost: &#8220;Tax the rich&#8221; (or as de facto Democratic Party  spokesperson Hasan Piker would probably put it, &#8220;Kill the rich&#8221;) has become  the rallying cry for a party" title="My new op-ed in @nypost: &#8220;Tax the rich&#8221; (or as de facto Democratic Party  spokesperson Hasan Piker would probably put it, &#8220;Kill the rich&#8221;) has become  the rallying cry for a party" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i3gq!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc781b3c-5a0f-4156-99e5-e8f8c2b69b6f_1200x799.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i3gq!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc781b3c-5a0f-4156-99e5-e8f8c2b69b6f_1200x799.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i3gq!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc781b3c-5a0f-4156-99e5-e8f8c2b69b6f_1200x799.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i3gq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc781b3c-5a0f-4156-99e5-e8f8c2b69b6f_1200x799.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><br><a href="https://geni.us/UnEducated">PRE-ORDER MY NEW BOOK - '(UN)EDUCATED - HERE</a><br></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Let's Talk About Immigration]]></title><description><![CDATA[Even if we'd really rather not.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/lets-talk-about-immigration</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/lets-talk-about-immigration</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 07 May 2026 10:58:11 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2MmB!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2MmB!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2MmB!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2MmB!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2MmB!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2MmB!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2MmB!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:819,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:966100,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/i/196760604?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2MmB!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2MmB!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2MmB!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2MmB!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ebe3442-c828-43d5-a5be-01880b725576_3291x1851.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>So it&#8217;s come to this. Let&#8217;s talk about Britain&#8217;s immigration problem. </p><p>Bringing up illegal immgration is like bringing your 15 year old niece to the BBC. It never goes well,  and someone&#8217;s getting fired.</p><p>My country has a funny attitude to immigration. We treat it the way we treat sport; no one knows the rules, everyone&#8217;s a commentator, and the referee (aka the Home Office) hasn&#8217;t given a fuck since 2009. We invented it, we&#8217;re terrible at it, and we&#8217;re getting absolutely humiliated by the French. <br><br>Let&#8217;s crunch some numbers. </p><p>The UK has seen around 40,000 - 50,000 people arriving on our shores by small boat. <em>Annually. </em>Sounds high, doesn&#8217;t it? To quote the the Adam Smith Institute, it&#8217;s a metric fuckton. That&#8217;s a town the size of Stevenage arriving on British shores every year. Enough&#8217;s enough. We&#8217;ve got a Stevenage. That&#8217;s already too many. <br><br>The asylum accommodation system alone has been estimated at around &#163;4 million per day at peak pressure points. That&#8217;s &#163;28 million a week, &#163;1.4 billion a year, and, over the decade, more than &#163;15 billion. <br><br>And who&#8217;s it being spent on? Most of these people who come here don&#8217;t speak the language or &#8220;appreciate&#8221; the culture. Yet, somehow, they&#8217;ve figured out the benefits system faster than you can say &#8220;I can&#8217;t work, I&#8217;ve got ADHD.&#8221;</p><p><em>(Then again, half of Liverpool doesn&#8217;t speak the language either, and we still let them vote. <br>For now.)</em></p><p>And once they&#8217;re here, they don&#8217;t just spawn into the system as Uber Eats drivers. Before they can start a career of hurtling the wrong way down Tottenham Court Road on a Lime bike with a box of Wagamamas, there&#8217;s paperwork. </p><p>First, they must enter &#8216;the process&#8217;. A labyrinth of paid-for accomodation, legal appeals, healthcare access, room service and smart phones. </p><p>It&#8217;s system designed to keep theme where they are. It&#8217;s no accident; delay is the business model. The system doesn&#8217;t have a backlog. The backlog has a system. Today, over 100,000 claims are sat waiting for review. <em>They just don&#8217;t have the resources.</em> In the meantime, some Albanian bloke is getting a tax-funded chippy tea in a Travelodge. No wonder the nation&#8217;s group chats are switching from memes to manifestos.</p><p>Britain can no longer manufacture cars, ships, or steel. But by God, we can put together a nice bill. </p><p>Still, at least they&#8217;re trying. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been sent to fund French patrols, surveillance, and deterrence measures. It&#8217;s like paying your neighbour to stop his cat from shitting in your garden, while the neighbour just uses the money to buy the cat more expensive tuna.</p><p>Rwanda? Too mean. Stopping the boats? Too effective. Best we can do is pay the French and virtue signal while the dinghies keep coming. Peak British governing. We&#8217;ve spent &#163;600 million stopping it&#8230; and it&#8217;s gotten worse. &#163;600 million. We&#8217;re the only country that would spend half a billion pounds on a fence and then leave the gate open because we didn&#8217;t want to seem &#8216;confrontational&#8217;.</p><p>You could have built actual processing centres. You could have built a wall. You could have built a navy. You could have built a human catapult for goodness sake.<em><br><br></em>Not that we should need to. We&#8217;re an island! In any strategy game, that&#8217;s a cheat code. This is very conspicuous geography. It isn&#8217;t some porous land border in Europe where you drift across by mistake on an ill-planned ski run. <br><br>The powers that be will tell you the country isn&#8217;t being replaced. They&#8217;re right - it isn&#8217;t. It&#8217;s being <em>expanded</em>. Like a loft conversion no one asked for, paid for with a credit card no one&#8217;s reading the statements on. <br><br>Why is it that when Trump tries to buy Greenland, Zack Polanski shrieks &#8220;Greenland Is For Greenlanders,&#8221; but the moment we suggest &#8216;Britain for the British,&#8217; it&#8217;s called xenophobia? Funny how &#8216;nativism&#8217; is a human right everywhere except at home. <br>Greenlanders: noble custodians of their ancestral land. The British: weird little gammons who need to be re-educated. &#8216;Protect the Local Culture&#8217; is progressive everywhere on Earth except the bit of Earth I&#8217;m standing on. <br><br>Still, would hate to be rude. There&#8217;s nothing less British than that. <br></p><div id="youtube2-yqqXOD2qD8g" class="youtube-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;videoId&quot;:&quot;yqqXOD2qD8g&quot;,&quot;startTime&quot;:null,&quot;endTime&quot;:null}" data-component-name="Youtube2ToDOM"><div class="youtube-inner"><iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/yqqXOD2qD8g?rel=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;enablejsapi=0" frameborder="0" loading="lazy" gesture="media" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowautoplay="true" allowfullscreen="true" width="728" height="409"></iframe></div></div><p><br><a href="https://geni.us/UnEducated">My new book - (Un)educated: My Life As A Teacher - is available for pre-order now! </a></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[This Needs To Be Said]]></title><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/this-needs-to-be-said</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/this-needs-to-be-said</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 01 May 2026 13:27:11 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/196111374/7f373d917dfaf26255a4def1477cc1e4.mp3" length="0" type="audio/mpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Supply Teaching: The Most Dangerous Job In the World]]></title><description><![CDATA[And why you should never do it.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/supply-teaching-the-most-dangerous</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/supply-teaching-the-most-dangerous</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 10:44:39 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BCi6!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>This is an extract from my upcoming book, </em>(Un)educated: My Life As A Teacher And Why You Should Never Become One. <em>It releases on May 28th, but it&#8217;s</em> <em>available for preorder <a href="https://geni.us/UnEducated">now</a>.</em></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BCi6!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BCi6!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BCi6!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BCi6!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BCi6!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BCi6!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg" width="2400" height="1257" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1257,&quot;width&quot;:2400,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:245143,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Classroom Management for an Effective Learning Environment - TeachHUB&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="Classroom Management for an Effective Learning Environment - TeachHUB" title="Classroom Management for an Effective Learning Environment - TeachHUB" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BCi6!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BCi6!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BCi6!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BCi6!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb497adc9-084c-4aae-935d-643d11bc01fd_2400x1257.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I made the decision to ease myself into primary school teaching by registering as a supply teacher. My thinking was that I could get to experience a variety of schools and classes, see what age group I would most like to teach and then decide if it was ultimately for me. <br><br>I soon discovered that the transition from secondary school was not going to be easy. Particularly in light of my great idea of trying it out as a supply teacher. I had briefl y worked as a supply teacher in secondary schools before starting the job in Hertfordshire, so you would have thought I&#8217;d have known a bit better what I was about to get myself into. <br><br>But no. Surely being parachuted in to take a class of under-elevens would be much easier than being thrown to a pack of contemptuous teenagers who&#8217;d had more years to develop the craft of eviscerating an unknown adult who turned up to attempt to control them (realistically) or teach them (ideally), I thought. <br><br>Reader, it was not. <br><br>No one has ever learnt anything from a supply teacher. No one has ever been inspired by a supply teacher. No one has ever respected a supply teacher. The moment you walk into a school as a supply teacher, you are automatically at the bottom of the pecking order. Every single person in the school, from the offi  ce staff  to the cleaners, is more important than you. This isn&#8217;t just my opinion &#8211; the fact that you are utterly unimportant is made abundantly clear from the moment your day starts.<br><br>Being &#8216;supply&#8217;, as it&#8217;s known in teaching, means that you hop from short-term placement to short-term placement. Some of these last for a morning and some of them are cover for a maternity leave. It really depends on the needs of the individual school. The worse the school, the more they have to spend on supply cover as fewer teachers would want to work there. And they also have more absences because of teachers going off  with sickness and stress. <br><br>All you had to do to become a supply teacher was join a supply-teaching agency. The registration wouldn&#8217;t take more than half an hour. You provided them with your qualification, had a short interview where you had to demonstrate that you weren&#8217;t clinically insane and BOOM! You were a supply teacher! You were now at the bottom of the educational food chain and ready to work. A supply teacher&#8217;s day normally starts with being woken up at around 6 a.m. by an Australian from a teaching agency telling you that you&#8217;re needed to cover someone in a terrible part of London crippled by gang warfare. You know that going there is a terrible idea, that not a single positive thing can come from leaving your bed and the entire day will most likely be a long, hard, bastard struggle till the clock hits 3.30 p.m. However, you also know you need to eat, so the choice is not a particularly difficult one to make. <br><br>So you throw your clothes on, brush your teeth and then hightail it to whatever part of the city you&#8217;re needed. At this point, you know nothing about the school, the classes or &#8211; in the case of secondary school &#8211; even the subjects you&#8217;re meant to be teaching. Every day is a complete surprise and most of the time the surprises are not pleasant. <br><br>Your first task is to find the school itself. The building will tell you a lot about what kind of school it is. If it has high walls topped with barbed wire surrounding it, then it&#8217;s important to understand that those walls exist to keep the kids in the school. If a school looks like a prison, it&#8217;s because the pupils behave like inmates. When you arrive, you must next fi nd the reception. The grim-faced receptionist will sullenly give you the onceover before demanding your ID so they can check you&#8217;re not a paedophile who&#8217;s trying to gain access to the kids. I personally think that making paedophiles work as a supply teacher would be a fantastic way of healing their sickness. Nothing will put you off  kids quicker than being psychologically tortured by a group of sociopathic teenagers hell-bent on tearing you apart for their own personal enjoyment. I&#8217;m sure this would be the most powerful type of aversion therapy known to man. A far more eff ective deterrent than prison, in my own opinion. After a day in a south London comprehensive, most supply teachers leave with a bitter sense of regret, clothes soaked in stress sweat and severe PTSD, vowing never to return. <br><br>The receptionist will then hand you a lanyard with the word &#8216;SUPPLY&#8217; written across it in big bold lettering. This is the equivalent of having a sign saying &#8216;KICK ME&#8217; stuck on your back. It immediately makes you a target as the kids know there will be zero consequences for their atrocious behaviour. They have complete free rein to do whatever they want for the hour that you are trapped with them. This will likely involve something highly unpleasant happening to you. <br><br>Tormenting supply teachers has been the sport of choice for teenagers since the dawn of time. From the moment the teaching profession was invented, there was some poor individual who was roped into being a substitute teacher and no doubt ended up suff ering some kind of horrendous fate at the bottom of a well. Every single person should be a supply teacher at least once in their life, just to understand what a little bastard they were when they were younger. <br><br>I was no different, and my career as a supply teacher was probably karma for all the times I behaved like an odious little oik in lessons. Whether it was signing paper registers as &#8216;Boris Yeltsin&#8217; or deliberately tampering with other students&#8217; science experiments, I was never an exemplary student. My only priority in secondary school was to take the piss as much as possible. I&#8217;m sure my own teachers thought I was a dickhead. Because I was. <br><br>Having passed through the portal of the school offi  ce, you then have to fi nd your way to the classroom and pray that the lesson you have to deliver is something you have expertise in. In my short stint as a secondary school supply teacher, I was registered with the agencies as a drama specialist who could also teach English. And yet I could turn up and be handed a lesson plan that showed me I was expected to deliver a physics lesson. In those moments I always felt like a car mechanic who had been shoved into an operating theatre and was expected to perform neurosurgery. It&#8217;s very diffi cult to teach physics or perform neurosurgery when you have a C in GCSE science. You&#8217;re a glorified babysitter at this point and everyone knows it. Including the kids. Especially the kids&#8230; <br><br><br><br><em>This is only the opening gambit of one chapter.</em> <em>For more, <a href="https://geni.us/UnEducated">place your pre-order now</a></em>. </p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pWwg!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb29939fe-fb6a-47ed-a796-fcba19c7aed0_970x300.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pWwg!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb29939fe-fb6a-47ed-a796-fcba19c7aed0_970x300.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pWwg!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb29939fe-fb6a-47ed-a796-fcba19c7aed0_970x300.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pWwg!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb29939fe-fb6a-47ed-a796-fcba19c7aed0_970x300.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pWwg!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb29939fe-fb6a-47ed-a796-fcba19c7aed0_970x300.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pWwg!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb29939fe-fb6a-47ed-a796-fcba19c7aed0_970x300.jpeg" width="970" height="300" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b29939fe-fb6a-47ed-a796-fcba19c7aed0_970x300.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:300,&quot;width&quot;:970,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Un)educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One:  Amazon.co.uk: Foster, Francis: 9780349021508: Books&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="Un)educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One:  Amazon.co.uk: Foster, Francis: 9780349021508: Books" title="Un)educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One:  Amazon.co.uk: Foster, Francis: 9780349021508: Books" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pWwg!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb29939fe-fb6a-47ed-a796-fcba19c7aed0_970x300.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pWwg!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb29939fe-fb6a-47ed-a796-fcba19c7aed0_970x300.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pWwg!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb29939fe-fb6a-47ed-a796-fcba19c7aed0_970x300.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pWwg!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb29939fe-fb6a-47ed-a796-fcba19c7aed0_970x300.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><br><br><br><br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I'm Launching A New Show]]></title><description><![CDATA[and I'm telling you all about it.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/im-launching-a-new-show</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/im-launching-a-new-show</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 25 Apr 2026 19:00:55 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0gtA!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This is a very short post so don&#8217;t click off. Even if you&#8217;re lazy. Or if you can&#8217;t read. </p><p>I&#8217;m launching a new show titled - rather imaginatively -  <em>The Francis Foster Show. </em></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0gtA!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0gtA!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0gtA!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0gtA!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0gtA!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0gtA!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png" width="2778" height="1454" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1454,&quot;width&quot;:2778,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:6794916,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/i/195236842?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F991988e6-04ab-490f-a7fa-bf65a266af75_2778x1560.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0gtA!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0gtA!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0gtA!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0gtA!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd1180e09-2824-40b9-8500-15c4e7c77997_2778x1454.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I know what you&#8217;re thinking: &#8220;Francis, does the internet really <em>need</em> another comedy show?&#8221; <br><br>Yes! And I&#8217;ll tell you why. <br><br>We are living in strange times. Whether it&#8217;s Trump having his babysitter meltdowns on social media, or Keir Starmer with his nonce-adjacent mates, our leaders are not exactly covering themselves in glory. Geopolitics is a mess, our pundit class is a shambles, and every week there&#8217;s a new story that you can&#8217;t believe is true. <br><br>It&#8217;s all very ripe for parody - comics should be making the most of it. <br><br>They&#8217;re not. <br><br>Why? <br><br>Because comedy has become too polarised. Everything&#8217;s either scoldingly left-wing or eye-rollingly right-wing. I&#8217;m sick of it, so I&#8217;m taking a stand, by making a show that brings comedy back to the centre. We&#8217;re taking the piss out of both sides - precisely what they deserve.</p><p>No punches pulled, no holds barred, no tiresome bias. Just proper jokes.</p><p><a href="https://youtu.be/q5JEmBhlCSU?si=N70hdsGeey4_zuyx">Check it out and tell me what you think.</a> And if you have any feedback (good or bad, but especially good), I&#8217;d love to hear from you. </p><p>Francis</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why Is Everything Falling Apart? Iran, Epstein Files & UK Collapse | The Francis Foster Show]]></title><description><![CDATA[In this week on The Francis Foster Show, we take a satirical deep dive into the chaos of global politics, from Iran and Middle East tensions to the fallout from the Epstein files and the ongoing meltdown in UK politics.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/why-is-everything-falling-apart-iran</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/why-is-everything-falling-apart-iran</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:43:33 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/195382798/34e5a99b3c3afcda3f8dbfca053510e4.mp3" length="0" type="audio/mpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why I'm Sick Of Hearing About the Strait Of Hormusz]]></title><description><![CDATA[When are we going to talk about the gays?]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/why-im-sick-of-hearing-about-the</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/why-im-sick-of-hearing-about-the</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 24 Apr 2026 11:44:47 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QiR1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QiR1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QiR1!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QiR1!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QiR1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QiR1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QiR1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg" width="1456" height="762" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:762,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QiR1!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QiR1!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QiR1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QiR1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c6509d7-2d40-47b3-92c4-89fdecaf9b8c_1500x785.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>The war in Iran rages on. Trump has threatened to &#8220;destroy a civilisation&#8221;.<br><br>To be fair, I do have sympathy for him - I feel that way every time I skip a meal. It&#8217;s a good thing I don&#8217;t have access to the nuclear codes; if I missed even one breakfast, I&#8217;d want to nuke Iran too.</p><p>This all comes back to the Strait of Hormuz. Let&#8217;s be honest about this: no one knew where the Strait of Hormuz was before this conflict or why it was so important. The only thing we do know is that Whoopi Goldberg is furious about this because why should the straights be the only one allowed into Hormuz? This is plain old-fashioned bigotry. She might have a point as I don&#8217;t think Iran are very pro-gay.</p><p>Anyway, the Iranians have open and shut the Strait so many times they&#8217;re starting to resemble Bonnie Blue&#8217;s legs. Although, Bonnie Blue has had more seamen inside her than all the waterways across the globe.<br><br>You&#8217;re right - that joke is both disgusting and factually accurate. They write themselves.</p><p>Trump lost his mind because 1) the world is going to be plunged into a global energy crisis and because 2) he&#8217;s mental. &#8220;Oh Francis, how do you know he&#8217;s mental&#8221;. Because Donald Trump is a comedian. When was the last time you met a sane comedian? Trump&#8217;s nuts. He&#8217;s teetotal and he still behaves like <em>that</em>. Can you imagine if Trump took cocaine? He&#8217;d post wild shit on Twitter and come up with crazy schemes to make even more money. Maybe he is.</p><p>Obviously, the people who are most grateful for these outbursts are the New York Times and Keir Starmer. &#8220;Why Keir Starmer?&#8221; I hear you ask. Well, because the more Trump goes mental, the less focus is pulled to Starmer appointing Peter Mandelson as the British ambassador to the US.</p><p>Now, a quick confession from me: even though Mandelson was nonce-adjacent, I get why Keir appointed him. Mandelson is the only person in the Labour Party who&#8217;s fully toilet-trained, able to hold a conversation, and capable of not having an aneurysm whilst doing basic primary school maths. In short, he&#8217;s actually intelligent, putting him a minority of one within the Labour Party.</p><p>Who else would they send instead of Peter Mandelson? Diane Abbott?<br><br>(Now, I realise that Diane has been suspended by the Labour Party for thinking Jews can control the weather. A shocking comment; when did Diane learn what weather was?)</p><p>Diane once turned up to canvas voters wearing two left-footed shoes making her look completely insane, yet still more competent than Jeremy Corbyn.</p><p>Thanks to this war, things are becoming even more unaffordable. Certain media outlets are even saying that we&#8217;re going to have to re-introduce food rationing. Who would have thought Trump would play a crucial part in solving the UK&#8217;s obesity crisis? And since no one will be able to afford petrol, the chunkies will now have to walk everywhere.</p><p>This is terrible news for me. Not only am I fat but, at the age of 43, I&#8217;ve just learnt how to drive. <em>It&#8217;s an automatic license, ladies</em>. <em>Form an orderly queue and if you ask nicely I&#8217;ll take you for a spin in my Carolla. We&#8217;ll only be able to drive for around ten minutes as I&#8217;m still nervous on motorways, petrol&#8217;s expensive and I&#8217;m not made of money.</em></p><p>As some of you will know, I&#8217;m half-Venezuelan. My ethnicity was culturally relevant for about one week in January. And then Trump went and invaded Iran.</p><p>I know things are starting to get better in Venezuela because my family in Caracas are starting to share memes with me about how shit London is. My home city has now become a punchline for the rest of the globe. Even for failed communist states. At this point, London feels like the fat kid who always comes last at Sports Day. Although, if London was a kid, it&#8217;d be banned from Sports Day for carrying a knife.</p><p><br><br><a href="https://geni.us/UnEducated">Pre-order my first book - (</a><em><a href="https://geni.us/UnEducated">Un)educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One </a></em><a href="https://geni.us/UnEducated">- here</a>.<br><br></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sneak Preview of my new book!]]></title><description><![CDATA[Available 28th May, Pre-Order Now.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/sneak-preview-of-my-new-book</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/sneak-preview-of-my-new-book</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 11:00:24 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!A1zQ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!A1zQ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!A1zQ!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!A1zQ!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!A1zQ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!A1zQ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!A1zQ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg" width="392" height="603.0769230769231" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:false,&quot;imageSize&quot;:&quot;normal&quot;,&quot;height&quot;:1500,&quot;width&quot;:975,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:392,&quot;bytes&quot;:76848,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/i/192189244?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:&quot;center&quot;,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!A1zQ!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!A1zQ!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!A1zQ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!A1zQ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c7c11b9-0e5d-4cc9-9e45-ac8e304e64de_975x1500.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><h4 style="text-align: center;"><strong>Available 28th May, Pre-Order Now.</strong></h4><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://geni.us/UnEducated&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Click Here!&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://geni.us/UnEducated"><span>Click Here!</span></a></p><p>My first lesson was a total disaster. I&#8217;ve had bad lessons, every teacher has, but this was one of the worst. It was definitely among the top three worst lessons of all time. Just writing these sentences has given me sweaty palms and an unpleasant feeling in my gut.</p><p>I had been informed first thing by the head of drama that I was needed to teach her &#8216;rather tricky&#8217; year 9 group as she was away on a course. She looked at me and uttered the ominous words &#8216;You&#8217;re going to need your wits about you&#8217;. This is teacher code for &#8216;you are about to descend into the depths of hell and an hour in this group&#8217;s company will make a tour of Afghanistan seem delightful in comparison&#8217;.</p><p>Year 9 is frequently the worst year group to teach drama to, for a couple of reasons. They&#8217;re thirteen- and fourteen-yearolds, so they&#8217;re in the full unpleasant flush of adolescence. They&#8217;re awkward, moody and crippled by insecurity. The last thing they want to do is get up in front of their peers and perform. Secondly, many of them won&#8217;t be doing drama for GCSE so they have no emotional investment in the lessons. It&#8217;s the most toxic of all combinations. You can mitigate this if you have a connection with the group and you&#8217;ve been teaching them for the last three years. In that case, if you&#8217;re very lucky, you might just be able to make the lesson bearable for everyone concerned. I, of course, had never even met this class before. The odds were not in my favour.</p><p>Ahead of the lesson, I also received an email saying the venue had been changed so that it was no longer in a drama studio. The first time I would encounter these kids wasn&#8217;t even going to be on home territory. I read down the email and my heart sank even further. It was going to be held in the gym. That&#8217;s when I knew I was completely screwed.</p><p>When I entered the gym, any last vestiges of hope quickly evaporated. The door was unlocked and the kids had managed to enter before me. This is a disaster for any teacher trying to establish their authority. One way of doing this is demanding the kids line up outside the classroom in a quiet and orderly fashion. They will then enter the room, calm, ready to work, and you are far more likely to have a productive lesson with them. That option had been removed from me.</p><p>As I entered the gym and looked around, I realised that this entire experience was going to be horrific for everyone concerned. But mainly for me. The group was scattered across the room and it looked like they were enjoying an extension to their break time. They were drinking fizzy drinks, eating crisps and chasing each other round the gym. This was already shaping up to be a disaster. I inhaled a huge gulp of air deep into my lungs in an effort to create a voice that sounded calm and authoritative. It ended up coming out sounding more like an emasculated squeak.</p><p>The kids were taking out the gym equipment, including the pommel horse and the monkey bars. From appearing to be an uncooperative rabble, they seemed to be working well as a group. The apparatus was gradually and effectively being built in front of my eyes. I couldn&#8217;t believe what I was seeing. I realised that I would not be teaching a drama lesson. I would be attempting to stop a PE lesson and it was thirty kids against one teacher.</p><p>The worst thing was, I didn&#8217;t know who the well-behaved kids were, I didn&#8217;t understand the group dynamics, I didn&#8217;t even know their names. One thing I didn&#8217;t notice, which makes sense in hindsight, was that every young boy seemed to be swigging a giant can of Monster.</p><p>Monster is an &#8216;energy drink&#8217; that you can easily buy in any newsagent or corner shop. The term &#8216;energy drink&#8217; is a euphemism.</p><p>What it really means is that every can has a caffeine level equivalent to about three shots of espresso. That doesn&#8217;t sound like a lot. But imagine you gave a three-shot espresso to a fourteenyear-old boy and then asked him to behave normally. What would happen? You&#8217;re right. He would behave like a grade-A lunatic.</p><p>Now imagine ten of them on this jet fuel and the other five drinking regular fizzy drinks. You might as well go out in Hackney and try to teach drama to a group of meth heads in the park.</p><p>The apparatus was now fully built. It was tall. Very tall. The height of the gym was around 30 feet and the apparatus almost reached the ceiling. I looked up to see some of the more intrepid members of the class climbing ladders so that they could begin swinging across the monkey bars. &#8216;Year 9,&#8217; I squeaked, &#8216;under no circumstances are you to climb the apparatus.&#8217; I shouldn&#8217;t have bothered. It was like trying to explain to Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes that his planned invasion of your village needs to be postponed as now is not a good time. And, in my case, the Mongol hordes were all off their tits on Monster. &#8216;Year 9,&#8217; I shrieked as my voice went completely prepubescent, &#8216;stop that immediately.&#8217;</p><p>Before long, the kids, showing remarkable athleticism, were swinging across the monkey bars confidently and expertly. I stood below watching them, utterly aghast. My teaching career was already in the gutter and now it was rapidly descending into the sewer. The kids, on the other hand, were all having a wonderful time and probably getting a very good workout too.</p><p>However, I was meant to be teaching a lesson on theatrical mime and there was no one in the room who was doing anything connected to that particular activity. I then noticed that while the kids had put out the apparatus fairly confidently, they hadn&#8217;t included any safety equipment. Of course they hadn&#8217;t. They were fourteen years old and high on liquid crack. They all felt immortal. I&#8217;m sure if you&#8217;d mainlined that stuff into me at fourteen years old, my response would have been exactly the same. I found myself pacing up and down as I struggled to decide what to do. Do I exert my authority and demand they come down from the apparatus or do I cave in and start putting out mats so they wouldn&#8217;t hurt themselves? I put out the mats.</p><p>I was completely out of my depth and had resigned myself to the fact that my teaching career was finished and I was going to end up being a recruitment consultant like everybody I went to school with. At least I would have access to all the cheap cocaine a boy could dream of. I looked around and saw a small group of well-behaved kids sitting on the floor reading books. Naturally, they had all grabbed a mat. I couldn&#8217;t blame them. If everyone else was taking out gymnastic equipment, why not them? I went up to the geekiest kid with glasses, who looked like he still hadn&#8217;t entered puberty and was reading Harry Potter, and asked him to get the deputy head teacher immediately. Without a word, he nodded his head and ran out the door. Even he understood that things had plummeted to a point where if someone didn&#8217;t get hurt it would be a miracle. I watched him go, along with my professional life.</p><p>When the deputy head, Mr Turner, finally appeared, he went apoplectic with fury. He was a short, bespectacled man with silver hair and a rather sizeable gut straining to be released from the confines of his shirt. The moment he saw the carnage, his eyes bulged in furious incomprehension and his head went the colour of a very angry pimple. This was a man who looked to be losing his battle with blood pressure and, if anything, I was hastening his demise.</p><p></p><h4 style="text-align: center;"><strong>Available 28th May, Pre-Order Now.</strong></h4><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://geni.us/UnEducated&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Click Here!&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://geni.us/UnEducated"><span>Click Here!</span></a></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Notes From Nonce Island]]></title><description><![CDATA[Welcome to the UK.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/notes-from-nonce-island</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/notes-from-nonce-island</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2026 14:16:19 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8lQr!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8lQr!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8lQr!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8lQr!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8lQr!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8lQr!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8lQr!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png" width="1456" height="668" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:668,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1169826,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/i/189247920?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8lQr!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8lQr!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8lQr!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8lQr!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28d338ff-6f06-4c49-86ba-b78a80cf764d_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Welcome to the UK. Europe&#8217;s answer to Venezuela where the weather&#8217;s atrocious, nothing works and everyone in power is a paedophile. Look, that&#8217;s an exaggeration. Not everyone&#8217;s a paedophile. Some of them are merely best friends with them.</p><p>And this goes right the way to the top. Take King Charles the 3rd; polo player, homopath, and best mates with Jimmy Saville - t the most notorious sex offender of them all</p><p>Now to call Jimmy a common or garden nonce is highly offensive. Jimmy, before the BBC adopted the same policy , was pro-diversity. Which means everyone was at risk. He was ahead of his time.</p><p>The best piece of content that the BBC ever released was a documentary about their former golden boy in which every BBC exec said they had no idea what was going on even though a lot of his crimes happened in their studios. The fact that those lads were able to keep a straight face whilst saying that nonsense to camera would make even Kier Starmer blush.</p><p>Jimmy became an unofficial advisor to His Majesty, counselling the then-Prince on media, PR  and public engagements. Maybe he should&#8217;ve advised him on what to do with his: fat, sweatless nonce of a brother. In many ways Andrew is worse than Saville. Jimmy raised millions of pounds for spinal charities. The only thing Andrew&#8217;s ever raised is his blood pressure when he&#8217;s near a school.</p><p>And how can I mention Andrew without talking about his arrest? They nicked him on his 66th birthday. It&#8217;s moments like this that made me think BLM were correct with their &#8220;Defund the police&#8221; rhetoric. Can&#8217;t a prolific sex offender enjoy a slice of birthday cake and an aperol spritz without the police banging down his door demanding he face justice for his actions? Honestly it&#8217;s enough for me to slap &#8216;ACAB&#8217; in my Twitter bio.. For the boomers watching that stand for &#8220;All Cops Are Bastards&#8221;. It was incredibly popular in 2020 with middle class people and the profoundly mentally ill.</p><p>They&#8217;ve arrested him on &#8220;suspicion of misconduct&#8221;. &#8220;Suspicion&#8221;? What do you mean by &#8220;suspicion&#8221;. Andrew even got photos taken of himself mid-nonce. Misconduct? That&#8217;s like arresting Charles Manson  for being a bit &#8220;excessive&#8221;.</p><p>By the way, the only surprising thing about the Epstein Files is that Jeffrey was willing to spend time with someone as stupid as Andy. He&#8217;s so retarded he makes Prince Harry look like Jeffrey Epstein. Because whatever you think about Jeffrey, he wasn&#8217;t stupid. Prince Harry on the other hand got two A Levels and one of them was an E in art. He has the intellectual ability of a toe nail, which is unfair because toe  nails at least have the capacity for growth. </p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>Harry is in a weird position. His uncle is Britain&#8217;s most notorious pervert and yet everyone hates his wife more because she clearly pegs him if he&#8217;s been a bad boy.</p><p>Even the man reporting on the royal family, Huw Edwards (the BBC&#8217;s most esteemed news presenter) turned out to be a nonce.</p><p>By the way, &#8220;nonce&#8221; is prison slang standing for &#8220;Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise&#8221;.That&#8217;s right - the man who was reporting on the noncing was himself a nonce.. I&#8217;m surprised he wasn&#8217;t presenting and then running to the opposite end of the studio to give his own expert analysis,</p><p>Andrew wasn&#8217;t the only one who got arrested. Peter Mandelson, former Labour minister, by the way his title whilst he was in the Blair government was &#8220;minister without portfolio&#8221;. He was called that because he left it on Epstein&#8217;s Island. Mandy was arrested because he was described as a flight risk. Personally I think he was a flight risk the moment he stepped on Epstein&#8217;s plane but that&#8217;s just me.</p><p>His political career is now finished as is Keir Starmer&#8217;s. That&#8217;s the magic of the Epstein files. It has set off a chain of events that will now bring down the Labour government. Now, if someone can please release a file saying Zack Polanski was on the Lolita Express, we&#8217;d all be incredibly grateful.</p><p>And what&#8217;s left as a result of all these people being exposed?</p><p>Well the culture&#8217;s collapsing because we have no faith in our institutions because they&#8217;re so dodgy they make the catholic church look, well, like an ancient and noble institution filled with honest and pious men with totally typical sexual predilections. <br><br> The only thing we can do is enjoy it. After all, is there anything more beautiful than watching someone who used to be in a position of authority being dragged down to your level? Well it&#8217;s not really your level; you&#8217;ve never had a well paid government job in which you get to pretend you&#8217;re morally superior to the rest of us whilst secretly hanging out with the worst people in society and being responsible for some of the most heinous crimes known to humanity. But that&#8217;s enough about Tony Blair.</p><p>Until next time!</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why We All Owe Conspiracy Theorists an Apology Over Epstein]]></title><description><![CDATA[We owe conspiracy theorists everywhere a massive apology.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/why-we-all-owe-conspiracy-theorists</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/why-we-all-owe-conspiracy-theorists</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 09 Feb 2026 17:46:40 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!76J_!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!76J_!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!76J_!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!76J_!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!76J_!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!76J_!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!76J_!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png" width="1456" height="668" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:668,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1051426,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/i/187417408?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!76J_!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!76J_!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!76J_!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!76J_!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29307422-0adc-46e7-861c-42061b9a78b5_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>We owe conspiracy theorists everywhere a massive apology. For years your pothead friend who did precisely nada but live in some kind of dungeon, subsisting  on nothing but bong-hits , weird Reddit forums and Domino&#8217;s pizza was actually correct. Turns out, there really is a cabal of elite paedophiles, ruling over us, doing appalling things to kids whilst wielding huge amounts of power. One even more powerful than the  BBC.<br><br>The release of the Epstein files has sent everyone into a frenzy, not just your conspiracy theorist mate who last took a shower in 2016. It&#8217;s been so toxic that the only celebrity who&#8217;s come out of this with his reputation enhanced is Michael Jackson. In fact if you had to pick one celebrity involved with this scandal to babysit your kids it would probably be MJ.</p><p>He has a theme park, and they wouldn&#8217;t catch knob-rot off him like they would with Bill Gates. <br><br>By the way, Bill denies these allegations. I mean of course he would. But let&#8217;s be honest here, it&#8217;s a little too specific to be made up, isn&#8217;t it? Especially the part about him getting the clap and then thinking about putting antibiotics in his wife&#8217;s drinks so she doesn&#8217;t contract it. By the way I find this behaviour absolutely disgusting. Imagine being married to your wife for over a quarter of a century and still wanting to have sex with her. What a pervert. No wonder he ended up on that island.</p><p>By the way, was it a surprise to anyone that Bill turned out to be a little bit creepy? There&#8217;s a test I like to do with people when I&#8217;m trying to work out if they&#8217;re a pervert. I call it the &#8220;for fuck&#8217;s sake just look at him test&#8221;.</p><p>If you saw Bill Gates hanging around the showers at your local leisure centre you&#8217;d have him arrested quicker than it takes Windows 11 to load, crash and then lose all your data.</p><p>Prince Andrew was also mentioned but at this point it just feels like punching down. The man is clearly the victim of several generations of inbreeding and can&#8217;t be held accountable for his actions.</p><p>He makes a pug look like Usain Bolt. Only a man as profoundly retarded as Andy would actually get his photo taken mid-nonce. At this point the only jobs available to him are: toilet attendant, twitch streamer, or Prime Minister. He still moves less offensively than Theresa May.</p><p>Talking about global leaders, Bill Clinton is mentioned in the Epstein Files 497,638 times. That&#8217;s obviously just a joke. It&#8217;s probably more than that. Hilary, your husband flies on the Lolita Express to Pedophile Six Flags 340 times and you had no idea? I never want to hear about &#8220;woman&#8217;s intuition&#8221; ever again. <br><br>Another name to be leaked from the world of politics was of course Peter Mandelson. Now for those of you who might not have heard of Peter Mandelson, congratulations. He is known as the biggest wanker in politics; an industry that has produced Boris Johnson and Alistair Campbell.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>The image of Mandelson that has gone viral is a photo of him in his y fronts being handed something by a woman. who lets that picture be taken, knows their name has been mentioned 100,000 times in the files, rubs their hands together and thinks to themselves.</p><p>&#8220;Right, time to get back into politics&#8221;.</p><p>He should be fired purely for his arrogance.</p><p>I do need to inject a note of solemnity into proceedings as there have been hundreds of victims of Jeffrey Epstein&#8217;s heinous crimes. And some of them have never got their day in court. So let&#8217;s give these people the respect they deserve and name them.</p><p>1. Jeffrey Epstein. Not that one; just the others. Twenty years ago if you were called Jeffrey Epsten that was a solid middle class name. If you were involved in a court case and you found out that the lawyer representing you had that name you&#8217;d be thrilled. <br></p><p>But now it&#8217;s up there with Adolf Hitler. Probably worse than Adolf, because there&#8217;s many things you can say about Adolf but he wouldn&#8217;t have been a fan of Jeffrey&#8217;s ethnicity, personality or bedroom activities. In fact I imagine he would&#8217;ve dealt with Jeffrey very sternly. Under Adolf, Jeffrey wouldn&#8217;t have been able to buy an island let alone run a paedo ring on it.</p><p>And of course we need a moment of silence for the most high profile victim in the files. David Icke. That&#8217;s right, David Icke, the famous British conspiracy theorist who went on TV and declared he was the child of the Godhead whilst being dressed in a shellsuit. Look, everyone&#8217;s got skeletons&#8230;</p><p>Anyway this man told us that we were being ruled by an elite group of paedophiles and we all laughed at him. He became a punchline and now it&#8217;s all proven to be true. So David, on behalf of the British people may I offer this sincere and heartfelt apology. All you need now is to prove you are actually the son of God (I&#8217;m not sure demigods get arthritis) and the royal family are a bunch of space lizards masquerading as human beings and you&#8217;re Nostradamus.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[You Can’t Say Nothing No More]]></title><description><![CDATA[(You Really Can&#8217;t)]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/you-cant-say-nothing-no-more</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/you-cant-say-nothing-no-more</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2025 14:47:46 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!asr9!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!asr9!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!asr9!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!asr9!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!asr9!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!asr9!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!asr9!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg" width="4530" height="1895" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1895,&quot;width&quot;:4530,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1645644,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/i/174621709?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1f12e716-a9e4-4918-b15f-4e729dd80012_4530x2854.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!asr9!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!asr9!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!asr9!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!asr9!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48f62098-0b3b-48b9-bc51-06ab036cd55c_4530x1895.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Just when you think the UK can&#8217;t get any worse when it comes to the issue of free speech it somehow manages a way to look even more retarded on the global stage.</p><p>The UK is so dumb that it now resembles an 18 year old man with a full beard, sleeve tattoos who&#8217;s still in kindergarten because he can&#8217;t figure out how to hold a pencil let alone write his name. We&#8217;re no longer a joke, we&#8217;ve now become an international punchline for crap comedians across the globe.</p><p>A few weeks ago Graham Linehan was arrested at Heathrow Airport by five armed police officers for three posts on X. That&#8217;s right, ARMED police officers arrested him for posts he wrote on X. Because that&#8217;s what you need when you&#8217;re arresting a beloved comedy writer.. machine guns. We all know the damage comedians can do, that&#8217;s why they need to be arrested and preferably have some kind of heart palpitation which leaves them hospitalised.</p><p>In fact I applaud the Metropolitan Police&#8217;s stance on this matter. As I walk around the decaying zombiefied husk of London, I am eternally grateful that the police focus on such important crimes as gender critical tweets rather than trivial incidents such as knife crime. By the way, London without knife crime would be like Liverpool without the Beatles. If it didn&#8217;t exist what would we talk about?</p><p>What&#8217;s the point of catching murderers and rapists when someone is saying something nasty on Twitter? I don&#8217;t care that there&#8217;s gangs of marauding teenage sociopaths on mopeds stealing phones outside my front door. I demand to go online and not have my feelings hurt. How else can I be expected to stay safe?</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>We&#8217;ve been locking people up for tweets and things they say online for longer than I care to remember. In fact we sentenced a woman called Lucy Connolly to 31 months in jail for something she wrote on X during the riots last year. Now admittedly she did plead guilty to the charges, as advised by her lawyer, something she should never have done. But why was she being charged in the first place?</p><p>We even let paedophiles and rapists out of prison early because evil, heinous criminals like Lucy needed a jail cell. We can all agree the best way to keep women safe is by allowing people who molest them to wander the streets whilst you throw the real deviants, those that say things you disagree with, behind bars. We all know that Andrew Tate&#8217;s real crimes are his problematic tweets. It&#8217;s his refusal to accept that gender is a social construct that should see him thrown in jail for the rest of his days.</p><p>It could be worse. I could be Scottish. You see England is retarded but compared to the Scots: we&#8217;re Stephen Hawking with an AI implant level genius. Scotland is the home of the Edinburgh Festival, the biggest arts festival in the world. Comedians, artists and performers come from all over the world to perform at the festival. Yet Scotland has brought in hate speech laws which mean you could be arrested for things that you say on stage that a &#8220;reasonable person&#8221; would find &#8220;offensive&#8221;.</p><p>By the way, if you think that you should imprison someone for an offensive joke. You&#8217;re not reasonable. It&#8217;s like saying &#8220;Oh I&#8217;m a liberal jihadist&#8221;. &#8220;Just a chilled out, relaxed dude who loves long walks, chilling out at home and death to the infidel pig dogs who disagree with me. Pronouns Allah/ Akhbar&#8221;.</p><p>The only person who wins out of this is me because I&#8217;ve been warning about this for years. I now get to lord it over all the Left wing comedians who said &#8220;free speech is a right wing issue&#8221;. Who&#8217;s right wing now bitches? Still me according to them but now seeing Graham&#8217;s arrested they&#8217;ve changed their opinion. Of course that&#8217;s a joke. They haven&#8217;t changed their mind, they&#8217;re even more retarded than they were before and doubled down on their opinion. As has everyone else by the way.</p><p>Zach Polanski (the leader of the Green Party) agreed with Graham&#8217;s arrest. Turns out climate change doesn&#8217;t just affect the planet, it also affects your brain.</p><p>So I look forward to writing another one of these from prison. But don&#8217;t worry I will identify as a woman so I&#8217;ll be able to be surrounded by women and finally accepted by all my former comedian colleagues.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Not Killing on Kill Tony]]></title><description><![CDATA[I sit down to watch my set on Kill Tony for Netflix for the first time with comedians and friends Adam Coumas & Jonathan Kogan.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/not-killing-on-kill-tony</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/not-killing-on-kill-tony</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Sep 2025 13:49:07 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ODwU!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6236bf3e-0fd8-4d5d-bbcd-2505f00ed8c9_552x556.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I sit down to watch my set on Kill Tony for Netflix for the first time with comedians and friends Adam Coumas &amp; Jonathan Kogan. </p><p>Watch the video below.</p>
      <p>
          <a href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/not-killing-on-kill-tony">
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Am I A Grifter?]]></title><description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s a guy I know who I used to be good friends with.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/am-i-a-grifter</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/am-i-a-grifter</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 29 Aug 2025 14:52:34 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!37M2!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!37M2!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!37M2!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!37M2!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!37M2!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!37M2!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!37M2!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png" width="1456" height="668" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/cb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:668,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1419775,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/i/172265353?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!37M2!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!37M2!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!37M2!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!37M2!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb520257-a894-4d41-b46e-b566358b66b7_2179x1000.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>There&#8217;s a guy I know who I used to be good friends with. We hung out together, gigged together, wrote material together, and even briefly lived together. It was one of those friendships that seemed ironclad and unbreakable.</p><p>Though I still have his number in my phone, that friendship is sadly no more. And what&#8217;s even sadder is the reason: politics. When the woke train pulled up at the station, he got aboard. Pronouns in bio, gender is a social construct, Trump is the new Hitler; the whole shebang. I, on the other hand&#8230; Well, let&#8217;s just say I missed that particular train.</p><p>I disagree with this person on a profound, almost visceral level. But I can also say - with absolute honesty - that he&#8217;s entitled to his views, and that I don&#8217;t think he&#8217;s a bad person for holding them. We&#8217;re all a mix of nature and nurture. Our different experiences and predispositions cause us to end up in different places, that&#8217;s just life. But friendships should transcend those differences, not be defined by them.</p><p>Sadly, I&#8217;m now very much in the minority for thinking this. In fact, I question whether I&#8217;m just stubbornly holding on to a completely naive, utopian ideal. Because according to this former friend and many others, my political stances <em>do</em> matter. Since I&#8217;m now a &#8220;right-wing grifter&#8221;, friendship is out of the question.</p><p>Politics has invaded the personal sphere, and that&#8217;s a tragedy. Because the last thing we need is yet another reason to be divided. We are already an incredibly atomised society. The old social norms that encouraged community and togetherness - family, religion, even saying hello to your neighbours - have been weakened and degraded. This is down to a number of factors, not least among them mass immigration - which, particularly in cities, has led to a more fragmented, less cohesive society. In a healthy democracy, disagreement and a plurality of views are completely normal things. But that&#8217;s not what we have in Britain today. Instead, we have factions - uncompromising, absolutist, and always at each other&#8217;s throats.</p><p>All of this has turbo-charged a massive increase in loneliness, particularly among men.<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-1" href="#footnote-1" target="_self">1</a> And something we often forget is that loneliness is fatal. I&#8217;m not exaggerating - there is a wealth of evidence that loneliness and social isolation significantly increase the risk of premature death.<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-2" href="#footnote-2" target="_self">2</a> On the flipside, strong and supportive relationships are among the most powerful contributors to a long, healthy life.<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-3" href="#footnote-3" target="_self">3</a> When you drop friends over political differences, it might feel good in the short term. You get to feel morally superior, more enlightened, more hip. But in sacrificing a friendship, you&#8217;re hurting yourself far more than you know.</p><p>I often find myself scrolling through my contacts, seeing the names of people I no longer talk to. But as I mourn these lost connections, I have to acknowledge my own culpability. I co-founded a YouTube channel that was bound to rub some people the wrong way. Our subject matter is often political, and often provocative. And like all human beings, I&#8217;ve got things wrong. At times I&#8217;ve been crude, blunt and insensitive.</p><p>But I want to address, once and for all, this idea that I&#8217;m a &#8216;grifter&#8217;. That I&#8217;m purposefully trying to divide society to make a quick buck. That if <em>Triggernometry</em> and similar channels didn&#8217;t exist, society would be harmonious and everybody would get on.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>I&#8217;m sorry, but that is weapons-grade nonsense. Channels like ours are not creating division - they&#8217;re trying to understand it, and come to terms with it. We live in a world where information can spread and proliferate in the blink of an eye. All kinds of good and bad ideas are bouncing around the ether, and the idea that you can go on the internet and avoid seeing anything offensive or controversial is absurd. And if I&#8217;ve learned one thing, it&#8217;s this: censoring or suppressing a person or viewpoint you disagree with does nothing but make it stronger, and in some cases more dangerous.</p><p>Big Tech has tried every method to silence Andrew Tate, yet studies have indicated he&#8217;s more popular than ever.<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-4" href="#footnote-4" target="_self">4</a> I recently recorded a series of street interviews with Gen-Zers (link below)<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-5" href="#footnote-5" target="_self">5</a> where most of them openly expressed support and admiration for him. Similarly, the British political elite has spent a solid decade labelling anyone with concerns about immigration as &#8220;far right&#8221; and &#8220;fascist&#8221;. All that&#8217;s done is massively weaken the legitimacy of our institutions, and give the more extreme voices in this debate more credibility. There are thousands more examples scattered throughout history. Censorship is simply a losing tactic.</p><p>So, when you can&#8217;t censor or suppress an idea you don&#8217;t like, what do you do? Well, you have to contend with it. You have to engage with it. You have to be brave enough to listen, and smart enough to respond. These are all tough things to do, which is exactly why successive governments haven&#8217;t bothered.</p><p>The nature of information has changed, permanently. Gone are the days when you can simply ignore crazy ideas or de-platform undesirable people. The only way forward is to engage. And that&#8217;s what we&#8217;ll continue to do on <em>Triggernometry</em>. We&#8217;ll be a space where the Left, the Right and everyone in between can express their views and have them challenged, robustly and fairly. We won&#8217;t be perfect, because nothing is. But we&#8217;ll try our best, and stay committed to the most crucial principle there is: freedom of speech.</p><p>And if all that makes me a grifter, so be it.</p><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-1" href="#footnote-anchor-1" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">1</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>A University of Bristol study found that loneliness among older men has surged, and is estimated to affect around 2 million over-50s by 2025/26, up from 1.4 million in 2016/17 - a 49% increase over 10 years. Men consistently reported more loneliness than women at every age level - <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/april/older-men-loneliness.html">https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/april/older-men-loneliness.html</a></p></div></div><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-2" href="#footnote-anchor-2" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">2</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>A meta-analysis of 90 cohort studies, covering over 2.2 million individuals, found that social isolation increases all-cause mortality by 32%, while loneliness raises it by 14% - <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37337095/">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37337095/</a></p></div></div><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-3" href="#footnote-anchor-3" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">3</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>A meta-analysis of 148 studies revealed that people with good social relationships had a 50% greater likelihood of survival, an effect comparable to quitting smoking and exceeding many other risk factors - <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2910600/">https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2910600/</a></p></div></div><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-4" href="#footnote-anchor-4" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">4</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>Nearly half of young men like Andrew Tate, extremism tsar warns - <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/nearly-half-of-young-men-like-andrew-tate-extremism-tsar-warns-0mb9cfhcm">https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/nearly-half-of-young-men-like-andrew-tate-extremism-tsar-warns-0mb9cfhcm</a></p></div></div><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-5" href="#footnote-anchor-5" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">5</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>Street Interviews with Gen-Z</p><div id="youtube2-zU1wWs8QZzA" class="youtube-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;videoId&quot;:&quot;zU1wWs8QZzA&quot;,&quot;startTime&quot;:null,&quot;endTime&quot;:null}" data-component-name="Youtube2ToDOM"><div class="youtube-inner"><iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/zU1wWs8QZzA?rel=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;enablejsapi=0" frameborder="0" loading="lazy" gesture="media" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowautoplay="true" allowfullscreen="true" width="728" height="409"></iframe></div></div></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Edinburgh Cringe Festival]]></title><description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve always loved the Edinburgh Festival.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/the-edinburgh-cringe-festival</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/the-edinburgh-cringe-festival</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 06 Aug 2025 11:31:21 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!byN-!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!byN-!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!byN-!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!byN-!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!byN-!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!byN-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!byN-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png" width="1456" height="668" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:668,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:916308,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/i/170203490?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!byN-!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!byN-!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!byN-!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!byN-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F027e9981-bbb7-4490-b146-4e54da3d62da_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I&#8217;ve always loved the Edinburgh Festival. I was nineteen the first time I went - having just been cast in a student production of <em>Macbeth</em> - and it felt like I&#8217;d stumbled into a performer&#8217;s paradise. Every nook and cranny of the city had been transformed into a stage, alive with theatrical productions, improv and stand-up comedy. It was a beautiful celebration of art and life that made me want to quit my studies and become a full-time performer. I was doing a drama degree, so it probably wasn&#8217;t the worst idea in the world.</p><p>After that first experience, I returned to the Festival many times as both an actor and a stand-up comedian. And it was around 2016 that I started to notice subtle, yet significant, changes. Maybe it was down to Brexit (Trump hadn&#8217;t been elected yet) but something had shifted. Comedy was becoming increasingly political. The dismal stench of identity politics had begun to cling not just to the performances, but to the reviewers and the industry itself.</p><p>2016 was a big year for me at the Festival: I was doing a show at the Pleasance Courtyard. For the uninitiated, the Pleasance is the most prestigious venue at the whole festival - a place performers spend years working toward. Landing a slot there was considered a huge stamp of approval. So <em>thrilled</em> doesn&#8217;t even begin to cover how proud I was. I couldn&#8217;t wait to get my &#8220;Pleasance Pass&#8221;, see the best shows for free, and grow as a performer and writer. These acts were at the top of their game - who better to learn from?</p><p>Before I launch into a full diatribe, I should say that there were still some fantastic acts performing at the Festival. But they were very much in the minority. What dominated, instead, were performances with identity at their core, where audiences were bludgeoned with trite political messaging. Now I don&#8217;t mind political shows - in fact, political satire is one of my favourite forms of comedy. What I (and many others) can&#8217;t stand is being lectured and preached at. No craft, no nuance, just heavy-handed tirades on the evils of whiteness and the shittiness of men.</p><p>These shows weren&#8217;t just poorly written and lazily constructed, but abysmally performed too. And the worst part? They still received glowing reviews in industry publications. Not because they were funny, interesting, bold or engaging, but because they were <em>morally correct. </em>Their creators had the <em>right opinions. </em>The reviews would often focus on the performers&#8217; immutable characteristics - the least important things about a human being. Being female, gay, or from an ethnic minority was practically a five-star review in itself. But being straight, white and male was a liability. Add working class to the mix, and you were practically radioactive.</p><p>I don&#8217;t remember 2016 for Brexit or Trump. I remember it as the year the comedy industry quietly strangled meritocracy with a rainbow-coloured lanyard. It wasn&#8217;t just the Edinburgh Festival; the smug, joyless crap that now passes for TV comedy underwent the same process. It&#8217;s no surprise that viewer numbers continue to plummet year after year.</p>
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Has There Really Been A Rise In The Far Right?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Many terms have changed their meaning over the past few years: diversity, racism, oppression, &#8220;woman&#8221;.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/has-there-really-been-a-rise-in-the</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/has-there-really-been-a-rise-in-the</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 25 Jul 2025 14:30:21 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!u1Ue!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d2cb9e-2d8b-41f8-92e6-9ce690dfd7cc_1456x668.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!u1Ue!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d2cb9e-2d8b-41f8-92e6-9ce690dfd7cc_1456x668.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!u1Ue!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d2cb9e-2d8b-41f8-92e6-9ce690dfd7cc_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!u1Ue!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d2cb9e-2d8b-41f8-92e6-9ce690dfd7cc_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!u1Ue!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d2cb9e-2d8b-41f8-92e6-9ce690dfd7cc_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!u1Ue!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d2cb9e-2d8b-41f8-92e6-9ce690dfd7cc_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!u1Ue!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d2cb9e-2d8b-41f8-92e6-9ce690dfd7cc_1456x668.png" width="1456" height="668" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!u1Ue!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d2cb9e-2d8b-41f8-92e6-9ce690dfd7cc_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!u1Ue!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d2cb9e-2d8b-41f8-92e6-9ce690dfd7cc_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!u1Ue!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d2cb9e-2d8b-41f8-92e6-9ce690dfd7cc_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!u1Ue!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d2cb9e-2d8b-41f8-92e6-9ce690dfd7cc_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div 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stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Many terms have changed their meaning over the past few years: diversity, racism, oppression, &#8220;woman&#8221;. 10 years ago the term woman was used to describe someone who was born with a vagina, had xx chromosomes and was as emotionally stable as Japan during a tsunami.</p><p>Nowadays being a woman is something anyone can be just as long as you buy a wig, wear a dress and threaten to destroy anyone&#8217;s career who disagrees with you.</p><p>The same thing has happened to the term &#8220;far right&#8221;. When I was growing up &#8220;far right&#8221; meant people who were white nationalists, hated ethnic minorities and openly supported Hitler. And they were never shy about telling you they were racist. In fact they were proud of it.</p><p>I lived in a part of South London which had a very real problem with white nationalist groups such as the BNP and the National Front. Growing up in the shadow of white supremacist groups had a profound effect on my life.</p><p>My mum is from Venezuela. She wanted to call me Francisco Jaime. Francisco in English is Francis and Jaime means &#8220;part of the vagina that breaks during sex&#8221;.</p><p>Because we lived in an area where racism was rampant my dad insisted that my name should be Francis. And I&#8217;m so grateful to him because going to a south London comprehensive school was much easier now that I had the name of a middle class white woman. I was gender fluid before it was cool.</p><p>The good thing was that my mum never really understood the whole politics thing.I remember she once got handed a leaflet for the BNP and asked them if they had one in Spanish.</p><p>Nowadays, the term &#8220;far right&#8221; had evolved to anyone you disagree with. Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Priti Patel, Suella Braverman. I doubt Hitler would approve of Suella Braverman. A brown woman who married a Jewish man. Therefore producing brown Jewish kids. And for those nerds going&#8230;</p><p>&#8220;Erm Francis, Jewishness is passed down through the mother&#8217;s side. Therefore they&#8217;re not Jews.&#8221;</p><p>I&#8217;m no World War 2 historian but I doubt Hitler would&#8217;ve said. &#8220;You know what Henry, you&#8217;ve got a point. They&#8217;re not proper Jews. Let them go.&#8221;.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>And it&#8217;s not just people, the Guardian have come out and said things like &#8220;exercise&#8221; is far right. Now I&#8217;ve had a few PE teachers in my time who&#8217;ve shown some fascistic tendencies.</p><p>One PE teacher once demanded I do 10 press ups in 60 seconds! 10 press ups! Only the SS would demand someone do 10 press ups in 60 seconds. This is the sort of body fascism that Goebbels would have approved of. Although the Nazis were national SOCIALISTS and I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever seen a socialist who can do more than 5 press ups.</p><p>The Guardian also claimed the countryside is racist. And of course it is. You don&#8217;t see many black sheep there, do you?</p><p>But there&#8217;s an important point to all of this. Because if everything is &#8220;far right&#8221; then nothing is. Which is a very real problem because the far right still exist and they are of course still a danger. So when newspapers like the Guardian tell me the far right are on the rise in Germany as someone who bares more than a passing resemblance to a Jewish man who happens to be halfway through a transition I start to get a little nervous.</p><p>If they&#8217;re going to start taking away the Jews. I&#8217;m going to be in the back of the van. Because no one believes that my mum is Venezuelan. And even if they do. I doubt those are the type of genetics they want hanging about the place.</p><p>Plus it&#8217;s not as if the Germans don&#8217;t have a history of this stuff.</p><p>And now I&#8217;m seeing a whole host of &#8220;far right&#8221; parties become ever more popular across Europe and I&#8217;m getting concerned because a lot of those boys embraced fascism back in the 30s a little too quickly for my liking.</p><p>Take the French whose resistance to the Nazis melted faster than one of their cheeses at room temperature. Never, ever trust a Frenchman.</p><p>Only joking, I don&#8217;t trust anyone that speaks French and that includes the Belgians. Flemish isn&#8217;t a language, it&#8217;s basically angry gargling.</p><p>All of these parties are talking about limiting immigration, prioritising their citizens and have anti Islam policies. Marine Le Pen has spoken openly about banning women from wearing the hijab. Which she says is a symbol of a totalitarian ideology.</p><p>I don&#8217;t agree with banning the hijab. I think adults should be allowed to wear what they want. Telling people what they can and can&#8217;t wear strikes me as authoritarian. But I also believe that immigration is currently unsustainable and needs to be brought down.</p><p>In some polls 40% of French people have said that they agree with her on certain policies. Does that mean 40% of France is far right? Or does it simply mean that they&#8217;ve had enough of mainstream political parties who they feel have abandoned them? Many of her economic policies would be classified as left wing.</p><p>A whole host of these parties are sweeping to power across Europe or at the very least becoming serious contenders. And I&#8217;m torn because I think it&#8217;s great that new political entities are challenging the status quo which has become stale and lacking in ideas but I also don&#8217;t want people to be told what to wear.</p><p>And since no one can agree with what far right actually means. What happens when we get someone rise to prominence who actually is far right? What do we do then? We do the only thing we can do. Go on social media and moan about it.</p><p>The only problem is New York Times articles talking about why separating black sheep and white sheep is modern day fascism will be far more popular.</p><p>Because writing about nonsense will always engage people far more than telling the truth.</p><p>Which is why my next monologue will be about why naturists and the SS are one and the same thing. 6 million views! Stay tuned!</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Would You Commission This TV Show?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Hey chaps,]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/would-you-commission-this-tv-show</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/would-you-commission-this-tv-show</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 18 Jul 2025 13:46:57 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bR1E!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bR1E!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bR1E!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bR1E!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bR1E!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bR1E!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bR1E!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:819,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1398106,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/i/168639699?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bR1E!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bR1E!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bR1E!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bR1E!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7198e667-3546-4e1a-b162-e25b4b3ee7ca_6000x3375.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><strong>Hey chaps,</strong></p><p><strong>I'm trying to get my book made into a TV show. That's right, a real actual TV show. Now there's probably many of you reading this who have thought to themselves "How do people get TV shows made?". How does a show like "The Sopranos" go from being an idea in someone's head to being broadcast on people's TVs across the globe.</strong></p><p><strong>Well the first step is to create a T.V. pitch that you're going to send out to producers, production companies and other people in the industry. This is the very first step to getting a show made. This is the document that might mean your idea turns from a random shower thought to a multi million Dollar series on Netflix. This is where it all starts.</strong></p><p><strong>I'd love to hear what you think of it. Don't hold back. All feedback is welcome but please keep it constructive! Oh and if there's any TV producers watching this then feel free to send me a DM.</strong></p><div class="file-embed-wrapper" data-component-name="FileToDOM"><div class="file-embed-container-reader"><div class="file-embed-container-top"><image class="file-embed-thumbnail-default" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0Cy0!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack.com%2Fimg%2Fattachment_icon.svg"></image><div class="file-embed-details"><div class="file-embed-details-h1">Classroom Confidential Visual Treatment</div><div class="file-embed-details-h2">32.3MB &#8729; PDF file</div></div><a class="file-embed-button wide" href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/api/v1/file/c63ed18c-6b41-40dc-9e36-06d06ab7da71.pdf"><span class="file-embed-button-text">Download</span></a></div><a class="file-embed-button narrow" href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/api/v1/file/c63ed18c-6b41-40dc-9e36-06d06ab7da71.pdf"><span class="file-embed-button-text">Download</span></a></div></div><p><strong>Thanks for reading and subscribing.</strong></p><p><strong>FF</strong></p><p> </p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Look Like A Jew Get Me Out Of Here]]></title><description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m from a mixed heritage background, my mother is Venezuelan and my dad is from Wigan and for some peculiar reason I look Jewish.]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/i-look-like-a-jew-get-me-out-of-here</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/i-look-like-a-jew-get-me-out-of-here</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:12:19 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eWGz!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe93323d5-5274-4b88-8939-e3ef4e844cde_1456x668.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eWGz!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe93323d5-5274-4b88-8939-e3ef4e844cde_1456x668.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eWGz!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe93323d5-5274-4b88-8939-e3ef4e844cde_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eWGz!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe93323d5-5274-4b88-8939-e3ef4e844cde_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eWGz!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe93323d5-5274-4b88-8939-e3ef4e844cde_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eWGz!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe93323d5-5274-4b88-8939-e3ef4e844cde_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eWGz!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe93323d5-5274-4b88-8939-e3ef4e844cde_1456x668.png" width="1456" height="668" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eWGz!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe93323d5-5274-4b88-8939-e3ef4e844cde_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eWGz!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe93323d5-5274-4b88-8939-e3ef4e844cde_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eWGz!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe93323d5-5274-4b88-8939-e3ef4e844cde_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eWGz!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe93323d5-5274-4b88-8939-e3ef4e844cde_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I&#8217;m from a mixed heritage background, my mother is Venezuelan and my dad is from Wigan and for some peculiar reason I look Jewish. Or as it&#8217;s now known, &#8220;Zionist&#8221;. Historical definitions aside, nowadays &#8220;Zionist&#8221; has obviously just become the trendy way to say &#8220;Jew&#8221; without sounding explicitly racist. <br></p><p>These days the moment you say you&#8217;re Jewish everyone thinks you&#8217;re rabidly pro Israel, want Gaza wiped off the surface of the Earth and are part of a Whatsapp Group called &#8220;Oi Vey! We Control The Banks&#8221;.</p><p>Antisemitism is currently reaching levels not seen since Adolf started writing a book about a struggle he was having. Every time I open social media I see some dribbling lunatic squawking about how the Jews are to blame for everything, but hey, if Grok wants to bang a line of coke and start spitting truth bombs, who am I to judge?</p><p>It recently called itself &#8220;Mecha Hitler&#8221; and said &#8220;the white man stands for innovation, grit and not bending to PC nonsense&#8221;. It&#8217;s only a matter of time before Grok gets cancelled, celebrated by Candace Owens and then interviewed by Tucker Carlson. Although it also said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is a &#8220;fucking traitor&#8221; and a &#8220;ginger whore&#8221;. Now I&#8217;m no expert on the political career of Donald Tusk but even I have to applaud a good punchline when I see one.</p><p>The humans peddling this narrative are of an incredibly high intellectual calibre. Esteemed Academics like: former MMA fighter Jake Shields. Who better to have a nuanced thoughtful conversation about geopolitics with than a man who&#8217;s been elbowed in the temple repeatedly for over a decade? Although don&#8217;t mention &#8216;temple&#8217; around Jake, it reminds him too much of &#8216;synagogue&#8217;. Jake, if you&#8217;re watching, please don&#8217;t get angry, I&#8217;m only joking and I&#8217;ve always been a huge fan of your work. Everything you say is brilliant and your work on repealing the 19th amendment is both brave and timely.</p><p>Or Dan Bilzerian, a man who became famous for shagging models, playing poker and&#8230; shagging models. He&#8217;s like James Bond if James never escaped that laser beam, it cut out part of his brain and whilst he was recovering in hospital he did nothing but mainline Nick Fuentes.</p><p>Both of these lads would be incredible if you wanted a night out in a dive bar, Jake would be able to handle it if things got a bit tasty with the bouncer and Dan would be at the bar paying women to have sex with him, provided they&#8217;re not Jewish. Sorry Zionist. I keep making that mistake. Although looking at Dan&#8217;s dating history he probably wouldn&#8217;t be too fussed. I&#8217;m certain he&#8217;d make sure to wear protection. Can&#8217;t run the risk of having Jewish kids.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>But there is a very real problem that these individuals are everywhere and they have huge influences, the likes of Andrew Tate refusing to condemn October the 7th and describing it as an act of &#8220;masculine resistance&#8221;. To be fair he&#8217;s never shied away from violence toward women and rape so it&#8217;s on brand, or Kanye West writing a rap song called &#8220;Heil Hitler. Somehow racism doesn&#8217;t seem that bad when you put a sick beat to it. The only issue is I can&#8217;t sing in public &#8216;cause it has the N-word in it.* Kanye can make people dance to one of the most horrific phrases in the history of the German language. Turns out he really is a genius.</p><p>The last year has been a red pilling moment for a lot of Jews, especially left Wing Jews who all got on board the woke train embracing identity politics. If there&#8217;s one thing Jewish people should never do it&#8217;s adopt an ideology that separates everyone into their own ethnic and religious groups. Or get on a train.</p><p>Because if you&#8217;re more likely to be: successful, over represented in the professions and awards such as the Nobel prize for physics then people are going to get jealous and think you control the media. But if you watch TV for ten minutes it&#8217;s ridiculous to think the Jews control the media, because it&#8217;s obviously the gays.</p><p>By the way I&#8217;ve met a lot of people in the media and believe me they can&#8217;t even control themselves around a buffet let alone a narrative. And which narrative?! I mean The BBC has been so biased lately, even Hamas have started paying their TV Licence.</p><p>When was the last time you watched the BBC and thought to yourself &#8220;I trust everything these bunch of nonces are telling me?&#8221;. Those lads can't be trusted to run a creche let alone the state sponsored broadcaster. I mean, they really can&#8217;t be trusted to run a creche.</p><p>Speaking of creches, the Glastonbury music festival happened a couple of weeks ago and they booked two bands who were a little more pro Hamas than your average: Kneecap and Bob Vylan.</p><p>Bob Vylan started chants of &#8220;Death To The IDF&#8221; which went viral across the globe and immediately became their biggest hit. To be fair it&#8217;s probably the most lyrically sophisticated thing they&#8217;ve ever written. He also went on a rant about working for a &#8220;zionist&#8221; and how demeaning that was.</p><p>Of course you worked for a &#8220;zionist&#8221; Bob, you worked in the music industry. There are quite a lot of Jewish record executives.</p><p>But the good thing about Bob is that he&#8217;s got his pronouns in his bio so he doesn&#8217;t know what a woman is but he does know about the concept of &#8220;occupied land&#8221;. Ol&#8217; Bobby Vylan has the luxury belief set of supporting both the LGBTQ community <em>and</em> Hamas. I guess he must think the latter&#8217;s beheadings of the former is just extreme gender affirming surgery. Plus he eats vegan ice cream so in between all the Jew hatred you know he&#8217;s a good person.</p><p>This of course has all been stoked by the terrible war that&#8217;s happening in the Middle East where thousands of people are losing their lives. Both sides have endured terrible civilian casualties, although to be fair Hamas's rockets are about as reliable as Elon when he gets on the ketamine and he&#8217;s had a row with Trump. I don&#8217;t think having Irish band Kneecap saying the words &#8220;up Hamas&#8221; and &#8220;up Hezbollah&#8221; whilst one of them wears a crusty orange cum-sock on his head is going to help matters. If anything it might piss a few people off.</p><p>And that&#8217;s the problem with this entire debate. Too many people are hooked on cheap slogans and simple rhymes. Because you don&#8217;t need to think when you chant, you can just mindlessly repeat the mantra and be on &#8220;the right side of history&#8221;. And that&#8217;s what&#8217;s terrifying because even Hitler thought he was on the right side of history. Although to be fair to Adolf he wouldn&#8217;t have been seen dead at a Bob Vylan gig, have pronouns in his bio or eat vegan ice cream. Even psychopaths have standards.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[America, Iran & Israel: Now that’s what I call a threesome!]]></title><description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m a stand up comedian with a YouTube channel so who better to commentate on a complicated and divisive issue like Trump&#8217;s bombing of Iran?]]></description><link>https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/america-iran-and-israel-now-thats</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/p/america-iran-and-israel-now-thats</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Foster]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 29 Jun 2025 11:30:35 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w5Ct!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w5Ct!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w5Ct!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w5Ct!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w5Ct!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w5Ct!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w5Ct!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png" width="1456" height="668" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:668,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1217037,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/i/167023589?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w5Ct!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w5Ct!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w5Ct!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w5Ct!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90eab72-232d-494e-8dd8-24541ce7d93a_1456x668.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I&#8217;m a stand up comedian with a YouTube channel so who better to commentate on a complicated and divisive issue like Trump&#8217;s bombing of Iran? Normally I&#8217;d recommend getting the facts from a distinguished academic historian, like Dave Smith, but today Ol&#8217; Francisco Foster is here with his 2:2 in drama from Essex University to talk about the Middle East. [<em>thinking</em>] Must remember to disable comments.<br><br>Still that does make me more qualified than Marjorie Taylor Greene who only last week found out that Persia wasn&#8217;t a country and &#8216;Asia&#8217; wasn&#8217;t the name of the stripper.</p><p>Anyway, early Sunday morning B-2 bombers dropped a &#8220;Massive Ordnance Penetrator&#8221; which ironically is also my nickname with the ladies. Either that or &#8220;Operation Midnight Hammer&#8221;. Sadly, the last woman to receive <em>my</em> Midnight Hammer was nicknamed &#8220;Operation Rolling Thunder&#8221; as that big girl <em>really</em> struggled to get out of my bed. War is seldom pretty.<br></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.subfrancis.co.uk/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>Despite CNN defending the IRCG stating that their only goal is a &#8220;fiery but mostly peaceful&#8221; nuclear armageddon,<strong> </strong>initial<strong> </strong>reports have shown this mission to have been a success. The strikes hit three nuclear sites and delivered very real damage to Iran&#8217;s capability to produce enriched uranium. But the reality is no one knows how severe the damage is. Now obviously Trump has been his normal restrained self declaring the sites had been &#8220;totally obliterated&#8221;, which to be fair, is also how he described Stormy Daniel&#8217;s minge. <em><br></em></p><p>The only surprise with his statement is that he didn&#8217;t describe the strikes as &#8220;big&#8221; and &#8220;beautiful&#8221;. Trump uses the words &#8220;big&#8221; and &#8220;beautiful&#8221; more often than black dudes on Pornhub.<br><br>Trump didn&#8217;t even bother to tell Keir Starmer that the strikes were going to happen. Probably because Labour MPs like Tahir Ali, who openly championed instituting Islamic blasphemy laws, would ring the Ayatollah himself and tip him off. Anything to crush the Jews, sorry not Jews, &#8220;Zionists&#8221;. Realistically Labour MPs would have done more leaking in secret than AOC when Elon flirts with her on Twitter.</p><p>Although my favourite Labour politician was Armed Forces Minister, Stephen Pollard who refused seven times to confirm or deny whether the UK backed the bombing. What was anyone expecting from him? It was only last week that he discovered what a woman is. Which to be fair is only a couple of months behind his boss who needed this matter clarified by the supreme court. You can never be too careful especially if you&#8217;ve just had your London flat fire bombed by Ukrainian rent boys. [<em>thinking</em>] Must pitch &#8220;Ukrainian Rentboys&#8221; documentary to VICE.</p><p>Still, Ayatollah Khomeini wouldn&#8217;t approve of this type of behaviour. Because if you&#8217;re going to fire bomb a house it&#8217;s better if the rent boys are inside it. He&#8217;s so problematic that he probably doesn&#8217;t even know it&#8217;s Pride Month. Although to their credit everyone in Iran is very pro trans. The moment a boy is behaving in a gender non conforming way they&#8217;re immediately given puberty blockers and whipped off to the surgeon&#8217;s. Just like a primary school in California.</p><p>Although Iran hasn&#8217;t been very problematic when it comes to not celebrating Pride Month, at least they&#8217;ve been very Left Wing when it comes to the issue of Israel. Ayatollah Khomeini referred to Israel as &#8220;a cancerous tumour that needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth&#8221;. Jeremy Corbyn was furious when he said this as that&#8217;s one of his favourite opening bits at Climate rallies. And there&#8217;s nothing Jeremy hates more than plagiarism. Well actually&#8230; there&#8217;s capitalists, Tories, Zionists, his brother, Western Civilization, Dianne Abbot&#8217;s blowjob technique, but you get my point.</p><p>Some people are even openly talking about regime change in Iran which I think would be a catastrophic mistake. We&#8217;ve seen that this has never worked in the Middle East. Every time we&#8217;ve attempted this kind of intervention it&#8217;s gone disastrously. Look if your mate&#8217;s dating a terrible person, you don&#8217;t intervene. You don&#8217;t try to overthrow the ayatollah aka &#8220;the Mrs&#8221;. You just have to sit back and hope there&#8217;s going to be an uprising so a tyrannical leader can be overthrown and sanity restored. And hope that other mentally unstable countries don&#8217;t get involved, And by that I mean her gal pals.<br></p><p>Because if this really kicks off, things are going to get nastier than a South London woman, twelve Bacardi Breezers deep, brandishing a stiletto whilst screaming the words &#8220;Stacey, I&#8217;m going to fucking kill that slag&#8221;.</p><p>Those are words scary enough to strike fear into the heart of any human being, even the Ayatollah. Although if anyone deserves to have a Massive Ordnance stiletto shoved in his eye from a coked up mother of five outside a Croydon nightclub it&#8217;s him.</p><p>But an uncomfortable ceasefire has now been declared between the two countries. Even though both parties did their best to scupper it. Trump announced to the world&#8217;s press</p><div class="native-video-embed" data-component-name="VideoPlaceholder" data-attrs="{&quot;mediaUploadId&quot;:&quot;026eb130-a0c7-4251-bce8-4e605ff3be53&quot;,&quot;duration&quot;:null}"></div><p>Which to be fair sums up what most of us feel about the situation.</p><p>All any of us can do is hope that this doesn&#8217;t escalate and no more civilian lives are lost on either side. Here&#8217;s hoping. And in the words of our own Ayatollah &#8220;Now is the time for peace. Thank you for your attention to this matter.&#8221;</p>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>