This 10 inch fucking bread knife

and he's just going at my face mate.

Hell for leather.

Pretty cool.

That's Rob Clark sanctioned by Putin.

Yeah, I remember the next time I went

back to London, which was like New year.

No, fuck me.

It was like absolutely terrified.

I was looking over my shoulder

every, obviously the Russians

were all over fucking London

Guys, welcome back to another

episode of the Combat Fuel podcast.

Today we're joined by a guy.

He's not controversial, but he

is done some pretty cool stuff.

You know, we've had a lot of operators

on there, we've done some wicked stuff.

We've not had anyone that's been

sanctioned by Putin was a former

infantry commander of men Goof on Scott

Sky Sports is fluent in Pashtu, can

speak Arabic, and it's pretty cool.

Rob Clark, welcome.

Thank you for joining us.

Absolute pleasure.

And Matt, it's just so nice being here.

I've seen some of the clips you've

really done with some of the other

athletes and some of the people in the

community, so it feels great to be here

and they're following in their footsteps.

Wicked man.

Thank you.

And I'm sure we only get into

some of that stuff we mentioned.

It's been an interesting

life at the moment.

I mean, yeah.

How old are you now?

Well, so I'm 38.

I turned 39 this year.

And yeah, it's a funny one.

Sometimes people explain, or some people

ask me to explain my my background,

my career, and it's really a career.

Of two Hals.

The first half obviously characterized

and dominated by being in the Army, and

then second half moving into that sort

of political world, mainly in London.

So yeah, it's a, it's an interesting, it's

been an interesting sort of ride so far.

Absolutely.

Let's take you back to where

everything started then.

Where did you grow up, mum and dad?

How was your childhood?

Yeah, I mean, really briefly

it's not a great story.

I had a pretty you know,

pretty rough childhood.

I was notoriously gotta be always getting

into trouble fighting with other kids.

So I had quite a violent childhood, but

really brought of my own sort of my own

behavior, my own sort of characteristics.

My parents broke up when I was about

two or three, can't remember it.

But I had a really happy

childhood with my family.

There was no drama there.

It was sort of how I was with other kids.

I really struggled to socialize and

learn social skills from an early age.

I don't think I'm much better

now, but other people will

have the benefit of that.

But you know, I bounced between

Hull and Lincoln as well, so

my mother lived in Lincoln.

My father moved to Hull

when they split up.

And I think I moved about every four

or five years between the two again.

You know, I didn't really

know what I wanted in life.

I didn't know, you know, who I was.

I didn't really have an identity.

All I knew was how to fight and

getting into trouble at school

which naturally gravitated me

towards a career in the infantry.

Awesome.

I mean, was there anything that was like

a standout of your childhood where you

were like, I need to sort my shit out,

otherwise I'm gonna end up in prison for

going around scrapping with other kids?

Not so much at school.

That came a lot later.

The whole falling father of the law.

That was when I was in the army

and sort of that transition period

when you becoming a civilian.

But I suppose one, one of the crystal,

one of the moments that really

crystallized in my mind that transition

from child, you know, to adulthood

was, you know, reading a lot about

the army, wanting to become a soldier.

I was around 12 or 13, I read

Andy McNabb's VO two Zero.

Everyone's got their

own opinions about that.

But as a, you know, as military

history, as recent military

history, it's a phenomenal.

Not just story, but example of you

know, that, that plucky British spirit

you know, en encompassed by our special

forces and the rest of our military.

So yeah, around 12 or 13 I

was really good at football.

You know, I enjoyed playing football.

I played for my school.

I played regionally against

other sorts of like teams.

And that's when I lived in Hull.

So my childhood in Hull with

my father was always happier.

I was doing well at school.

I had loads of friends.

It was really when I came back from my

secondary education in Lincoln that I

was, you know, on, on the receiving end

of a lot of, you know, sort of bullying

and, you know, that, that sort of,

that, that violent part of my childhood.

But by that point I knew I wanted

to go into the army and sort

of really become my own person.

You know, I was fed up with being a child.

It was never anything as dramatic as

wanting to run away, but I was just

very unhappy as a child and I wanted

to lead my own life and I knew that

would start with joining the Army.

Awesome.

So were you relatively young

when you applied to join?

Did you need your parents'

permission or were you older than 18?

No, I was, I think I was 18 on the dot.

I was actually rejected initially for

my eyesight and I'm really shortsighted.

So when I got rejected I was 18.

I was in Hull at the time and the, it

was like a sick month deferral, which was

really strange because I was like, well,

my eyesight's never going to, I'm not

gonna get better eyesight in six months.

So I I was at university at the time.

And actually what it was

this would've been 2005.

So really the height of the war in

Iraq you know, when things had really

started to get quite ugly particularly

in Basra, and I knew I was gonna

join the Army, I was in university.

And you know, those stories every,

maybe a couple of times a year where one

single story dominates the entire news

agenda you know, for the whole week.

And it's one picture on the front

page of virtually every newspaper.

And it was it was Carl who I think, you

know, he former Mercian soldier, and it

was he was getting outta a challenger

two, sorry, a warrior that had been

basically blown up and Molotov cocktails

and it was on flames, and the picture

was him jumping out of the warrior.

And it was front page

news for a couple of days.

And you know, I was in the common

room at university reading this,

and I was like, man, what the

fuck am I doing with my life?

I knew I wanted to join the army.

I was 18 full of spun.

And I was like, this is just I

was looking around and I was like,

these people haven't got a clue.

I had I couldn't identify these

other students, my peers, right?

They didn't care about the war.

It was quite unpopular,

the Iraq war at the time.

And I was like, this is bullshit.

And I quit on the day.

Applied to join the Army.

Obviously had to wait a few weeks,

the medal course, that kind of thing.

Then I got rejected from my eyesight

and I was like, fuck, now what do I do?

I've quit university.

I've been rejected from the army.

I've unemployed.

I was doing some laboring in Hull.

I was drinking heavily.

It was my first, I've had quite you

know, quite a check of history of

alcohol which I'm good with now.

But that was the first time I

became quite reliant on alcohol.

And I had no options.

I didn't really know what to do.

You know, my, my dreams of joining

the army were completely dashed.

So I ended up getting a one-way

ticket to Thailand and I

lived in Thailand for a year.

Came back and then I reapplied.

But when I reapplied I just basically,

it was like a fresh application and

they missed the the fact that I'd been

rejected before and somehow I managed

to pass the eyesight test and, you

know, the next 10 years was history.

Wow.

So eyesight does get better with

a year entire, apparently yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Crazy wicked.

So you've gone away, you've joined,

so you know, the Iraq wars going on,

Herrick is in its infancy there at two.

Herrick had 2006.

I think it started, you know, you must

have been going through training and then

Afghanistan was kicking off, you know?

Yeah.

Obviously nine 11 had happened.

Did you have, was there any like

inner patriotism with yourself where

I want to go and fight for my country.

Massive.

I want go massively do

something that's right.

And make a difference.

Yeah, definitely.

I think it's a really interesting point.

If you speak to most veterans

and most people who are served,

obviously you know yourself included.

Nine 11 for those of us who, you

know, I was about how old I would've

been about 13 at home, the time

I knew I wanted to join the Army.

And it was like that kind of

light bulb moment holy fuck,

the world is never gonna be.

I knew that at 13 the world is

never gonna be the same again.

And obviously ushered in 20 years

of the global war on terror.

And I think it did, you know, I had at 13

years old, I had no affinity to America.

I didn't feel any kind of bond or

any sort of special sort of you know,

sentiment towards Americans, but I knew

what it stood for and I knew seeing

nine 11 on the TV when you get home from

school, it was like a shocking moment.

And I think a lot of people, you know,

I didn't join because of nine 11, but

nine 11 shaped my early adulthood and

my youth and particularly the military

aspects and the military environment.

So yeah, when I joined when I was

in Krick in 2000 and 2007 and it was

Herrick six and it was your old battalion

the Vikings my sister battalion.

And they were in the

middle of Harrick six.

Absolutely smashing it up.

And when we were in training at

this point I remember RDS used to

take us to like the Victory Club,

flight tea and fucking biscuits

or whatever at the end of the day.

And everyone was GL glued to Ross Kemp.

That was the first time Ross

Kemp was in, in Helmond and it

was fucking sick watching it.

Everyone was just like,

you could hear a pin drop.

There was like 50, 60 blokes sat around

with like little cups of tea not dare to

drink any, just watching fucking shit,

getting absolutely blown up in Afghan.

And everyone was so geared up.

Thinking this is what we're training for.

And we already knew it because of

Iraq in the early days of Afghan.

But when Herrick six, I mean,

Herrick six was like the defining

point of the Afghan campaign.

You know, that was, you speak

to anyone who, I've got a lot

of friends as I'm sure you do.

That was a fucking gnarly tour.

And to see it unfold with people that

I was joining the army with and the

instructors who were from our regiments,

it was yeah, quite a powerful period.

And it really helped.

I think most people appreciate better

not what they were getting into, but the

seriousness of what was coming our way.

Absolutely.

And but you're in training at the time.

How was training for you?

Was it difficult or did it

sort of fall into your stride?

No, I absolutely loved it.

I knew kind of what to expect.

I think most people have got, you know,

I was in cadets about four years before.

I had friends who had joined

younger than me or earlier than me.

So I heard about their experiences.

So I had a pretty good idea.

And also by the time I

started training, I was 20.

So I was a little bit older

than, you know, the average.

I think the average was still 18, 19.

But yeah, no, it was great.

I loved it.

Somebody who I was in with is still

like one of my best friends today.

We went into a rack

together, the same platoon.

He's the guy that, with this.

Yeah.

And you know, he's one of my closest

friends greeny, you know, he's

he's a really good bloke and we are

still really good friends today.

As many people I was in not necessarily

in training, 'cause everyone

obviously went their own ways.

But yeah.

Great time.

So go ask you though, why did you join

the infantry and not para submarines?

If training for the infantry was

not that challenging for you,

why did you pick the infantry?

It wasn't challenging.

It was, I was always

gonna join the infantry.

And then when I was, the first time

I tried to apply when I was living in

hall with my father, the rejection from

my eyesight when I was waiting for the

medicals and I was waiting, basically

waiting for the rejection in the end, I

remember my first choice was to Paris.

And, you know, I think anyone who

joins the infantry, you know, people

like to knock the Paris, but fuck me.

I have no shame.

They're fucking cool.

Who wouldn't want to join the Paris?

If you want to be in the infantry?

And I remember it sounds really dumb.

I've always been afraid of heights,

always been afraid of heights.

You know, I used to go to these adventure

parks when I was a kid, like these

summer parks in the woods and that,

and they had, they'd have abs sailing.

And I was like, fuck no.

Am I going up there abs sailing?

It was terrifying.

So I'm waiting for this application.

I'm waiting to start or what I

thought was gonna be training.

And my, my, my first choice

was the parachute regimen.

And there was a mat, there was a

rug in my father's living room.

And I remember because I knew the

actual act of jumping outta a plane,

like I, I didn't think I had it in me.

And it turns out I didn't.

And I remember standing on the

edge of this rug, and I remember

thinking, the rug is the tailgate

and the carpet is you know, field.

And I was looking down and

I was like, what the fuck?

And I was like, that ain't for me.

That ain't for me.

I can, I've got enough shame

to be like, that's not for me.

So I changed my choice on the

spot and it was what later

became the Yorkshire Regiment.

Late then became my application choice.

And then when I reapplied, you

know, a year later when I got back

from Thailand, it was the Royals,

because I applied in Lincoln.

I had friends who were in battalion.

I was from Lincoln with

my childhood as well.

And also because I looked at who was

going where, what tours were coming up.

I knew the poachers, you know, we

went to Iraq almost I think it was

like six weeks after I passed out Ric.

So I knew if I joined the poachers which

I had the affinity with Lincoln, the

connection, I'd be in Iraq real quick.

They were based in Germany,

which was fucking sick.

You know, that, that was

like the natural choice.

Awesome.

So you, as you said, six weeks

later, so you've passed out.

Both parents assume were able to

make your pass off from Catherine.

Yeah.

Had a really good turnout.

It was really good.

Awesome.

Special day as well, isn't it?

You know, it's one of those

days you remember Yeah.

You do the rest of your life, Don.

Yeah.

And everyone's got those crow

photos of you, like in you, twos in

your not knowing what's going on.

Absolutely.

You've still got theirs up on there.

Always.

Yeah.

My mom has s Yeah.

But you look back and it really is like

you, when you pass out of training,

no matter what branch of the military

you're in, it really is a, again,

without signing juy, it is special.

You look back on those things like.

10, 15, 20 years now for me, nearly later.

And you're like, that is special.

Especially like your family, you know,

you're a young kid, you're just part

of training, passed out a training.

But yeah, it was literally,

it was six weeks.

We got to, we passed out in March.

Me and Greenie that, that mate of mine

from from training, we got to trench

our ball changed our barracks in the

cellar in Germany one night on our own.

Everyone was on leave, so we

had, we was like the rear party.

The whole battalion had just done

their PDT, they finished their PDT.

So we had to do like a two day all ranks

brief garrison and one day on the range.

And that was as good to go to Iraq.

And I remember when we got out the

very first time, me and him were in

the same warrior dismounted in Basra.

The very first patrol we got,

we jumped out and they're

like, right, five and twenties.

And me and him just looked at

each other and were like, the

fuck are five and twenties?

Yeah.

Cheers.

Krick like that was the

weird thing back then.

Krick had no scope to train, like what

was coming, like Iraq in Afghanistan.

It was all conventional.

And it's understandable because

you need to know the basics, right?

But in that six months, you could

easily have pushed in a couple of weeks

of like more theater specific stuff.

But that really was a

sh shock to the system.

It was, I remember getting

there jumping off pdt.

They like five and 20 was that called?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You like what is five and twenties?

Yeah.

Or you know, you then you get of being

aback not knowing, you know what?

It's, oh sorry.

It's yeah, I remember mine,

his name was Jay and it was the

Lance Corps actually at the time.

And he was like absolutely

debriefed himself.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I wash your bloods grip.

I'm like

froze.

Like a little.

You told me Corporal, can you tell me?

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

So this was tele 13.

Was it?

That you 12?

Yeah, take 12.

12 that you've just deployed on.

It was really interesting.

So it was the penultimate Iraq tour.

This is 2008.

And they were just finishing.

We taught, we caught the tail end of

what was called charge of the Knights,

which is basically clearing out all

of the fucking militia from Basra.

And it was a huge combined operation

with the Americans of the US Marines.

We hit the tail end of that for about a

week or two which was quite quite chaotic.

And then by that point, the entirety

of Iraq was withdrawing, so they were

pulling out of the pulling outta the city.

All the PB houses and the fobs, they were

pulling outta Basra and they were all

going to what was called the cob, which

is basically like bastion for Afghan.

And by that point there was literally

about three or four platoons.

Left in Basra, in pbs, in platoon houses.

We were one of them, so literally

a hundred blokes in the city.

And we were in charge of like basically

QRF for the whole of Basra South.

So it was pretty intense.

It was like two or three patrols a day.

But yeah, as a young 20 year, 20-year-old

bod, it was fucking brilliant.

It was such a great experience.

Wicked man.

Wicked terrifying.

Absolutely terrifying though, as well.

And how was it in terms

of, was it kinetic?

You know, you're saying getting

the first couple of weeks?

Yeah.

'cause we had that tail end of

pushing all the militia out.

Yeah, that was quite hard.

You know, the IED threat was fucking huge.

RPG artillery, we were

in the platoon house.

We had the OSB, the old state building

that was, it was something like, you

know, everyone claims these things,

but it was generally regarded as like

the most rocketed place in Basra.

You know, there was damage everywhere.

But like towards the end of the tour

it was a lot calmer, a lot quieter.

So it was like, for a first

tour, it was a perfect mix.

You know, absolutely fascinating

to see it at that time have been.

And the battalion any casualties

or did everyone make it home?

No, I think we were the only, or the

first, I think the one afterwards as well.

They didn't have any casualties.

But yeah it is, it was a shame

though, because one of the things

that characterized the battalion

at this point was they were still

getting over the loss of people they'd

lost on ate two years previously.

They lost some real big

hitters in that battalion.

This would've been the year

before I started training.

So they were still coming to terms

with, you know, they, they took a

really big hit on ate and, you could

see that, you know, as a new blo, you

could see how that, you know, as you

get there, you are full of fucking

you are like, whoa, what's all this?

This is like super cool.

And blokes who've been in

like 10, 15 years, they'd lost

friends in the last year or two.

They were like, no, this ain't cool.

This is fucking shit.

You know, there's cool parts, but they

were still very much dealing with that

difficult, still quite raw for them.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Still quite raw.

I assume you probably had a similar

experience with the Vikings.

Yeah, absolutely.

In their previous times.

Yeah.

We, and we're going out deploying

and we're like this is Ali,

this is what we signed up for.

And you know, you've got some of the older

guys that are like, shut the fuck up.

Like it's yeah.

But everyone's been in that position.

Everyone's been in that obsession.

Absolutely.

You know, and when they joined,

you know, I mean, before that there

wasn't a lot of, I mean, Herrick,

especially some of the hardest war

fighting that had happened in Yeah.

In since World War ii.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, like the guys that we

joined up that were senior NCOs

when we joined were, you know, they

experienced some stuff, to say the least.

So we completed tele 12.

Back to Germany.

Yeah, back to Germany for

another year and a half.

I mean, Germany is great.

I mean, speak to anyone who was based

in Germany, it was just one big piss up.

It was so good.

And this is the period of the army.

This is like the late noughties, if that's

the term, you know, 2008, 2009, 2010.

And it's still under a fucking,

the previous labor government.

That's how long ago it was now.

But it was like part of the army where

you would be up drinking every night or

certainly most nights of the week until

four or five o'clock in the morning.

Then you'd be doing like 10

mile fucking loaded marches.

Like still pissed, but you

would just about finish it.

Yeah.

But you'd be hanging, they'd

be straight back on the piss.

Yeah.

And it was like really interesting

period where it was basically one big

piss up, but the work was still done.

Right.

I dunno what it's like now,

you know, I left 10 years ago.

I hear a lot of what different

battalions are like these days from

people who are still in, and it just

doesn't sound like it's that much fun.

It's taken more seriously, you

know, for good and for bad reasons.

But the army back then, you

know, it was fucking brilliant.

Germany was great.

I traveled all over Europe

when we had like long weekends.

I never used to come home.

I used to, you know, I, I get

the train all over Europe.

It was brilliant.

Went to Poland several times you

know, went to France, went to Italy.

Yeah, it was great.

Awesome.

And it's on that, you know, the piss up.

Its, you can't have a hangover

if you just stay drunk, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Camel and then filled up.

But you you look back now

and you're like, how on?

There's no way to do that now.

How could I survive that?

No.

Yeah.

I had a glass of Prosecco last night

and I was, you still, I was off my rock.

I don't really drink and it's,

well, I have one and that's me.

Yeah.

It's an age thing.

I really think it's an age thing when

you get past, sort of like mid thirties,

when you hear about 35, you feel it more.

Yeah.

So I look back now when I was in

Germany and then Cyprus and I'm like

the senior NCOs who were like 30, 32.

They were still putting it away.

Yeah.

I'm like, I couldn't do that now.

No, I couldn't.

No.

I absolutely couldn't.

It's yeah.

Fair play to the guys that are

standing now that are like, oh, can

you imagine 20, 20 years deep in the

mess knee deep start bottles of port

every night, bottles of port and piss.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, it was

PT the next morning.

Yeah.

Cheers.

I genuinely couldn't imagine it.

Genuinely couldn't do it.

I would probably just die.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was, yeah.

Wild.

So we, you know, you're

enjoying Germany doing well.

There was another toilet

that came for you.

This time Afghan was coming up, wasn't it?

Yeah, so by the time we got back

from Iraq in 2008 going into 2009

all the emphasis the next thing for

coming up for our battalion was TRB

Theater, reserve Battalion and Cyprus.

And at that point, TRB

was like super busy.

It was one infantry battalion,

like Roland Strip battalion based

in decal on a two year rotation.

And the idea was sort of right to plug

gaps across the Middle East, but obviously

it was Afghan dominant, in fact, pretty

much just Afghan and T-R-T-R-B, sorry,

TRB battalions, we weren't absolutely

smashed at this point because they were

often deployed companies at a time.

So one company would go here for three

months and one would go there for a

few months, like I say, to plug gaps.

So they were getting

like absolutely beasted.

So again the emphasis on the training

and the seriousness of the job,

even though you're on the piss

24 7, like I said, the work still

got done, so it's full of courses.

Full of training.

So again, that was, you know,

it was a young private, that was

a great environment to be in.

And I look back at that now, I'm like,

what have blokes got to be in for now?

Fucking going to Estonia every 18 months.

Yeah.

I'm not hating on that, but I'm so

grateful that my early my early years in

the Army were dominated by the training

emphasis, which is like going to war.

I know the training emphasis for

the Army now is geared towards

obviously peer on peer conflict that

we can see with Ukraine and Russia.

But let's be honest, that's

probably not gonna happen.

It's good that we're training for

it, but we knew when we were training

we'd be doing this in Afghan,

in Iraq, et cetera, et cetera.

It was a really I'm just really grateful

for that, being in the army at that time.

Absolutely.

And we've got something to chat about,

haven't we, about being in Cyprus and

some incidents, an incident that occurred.

I dunno if the camera can seen

here, got lots of incidents.

We've got a pretty hefty

scar across your face.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Tell us more about how this happened.

Right.

So I was, that, that guy, greedy

that I mentioned, who I was in

training with and interact with.

So this would've been,

I dunno, 2000 and 2011.

2012. And a really good friend of mine, he

was in the Royal Marines at the time, like

a friend from home, a friend from school.

He was in the Marines now.

He just broke up with

his misses, devastated.

And my friend Greenie he was already out,

he'd already left Battalion at this point.

He'd been out a few months or whatever.

And he was sort of like living

short term in it was in 10 reef.

And I told him about my friend.

I was like, me and him were thinking

about like popping smoke for a

few weeks or a few days and just

going out and getting pissed.

He was like, come here, come to Tanif.

Come and stay with me.

I was like, yeah, brilliant.

So we landed in Tanif, me and soy

bollocks and greeny the friend of

mine who met us in Tanif, he's at

the, we're clearing, this is how

messy I knew this night would get.

We landed at seven o'clock at night.

My mate was already pissed on the plane.

I'd had a few beers and my mate

greenie's meeting we're coming through

Passport, you know, passport security.

Yeah.

And he's there like already swaying and

I'm like, he can barely fucking stand up.

I was like, Jesus Christ,

he's gonna be carnage.

So we go back to his apartment,

get absolutely steaming you know,

about two or three bottles of

vodka have already gone down.

And then all of a sudden we turn round.

My friend who's score Jr the Royal

Marine, and he's fucking huge.

He's six foot six, about 300 pounds.

I mean, he's dense.

He's 300 pounds of fucking nothingness.

Yeah.

He's just meat.

And then we turn round and he's gone.

And my mate was like, greenie

was like where's your mate gone?

Where's JR Gone?

And we went around, we're

like, fuck, he's disappeared.

We've not even gone out at this point.

And Greenie, who's been there for a few

months, who knows the area, he knows like,

you know, we're in like quite a local area

as well, which is like really sketchy.

And he's we need to find him because

if he goes into the wrong area, the

wrong bar, he's gonna get stabbed.

And I was like, okay, great.

Me and him can barely

stand up at this point.

So anyway, so we go out and we go to the

first fucking pub or bar over the road to

see, you know, try and find our friend.

And greenie's, he knows the area.

He takes one quick look and

he's no, he won't be in here.

Let's go to the next one.

And I was like no, I'm gonna,

you know when you're pissed

and you got the best ideas.

Yeah.

And I'm like no, I'm gonna

ask, I'm gonna ask the barman.

So I'm like, stuttering, like

banging into people or whatever.

And it's like a really small local

bar where everyone is watching you

'cause you are clearly fucking foreign.

And I go up to barman, I'm like, have

you seen like this this big Englishman?

Like really big guy?

And he's no.

I was like, okay.

And I'm walking out and I

can remember this so clearly.

Bang.

I was absolutely steaming.

And as I'm about a foot away

from the door, I can feel this

bottle coming over my head.

And you know, the wind and it

smashes just above my head.

Somebody throwing a fucking, like

a full bottle beer everywhere.

And I just turned round on impulse,

like on instinct, on my heel.

And I just clocked the nearest person.

Like the nearest person

next to me is bloke.

And I just fucking cracked him.

He fell down.

And at that point, the entire bar who were

watching obviously just got up and like

advanced towards me and my friend, and

we're like a few feet away from the exit.

So we are there like paring,

like so next to you, like paring

our way outta this fucking bar.

I broke clean first by

about half a second.

Like I was already halfway out the door.

And somebody must have been outside

either having a fag or watching it.

Do you know what I mean?

And he basically bottled me from behind.

So I get whacked on the head

from behind, fall down, bang my

head, and I wake up dazed a few

seconds, a second late or whatever.

And this fucking local cunt has got his

hand pressed down on my fucking head

and he pulls out this fucking like a

Michael 10 inch fucking bread knife.

And he's just going at my face mate.

Hell forever.

Like he don't give a fuck.

Like my right ear nearly got fucking

severed that was hanging off.

My chest was all slashed

up, my face was slashed.

Now I was covered in blood, like

my foot, my face looked like

a fucking pizza at this point.

Greenie, my friend comes out the bar,

he sees it boots the guy in the head.

We stomp him in, he picks me up.

And obviously we're running out,

we're running down the street.

At this point I'm bleeding you know.

'cause your ear has got

like a vein, doesn't it?

Yeah.

If you cut your ear in the wrong

place, you're fucking pissing it out.

And I'm there like running, ripping

my shirt off, fucking trying to

ate my fucking ear, round my head.

Do you know what I mean?

To stop the bleeding

obviously doesn't work.

We get into a taxi go hospital.

I'm bleeding all over this

fucking poor cos taxi get to the

hospital, they don't give a fuck.

'cause they're like, ah, pissed up

Englishman clearly being fucking gobbing

off, which is obviously what happened.

And I was waiting for like

hours, I mean hours all night.

And eventually I just basically

got my face just got glued

and stapled, no stitches.

They just basically

stapled and glued my face.

Gave me some painkillers and that was it.

And I think I had to pay like a thousand

euros for the fucking privilege.

And then I flew back to England the next

day because I was like, fuck, I'd rather

get this seen to by the NHS good guns.

And I got there and they were like,

nah, they've done a really good job.

Right?

Crack on.

I was like, oh, okay.

Got back to fucking Battalion about

a week later and they're like, what?

Because it was raw mate.

Yeah.

It was like it doesn't look that bad now.

It's, you know, it's healed up.

It healed up actually really quickly, but,

you know, a week in still it was fresh.

I looked like a fucking corpse.

And people were just like, what the fuck?

And I already had you know,

I'd already been to CO at this

point, I was always in trouble.

You know, I was on promotion bands.

I think by this point people were

just like, oh, shark Clark, he's come

back of a fucking a carved up face.

Of course he has.

But yeah, that was a,

that was an experience.

Awesome.

Did that affect you, like

your mental health in any way?

You know, like just get slashed up?

No.

No.

Not at all.

No.

I mean, I was I was angry.

Yeah.

I was so fucking angry at this.

Couldn't have fucking pulled an knife out.

Batter me, you know, punch

me, kick me in, whatever.

But pulling a knife out when

somebody's already on the ground.

Yeah, it's such a dog shit.

Move.

And so I was angry, I was fuming.

So when Greenie came out a few

seconds later and fucking booted

him, we fucking kicked his head

in for a good couple of seconds.

And obviously never saw, you know,

we were actually quite lucky.

That never came back in terms of like

local police they stayed out there.

Oh.

The best thing is we get

back to the fucking ho the

apartment that the next morning.

Yeah.

So we've been in hostel all night,

getting glued and fucking staple gunned.

I mean, like a lot of pain.

And we get back, obviously

like we're still pissed.

Like we, we're in such a bad way and

then we're like, hopefully that couldn't,

has fucking just found his way back.

You know, the guy that we lost in

the first place and can't find him.

Ring the hostels, ring

the police stations.

No, haven't heard from him.

And he just fucking walks

in and nothing had happened.

About four o'clock in the

afternoon he looked at me, my

face like obviously Freddy Kruger.

And he just looked to me and he

was like, the fuck happened to you?

No.

Where you being your

con He fucking fell out.

He passed out on neath for Bush all night.

I was like, I fucking, if there was

any justice in the world, he would've

got fucking bummed under that bush.

But no, it was me that got fucking

done in, but so you should have

listened to your Uck in it.

Knew the area that was, he's not

that classic fucking no known.

The area always fucking works.

But he was, you know what blokes

like when they're like pissed,

they're fucking liabilities.

We all are, you know.

No, you know, it was just I was angry.

I was angry that you know, someone

had pulled a knife out when I

was already like getting shooed

in, just fucking kick me in.

I don't care.

Pulling a knife out, you know, he

could have fucking taken my eye out.

Yeah.

He could have given me like,

thankfully this guy's quite cool.

It goes agonal.

It could have been like across my

forehead or something, really shit.

But yeah.

It's just one of those many sort

of like funny experiences that have

this you know, in your twenties

we've all got them, absolutely.

And you mentioned Coley as well.

Was Coley a worthy story of bringing

up of why you ended up there and those

that Dunno, Coley's the Glasshouse

in Colchester military prison?

Yeah.

How, what had you done

to see yourself there?

Well, I think everyone who knows

me from the military, you know,

the people still joke about it now.

Basically, I filled this I filled

this guy in not long after Iraq.

So I was basically technically not a

crow, but I'd been in battalion like

a year and a half, so still pretty

crow and I didn't know Jack shit.

But we'd had a really, again, this

is the kind of time in the army,

those early naughties where it wasn't

bullying, but it had that bullying

culture or that bullying attitude.

You know, it's still only a

few years after deep cut and

where people in authority or

power could take that to excess.

And that's when people had fucking,

you know, people unfortunately would

kill themselves or leave because

they had such bad experiences.

There was no real check.

And to be perfectly honest in,

in my baton in that time, there

wasn't much of a check either.

Like blokes got away with fucking murder.

And you look back now in

hindsight and you're like.

That a lot of that

wasn't cool, to be fair.

Anyway, so I fell foul of that a lot as a

private, as a new bloke in Iraq as well.

But then not long after we got a load

of new blokes and they got quite a bad

time to the point where a lot of the head

shed were like, right, that fucking ends.

No more fucking crow, bing.

You know, pack it in.

So the new blokes were all of a sudden

untouchable, like you couldn't, you know,

there was no crow boxing, no crow, bing.

Which again sounds harsh now in

this environment, but we had, this

is 20 years ago it was a different

time and people obviously before us

would've had it probably even harder.

And this guy turned up complete gob shy.

He would've got filled,

he'd get filled in today.

Like he, he was that

much of a fucking cunt.

And I was pissed.

We were all pissed.

And I basic I basically ended up

filling him, but it was pretty bad.

Like I broke his jaw, broke his eye

socket, so he had to go to city hospital.

Then the r and p got involved, right?

And because the r and p got involved,

they couldn't just sweep under the carpet.

So I got arrested.

It was funny, one of the funny parts

of that story, when I got arrested,

when the r and p came to arrest me in

the block, the guard, like the guard

two IC came up and just so you know,

mate, R and Ps are coming to arrest you.

I've gotta stay here to make

sure you don't leave your room.

I was like, oh yeah, whatever.

That'd be fine.

I didn't think much, I didn't

think much would happen.

I thought I'd get you know, a bit

of a slap on the wrist or whatever.

And it completely kinda crushed.

The next sort of three or four years of

my career, I was due to be on an NCO card.

I was due to be on like a long

language course for past due, which

was about nine months to a year,

including a couple of months in Asia.

Like it was a really high-end course.

I did quite well in the pre exams.

So that was taken off me promotion ban.

I got kicked out my company and then

I was in college for nearly a year.

So yeah, that was all like, quite

not traumatic, but it was quite

a rough sort of year or two.

And the hardest part was leaving the

company getting kicked outta the company.

And my platoon commander at the time,

who's still a really good friend

of mine, he works in Garza now.

He's quite a fucking operator.

He ended up falling out with

the OC trying to keep me in.

He was like, Clarky was with me in Iraq.

He's proven himself.

He's one of the blokes.

This guy's turned up absolute gob shot.

Yes, he got filled in.

It shouldn't have happened, but if anyone

should move company, it's probably him.

And I heard like they had this

fucking huge argument about

it, like proper shouting.

And I was like, now I feel even worse

'cause like now my mate, the platoon

commander's getting in the neck.

So yeah, that was really shit.

But when the RMPs came to arrest

me in the block they were, they

said like they, they had to find

the clothes that I was wearing.

When I filled this lad in because it was

covered in blood and needed for evidence

or whatever, even though I admitted it.

So they said to me something like,

before we start searching room, is

there anything here that can, you know,

cause harm to ourselves searching?

And I was like no.

And they were going into, you know,

there was like machetes under the

bed, there was fucking pepper spray

everywhere and there was knives,

there was fucking smoke grenades.

And then they found like my, we

don't exercise like the week before.

You know what it's like

fucking Amnesty Bergen.

Yeah.

And I had an LMG at the time and

it was a live exercise and I must

have had about half a link, about

50, 50 miles a link Still live.

Yeah.

And it was just like

you, bottom of a berg.

And again, at this point in the army,

you don't really think anything of it.

Yeah, I probably should

have got rid of it.

I just forgot, you know, you carry so much

link, it's stuffed in all sorts of places.

And he's going from my fucking Bergen

and I, all of a sudden I was like,

fuck, there's fucking 50 rounds of life

ammunition and r and p's being RMPs.

I knew they get a fucking hard on for it.

And he was like, what the fuck?

And he is you know when the magician's

putting like something outta the sleeve?

Yeah.

It's like never ending link.

So link pepper spray, mace, knives,

machetes you know, smoke grenades.

So that was a separate charge for

all that sort of stuff as well.

And when they pulled the

machete out underneath my bed,

I had a machete under my bed.

And that also, this is

Germany, I should say.

Like you could get anything in

Germany, like machetes were legal.

Yeah.

Mace was legal.

And the female r and p was

putting this machete out.

She was like, what the fuck?

She's what the fuck do you need this for?

And I was like.

Just in case just in case you

turn up Well, I'm like, this

is someone who clearly isn't

used to being based in Germany.

Yes.

But yeah, so you know, that,

again, looking back, that was

such a fucking crazy period.

But it was part of that whole, you know,

I had a very violent childhood and then

I was in a very violent part of the

army you know, at that time in the Army,

which was characterized by violence.

And it's something that I've

always struggled with, even to

this day, is not reacting to

everyday situations with violence.

It happens sometimes and you know,

it's hard to, you know, step away

and be the bigger man sometimes.

But yeah, that was one time I

fell and it really fucked me over.

But, you know, I was in the

wrong, at the end of the day,

it put your hands up and did it.

Which, you know, integrity

is one of our core values.

And you, it, and I think for a bit of

context as well, you know, like this

like era like nearly 20 years ago, yeah.

This wasn't, I was 21.

I was 21, and this wasn't

like a time of like hearts and

minds and words can hurt you.

Words can't hurt you.

You know, like just, it's a very,

that's a separate thing that we

can drive look at differently.

You know, at this point in time, you

know, we weren't words hurt safe spaces,

we were extreme violence to want to kill.

And, you know, if you are, you know,

machete is illegal in Germany, all

of this stuff, it's, that's just

a normal day for people, isn't it?

I think that highlights massively like.

The mindset, an infantry soldier during a

war fight in times such as we're training

for war Iraq and Afghan was, yeah.

Iraq was, and Afghan, I think it's a

common conversation I have with people

in my professional life these days, which

is you cannot treat the military, let

alone the army elements of the T farms.

You cannot treat them like

civilian environments because

they're not civilian environments.

You are doing very extraordinary

things, or you are training for

extraordinary things outside of the

realms of a civilian environment.

And the way people think that the military

should be, should handle themselves.

Yes, there's limits.

Yes, there's lines and that's

where the leadership has to step

in and, you know, set examples.

But there will always be people who fall

foul of them for the right intentions,

sometimes for the wrong intentions.

But fundamentally you cannot treat the

military like a civilian environment.

'cause it's not Yeah, absolutely.

Doesn't mean you can go

around beating up new blokes.

Yeah.

But there is a behavioral difference.

Yeah.

But yeah.

And is, you know, let's

talk about it quickly.

What is the difference, like

nowadays would you say, between

the military and back then?

Obviously there's an element of bullying

that we would call character building

and there being a aligned, like how

would you differentiate between those

two things now and how the military is

today compared to when you joined up?

Yeah, I think back then it was seen

almost as like a, an excuse, where the

people who could get away with acting

like that could use the character

building narrative as an excuse.

Elements of it definitely

were character building.

What I did wasn't character building,

it wasn't bullying, but I went too far.

And obviously paid, you

know, paid the price.

I think back then there was an element

of, because we were training for Iraq

in Afghanistan and because like I said,

when I got to battalion, I could see

the mental scars on the people who were

older than me who had lost friends,

who had been injured themselves.

You know, it's a very unique environment.

And now as the ranks have thin so

dramatically since, you know, I hate

to say it, our day since dominated

by Iraq and Afghanistan especially.

There's not that many people

left who are used to that sort

of high tempo environment.

So I think now when there are elements of

those characters who, you know, you need

that character building and you need that

resilience and that mental toughness.

You know, and one of the things that's

carried me through my life as an adult

since is no matter what I do, no matter

what I do as a civilian, nothing will

be as hard as what I did in the Army.

Whether that is dealing with assholes

dealing with very high stress

situations in high risk environments.

You can still have high risk

environments now, and you deal

with assholes now, but the level,

the, there's degrees to everything.

The degrees to that when you

were in the army 20 years ago,

I think is very different to how

the ministry environment is now.

That's not to say, you know, people

aren't doing fantastic stuff.

They are, I'm one of the army's

biggest fucking you know, supporters.

I always will be.

You know, I, as part of my work now

being on like media and news, I'm always

giving commentary about the military

and the role of the armed forces.

And I'm always quick to say, you know,

the men and the women of the armed forces

will always step up to the challenge.

I don't think there's a massive

generational difference between

how people today think and act

and how they did 20 years ago.

Yes, we have social media.

Yes, we have instant gratification.

We have you know, a very short attention

span in general compared to 20 years ago.

And there's negative connotations to that.

But I think, you know, when the

medal meets the meet, no matter

who's wearing the uniform, people

will step up to the challenge.

And I have every confidence in that.

So there are differences.

I think it was harder 20 years ago.

I think it was a lot

fucking harder 20 years ago.

It would've been a lot

harder 40 years ago.

And it'll be easier in 10 years

and another 10 years and another

10 years as society progresses

or in my view regresses.

But I still fundamentally believe in

the good and the you know, the good

nature of people who join the military.

Brilliant stuff.

Thank you, Rob.

You obviously at some point you got outta

the eye by this point you were a corporal.

No.

I got out as a lunch truck.

You got out as a lunch track.

Got, I was a lunch truck.

I was due when I got out.

They ba you know, they

do this to everyone.

They throw everything at you.

Oh dude, juniors, well go on

this posting, blah, blah, blah.

And they offered me they dangle juniors.

And I love my o card.

My card was one of the best

things I did in the army.

Really enjoyed it.

It gave me a taste for that kind

of the leadership, the progression.

'cause again, with Colchester, I was on

like the promotional ban because it took

a year from incidents court martial.

So that took a year.

Then I'd already been in two years

at this point, so that's three years.

Then I was in college for nearly a year.

That's four years.

And then when I got back to battalion,

it was almost like starting from scratch.

I had to reprove myself.

So that was another couple of years.

So I was really keen to do juniors.

We've been going back to Cyprus,

which had been really fucking cool.

You know, triple LSA or

double LSA as a full screw.

I liked that.

That's really appealing.

But no, I got out and I left as

a lance Jack and I did juniors

almost as soon as I got to four me.

Yeah.

Why did you get out of the army?

You know, it sounds like you

absolutely loved the army.

This was like your life committing

extreme violence in war situations.

Yeah.

For at the time, queen country.

Well, it is what I wanted to

do as well since being, you

know, being about 13 years old.

No.

So throughout the, throughout my

twenties when I was in battalion my,

my father became very seriously ill.

He was eventually diagnosed with

both Alzheimer's and dementia.

At only 58.

So what a lot of people don't understand,

my, myself included at the time,

is with Alzheimer's and dementia.

It's the younger you are when you

get it, it's super aggressive.

Normally when people get it in their

sort of like seventies or eighties the

later on in life, you know, that classics

of granddad's losing his marbles sort

of mindset it's a lot harder to spot

because your cognitive ability is going

downhill anyway at that age, at 58

you are still firing on all cylinders.

You're still gonna over 10 years

of work for a lot of people losers.

But yeah, no.

That was like a real sort of

you know, shock to the system.

Yeah.

That was like a real what

are we gonna fucking do?

Me and my sister basically yeah, came to

his defense and like he was in a bad way.

I mean, I saw him a lot

when I was back on leave.

This is obviously when

I'm in Germany at Cyprus.

So I'd come back for like summer, come

back for Christmas leave and summer

leave, and I'd always see my dad.

We'd always still go and do stuff.

We'd go drinking, you know, go to pubs.

We went to Poland together.

He, when I was based in Germany, he had a

job in Poland, so I went to see him there.

So we were perfectly close and

we had a great relationship.

You know, I saw him a good couple of

times a year, which anyone who's in

the army is probably quite standard.

So I wanted to try and get more

time with him and put systems in

place to make sure that he was well

looked after when I'm not around.

So we, and to be, to, to their credit,

and I have to say, this battalion

really fucking squared me away.

I was very good friends with my two

sergeant at the time shout out Spooks,

and he ended up going to the Vikings after

and did some really cool shit, to be fair.

I think he's now, he was for Peterborough,

RRSM, and now he's commissioned.

But he's a great guy and I told

him about it and he was like,

right, let's see what we can do.

But because there wasn't like a death, it

was hard to get any sort of compassionate,

or obviously it wasn't bereavement, but I

needed some kind of, I needed some time.

So he went to tell my sergeant Major,

I'm in Cyprus at design, went to

tell my sergeant major I had to then

explain to him what had happened.

You know, he'd been my

medically diagnosed.

We were trying to find some form of like

care environment, which is so difficult

with people who are at that age because

they're still fucking running around.

You can't put somebody

like that in a care home.

And they basically he turned around

to me and my sergeant Major at the

time, he was like, right, go home.

Take as long as you need.

Give me a call every week.

Lemme know how you are,

what you're getting up to.

Bear mind, this is from fucking Cyprus.

It would've been good enough if I

was like, Hounslow or Order shop.

The trust that they put in me.

And this is only about a year, maybe

two years after I got back from Colley.

So they really squared me away.

So I was home for about, I'd

say six, maybe not six months,

maybe four or five months.

And with my sister, we managed

to move my father from Hull.

He had a big four bed, Victorian house in

Hull, and it was just like falling apart.

Like he, he wasn't able to look after it.

There was shit everywhere.

So we moved him into Nottingham

where I was spending a lot of time

with my ex-partner at that point.

And my sister had a flat there.

So we moved into Nottingham.

We got him sort of integrated

with the care community, the

Alzheimer's kind of care community

in Nottingham, which was really good.

And we tried to keep that going for

as long as we could, knowing that he

would have to go into care eventually.

And then it came to a head.

I went back to battalion, did NCO,

Carter, went to Recchi, and I was

able to still do my career around it.

Very gratefully.

And then the final time I went

to Afghanistan we went, it was a

bit of a split tour, Herrick 19.

So we went for a couple of weeks.

The back end of 2013, the day I

got back, knowing we were about

to go back again after Christmas.

When we got the day I got back, my

sister rang me in floods of tears.

It was about midnight.

Literally got back straight to

Bri, straight home to Nottingham.

And my sister was in floods of tears.

My father had been committed, he'd been

sectioned for his own sort of safety.

So there was an altercation in Nottingham.

Between him, o other people,

the police had been involved

and they took him to hospital.

And he never went back home,

which was, you know, very sad.

And I knew that would happen.

I knew that was now that we'd

hit that threshold, like he could

no longer live independently.

And I'm obviously like, fuck,

I've just got back from Afghan.

My dad's not.

So I went to hospital there and then

saw him and it was probably the saddest

moment of my life seeing him in a hostel

gown in not quite a padded room, but

a fucking very secure kind of unit

on his own looking very confused.

And yeah, it really hit me.

And I brought him a gift.

I managed to when we flew out of

Afghan you know, two nights ago or the

night ago you know, like in, in Afghan

you got like little chalky shops.

Yeah.

You get 'em all over like little trinkets.

And I got in this really cool compass

because he loved just like me.

He loves geography, he loves, he

loved traveling, loves geography.

So I've got in this really cool compass,

like a pocket compass that opened up,

not like your fucking silver compass.

And and I gave him that and he loved

it, but just like a fucking animal.

He looked like you carried your dog.

He actually loved the

box that it came in more.

He had this real.

Like genuinely innocent childlike

mentality by this point.

So he liked the shiny sparkly

box more than the compass.

And that was cute.

And you know, that part of, you

know how old he would've been then?

He would've been sort of about 61.

And to see him you know, deteriorate

to the point where he was like a child.

And that relationship

completely role reversed.

So I was like the father

looking after him.

And that's when I realized I have

to look after him a lot more.

So we went back to Afghan

about a month later.

In that time we lost my grandmother, so

his mother, who we was very close to.

And at this point, when he was in

the hospital, it was about six weeks,

sorry, about six or seven weeks.

So January, February, 2014.

And my he was in hospital for that whole

time, for about six or seven weeks.

He was in hospital.

And I used to take him from hospital.

I didn't even drive at this point.

I had not, I've not learned

how to drive crow bag.

And I used to take him out

of hospital every week.

It was actually sports

afternoon Wednesdays.

Yeah.

So I used to ditch battalion.

I used to get a lift into oum, to

a basic at rf Comore at the time.

I used to get a lift into oum, then

get the bus back to Nottingham.

Yeah.

I'm playing football.

Get back to Nottingham, get straight

to the hospital, take him out.

Get the train to Newark.

Then we used to get the bus from

Newark to a tiny little village called

Wisley, which is where I've just moved

from nearby to see my grandmother.

And then we'd do that trip

all the way back in reverse.

And my grandmother at

time was, you know, 96.

And she was really good.

She was really, you know, sharp.

She was still fully mobile, fully

independent, lived in a beautiful

old cottage and it was a house

that my dad was born and raised in.

So it brought all the childhood

memories of for him back.

So that sort of six, seven weeks

going back there every week was one

of the best experiences of my life.

So I got to see my father, you

know, he was a lot more himself.

And I never thought my grandmother

had clocked on my dad's deterioration.

So me and my sister made the conscious

choice not to tell my grandma.

'cause we didn't want to upset her.

We could tell she was on the way out.

Yeah.

But she was fine in, in herself.

And then the final time the final

visit, me and my father made to

hers we're like leaving the house.

We're going through the kitchen you know,

the beams underneath the kitchen, and

he's out the door and he's bye my mom.

And he's bounding down the garden

and she pulls me back and she says

do me a favor, look after him.

And I was like, oh man.

I was like, I knew she could tell.

Yeah.

And I tried to play off.

I was like, well, what'd you mean?

And she just, she was

just like, look after him.

And I was like, yeah, of course.

Absolutely.

And then she passed away four days later.

And I thought I had to go back to SEL to

tell him obviously that she'd passed away.

And I was so worried what

that would do to him mentally

'cause of the state he was in.

And to be fair, he took it really well.

Like he understood, he

knew what that meant.

And he was really good.

And we had the funeral just before

I went back to Afghan, thank God.

And then when I got back to a, when I

got back from Afghan sort of summer,

late summer 2014, my sister had managed

to get him into a care home for like

younger people in their fifties, sixties.

And it was a lot more almost

like semi-independent living.

But then because of how quickly he

deteriorated, we had to get him into two

or three more care homes quite quickly.

And at that point, that's when I I got

back from Afghan that time and I put my

termination in about four months later.

And yeah the whole point was to

make sure he was in the right

place, look after him, and basically

give him that quality of life.

And, you know, I, when I was out I

went straight to university, but I

was seeing my dad like four or five,

minimum four or five days a week.

Getting him out, getting him into

like woods and going for walks getting

him that quality of life still.

And we had that for about

a good four or five years.

And then COVID hit and then he

passed away during COVID unrelated,

he, he ended up getting cancer.

He was in hospital.

We fought just like kidney

stones or some kind of infection.

Again, this is during COVID.

This is like August into September, 2020.

And eventually after about two

weeks, and he lost a lot of weight.

He looked really frail.

After about two weeks.

I got home one night from seeing him.

I went every day and the consultant

rang and he said, I'm sorry to tell

you, like your father's got cancer.

And I was like, oh man.

And even I knew there was no way he

was gonna survive it the way the state

by that point he was in physically.

And he said, he's literally got,

we are looking like days or weeks.

And I was like, fuck.

And this is like September, so I knew,

I was like, will we get Christmas?

And he was like, no.

And I was like, okay.

And he passed away two weeks later.

So the benefit of all of that

was I knew it was always coming.

And when I was leaving, when I was

getting outta battalion, when I used

to get there, there was a guy, a

friend of mine in Rec used to drop me

off in Oakham so I could go back and

see my dad on Wednesdays when he was

still in the hospital in Nottingham.

And he had just lost his father

from cancer, chew him to the bone.

And he was saying to me like

one thing that I wasn't prepared

for losing my father because he

was like a long-term illness.

And by this point,

everyone knew my situation.

And he said I wasn't prepared.

My friend said he wasn't prepared for

the sense of relief, like the guilty

sense of relief about losing somebody,

not because they're a burden, but because

you don't wanna see 'em suffer anymore.

And I was like, man,

yeah, no that's powerful.

I, you know, thank you.

I kind of get what you're saying.

And then when it did happen to me

about five years, five years, six

years later when I lost my five

or five, six years later, I didn't

get that sense of relief at all.

It was the complete opposite.

You know, I felt robbed.

You know, he was 66 when he passed.

He was robbed of, you know,

the, some people say the best

years of your life, don't you?

That's sort of like when you

hit early retirement, 60, 65.

You know, he will I get married this

year, you know, he is never gonna

get to see me married more, more

importantly for me or for my father.

He won't get to see my

sister get married either.

My sister marries about

three months before I do.

You know, and that's, for

me, that's deeply sad.

You know, not getting to see your children

grow up and you know, have children

themselves and meet their life partners.

And me, myself, I was robbed of a father

from, you know, really 28 onwards.

People have it a lot worse.

Some people don't even know their parents.

But, you know, that was a, because

it was such a long time, it was about

six or seven years you know, it was

good because I could like, you know,

mentally adjust to that situation.

And I often think, thank God I had all

those extra years with him, as opposed to

say he got hit by a fucking car at 58, or

say he got cancer at 58 and it killed him.

Then at 58, we all hear awful experiences

of people who die, you know, really

prematurely, and it's fucking sudden.

It is that day.

Like you go out to work and Oh, your

partner's being killed, or your family

member or loved one has been killed that

day and you never get a chance to make

peace, say goodbye, anything like that.

You know, I had six or seven years most

days, five or six days a week with him.

And more than anything, you

know, I'm very grateful for that.

Brilliant.

And what did that do to you as a person?

You're saying that there wasn't a

relief, it was just you were robbed?

Yeah.

How badly did it affect you

when your father passed?

I don't really, this

sounds really strange.

I don't think it badly affected me at all.

I made my peace with it.

I was, you know, when we got

told he had cancer and it was

two weeks we had two weeks.

I was with him the night he passed,

you know, he was very bad, very poorly.

Because this is still COVID, this

is still 2020 care homes were on

you know, Uber lockdown, like you

couldn't do shit in a care home because

of how quickly COVID could spread.

And we all had, you know, during COVID,

these horror stories where care homes

were just getting absolutely gutted.

It was like wildfire.

One person would get COVID in Care

Home, the whole Care Home's dead.

So they had to be super careful and

thank God nobody, I think one person at

my Father's Care home died from COVID.

But I got to know the care home

really fucking well at this point, you

know, the other residents, the staff.

So that, that whole change of

life, you know, that'd be my

life for about five or six years.

So the, that change in daily routine

almost, that was a huge shock.

But yeah, it was, it the

lasting impact was just this.

A sense of loneliness.

Nothing prepares a man

for losing their father.

I have a great relationship with my mom.

You know, I'm very lucky.

I've, I have a fantastic relationship,

the best relationship with my mother.

She's been my rock for

virtually all of my life.

She kept me in school my biggest supporter

in the army, and she's always helped me.

You know, I'll never be able to repay

her or thank her enough, and she knows

how loved she is, but there's still this

element of losing your father is a very

fucking lonely place for a man to be.

And, you know, I still feel that today.

It's like a hole that

just doesn't get filled.

Yeah.

It's flipping this back like something,

yes, please, happy different and

happy and maybe happy or not but it

wa it was a huge part of my life.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You we're right to talk about it in

that sense, because it, you know, it

dominated nearly a decade of my life.

It defined what you did isn't

obviously leaving the military.

Yeah's, I left the military,

you know, which I often think,

as I'm sure you do, anyone who

leaves the military not premature.

I think prematurely is the wrong term

unless you leave, I suppose you were

premature in terms of a medical discharge.

Yeah, I think, you know, I'm

thinking about trying to choose

my words, you know, carefully.

That could be considered

definitely premature.

I left on my own terms and for the

right reasons, but I often think.

As I was about to say, I'm sure you and

other people do who leave the militaries.

What if I stayed in like

Tony did this whole career?

Yeah.

Like unbelievable respect.

I often think, what if I stayed

in, where would I be now?

What would I have done?

You know, who would I be with?

Where would I be?

It's also commendable that you know,

you turned around and you know, you

gave up something you loved to look

and not, it's not a job, it is a

career, you know, it's a way of life.

It was a way of life, everything.

It was such an easy decision.

But I'm lucky because I did everything

I wanted to do when I joined the Army.

Yeah.

I joined the Army to go to Iraq.

I stayed in for Afghanistan.

I had great experiences like my

military career, if you can call

it a career, that sort of 10 year

period was absolutely fantastic.

There were two lows.

And apart from that, it was brilliant.

But yeah but leaving on your terms

and leaving for the right reasons, I

think help you with that adjustment.

I left for me, so I can't turn

around and be bitter or I'm not

in any anymore and all that stuff.

People who leave for reasons that

are outside of their control, I

can totally understand how that is.

You know, it's more difficult.

Absolutely.

And but before you left, you did something

pretty cool and we touched on it earlier.

You learned to speak Pasti?

Oh yeah, I did.

Which is and you know, like when we

go through, like we're taught some

basic words and how to say hello?

Yeah.

Goodbye.

Thank you.

Aren't we?

Yeah.

On our p dt the patrol pass due.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's but I mean, you can't just speak,

you're completely fluent in Pash two.

I certainly was.

I've not used it.

I've not used it for years now.

But I, languages is a funny one for me.

'cause when I was at school, I

think everyone does like French or

German or, but now people can do

Spanish and all sorts of weird shit.

But we did French and

German hated them both.

I could never understand French.

Yeah, I could never understand French.

And the irony is about 60% of English

is French or it comes from French.

The other sort of like 40%, there's

a lot of Latin but they're the sort

of like Latin languages, right?

So it's a common theme with

French should be easy to learn.

I never could.

German is very different.

But I love German.

I love Germany, I love

the German language.

I could move to German in a heartbeat.

If I got offered like a good job

role in Germany, I'd be gone.

And I remember the German teacher

pulling me aside once, this is, you

know, I'm fighting, I'm in trouble.

I'm getting thrown outta class, whatever.

And she's look, if you actually applied

yourself, you would do quite well.

And I said to her with the greatest

respect, why the fuck am I doing?

I'm like 15.

I'm like, why the fuck am I doing German?

I'm never gonna speak German.

I'm never gonna use this in my life.

Fast forward five years later, I'm

fucking based there for three years.

So that was an early lesson,

like a life lesson, right?

Is you never know what's

around the corner.

So I've had this like

mixed history of language.

Where I struggle with really

easy languages like French.

Enjoy some languages like German

and then with Pashtu do you remember

everyone had to do the MLA test?

Yeah.

Modern language tude test.

And it was based on Kurdish,

it was a made up language.

It was based on Kurdish, which is an

Arabic sort of like family derivative.

And for some reason I got, I scored very

highly on this, so they said, oh look,

you know, would, I think they put me

on like a really basic two week course.

And then again, I did very well and they

put me on a longer two month course, like

an external course in Windsor with the I

think it was the Scotts guards were based

out at the time, no, sorry, stream guards

before before Gibo kicks my head in.

And yeah I really enjoyed it.

And I was on with a good friend

from Battalion Jake who was actually

killed in Ukraine this time last year.

He's from Cambridge.

And he and I did this course together.

We really enjoyed it.

And a bit of a segue,

but Jake was a great guy.

Really great guy.

And when we came back to battalion,

we both got put in the training

wing 'cause we were monks.

No, we both got put in the training

wing to basically then we are

both privates at this point.

Jake had only been in about a

year or two and we were asked to

devise like a language training

program for about two weeks.

And yeah, it was great.

It was one of the best, it was one

of the best things I did in the Army.

I really enjoyed it.

And at that point I was

learning the script.

I'd already been to Colchester at

this point, and that's where, because

I was there for so long, relatively

speaking, most people who go to Colley

are there for four weeks for being awol.

Co sends 'em for four weeks.

I was like 12 month

custodial did 10 months.

So after two months, and in order

to fucking do with me, they're

like what do you wanna do?

You're here if I can.

Another six or seven months.

And I was like, can I have some passion

language books that I can carry on?

Learning passion.

So I ended up learning the script,

basically self-taught the script

so I can read and write it as well,

which you don't get taught in the

army, or you certainly didn't learn.

And yeah, it was fantastic.

And then so the first time I went

to Africa and I was like, oh, I'm

gonna use this fucking language.

I'm so excited.

And I speak to this fucking

local who obviously hasn't got

a fucking clue what I'm saying.

He's it's 80-year-old hel Mandy, right?

Who's been fucking smoking

opium since he was like 16.

You know, completely different.

And he's got no idea what I'm saying.

So he answers back to me and I've

got no understanding what I've

got no idea what he's saying.

And we're like, oh, fuck me.

This is gonna be so much

harder than in a classroom.

Yeah.

It was such a shock.

And you've gotta think, you know, people

who learn English in say, China Yeah.

Or you know, fucking Japan or whatever,

you know, they have to come here and

they hear, does Ian accents fucking

you know, SCS accents, dy accents

that must fucking knock them for six.

So learning the language, and

you know, like French and German,

you can learn French and German,

Spanish or Italian, whatever.

Go to Spain and go to France.

And most people understand.

They'll be able to tell the dialect or

tell through, like the way you speak,

but a culture and a language pattern

that's so fucking different, like Arabic,

like pash do, like Dari, whatever,

like Chinese, you know, it, fuck me.

There was a world apart between learning

in the classroom and speaking it and

crucially trying to understand it.

I could say particularly the second time

I went back to Afghan, I could say pretty

much anything I wanted to say, but I could

probably understand maybe at best 10 or

15% of what people were saying back to me.

And it was a real struggle,

like a real struggle.

You know, thankfully no mission critical

details were like, yeah go left and

avoid the IED and I was like, okay,

yeah, go right and avoid the IED boom.

But it was all, a lot of it

was getting you know, the the

biometric information off people.

Remember the scanners?

Yeah, like retinal scans.

Fingerprint scans.

Basically collecting a lot of like

human intelligence just on patrols.

So that was actually quite basic stuff.

But one, one of the real pleasures

I had with Pashtu on Herrick 19,

we were the brigade ops group.

Basically BRF had being basically

disbanded by this point because by

Herrick 19, for those that aren't aware,

that was again, the penultimate tour for

Afghanistan or the Punta Herrick, sorry

for, went to Toll and bastion, everything

was being pulled back to Bastion.

So they still had Sterger, which

was like a, an eye star camp

about maybe five or six miles away

from Bastian, all the balloons.

And all the fucking iStar

equipment was from there.

Everything else had been pulled back.

Fab Price, fob, Rob you know,

nothing was out there anymore.

So BRF had been collapsed, excuse me.

They still had SF and

Tiger teams on the ground.

And then we fucking two angle

and shit guns a company of us.

We formed the brigade operations

group with the knife for 12

lancers, who unfortunately got

disbanded when they got back.

And we used to half in on

Chinook, we used to half in.

And then we'd be out on the ground

for about four or five, six days.

And then we'd get the knife for

12 lancers to bring us back.

And I remember we're in this fucking

ops room, we're in like a, like an

O group with like platoon commander.

And it dawned on me.

'cause by this point I was really

interested in like foreign affairs,

current affairs, international politics

kind of stuff I'm involved in now.

So I was taking like a really keen

interest in like the strategic picture,

like what we're actually fucking doing,

not just we're going to this village.

You know, I was, I loved the

maps, I loved intelligence.

I'd done like an ink or in incel course.

You know, I was really getting

interested in that kind of work of life.

And I remember this fucking o

group and I'm like, holy fuck.

We are literally like the chum, right?

We are the bait.

So the idea was to have the

fucking tour Ian Mons in.

Get them to stir up shit with the Taliban.

Yeah.

And that would lead the Taliban from

basically harassing bastion as everyone

was trying to pull back to Bastion.

And you imagine like what collapsing,

camp Bastion must've been like from a

logistical perspective, fucking nightmare.

So the last thing they wanted was

these fucking assholes causing

trouble attacking Bastion.

Obviously by that point we already

had the Battle of Bastion, you

know, they breached the wire.

It could be done.

So they used to send us out, literally

just basically keep the Taliban occupied,

which was a fucking great job for us.

But when we were there, we were

based in bastion three, which

was like the old BRF compound.

And it was next to all the interpreters.

So I used to get, when we had a

day or two off, I used to go to the

interpreters tent, like the Joggy.

Look, they vetted, they weren't, it

wasn't like, you know Yeah man of

Wednesdays or anything like, these

were like pka, kind of fucking Afghans.

These were like westernized Afghans.

And yeah, I used to do fucking more

past through them and it was great.

And I met a US Marine bloke,

I think it was a corporal.

And we became really good friends.

His past was so much better than mine.

I remember thinking, fuck

me, I thought I was good.

This guy was like levels above me.

Like degree level.

And we used to train together

with Pew, with interpreters,

and then we stayed in touch.

And I've seen him in

America a few times since.

And he is like one of my closest friends.

He's a really good guy.

So the whole pew element of that

later part of my career it went

on to influence, you know, I ended

up doing Arabic at university.

I've done interviews in Arabic.

You know, it's really kind of,

it helps shape, you know, what

I was gonna do after the Army.

And as you were leaving,

that's what you did, wasn't it?

You went to uni to learn Arabic.

Yeah.

Which was, I mean, it's

pretty phenomenal, isn't it?

You know, you've gone from scrapping Yeah.

Still scrap going to col. Yeah.

And you know, you've learned you're

self taught past and now you are

going to uni to learn Arabic.

Yeah.

How did that even come about?

What point was where That's

what I wanna do, you know, I'm

leaving the army 'cause of my dad.

I'm, what am I gonna do?

Yeah.

The, I mean, I always knew when I

was at university, the time when

I quit to join Iraq, I always knew

that I wanted to do what I do now.

I always knew I wanted to do, after

the Army, even before the Army, first

of all, I was join the Army, then I

was like, okay, I wanna do research,

public affairs, consultancy, defense

advisory stuff after the Army.

And to be fair, the Army was a really good

segue to getting into that kind of life.

People always say to me, and it

sounds really arrogant, but I'm

gonna caveat it in a second.

People always say to me, now, you know

what I do now, the work I do now being

in the military is like a huge advantage.

It's like a, it is like a badge

of credibility and like the the

caveat that is, I don't think it

is, I really don't think it is.

I you know, it, it's seen as an advantage,

but I personally, I don't think it is.

You know, the Army gave me, those are

great tools and skills, but it doesn't

gimme more credibility to talk about

Russia or China or advise mps. You know,

I was literally filling in new blokes and

drinking like my platoon sergeant's piss.

I dunno how that's credible to

advise mps. But you know, if

only they knew mis minister.

But but yeah I knew I wanted

to go back to university.

I was like when I quit university the

first time in Hull in 2006 or 2005, sorry.

I knew uni would always be there for me.

And to go back to something that you

asked earlier about why the infantry I

was always pushed to go either commission.

Or something like intelligence

or something like that.

Because I had A levels and as a

university I was like, absolutely.

Fucking not like for all the use

and utility that the other arms

have in the army, whether it's,

you know, engineers, artillery you

know, chefs, cooks, medics, web.

They're all useful, but all I wanted

to do was fucking run around and

fucking fire machine guns, you

know, as a kid, as like a child.

Yeah.

You know, I'm very lucky I got to do that.

But I knew I'd go back to university.

So when I knew, when I came back from

Afghan and I wanted to spend time

with my dad, get him settled and spend

that time with him and give him that

quality of life, you know, in its last

few years, I was like, right now I

can go back to unit at the same time.

So again, a really good shout out to

the military was, I got super, super

squared away of my resettlement.

We know loads of people when they get

out, they completely cuff it, they

fudge it, they don't really look into

the resettlement and that's often

because it's not communicated to them.

Right.

The army traditionally, I can't

speak for the Air Force or the Navy,

but I imagine it's quite similar.

They do a really poor job

communicating what's available to

blokes and girls when they get out.

I was quite lucky because

I knew what I wanted.

I knew I wanted to go back to

university and get a degree.

I basically angled it.

And yeah, I got super squared away.

So they paid for the fees for the

whole course applied to Nottingham

got in and they said, oh, you can do

a language with your course because

I did international relations, which

is like international politics.

Excuse me.

And I said, oh, great.

And I said, do you do pdu?

I said I know it's a bit niche,

but you know, I already speak it.

It'd be great to do it like formally and

get like an actual qualification in it.

He said, no, but we do Arabic.

I was like, nah, I can bug that off.

That sounds pretty easy.

Yeah.

Yeah, I already knew the alphabet.

I already knew the script.

I could read and write it.

So they gave me a test and they

basically put me in a, like a middle

group, like an intermediate group.

And that actually fucked me over because

the group that I was in with, the majority

of people were Muslim ladies who, like

Muslim housewives who could read and

write the Koran or read the Koran.

They knew they could read it because

they were reading the Koran, but they

didn't know what they were saying.

So I was in like a group with them.

But I quickly overtook those peers.

So my next year I did it for

three years with my degree.

It was like a joint honors.

And then I got bumped up

basically two years further.

So my second year was like one further

advanced than like a final year.

So it was super, it got super intense.

And I remember my flat in Nottingham, I

had a really nice flat in Nottingham when

I was at university, and the entire walls

were just covered in Arabic script, you

know, like posters whiteboard posters.

Yeah, just covered in

Arabic script, like vocab.

So every day I'd be writing like

new vocab new sentences new grammar.

So yeah, it was like a fucking

my, my flight even back then was

like a study or like an office.

And you know, I love learning.

I love education.

I really love geography and maps.

You know, you can learn so much

from geography and, you know,

with history and languages.

So yeah, that all set me

up really good for that.

That's more credible.

Learning languages and history

and geographies is quite

credible for what I do now.

You know, I have to know, you know, if you

want to, if you wanna advise, if you wanna

advise members of parliament or ministers

or the media or NGOs or charities, if

you wanna advise them on what's going

on in Syria right now, you need to know

about the history between, you know, the

kurs, the Iraq the Iraqis, the Iranians,

the Iranian involvement in Syria.

Where's that come from?

Helps if you speak the language.

That's all more credible than just.

Drinking piss for five years at the army.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely.

A misconception, isn't it?

From, yeah, from the outside looking

in, it's, oh, you're in the military,

then you must know everything

because you've been and done it.

Yeah, exactly.

It's it's huge misconception.

You know?

We were both, I can tell you, I

can tell you what a 40-year-old

man's piss taste like.

Yeah.

But not much else.

Not much else.

And how to bug off on a Wednesday

afternoon for Sports Afternoon Pub.

Yeah.

So we've gone away.

So we're going for uni.

You were then commuting a lot to London

as well, weren't you at this time?

Yeah.

So my uni was three years.

It was like a standard degree.

And it was my second year.

I I already knew the organization

I wanted to work for after my

degree, which was, it's a think tank

called the Henry Jackson Society.

And they're basically a foreign affairs,

foreign policy think tank in Westminster.

And they had like intern

programs, so like for students.

So I applied to intern.

In fact, what I did, I by this point

LinkedIn was getting pretty big

now LinkedIn's a bit over egged.

It's overused.

People like to, you know, use LinkedIn.

Yeah.

My 10 leadership lessons from, yeah,

my one day at Starbucks on LinkedIn.

But back then it was actually

really useful to connect

you with future employers.

It still is.

But this is like the height of

LinkedIn's, kind of like this is

when it was getting really big.

So I messaged the guy the director Alan,

who runs the Henry Jackson Society.

And I was like, oh, hey, you

know, I've always been a supporter

of the Henry Jackson Society.

I think it's, you know,

blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I said I've done this research

on the Iraq War, basically in

my first year at university.

I became, we became really good

friends and we've written peer

reviewed articles together.

His name's Chris and he was one of my

lecturers all the way through my degree,

including my dissertation supervisor.

But he's very critical on the

security, like critical security.

IE Iraq was wrong.

We shouldn't evolve in other countries,

you know, that kind of on that spectrum.

And so we're ideologically the complete

opposite, but we get on really well.

He's a huge cokehead and and I've not

mentioned his second name, but he's no

longer at Nottingham, so that's fine.

But and he's a very good friend.

He gave a lecture, this is our

first year, so I'm like 28, 29, 29.

Everyone else says 18.

And they know fucking better.

They dunno any better.

So they listen to lectures

like that and they're like, oh

yeah, that's how the world is.

Yeah, you are right.

Fucking Iraq is bullshit.

The Army's bullshit, you know, whatever.

And he was giving this lecture on

the Iraq War, and it had he had a

chart of the civilian casualties,

which was still obviously quite high.

It was like a hundred thousand,

150,000 Iraqi casualties.

Now, what he was saying was the amount of

casualties in Iraq was one a lot higher.

And he was using graphs from really

notable institutions like Brookings

Institution of Washington and

the Iraq Body Count Index, which

is a, an organization, a charity

based on collecting information on

Iraqi casualties during the war.

But they're both known to be really super

high, sort of, estimates of casualties.

But what they don't do, what they

don't do is take into consideration

those casualties, those civilian

casualties who were armed combatants.

So the Soni militia, the Shia

militias you know, they would

categorize 'em all as civilians.

And we can see that now in Gaza.

Just to segue to why this is like relevant

now in 20 26, 1 of the reasons why the

war in Gaza is so unpopular is 'cause

people see these casualties in Gaza as

tragic as casualties are to some extent.

But they don't, they're not

appropriated as like either, you

know, Haas combatants or militia.

So we see all these numbers and

people think, oh yeah, that's

all like innocent people.

A fucking lot of them

aren't fucking innocent.

A lot of 'em are fucking enemy fighters.

Anyway, so he did this about Iraq

and I was like, I know that's

bullshit and I'm gonna fucking find

out like a more accurate number.

So I spent about two weeks.

And I came up with this research

off my own back that actually

had a more accurate number.

I reduced by a third the number of

Iraqi casualties in the Iraq war by both

British and American coalition troops.

So it is around 98,000 by my research

the next lowest count is about 150,000.

It's still 98,000 dead civilians.

Right.

But it's so important because it

shapes the narrative of all these dead

civilians, they're not dead civilians.

A lot of 'em are dead fucking

combatants who are fighting against us.

So it's actually really

important work, or I think so.

So I sent that to the director of this

Henry Jackson Society, and I was like, you

know, I'd be really interested if we could

turn this maybe into a policy paper or

some kind if I could publish it with you.

And he was like, this is

really interesting, Rob.

Thanks a lot.

Have you thought about interning with

us and helping like the researchers

and basically being with us.

And I was like, fuck, that was easy.

And I was like, yeah, that's sick.

It's obviously what I was angling for.

Didn't have to interview.

They took me on and at this point, this

is my second year of university and

I was getting the train down two or

three days a week for about six months.

And then the other four or five days a

week, I was seeing my dad while still

doing my degree and my Arabic, so Oh.

And active in the reserves.

I was doing quite a lot of

the reserves at this point.

I went to a man went to fucking Kenya,

went to Morocco, went to America.

You know, I was pretty fucking

busy at this point and I just

started to learn learning about the

power lifting and like the gym as

more than just going to work out.

That was a really busy period,

and it was really exciting.

And then my third year, I think I

stayed in London for about three months.

Again, no students can get three

months off for basically working.

It was unpaid, it was voluntary.

You know, I was spending a lot of

my own money doing that, but that

set me up for, then I went to do

my masters after my father died.

I was well joined when my

father was seriously ill.

That's when I was finishing

my masters' in London.

And then the Henry Jackson Society took

me on straight after my masters', and I

was there for about a year and a half.

And that was my first sort of like

civilian, adult, civilian job.

But yeah pretty cool.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

And very different to a typical guy that

had joined the infantry to what they've

gone and done afterwards, you know?

Yes and no.

I think a lot of guys

I know what you mean.

Yeah.

And you know, I appreciate the sentiment.

I think a lot of guys though, and girls,

you know, they have that you, we see it

now, especially a lot of people go into,

you know, really interesting careers.

And a lot of people, I think a lot of

people now these days, when they're

leaving, they're starting, you are

a really good example actually.

You know, that, that's an accident.

But they're starting their own

shit, which is super cool to see.

You know, a friend of mine from

Silent Teague Young, who I know,

you know, comeback Clippers,

he's doing his own thing.

There's loads of people now who.

Maybe 10 or 15 years ago when I was

getting out, they were, you know,

being engineers or being plumbers.

You know, there's fucking

nothing wrong with that.

It's good money.

But now a lot of people are

starting to do their own shit for

themselves, which is super cool.

I'm sort of like in the middle, I

wanna do my own stuff, but it's more

traditional and I don't take an off risk.

I don't have that risk propensity to

be self-employed to the extent like,

you know, set up your own business.

But yeah, you know, I

knew what I wanted to do.

I knew the path.

I, you know, I'd researched it and I knew

sort of like why I needed to get there.

And you know, every half of

everything in life is luck.

Half of everything in life is luck.

Oh, I think so.

And I, you know, I was lucky I

was the right person at the right

time and the right, right place.

So again, I'm grateful for

that quite seamless transition.

It was hard, but, you know, it worked out.

Yeah.

Wicked then.

But this has ended after a year you,

so with the Henry Jackson Society?

Yeah.

About a year and a half,

something like that.

Yeah.

So that was basically,

that's core research.

I was a researcher, I was a defense

researcher, a research fellow.

So the bulk of my work was basically

researching security related dilemmas.

This is during, for context, this is

during Donald Trump's first presidency.

So one of the things that really

dominated the UK national security

scene at the time was Huawei and

the influence of China in the UK's.

Sort of civil society.

You know, and the gloves were

off now, you know, Russia had

already invaded crime in 2014.

China were getting really fucking super

frisky and like flirty with the uk.

So it was a really interesting time to

be like a researcher in those fields.

And, you know, I was very good.

Anyone can do research,

anyone with a degree.

It's part of the whole part of degree,

the whole point of a degree, sorry,

is to learn how to do proper research.

If you do a, if you like a non-science

based degree, like a humanities,

it's not just pointing out on

a map where fucking Lebanon is.

It's going to do research and

understanding how research works.

So it's like ethical, it's got

integrity, blah, blah, blah.

But the whole point of being a researcher

is then getting that research that you do.

Look at drivers of war in Iraq,

look at drivers of migration in

North Africa, things like that.

Where are the problems, right?

And then you think of solutions

recommendations, policy recommendations,

and then to turn that into you

know, advocacy or public affairs.

So you are advocating for those

changes that you can see from the

gaps in the research that you've done.

That's where it comes full circle.

And when I was at Henry Jackson Society

for like year and a half, I was very

good at research and I was learning

then how to basically take that into

policy, into the policy world, into

parliament with mps politicians to try

and, you know, actually affect change.

And I think I had some early success.

When I was at HJSI had my first article

in the Telegraph published, and it was

on my old battalion tour in Ang, England

when they went to Mali as part of sma

the UN peacekeeping force in, in Marley.

And I was speaking to the CEO at

the time who I didn't know before.

He'd come from somewhere else and

had a conversation slash interview

with him about the operation.

I wanted to write about it for

a defense a defense journal.

And he was keen to talk about it.

And I determined during this fucking

conversation, the whole point of

the UK deployment that the British

deployment to Marley was to act

as, you know, the Wrecky screen.

And they were going really, I

mean, we're talking hundreds of

kilometers into the fucking bush.

'cause Marley is Sara Ha desert, like

the, you know, the distances are vast.

But I realized they didn't

have any fucking air cover.

They had no sort of no medical air

cover, no air support, nothing like that.

And they were going so far out days it

would take days by road 'cause these

were wheeled, vehicle tracked vehicles.

Jackals, I think jackals they were

going out in, and I was saying to

him, I was like, so what's the med

plan then if you take a casualty?

Because it was against

Islamic State insurgents.

And I was like, if you take casualties

what's the fucking med plan?

Because you are so far ahead, right?

And by this point, this

is still the tail end.

Like we are learning the lessons from

Afghan Golden an hour, things like that.

And he said, oh, like it'll

be road move back to the fob.

But gal and gal was like the main,

it was like the bastion for Marley,

you know, role three sort of thing.

I was like, you are gonna be like two

or three days ahead by road, so you

are gonna have to take, if you sustain

a casualty, we're still preparing

for, and I think they got into one

or two contacts with you know, is

insurgents and the, yeah, the plan

was to move two or three days by road.

I'm like, so what about this golden out?

I was like you can't be serious.

Yeah.

And you must have realized this.

What the fuck?

And I was like, I'm gonna

hang you out to the wolves.

Like you can't expect

that to be good enough.

And he said, the problem is the political

pushback for getting helicopters

from the UK mission to Marley.

I was like, fuck that.

I'll step in here.

I was like, thank you very much Colonel.

I'll take it from here.

And I spoke to our UN ambassador,

the British ambassador to UN in, in

New York at the General Assembly.

I said, you will never fucking believe

because it was un peacekeeping permission.

I was like, you'll never fucking

believe what I've just been told

about the UK deployment to Marley.

No fucking air cover.

And I said, you have to

do something about this.

He spoke to his counterparts

in the un like the other.

UN ambassadors.

And it turned out the African Union, which

is like the EU for Africa but poorer.

And they the African Union

basically turned round and

said, fuck you to Britain.

We don't want more British troops in

Africa for things like colonial, sort

of like hangups and things like this.

I was like, but it's fucking helicopters

for blokes when they're fucking wounded.

You need that med plan.

And just to finish on this bit really

quickly, the fucking crazy thing is, the

super ironic thing is we had three RAF

Chinooks attached to the French mission

in Mali, the French we're doing because

Marley's a French, a former French colony.

So just like we're involved more

than the Middle East, 'cause

we've got more of a historical

relationship in the Middle East.

For example, France have the same

in North Africa and West Africa.

So they were doing a big

counter-terrorism operation in

Marley called Operation Barain.

We gifted the French Air Force

three Chinook helicopters for

things like casualty evacuation.

The French would not let us use our

own fucking chinooks in the same

country if we sustain casualties.

They said, no, we need them.

We're too busy.

Fuck you.

The UN turned around and said,

no, not having more British

troops in Africa, fuck you.

And the British political appetite

was so reduced because of the

legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan.

They weren't prepared to push back

harder against the UN and the African

Union saying, no, fuck you we're

taking helicopters for med cover.

So again I wrote all

this up in the Telegraph.

It was my first Telegraph article.

It went fucking huge.

It caused a real political

shit storm like genuinely.

And because people were like.

We're sending blokes into the middle

of the Saha Desert with no helicopter

support, what the fuck's going on?

It was bad enough not to have

attack helicopter gunships support,

but to not have like chinooks for

med was fucking like outrageous.

And in the end, I managed to get a debate

in the House of Lords chaired on this.

And about seven or eight House

of Lords members were all quoting

my work and my research and oh,

apparently we're hearing this, we're

hearing this, we're hearing this.

We need fucking answers,

you know, to the government.

And the government had to put up multiple

press releases and statements about this.

And that was all the back on the

back of the conversation I had with

my former, well, not my former CEO,

but the CO of my former battalion.

And and yeah in the end they

didn't get helicopters, so it

wasn't as successful help outcome,

but I did everything I could.

Yeah.

At this point I'm out of university

for a year and this is when I'm

still at Henry Jackson Society.

I'm like, so I could understand

the relevance of doing the research

that I was doing and then trying

to get that to change policy.

And that's, you know, what

I've been doing basically for

the last seven or eight years.

Wicked.

It's it is commendable, Rob.

It's different, you know, make,

making a difference to the troops.

I mean, at that time, admittedly it

didn't happen, but it's pretty damn

cool like the stuff you've done.

And I think it's testament to someone

that's as resilient as you are.

And perhaps that resilience

has been stubborn.

Yeah.

Being so stubborn is to, but

you know, to go and get work

done, you know, a lot of people.

Dude, just coast through life, you know?

I'll get that.

I'll get that job.

I'll take my paycheck, I'll cash in.

Cheer.

Yeah, I'll go to the pub.

Yeah, absolutely.

But you know, so not only are you

doing your own research, we then going

to get stuff debated in parliament.

You're an active reservist, fucking stab.

Stop going.

Your dad at the same time

as well as all of that.

Yeah.

And him staying and living in London

for three months to get over the line.

It's, yeah I'm How did you cope with

how much stuff you had going on?

I mean, that, that's I coped with it

really easy actually because I coped

with it a lot easier than I do now.

So I'm busier now, obviously because

I'm more established and I'm you know,

I have more interest and I've got

more connections and I do a lot more

now, but the reason why I struggle

to handle work, well, I'll call it

work fatigue more now, is because

back then I was so fucking eager.

I was full of smoke.

Yeah.

I was like, I can't wait to do all

these qualifications, get these

degrees, get these masters, you know,

I got like a super good master's.

I got a distinction in my master's at the

best place in the world to do my masters.

It was conflict studies

at Kings College London.

It's like the Oxbridge

for anything war related.

So all the a lot of the a lot of

officers in the military, they'll

go to Kings to get their defense

studies, you know, masters.

When they bge, when they become majors.

And they're lucky if they get a pass.

Like I, I see the results.

But it was a really good place and

I was so eager, I was so excited.

I was so ambitious.

I was so determined.

And because I was on a lot of good roles

I was going with the gravity, I was

going with the momentum, which is key.

Like you have to, and

something's good, go with it.

Do you know what I mean?

So things were coming in really well.

And like I said earlier, you

know, half of everything is luck.

You know, I have been very lucky.

I've put the work in, but there

is that element of luck as well.

And as I've got older particularly

as I want to spend more time,

for example, doing the power

lifting and the and the gym work.

That's super hard to balance,

you know, I'm always in fucking

London and it takes its toll.

It takes its toll.

Because when I go to London, it's not

just, I mean, sometimes I'm literally,

I'll get the train there, which takes,

like now because I've moved to orchards

about three and a half hours for one

meeting and then train straight back,

and all of sudden I'm working on the

train and it's just that's a full day and

it's just fucking, it's soul destroying.

Other times I'll go down for two

or three nights on the bounce

and it cripples you financially.

I mean, you know, bars, restaurants,

clubs, dinners, you know, drink

receptions, you know, all the, you

know, it sounds great and it sounds

like really fancy, and it is like nice,

but again, it takes, its fucking toll.

It's exhausting.

It's genuinely exhausting.

So I'm getting, like now I'm sort

of pushing for, I'm 40 next year.

And I've just got less appetite

for that level of I wanna be left

alone and do my own work now.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

I want to withdraw a bit.

I wanna do more writing.

You know, I've got one or two ideas

for books I've, and conversations with

publishers that takes a lot of time.

I wanna do a PhD, you know,

like more serious writing work.

You know, I've had enough of you

know, meeting mps and ministers

and, you know, that kind of life.

It, it's interesting and it's

fun, but it's exhausting.

It's so exhausting.

Yeah.

And even what alongside that as

well, so you were eventually gonna

be this like old guy with his

PhD sat that no one can talk to.

He's still finishing his PhD. Yeah.

Yeah.

But not being pe like

grumbling at the world.

Miserable old man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

At the same time as all of

this going on, you worked on

something super niche didn't you?

About the Afghan project, bringing

Afghans that had worked with us.

If we could talk about that Yeah.

The Arab scheme last year.

Yeah.

Te tell us more about that.

And for those that don't understand, I

mean, I mean, at this time, so you're

a corporal in the reservist Yeah.

With the merchant.

So it's a Yes.

A pretty, I mean, it's a very niche

job to, to be given y Well, yeah.

So basically this opportunity

came up to mobilize.

So basically to go back full time

for about six months or nine months.

I've always, I'm gonna

say I'm super gay here.

I'm gonna get slated by the bros,

but I've always wanted to do

something more with Afghanistan.

One day I will go back to

Afghani as a fucking city.

I never got a chance to seek a bull.

Remember I said my love for

geography and my love for history.

You know, I can't wait to see a bull.

Hopefully those fucking dirty dickhead

won't be in the country by that point.

You know, it'll be some form of

more peaceful government, something

that doesn't completely fuck

over the people of Afghanistan.

But I have a real genuine, it's

one reason why I did the language.

And I enjoyed when I did the language,

when whenever you study a language to

the level that I studied that, you know,

you learn a lot about the history of

the culture, the customs the traditions,

and we did anywhere in the Army.

But but yeah, I ha I have a

genuine affinity for the country.

That being said, there are lots

of fucking wrongs in Afghanistan.

And the problem that the government had

about four years ago after the withdrawal

from Kabul, operation Pitting in 20 21,

1 of the problems we had as a government

was bringing back the right people,

the people that deserve to come back.

So the classic example is

obviously the interpreters.

Now I was really lucky.

I worked with a couple of really good

interpreters, two of whom were ex tiger

teams, so ex a NA, special forces types.

And they were fucking super cool.

And we've all heard about like the

Afghan special forces who are like

hard as fuck despised the Taliban.

But we also know plenty of fucking

stories where there's a lot of corruption.

Within Afghan culture there's a lot

of really really questionable morals

that a lot of Afghan people have.

You know, I don't need to say much more.

I think people know where I'm coming

from and one of the examples I give

is, you cannot find, you've been

there, you'll know what I mean.

You cannot find a society or a

culture that is more different

to ours than Afghanistan.

Right?

It is so different.

And with that comes a lot of

differences in in character traits and

personalities and types of behaviors.

So the government at this fucking

predicament was like, right, we

need to bring back the right people

because we have a moral obligation.

It's the right thing to do.

And it'll be, broadly speaking,

politically quite popular.

Which it was at the time.

So the government had two or three

different refugee routes for Afghans.

The problem is, the thing that

complicated this even more was we

don't have diplomatic relations quite

rightly with the Taliban who were the

illegitimate rulers still in Kabul.

So we don't have an embassy there.

We don't have consulate, we

don't have diplomatic relations.

We don't deal with them.

Now what we do is deal with them

just like we do with the Russians,

although we have an embassy still

there for a lot of back channels.

And this is something I've done

a lot of in over the last few

years with other countries,

particularly with Russia and Ukraine.

It's those diplomatic back channels.

And we deal a lot of with the Afghan side,

the Afghan refugees through Pakistan.

So we have nominally good

relationships with Pakistan and.

The Arab scheme, the Afghan

relocation assistance program

that came up after op pitting.

And that was really for, like I say,

the interpreters is the clack example.

You had to have some form of tangible

proof that you were part of the uk

mission in Afghan for the last 20 years.

And the problem they had from

the government's perspective was

trying to ascertain the you know,

the validity of these claims.

You know, a lot of them

had like dodgy paperwork.

Even ones who did have dodgy paperwork

had, you know, we're talking about

like written documents, 10 years old,

you know, in, in past or whatever.

So it was very difficult.

Now, when I volunteered for the role

this would've been a year and a half ago.

So it was like September, 2024 and it

was down on oil shop for six months.

And my role was as a watchkeeper.

So what that meant in theory, well, sorry,

in reality what that meant is we had

about two dozen military sites in the uk.

Tidworth just down the road from

here was one where when the Afghans

who were deemed eligible would

come across, they would stay on

military sites for a period of time.

Ideally around a month or two, their

initial applications and their paperwork

were getting checked and getting dealt

with where they could get things like then

NHS fucking help dental help get kids in

school, get some form of social housing,

look for jobs, all that kind of stuff.

And at the same time, they were

staying, at this time, they were

staying at military camps and

we were bringing over about.

500 people a month.

So it was quite busy.

And the team, in order

shop was really small.

There was like 16 of us.

There was me and another guy's

Watchkeeper, and we basically dealt

with all the other external agencies.

So home office, foreign office, the

team in Pakistan, checking all this

paperwork and the military sites.

So a lot of my work was going

to the military sites, checking

on them if they had problems, if

they had issues, blah, blah, blah.

And basically relaying it to

people a lot higher up than me.

And every two weeks we

used to go to Bride Norton.

There was a charter flight from Islamabad

Capital Pakistan every two weeks where

the next tranche would come over.

And it was obviously like a

plane full of Afghans and their

families and fucking corporal fuck

nuts in Four Stab is literally

border force for this six months.

So I had no training in this.

I repeat zero training and it wasn't

part of my role as a watchkeeper.

You know, Watchkeeper is usually,

wait, it works with battle captain.

Traditionally.

It's like usually a senior

NCO or as junior officer.

And I was literally border force.

So when these Afghans were coming in off

the flight, obviously because I spoke

Pashto as well, I was checking their

paperwork with the paperwork that we

had on like hard copy on the laptops.

And I was basically checking that

they were who they said they were.

You know, they obviously, they're

all like covered head to toe.

Nobody wants to fucking ask 'em to

lift their fucking tops, not the

tops up, but reveal their faces.

The paperwork's all mega sketchy.

Now I, me personally, I know for a fact,

I mean, I turned away several because

I knew there was like inconsistencies

or there was something wrong, there was

an extra child or something like that.

I'd have to go back and redo

the paperwork, which obviously

hassle for the families.

But, you know, we had to

be quite tight with that.

And there weren't any dramas with

me or when I was there, but I knew

something had gone really horribly

wrong a couple of years before.

And sure enough, when I left in March last

year that's when it all came out and there

was this huge data leak in the news and

it was like, you know, front page news.

It dominated the news cycle

for about a couple of weeks.

The Afghan data leak, which is where

the MOD it was called like the most

expensive email in the history.

You know, it's cost billions of

pounds, where about four years ago.

Bless him, a raw marine who was doing

a similar job on when Arab first

started wouldn't have been his fault.

He just had a bit of a Hmong moment.

You know, we all do.

And he basically sent an email with

a load of names to the wrong person

that then went, you know, skyrocketed

and basically all these names came

out of these Afghans who had applied,

but they hadn't been cleared.

So what the government did was like,

right, everyone who's been leaked

on that email and we're talking

thousands of people, thousands of

Afghans it was their applications.

Like right, we've gotta bring them over.

Because if that has now got into the hands

of the fucking Taliban in Kabul, these

20, I think it was about 27,000 Afghans

we're theoretical risk of reprisals.

And we've seen since then a lot of

Afghans who applied for the Arab scheme

have been hunted down and killed.

We know for a fact people have

died as a result of this, of their

applications to come here because it

reveals that they think they've worked

with the British ministry operation.

So the Gunite, we've got

a huge wall obligation.

We're gonna bring these 27,000

people across, but fuck me, it's

gonna cost 7 billion pounds.

Right.

The problem is by this point, this

is last summer when it got revealed I

was no longer on the scheme so I could

talk about it openly to the media.

And I remember speaking to the Telegraph

and I had a couple of interviews

a couple of interviews about it.

And I said, the issue for me is

these 27,000 people, they haven't

had their fucking background checks.

They just got brought over the moral

argument being in case, you know,

their names get leaked or whatever,

but they hadn't been checked.

And the problem with the Arab scheme is.

So when they leave the miniature

accommodation sites, crowborough, you

know, Belford, tidworth, whatever,

and they go to, they get offered, say

a social social housing in Blackpool,

in Edinburgh, you know, Bristol.

It's literally all over the uk.

They can go anywhere.

After that, they're not, they're

no longer kept in touch, right?

So these 27,000 people that came

over about four years ago, purely

because they had an application in

a lot of them, virtually none of

them were like vetted or cleared.

They didn't get to that stage, but

he's right, we need to bring 'em over

now because their name's been leaked.

That's four years ago.

Where the fuck are these people now?

I was like, nobody knows you.

You dunno where they goes.

Six weeks later, this is four years ago.

Obviously the government did what the

government do, this label government

doing it even worse, which is basically

shutting down all communication,

shutting down any sort of like inquiry

or transparency or accountability.

And yeah, it's kind of forgotten about

now, but I'm telling you now we've

got fucking thousands of people here.

We shouldn't be here.

And that's just the reality of it.

And that is well first what

should have happened on that?

And then that's a really good question.

What, what's, I mean, the government

should have done the background checks.

They should have still, okay, we've

got this 27,000 people, we still

need to get their fucking checks in.

Because we've had many instances.

This is something I was dealing

with on the Arab scheme when I

was going to the different sites.

There were many, we had a couple of

dozen at any one time of online, online

ongoing police investigations into

alleged offenses that some of the Afghans

had committed whilst being in the uk.

A lot of them were sexual in nature.

They were going through the court system.

They were going through the

police system, through the CPS.

And that's just the ones that

have been cleared, who'd been

vetted, who were the good guys.

Right?

So those 27,000 came here who

weren't vetted or cleared, they

should have been cleared and vetted.

Yeah.

And it's, we speak a lot about moral

obligation on us to help them out.

Oh, sure.

There, there's, it's hard, you working

within government and doing a lot of

bits for them, it's, but they seem to

lose a lot of their moral obligation

when it's things affecting our own.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I completely agree with that.

I see that all the time.

Where do they draw the line?

Like you've got all moral obligation to

these guys because it's in the press.

'cause it's in the public eye.

Yeah.

And if it's not in the

public eye, they don't care.

Don't care.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's unfortunate.

It's unfortunate, but also we keep,

seem to making these, I say we, the

people, it's not even the government.

I mean, you know me long enough

to know, like I'm no fan of labor.

I'm no fan of the Prime Minister.

It's no good saying the government,

it's the people behind the government,

the civil service, the people who

are in these positions for life.

So ministers and the government

can only go off the advice they're

given by the civil service.

I think most people

understand that concept.

The problem is the civil service as an

organization have been absolutely rotted

out in the last sort of I mean, really

since 150 years when they changed,

used called Northco Revell, which

is where they had the civil service

performance in the Victorian ages.

And it was all meritocracy.

You had to be, you know, Oxbridge

elite to get into the civil service.

It was really seen as like

the pinnacle of public life.

Now.

They let fucking, you know, any company

with fucking purple hair and a fucking

geography degree it really is bad.

It really is.

There's still great people doing

good work, don't get me wrong.

But you can see I see it and it's people

who know me, who follow me on Instagram

and they see the kind of stuff I put out.

They must say, oh fuck me, this

guy again, moaning about stuff.

And it's I see it every day.

Yeah.

I know what I'm fucking talking about.

Absolutely.

And it's let's, you also mentioned

at the start as I introduced

you, you got sanctioned by Putin.

Yeah.

For Gobbing off.

I mean, yeah.

Tell me more.

That's pretty cool.

That's a funny one.

Rob Clark sanctioned by Putin.

Yeah.

No, I mean this, so I didn't even,

so I didn't even know about this.

Nobody told me, you know, the

Russians didn't even have the

decency to fucking tell me.

I had a friend at at Rui, the Royal

United Services Institute, which is.

A very well established

defense think tank.

Probably the best, the most renowned

defense think tank in the world.

To be fair.

Certainly the oldest Wellington

started it 200 years ago,

and he's a good friend there.

He does European security.

His name's Ed.

He was a former officer in the Kings.

He is.

I'm at my desk one day working and

he I got WhatsApp message off fed.

He was like, congratulations

on making the sanctions list.

That's insane.

And I was like, what Sanctions list?

And I had to fucking Google it

myself to find out on the Russian

Foreign Ministry website sanctioned

Rob Clark or Robert Clark.

So it was the same sanctions list

as the former at the time the chief

of the Defense staff, animal Radian,

and the defense s signed Ben Wallace.

There was Ben Wallace, Tony Kin some other

senior mp and me sanctioned by Russia.

And for the life of me,

I couldn't work it out.

Why?

And then I'm, I alluded to earlier

that I've done a lot of back channel

sort of conversations and sort of

very, sort of gray area diplomacy to

do with the Russian and Ukraine war.

So Russia and Ukraine don't

have diplomatic relations

like us in Afghanistan.

US and Taliban, Russia and

Ukraine are at the same impasse.

So they use people who are involved

in that diplomatic political world

to basically pass messages, speak

on their behalf, things like that.

I was involved quite heavily on

the Ukraine front to do with that.

And as part of that work a

I'll call her a friend of mine.

There was a professional acquaintance, but

I think we've become quite good friends.

She's half Ukrainian and she was in

Ukraine at the time of the invasion in

February, 2022, nearly four years ago.

And she was in Haki, which is in the

north in very close to the Russian border.

And Haki has Ukraine's third biggest

city was absolutely surrounded.

And it took like hours for the

city to fall to the Russians

in March, only a month later.

Everyone's scrambling to try and get out.

I mean, hake iss like a million

people, you know, it's like

Manchester, sort of Liverpool size.

And it's very close.

It's only a few kilometers

from the Russian border.

So it's a terrifying position,

geograph geographically to be in.

And the dilemma that a lot of people

in Khaki the HA had at the time was,

do we stay and do we get rounded up

by the Russians and who knows what.

'cause a month into the war,

nobody knew what was gonna happen.

Nobody knew the extent of the war,

how long it was gonna go on for, what

the Russians would do to, you know,

see ps. So the people at IV were like,

fuck do we basically hand ourselves

in and go along with the Russians, go

take an internment camp or some sort

of like holding facility, or are we

gonna get fucking raped and killed?

And it turned out they got

basically raped and killed.

And this friend of mine, I won't name her

for obvious reasons she reached out to

me during this period and she was like,

I'm trying to get my fucking family out.

I've no idea where to go,

what kind of directions to go.

Obviously she knew the area.

She's fucking Ukrainian, right?

She'd be there for about

six months with her family.

And I was like, fuck, responsibility

overload if I make the wrong

choice or if I make the wrong

sort of like assessment, like her

family are getting fucking killed.

And I, it was probably about a week and

she was actually working with the NATO

Defense College in Rome at the time.

And these are the guys who

basically formed NATO policy.

I've done some writing for them before and

I've been involved with their organization

and even they were giving her fucking

duff Jen, and she was saying, oh, Roma

telling me to do this and go this way.

And I'm like, fuck.

And I said to, I said, if you go

that way, you'll get fucking killed.

She ended up trusting me.

I say her and her family and other

families attached with 'em at this point.

You know, imagine trying to make

your way out of Manchester on foot.

As you know, half a million Russian

soldiers are surrounding it and going

in street by street gunning people down.

It takes a few days to fucking make a

way out, a foot somewhere like that.

You know, you held, you're held

up here for a few days, you make

your way down there for a few days.

It was a very sort of chaotic, there

was internet blackouts quite often.

And the people who went the way that

the NATO Defense College advised

'em to go, they got fucking killed.

So she trusted me and I was

like, holy fuck, that's insane.

And then she got out, okay.

I've seen her since and her family,

and they were obviously very grateful.

And then straight after that, Roman

got in touch with me and I ended

up doing similar basically life

intelligence feed and reporting.

For about two or three weeks

for the rest of the IV region.

So that was one thing because I was

listed on Rome as being part of that,

but the civilian evacuation of iv.

That was a very high profile.

You know, part of help if you like.

I'd also done some humanitarian aid

runs, so you know when blokes take,

but you've got a van just down here.

They do the aid runs.

I've done that quite a few times.

I've been on political sort of political

delegations as well advising mps,

ministers lords and peers going to

Ukraine you know, accompanying them.

You know, I've been to

Ukraine a few times now.

The reserves don't like that

they've tried to do before

that, but, you know, fuck 'em.

And and then it was writing

in the Telegraph as well.

At this point I was writing probably

every week, sometimes two or three

times a week for the Telegraph

about, about the war in Ukraine.

So again, it was very high

profile, sort of public image about

Russia and Ukraine that it had.

So I think all those things

sort of, collided with the

Russian sort of foreign affairs.

And yeah, it was about a year and

a half later I got sanctioned.

But the reality is I had a phone call

from MI five and MI six, just like

what the realities of what that meant.

You know, take extra precautions,

fucking don't tell people where you're

going, you know, change your route.

All that kind of like real basic stuff.

And I, you know, I just basically laughed

it off and I was like, that's ridiculous.

Do you know what I mean?

And then this, the really weird thing

is I, this was sort of October, 2023.

And for some reason afterwards,

I didn't go back to London

for the rest of the year.

I can't remember why, but for whatever

reason, I didn't go back to London.

It was unrelated.

I was working from home or whatever.

And over Christmas that year, I watched

for those who aren't aware, there was a

Saudi journalist called Jamal Khashoggi.

And he went to Turkey to renew.

It was something to do

with a visa for his wife.

And, well, he was in Turkey, but

he went to the embassy, the Saudi

Embassy in Istanbul to renew

visas for his wife or something.

And he never left.

Basically Saudi security agents

flew in the night before.

We seen all the footage, like

it's well known as documented.

And they basically stripped him, beat

him, tortured him, cut his head off,

disempowered him and then dissolved him

in acid and flushed him down the toilet.

They even got like a stunt double.

They got like a body double who

looked just like him, same glasses,

same facial hair to walk out of

the embassy about an hour later.

So his wife, or at least

CCTV could show him leaving.

He was flushed down the

toilet about two hours later.

And.

The point of this is the Russians are

for every bit as bad as the Saudis are.

That was the Saudi security team.

The Russians are like

a thousand times worse.

They give even less of a fuck.

And as I was watching that documentary,

it was like a documentary about it.

I was like, holy fuck.

What have I got myself into?

I thought getting Crow bashed as

a fucking, there's a new bloke

in a in Germany was bad enough.

This is like a whole new

fucking level of, oh shit.

And yeah, I remember the next time I went

back to London, which was like, new Year.

You generally the third,

January the fourth ever.

Fuck me.

It was like absolutely terrified.

I was looking over my shoulder

every, was obviously the Russians

are all over fucking London.

Yeah.

You know?

And I was like, fuck, is it gonna

be like a poison tipped umbrella

a traffic light or something?

Am I gonna get a bag over my head?

I'm gonna wake up and I'm like

in a room and I'm about to

get injected with something.

I was like, what the fuck is gonna happen?

Obviously nothing.

But, you know, I don't advertise

if I advertise where I am,

it'll be after I've been there.

For example, if I post

something on Instagram, it'll

be, you know, like a location.

It'll be like the day la

a day later or something.

You know, I don't typical don't,

people don't tell people where I live.

Even the Power Lifting Federation.

I'm with a, this is a funny one.

So I mainly now compete with the WRPF,

the World War Powerlift Federation.

They're Russian, right?

It's a Russian federation.

And it's huge.

It's the biggest.

Power lifting federation in the world.

It's like a sporting federation.

It does more than power lifting.

They are absolutely massive.

And the guy who runs it

is like many times over a

multimillionaire, friends with Putin.

And well, he certainly they

know each other in Moscow.

And a friend of mine, Adam in

Nottingham, he bought the UK

license for the federation.

Fully legal or fully above board.

Fully legitimate.

Like the federation is fine.

It's not crooked or dodgy or

nothing that I'm aware of.

It's like fully legitimate sporting

federation, but it's Russian owned.

So even when I re-register my annual

membership for the WRPF in the UK with

one of my best friends who runs it, I

never put my fucking address on that.

I never know where that deep

where that information's going.

Right.

Those records are gonna be, they're

held by a fucking Russian organization.

I'm sanctioned by Russia.

Fucking am I giving my details?

But you're still alive

with kicking it for now.

Yeah, for now.

Who know?

Who knows what's gonna

happen when I leave.

Yeah.

Well with my surname.

Ho hopefully you're bomb head.

Well, yeah, of course.

'cause you are, you've

got Ukrainian heritage.

Yes.

Yeah.

Which is super cool.

My, yeah, my dad's a half

Ukrainian half Italian, so Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But for the record, how would

you pronounce your surname?

Beski.

Beski.

I'll forget it in two minutes ago.

Everyone thinks it's Polish, but it's not.

I actually, yeah, but it's

not tell people it's Russia.

No.

But in all seriousness, does it

worry you then, do you think?

Oh yeah.

Are you, do you fear for your life

like day to day now especially

about going to London now?

No, not, no, not that extreme.

I did initially, like I said, when I

first went back to London after that,

I was really worried because I know

what the Russians are capable of.

You know, they as a mentality, as a

people, they're really interesting.

They don't give a fuck.

You know?

I said you would struggle to find a

society or a culture more different

than say, British and like Afghan

or say Western liberal, European

liberal and Afghan, fuck me, Russian

isn't very far down that line.

You know, to Afghanistan in terms

of the mentality they have about

things, life is very fucking cheap.

I mean really cheap.

And because I am sanctioned,

if anything, some people think,

if anything, it gives me more.

More cover, more top cover because I'm,

if say for example, something happened

to me, it would be harder to explain it

as an accident because I am sanctioned.

Yeah.

In reality, it just means

I can't travel to Russia.

And if I had assets there, which

obviously I don't like bank accounts or

property, they'd get frozen or taken.

So in reality, my life hasn't changed.

It's just the, you know, that

public safety angle, that aspect.

You know, the right about me,

that bad mouth me sometimes,

but that doesn't bother me.

'cause, you know, nobody cares.

There's enough people

who badm mouth me anyway.

Yeah.

My mates do it.

That's the more a friend you are, the

more shit we're gonna chat about you.

But to not only all of this, you

also gob off on the news quite a lot.

Yeah.

You know, you're on Sky News an awful lot.

Okay.

Three, three times this week.

This week's been mental with

Greenland and Donald Trump.

And, you know, some of the things he

said particularly about NATO troops

in Afghanistan was fucking outrageous.

And I, you know, I've said that publicly.

But yeah.

Yeah, the news thing, it's interesting.

I, I still, you know, you know, I

post it sometimes on social media and

people are like, can't believe that's,

you can't believe you're on the news.

You, I've been doing it about four or five

years now, and even I'm like, you know,

I still get a bit of a pinch me moment.

I'm like, fuck me, that's, you

know, I'll watch your back.

And I'm like, fucking up.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It is kind of, you know, I remember

the first time I was doing it, it

was when I was at the Henry Jackson

Society, so fresh out my masters.

And there's not many people in my

field who, who do the sort of media

commentary because it's quite a contested.

You imagine a lot of

people wanna do it, right?

Yeah.

I'm often, if I'm speaking about

Ukraine or Israel and Gaza or you know,

Venezuela or, you know, whatever it

might be, security defense in general.

You know, they'll always have you

know, Lord Dunna, Richard Dunna,

who was like the head of the army

for five years joined Afghan.

They'll have people like that as well.

They'll have mps ministers, government

spokespeople, former generals

and then, yeah, again, corporal

shit gun like for his opinion.

So it that's why it's a pinch me moment

because similar to like the Russian

sanction, I'm in there with the big

leagues and I'm not a big league at

all, but for some reason some people

do like the media, the commentary,

sky News Telegraph, you know, people

do put me in that same sort of boat.

I I honestly dunno why.

I honestly dunno why, because, you

know, I was in the army for 10 years.

Loads of people were in

the Army for 10 years.

I've got a degree.

Loads of people have got degrees.

I think remember I said

half everything is luck.

I think I hit like that, right?

Curvature where experience, capability,

experience you know, they meet together.

And for some reason people take me fuck

knows why some people take me seriously.

And you know, I'm awful putting fun at

myself and, you know, I, I have quite

a cavalier attitude, but the things

that I know I really fucking know.

Just like you in your field.

Yeah, absolutely.

When we talk about Absolutely.

Supplements.

Yeah.

Fitness you know, things like that.

You know what you fucking know.

I know what I fucking know.

And I think some people think.

I'm just gobbing off for the fun

of it, or I want the attention,

which I absolutely don't.

I despise attention.

Like I said a minute ago, I just

want to fucking retire and write

books and fucking write my PhD.

I don't like attention.

But the, because I know what I

know and just as importantly I

know what I fucking don't know.

When I started on the media circuit,

if you like, one of the first things

I was told by a good friend of mine

is don't ever, no matter what you do,

ever touch fucking Israel, just avoid

it because it's so contentious, right?

And I was like yeah, okay.

I won't like, and now I fucking talk

all the time about Israel, Gaza.

Whoops.

But but I, you know, I've studied

that, you know, I speak to

many people who've been there.

I've never been there, which is my

only weakness on the Israel front.

You know, I've studied it.

I've written about it.

I speak to lots of different

people from different sides.

And so yeah, the things I know, I really

know, and I think a lot of people,

like following your social media,

people could come across as actually

you're a little bit to the right.

Therefore, a little bit is

like how can you be unbiased?

How could be knowing you

for as long as I have?

Everything you do is always very factual.

You know, there's never anything

where you're like, it's just

because it's my feelings, you know?

Well, yeah.

Facts over feelings.

Yeah.

I might have a feeling towards it.

I know what I said, and here's.

Everything I can to back it up.

Yeah.

You know, so I try and give context

for everything as well, right?

Yes.

So I won't just say something is

good or something is bad to me, it's

immaterial, something's good or bad.

Nothing is really good or bad.

It's subjective.

It's where you can bring the context in.

So for example, about the

Iraqi civilian casualties, you

know, that's even good nor bad.

It's a number, right?

A hundred thousand, 98,000, whatever

it might be, it's a number, right?

Is it good?

Is it bad?

It's neither really.

But when you consider that the

general consensus was, you know,

a half again higher for like dead

Iraqi civilians, you've managed to

reduce that by significant amount.

That's the context.

That's why it's important, because

that's not an accurate picture.

So I try and give context

for everything that I say.

And I think that's you.

If you are, if you have a platform

like I do both broadly speaking at

a national level and on social media

you have some form of responsibility

to not just tell the truth.

You can, you know, it can be

subjective, but you've gotta back it up.

You've gotta have that context

and provide, you know, some form

of showing your workings out.

And I try and do that as much as I can.

And let's do it now, you

know, because Oh yeah.

Good.

I know you're happy to handle it.

So let's take Gaza for example.

Yeah.

You know, just speak

about it in your facts.

I know a lot of people are No, it is.

Either it's completely wrong

and Israel is bad, or the other

side is note they deserve it.

They committed that

atrocity at that festival.

It's, you know, so I mean, the first

thing I say to people about Garza.

The biggest thing, the biggest issue

really for most people about is Israel.

God's situation is is it a genocide?

And people aren't even

asking the question.

That's the problem.

People aren't going, is it a

genocide or is it not a genocide?

People on the left of the argument and

are on the critical side is a genocide.

It's a genocide.

They're a genocide or regime.

They're committing genocide,

committing war crimes.

It's okay.

And I'll say to people, define a genocide.

What is a genocide?

And they're like, err.

And they don't fucking know.

They dunno what a genocide is.

There's four criteria for a genocide.

I wrote a paper, it was actually

when I was at university with

that fucking co lecturer who's

a really good friend of mine.

And he it was with him.

He marked it.

It was, I was still an undergraduate.

He said, this is so fucking good.

We need to, he said, let me

put my name on this with you.

We'll I'll help tie this up

a bit and we'll get into a

fucking peer review journal.

'cause this is really fucking shit hot.

And it was about the Uyghur situation.

The Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang, Xinjiang

is like the largest province of China.

It's a semi-autonomous region.

It's about, it's bigger than Tibet.

It's huge.

It's like the size of western Europe.

And it's the extreme northwest

of China, so where it meets like

Mongolia, Kazakhstan, places like that.

And there's even a very small border

of Afghanistan, the Wang corridor.

And so these Uyghur Muslims.

Are much closer in ethnicity to people

like the Tajiks to Afghans, to Turks.

You know, they called themselves

East Turk Istan, and they do

have separatist intentions.

They want their own independence.

They know they're never

gonna fucking get it.

'cause you know, China.

But what China have been doing

for the last 10 years is genocide.

And I wrote this paper the Canadian

government have described it as genocide.

We haven't, as in the British, various

British governments haven't for the

reason they wanna just appease China.

And they they care too much about the

trade relationship with China, which is

side note, the single biggest trading

deficit in modern history that we have.

So it's not in our favor at all.

But you know, what they're doing, their

actions documented, viable verified, sorry

action in Xinjiang over the last 10 years.

Classes of genocide.

So for example, the forced the

forced sterilization of women the the

destruction of religious sites like

mosques just get completely bulldozed.

The eradication of the

ha the Uyghur language.

They're replace it with hand Chinese

and repopulate with hand Chinese

people, and they put them in term camps.

And the flip side of that, in Gaza,

'cause again, I always say I'm

the firstest person in the world.

The flip side in Gaza is, or you

know, with the Palestinian question

is people say, yeah, but the West

Bank and Gaza are like open prisons.

They could be class as

in as internment camps.

It's no, they fucking can't.

They're not under fucking arm guard.

They're free to come in and out.

So many Palestinians

before October the seventh.

Used to work in Israel, they're

crossed the Gaza borders

every day and work in Israel.

That's not a fucking prison camp.

There may be elements of the of the

life in Gaza and in the West Bank

that, you know, people don't like.

I understand that.

I'm fucking sympathetic.

I'm not complete monster.

But you can't label what's

happened in Gaza in the last two

and a half years is a genocide.

It's factually incorrect.

And the moment you ask people,

okay, if you think it's a genocide,

what part of it is a genocide?

Define genocide.

And then tell me with

examples how that is.

Oh, dead children.

We see all these dead children.

Yeah.

That's fucking tragic.

That's sad.

Doesn't make it a genocide.

It doesn't make it a genocide as un

palatable as that may be to some people.

That doesn't make it a genocide.

So for example, in Israel, Gaza, yeah.

It's very easy to, when you understand

you know, the bigger pictures,

it's un it's quite easy to unravel

people's arguments who come from

a position of emotive knee jerk.

You know, reaction rather than

actual critical thinking when

we look at all eyes on Rafa.

That, yeah.

Huge.

You know, that was huge.

Huge.

And where was the head of Hamas?

Where was he?

He was in Rafa.

So even my fucking sister.

Sorry.

Even my sister and I, so many

people two years ago put all

eyes on Raffa on Instagram.

It completely flooded Instagram

for about a week, didn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it was an AI generated image of Raffa

being you know, destroyed from the air.

And had the Israelis, this is the

whole point about social media, right?

And the responsibility of social

media and that sort of like

fake news side of social media.

If the Israelis had buckled under

pressure from Western governments,

it wasn't just fucking idiot white

people on social media, on TikTok and

Instagram, it was entire governments.

The Canadians, the labor government

as well, or the labor opposition.

At the time they were saying,

oh, you know, you can't go

into Rafa, it's too far.

Or course too much

destruction, blah, blah, blah.

If the Israelis are buckled under that

public pressure and political pressure,

they wanna gone into Rafa, they wouldn't

have caught the fucking head of Hamas.

And the guy who orchestrated the worst

atrocities since the Holocaust against

the only Jewish state in the world you

know, I'm not Jewish, I've never been

to Israel, I've got no affiliation to

Israel, but I know right from wrong and

I know sort of like factual inaccuracies

from emotive knee jerk you know, sort of

reactions and yeah, thank fuck they went

into Rafa, thank fuck them into Rafa.

And it's just to call one better

there, you said to them, right or

wrong, but earlier you did say, we

don't really have a right or wrong.

I mean, morally, I know

morally right from wrong.

Yeah.

So is that what we say killing

1200 civilians that are music

concert was objectively wrong?

Oh, yeah.

And they could you think as far as why

they deserved what's happened to them?

Or is it more, not that they deserved

it, but they've now met that, you

know, they created their own situation?

I think, yeah.

I think I, I could take that stance.

I could argue that stance that the

people of Gaza who aren't Hamas, right?

So the population of Gaza is about

1.1, 1.15, just under 1.2 million.

Hamas at its peak.

So Preoc, October the seventh was

about 50,000 armed fighters right

out of just over a million people.

We're talking 5%.

That's a big fucking number right On

top of that, all their supporters, the

finances, the funders, you know, the

people of their fucking cheerleaders,

the people who still supported them

was hundreds of thousands more.

It was a really significant popul

proportion of the Gaza population.

If they weren't Hamas, they were

very pro Hamas and supported Hamas.

So one could make the

argument, and I do that.

I wouldn't go so far as to say

they've brought it on the, they

have brought on themselves.

What I would say is you can't expect to

support a genocide or movement like Hamas

with cash, with arms, with sanctuary

and direct support being affiliated

with them or helping them otherwise,

and not expect the consequences of what

happened after October the seventh.

Everybody knew what was gonna happen.

Everybody knew what was gonna happen.

Talk about poking a fucking bear.

And I'll say this as well, 'cause

this is really interesting.

This is a really good point.

I was speaking to an American

general in January, 2024.

So we're talking about three

months after October the seventh.

And it was just as the Raffa campaign

was beginning to pick up, and it was just

as like the land campaign into Gaza was

really reaching like quite a crescendo.

Like all gloves were off.

People knew Israel were going

to be quite hands-on in Gaza.

And there was already a lot

of huge public backlash.

And this American General was saying

he was a former deputy commander of

American for NATO forces in Europe.

And he was saying, fuck me.

He was like, can you imagine?

Can you imagine if that

happened to America?

What happened to Israel?

He said, imagine, say Mexico.

I mean, he used, he said, it's a

crude analogy, but work with me.

You know, Gaza, Israel is hemmed

in on all sides by enemies, right?

There's about seven nations

in release, which actively

seek its destruction, right?

That mentality, that siege mentality.

Very small country the size of Wales.

And he said, you imagine if we had that

on the Mexican border and people had

infiltrated, the United States caused

that level of destruction per capita.

So not just 1200 dead, like

on October 7th, but it's a

proportion of the population.

It was like 9.1% of the population.

That's still about a million people

in America, or hundreds of thousands.

He said, do you really think

we'd have left it four months

to go in organs blazing?

We would've stopped that shit.

We would've stopped that the

next day, the very next day.

Can you imagine?

And even the entire time through the Gaza

campaign you know, Hamas has still been ha

and the other militants, like pa Islamic

Jihad and Palestinian Jihad, they'd be

firing rockets into fucking ga into Israel

every fucking day or most days, right?

Even during the ceasefire.

And it's can you imagine that

in America, that they would

have allowed it to get that far?

Fuck no.

So when you put that again into

context, what they've actually

done is incredibly restrained.

And again, the final

thing I'll say on this.

He said is important

is the casualty count.

So like what I was saying about Iraq and

the civilian casualty, ratio, the ratio

of combatants and non-combatants, right?

In, in Gaza, the amount of deaths,

you know, it is widely acknowledged

now, isn't this isn't very disputed.

This is kind of like why the accredited,

they've kept the casualty rate to

about the ratio to about one to 1.15.

So for every combating sorry, for

every civilian killed, like genuine,

innocent, civilian, normal Palestinian

going about the, they gets hit

by a fucking shell or whatever.

For every one of those, there's

one to 1.5 hama casualties, right?

That is the lowest casualty

ratio in any fucking war.

Again, for context, in

Iraq it was one to 10.

So for every for every like Iraqi

surgeon killed, like justifiably,

there was 10 civilians, right?

In Afghanistan it was

one to 20, one to 20.

So for every Taliban killed

there was 20 civilians killed.

Nobody gives a fuck, nobody gives a fuck.

I mean, obviously Afghans do.

We care, but not to the level

that we see the narrative with

Israel and Gaza, and it's insane.

Why do you think so many people

care so much about Israel Garza

one word, Jews people, there's a

famous saying, no Jews, no news.

Right?

Again, I used the example of Iraq and

Afghanistan, where it was well known.

The casualty count was one

per capita a lot higher.

And in gross terms, a lot higher.

You know, hundreds of thousands dead.

And nobody, you know,

there was no mass demonstr.

There was the odd demonstration,

you know, labor mps were

always fucking, you know, yeah.

Saying, you know, oh, this is

illegal, you know, whatever.

But by and large, we've

not seen mass protests.

They're fucking awful, horrific

demonstration demonstrations

we've seen in London.

Virtually every Saturday

night for the last two years.

You know, we've seen none of that.

Absolutely none of that.

And I firmly believe the vast majority

is down to racist racist attitudes

particularly Muslims against Jews.

A lot of Muslims aren't racist.

A lot of Muslims and Jews

get on with each other.

You know, we see that day to day.

But that element of it is so

divisive in British society,

Western society more broadly.

And that's sectarianism, right?

That's absolutely pulling apart the

fabrics of basically our democracies.

You know, the police Scotland

Yard, the home office.

They've yielded week in, week out,

these anti-Semitic marches where

they have, you know, open support

for Hamas, open displays of support

for a band terrorist organization.

Nowhere else.

Do we get that?

Or in no other war or

conflict have we had that?

Only because it's Israel.

Why?

Because it's a Jewish state, the only

Jewish state in the world, 1.5 yeah.

Just over a couple of million

people for a Jewish state.

And that's why, that's one reason

why I try and do as much as I can.

And try to put context behind the

narrative, which is, fuck me, Israel are

actually being really restrained on this.

It might not look like it, but when

you dig a little deeper, which isn't

hard to do, you can actually see,

you know, the way they handle this.

Yeah.

You compare it to how

America would handle it.

Yeah.

Fuck me.

Yeah.

Leagues apart.

Yeah.

And let's get onto a little bit of

America while we've still got some time.

It's you know, America is and under Trump

at the moment, very controversial again.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

What are your like factual points and

thoughts towards Trump as president?

Is he doing a good job, bad job?

If we look at things like, we talked

briefly about Greenland, then what he

said about nato, you know, half, 457

soldiers and officers that, that died.

Oh yeah.

It was, for those that don't know.

Yeah.

President Trump came out yesterday

at DVOs and basically criticized the

NATO operation in Afghanistan as you

know, they, they avoided the front

lines was the sort of narrative.

And obviously we both know personally

that's very much not the case.

Look, so with Trump, several

things can be right at once.

You, he can say things that are

deeply offensive and completely

inaccurate about, for example, the

NATO commitment to Afghanistan.

That is right.

But it can also be right.

These actually are force for good

more broadly on the world stage.

A really good a really good example

of that is because I know that's

not a popular opinion, but it's

not an opinion, it's a fact.

And one of those facts is in his

first term Trump 51, he routinely

criticized European NATO countries in

Canada, especially for underfunding

their defense to the tunes of

tens of billions of pounds a year.

So for those that aren't aware, since

2014 and Russia invaded Ukraine and

Crimee NATO have had a mandated, as

in like legal obligation for members

to spend 2% of their GDP on defense.

Ever since then, the UK have even

about two, 2.1, pushing 2.2% of

GDP on defense, which is roughly

now about 60 billion pounds a year.

America have always spent about 3.5%.

And a lot of the European countries for

the last 10, 15 years we're around like

North 0.71%, 1.5%, whatever it may be.

UK and France have always been

just above that 2% threshold.

Germany, way down at the bottom

Canada, way down at the bottom,

underfunding European defense.

Right.

It's one reason why Putin thought

that, you know, taking Ukraine

would be relatively easy because

European countries have been

underfunding their defense for years.

They've been prioritizing welfare.

You know, we spend 10 times as much

on welfare as we do on defense.

And you know, for Trump's

first presidency, he was.

He was very rough in his communication,

but he was saying the right thing, right?

And because of that, and because of

the threats that he implied with it,

which is, Hey, nato, if you don't

get a fucking grip of your defense

spending, we might not be there for you.

And I think the way he

said it was like, why?

Why should we come to the help of

countries who don't spend their

own money on their own defense?

He's not fucking wrong.

That's common sense.

Yeah.

But because it's Trump and he grabs you

by the pussy and he's got these deeply

divisive, controversial you know, parts

of his personality in his past, right?

People just dismiss everything

he says as as either bullshit

or it's Trump being Trump.

And he's no, he is actually,

he's fucking right.

A lot of the time.

How he communicates it is a

different matter, but all these

things can be true at once.

Is he right about

European defense spending?

Absolutely.

Is he completely wrong about his

views on NATO and Afghanistan?

Yes, absolutely.

Is he doing a good job?

I would argue yes, but

you've got to quantify it.

You know, a good job.

By what metric is he doing a good job?

Good job for the American people.

I know a lot of Americans, and

they're completely split on it.

You know, some people say

he's doing great for America.

He has this America first

mentality project 2025, which

is this idea of you know.

To the extreme.

And as critics will say, they're

withdrawing all of their resources,

both political, military, and

economic, away from the rest of the

world and focusing just on America.

Right?

The tariffs that we saw last

year with China and Europe

are a good example of that.

Is he doing a good job for American

national security and the American

economy is not doing a bad job?

Every now and again, he does

something that will backfire.

The trade, tariff war that he got into

with China last year eventually backfired.

It got too out of hand.

Even he didn't see it coming.

Yeah.

Not that I really think he plans

these things much in advance.

He'll often that the thing with

Trump as well, and again, 'cause

I'm fair, I'll give it both

barrels, he doesn't think ahead.

So whilst most people, whether in

business or in politics, you try and

think three or four moves ahead, right?

If I do this, what's the next stage?

What's the next stage?

What's, what do I need to do to work

backwards to get to that end goal?

Right.

He won't, he will do something.

He will say something like,

create a policy like Greenland.

Oh, hey, we should have fucking Greenland.

He doesn't think how he's

gonna actually achieve it.

Right.

He could have communicated

that so much better.

So one, one thing that's this

misconception with Greenland is America

already have basing rights on Greenland.

They have a contract from the 19 f from

1951 and defense duty with the Kingdom of

Denmark that they have an air base which

now used as like a American space force.

Base in in green.

They have about 150 American troops there.

And this treaty they've had for

the last 70 years basically allows

America to upscale that considerably.

During the Cold War, they had

18,000 troops in Greenland,

18,000 just in Greenland.

That's huge.

You know, they can, you know, add,

detract whatever their sort of

force posture, how they see fit.

They don't have to have

the permission at Denmark.

So what you could have done

is right, we're going to, you

know, massively increase our

defense footprint in Greenland.

We want sole exclusive rights

to your mineral extraction that

Denmark can't logistically or

financially meet the requirements of.

They don't have the capability to

mine, to the extent they need under

you know, meters of sheer ice to

get the minerals out of Greenland.

There's 2 trillion at least untapped

reserves in Greenland similar to Ukraine.

And you know, they want to deny that to

Russia and increasingly China absolutely

fucking yes, that's a good policy.

Do you need more American

forces in you in Greenland?

Yes, absolutely.

That's a fucking good policy.

You don't need to start scam

mongering or saying things like,

oh, we might take it by force.

No one's gonna stop us.

That's what he said.

So he implied that we'll just fucking

do it 'cause no one's gonna stop us.

And obviously that sent the last two

weeks of the world into an absolute

fucking dizzy right on the back of

Venezuela where people were like,

oh, holy fuck, this one's for real.

Yeah.

And now he's on about

Greenland and Europe.

What's next?

You know, is he doing a good job?

I would say.

He's doing a better job than not for the

American, sort of like national economy.

Oh, national security in the economy.

But the way he goes about it, he really

excited to rub people up the wrong

way, like Europeans up the wrong way.

And the relationship that K Stama, to

his credit, has crafted with Trump in

the last sort of 18 months has been good.

They have a good relationship

that's not fucking trashed.

You know, I, is it recoverable?

Possibly, but we've got another two or

three years of this fucking dog shit.

Government star's gonna have to do

a very good political maneuvering

to get back in with Trump.

Now.

There's been a lot of damage

in the last couple of weeks.

Briefly, why is labor so bad?

Yeah.

Oh, I mean, I can answer

that really fucking quickly.

The reason why they're so bad is

they've got no fucking experience.

They thought it was gonna be fucking easy.

So overconfidence, complete inexperience.

And yeah they're basically

the fundamentals.

So the, I'll give you an example.

The current cabinet, which is

about 28 members, none of them have

been in business, so they don't

understand the day-to-day reality

of the fucking economy, right?

We could see that with the

last two disastrous budgets.

We could see that with things like

the the winter fuel allowance, the

the inheritance tax on farming, the

business rate increased, the national

insurance employer contribution, which

every fucking businessman and every

MP who had experience in business,

particularly the Tories and reform were

like, you are gonna fuck small businesses.

And I've spoken to small business

and it has small, and it has to

the point where people literally

cannot afford to take on staff.

Businesses, closing pubs.

The rates that pubs are paying now is

just fucking it's sick in the head.

It's so bad.

It's something like, is it something

like 10 pubs a day are closing?

Yeah.

It's something like that.

But you over a couple of years, that's

the decimation of the industry, right?

So because they've got no experience

in the real world, in business, and

again, I can quantify that the vast

majority of labor mps were either

trade unionists, fucking very well paid

trade unionists counselors, like local

counselors or like local campaigners.

Now, there's nothing wrong with that.

Be a fucking, well, don't be a

trade unionist success scum, but you

can be a trade enist, you can be a

counselor, you can be, you know, a

political campaigner, that's all.

Yeah, great.

But then you can't expect to form a

government on that thread, bear Iceland

experience, and expect not to trip over

yourselves in litigation, legislation,

bureaucracy, and not understand the

mechanics of a functioning economy.

You know, there is absolutely

zero business confidence now in,

in the UK government from abroad.

I mean, we've spoken about this

before, the amount of millionaires

who are leaving the uk, not just

for Dubai, but increasingly for

Italy, for favorable tax rates.

And again, the people on the

left are like, oh yeah, good.

Fuck 'em.

And it's no, they're the

fucking wealth creators.

They're the employers.

They're the wealth generators.

And the fundamentally, the thing

about this government, the labor

government, the thing they don't

understand the most, and it.

I cannot understand, even from my

political knowledge, I cannot understand

how they don't get this fundamental point

economic growth, which is their sole aim.

If you cut through Downing Street,

do an awful fucking job, this

current government do an awful

job at communicating their intent.

It's very muddled, it's very chaotic.

And they don't have like essential

theme or central narrative.

If you cut through all

their shit, it is growth.

They their main priority

is economic growth.

The thing they don't understand.

If you want economic growth, you have to

free up bureaucracy and red tape to let

private business stimulate growth, right?

Yeah.

That's how you stimulate economies

through private business.

And they just don't get it.

They think they'll create

growth through higher taxation.

It's the complete opposite.

There has never been a case, there's

never been a working example in the

real world where that has happened.

So it's the biggest political naivety

and the thing that really fucks me

off on a personal and a professional

level is the only reason these

fucking clowns are in power is because

people just didn't want the tourism.

That's fine.

I get it.

And for like caviar, I'm

a fucking conservative.

That doesn't bother me.

I'm not bitter.

What I'm annoyed about is people were

so eager to get rid of the conservatives

that they voted in labor without thinking.

And I had this conversation with a really

good friend of mine who, he was a sniper.

I was in REI for the last few years.

He was in snipers.

We are very close Afghan

together, and he is very educated.

He is he, we're very similar.

He's a really good guy.

And he voted labor for Starr.

And I said to him over

a beer about a year ago.

I was like, why did you vote?

Because even he was like, I'm beginning

to fucking regret my decision.

I was like, yeah, fucking

you and everyone else.

I said why did you vote labor?

And he was just like, I dunno.

I just didn't want the Tories.

And I'm like, that level of

naivety and ignorance, it's

completely ruined the country now.

Yeah.

And I could go on, I could go on

all, you know me, I could go on all

night about this same, but they let's

flip to something a little bit more

fun that you do in your spare time.

Power lifting.

Oh.

If you're gonna say masturbating,

the good old hot crunch, you do that.

You're too old for that.

Fuck me.

I'm too for power listing.

Fuck me.

Do I feel it these days?

It's like I, you know,

I actually get pleasure.

This is the third time

I think I said it today.

I'm starting to get a bit of a sick

pleasure in saying I turned 40 next year.

Yeah.

Because that's a fucking big deal, right?

And I actually made my pack of feet

in my back now I made my piece with

turning 40 about two or three years ago.

Mentally.

I'm already there.

Yeah.

I feel 40.

You know, I'm still young enough and

hungry enough professionally to get

out there and fucking graft, but I

can feel like I can ease off a little

bit and enjoy some fruits of labor.

Yeah.

Where you can't, in your

twenties and thirties, in your

twenties are for fucking up.

Right.

Your twenties are for drinking.

Piss from me.

Fucking platoon sergeant.

Ending bloodlines in Iraq.

Just basically fucking up Right?

And getting filled in a lot.

Yeah.

Experiences may vary.

Your thirties are for

fucking hustling, right?

Yeah.

You are hustling by your thirties.

You are for most people, I think.

Okay.

I kind of know what I want

for the next 20 or 30 years.

I can kind of see a bit of a plan.

Early career, this was me going

back into education, interning,

being a researcher, getting into

parliament, all these kind of things.

And you are fucking nonstop.

So when you asked me earlier, how did I

manage to juggle all those things when I

left the army full-time degree full-time

language course, a master's degree,

looking after my father being in the

reserves and all the work in London as

well, and it's because I was fucking 30.

I was still, I was 29, 30, 31, 32.

And you are hustling, right?

And I know you know this as well as

I do from your experiences, you are

forties and this is what I mean.

Mentally.

I can feel I'm already there.

Like I'm at peace with taking my

foot off the brake just a little

bit because I fucking need to,

I've got mileage in my body.

So the power lifting it's my, I

say to people, you know, I'm okay.

I'm not breaking records,

but I fucking enjoy it.

And I enjoy the process.

You know, when I compare to,

you know, when I was a kid.

At school.

One reason why I got, you know,

I got absolutely terrorized.

One for one reason is 'cause I was so

small, I was the smallest kid in my year.

Right.

I was like always the shortest

and always the thinnest.

Even when I was in battalion, when I

left battalion, I was like, 70 kilos.

I'm now nine four.

You know, that, that mileage on your

body when you hit your sort of like

late thirties, turning 40, you know,

I probably sound like a broken record.

And people in their fifties are gonna

be thinking, yeah, fuck me, wait till

you hit 59 and you're thinking about 60.

Right.

You're gonna be fucking, you

know, in a world of pain.

But the power lifting, yeah.

You know, I discovered it probably it was

during COVID when the gyms were locked up.

Yeah.

And, you know, Instagram was taking off

and I was getting really interested and

I did basically a novice competition in

the army as a reservist by this point.

So I always enjoyed deadlifting.

I loved deadlifting.

I love it.

Less so now 'cause it fucking hurts.

I've always been average at best benching

and I was always quite poor at squatting

'cause I never like classic gym bro.

Never tried legs.

I was chest fuck the rest.

Yeah.

Chest and des, right?

Yeah.

And and like leg legs was gay.

Like how wrong I was.

And also when I was in the military,

when I was in battalion fuck load

drive time to make gains in the gym.

You are always away.

You might, you are on the ranges

for two weeks, then you're on a

course for a week, then you are

leave for a week getting pissed.

Then you are on exercise for two months.

And then maybe back in camp

for a week or two weeks.

Oh, I'll go back I'll

bench again for two weeks.

And you don't make any fucking progress.

And you're eating rations

and fucking monster, munchin,

you know, monster all day.

Like you are not in a good diet

or a good training routine.

When I left the Army and I could

actually think about the gym a bit

more seriously, a bit more consistency

and yeah, I love deadlifting.

I loved power lifting.

I initially, I think I just

wanted to do deadlift only and

to deadlift only competitions,

which by the way is super gay.

Don't do it.

I say that I'm going to Poland in

March to do a deadlift competition.

Yeah, go fuck myself.

But but it's the only one I've ever done.

I'm actually looking forward to it.

But yeah, the power.

So I say to people, every man, I

dunno about chicks are probably the

same, but every man needs a hobby.

You've got your business.

I'm gonna take a guess.

Your hobby is probably your cars.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You've being involved in supercars the

Ferrari, kind of, for those who dunno,

Alex has got like a shit car, but no.

You know, being part of that club.

Yeah.

And that community, same

with me for power lifting.

It's a community.

Half a power lifters are like turbo

gay, very wet very self-centric.

And they're pretty shit.

But there's, there, there's a

large part of that community that's

actually really fucking cool.

And for me that's it's

a huge part of my life.

Huge part of my, no one

in London knows I do it.

Yeah.

I when I went to America two and a

half years ago, I went to Louisiana.

To the A WPC World Championship.

So the amateur world part

in Congress championships.

I ended up winning, which is

you know, now I look back and

I'm like, that didn't mean shit.

I didn't break any records.

I think my class there was about nine

of us in back, so under 80 twos in

raps, there was about nine of us.

So it was competitive, but by

global power lifting standards,

it wasn't that competitive.

It was like, okay, do

you know what I mean?

It was just enough credibility.

It was like a thin layer of credibility.

But I won the competition and, you

know, at the end of the day I can,

you know, I will always have that.

I'll always buy, I went to a world

championships and won in, in, in quite

a competitive field, very fairly.

And it was it was tested.

I was tested.

It was a super cool experience.

And you know, for someone who

knows, they're never going,

I'm never gonna be elite.

I'm never gonna break records, I'm

never gonna win national championships

at, you know, certain levels.

But I went there and I won that.

And for me, and it was my first

international, which if you ask anyone who

competes probably any kind of competition,

but particularly strength sports,

competing internationally is fucking

hard, like traveling internationally.

You got the fucking, you got the

travel, the trip, the different

food, different temperature.

You don't know the fucking

area, you know, it's a whole

kind of different cut of fish.

You know, I'm quietly very proud of that.

But as I get more into the sport, I just

want to do it to beat my own records

and, you know, just gradually improve.

Yeah.

But because I am turning

40 next year, apparently.

Yeah.

It's fucking hard, right?

To make those gains,

to make that progress.

I have an insane work life super, super

busy, as I'm sure most people do in

their sort of thirties into forties.

But because of that training is hard.

I never miss training.

Eating is difficult.

Trying to stay on top of my food when

I'm up and down on London, on trains, on

the road, in meetings, you know, I can

be in meetings like eight hours a day.

I can't just get my Tupperware out

fruit three times, you know, have my

fucking meat, rice, and eggs three times.

You know what I mean?

It's, you can't do it often.

When I'm in London, I have a fucking

sandwich in the day, if I'm lucky, right?

If I'm lucky, a day in London, I usually,

and I've kicked alcohol pretty much

completely from like my social life.

But, you know, even taking alcohol out

of it, you might average each day in

London, I'm probably eating like less

than a thousand calories because I

literally don't have the ability to stop

what I'm doing and go and get like a

proper, get a proper meal or something.

At best.

I get the, I get to the train station

at 10 o'clock, there might be some

fucking chicken and rice left that's

like stale and you know, gone off a bit.

You know, it's grim.

It's really fucking grim.

But fuck me.

I love power lifting.

I love it.

It's such a the competition,

I do it to compete.

I, I noticed with my, sorry I cut you

off, but really quickly, I noticed

the difference with my training, the

mentality of training when I started

competing about five years ago.

And quick shout out to my coach Elliot,

who's an absolute fucking lad, and put

it with me for the last five years.

Fucking unit like squat, like

fucking 440 kilos savage.

And, you know, I've been with him

virtually the whole time, but the

difference, the training mentality, if

you compete that training mentality,

for me, it made such a big difference.

And I dread the day where I have

to stop competing because I'm

then gonna sack off the training.

I'm not gonna train as that

intensity of training is gonna

slow and it's something Yeah.

I fucking love it.

I really do mean, I know guys that

are still competing in power lifting.

They're like in the eighties, so you've

got the best part of 40 years yet to go.

But on that, so we've got a few

supplements you use Yeah, absolutely.

Talk, talk us through

what you use and why.

Yeah, sure.

So the first one actually the one

that's actually the most beneficial for

me, top right, is the joint support.

That completely changed genuinely

of all the supplements you do.

And I've been with you for

what, five, six years now?

Yeah.

I only use like genuinely, I'm not just

saying like I only use combat fuel.

I don't use any other pre-workout.

I don't use any other creating or

way or, you know, aios or anything.

The joint support completely

changed, and this is all unscripted.

I've not being paid to say this.

I'm not, this is genuine.

I suffered from really bad.

Tendonitis, tennis elbow,

that kind of stuff.

My joints, particularly, like I say

my, my elbows, it was the combination

of my last say month or two months

of prep before a competition.

I usually compete twice a year, so we're

talking three or four months of the year.

Like that final bit of those prep, my

elbows would get absolutely wrecked

from low bar squats because I compete,

when I squat low baring wraps, so

it's a fuck load of pressure on

your elbows and heavy bench, right?

Or relatively speaking, heavy bench.

And it used to trust my elbows.

And then you recommended some

joint support tablets before

yours came out officially.

And they helped.

They were okay.

And then when yours came out, and I

honestly, genuinely for people who

have any kind of joint not damage to

the point where you need actual rehab

and care, but when it's like achy and

painful and it's just wear and tear,

it's mileage on your body, right?

Yeah.

I, like I swat the difference

they made was unbelievable.

Like genuinely unbelievable reins.

Creating, you know,

pre-workouts, pre-workout.

Yeah.

They're all great.

You know, they have their place, but

that was genuinely like a game changer.

Yes.

I dunno how if other people have

said that to you, but ab absolutely.

I mean my parents both use it as well.

Oh really?

I've put it out to a lot of people.

Like it is not just a gym,

not just for athletes.

Offer training.

Yeah.

My mom's got arthritis and her knee and

hip and she's now going exercise classes.

I mean, I've drummed

it into her for years.

Go and do some resistance training.

Oh.

By doing some running.

I'm like, mom, no.

Stop your impact.

Go and do some resistance training.

Anyway, they've retired now.

Dad's got really damaged back

and arthritis in his hip.

Both of them now swear by it.

And they, since they're retired, they

went on a walkin holiday Oh, nice.

With their retirement to New Zealand.

My sister lives in Australia.

They walked all the away to New Zealand.

I mean, that's how good this is.

Yeah.

You got, walked to New Zealand.

They walked on this scene.

You've heard it officially here.

They've been away for three months.

Oh, did they now?

They drift.

Came back.

Oh.

Just came back for my

grand and granddad's.

So my mom's mom and dad's

for their 71st anniversary.

And it's 71st anniversary.

71st anniversary.

Fucking wild.

Wild.

Yeah.

90. Five my grand, I be this year really?

91 my grand.

So That's amazing.

Yeah.

Wow.

But yeah, joint, it's, you

know, it's absolutely brilliant.

Anybody that's used it, we haven't

had a single negative feed other than

the only bit of negative feedback.

Somebody died, somebody fired who died.

Didn't say no one died.

Who died from your No, but only

is some people have found that it

makes 'em a bit gassy, you know,

and it's, yeah, e enjoy, embrace it.

It's hilarious.

You know, there's nothing

more big, a little bit gassy.

Yeah.

It can have an effect on some people

and loosen your stool a little bit.

But you can split your serving down

from six caps or just put six caps

in your hand and eat it like a man.

Yeah.

Twice a day.

Yeah, you're good to go.

But Rob so really quickly is the actual

recommended serving six capsules.

Six capsules, yeah.

It's also only having two at a time.

There you go.

Six, six in one go.

No wonder it literally says

it on the bottle as well.

Like six capsules away from training,

away from resistance training.

As we don't want to have, for a

guy that loves to read, can write

in 3D four different languages.

Can't read as simple little

paragraph, but yeah, it's small.

But no that they, no,

they're genuinely fantastic.

And some of the other

stuff the whey protein.

You know how I was saying

earlier about how, and again,

this is completely unscripted,

this is just like genuine shit.

You know how I was saying I really

struggle with my work routine with meals?

Yeah.

One thing that really

does help is whey protein.

So I'd make up one or two.

I have one when I get back late at

night have one on the day, like in the

day with me, I'd always, I always take

I always get one Tupperware box in my

suitcase, some of my suitcases pulling

out briefings or notebooks or laptops

and there's some fucking callback fuel

shaker and a fucking, like a small tup

ware box of a meal if I can get it in.

Mostly see the classic thing,

especially with whey protein, it's

a supplements supplement your diet.

I would often not rely on it in

that sense, but it was a fucking

godsend because when I don't have

time or I can't stop to eat like a

five minute or 10 minute meal, I can

drink a shake that takes 30 seconds.

Do you know what I mean?

So that's actually really helpful.

Is that the white chocolate one there?

Is it it is gosh fucking amazing.

Melted a milky bar pots.

It's what?

That's like a, you know, a

little milky bar yogurt punch.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is that actually what it is?

That's what I'm based it on.

I dunno, that's what I based it on.

Yeah, that's even better.

But genuinely so tasty.

Creating, obviously, I

mean it a staple in it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

50 grams a day, easy.

Bosch twice a day.

And then and then pre-workout.

So I take pre-workout.

I get acid quite often, actually.

A lot of people, I say a lot of

people, it's not a lot of people,

but quite a few more than I would

expect, you know, it's at least once

or twice a week ask me, they'll DM me

off Instagram and be like, oh, what?

Now what I'm thinking about trying

this, I'm thinking about trying

that, and I always say, well,

fuck, I, you know, I'm not I can't

really give advice in that sense.

Like I, I'm not a fucking supplements

girl or dietician or anything.

But particularly with pre-workout,

I really enjoy it for,

whenever I do upper body stuff.

If I do it for a squat session, it

fucking, it almost knocks me out a bit.

You know, when I, especially if it's

like a heavy wrap, squat session,

pre-workout is almost too much for me.

But if I'm doing like a bench session

or bro session, you know, like the

kind of gym, bro I have a fluffy

upper body session once a week.

It's basically like dealts arms

a little bit, maybe close grip

bench, something like that.

Maybe some rows.

That's fucking brilliant.

It just, it I, knowing only can I

feel the difference, I fucking see it.

And I'm there for about five

minutes constantly in the

mirror taking that picture.

'cause I know it's gonna last, it's

gonna last six minutes, get to the car

park and I looks fucking small again.

But that's gone, honestly, that

plus a good upper body session.

Yeah.

Just fucking puffs you right out.

You're not fucking great.

Alright.

So genuinely I can't

recommend them at enough.

The joint I, I cannot swear

it off by the joint support.

It completely changed.

I, it was after it was less than

a week, it was last year, and

I remember my mean a few days.

And you should be feeling

a difference on it.

After a week you should, you know, as long

as you haven't snapped your elbow in half.

Yeah.

You should feel a massive difference now.

I've struggled with my knees

since being in the army.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know.

70 kilo wet through

carrying 70 kilo in Afghan.

You know, it ruined me.

Yeah.

And yeah.

Oh, was it a about you look back now.

Yeah.

And I mean, and I can squat again now.

You know, I was back up to, I think I

squat 210 kilos before I started juujitsu.

Yeah.

And now I mean, a strength train light

once or twice a week, and I just enjoy

cuddling men and making them tap.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It not going you really enjoy it though.

Don't love will you say Love it.

That's more of a hobby now than the

cars, you know, we about hobbies early.

Yeah.

Power lifting is my hobby,

my passion, my, yeah.

Equal.

I enjoy.

If you had to give up one only sports cars

or bjj and there's only one right answer.

Ah, b jj, you've give it up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, try it.

Do it.

The other thing is I love juujitsu for the

way it just allows me to, and it sounds

so homo, but be a better person, you know?

Oh.

Like that deescalation of someone

that's there, like gobbing off.

Yeah.

Cool.

So we address violence with violence now.

Yeah.

Someone gets to my face now, or

there's a bit of an altercation.

I used to get really bad road rage.

Now I'm like, oh, whatever.

You get your matter.

You fucking squid up to them.

Yeah.

And you know, we, they go seriously.

It's oh, well if you're doing that, you

sit the flush, get kicked in the head.

Okay.

But put a top juujitsu guy against

the top box or a top MMA fighter,

the jujitsu guy's gonna win really?

99 times out above a hundred.

Is that generally?

Yeah.

I mean, I'd put.

Everything I have financially on

it to say that guy walks away.

But why is that?

They've point.

Martial arts is distance

management control.

You're coming in at a punch.

I know where the punches you.

I don't need to punch you in the face.

I just need to be able to on

drag, move your arm, put you

in a position to pin you down.

It's, you know, and they don't

know how that's gonna happen.

Exactly.

Whilst a boxer knows where it's

like saying who's gonna win out

a fight between an average guy

on the street and Mayweather.

Yeah.

Okay.

It is really that different

like talking to you.

Absolutely.

You know, and Okay, you might

get some, oh, well I'm so big

and strong I'm gonna bat you.

I mean Okay.

Thor thought like what we call him,

like the goat Gordon Ryan in Juujitsu,

they obviously had a bit of a play belt.

Obviously Thor was like, what, 180 kilos?

Oh yeah.

And Gordon just ragdolled

him, you know, I mean, okay,

that's point in the real world.

He might have been able to jump

stand up, jump up and land on

his back and try and slam him.

But you know, I've seen quite

a few jujitsu videos where guys

like going at them in the street

and, you know, w Of course.

Yeah.

Okay.

We wanna sit down, take you down.

If you know a little bit of judo and

takedowns your but get location leg

snap your ankle, snap your f what you

gonna do then You're not gonna push

you in the face with a broken ankle.

You don't wanna do that.

If I've got you pinned down

and got your arms isolated your

hands, I say, what you gonna do?

Try and headbutt me.

Okay.

I'll treat you out and

put you your to sleep.

Yeah.

You know and wanna rip your arm off,

rip your hair off, rip your knee off.

It's, you know, and they wank you off.

Yeah.

And take your clothes off.

That's yeah, that, that's just normal.

That's how it imagine you

waking up in the street.

Having been wanked off and you are

naked, but with a bloody nose as well.

No idea what's happened.

Yeah.

And as you driving off in your

Ferrari, jujitsu's not gay, but it

helps, especially when you get into,

we took Leah to do some Juujitsu.

Oh yeah.

Teach her to get into Mount.

She's like riding.

Yeah.

Not making this any better.

It's called mount's not gay.

I imagine.

I imagine it's one of those sports

and disciplines where there's a lot

of misperception, misconception.

People basically know

what power lifting is.

People basically what

strongman is, what boxing is.

Even ever base.

Absolutely.

Bjj I imagine it's quite unknown.

You can't know what it is until you do it.

You know, I've taken quite a

few of the athletes away to

come and try when they be down.

Part of combat fuel isn't is the Yeah,

it's the biggest growing sport in the uk.

You know, we do.

Oh, actually, yeah.

Oh right.

Yeah.

By far it's the quickest it has been for

like, sort of like last, like three, four

years, which thinks because of that, which

think's driven that combat back fuel.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Combat fuel, bjj.

We did it.

But no, what's actually driven that?

I think it's just something people find

I can't explain it until you do it.

You don't get it.

You know, took a few of the guys

away and it's took Ryan Andrews away.

Yes.

You know, 110 kilo natural bodybuilder.

Like he could just flatten people.

Yeah.

And just to see that, you know, he's

coming at me doing and he enjoyed it.

We're doing it and he is he enjoyed it.

He is he's still a bodybuilder.

He still enjoys his bodybuilder

and that's his thing.

Addictive.

BJ j's got like addictive.

Absolutely.

Like when you hit like a lovely sweep

on someone you feel so in control and

I've got this mouth of you're not say

about punching someone square the nose.

Exactly.

And you know, and I know that

deescalation, you know, I'd like to say I

try to keep my face like as much as I can.

You know, when I go and meet

people, I have meetings.

It needs to be somewhat presentable, but

it is, I'm doing a great job of that.

I mean, I was on a phone call earlier with

one of our tech guys and I had a needle

hanging out my ear syringe and the juice

out of them before we came on to do this.

Oh.

And he is what are you doing?

I was like, I'm just doing my ears, mate.

What's up?

Because I accidentally hit accident

video call rather the phone

call and I'm there stood like in

the toilet, stringing my ears.

Perfectly normal or no business

normal, perfectly normal.

As you do multitasking that this

sounds like power lifting, I get

this, it says multitasking as well.

But interesting mate, thank

you so much for coming on.

Have you've got any advice

that you'd give to the younger

generation or your younger self?

Oh you what?

People ask me for advice quite often.

Again, without sounding

bigheaded, and I always say I'm

no one to give fucking advice.

Everyone makes mistakes.

I'd say the most important thing

is learn from your mistakes.

You can take as much advice

as you want at a younger age.

And even now, you know, 38,

nearly 39, I can take advice.

Probably not much because I'm a

bit older and I'm a bit wiser.

But I would say learn from your mistake.

Embrace the mistakes you make.

Like even with me, what happened at

Waterloo Station only three years ago?

You know, I was a fucking grown man.

Right.

I still learn from it probably to make me

a better person, but I learned from it.

So I'd say, you know, you know,

take the rough of the smooth roll

with the punches and learn from

them and actually learn from them.

Don't just say, oh, yeah,

I'm gonna learn from it.

Actually learn from it.

Think about it, self-reflection.

But that comes with experience,

that comes with age.

I wasn't fucking

self-reflecting in my twenties.

I was too busy drinking between

sergeants piss and enjoying it.

But you know, it, it comes of

age, it comes with experience.

It goes back to what I was saying,

which is twenties is for fucking up.

Thirties is for grafting and

forties, thirties, into forties.

You are on the right path,

but you have, you often get

there, speak to anyone our age.

You get there by, there's

never one straight path, right?

Traumatic childhood bounce

between parents, very violent

childhood, very aggressive.

Join the army, quit

university back to university.

You know, all the jobs that I've done

since, you know, there's never one path.

It's find and invest in what you are

interested in and what makes you happy.

As a, as either a career

choice or a pa. Sports.

If you really enjoy sports,

gravitate towards that.

Find what you are really interested in.

Put as much investment as you can

without going like overboard or,

you know, taking it to an extreme.

You still enjoy life, you know,

you've got the rest of your life

for that hardcore focus, you know,

in your thirties and your forties.

And yeah, I'd say one of

the things I think Tony did

something on on this with people.

He, he asked people, and I was

grateful enough to be included in them.

He reached out to people and he

said, can you give one or two pieces

of advice for people in sports?

And I said, surround yourself

with people better than you.

So for me, with my power lifting

for the first couple of years,

I was just doing my own thing.

I was training my own fucking lockup.

I had my own kit, I was training

my own, and yeah, I was making okay

progress, but I kept being told

to train at a power lifting gym in

Nottingham Strong, which is by far the

best power lifting gym in the country.

It's got great people there, some of

whom been now some of my closest friends.

And, you know, these are guys

who, you know, they took me in.

They were, I was training with them,

and I picked up so much with them.

And that goes for any BJJ boxing, you

know, CrossFit, whatever it might be.

Surround yourself with better people.

Learn from them.

Take the punches, learn from the punches.

And if you're gonna get punched,

learn how to fucking punch

someone back a lot harder.

You know, don't be afraid to be aggressive

and be violent when it's needed.

You know, oftentimes in life,

you need that aggressive attitude

or that offensive spirit.

Doesn't mean you can go on the

street knocking people out for fun,

but you know, when you need it.

And I still think there's a, there's

an element of that, which does help.

Just don't, you know.

Learn when to use it.

And that's one thing the Army is great

with, you know, that controlled violence.

So yeah, surround yourself

with better people.

Take the punches, learn from them.

Invest your time and money

and what makes you happy.

And yeah, fucking take

life for what it is.

Don't take it too seriously.

You gotta fucking die.

Yeah.

So enjoy the ride though, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Enjoy the ride.

If people do wanna find you, follow

you, where can they find you?

Well I won't give my, sorry.

So not physically just digitally

hunt me down and kill me.

No.

Yeah.

So on Instagram one more rep on Twitter

is where I put all my professional stuff.

It's Robert Clark, 87.

But yeah, you know, I put,

I tend to separate the two.

So Instagram is all my private stuff, my

training my political views you know, I

can be a lot more myself on Instagram.

Twitter is for people who are interested

in, you know, watching my media or you

know, reading my articles or my more

PC political thoughts and opinions.

I put all that on Twitter as well.

So yeah, find me on Twitter as well.

Wicked.

Rob, thank you so much for coming on.

Absolute pleasure.

Of course.

Thank you for your service.

For Queen and then King

and Country as well.

Thank you very much.

My pleasure.

That's a wrap.