Staging a Coup

Speaker A: 00:00:00

he Capitol riots from January: 2021

Speaker B: 00:01:41

idea. And I believe they've sort of established that they were inspired by that. So, yeah, I

Speaker A: 00:01:50

mean, I don't know. I guess if you're a history buff, you might know that German extremists seizing power is sometimes something to be worried about. So it made the news. It wasn't nothing. So I was quite interested in this and I thought, well, OK, you know, coups. Sorry, Nick, sorry to interrupt. At what stage did they get kind of, you know, picked up or whatever? Before they'd done anything. I can only assume there's an insider who tipped off the police or something. So it probably only got as far as their WhatsApp messages or whatever. I would have thought. Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:02:23

Yeah. So it should be said it's all alleged at this stage, just in case the German public are listening

Speaker A: 00:02:32

. There was one in Myanmar in: 2021

Speaker B: 00:04:01

I'm not sure where to go at the moment. Yeah, well, so I think sort of looking at what constitutes a coup is quite interesting. Before you launch one, you probably ought to know what it is. And so there are lots of definitions. But essentially, overthrowing a government through illegal means is the sort of agreed on set of terms. But what does that mean? I mean, was the American Revolution a coup? Well, yes. In which case, we demand our territory back and insist that it's a legal action. Yeah, they swear fealty forthwith to King Charles.

Speaker A: 00:04:43

Let's face facts, they've muffed it. So you know, it's time for us to take back the reins.

Speaker B: 00:04:47

As they've kind of admitted themselves in attempting to their own to the revolution against the revolution. Yeah. So now we've established the illegitimacy of the United States, we can get on. But the point is, it's I think, in the modern context, at least certainly in our context, we're talking about the overthrowing of a democratic government by non democratic means. But of course, in lots of other places, that might not be the case, you might be overthrowing one autocratic rule in an attempt to bring in democracy. So it can work either way. But for the UK purposes, it's about undermining subverting democracy in order to establish ourselves as the supreme dictates for life. Yeah, nice. Jordan, I think Yeah, I think

Speaker C: 00:05:35

the prevalence and the popularity of democracy is probably one of the reasons why we see less coups. I think like most people seem to like democracy or think it's the best of the bunch. And so they're probably less in favour of attempts to kind of destabilise. Yeah, we're taking a list of those people. But yeah, keep going. Yeah. So yeah, I think I think you could put I think maybe one of the things you have to do is cast doubt over democracy. Yeah. As a form of government. I think you have to make that look brittle and, you know, shaky. Well, I mean, I think actually

Speaker A: 00:06:15

there's evidence that that democracy well, sort of fledgling democracies are more prone to coups than either autocracies or established democracies, which is perhaps not surprising. But basically, if Britain was a fragile democracy, and you know, maybe it is, we'll come to that. Then, then that would point in, you know, in favour of potentially a successful coup. But yeah, I think but I think there's an interesting difference between coups and revolutions, which is that revolutions are pop tend to be populist movements. And they tend to want things like democracy and other populist things like, you know, subsidised bread and jobs for all and an end to the war with Germany and that sort of thing. Whereas coups tend to be led by the elite. That's us, by the way. Yeah, brilliant. And the elite kind of wants to keep the status quo, usually, and if anything, reinforce the power of the elite, and do kind of actually reactionary things a bit like these guys in Germany who wanted to restore the monarchy and de-democratise. So there is a tension there. And yeah, and there's an interesting dynamics about how as a coup guy, you might want to try and exploit populist support. But the fact is, like all these, you know, you get a lot of coups where they're promising democracy, they overthrow a kind of autocrat or semi-autocrat. And of course, you never get it, you never get the democracy that was promised, what you get is another autocrat. Yeah, happens a lot in Pakistan, that kind of thing.

Speaker B: 00:07:45

Well, yeah, interesting. And, you know, Turkey as well, in both countries, the army has a perceived constitutional role, you know, so that there is an entrenched sense within those institutions, or at least there was, that when push comes to shove, it's their responsibility to step in

Speaker A: 00:08:07

you mean? No, I think it was: 1981

Speaker B: 00:08:21

Franco came about as a, through a military coup.

Speaker A: 00:08:24

Right. But I think Franco ended around about 76, more or less, right? Right. More or less. But it was, I think it was around about 81, where you had a general of some kind waving his revolver around in whatever the Spanish parliament is called. And that, like I say, it was early 80s, about 81. Do you have a memory of this? A very famous picture. It's, I just find it astonishing, absolutely astonishing that that happened. And it's like just the veneer, you know, we all go there on holiday. And it sort of, it pretends that this is this sort of, you know, nice, well-established democracy. Well, actually, you know, it's pretty, it's very young.

Speaker B: 00:08:57

Well, and Portugal didn't come out of dictatorship until the 70s, did it?

Speaker A: 00:09:01

hat are the dates? It's about: 1950

Speaker C: 00:13:17

internet? And I don't know. I think taking control of the airwaves is a big one. I think you need to get your message out there, don't you? Yeah. But I think you could do it probably nowadays through social media channels rather than, you don't have to take the BBC. You can do it all. Sidestep them, that's fine. Yeah, no problem. On Telegram. We could probably jam them first. And get your message out that way. But I think that is a big, you've got to sort of galvanize a bit of support for yourself, I think, and legitimacy and have some recognition as well.

Speaker B: 00:13:48

Labour Prime Minister in the: 1960

Speaker A: 00:16:39

Yeah, because also this makes things because you need the elements that we've talked about. But it feels to me like you need a figurehead, a popular figurehead, even if they're only a puppet.

Speaker B: 00:16:47

Right. I've got I've got one. Brilliant. I've got one as well. Yeah. Well, I'll just say two more two more sort of case case studies. So the other example is obviously in the context of British history, you have to look at usurp, you know, usurping, because obviously, you know, we didn't necessarily have a democratic system throughout our history. But if you look at the removal of King Charles, and the execution of King Charles, No, not the one we've got now. You know, no, that's coming. But I'm reading a fascinating book at the moment called Act of Oblivion, which is all about after the Charles II comes to the throne, the sort of settlement, this I didn't know about this bit of legislation, this proclamation, but the Act of Oblivion was, was essentially focused on saying, Okay, look, we know lots of people were involved in having run the country and so on, in the absence of a king. And we don't want to have another civil war. But those people who were involved in the trial and the execution of the king are basically worse sentenced to being, you know, hanged, drawn and quartered, like properly, you know, a brutal execution, the real stuff. And the book that I'm reading is it's fiction, but it's about the pursuit of two of these people who go to North America. And but but the thing there is, I think the failure there. So yes, they removed the king, but they didn't have an enduring system. And when that came to an end, as is often the case, they got their comeuppance. So so that's, that's another case.

Speaker A: 00:18:39

Well, just to briefly interrupt, I'm too excited to not interrupt. But I'm really getting on board with this, by the way, guys, is just thinking historically, it was called the Glorious Revolution with, you know, William of Orange. That's, I think, is our nice figurehead. Nick, slightly getting ahead of ourselves for our figurehead. I'm going to say three, two, one. And we're going to say one word. Okay. Three, two, one. Charles III.

Speaker B: 00:19:06

Well, we can do this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. We can settle on that. Who's Charles III?

Speaker A: 00:19:11

He's the king. The current one. Is he the current one? Yeah, he's our king. You remember the Queen? The Queen died. Yeah, I need to get up to speed. In my head, he was still Charles II, but of course, no.

Speaker B: 00:19:23

No, no. Charles II issued the Act of Oblivion. No, but we know, I think now we need to do away

Speaker A: 00:19:29

with him. But anyway, we can get on with this. Well, I've got a detailed plan. But hold on.

Speaker B: 00:19:32

Last thing I was going to say, yeah, in terms of a success story. Yeah. Is William the Conqueror, right? Yeah. Effectively mounting a foreign launched military coup or invasion, I suppose you could say. But but he, you know, got rid of Harold Goldwinson. And what he did when he came into power was, you know, he tried to play it nicely. But then at the point at which, you know, there was there were uprisings, there was the harrying of the north where he brutally suppressed

Speaker A: 00:19:58

it. But also, it's interesting, goes against that whole get the elite on side, because actually, it's just like got rid of the whole bunch of elite and brought in a whole new elite.

Speaker B: 00:20:08

That's how I see it. And yeah, we've never, never, never looked back. No, quite, quite.

Speaker A: 00:20:12

So anyway, is it time to put some flesh on the skeleton of our coup plot? By the way, before we get arrested for treason, I should say, of course, that this is all entirely hypothetical. If anything, it's offered as a as a warning to the British authorities that they can protect

Speaker B: 00:20:27

themselves. It's called red teaming. Yeah, is it? Okay. Yeah. So before you do, I want to go straight

Speaker A: 00:20:31

to this figurehead thing, because I think I want to push for Prince Harry here, right? The reason why is because we need to usher in a new change, right? But we need the legitimacy of continuation, right? But also think of the support of the Millennials and the general the other whoever comes up. Everyone hates it. But we don't the Millennials are not the elites, right? So we've established we need the elite. No, no, but they're the popular people, right? I mean, they're the ones with the energy. I've got I've got my populist message, which we're going to hijack. You go right. So this is essentially a monarchist coup, right? We're going to take over the British government and restore absolute monarchy. Why? That's the idea. Why do we want to do this? Right? Well, I'll get to that. Okay. Well, because we want power. And at the moment, we've got a kind of, you know, we've had political chaos. Yeah. Over the last couple of years. We've got a, you know, a kind of feeble, you know, government. Yeah, it's just, you know, so so that's the that's the that's the message here. We're going to go back to the good old days when we had an absolute monarchy. Anyway, first things first, military support. Let's get that in the bag. So I looked at, right, so we've got to pick a branch of the armed forces to co-opt. Yeah. And they've got 80,000 men in the army. Yeah. 33,000 in the RAF, but they do have things like bombers and stuff. And 27,000 in the Navy and 7,000 in the Royal Marines. So you might say, well, it's obvious, we'll get the army on board. I think we want the Royal Marines. Right? Well, but what we want to do is find who's got the lowest satisfaction. How can we do that? But they tell you there's a thing called the Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey. And what it reveals, in fact, is that the Navy and the Royal Marines do have the lowest satisfaction. So this is good because the Navy and the Marines together can operate on land and sea. Yeah, they can certainly assault places and there will be an amphibious assault involved in my plan. So what do we so we first we've got to co-opt the first sea lord and chief of naval staff that they're the same person, actually, Admiral Sir Ben Key. By the way, there is no evidence that they're interested in joining this. Actually, seriously, let's see. And of course, the Commandant General of the Royal Marines, who's General Gwyn Jenkins, we'd need to get what will we offer them? A big pay rise. And instant job advancement. And suitable prestige for these elements of the Armed Forces. For the first sea lord, he would be promoted to the Chief of the General Staff. So that's, you know, we'd get Oh, hang on. Is that is that the one which is all? Oh, you know, chief? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we get promoted up to the level. There's any skeletons in those closets as well. I know, because we need their support. We're not coercing them. And then and then the Commandant General of the Royal Marines, he simply gets promoted to first sea lord. So they're both going up a level. Nice. We give them lots of new ships. And uniforms. And better uniforms. Epaulettes. Bigger hats. And so the idea is that we're going to, I'm assuming that, you know, because the military tends to be a bit more reactionary than most people in terms of their political views. They'd be on board with, you know, restoring the monarchy who is after all, their boss. And, you know, that we're going to get rid of the Ministry of Defence, turn it back into the War Office. Get the civilians out of the War Office and put the military back in charge. The civilian control of the armed forces is a terrible idea. So that's the idea. So we got them on board. Right. Popular discontent, which we're going to exploit, but not actually relieve. Well, I think that's quite easy. Apparently, 60% of British people, according to a poll a couple of years ago, are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working. And we've seen political chaos over the last few years. So what we're offering... I think we need to go back to basics and some common sense. Right. I'm suggesting a major reform of the democratic institutions to wit. Abolishing the Houses of Parliament as a decision-making body and replacing them with a bunch of local, what we're calling, wit hands. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we're going to have a lot of, we're going to decentralise government, put the power back in control of local people. This sounds very sensible. Yeah, but they'll be fractionalised. They will divide and rule. OK, so that's the agenda. I like what you've done there with the harking back. That's good. That was nice. Shall I move on to D-Day? Oh, OK, yeah. But hold on, do we, have we... Are we all OK with that so far? Yeah, so far so good. Yeah. OK. Any dissenters? Well, yeah, OK. No, that's

Speaker B: 00:25:11

fine. That's fine. Yeah. I think he's a potential reactionary dissent. Anyway. A counter-revolutionary.

Speaker A: 00:25:18

olice will be on leave. So in: 0400

Speaker C: 00:30:44

you want, Jordan? Some power, because if I don't get it, I might start ruffling a few feathers.

Speaker A: 00:30:53

We can give him, we can put him in charge of the colonies or something. Yes, he can be the, yeah. I'll take that. Well, we'll restore, obviously we'll get rid of the Australian parliament, because the king can do that, I think. He can dissolve the Australian government and reimpose direct control. Sounds sensible. Nick, are you the leader? I want to be the guy behind the guy.

Speaker B: 00:31:13

Okay. Well, the king is nominally in charge, right? Should we make Chris the front man? No, I don't want to be the front man. The front man's the one who gets lynched by a mob.

Speaker A: 00:31:22

Yeah. Okay, so Chris is the lynch, being lynched by a mob guy. And he's the fall guy. And then we've got, yeah, as you say, I can be Prince, sorry, King Charles's special advisor or something. There you go. Hey, presto. I like it. Okay. So, okay, I feel okay about it. Yeah, good. All right. It's a win-win. Yeah. Well, we've done it. Brilliant. Okay, well, all we need, I mean, we figured, actually, it's all we need to do is just press the button. That's it. We're good to go. Also, what's nice about this, just for the episode itself, but also it bodes well for the coup that we're about to have, or the revolution, or the return to, yeah? The restoration of the true nature of the monarchy that we should have in this country. But I like the fact that we did that without rancour as well, which, you know, which bodes well. Yeah, it said I don't want a single shot to be fired. No, yeah, exactly. A bloodless restoration is what we want. Okay. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Chris Wragg, Nick Hare, and Jordan Fermanis. Of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Viva la Revolución. Okay. God save the king.