Craft Politics

Last night, President Trump addressed the nation for the first time since launching Operation Epic Fury against Iran on February 28. Joseph and Andrew break down a speech that offered no new information, no clear exit strategy, and no plan for the Strait of Hormuz — 32 days into a war that's sent gas prices past $4 a gallon and oil past $100 a barrel.
They cover Trump's complete inversion of the standard wartime communications playbook — waiting a month to make his case while public support eroded beneath him. They dig into the regime change contradiction: Trump encouraged Iranians to rise up in the first days of the war, now says regime change was never the goal, and claims the remaining leadership is "less radical." Joseph and Andrew aren't buying it.
The conversation turns to the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran's IRGC is running a de facto toll booth — charging ships $2 million to pass, with China potentially assisting in the collection. Trump says the Strait will "open up naturally." Andrew argues the conflict isn't over until it's resolved, and that if the U.S. and Europe both refuse to secure it, Iran has no incentive to give up its leverage.
Andrew offers a provocative thought: the endgame might look remarkably similar to the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal that Trump tore up. And both hosts question whether Western leaders — Starmer, Carney, and others — have anything resembling a plan to deal with the economic fallout hitting consumers at the pump and the grocery store.

Avi Lewis won the federal NDP leadership on the first ballot in Winnipeg with 56% of the vote. He's a documentary filmmaker, former CBC and Al Jazeera host, co-creator of the Leap Manifesto, and — as Andrew helpfully notes — a complete loon politically, though surely a lovely chap.
His platform: nationalize groceries, nationalize telecoms, build a million public homes, do banking through Canada Post, slap a wealth tax on the rich, tax oil and gas exports, and invest 2% of GDP in climate action. It's the most aggressively left federal platform in recent memory, and it won over about 40,000 NDP members who apparently liked what they heard.
Joseph and Andrew debate whether this is a stroke of genius or a spectacular miscalculation. The Corbyn comparison gets a full workout — and the part people forget is that Corbyn nearly won before he got crushed. Provincial NDP leaders started running for the exits within minutes. And the question nobody can answer yet: is there actually a market for left-wing populism in Canada, or has the NDP just made itself irrelevant to everyone except degree-educated urbanites who were already voting for them?
Story 2: "Go Get Your Own Oil"Coming Up
Trump told the UK — by name — to either buy American oil or "build up some delayed courage" and secure the Strait of Hormuz. Hegseth mocked the Royal Navy for good measure.
Andrew walks through the UK's North Sea drilling fight: Labour banned new exploration licences, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband won't budge, and the Conservatives and Reform are hammering the government with a simple question voters understand — why won't you let us use our own oil? The economics say it wouldn't move prices much. The politics say it doesn't matter.
Joseph and Andrew find common ground on the deeper problem: Western allies spent more energy punching Trump than engaging with the opportunity to confront Iran, and now everyone's paying for it — literally, at the pump. The conversation gets frank about what Europe and Canada left on the table.
Part two drops later this week with a full breakdown of the war in Iran once Trump has addressed the nation. Joseph and Andrew are also lining up future episodes on Australia's populist wave and the post-war regional power rebalancing.

Tim Kiladze is a financial reporter and columnist at the Globe and Mail. His recent long-form feature — "Out of nowhere, Canada became poorer than Alabama" — went viral with over five million views on X and triggered a debate about Canadian competitiveness. Tim joined us to walk through what he actually found on the ground in Alabama, why the piece touched a nerve, and what Canada and the UK should take from it.
What We Covered
Tim explains why the piece almost didn't happen — the Canada-Alabama GDP comparison first circulated in 2024, then got buried by the trade war and federal election. He'd always wondered whether the stat was real, pitched the story, and the editors sent him south.
What he found in Huntsville didn't match any Canadian stereotype of Alabama. The city sits in the foothills of the Appalachians, looks like Vermont from the mayor's office, and the dominant car in the biotech research park parking lot was a Subaru Outback. Mayor Tommy Battle, a real estate guy turned politician, has spent years rebranding the city as "Huntsville: a smart place" — complete with lapel pins.
Tim walks through Alabama's economic transformation, starting with Mercedes-Benz arriving in 1993 and triggering a cascade of auto manufacturers — Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, Toyota — that now produce nearly as many vehicles as Ontario. He met Greg Canfield, the state's former commerce secretary, who candidly acknowledged that Alabama's early tax incentives were unsustainably generous and had to be reformed. The key insight from Canfield: speed to market matters more than anything. Companies putting capital at risk want to earn it back fast, and Alabama let them build quickly.
That led to a discussion about Canada's regulatory environment. Joseph flagged the Enbridge pipeline refusal — the same week the piece came out, Enbridge said it wouldn't participate in the proposed Alberta-to-Pacific pipeline. Tim went further, noting that even people involved with major Canadian projects told him privately, in the last couple of weeks, that they don't know if their projects will get built. The variable nobody talks about enough, he said, is the courts — duty to consult rulings, judicial reviews, and First Nations groups that have learned to use legal processes to slow or stop development.
Andrew drew parallels to the regeneration of Greenville, South Carolina and northwestern Arkansas, and raised a critical constraint: the bond markets. The US can run a nearly $2 trillion annual deficit because of the dollar's reserve status. Canada and the UK simply can't play that game — as Britain learned during the Liz Truss mini-budget. Andrew also pushed back on the idea that southern US strategies are directly transferable, noting that lower union protections, weaker worker rights, and minimal safety nets are politically unacceptable in the UK and Canada regardless of which party is in power.
Tim acknowledged all of this but kept returning to a central point: Canada hides behind its morals. Public healthcare and public education are things he firmly believes in — but his kids' school in Toronto looks like a bomb shelter, and when he tried to get a wall painted through the parent council, he hit union rules and red tape. The healthcare system has the same problem: COVID exposed that the bottleneck was nurses and ICU beds, and years later, the nursing crisis persists.
The conversation closed on the question of what's actually learnable. Tim's answer: use tax policy selectively, build a brand again, and stop expecting investment to come to us. Andrew's answer: get past the reflexive anti-Americanism that prevents honest assessment of what's working south of the border.

Lord Walney joins the show to discuss his new 100-page report, Undue Influence, which documents a network of as many as 30 charities, cultural centres, and religious institutions in Britain with alleged ties to the Iranian regime.
The report examines 10 charities in depth — eight of which are under active Charity Commission investigation — and argues that the network has avoided serious scrutiny because regulators and officials feared being accused of racism.
Walney walks through the evidence, including a charity whose governing document required a trustee appointed by Iran's Supreme Leader, and explains why the UK's failure to proscribe the IRGC leaves the regulatory system unable to address the core problem.
The conversation also covers the UK government's newly announced Charity Commission powers and the risks posed by a proposed definition of anti-Muslim hostility.
Walney's report identifies a network of Iranian-aligned organisations operating as registered charities in the UK. Four of the 10 charities examined qualify for Gift Aid — three of those are under active investigation.
The Islamic Centre of England is described as a "central node" in the network. Until recently, its governing document required a trustee appointed by Iran's Supreme Leader.
A former Charity Commission chair admitted that fear of racism allegations made the regulator reluctant to pursue investigations into these organisations.
The Charity Commission's framework focuses on governance and compliance — not ideological alignment with hostile states — creating what Walney calls a "compliance trap."
The UK government announced new Charity Commission powers to tackle extremism, timed closely with the report's release. Walney welcomes the announcement but says political leadership and culture change are needed to make it meaningful.
The UK still has not proscribed the IRGC — unlike Canada, the US, the EU, Sweden, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Walney argues proscription would make it significantly easier to shut down related activity.
A new UK government definition of anti-Muslim hostility risks compounding the chilling effect that has already prevented action on Islamist extremism, though Walney notes efforts have been made to protect freedom of speech within it.
00:00 — Introduction and context: the Iran conflict and Walney's report01:29 — Andrew introduces Lord Walney03:39 — What does the Iranian charity network actually do?06:16 — Charities on the front line of pro-regime protests07:25 — Why has nobody dealt with this?11:22 — Political leadership and the tools gap at the Charity Commission13:16 — The Islamic Centre of England as "central node"15:04 — How embedded is the regime's influence?17:50 — The double standard: Islamist vs. far-right extremism19:38 — University links, IRGC recruitment, and the proscription gap22:46 — Response to the report: legal threats and personal risk27:45 — New Charity Commission powers: enough or window dressing?31:10 — The proposed anti-Muslim hostility definition and its risks37:30 — Why charity networks matter when drones are hitting British bases40:49 — Defending democracy: final reflections

The war in Iran is 11 days old and the picture is shifting fast. A new supreme leader, an oil blockade threat, and Trump calling the whole thing a "little excursion" — Joseph and Andrew unpack why the conversation about international law feels so one-sided.
Plus: the EU quietly drops a protectionist bombshell that nobody seems to want to call by its name, and Carney's Indo-Pacific tour delivers billions in announcements but can any of it replace what's at stake with the US?
The guys close with the latest Canadian polling — and why the Liberals might regret winning back their majority.
The Iran war didn't start on February 28. The regime has been at war with its own people — and with the West — for 47 years. Treating the US-Israeli strikes as Day 1 skips a step.
International law is being selectively invoked. Nobody marched when Hamas crossed a sovereign border. Nobody marched when the regime massacred tens of thousands of its own citizens in January. The outrage only shows up when the West acts.
The opposition from the right (isolationism, cost) is different from the opposition on the left (the regime as victim). Both are wrong, but for very different reasons.
Carney's initial statement was the right call — clear, decisive, among the most hawkish of any world leader. His walkback was driven by caucus management, not conviction.
Starmer's response was embarrassing. A mix of lawyerly caution, Iraq hangover, and pandering to sectarian politics after a by-election loss to the Greens. It damaged the special relationship at exactly the wrong moment.
The EU's Industrial Accelerator Act is tariffs by another name. Macron called Trump's tariffs destructive. Now the EU is doing the same thing and calling it resilience. Everyone's a hypocrite on trade.
Carney's Indo-Pacific tour was impressive in presentation and announceables. But none of it replaces the US trade relationship — it's points of a percent versus multiple points of GDP.
The Liberal lead over the Conservatives has grown to 14 points. Poilievre's tone is evolving, but he's fighting a caricature that won't shift overnight — especially with Trump in the White House as a contrast.
00:00 — Welcome back!00:30 — Iran: new supreme leader, oil weaponised, Trump's mixed signals02:57 — Andrew on the regime's 47-year war and the hypocrisy of international law04:48 — Nobody invoked international law on October 706:07 — Right-wing isolationism vs. left-wing moral inversion07:41 — The regime as imperialist — anti-imperialists supporting imperialism08:00 — Andrew on the hierarchy of evil and the hard left's blind spots11:33 — The domestic threat: IRGC activity in Canada, FBI warnings13:01 — Regime change vs. containment — what's the realistic outcome?15:40 — Can the Iranian people actually overthrow the regime?17:23 — Intelligence infiltration and psychological damage to the regime18:07 — Carney's flip-flop and Starmer's embarrassing response19:04 — Andrew on Starmer: Iraq hangover, sectarian politics, and the special relationship24:29 — Was Carney's walkback driven by Liberal caucus pressure?25:21 — Andrew's rant: we can't bring ourselves to say taking out this regime is a good thing27:30 — Story 2: The EU's "Made in Europe" Act — protectionism dressed up as policy30:25 — Andrew: everyone's a hypocrite on trade33:13 — Why anti-Trump framing lets the EU get away with it34:17 — Should the UK try to get in on Made in Europe?35:44 — Story 3: Carney's Indo-Pacific tour — India, Australia, Japan37:13 — Andrew: great announceables, but it doesn't replace the US39:37 — The real test is what happens with trade south40:24 — Chart of the week: Liberals lead Conservatives by 14 points43:03 — Poilievre's evolving tone — is it too late?45:29 — Andrew: Canadians want a contrast to Trump, not a copy46:50 — The NDP leadership race nobody's watching47:55 — Wrap