Mihir Bose describes having coffee with Nelson Mandela in his Soweto house, how the great man had to see cricket sitting behind a cage during apartheid and what real loss of freedom means. Far removed from the ridiculous talk of Britain having been enslaved by the EU. He argues the problem is that this country has never got over losing the empire and asks David Smith and Nigel Dudley whether they would have wanted Britain still to have an empire on which the sun never set. Both Dudley and Smith say they feel no nostalgia for the empire. Dudley says he finds talk by Brexiters of preserving British sovereignty nonsensical. Smith recalls being brought up on films where Kenneth Moore singlehandedly destroyed the Nazis and why the story of Britain in Europe, such as what the EU did to preserve peace in Europe when communism collapsed, was never properly told. One reason for this was Boris Johnson spinning fantasy talks about Europe when working as a journalist in Brussels and the three Old Hacks recall their own personal stories of Boris the journalist. The Three Old Hacks then walk down memory lane to talk about the days before computers when they could dictate copy to copy takers and how this lost world of journalism was not always as glorious as sometimes portrayed.
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