TMGS 19/5/2026: IS Andy Burnham ‘STARMER 2.0' after U-Turn? His ‘Man of the People’ Image QUESTIONED

to the Mike Graham Show.I'm Mike Graham and this of course is the Mike Graham Show as you can see from the sign there.It's 7 .01.Can't believe we're slightly late.Very much apologies for that.The International Clock said it was 7 o 'clock so that's probably why I made the mistake.

Russell Quirk is here.Very good morning to you Russell.Morning.It's still D -Day or S -Day or whatever we're going to call it for Starmer.Unbelievably, right, there's still no leadership contest apparently.It's not official.

Not official.So there isn't one that they're all fighting over, even though they're all fighting over it.

We're now in another political vacuum, aren't we?Yeah.

I said this to somebody this morning that it feels like the three Stooges now.They're sort of running around bumping into each other.You know, you've got to run around the corner.Oh, there's West Street.What are you doing?Oh, I want to get back into the European Union.

Do you?Yeah.Really?OK, then.Well we'll see about that.Starmer says that he's going to support Andy Burnham if he decides to run for leadership.

The guy he blocked.Yeah the guy he blocked from running for the leadership before.He now wants him to run for the leadership.We find out I think this week whether or not he's going to run as the candidate.He gets selected as the candidate in this Makefield place.Which everybody says shouldn't be called Makefield.

It should be called Ashton in Makefield.

All the locals say.

even getting the name wrong.

They don't even know where it is.They don't even know where it is, no.And what's his face?Burnham keeps going out running.

Went out running yesterday, slightly different outfit, longer shorts.Did he get the same car at the end of drive home?

Yeah, yeah, apparently he does that all the time.Does he?Yeah, he put out a statement saying, actually I quite often run to where my car is left.Yeah.

Really?What is it about Labour politicians and cars?So you've got one that pretends to go jogging.He runs for about 100 metres and gets in his car and drives off.Then you've got Sadiq Khan, of course, that goes for a walk with his dogs in two bulletproof raindrops.

In two bulletproof raindrops, miles away from where he lives.Yeah.Yeah, I don't know.

Do you think it's performative?

I think it might well be.And also a lot of people noticed that when he came running out of his gated house, it looks like quite a nice house that Andy Burnham lives in, which is, you know, as you might expect, the Mayor of Manchester to live in a nice house.But this working man's kind of hero type image that he keeps putting out.He's absolutely nuts at cobblers, right?The Mail this morning has got Slippery Burnham's two U -turns in one day.Already?

He changed his mind on Britain rejoining the EU to stand in pro -Brexit area.Now he says he'll stick with Reeves' rules, the fiscal rules, which he said he might not stick with.And he's also now said that he wouldn't completely and utterly do away with all of the utilities and nationalise everything because it would cost too much money.So he's already said two things and gone back on them?

Well, and also he said, I think at the weekend, he said a number of things that, yeah, just like Starmer he's going to U -turn on, but these are...Really quite impressive few turns given that they're happening within 24 hours.Yeah, he said and he's not even the official candidate yet Right, but he also mentioned housing which is a hot -button subject in the UK and how he wants to build more council houses Then yeah since the aftermath of the Second World War so I've crunched the numbers on that right?Oh, yeah, and basically he wants to build about 200 ,000 council houses a year, which will cost 50 billion pounds, right?

I just dare I venture where the money might well I also seem to remember when we had the last, you know wish of building houses from labor.It was said by the by the inside building industry.that actually one we don't have the people to build them, two we don't have the resources, we don't have the materials, we don't have the wherewithal, we don't have the plots, we don't know how you're going to do this.

Yeah but there's also I think if you dig into this He has said very, very clearly in the past, Andy Burnham, that he wants to see us not just have closer ties to the EU, but actually to rejoin the EU.As you said, he's now running back on that, because it turns out that Makefield voted 65 % leave.Right.Oops.Yeah.So probably not a good look to be pro -EU if you're going to fight there.

But you know what's also interesting is that people are saying in London, oh, well, where's Streeting come out and said all that?Because basically the bulk of, I think, 50 % of the Labour Party membership is in London, right?Which makes a lot of sense as to why they've lost the entire Red Wall, all of whom are pretty much remainers and also he says most of the Labour MPs... actually wants to rejoin the EU.So it shows you that they are existentially now out of touch with the country.

I think Wes Streeting has been really clever, right, because he knows that if he goes for the leadership on a pro -EU ticket, he might get the leadership.He will.But first of all, Burnham's got to get elected in Makerfield.And if Burnham wants to get elected as leader, he has to be pro -EU.But he can't be pro -EU to get elected in Makerfield because they're a Leave constituency.

Clever for Streeting.And I was saying this yesterday on the show, there are some who say that, you know, the dark arts, the dark lord is in the background going to Wes Streeting, because who he is, he's right if you say this that will completely kibosh Burnham in in Makerfield and I think that's what's going on.

Even though the papers of course are saying that Burnham is way ahead in terms of if there was a poll tomorrow Burnham would win versus Starmer and indeed I presume versus Streeting.

Yeah he would yeah so Andy Burnham would decisively beat Keir Starmer in a head -to -head leadership contest according to a poll of Labour members right but the trouble is What they don't get is that everybody's sick of them, right?Nobody cares whether it's Rayner, whether it's Streeting, whether it's Burnham, whether it's Starmer.People just want to get rid of them.

But don't we realise, right, that we've had the last two years, arguably more than that under the Tories previously, of politicians, you know,doing what they say they're going to do, politicians that have a belief but then go back on it publicly because they think it might be uncomfortable.You've got this here, so we've already got the Burnham U -turn thing, which is the same as Starmer.So Burnham is just really Starmer 2 .0 from what I can see.He's going to not be authentic, he's going to be the very opposite of being a conviction politician.Actually, when you also look at whenever Burnham looks like he's going to be successful with his bid to be both the MP for Makefield and therefore also the leader of the Labour Party and therefore the Prime Minister, have you seen what the bond markets do?

Oh, yeah.I mean, the bond markets are, by the way, forget the whole Liz Trust thing from 2022.The bond markets, guilt yields, therefore the cost of money to people, long -term mortgages and so on, has spiked way more than the Liz Trust regime, but goes even higher when the markets, one day after another, believe that Burnham's going to be our Prime Minister.Why?because he's going to spend, spend, spend, and the only way he can spend is by borrowing even more money than he has.

And what he said in the past was he doesn't want to be in hock to the bond markets, to which everybody said, well, what do you mean by that?And then by the time he's unraveled it and tried to explain it, it's very clear that he doesn't have any understanding of economics.And I put out a tweet the weekend which said, you know, he's basically, his pitch for being prime minister of this great country of ours is that he managed to cap the bus fares in Manchester.

And he thinks that that's somehow a model for water, electricity, energy, you know, and all these other massive industries that he would like to see caps?cut the welfare bill.It's 200 billion pounds a year that we now spend.The fact that we've got some people in Britain...that are on the equivalent of 80 grand a year on benefits, do we really think Burnham's going to stand up to the rank and file and say we're not doing this?

No, because the Labour mantra is that all of those people deserve to be helped, because they're vulnerable, right?But the trouble is they've completely reversed the vulnerability scale now, because now the people who are actually vulnerable are the people who are working and paying tax.Because if you're on benefits, you're not vulnerable anymore.You're living high on the hog.

You are.There's another scary thing here.in relation to what I said about housing, conflate Burnham's position on re -entry in the EU, which then means effectively we open our borders to the EU and therefore all of the migrants that are in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, and so on.It becomes an absolute open door.I mean, you think it's bad enough now.It becomes an absolute open door.

Why do you think Burnham wants to build 200 ,000 council houses?We don't need 200 ,000 council houses a year.We don't.Our population isn't growing apart from through immigration.So we need to conflate the two here.What Burnham's about is opening the floodgates via the EU and therefore having to build 200 ,000 council houses a year at the cost of 50 billion to house the migrants.

Yeah.

So house people who can't afford to buy their own houses, so you just give them one.Whoever you are.Can I not get a free house?

Can I just apply for a free house?No, I think you'd have to come over as a migrant first.

Really?Yeah, probably.It doesn't work.There's a lot of good stuff going on today.There's some great stuff about HS2, which we'll get into in a minute.But first of all, let me show you this, because this is, of course, one of the great Andy Burnham -isms, is that he's of the working people.

And this is a man who knows what it's like to grow up in the North.And he's king of the North.And he's absolutely intelligent.He might as well come out next time he comes out of the house with a whippet and a cloth cap.And a crown.And put some coal on his face.

But instead, of course, he's the product of a pretty decent education, a Cambridge graduate, I think he is, and a whole load of think tanks that he's worked for.

needs to do a Monty Python meme.

Yeah, but you know the old I used to get up off now before Yeah, and also remember jaws, you know when when they go out on the boat and Richard Dreyfuss is the kind of the kid from the Oceanographic Institute and an old what's -his -face grabs him, you know, Captain Shaw whatever his name is Robert Shaw and he looks at his hands and he goes You've never done a hard day's work in your life.That's what he'd do with Burnham, because he'd see his hands, middle -class hands.Have a look at this.This is actually the BBC stitching him up, saying he's not a man of the people.

involved in the Hillsborough campaign and that changed my views on politics because I was part of a government that basically hadn't been listening to its own grassroots.An entire Labour city crying injustice and hadn't been listening and those experiences change and it really has changed my view of modern politics.I'm very disillusioned with it.I think it is out of touch.You're disillusioned with it?Yeah, because it's out of touch.

I said it deals in soundbites, it deals in spin and when I try to make...

But George, but you're...You're it.You are modern politics.You went to Cambridge University, you worked in a couple of think tanks, you became a special advisor, an MP, and now you want to be PM.I mean, what more inside the beltway Westminster insider politician could there be?

Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty good point.

Well, from Evan there, yes.But how dare Burnham sit there?I mean, it's the ultimate gaslighting, isn't it?Saying politics is broken.It has been for 34 years.But yeah, forget the five years I was in the cabinet or as a minister.

He was a minister, then he was in the cabinet.It's nothing to do with me, Gov. He was a Blairite.

He was a Corbynite, he was a Stalmarite, you know this guy...Mayor of Manchester for how long?

Yeah, I don't know, three years.And also, and I'll tread carefully here, but some would say critical of him in terms of his stance or his protection of those that have been subject to the grooming gang rapes.

Maggie Oliver was on the show yesterday basically saying that he had a great opportunity to do plenty to help the young women and girls who were terribly badly assaulted, trapped,raped and in some cases murdered.He didn't do it.No, he didn't.He didn't do anything.So he's not to be trusted.

Another member of the Labour Party in authority, whether it's in councils, mayoralties or in whatever position over the last few years has turned a blind eye.

The other thing, of course, that he's famous for in Manchester is setting up a EU -led zone which costs £200 million to the taxpayer.And then because of so much opposition to it from the local people, having to do away with it.So apparently I haven't been to Manchester for quite a long time and I haven't noticed whenever I have been there but apparently there are cameras everywhere which have got signs on them saying under review right because they built all this infrastructure but they wanted to charge taxi drivers £7 .50 a day buses and and and lorries 15 pounds a day and there was so much opposition to it people just said we're not doing it so straight out the Sadiq Khan playbook so straight out the Sadiq Khan playbook but but worse than that he just spent a load of money and it went nowhere 200 million quid down the swanee but do these people not realize it's not just the money that's being wasted even if and I've had this in Brentwood where I'm a councillor the this net zero crusade yeah if Manchester became net zero if Brentwood became net zero if Britain became net zero bearing in mind We contribute just 1 % of carbon to the world's atmosphere And if we became net zero as a nation, what difference would it make to the Earth's temperature?

Yes, I mean nothing.

No, I mean I've been asking this question for many many years Politicians I'd say when we get to net zero, right, which is what you want to do.What happens there?Yeah, you know, how does my life change?Do I get cheaper electricity?Does my car run better?Yeah, you know and they would and then nobody knows the answer No, you know did does my house because it doesn't because you know what?

It doesn't mean anything that zero means bugger all we're not only does it all mean anything given that you know The carbon that is the focus of net zero is I think it's something like point zero zero four percent of the atmosphere Yeah, but but I'm afraid I mean the atmosphere apparently isWorldwide, it's not just a bit above it stays there So, you know Brentwood or Manchester's net zero great, you know, and you've got that benefit I mean the atmosphere is is a worldwide thing, right?So at the same time as this whole net zero nonsense quest is crusade.You've got China and India and the United States who are chugging out more and more carbon on a daily basis because they're super industrialized So what's the point of us?There isn't any point when the rest of them, which is no literally doing that they're sticking to I like it it too, right?

You're in a house, right, and you've got 50 cans of beans, OK?You take 25 of them and chuck them out the window, you've got net zero beans.That's how it works.

Effectively, that's what they do.No, but it's a crusade for ideological purposes.It's performative sixth form politics is what it is, without anyone actually wanting to know the outcome.And when it comes to the numbers, someone was talking to me the other day.I think it was either East Anglia University or the University of Essex that have been proven to have gamed all the data.

Oh, that was East Anglia, yeah.The famous hockey stick graph.Yeah, they just made it up.Which they manipulated.Yeah, yeah.Manipulated is too nice a word.

They made it up.Even more news on the GB Energy front this morning on Net Zero.The GB Energy business.Our mate Jürgen, you know, who sits in that portacabin up near Aberdeen, but he doesn't go there very often.But this is an energy business that isn't an energy business.It's not an energy business, no.

Nobody knows what it does.It's a hedge fund.They've got a load of people working as directors and executives, but they don't actually do anything, right?It's a hedge fund.Well, apparently, you know how old Miliband said, when you're buying all these solar panels in from China, We've got an absolute, you know, insistence that they must not be produced by slaves.Well, they've gone back a bit on that now.

They're going, well, it's OK.Some of them.It's all right if some slaves are used.Oh, some slaves, yeah.So they've basically watered down the non -slave line in it, right?Yeah.

So they said they wouldn't fund firms using forced labour, such as the ones used in China.But last night, Ed Miliband's department wrote back introducing a new caveat to say that it would only ensure panels were free to producelabour as far as possible.

As far as possible, which means nothing?No.Are these the panels that also are made of plastic which comes from oil?

Yes.Ah, right.Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely right.Just so we're clear how this works.The Uyghur Muslims will be making most of these panels shortly before they get murdered by the Chinese authorities.So if you're putting any panels up you might want to stop the virtue signalling because they'll be dripping with the blood of Uyghur slaves.

How about that?Wow.I mean, it's the truth.But it's true.Imagine if you had...It'd be great if you could do that with AI somehow.

People who have got solar panels, just make them drip with blood so that every time they come home at night they get covered in blood.Because that's the people you're exploiting.

But don't tell Zak Polanski.I'm not sure how he'd defend his position on that.He wouldn't be able to do that.

Now, I'm sorry to do this to you and to everybody else.In fact...You know what?Somebody said this yesterday.Charlotte's here again, by the way.Well done, Charlotte.

Everything's going very well.We got the Starmer alert.Have you got the Starmer alert?Have you got a Starmer alert?Because somebody said to me yesterday, what we should now have is a Burnham alert as well.And maybe we should have like some whippets and, you know, a couple of coal miners and, you know, whatever it is that we can put together.

I meant to mention to you yesterday.

Him and his jogging outfit.

Have you got the Starmer alert?Play this Starmer clip from yesterday, which is so funny.because it's as though nothing's changed, right, and he spent the whole weekend in Chequers talking to nobody because nobody wants to go and see him anymore.He's literally got the black spot, nobody wants to go anywhere near him.So have a look at this.

Is your premiership now over?No, we've got a lot of work to do and I was addressing Labour Party staff actually this morning reminding them and reminding the whole team really that we were elected into office by millions of people.to bring about change in this country.

Eight days ago you said you will fight the next election and serve a full second term.Is that still the case?

I do want to fight the next election.I've said I don't know how many times that I'm not going to walk away.I feel very strongly that I must serve the people who voted me into office.

Have you noticed he's now tried to be nice?He's now tried to smile.When he was in Parliament the other week, last Monday, Pooch was quite taken with him.Pooch was actually, I thought, one of the reasons we had to send Pooch on holiday.He'd obviously gone mad.Yeah, because he started going, well, if he'd been like that from the beginning, we would have liked him.

I'm like, all right, steady.Then he started saying he'd started fancying Rachel Reeves.Well, Pooch has said this.That's why he's been...Is he only going away for a week?Maybe he needs longer.

He's in rehab.It's as simple as that.Labour rehab.He's been reassigned to a re -education camp.Is this a Mike Graham show?You're not wearing the BBC, mate.

Yeah.Anyway, so it turns out that Starmer's obviously been told, here's how you kind of, you know, sail through the troubled choppy waters, right, you start smiling a lot more, saying he's doing all that, even though he's actually completely and utterly...It's all very Stepford, isn't it?Yeah, he's very, he's empty inside, he's like a husk, you know, he's just sitting there going, nobody likes me, they've all stabbed me in the back, but if I smile, and did you notice he said, I'd like to run for the election for the, you know, for the next parliament, rather than, I will.run for the election for the next time.

He knows he's done.They've forced some media training on him over the weekend.That's what was happening in Chequers, mate.They had a load of kind of ex -journalists in there saying, look, can we try and...

Well, maybe they had somebody in there with a rubber hose, beating him.And put the old, put the glove on.Maddleton would be in there.Maddleton knows some people.Yeah, yeah.

It'd be like a spitting image sketch, with Maddleton dressed up, yeah, with his kind of black leather gloves and a truncheon.Or coming in as Darth Vader, the Dark Lord.

It'd be great, wouldn't it?I mean, that's what you want.isn't it I mean I would watch that I would pay to see that and we're streamingSkywalker, presumably, is he?Yeah, I think he is, yeah.Who's Jabba the Hutt?

Jabba the Hutt must be Lammy.

I'm glad you said that.

It's got to be Lammy.In fact, we got a Lammy clip, because here's Lammy on Nick Ferrari's show yesterday, being completely and utterly untruthful about the weekend and the United Kingdom march.Check this out.

You put out a social media post, Deputy Prime Minister, on Saturday, the Unite the Kingdom march organisers are spreading hatred and division.How do you know?Did you attend it?

Well, actually, you'll understand that I and my family are in central London.We're very aware of the protests.There were 43 arrests made, 11 of them for hate speech.And my job, working with the Home Secretary, was to ensure that people could not fly into our country from abroad to stir up hate and division on our streets.So we barred them from the ability to do that.And the police did a huge operation in London, lots of resources.

all of it at public expense.People have the right to protest, but they must protest peacefully.

Just to clarify, the 43 arrests were all linked to the Unite the Kingdom demonstration, were they?

That was over the course of the weekend.I know that there was another protest, of course, the Nakba protest was going on as well.I haven't seen the full breakdown of arrests relating to which...

But how can you know the Unite the Kingdom march organisers are spreading hatred and division if you didn't attend?

Look, this was not the first of those marches.Some of those that were asked to come and attend...

No, no, I appreciate that, sir, but you were referring to the ones on Saturday.You didn't know.

This is a wild assumption, isn't it?Oh, come on, Nick.Nick, Nick, Nick.You and I have known each other for years.Too long, some would say.Let's be clear.

We don't want Tommy Brown.about.

At last we've found common ground.

I don't think that's about debate and discussion at LBC.All your listeners know what Tommy Robinson's about.I don't think anything I said was particularly controversial.

So this is exactly what Starmer did in the summer of 2024, isn't it?Just to try and immediately slur and characterise people that were on the streets protesting about broken Britain, without being there, without knowing, as far -right hate speech.There was as much hate speech, I'm sure, if not more, from the anti -Semites that were at the pro -Palestine rally.

The thing that I object the most about that particular piece by Blamey is that he's the Minister for Justice, right?He must know what the breakdown is of the arrests.And he's claiming that 43 arrests happened, or I think they all happened at the United Kingdom march.No, they didn't.Actually, the number at the United Kingdom march was fewer.

And then most of the hate speech was actually at the other march.Well, there were a number of those arrests that were also completely unrelated to the protest.

There was exactly that.So for him to say, quite categorically that there were 43 arrests at the United Kingdom marches.Not only incorrect, but it's disingenuous and it's entirely hate -filled because it's he that's got the hate for the people who are just walking around London.

They themselves, whether it's Starmer or Lammy, they themselves are the ones that are now advancing a narrative around division.That's what they're doing.

It's not anybody else, it's them.No, exactly right.Incredible.Now, we've got a couple of other stories to talk about this morning as well.One particular one that you want to talk about, about the First Lady, Sierra Leone, which is brilliant.But first, we're going to have a poll today, and I'm going to first of all give you the headline.

HS2 will now cost more than NASA's Artemis moon mission.So it's actually going to cost in excess of £100 billion.They're going to be announcing later on today a new timetable for the programme.

It's going to cost more to get to Birmingham than to get to the moon.

Yes.Yeah, I mean, some people would say you'd rather go to the moon than go to bed.Why not say that?Some parts of the moon are much nicer.So UK Stripback high -speed link is set to be the most expensive rail line in the world, right?It hasn't even, they haven't even got any track yet, right?

They haven't actually built any track.Further delays, higher costs expected with new timetables announced later on today.The new cost estimates for the beleaguered 140 mile rain line are likely to reach about £100 billion.And NASA's project for Artemis was only £79 billion.Isn't that amazing?

It's unbelievable.

The transport secretary, who I think is Heidi Alexander now, isn't it?Yes.

She's the one that had her phone stolen.

No, that was the previous transport secretary.That was the first transport secretary, yeah.Lou Haig.That's it.

Who kept getting her phone nicked.

Unlucky for her.Yeah, yeah.Unfortunately for her, she also reported one of the phones being stolen on the stolen phone.

Yes.

That means the police figured that one out, you know.They're not that bright, but they can see.Cost saving measures such as slower speeds, right, so it's not going to be high speed 2 anymore, and then the completion date will likely be pushed back by something like 235.

But we do realise there are already trains that go between London and Burma, right?And it's only about an hour, it's about two hours I think, isn't it, if that?

I don't think it's even two hours.They're already pretty quick.

You could already commute from Birmingham to London every day if you were so mindful.

Yeah, even when they were going to run fast, the HS2 trains weren't going to get you to London any quicker, because they were going to bring you into Old Oak Common, which is west London, west of Hammersmith effectively, a place called Wormwood Scrubs, where there's a prison, which is where they should put all the bleeding MPs that came up with this idea.And so you'd have to get off the train, get on and wait for another train, and 20 minutes into Euston.20 minutes, you'd actually be spending even more time.

Conservatives of course, another one of these policies that was messed up by the previous Conservative government.that has now, if you didn't think things could get any worse, been completely, catastrophically further handled by the current Labour government.I mean, honestly, it's almost like we're run by a completely incompetent political class.

Yeah, I know.Well, this is the trouble.This entire country has fallen into rack and ruin as a result of the people who have been in charge of it for the best part of the last 40 years.The one thing I agree with Andy Burnham about, the trouble is he was one of them.He's a career politician.He's a career politician.

He's never done anything else.And he, as you pointed out, was in a cabinet for five years.that he's saying was rubbish.Well done, Andy.Anyway, we've got a poll.So I don't know if we can flash it up, can we?

Yeah, thank you very much indeed.What should we do with HS2?Scrap it all together now, turn it into a go -kart track.sell it to China or make MPs pay for it.64 % of you think we should make MPs pay for it.I think that's a good shout.

I think we could collect it.I mean if you take, I don't know, you're a businessman, can you in your head say for example take, what is it, 650 MPs is it?

Yeah.

Into 100 billion?

How much would they have to pay each?Quite a lot of money, but they'd just claim it back on expenses.

No, they wouldn't.No, they wouldn't be allowed to.No, this is a great idea of mine.I'm warming to this.

I'm also, I might be a business man, I'm also a car guy, right?So I think we should actually get MPs to pay for it and then turn it into an autobahn so that actually there's a route between London and Birmingham that car people can use on a regular basis with no speed limit.

No speed limit, just two tracks.Yeah.Right?That'd be great.Absolutely.What a brilliant idea.

We can make that into one of the, instead of selling it to China, we don't have to change it.Hang on, let's have a look.I'm going to try and do this live, right?So 100 billion, right?Hang on, let me get this right.That's 100 million.

What is doing that?There is a society that actually this is the thing that China should be doing.100 billion divided by 650.They should be building our infrastructure because they would have HS2 done in about four days.

I don't think I've done this right.It works.No, that's definitely not right.a hundred a hundred billion right so that's a hundred hundred thousand million it's a hundred is it or is it a thousand million I think it's a hundred thousand so that's a hundred million right so I need another three yeah like that divided by 650 650 comes out quite a lot that can't be right it's 153 million quid yeah what each yeah I don't think Yeah, that's not going to work.OK, let's go up with another plan.Yeah, crowdfund it.

Yeah, crowdfund it.Time for a forensic audit on HS2.I really do think that certain people who were involved in the setting up of HS2 and the original kind of buying, compulsory purchasing of houses in particular, which apparently now in the North is a real problem because they bought a load of properties and they're now not going to build the railway line there.

So now they're going to have to sell them back.But the flip side is, in that time, property values have gone up.So by accident, this wasn't engineered.There's a strategy the stuff that they've built and when you buy through compulsory purchase, it's roughly value plus 10 % Yeah, so actually probably the taxpayers made money.

Yeah.Well, that's fine.

But we won't see Bishop was one of the famous ones.Yeah, that's right Yeah, yeah sold his house for lots lots of money, but arguably they're worth more now The interesting thing will be how much does it cost per mile?

Yeah.

Charlotte, do you want to work that out?Well.100 billion divided by 100 and whatever it is, 140 miles?Yeah.

I mean, some people do.One of the papers, I think they've already done that.I mean, it's billions per mile.It's ridiculous.Let's talk about the minister, or the first lady, I should say, of Sierra Leone.Yeah.

Who apparently has got one of the many lucky people who's got a council house.

Well, if you're one of 18 ,000 people, Mike, that is on the Southwark council housing waiting list.

So 18 ,000 people on that waiting list.I live in Southwark.

But I pay what can maybe be described as commercial rent.Yeah, I don't see there's any justification for you being on the council waiting list.Really?I don't think so.No?You don't think I'm vulnerable?

Only to the left.

Yeah.

Or the other way around, so they're vulnerable to you.So yeah, this is Fatemeh Jabeh -Beyo, who fled Sierra Leone by way of asylum, ended up here, ended up with a council flat obviously, and has now somehow managed to marry the current president of Sierra Leone.So she's gone back to Sierra Leone, therefore becomes the first lady.And of course, because she's married to the president, she lives in the presidential palace.

Did she meet him in Southwark?She did meet him in London.

Yeah, I bet.Apparently.Interviewing him, apparently.

One of my favourite stories about the African diaspora, if you like, is when we found out that in Lambeth Library it was being run by a Rwandan war criminal.Of course.

And he was wanted in The Hague for war crimes.the Times that she's got every right to keep it even though she doesn't live there.Unfortunately the regulations say that if you have a council house or council flat it must be your primary residence.Well clearly it's not.So all eyes are on Southwark Council now which I presume is Labour run for now.I would imagine that they're probably not going to do anything about this despite the fact that there'll be 18 ,000 people banging on the door of Southwark Town Hall today saying hang on a sec I've been awaiting this for five years.

Can I please, or can you please do something about this?Because I think this might be stretching the rules a little bit.

I would have thought so.Surely they have the right to take somebody's council house away if it's discovered that, you know, they should never have got it in the first place.

Or maybe she had a right to it by way of the rules, but she doesn't now.

But why does she have a right to it?

But apparently she's paying the rent.

which would be all of 28 quid a week.Yeah right, that's unbelievable.It says the Sierra Leone is a country in West Africa on the Atlantic Ocean known for its white sand beaches lining the Freetown Peninsula.The capital city Freetown commemorates the nation's slave trade history with the Cotton Tree Landmark and Kings Yard Gate.It doesn't say anything about any war going on or anything.No.

It says it's a bit dangerous if you go there.Monitor the media for new and existing risks.Exercise a high degree of caution due to the threat of violent crime.We might as well say something about London.Did you see the pictures yesterday of the two guys having a machete fight?I did.

Which is in a park in South London I think.

But this is Sadiq Khan's safe London isn't it?

Yeah.I'm just going to Google Sierra Leone Palace and see what it looks like because I imagine it would be quite nice.I imagine it's probably lovely.Might be a slight uplift on a council flat in Southwark.keeping both, that's the point, which obviously is completely and utterly unjustifiable.Yeah, anyway, I'll find that in a second.

Yeah, don't worry, we'll do some Super Chats in the meantime.Good morning Mike, Charlotte and Russell, wishing you all a great day, another great show, good morning to all the viewers and listeners, have a great day everyone, says Anthony, that's very kind.It's very nice to get these nice, pleasant, un -pedantic messages.One here from Red Rock who says, I have an idea that will balance our country.Why don't we give money, homes, and welfare to anyone not British?That will ease everything.

Well, it seems Starmer thinks that works.How the fudge is he still hanging on?Yeah, I don't know.He started smiling.I think that's the new kind of Starmer plan.Dapop says this morning, Mike, HS2 construction depots are holding English lessons to the new arrivals around the Birmingham area, or the Buckingham area, sorry.

I thought only the best were coming.Yeah, well who knows.Loyal says this, morning Mike and Russell, did you see the disgusting treatment of the hijab wearing police officer on duty at the Nakba march?Hatred and vitriol clear.Well that was one of the hate speech arrests that was made, or several of them, because a lot of Muslim women apparently didn't like the fact that there was a Muslim woman in the police and started giving herthe seven bells of hell.

And they've all now been charged with hate speech, which of course David Lammy doesn't mention.

Yeah, whereas actually, surely integration is something that we should all welcome and embrace, isn't it?Well, that's apparently what it's for, isn't it?Yes.

You know, diversity is our strength and all that.

It is, apparently.Put a load more Muslims in the police.If they keep telling us that, I think it will end up being true.It could be.Absolutely right.Meanwhile, there's a picture.

Is that the presidential palace?Yeah, and that's not a block of flats.That is the palace.

It's not exactly Versailles, is it?No, it's not.I mean, they could do with finding an architect.But it's massive.Yeah, it's massive.

A lot of concrete there.swimming pool and a tennis court.

Swimming pool, tennis court, fair enough.Whatever you want.Yeah, what more could you want?A couple of stories to mention, apparently there was a London Arab gang who've been found to have beaten up an Israeli man.That's what they say, it's in the statement.Overnight, yeah.

Overnight in Golders Green and it's now been pretty well documented that, and we're going to talk to Will Geddes about this, he's in the house.Morning Will, about the IRGC who now would appear are in control of several gangs of people operating in London.But still not worthy of being prescribed?

Oh no, no not at all.So they're not that bad according to their government?

Because it's a state run organisation apparently.The other story we want to do is Kroger, where they've now got vigilantes, which is again something I'll talk to Will about, but have a look at this video.Shall we have a look at that first?

In this East Sussex town, a new group of volunteers has become a regular sight on the streets.Going out on patrol three times a day, seven days a week, they call themselves Cobra Aware.

We're a visible presence to provide the field of safety, security, and to stop any potential issues occurring, so we're a deterrent.There was one incident, I recall, where a lady, she came running out of the darkness, said she was being followed, and we walked her to the car.

group of 81 volunteers was formed earlier this year, following local concerns about behaviour linked to the nearby accommodation site for asylum seekers.Some critics have labelled the group vigilantes, a description they strongly reject.

I hope this just alleviates some of their concern.

" Shortly after GB News' visit to Crobra, the group attended an incident involving migrants from the camp.Sussex Police later confirmed officers responded to a report of antisocial behaviour by an individual among a group of asylum seekers.The force made no arrests and the group returned to the camp shortly after.

A member of the public, he started to record.Migrant wasn't happy with this, so he started grabbing at his phone.Individual then grabbed the member of the public physically.Four of the six migrants surrounded the member of the public, intimidating, he felt very threatened.

The Home Office said it was working closely and routinely with Sussex Police to ensure appropriate security arrangements are in place for the Yeah, the government keeps saying, oh yeah, but the number of people in asylum hotels is falling.

Yeah, because you're giving them houses.They're now dispersed around the community.They're not leaving the country.And this is what's happening more and more.

And we'll see more and more of these vigilante groups.I wonder how they're being characterized by the so -called left.I mean, are these guys being labeled by the left now presumably as far -right thugs, fascists, and so on?It's sadly necessary, isn't it, that if you live in a community where you're worried about the protection of the community, particularly women and children, that this sort of thing has to happen.Hutton in Brentwood two years ago we had to stop.for private security because every three or four days there was being a car nicked, an attempted break -in, the police were not interested, not visible.

I wrote to the Conservative Police and Fire Commissioner, Roger Hurst, and got a load of word salad back that said, no, everything's fine.And I said, well, I live here and I watch this stuff every day.It's not fine.So we now have a private security company, MLB, I'll give them a little plug, who are very, very good indeed, and have almost, touch wood, eradicated that car crime and burglary crime from the place where I live.But we're still paying for the police.And that precept to the police, particularly in Essex, goes up by more than the rate of inflation, pretty much, every single year.

Where are the police?What are they doing?And I don't blame the rank -and -file police.I feel very sorry for them, actually.It's the hierarchy.It's the bosses that have got them probably filling in paperwork more than they're out on the street.

Or they're dealing with mental health stuff.Or they're in A &E moats for the time.Yeah, indeed.

Or arresting people for saying nasty things.Well, I mean, I don't know whether it's changed since the latest incarnation of, you know, we're not doing, you know, non -crime hate incidents anymore.But Essex, because of what happened in in Epping and in the hotels there and the Bell Hotel, I remember going out there when when I saw you out there in Chelmsford and it was something like 1 .5 people a day are arrested in Essex.600 non -crime haters.Don't forget Alison Pearson, our friend.

Yeah, of course.As a journalist for The Telegraph being intimidated by Essex police because of something she said which was a matter of her right.Yeah, like about a year later.And then the police went on to I think it was a station called LB something, the Labour Broadcasting Company I think it was, the next day to defend exactly what they'd done.And actually Roger Hurst, the police and crime commissioner for Essex, actually said Alison Pearson has committed a crime.Yeah, well.

Which is why maybe there might be a legal action on her.He's got that wrong.

Yeah, he has.He's got a lot of things wrong.One final thing for you, you'll like this, is on front of the telegraph.Apparently, this will come as no surprise to anybody sensible, Patients risk having serious conditions.by doctors who are working from home under an NHS revolutionary change championed by Wes Streeting.So Wes Streeting came up with this idea that doctors can work from home.

That way they can see more people, except they can't actually see them.They can just see them on video or talk to them on email.And just listen to what they're saying.It's about as practical as bricklayers working from home, isn't it?Yeah, it really is. I mean, if you're a doctor, you should see people face to face.It doesn't seem to be rocket science, does it?

That's why HS2 is taking so long.They're all working from home.Do you mind coming and building the railway?No, no, I'm doing it from home.

They're doing it with little Hornby things in the lounge.

That's what they're doing.

AIHS2.Yeah, yeah.But it's like the DSS, isn't it?They're assessing all of these people that apparently are disabled or have got mental health issues and ADHD and so on remotely.They're not actually seeing them and testing them.It's just a Zoom call for 10 minutes.

Do you feel like you've got a mental illness?

Yeah.

OK, here's a blue badge.

Yeah, right.Yeah, I've got anxiety.Blue badge.Thanks very much indeed.Blue badge.Unbelievable.

This country's done for.Russell, I'll meet you back at the FS Bar poolside.What's that?Oh, that was Dubai.

I was on your show from Dubai a few weeks ago.And that gentleman there, lovely, lovely guy.Paul.I walked up with my wife to the bar.We were a few hours ahead.So, you know, I wasn't drinking at breakfast time.

Listen, we start drinking at nine o 'clock.Yeah, this was a little bit later than that.And he said to me, I've been watching the Mike Graham show from here in Dubai and you were on it.And I went, wow, yes.International audience.

Well done.Excellent stuff.Rod says, just for your records, the police officer being abused incident was from a few weeks ago, not the weekend.That's not true actually, Rod.And I'm not sure the timeline matters, was it?No, it was actually on Saturday.

I can tell you that because the police issued a statement about it.Who will be able to afford to use HS2, says GZ.It'll probably just be migrants, won't it?You know, you fancy a trip down to London, here's a free ticket.You can drive the train if you want.There won't be any train drivers, they'll all be on strike.

They'll all be on strike, yeah.

You fancy going to a free football match?We'll head you down into London.One of the trampoline lessons that are famous?Yeah, anything you like.

Swimming lessons, there's swimming lessons for migrants, always makes me laugh.They come over on a boat, across the Channel, and they get here and they get given swimming lessons.

Well, better than that though, is the ones who get here and say that they can't be sent back because they're frightened of water.You go, well how did you get here then?Also on the migrant front, the other one to mention, it's on page 21 of the Sun, and this is also in Crowborough, a couple of grandparents, Philip and Christine Straker, they wanted to demolish an old stable and wood store on their land and build a four -bed eco -home, but the local council gave them no planning permission on the grounds that they said that it would overcrowd the countryside, and as they come out of their house and look to the left, That's where the migrant camp is.Which is overcrowded with migrants.Yeah, in the countryside.

But that's okay, apparently.

Apparently, yeah.Apparently, planning chiefs said that their plan would erode the natural beauty of the area and harm its character.There's 500 migrants over there.What are they doing?You literally can't make this stuff up.You literally cannot make it up.

It's hilarious.Unbelievable.Anyway, Russell, good to see you.Thank you very much indeed.Mike, when you go on holiday, who's doing your job?Well, I can't say, but it might well be the man sitting to my left, Russell Quirk.

I'm not sure if you've accepted the challenge yet, have you?Yeah, I have.

Have you?Yeah, of course.

I've jumped at it.Yeah, all right.So, yeah, we've got to put a few things in place before we do that.And also, we've got to finish Pooch's re -education.So you can come back and do the right thing.I don't want to be corrupted by pooch.

You really don't know I don't leave here on the 12th of June or wherever it may be I'm assuming when it comes back you'll hate Starver again, and you won't fancy Rachel Reeves.You know that that would be good.I worry about him a lot.I worry Best overage is my et al.Debs what you mean this one.I really don't want to go to work.

Well.

I just work from home It's what everybody else does take your phone with you

put it on YouTube on your phone there you go there you go piece of advice there coming up mr. Will Geddes is going to be joining us an international man of mystery we've got lots to talk to him about plus of course we've got a white audits coming on later on today which I know a lot of you will be looking forward to Nigel Pauley as well Christian Drogan the man from Watchmen we're not sure what he's been up to Linda Doobly's here as well let's get some news first of all though with Edward Hughes Good morning, I'm Edward Hughes with your news.

Surprise, surprise!Labour's in yet another leadership meltdown.Keith Stalin is clinging on to number 10 like a limpet after getting absolutely slammed in the local elections.He insists he's focused on the job.Translation, please don't make me set a resignation date.Ministers have already jumped ship or politely suggested he packs his bags.

Meanwhile, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has been cleared to run in the Makerfield by -election.He's promising to change labour because, in his words, the current offer is not good enough.A revelation that's only slightly more obvious than rain being wet.In other news, fresh allegations that two women were raped by their on -screen husbands on Married at First Sight UK, with Channel 4 apparently knowing about one claim in advance.Shocking.Another perfectly normal Tuesday in Clown World.

Please remember to like and subscribe.Laters, tigers.

Thank you very much indeed, Edward.Good to see that you dropped the moniker, Mick.which I don't like.The Quirky Quirk Show, says Lord Viking.Yeah, thank you very much indeed.We'll come back to you with more information on that, because it's the planning stages, is kind of where we are at the moment.

Lots of other stories to talk about this morning.Will Geddes is here.Will, very good morning to you.Morning, Mike.Nice to see you.Nice to see you too, sir.

Going to talk to you about this vigilante thing in Crobra, but also how that's probably happening in quite a lot of different communities now.Yeah.Let's get a quick poll update, though, because we're also talking about HS2 and how hopelessly expensive it is.has become.Apparently today we're going to get an update on costs and a timetable which are going to be likely in excess of 100 billion quid.So here's our question for you today on the poll.

What should we do with HS2?Scrap it all together now, 28%, turn it into a go -kart track, Russell had a good idea, turn it into just a proper motorway for people with fast cars and no speed limit.5 % there.Sell it to China, 3%.Make MPs pay for it, 64%.We tried to work that out and it looked like they'd all have to pay about 150 million quid each.

So I'm not sure that's going to work.But I could have got that wrong.So if anybody else wants to try and work out the equation.Or maybe we get the civil servants to pay for it because there's more of them.There's thousands of them.Maybe we get all of them to pay for it.

Everyone in the Department for Transport.And we could maybe catch up with what should happen.Here we are.Will Geddes, very good to see you as I say.Lots to talk about.I mean, the state of this nation now is laughable, isn't it?

I mean, we've got a government in power.but not really in situ.I mean, nobody really knows who's running the country.We've got a leadership race that is disastrous.

Because they keep saying there isn't one.

We haven't actually got a leadership race, but there's three people who want to run for leadership.One of them already is the leader, but he doesn't have any kind of mandate to do anything.He started smiling, Starmer, as if that's going to make any difference.Slippery Burnham is being described on the front of the Daily Mail as having made two U -turns in one day.The whole thing's a shambles.

And how many of them can we trust, Mike?I mean, they're going to tell us what we want to hear and I don't think we can trust a single one of them.

They're not even that good.

They don't tell us what we want to hear.

I mean, you know, Burnham says he wants to get back in the EU.We're like, no we don't.Nobody wants that.We're streeting.Let's get back in the EU.No, we don't want to do that.

I know.And then the rest of them are being sort of investigated for fraud or tax evasion or stamp duty evasion or whatever.So, I mean,is a right mess.I think we should call a general election.I think it's the only option.

It is the only option.

The Sun called for that yesterday.I've been calling for it.I've been saying it's going to happen for a long time.I've finally been proved right about Starmer because people said to me back in the summer of 2024...Do you remember when I said, look, this guy's not going to last the pace.

And everyone was going, oh, all these political experts were going, oh, no, Labour doesn't do that.They don't get rid of their leaders.It's not like the Tory party.It can't be done.There's no mechanism to do it.Well, guess what?

Here's where we are, and he's going.Exactly.

I mean, to be honest, it is a rudderless ship, the UK, right now.And it's holding below the waterline.It's sinking fast.They're bailing as much as they can, and it's not working.It is actually sinking like one of the many dinghies that cross the channel every day.It is ridiculous.

There is so many really key, easy, low -hanging fruit policies that these guys could introduce that could rescue them, could rescue their reputation.What seems so bizarre to me, Mike, is they just continue.It's like the blind following the blind.And they're just not listening.They've become completely deaf to the general public.If they brought out an initiative to actually positively tackle illegal immigration, if they brought in a policy to support homeless veterans, if they brought in some sort of policy that's going to benefit the country in any shape or form, then I think the general public might say, OK, all right, we can all make mistakes.

Maybe not as many as them.Nobody can make this many mistakes.

If you make this many mistakes in your job, If I made this many mistakes in my job, you would be dead probably because of the dangerous nature of what you do.I would certainly be out of a job because people would go, this guy doesn't know what he's doing.They just wouldn't bother watching it.And you just think, in politics, it's so ludicrous.Let's have a look, actually, at Jess Phillips, one of my least favorite politicians.I think probably one of most people's least favorite politicians.

She was on that dreadful show News Agents the other day talking abouthow when you're in government you don't get to do what you want.Have a look.

When you're a government minister, the amount of compromise you have to make all the time is huge.So I was absolutely like, you know, I was pushing forward with that.It was meant to be announced in March on International Women's Day.That has been pushed back and pushed back and pushed back.And whether that's Keir Starmer or just, you know, generally a slowness of government is another thing.But the thing that I think jarred me so much in the last week and why I felt like actually you've got to be bold to push the thing that you really, really want.

Also, when you've threatened to resign as many times as I have to try and get something that you want, you do have to sometimes go through with the threat for people to believe that it's real.I was listening to a speech where I was told that We would not only be interested in incremental change, and it just didn't ring true to me.And I had a sort of moment of realization where I had been made to feel grateful for crumbs.

And it wasn't part of anything factual.It wasn't part of a West, coordinated with West Streeting.You hadn't discussed it with West Streeting?

I mean, absolutely not.It's not that it wasn't part of something coordinated.It was part of me.It was actually one of my colleagues who I love and respect, who had come out and said what she thought.And I thought it was incredibly brave.And she said, well, what are you going to do?

And I just sat back and thought, like, you know, sometimes you have to be brave.But I didn't do this to, I have been told over the years, the last year or so that like, you know, I've been convinced to stay in the tent.But when there is a big emotional moment, like there was at the local elections, and you just want to hear that someone gets it.And what you hear is a promise of not having incremental change when your experience has been exactly that.It'sjust a perfect storm, I suppose.

Like I say, at the Home Office, they had made me a mug that said, I didn't quit my job today because I would be in a rage quite regularly.

I mean, it's pathetic, isn't it?It is.You look at that and you go, these are the people running the country.Is it any wonder we're so far down the drain?I know.I mean, people said at the time, we thought Jess Phillips had quit to run in a 340 at Hay Dock.

But that would be unkind, obviously.

What, eating an apple through a fence?Yeah, I wouldn't want to go there.I'm actually thankful Charlotte didn't give me an earpiece and there were subtitles.Yes, exactly.Because I didn't really want to hear her voice first thing in the morning.

No, the voice is awful.

But again, you know, the paucity of talent and the individual kind of lack of ability is what strikes me with this particular government to be the worst I've ever seen.

None of them have got any brains.They don't have any brains, but it's beyond that, Mike.I think it's actually into deception and it's into delusion.And these people, they don't understand that they are proving and showing and demonstrating zero integrity and what you need from a politician I think it's rare that it's ever provided is any sense of integrity that they actually stand by what they say rather than just literally word soup.whatever they think the general public needs to hear right now.

it was fraud she had to get got rid of Morgan McSweeney the guy who ended up bringing Peter Mandelson back in yeah Peter Mandelson the man who ended upsending stuff to a convicted paedophile, and also all sorts of other misdemeanours.The list just goes on and on and on.There is nobody anymore in certainly this Labour Party government to politics with any kind of conscience at all.

None.I'd actually like to see the black and white on it, Mike, and I'm going to do a bit of research and maybe actually the listeners and the viewers can do that this morning.And that is to just do a quick chat, GBT or Claude, on this and see how many ministers were actually sacked during the last government's tenure and how many MPs have been sacked or staff members have been sacked during this tenure within the, what, 18 months or two years?

I think there's no question that Labour would win that because there were a lot of resignations in the various different Tory incarnations because so many of them resigned when Boris was leader, so many resigned when Rishi was leader, but I'm not sure they actually fired that many of them.This lot have been an unmitigated disaster in all sorts of ways.They just haven't been able to grasp what leading the country is about.

But they're kamikaze, Mike.The problem is it's not like the plane is in a tailspin and heading and hurtling towards the earth into a ball of flame.They're actually steering it into the earth.And this is what's so worrying, I think, for us.as well.for giving the rules back to, or the control back to the king.

Although sadly I don't think we've got a king that could probably handle those controls.

No, but they're literally driving the bus off the cliff aren't they?Yeah, totally.In the hopes that the water's going to be deep enough when you hit it that you won't actually die on impact.I mean that'sof what they're doing.It's unbelievable.

I've had some clients like that where I've literally gone, you know what?You want to die?Off you go.

But they're obviously wrestling each other on the bus for control of who gets to drive it off the cliff.But someone's already removed the wheel, Mike.Yeah, the wheel's gone.The tyres are all flat.And you've got Burnham there going, I want to be in charge.You know, Streaty, I want to be in charge.

Let's take it over to Europe.No, nobody wants to do that.It's just ridiculous.of just the general kind of you know crime in London for example we saw yesterday the Jewish lad well there's an Israeli man who was attacked by these this is Arab gang as it's being described up in Golden Screen there's more and more evidence is there not that some of these gangs are not random that they are actually being funded in some way by the IRGC or by Hamas or some proxy of Iran, right?So how is that possible?How do these people all get into the country?

Firstly, well, firstly they're coming in on boats, mate.If not, they're already here.The IRGC not being prescribed as a terrorist group is, I mean, as Russell was saying in the last hour, That's the thing that baffles me the most, because they're prescribed as a terrorist group everywhere else in the world.And why they're not in this country is really, I'm going to have to have a chat with some friends of mine in, you know, north and south of the river to try and find out why.Because they are funding, even the Mucky March on the weekend.They were, I like to call it the Mucky March.

A lot of individuals who were there would have been sponsored, they would have been paid for.There are agitators that would have been sponsored by the IRGC to start fights against the United Kingdom march.There are a number of different, there have been 30 -odd plots here in the UK within the last year by the IRGC to kidnap dissenters to the Iranian regime.to carry out extortion, to rob, to kill, assassination plots.These guys are a proper terrorist group.People think of Al Qaeda, Hamas.

the Houthis as a terrorist group.The ILGC is a terrorist group but with very deep pockets.

Yes, because it's a state -organised situation, right?And this is the reason why apparently the British government says, oh, we can't prescribe them as a terrorist organisation because it is state -sponsored.Well, that's ridiculous.

That's got nothing to do with it.That's bonkers, isn't it?Yeah.You look at China.Look at China.

Because you might as well have said Al -Qaeda was state -sponsored, because it was.

Yeah, absolutely.

From certain states, like Afghanistan.

There is money trails, Mike, to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hezbollah in Iraq, who are the ones that have been attached, actually, as the sponsors and the motivators behind Ha 'i, who've been carrying out some 20 -odd attacks since March this year.And they were a fabricated cut -out group created specifically for that.traced it then they've confirmed it by arresting one of the commanders for Hezbollah Iraq and actually interrogating him and finding out that yes they are behind it as they were in Syria when they did something similar.Iran is the biggest state sponsor.China, again, they don't sponsor terrorism, but they sponsor espionage.Russia does sponsor terrorism, but that's probably why I'm on the list.

They haven't invited me back there.Are you on the banned Russia list?Mate, I was on the 22 list, yes.I was number 16.Very proud.

That is good, isn't it?

That's not bad, is it?Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you can use that as a sort of recommendation for anybody who wants to hire you.You go, why should we hire you?Well, I've been banned by Russia.I'm number 16.

Well, so many colleagues of mine were very upset and said, you don't deserve it, Will.We deserve it.So there was a lot of jealousy.

You haven't been banned from China as well, have you?

Ah, it's probably only a matter of time.Actually, they probably wouldn't tell you.They wait till you turn up and then you disappear.

No, but you know how they banned a bunch of MPs?Ian Duncan -Smith was on the list, and he's always very vocal about the Chinese government.how we have to be careful because of course what everybody's forgotten about in this morass of nonsense that we've been dealing with over the best part of the last several weeks is that we are imminently about to presumably start digging into the ground for the Chinese embassy in East London.Oh yeah, well.Which is going to be somewhere between the City of London, Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf.

Yeah, the government have, the only thing that they have done that's been of any benefit is rerouted those those data cables, which they were potentially going to be on the merge of, that they could have potentially intercepted or tapped into.So that's one benefit, but there are some serious questions about it.

Even if they're going to maybe make it more difficult for them to tap into them, but they probably still can.

Oh, to be honest, the technology that's going to be in there, one of the biggest problems, and again, we do this ourselves, we have our embassies in various parts of the world, there will be representatives of the intelligence community that will be there in some shape or form, and they They will use that as a forming up position for any operations that they're running in that country that that embassy is located.The same will apply to America, the same will apply to China, the same will apply to Russia.Everybody knows that that goes on.But where China has a distinct advantage on this is that they have the technical know -how and capability to be able to do all sorts of things that don't necessarily need feet on the ground.

Because, you know, we are not living, as it were, in the sort of Ipcris file days, are they, Michael Caine?No.There's still a little bit of that going on.I'm sure there's a bit of that going on, but, you know, most of what espionage does happen now is done... cybercrime wise, right?So you don't need to physically be digging into a computer hard drive to find out what's on it.You can just remotely hack into it.

But Iran's doing that as well, Mike.I mean, there's very little mention in the MSM, and this is why shows like yours are so valuable, because it's getting it out to people that the threat on cybercrime is not just from China and from Russia, butit's from Iran right now as well.And Iran is trying its utmost to try and hack into our infrastructure, hack into business, all sorts of things.I mean, certainly we know that one of their targets are US companies.There was a list that was issued the other day of company names that they wanted to target.

They weren't successful, but that doesn't mean that they didn't try.

Exactly right.Now, before I go on to the vigilante situation in Kroger, I want to show you this.This is from America, right?Congressman Birchett.I don't know who he is, but he's obviously a guy with some interest in what he calls the deep state and also the business of UFOs.Check this out.

Tell me all about the UFOs and the aliens.Well, the problem we have right now is the deep states fighting the president on release.And he kept his word.And I suspect some revert.not so friendly comrades and some of our alphabet agencies are slow walking a lot of information it's about power it's about control and that's kind of what runs washington all right what do you think is in these files and why do you think they're not trying to release any of them like they're they're partial release part of part of it's going to be that they're going to have to admit that they they've been lying to us all these years and uh there could be some uh cover up of zero energy There could be some other things.I don't think we're ever going to get everything we have.

But that's kind of the nature of the game.But Trump's getting his word so far to me, so I know the personal word he had with me.So I'm proud of that.

He's worried about the deep state keeping secrets about the UFOs.It's a funny old story, though, in America, isn't it?

It is.It is. I mean, and there's this drip, drip feed of footage of U .as they call them, which are out in Coming out from NASA and various other agencies.I mean, come on Let's let's let's not be naive about it.And I don't think I need to be tinfoil hat I mean if we were to believe that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe It certainly isn't in Westminster.That's for sure.

I mean, you know the Common story is is this isn't it that you basically go?No, there isn't any intelligent life on this planet.That's why they haven't bothered visiting us.Because they've already checked it out and gone, actually there's no point.Just let them stew in their own juice.

There's absolutely no hope.You can't fix stupid.No, exactly right.

I mean, funnily enough...

But you can't fix what stupid does.

Well, you can fix what stupid does as long as you get it early enough.A bit of breaking news from Jamie Jenkins.This is the figures that came out earlier on today on unemployment.210 ,000 jobs gone.in the last year thanks to Rachel Reeves and Labour.The latest payroll data shows Britain has 210 ,000 fewer payroll employees than a year ago.

That is not a recovery, that is jobs disappearing under Labour.

And you know what's happening?It's all going into the black economy.So I don't know whether you saw the story on the weekend, Mike.There was this one about basically small shops, these vape and mobile phone repair shops, which are actually funding and taking money on behalf of individuals who want to get other people smuggled into the UK.

What you're saying is that when people like me said two years ago, all of these shops that they were opening up, they're money laundering operations, right?Whether they're Turkish barbers, whether they're vape shops, whether they're fast food, American candy, all of that stuff you see all over Britain.And everyone went, really?Do you think?Well, it turns out to be true.Oh, how shocking.

You are professing, Mike.I mean, I literally am like Nostradamus.You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out whether that's a rocket.No, absolutely.

And most of those transactions are all going to be in cash.

But it didn't take the police to work this out, it took the BBC to do it.actual investigation.Yeah.And so, you know, it's unusual for us to praise the BBC.I know.You know what I think has happened at the BBC?

Somebody's gone...The migrant story is quite big now, so we'll have to figure out how to cover it.So instead of actually demonising the people coming here, because we can't do that because we're the BBC, let's do the smugglers, and let's try and follow the money, and let's try and do it that way, because then it will look like we're not ignoring the story, but we're not going to do anything about the migrants, because they're really all vulnerable, nice people coming here for a better life.

But also, the details were already out there, Mike.Trading Standards already released a report earlier this year which said that over half, over 50 % of those types of shops are actually deeply connected or managed by organised criminal groups.So any of those shops will be working in a cash economy.Well done Rachel Reeves, you've pushed most people into that sort of market or there's going to be all those revenues generated in those markets which ultimately the HMRC are never going to claim back and help our economy or house those lovely asylum seekers.

Or you could just walk past the shops and say there's never anybody in them.How are they making any money?Check out what sort of taxes they're paying.Check out what sort of business rates they're paying.The number of Turkish barbers has exploded into not just London and other cities, but every single town.There's nobody in them.

Down in Sussex, little towns down there have got two Turkish barbershops with no customers.That doesn't look right to me.No.How are they paying their salaries?How are they keeping the lights on?Exactly.

Unbelievable.Finally, just on the story from Kroger that we played the video earlier, Mr Geddes looking very smart this morning, says Andrew.Thank you.You're getting a lot of love from particularly the female quotient of the audience.

I'm very grateful.

No, listen, we're all grateful at this point in our lives.Anyway, the point is, how is your eye, Will, says Sue?

They're getting better.

They're getting better.They look alright?They're getting better.Lots of makeup.Yeah, on the mend.So, this outfit in Croborough who are, I think, 81 volunteers.

Yeah.They're not really vigilantes, they're just doing a private sort of security patrol.What's the legal situation with that?You know, if they, because we saw a little bit of video there, where they interfered with some migrants being who were trying to manhandle some people who were filming them.So they sort of got in the middle of it and doused it all down and managed to stop any trouble from happening.What's the legality of all of that sort of thing?

The legality, if you follow the fundamental rule of the law, which is basically to control a person in a particular situation legally and with reasonable force and effect a citizen's arrest, then there's quite a lot you can do.And there are more and more of these private foot patrols that are going about.Some are great, some are bad.One person, give him a shout out, who's really done a great job on it is my local Bobby, which is run by a chap called David who's a former police who basically sets these little street patrols up.And you'll see them up in the West End, you'll see them up in Leicester Square.They wear sort of red vests.

and are highly effective at dealing with basic street criminals.Now, I've been saying this for years, Mike, I mean decades.

But they're not police officers.

No, they're not police officers, they're private security.They're not community officers, private security.Yeah, they're private security officers who will be licensed by the Security Industry Authority.The question is, as with all with security, and I would say this, but you get what you pay for.So there are a lot of people who can't afford necessarily to employ a local security team.And then it's a question of response.

Can they be in the right place at the right time or react to a situation?Now, you could take it from one end where it's almost like shop security, which to be honest, these guys are paid 12 to 14 pounds an hour.You know, they're not paid danger money.So for them to get involved,very brave.And I would definitely recommend that staff in shops, we've seen a couple of steaming gangs going in and picking up.

There was a JD Sports one the other day.

Staff, just don't get involved.Because to be honest, you probably have a corporate policy that says you're trying to protect our assets, we'll sack you.Fantastic.That's helpful.So I think private security, we're going to see merging more and more with the police over the next year or so.Because the police, as Russell was saying earlier, they're under -resourced, they're unsupported.

The foot soldiers themselves are doing the best they possibly can, but it's the higher -ups who are politically leaning to either some DEI or to some woke agenda, which is hindering them in being able to do their job, or misdirecting or redirecting them to go and arrest someone for a hurty word post on Facebook.The morale I know from police officers that I know and also police officers who have just left is Really, you know at the very bottom level, you know, then they're not happy So private security if it's managed appropriately if the guidelines are set out appropriately then Otherwise you're gonna get vigilantes.

No sure.I don't want to call them vigilantes really because that has a different connotation Yeah, but if you're thinking for example If you are listening to this show watching it right now and you're sitting somewhere in a relatively nice calm neighbourhood but there's, you know, a new migrant camp has grown up or something like that, like Crowborough.

Yeah.

Do you go to the police and say this is what we want to do?Do you start it up in a different way?You go to the local council?How does it, how does that work?

What would happen is that that community and hopefully would be paid for by the council, depending on whether you've got a friendly council or not, or a efficient council, council member or not.Probably not.Probably not.It would be to engage a company, a private security company that is credible and has good reputation and ACS as we would call it.You would engage them, they would interact with the police on your behalf, they would provide those security patrols.they would obviously liaise with the police so that there's a response mechanism.

It can be done, but it would require people within the community to contribute.

Yes.

Good example.Well, like in Croburn, they've got 81 volunteers, they say.Oh, they could have volunteers.The only problem with that is if it's members of the general public, it does fringe onto a vigilante group.So you've got to do it professionally.

So it's got to be done, somebody's got to be in charge of it.

Otherwise, you're just going to get individuals that are going to be getting into trouble, breaking the law and sadly...

Because the other thing we've seen, and we've got to rush in a moment because Linda Doobley is here as well, is in some Muslim areas people have seen sort of private Muslim security, shall we say, or Muslim police almost, Sharia police walking around in some ways doing things which would ordinarily you would think be outside of the realms of British law.

Yeah, well, yes.I mean, there are community security groups regardless of whatever ethnicity they come from or religious background.As long as they're operating within the law and they're protecting their community, then they're entitled to do so, Mike.There's no problem with that.But if you've got individuals that are then mimicking what we would call sort of the Sharia police, that's a whole different question, that's a whole different matter and that should be stamped on.

If for example they were going up to women saying you need to cover your face.Yeah that's ridiculous.That can't be legal.No of course they can't do that, that's totally illegal.Well listen great to see you.Nice to see you mate.

Thank you very much indeed.We've got to get you back in.We're in for plank of the week again soon aren't we?With his beautiful cats.It's always good to have security at all times in this job.You never know who's going to come through that door.

But hopefully it'll be friend, not foe.Coming up, Linda Doobley's here.We'll talk to her about a great many things, including the unemployment figures, including that incredible crash.I don't know if you saw it, the two jets, the military jets in America.No, I missed that.Keep your eyes peeled, it's a good one.

Before we do that, more news shall we do with Edward Hughes?

I'm Edward Hughes with your news.Surprise, surprise.Labour's in yet another leadership meltdown.Keith Stalin is clinging on to number 10 like a limpet after getting absolutely slammed in the local elections.He insists he's focused on the job, Translation, please don't make me set a resignation date.Ministers have already jumped ship or politely suggested he packs his bags.

Meanwhile, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has been cleared to run in the Makerfield by -election.He's promising to change labour because, in his words, the current offer is not good enough.A revelation that's only slightly more obvious than rain being wet.In other news, fresh allegations that two women were raped by their on -screen husbands on Married at First Sight UK, with Channel 4 apparently knowing about one claim in advance.Shocking.Another perfectly normal Tuesday in Clown World.

Please remember to like and subscribe.Laters, tigers.

Thank you Edward, keep up the good work, nice man, he seems to have settled down a bit now, I mean last week he was in a bit of trouble again, he seems to have kind of got his mojo back.This is coming on Substack and I know many of you on Substack who watch the show want to interact on it, we're going to try and get some of your messages along to it.This is from Keith who says, many congratulations on your phenomenal success along with Dan Wooten you are blazing a trail which others will doubtless try to follow.One of your viewers asked me to ask you a question, Does anyone know what, if anything, has happened to Rachel Thieb's much trumpeted entertainment theme park about which she was so gushing last year?Many thanks, keep up the great work.Well, this is of course the place in Bedfordshire, where you might remember Keir Starmer in the midst of some other scandal, crisis, disappeared off up to somewhere near Luton to unveil his very, very happiest moment where he said,

one of the great things about being Prime Minister is I was able to tell my children we're opening a theme park.We actually had some great fun with it Will, I think you should remember on the morning that we did it because we said why don't we have some and in fact there's an HS2 theme coming up because you can imagine the Labour government's theme park.You could have like a dinghy ride where you get on one side of the lake and you sail across the lake and on the other side you get given some pizza and a blanket and a free phone and then you get to stay in the hotel for the rest of the week for nothing.

Yeah but one out of ten dinghy doesn't make it so it's a lot free for the family.

And then there's the HS2 train you get on, it doesn't go anywhere, you just literally sit on it and give all your money out.Just take your wallet and your credit card.I like it, I like it.So there was a lot of that going on.

And then there's a pro -Palestine march.

Pro -Palestine march, yeah, absolutely.Excellent.And then there's a bit over there we can beat up some Jews.Yeah, and some veterans.

Homeless veterans, you can do that.

Homeless veterans palace over here.Yeah, see, that's what it was.But I mean, I don't know when they're going to put the first spade in the ground, because I think the last time I checked, they hadn't actually managed to get all the land yet.So they were still having to compulsorily purchase.I believe they have, Mike.I believe they have.

So they might have got that.But I mean, this government is a theme park all of its own.But there's nothing good.You know, there's a ghost train.the House of Horrors, the House of Mirrors, you know, they could have any number of, you know, horror stuff.Definitely House of Horrors, that's for sure.

Yeah, Chamber of Horrors, yeah, absolutely right.Let's talk to Linda Doobly, who's been waiting very patiently for us, who is of course international star of TV, radio, newspapers, as we discovered when we had her in the last time.How are you, Linda?

Yeah, I'm good, Mike.How are you?

Going very well.

Great incomes, I gather.

Yeah, yeah, no, we're doing great.We've just passed 21 and a half million.A week ago, we were only on 19.So we're sort of jumping around about a million and a half, two million a week, which is not bad on the old view.front so we're very happy about that I know you've got lots of things you want to talk about let's kick off though first of all with these these jobs figures that have just come out I don't know whether you've seen them 210 ,000 fewer payroll employees working in Britain than a year ago so Rachel Reeves has played an absolute blinder she hasn't been seen much lately but it's not good is it It's absolutely shocking and when you've got three children like I have of working age, you listen to them and you listen to their friends and you really understand the importance of work.

Yeah.

problem for the whole country.

Exactly right and I'm like you you know I've got a couple of young sons and you know it's really tough for them because there's no immediate clue as to where you go to find anything you know and there's no pathway like there used to be and I know that it's easy for us to say oh you know just get out there and find yourself a job and then somehow it will all work out for you because it seemed when you and I were kind of that age you know you didn't really worry about it you just kind of went and got on with stuff and suddenly something appeared and then something else appeared you know but I know that just one of my one of my kids who's just finishing university now is already making less money than he was two years ago because of the national insurance increase because the place where he was getting shifts they've reduced the number of hours reduced the amount of money he makes you know businessclosing down.I mean we saw, what was it, Spaghetti House is closing down as a chain, The Real Greek closing down as a chain, the Toby Calvary closing down and the hospitality where loads and loads of kids would go and get their first job.There's just nothing there.

Yeah, and there's that whole framework that you and I would have had when we were young, where you would do a Saturday job.I did a Saturday job in a hairdresser's, Boots the chemist, different Saturday jobs that gave me experience.But I can remember, you know, really fighting hard to get a job as a journalist.I wrote to 64 newspapers across the country.I remember that figure very clearly.And eventually I knew I'd strike pay dirt with one of them, which I did.

And then there was a whole framework of how you went to Fleet Street and you did shifts, then summer relief contracts, then maybe you got a job.But it was always a framework.The problem now is we live in a different era.And these kids start applying for jobs online.I've got my middle child probably applied for four or 500 jobs before he got a toehold in anything.And then they have to go through a process where their esteem is knocked sideways by the fact that no one replies to their application at all, never mind get any feedback, which is really important.

And then there is no free framework at all and then when you do land something it might be a zero hours contract where you don't know where your next payday is coming from.

Yeah I mean that is absolutely true and unfortunately you know going to university isn't the answer either is it because people go to university they end up getting a degree they end up owing fifty or sixty thousand quid and then they come out and there's there's no job like there would have been no job three years ago.

I mean tell me about it you know I've got three kids and the weight of student debt now is absolutely appalling.I spoke to a family member who is a mathematician and he said you know this eventually the student debt won't just be a specific problemto go sort of became the norm, if you like.Now, I'm not saying that kids shouldn't go on and do something different, but I didn't go to university.I did indentures for three years on a local newspaper.Other people could do apprenticeships.

There are lots and lots of things you could do.do apart from going to university that don't involve encumbering yourself with a huge debt.And I really urge youngsters today to think very carefully before they take on £50 ,000, £60 ,000 of debt just to get into some kind of job.

Yeah, I know.I mean, I've got this from Susan.She says, can you get someone on to explain career pathways available now?My 23 -year -old with carpentry and site management qualifications is struggling to find a proper way in.It's very confusing.And similarly, you saw that other message that just came up there a minute ago, saying, my 20 -year -old can't find a job.

It's soul -destroying, because it really is.

Oh, it's terrible.When you're, when you're the parent and you know, you sit there willing them to try to, to get a lucky break.I mean, that lady who's Sunday Carpentry made me think about the theatre because you wouldn't normally think about that about Carpentry, but my middle boy has become very, very good at it.And he is now the technical deputy technical manager of the Playhouse Theatre in Southwark.But believe me, he had to sweat blood to get there.But there are lots of, you have to learn to be quite inventive and think about the unusual.

ways through that your skill can get you into a pathway.they're not as clear as they were when we were young.

No and I think for a lot of kids as well they don't have that skill you know because it's not something that everybody has you know you and I were fortunate in that we were probably a bit chippy a bit awkward you know wouldn't take no for an answer quite like upsetting people and here we are and you know it's been not a bad little ride but you know not everybody's like that you know a lot of people don't have the confidence or they don't have the you know the self -belief and it is when people don't answer your application form and they don't answer your phone calls and they never bring you back.It's pretty soul -destroying.

Yeah, I think it's very, very harmful.I mean, I think that they also have AI to contend with the surge of AI coming forward, which is bound to take many, many jobs.And whatever anyone says about, oh, yeah, but you lose jobs here, but you gain them there.I don't think that is going to happen.I think what we're seeing now with AI, which does have some really, really good points, but what we're seeing is something like akin to the industrial revolution of 200 years ago.ago, where we suddenly got industrialised jobs in urban areas, and that was a massive help.

Well, we're now in the middle of another digital stroke knowledge revolution, where there may be vastly fewer jobs, but no one is paying any serious attention to this.We need something like, you know, proper apprenticeships, which are properly supervised, and community schemes, which are properly funded and properly supervised.But of course, we can't do that without the revenue.And at the moment, we're up creek without a paddle on that front.

Yeah we absolutely are.Talking about job opportunities Will, I mean what's it like in security because I mean that people are always going to want security people aren't they?

There is and I mean I totally agreewith what you guys have been saying about this but also I'm going to sound like a horrible Gen Xer.Now we grew up, which we're all Gen Xers, we all grew up pre -internet, pre the ability to do research, we had to go knock on people's doors and we had to be We had to persevere.We had to persist.And the one thing I would say is I get a lot of CVs every month from individuals who want to come and join my company.They get their security qualifications and they want to come and join.

Now one of the things that I see consistently not being done is is spellcheck, for starters.Number two, AI, as much as everyone sees it as a potential evil, I think it's a real benefit.And we had to improvise, adapt, and overcome.And I would say to the kids out there, number one, no one owes you a living.We never had our livings owed to us.Get out there.

Be persistent.Knock on those doors.If you are unable to try and find an easy access in, use AI to your benefit.Put the prompt in to say, look, I'm not finding a job.This is my skill set.Where should I look?

What are the lateral solutions to me applying my skill set to other businesses?Use that to your advantage to get all those benefits, all the things that we didn't have the advantage of when we were that age and when we were young.So I would say, yes, it's a tough world.It will always be a tough world.And parents like yourself, fantastic being supportive, a little more than my parents were.But I would say get on AI, put the prompts in.

I'm having a crap time.I've got my qualification in X, Y, Z. I'm looking for a job.This is the area that I live in because the joy of AI is it will search.everything, the internet, listings, even potential job applications.And I would put that in there, start using it, but be persistent.Well, I think, and I'm going to, I'm probably going to lose a few friends here, but I think some of these kids need a firm

12 up the backside to say get out there and grab it because no one's gonna give it to you yeah I mean yeah I think some truth to that isn't it yeah can I can I just interject there to say that I completely agree with what you're saying my ex -husband runs an AI company.He was the founder of Sky News.And so I think he's always ahead of the curve when it comes to news gathering and information.And I think that I sent a message to him last night because I'm going to have a chat with him this morning about this.But AI is incredibly useful.He sent me some guidance on a subject I wanted to cover.

And it's incredibly useful.How do I do a half hour of broadcast news?And you will get all the information you need, which tells you what to do.The other point I want to address is you are quite right.in saying that kids have lost confidence in face -to -face contact.The number of youngsters, I believe, that won't engage in a bit of chit -chat is absolutely astonishing.

My kids don't do that.I can't shut them up.

But they grew up in an environment where they were always talking, always debating.They all did public speaking at school.They all do presentations now.I think the value of face -to -face contact, of knitting in with people, is so incredibly important.Because there are some things won't give you and sometimes it's that little bit of an unusual situation that it won't have covered that will come up just by chance, just by luck.You will firm up the right relationship but you can't sit around and expect that to happen because if you don't do anything you won't get anything.

Totally agree.I would say with AI just very quickly, I mean because I left with my 4 .0 levels and that was about it and one of them was religious studies which obviously proven to be very helpful.I'm sure.God bless you myself.Was to basically at the beginning on Claude or ChatGPT and I prefer Claude myself, it's a bit more human, is to put the email that Ito send, the application I might send, or the proposal I might send, and prior to that put improve and then semicolon, and then copy and paste it in there, and it will come back and say, no Will, that was very childish, or that was badly written, your grammar's rubbish, and it will correct all of that.

And that, your first impression through the door is the most important.They will sum up from that email whether you have the capabilities, or the attitude for that matter that they need and they want.

Well, I can tell you there's one job going and it's working for Darren Jones, you know, the world's worst assistant, who's already screwed up the Treasury for racial reasons, now screwing up the Prime Minister's job.But he's looking for a digital content and communications officer.I bet he is.Working for both Darren Jones MP and Claire Hazelgrove MP.Greater Bristol is the location, 26 ,000 to 30 ,000 depending on experience.This is an exciting opportunity to join two dedicated teams serving local people in Greater Bristol.

So there's one job you could try to go for if you've got any kind of wits about you, if you know anything about high engagement video content.Maybe we could do a slot every week and offer some people some opportunities.Job of the week.Get in there and then start leaking stories to newspapers.You could have a future in journalism.I could train them up for that.

You could.Speaking of journalists, I want you to look at this, Lindy, because you've worked in a lot of different situations, a lot of different environments.Tom Baldwin.be familiar with, who is the sort of biographer of Peter Starmer.He's an ex -journalist but he's now more of an author and he's very biased about Starmer.He wrote a book basically painting him as this incredible guy.

But he gave an interview the other day about the failure of journalism in this day and age.Have a look at this.

We're in an era where everybody appears to be criticised and I don't think anyone is above criticism, whether that's prime ministers or journalists, and I do think journalists deserveto take some responsibility and have a good look at themselves about where they behaved in the last few weeks.Whenever there's a change of Prime Minister, government grinds to a halt.We saw it three times at the Tories in the last Parliament.We're now talking about having our fifth Prime Minister in five years.And we're beginning to look like a very unserious country.

We're beginning to look like Italy in the 1980s.And this sort of habit, this addiction, that people have in politics, and indeed the media, to the idea that every couple of years if Prime Minister gets a bit unpopular, we can boot him out again.That's not how our system is meant to work.And it means that you can't take long term decisions, as this government is actually trying to do, and it will get little credit for it.You can't take these long term decisions because everything's just thrown into turmoil again.And so I think there's deep frustration, not just on Keir Starmer's behalf, but actually anyone who cares about stable, long term government for this country.

I mean, ironically, in order to be more stable, I mean, you know, if you want stable government, then don't keep screwing everything up.Don't keep inviting people into the country who shouldn't be here and costing the country more and more money that we don't have.I mean, it seems to me that they've now started...I mean, I do blame some of the journalists for a different reason, because they haven't... really been putting enough scrutiny on Keir Starmer.And before he got in, nobody was asking the question.You know, he just kept his head down.

He got elected because he wasn't the Tory.But nobody really asked him what was going to really happen when he became the Prime Minister.He just kept saying, we're ready for government and, you know, we are going to hit the ground running and we've got a plan.And they didn't have a plan at all, as it turns out.

Yeah, I mean the thing is that I don't think Keir Starmer needs Tom Baldwin to big himself up because Keir Starmer does that all on his own.The fact of the matter is he shows very strong narcissistic tendencies and symptoms, one of which is to constantly grandstand and paint himself as the hero of the piece.Tom Baldwin does have a point about the polarisation of society in general.I think it's true that we've become very black and white and we're not used to debating the real nuances of what makes situations very complicated.But the fact of the matter is there's no point in politicians complaining about the media.The media become everyone's Aunt Sally when they get themselves into a tight corner.

The fact is politicians, you know, have become unserious and one of the reasons is is.They are constantly attached to their ex accounts, quoting, not even quoting, but making remarks, cut and paste phrases, word salad, you name it, they do it.They're moving at a fast and furious pace.I was listening to one Labour cabinet minister last week who said he was going to strain at the leash to sort problems out.What does that mean?Strain at the leash.

I mean, he's not a dog trainer.

Well, you don't want to talk to Peter Mandelson about leashes and things like that, because you might find that the answer you get is not quite what you had in mind.Dog collars all round.

Well, I was going to say what official picture that's given us, Mike.

No, but the point is that we have now got this political class, this political management class, I call it.And I know that people will say, oh, you old people, you're just always going on about how it was better in the old days.But we did have characters.We did have more different types of people, whereas everybody now comes with the same kind of vanilla box.And they all say the same thing and use the same words.

back to Margaret Thatcher and whatever you thought of her, she said what she meant, and she meant what she said.She was a character.She had a little bit of actual voice training, I think, to get her into a lower register.But she never had the kind of media training, which leads, as you describe it, to these vanilla responses.The fact of the matter is that politicians have become this homogenized mass, becauseand I put this out the door originally of 24 hour rolling news, where they all got the opportunity to be on air.

So they all got media training, was all painting by numbers, to use my own phrase.And they all ended up with horrible little sketches when they should have been attempting to paint a Picasso, as I said last week on air.You know, they should be trying to be inventive and imaginative, but they're all trying to work along the lines of focus groups and market research to make sure they don't upset the apple cart.Well, I'm afraid to use one more analogy.You can't make an omelette without cracking eggs.And the problem is they're too scared to do that.

Therefore, we don't get any real solutions.It will be very, very interesting to watch what goes on in the Makerfield by -election now, because that will be one of the most consequential by -elections in my lifetime.And let's see how the candidates play out.Let's see who Nigel Farage picks as his man or his woman.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting.There was a suggestion that it was going to be a local guy who I think is now currently a councillor.because I think they've learned the lesson of the Matt Goodwin exercise in Gorton and Denton and I'd said this to Richard Tice you know it's probably best if you use somebody local in a place like that and somebody that kind of knows the area rather than somebody who might be considered to be a carpetbagger because then you can accuse Andy Burnham of being that guy.

Yeah and at the end of the day I think everyone should have paid much more attention to Gorton and Denton's demographic makeup.It was clear to several people the Greens were likely to win that battle because of the high number of younger people who were fed up with the unemployment situation and immigrants who wanted to back Green because they were no longer going to back Labour.So it was quite clear what was likely to happen in that constituency.I think I said last week that what I think of the two ways to go in make a field are either ahyper local guy or woman like you've just mentioned, Mike, or you could find some kind of high profile celebrity, not even a celebrity, but a campaigner who'd fought for an issue that mattered to local people.That might work as well.

But whatever reform do, I think that they are in a very good position to win that seat.I'm not particularly an advocate of reform.but I can see how they can win in that seat because I think the last time round Josh Simon's got only like 18 ,000 only but 18 ,300 seats and Reform just above 12 ,500 weren't that far behind them.If the Tories stood aside, which I know they're not going to because Kemi Bainott has been quite clear about that, but if somehow Reform could scoop up the 4 ,500 votes that went to the Conservatives last time round, they'd be in with a shout.

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.Before we let you go, I want to show you this piece of footage from an airshow in Idaho this week, which I know an awful lot of people were staggered by, right?Will, I don't know if you've seen this.No, I haven't seen this.This is two growler jets, believe it or not, with a tip to Angela Rayner, of course.Another growler, Mike.

Yeah, exactly right.

They're the planes in Top Gun.

Oh, are they?Oh, right, okay, so you know a bit about this, right, excellent.I know a bit about the background here.All right, excellent.Right, we'll have a look at this because it's quite dramatic footage.

I mean that's going to be an expensive collision isn't it?that was a multi -million pound collision, that was at an air show in Idaho.You don't really get that kind of footage unless it's at an air show because of course, planes eject like that in war zones where obviously no one's got a camera running.I understand that Martin Baker Associates, one of our leading British family -run engineering companies, where my own brother started as a 16 -year -old apprentice, so apprenticeships are very valuable, Martin Baker developed and Wow.Yes.blow one off then the other one off which was right on top of it and then all four pilots ejected off a timer.

That's incredible isn't it to see.Amazing.And so I mean when you say they interlock that that was an accidental interlocking presumably.

Yeah that's very fortunate yeah very fortunate to get that clearance as you were saying to get the clearance to eject yeah.

I just I just want to say that Martin Baker, you know, they've started by a guy called Sir James Martin and Valentine Baker who actually died in an air accident.And the company is very near me and they've put a monument up in the forecourt of their building and they record each life saved.So at the moment it's standing at over seven and a half thousand aircrew have been saved by these seats.they update it.You can see it's a ticker.It's updated all the time and when anyone is saved anywhere in the world in those seats, which are highly complicated pieces of kit, it's all recorded.

Yeah, amazing.Linda, great to talk to you, lovely to see you, and we must get you back in the studio one of these days soon.Thank you very much indeed.Linda Doobley there with some fascinating facts about the military hardware there that we just saw, but incredibly, I mean...Knowing what you know about the military, it must have been quite a difficult thing to do just to collide.There are so many things that could have gone wrong.

I suppose they could be doing some kind of manoeuvre where they're flying quite close to each other.

Yeah.One of the things I'm terrible at, Mike, is skydiving.I managed to break my back doing it.But one of the things I would say is...that the four of them all ejecting, so from each jet, and Linda would probably know this better than I would, they eject at angles, so what you don't get is an entanglement of the canopies between the two, you know, the navigator and the pilot.

But if you've got four people ejecting at the same time, they were very fortunate that the jets were actually connected like that, so they could deploy in different directions, so ultimately each pair would not obviously entangle, but they didn't entangle with each other, the other pair, if you know what I mean.

Yeah, no, absolutely right.I mean, I remember watching The Red Arrows once and thinking, crikey.You know, I mean, it looks like they're missing each other by a hair's breadth, you know.It's quite incredible.Brilliant.Great stuff.

Linda, thank you very much indeed.We're going to come back to you very shortly to speak to Christian Drogan from Watchmen.He's got some film for us, some projects he's been working on.Nigel Paul, he's going to be here as well to talk about the BBC.They've got a new boss this week.I don't know whether anything's going to change.

AY Audit's in later on as well, of course, to talk to us about some of the work that he does around the migrant hotels.Lady Schwartz talking to us as well about what's going on.in the Middle East and all sorts of other bits and pieces going on that front as well. KeepKeep your messages coming in as well.Lots of you are getting into the conversation about trying to find work for your teenage boys and your kids.Some super chats as well.

The show keeps getting better.Thanks, Mike.Poots, Charlotte and your great guest from Sunshine.Thank you very much indeed.It does keep getting better.With your royalty, Americans see a very stable government in the UK.

says BGT, well if only that were true, we haven't really had a stable government for a while.This one from Anglo -Saxon, it's disgusting the IRGC haven't been prescribed Mike, it is absolutely and ridiculous in a way, the idea that this government can't bring itself to do it.Steve says this, in support of our veterans isn't it time Paddy Mayne was awarded the VC, there's already a petition I believe, love the show.I'm not sure I know about Paddy Mayne.

Oh, Paddy Mayne, there's a story.One of the founding forces of Stirling, of the SAS, and an absolute beast of a man.He's worth a read up.They did a TV show on the BBC about it.I watched a bit of it.But Paddy Mayne, yeah, he's quite a character.

Yeah, I will check that out.Let's get some news.Right now, what are we doing?Oh, we've got another one, sorry.Will should be the new James Bond.He is my crush, says Laura Jane.

I think I'm a bit old for that now, but thank you.

You could be in James Bond, if you didn't even want to be in James Bond.

Look at what, as a barman or something.Bin man. I could be the bin man.It's time you had some kind of cameo role.Mr Bond, I need to empty your rubbish.Or, you know, the shaken, not stirred mixologist.Could be anything.

Simon, thank you very much indeed for that.Yeah, so coming up, I've got something else to tell you about, but I'm going to hold on to that thought because right now it's time for the news with Edward Hughes.

Good morning, I'm Edward Hughes with your news.Surprise, surprise!Labour's in yet another leadership meltdown.Keith Stalin is clinging on to number 10 like a limpet after getting out of jail.slammed in the local elections.He insists he's focused on the job.

Translation, please don't make me set a resignation date.Ministers have already jumped ship or politely suggested he packs his bags.Meanwhile, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has been cleared to run in the Makerfield by -election.He's promising to change labour because, in his words, the current offer is not good enough.A revelation that's only slightly more obvious than rain being wet.In other news, fresh allegations that two women were raped by their on -screen husbands on Married at First Sight UK, with Channel 4 apparently knowing about one claim in advance.

Shocking.Another perfectly normal Tuesday in Clown World.Please remember to like and subscribe.Laters, tigers.

Thank you very much indeed.Edward Hughes there with The News.Lots of you have got things to say about AI as well, which I'm sure we'll be getting stuck into.We were supposed to have an AI expert on, I think last week, but unfortunately it was one of those UK live scenarios where we couldn't get the show switched over.Since you're here, let's talk about the front page of The Sun, which has got a very different story on it.Katie Price's new husband, Lee Andrews, who apparently was reported missing yesterday in Dubai.

This was great.Katie Price apparently says, I haven't seen him for five days.What's he doing?Well, according to The Sun, apparently Sun journalists, Clemmie Moody, who I know very well, offered him 1 ,000 quid for an apparent investment and he disappeared with the money.

Apparently he's done that with allegedly a number of other people as well.

Yeah, absolutely right.Has he been kidnapped?

No, this is the funny thing.I think Clemmie's been doing some great reporting.I've been following it on Instagram, on her socials.So she's absolutely destroying this man.She's had loads of women who've come forward that allegedly he has conned out of money.He keeps

telling Katie Price, his new bride, that they got married within three months or something this year, that he's on his way home but couldn't make it.She went on GMB the other day and apparently he was supposed to be with her but he couldn't make it.Something had happened, which basically I would say, from my experience, comes down to that he's on a no -fly list, which means that he probably owes money in the UAE.That's dangerous business, isn't it?It's a really dangerous business.Because they could lock you up for that.

Oh yeah, absolutely.And unless he pays those debts, he won't be able to leave the country.But the best development recently was the video that apparently he sent to Katie of him saying, I've been kidnapped.and he had zip ties on, he had a hood, he was in the back of a van, yet he managed to use his video on his phone to be able to record.I've never had a kidnap victim who's done that.

Inside the Sun it says, I agreed to hand over a thousand pounds to be invested by him, he promised that I'd get 2 .9 thousand pounds back, nothing has been paid to me however and then later I was blocked.and I was then blocked by Katie Price as well.Oh no.I think I'd pay money to be blocked by Katie Price to be honest.Never darken my door again.Will, thank you very much indeed.

My pleasure sir.Great to see you man and we will see you again soon I'm sure for Plank of the Week or something similar.Let's talk to Christian Drogen though now because he's with us from Watchmen.Let's find out what he's been up to.Christian, very good morning to you sir.How you doing, Mike?

Yeah, not bad at all, not bad at all.I think we've got some video from you.So should we have a look at it first?You want to tell us what it is?

Yeah, I mean, it's a clip of a girl.So I went up to Makerfield on Saturday, I think it was now, Sunday.And I went up there on the weekend anyway.And I thought I'd just go and speak to the people.I know the area fairly well anyway.So I sort of hit the main street in Makefield and obviously it was just full of journalists, you know, all kinds of news channels and photographers were there.

So I thought what I'd do is watch them in style, I'll go a little bit deeper, I'll head right into some of the other areas that I know, some of the sort of, let's just say, less well -to -do areas around there.And I came across this young, sweet, polite girl.Now, I just need to tell you about this girl.She was very forthcoming towards, you know, she wanted to come and speak to me.She knew I was recording and I blurred her face out just because I felt like it was the right thing to do.Now, she was a very sweet girl and very polite and very open to speaking to me.

But I just think it was really, it's really important to show this clip to the nation because Well, I tell you what if we played a clip we'll discuss it after yeah, let's do it i imagine that's quite indicative of a lot of people actually well you know what you couldn't see on that photo you couldn't see that this girl had a black eyeyou know she was obviously from a part of sort of makefield which you know was was a little bit rough in some parts and you know she's obviously been hit in the face which is never nice to see so It was quite a sad feeling when I spoke to this girl as well because it just made me realise, and I know this already, but there are so many pockets of Great Britain that are forgotten.Now you've got to think about this girl's education and stuff.She's been failed by the education system and effectively she's there living in a world where You know, it's probably very hard for her to see outside of that world.So, yeah, it was quite a sad moment.But that leads me on to the next sort of big thing.

Is Andy Burnham King of the North?Well, I'm here to tell you that he definitely is not.

And you can honestly qualify that by being of the North, as it were, because I mean, I said this last week that the only people who think that Andy Burnham is King of the North are the people in Westminster who have never been to the North.They've never been North of North London.And they think, oh, he's from Manchester.It's like these idiots in the Labour Party who said, oh, here's a good idea.If he gets the job in Makefield, guess who we should put in his place in Manchester as mayor?Gary bloody Neville, right?

And we had some fun with that last week.He'd be laughed at.He'd be laughed at.Because the logic in London is, well, one, he's a footballer, so the working class will love him.Two, he plays for Man United and that's a very popular team, so everyone will love him because of that.And three, you know, he's a socialist.

Well, wrong on all counts, right?

Absolutely.It's totally wrong.Now, let me tell you a couple of things.I actually lived in Manchester City Centre for over a year.I know it very well.I used to live on the 28th floor.

I'd look outside towards whatever part of Manchester it was and, you know, someone inside the building would say,I'd be rubbing my eyes looking out thinking am I still dreaming what's going on down there you know you'll have these people walking around like with dog masks on or furries and you're just thinking wow what's going on in this place but anyway that's I mean that happens all over the country I suppose they're sort of the mentally ill far -left you know rainbow flag people yeah anyway going back to some actual sort of stuff with andy burnham he we have the clean air zone up here which is effectively like the north the manchester version of of you les now it cost 100 million quid to put all the cameras up and all the signs up and it's quite well known information around up north it cost a hundred million quid of taxpayers money and that's for the cameras the signs the you know everything else yeah anyway thankfully the clean air zone was scrapped due to pressure from um i believe boris johnson at the time which is you know at least he did something right um so that's that's that was scrapped but then the next thing it goes another step further now i've not got the figures that i did have them to hand but my phone's locked there but the figures for taking the signs down um was at i'm sure it was about i don't want to guess at it but anyway you can look the figure up yourself it was astronomical and it gets even worse um there's no actual um conviction or known wrongdoing, but it's believed that, and this is alleged, but it's believed that his wife had, so Andy Burnham's wife had something to do with the company who's taken him down.Now again it's alleged and there's there's some level of info circulating online on that but yeah there's a rat you know you can smell a rat with it all and yeah it's you know around Manchester we've got the we've got the bike lanes we've gotgoing in so for example from Rochdale to Manchester There's now a continual bike lane going in nobody wanted this bike lane absolutely nobody wanted this bike lane.

And nobody uses bike lanes in Manchester do they?That's my understanding.

No.Well, it never stops raining, so you don't really want to take your bike, you know what I mean?But I mean, to be honest, this bike lane, it's actually closed businesses down, you know, because this bike lane goes where cars could just pull up, nip into a shop, wherever it might be.Now you can't pull up on the side of the road.There's a bike lane that no one uses there.And this is Andy Burnham's Manchester.

You can't forget, on a Saturday night, get the taxi from the centre of Manchester.You can't move, it's gridlocked.You used to be able to drive down both, you could drive down Central Street, Manchester, both ways.It was a lovely city.And now you cannot move in Manchester.It should have grown outwards, not upwards.

And although some of the tall buildings I do like, but yeah, it's got a new nickname now called Mank Hatton.Oh really?Yeah.

One of my sons is at uni up there, right?And whenever I've been to see him, which hasn't been that often, and he lives in Salford, and you say take a cab into town to go to the centre of Manchester, down to Deansgate or wherever.And we'd always have to get out of it, because we'd be sitting in traffic and we'd be going, we might as well get out and walk.You know, because it's literally gridlock on every single time I've been there.

Many people say he's ruined Manchester.We used to have a place called Piccadilly Gardens that is now nicknamed Crackadilly Gardens.Oh yeah.And you will have seen it on social media.

I've seen it, yeah.I mean, it's literally like, it looks like the cross between sort of Philadelphia and hell, doesn't it?

Yeah.Yeah, it's shocking.I mean, you have to be brave to walk through there for some people, you know.It's like, you know, knife crime, rapes and drugs.And it used to be a fairlyall right place of Manchester, you know, food court and a load of shops.

But now, you know, on a night out, God help you if you walk through there.So yeah, that is Andy Burnham's Manchester from a lad from Manchester.And many people share my thoughts and feelings about it.And to be honest, going back to the by -election, a message to anybody who's up from Manchester, who's from um sort of make a field area you know you really should listen to what i've said there um and i'm sure they already know as well being from that area i went up there and i spoke to loads of people and actually their gripe really is so this is it used to be quite a red wall sort of area their gripe is with um what i found is massively with kirstarma um i don't think that many people are that political up there But yeah, they've got a massive challenge.They've got a big hill to climb if they want to win up there.And obviously, I think if they don't win, it could be the end of the Labour Party, in my eyes.

It could be the end, a slow demise.And yeah, and that's what we want to happen because they are trashing our country, aren't they?

Absolutely.But what do you make of these polls that are coming out in which they say that, for example, Labour without Andy Burnham in Maker Field would lose to Reform by quite a big margin but if Andy Burnham runs in Maker Field he gets 45 % to their 43 % so I mean obviously it's going to be close if he runs.Do you think those polls are wrong?

I think it would definitely be tighter with Andy Burnham because you know it's He's a northern bloke himself isn't he, to some extent.I've actually sort of bumped into him in town one time and I asked him for a photo and just had a bit of a laugh with him sort of about politics and he was fairly all right to be fair but you know that doesn't meanlet's face it, the best person for the job would be someone local, I think.I mean, if you go to that sort of area, Wigan, you know, it's full of plumbers and roofers, you know, it's a big plumbing and roofing area.And that's the kind of person they need to get in, someone who can relate to that kind of person who actually wants to improve the area and look out for the area.And I think that's what will win the by -election.

Have you seen the Restore candidate that was selected yesterday?They've selected some woman, local businesswoman.

I've not, I've not.I've not, no.For me, I get the point of Restore to some level, but it does frustrate me.People might jump down my neck at this, certain people do, I'm not really bothered.It frustrates me to the point where I feel like, in my opinion, reform is the people's last chance.So it's the good British people's last chance at taking their country back before the damage goes too far.

And I feel like Restore is an attack on that.that last chance and that's where I lose my patience with Restore.If it was done a bit more methodically then I could definitely sort of see it being all right but yeah that's where I draw the line really.

Absolutely right and one of the things I was going to mention to you because we talked about it a little bit earlier I don't know if you've seen the footage from Krobera this week where it looks so there's a couple of I mean I don't really want to use the phrase vigilante it's more like a sort of private security group and 81 volunteers people going out onto the street because an awful lot of of places now where there are groups of migrants in in camps where they'reyou know hundreds of them it seems like there's a bit of tension growing it seems like some of these migrants are starting to get a bit chippy about being filmed starting to get a bit chippy about being spoken to and kind of demonstrated against you know there's almost like you can feel that the tension and the problems are going to get worse.

Yeah, what was the question on that?Sorry, Mike.

Sorry, I was just saying, do you think we're going to see more of these groups growing in different parts of the country?Because I was asking Will Geddes about the legality of it, where certain ordinary residents of places like Crowborough, which is a very nice little quiet town in Sussex, is actually going to be patrolled now by people like the Guardian Angels did in New York.

Yeah, well, we've had that going on for quite a while in Haywood, in the borough of Rochdale.And, you know, the guys holding protests locally, and next thing you know, they were being smeared as far right, you know, and all the rest of it.Now, I can't speak for the individuals myself, but I do know that from what I saw of it, the people had the best intentions, but the lefties were saying the kids were scared and all the rest of it.They were wearing high -vis jackets.you know i don't know if they were um sort of dbs checked um if that's if that's terminology but yeah i don't know if they were dbs checked or whatever i don't know but realistically they were just parents local parents from the area trying to protect the kids because there are I mean Let's let's face it.It used to be stop -look -listen Now it's run hide tell you know that is a that is that is ridiculous.

You know just saying that we used to stop look listen Well, if you took that advice now, you'd probably end up dead anyway, because someone would shoot you You've got a run hide tell you know, that's the craziness of how times have changed that's the advice from Specifically could be a police and a police officerlot of other police forces around the country.Run, hide and tell.

It's not great, is it?It's really sad.Anyway, good to see you.Thanks, Christian.Good to talk once again.Watchmen .

com is where you find all the stuff that they get up to in terms of cataloguing what is going on as the political process unfolds in this country and as things go from bad to worse.This morning, once again, all the headlines are around the sort of psychodrama of Labour.Slippery Burnham's two U -turns in a day, the Daily Mail.Starmer sabotages Burnham on Brexit, The Telegraph.Burnham far ahead of Starmer in Labour vote, The Times.Starmer, I won't walk away, The Mirror.

Labour must change to regain trust, says Andy Burnham on The Guardian.Burnham tries to ease the markets on the FT.You know, there's more and more and more of it.And I'm sure as you listen to that and watch the newspapers and watch the coverage that we're seeing, you know, again, the Westminster bubble obsessing about who gets to be in charge of the clattering train, who gets to drive the bus over the cliff.At the end of the day, it doesn't matter which one of them does it.We need a general election.

It's as simple as that.This one from Maygree.Never been to Manchester, can't be any worse than Glasgow now which is a total cesspit.Traffic on motorways always at a crawl.Too many cars, too many people.Once a great city, now an overcrowded... hole.

I'm not going to say it just because I don't feel like swearing this morning.But yeah, you're right.The problem is this country is packed full of people.There's too many people living here.There's too many people coming here.There's too many people becoming British or being here from foreign countries.

I mean, once again, I was out yesterday afternoon doing a bit of shopping and couldn't hear anybody speaking English.There was literally nobody in the shop speaking English.And you get on the tube, you get on a bus, you get on any form of public transport, and there's hardly anybody English.it.It's extraordinary.There was just a flash up there of the Mike Graham and Friends.

Are we saying anything about that by the way?Do you know what the plan is?Oh no, okay, because we've got, we are shortly I think, I'm right in saying, going to release some footage from the live show that we did a week ago last Wednesday.Was it a week?It was a week ago last Wednesday wasn't it?isn't it?

No it was the 6th of May so you know it was less than two weeks away because it'll be the 20th so it'll be two weeks tomorrow.We're going to put the video out so you can have a look at it and we'll let you know how you can do that and obviously if you are a subscriber on Substack and if you are a member of our YouTube channel it will be easier for you to do so if you want to join either of those all gust organizations that's what you should do now so you can get access to see it because it'll be a lot easier and cheaper if you do it that way.Also if you are a YouTube watcher and you're watching us on YouTube right now please do like the show and subscribe to the channel because as much as we've got 21 and a half million views now and we've got 15 ,000 16 ,000 people watching every single day you know we could do with some more subscribers because that's where It drives the algorithm.It makes it much more easy for us to reach more people.And so please go ahead and do that.We've got 162 ,000 now.

We want to try and get up to 200 ,000 by the summer.Also, the big meltdown for me today is going to be an HS2.I'm going to do it soon.But there's a poll as well.What should we do with HS2 on the news that later on today, it's going to be announced probably that it's costing something in excess of 100 billion pounds, more expensive than the most recent Artemis moonshot.actually cost NASA.

So we're asking you what we should do about it.Should we scrap it altogether now before it costs us any more money?28 % of you agree with that.Turn it into a go -kart track?6 % of you want that.Sell it off to China?

4 % of you.that.Make MPs pay for it, 62 % of you want that.And I think MPs and civil servants who've been involved in it should all cough up, quite frankly, because otherwise I don't know what we're going to do about it.But we'll do a meltdown soon.Let's get some news, first of all, with Edward Hughes.

I'm Edward Hughes with your news.Surprise, surprise, Labour's in yet another leadership meltdown.Keith Stalin is clinging on to number 10 like a limpet after getting absolutely slammed in the local elections.He insists he's focused on the job.Translation, please don't make me set a resignation date.Ministers have already jumped ship or politely suggested he packs his bags.

Meanwhile, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has been cleared to run in the Makerfield by -election.He's promising to change labour because, in his words, the current offer is not good enough.A revelation that's only slightly more obvious than rain being wet.In other news, fresh allegations that two women were raped by their on -screen husbands on Married at First Sight UK, with Channel 4 apparently knowing about one claim in advance.Shocking.another perfectly normal Tuesday in Clown World.

Please remember to like and subscribe.Laters, Tigers!

Well it's helping the old boss in with the new boss, The Who sung that, didn't they, in the 60s.Because he's very much of the establishment, public school, Cambridge.He went to the Olympics, he got a CBE, I'm not quite sure how.got a CBE.And he also worked for Google for 18 years.This should be a worry for anyone, the few remaining people who are actually watching the BBC linear television, because there's not really been a programme maker for some time.

And it has been noticeable that perhaps the programme quality of the things the BBC are making has declined in recent years.The days of Michael Grade, Billy Cotton Jr., even David Attenborough, Um, people who actually made shows and lived television.So they drove the BBC into making great series.I've gone and it's got to the stage now where he'll be heading the digital, there'll be this sort of digital first stuff.You remember they were newspapers, right?Digital first.

This means that you weren't there, you were making your way in television and radio then.Digital first is when they got rid of the print editions and went and gave it away for free.And that hasn't actually worked too well.The BBC is trying to compete.with Netflix and streaming services, and it can't compete.How bad the BBC is now is the one show that is camp and glamorous, that you could probably have a camp and glamorous guy presenting it, you know, is Strictly Come Dancing.

They're probably going to have Josh Whitaker, who's like from the Wurzels, and Emma Willis, who's from Birmingham.No Strictly Come Dancing anymore.But I'd have thought you'd have wanted probably someone who gets into the campery of it, you know, someone who's going to sell it, a Rylan or a Graham Norton, someone.

So this is the trouble, they sort of pick on somebody like they did a bit with Claudia Winkleman and then suddenly they give her everything and then they go, oh who should we get to do that?Oh I know, Claudia Winkleman would be good at that, you know it's like Ant & Dec on ITV, let's do a new show on ITV, call it Late Night on ITV, who should we get to do it?Oh why don't you get Ant & Dec?And you kind of go, well is that the best you can do?Can you not like find some new people or do something?which is actually you know worthwhile.

And the sad fact is we're paying nearly 200 quid a year.A lot of people are not paying 200 pounds a year or 180 pounds a year for the BBC.And losing sport, as we discussed last time I was on, not really have any programs you want to tune in into.You know, even Question Time, which, you know, going back to when my mum was alive years ago, and she used to love a Thursday night.You'd see big politicians of the day on their proper debates.Now it's, you know, comedians or people from telly, footballers.

There's no gravitas.And the BBC, if it's anything, should be above trying to become Channel 4 or Big Brother.And it hasn't.And this guy's come in.Good luck with the job.But they've tried to clear away.

And I know we were going to discuss Scott Mills, his sacking.Well, my view of that is that possibly the Scott Mills is now allegedly suing for unfair dismissal.And I've got to say, I think he's got a fairly good case because he's I mean, we don't know.Allegedly, he's got a good case.But he apparently declared everything that was a problem 20 odd years ago when he was given a job at Radio One.So this sort of came in.

It struck to me as the BBC trying to clear the stables before the new boss came in so that he didn't have any problems to deal with.But I think they're throwing one of the biggest stars, a veryto And anyone who's been in that situation knows the trauma that that can cause.When you're hosting the biggest radio show, one of the biggest radio shows in the country, one of the highest rated, and you go away on Tuesday and you're fired on Wednesday.And that's it.I thought the BBC might have had a better process.

It seemed to me they panicked.This new guy's come in, he hasn't inspired me that he's going to turn the BBC around, but hey, you know, he's turned Google around into an algorithm that you can never work out what's going on now, so who knows what might happen.

Yeah and also the trouble is when you get people that come from places like Google and he gets credited with all sorts of things that happened there and it turns out actually it was nothing to do with him and you wonder how he got selected and you wonder what background checks they did into him and whether they're so obsessed now with kind of making sure that nobody's done anything bad in the past that they go oh well he doesn't seem to have any black marks against him we'll just give him a job and the other thing about Scott Mills it seems to me and a couple of people have said to me that the I don't know whether this is inside information from the Beeb, but some of the things that he's alleged to have done or that they panicked about are quite bad.I wonder whether when you get threatened that somebody's going to sue you, it means they're actually not going to sue you.

I mean, I guess it's a bit like when we're on newspapers and strong editors stand up when people threaten you with libel.And if you've got a good story and they trust you, then you fight it and take it on.But increasingly in this society we have,a litigious society, just the mere threat of legal action means that weak bosses cave.And I'm not going to condone whatever was alleged that Scott Mills did all those years ago.What I'm saying is, I think it was a fairly well known in the BBC, and perhaps he shouldn't have got the job in the first place, when that was already aware, to actually employ someone and then panic and say, I think it was all to do.

of emptying the drawers or emptying the in tray before the new boss arrived.I bet the new boss wears like a black t -shirt as well to work with the suit because that's what they do.I mean, if you're looking at the internet and stuff, you've got to look at Nick Clegg.He's now a multi -millionaire working in the tech industry.So if you're looking at the, well, you know, Nick Clegg was a deputy prime minister, wasn't he?I don't quite know how that happened.

I guess we didn't vote for the right way at the time, or enough people didn't vote the right way at the time.But if that's the quality of people who are running these tech industries, to suggest that someone who's been there for 18 years, that seems to me, so he's pretty well versed in what's going on with Google.Has he been watching much of EastEnders while he's been doing that?I don't think so.Has he been watching much of Question Time?I wouldn't have thought so.

Is he up with why they got rid of football focus or why can't we see the horse racing or the boat race or the cricket or the football or the motor racing or the golf on the BBC anymore?I'd imagine he'd be a little bit annoyed that the boat race is gone as he rode for Cambridge three times.I actually went to Robinson College Mike, I'm not going to be snooty about Cambridge because neither of us actually went there, but that's the modern college as you come out of the town on the left.Oh, is it?Right, okay.It was formed in 1965 after a multi -millionaire donor who built it in his honour.

Yeah, no, I've only been to Cambridge once.I went to a wedding there a few years ago, one of my daughter's friends, and it wasn't in the centre of town.they just seemed to be too many bike lanes and I didn't I didn't like it very much at all no it's difficult to drive around it's easy to bike around not so easy to drive around yeah yeah well that's no use to me but he's also said this guy Matt Brittany but he'd be white trainers as well wouldn't it be you know black you know you know the sort of new order black t -shirt look yeah Yeah, white trainers and dark trousers.

Unbelievable.What is that white trainers thing?

I don't know.

I don't know.Surely the whole idea of trainers is that you wear them.You don't just have them nice and pleat.I don't know.I feel old, Mike.I don't understand.

Well, because we are old.That's the thing.

We are.The old thing used to be when you went to a wedding, one of your strange uncles or something would turn up, one of the Irish uncles or whatever, would turn up in a suit and trainers.

Yeah.

But it wasn't running Google for 18 years.No, no, exactly right.That used to be his best suit, and he put his trainers on.So I don't understand why it came trendily.

Yeah, or you wore trainers because you had bad feet or something.You had an excuse, you know, because I've got corns or something like that.Anyway, 500 million...

Or into nightclubs wearing trainers now.Yeah.

Exactly.

The owner of it is wearing them.Life's gone mad.The world's gone mad.

It has, it really has.£500 million pounds of cuts, though, he says he's got to make.Significant financial pressures, he's saying.Very real challenges, all of that.So they're going to have to sack a lot of people, aren't they?

They will do, and also they're going to meet his £565 ,000 a year salary.I bet that won't be cut.You've got to look at where do they make cuts?Well, they won't make cuts on the digital area, because that's obviously the way that they see forward.Killing off local papers and local radio stations is basically what the BBC online has done.So you're looking at program making, that probably would mean you'd only have, you wouldn't have a code

Then again, you probably wouldn't have people going away to the World Cup.They always used to wonder why there was someone in America when they could easily be in London because all you saw was a studio.So they will make cutbacks, they will make bleats on about, they'll probably trade and say they're going to axe BBC4 or BBC6, Radio 6, or one of the Asian networks.There'll be something that they'll put out there that will get the Guardian and Observer readers going mad.

Yeah.

And then it will be rowed back and they'll axe sort of like Gardner's World or something.Yeah, right.Old people watch.

They'll kill off David Attenborough, literally.Sorry.

He's over 100 now, he's fine.

I mean, I think it's time to put him in a retirement home for old TV presenters, honestly.I mean, it's ridiculous.Let me finish up with...Yeah, well, listen, Channel 4 are also now in the doo -doo, because they've had to take down all of their Married at First Sight shows, because apparently people were getting raped, according to, you know...How about Raped at First Sight?I could rename it.

Making reality television to a slight extreme.

A few migrants involved.

There's a show idea.Yes.You've had things like with the various other shows that they've had issues with.Masterchef was one of them.And these are people who are totally out of touch with reality.They think a reality show is only a few Muppets getting together with someone they've never met.

Probably show off and they think they're authentically working class, but they're actually patronized working class people.and they make a television program and then they wonder why it all goes wrong when they've got people who are show -offs and basically not very nice human beings getting together in front of a camerafor 24 hours a day.Now, it's shocking if you've got a show called Married at First Sight.A, I think that was a crass idea anyway.But B, the fact that sort of, obviously the guy thought he had conjugal rights, even though it was a fake marriage.

So, you know, if you're gonna start having programs where people get married, then normally people would say that marriages are consummated.And that seems to be where the issue is on here.But if people are going on television, if your daughter was going on television and getting raped by some numpty from Gateshead, I think rightly, you'd be very, very annoyed about it.And I think Channel 4 have got a lot to answer on it.And in this instance, fair play to the BBC for actually investigating this and doing a good job on it, because it obviously needs to be exposed.And I heard the Channel 4 chief executive on the news just before I came on here.

And I've got to say, it was it was up there with a script.I don't know who the crisis managers are, but if you ever need any, I'm pretty good at crisis management, because what you don't say is lessons are learned.We're going to move for this.And it was basically we have faith in our own processes.Well, the processes have failed miserably.Right.

If three three people in section assault on a program, I would say the duty of care that they have for those people on their young people on these shows.television and get raped.

Because this is also it gives the lies of this nonsense about Channel 4 being the you know the TV channel for public service you know that we do things that otherwise commercial channels wouldn't do they're always doing shows about sex there was that awful naked attraction show which was horrendous you know they do these kind of shows where people end up shagging each other Love Island which is on ITV I know but it's it's all the same kind of you know oh yeah we're doing this because there's a demand for it no there isn't That one with the head does.

He did once chase me out from a football ground when I had to answer a stupid question.I outrun him as well, which says a lot, doesn't it?

That does say a lot, yeah, absolutely right.I mean, I remember looking at Channel 4's schedule once, particularly when they were demanding that taxpayers should continue to fund what they do because it's all so worthy, right?And almost all of their programming from about 10 o 'clock at night on and all afternoon was all kind of rerun American comedy.you know, like friends and all that kind of stuff, right?And it was all rubbish.You know, the idea that there's somehow, you know, without Channel 4, the nation would be less well -educated is absolute cobblers.

Well, if you remember, Channel 4 launched itself with Countdown and Brookside.

Yeah.

And Brookside was going to be revolutionary because it was like a Liverpool housing estate and they had sort of lesbians and things in it.Yeah.But nothing has actually ever moved forward from Channel 4.I don't really see the point of Channel 4 these days.

No, I think it's just shut it down.We can't afford it.If we can't give the BBC any more money, we shouldn't give them any more either.

Well, this is very true.I know my old boss, Mr Desmond, when I worked at the Express, he was trying to buy it.They wouldn't sell it to him.But I mean, if he turned Channel 5 around, from, you know, not doing much to, well he made a lot of money out of it anyway, and Channel 5 has actually expanded and is doing quite well.

Well it's sort of on the up isn't it, Channel 5, because they've accepted...Yeah, well they've also accepted that, you know, there's no point in trying to pretend to be holier than thou, just go for, you know, whatever you think people want to see, and that's what they do, and they do it quite well.Yeah, exactly right.Anyway, listen, great to see you Nigel.Thank you very much indeed.A couple of people were enjoying your Steve Marriott picture.

One for the teenagers.I'll see you soon.Nigel Pooley there reporting in on the new BBC boss who's got to make 500 million quid's worth of savings while collecting half a million quid of a salary.Marvelous, isn't it?That's the way it all works.And now coming up, we're going to speak to Aidy Schwartz, who's an Israeli journalist and an academic.

Used to write for Haaretz, which is an Israeli newspaper, of course.We're going to find out from him what's going on in the middle of the Middle East, because, of course, the ceasefire may or may not be coming our way.I think, should we play that clip of Trump, Charlotte, before we talk to him?Because it turns out that Donald Trump's now saying he might never attack Iran again.Check this out.Haven't got it?

OK, it's not coming up.All right, fine.A .D.Schwartz, let's say a very good morning to him.Author of The War of Return.

A .D., very good morning to you.Good morning.Good to see you.I don't know exactly where you are.

I assume you might be in Israel, but do tell us what is going on at the moment.We've got Donald Trump sending a few mixed signals about the Iranian situation as per usual.

What's happening where you are?So, right, I'm of course in Israel.I'm about 10 or 15 kilometers from Tel Aviv.But well, I think as the entire world, we are quite confused.We hear one day that there are negotiations and then Iran very much wants a deal.And then they don't want a deal.

earlier, an Iranian news agency published the differences between the American position and the Iranian position.And it seems, you know, it's very hard to believe that they will be able to reach some kind of an agreement.On the other hand, it seems that Trump is very much reluctant to renew the attacks.So there's a lot of uncertainty.I must admit that on the one hand, there are pluses, there are advantages for this uncertainty because everybody's guessing.So will there be an attack?

Will there not be an attack?And it makes things very difficult for the Iranian regime, I assume, to know what's going on.That's on the plus side.But on the negative side, I think that at a certain moment, the credibility of the United States and the American army seems to be in question.Because if you really intend to attack Iran, then why do you suspend it for so much?And why do you delay it so much?

So I think there are pluses and there are also some disadvantages.I think generally speaking from someone who lives here in the region, I think that we cannot end this crisis with Iran as it is.Remember that we know that Iran was severely damaged, and I think there should be no question about that.Their army, their navy, their air force, everything is true.I assume their ballistic missiles, their nuclear weapons or their capabilities, some of their infrastructure, all of this has been very severely damaged.But still, we are witnessing a very aggressive, very belligerent regime who's willing to put every dollar and every pound they have into rebuilding their army.

They don't really care about the well -being of their people.We have seen that they've slaughtered, I think, 40 ,000 people in 48 hours or 72 hours.So that'snot their priority.Their priority is to create havoc in this region.We have seen how they attacked their neighbors, their Arab neighbors who, United States, Israel, okay, we attack them.

But what did they have against Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, all of these countries, which were very, very careful, extremely careful for so many years and decades.So I think it's not only a regional problem, it's a global problem.And of course, put above all this, what they're doing with the maritime.routes, that the fact that they have closed or at least severely damaged the Hormuz Strait, and I don't think this is something which is acceptable.I think the international community should be very alarmed.Tomorrow morning it will be Morocco, Algeria closing the Gibraltar Strait, or the next day Indonesia or Malaysia will, you know, stop the commerce routes in Asia.

Or the same thing for the Panama Canal.You can't let anyone close or put so heavy damage on international maritime routes.So for all of these reasons, I think that we cannot finish, I mean, we cannot stop here.Either way, we must, I think the international community, of course, the United States heading that effort must end this regime or at least cause much more damage.

Yes.And I think we've got that clip of Donald Trump now, so let's have a look at that and see what he's actually saying.

but possibly for a little while.Of course, we've had very big discussions with Iran, and we'll see what they amount to.I was asked by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and some others if we could put it off for two or three days, a short period of time, because they think that they are getting very close to making a deal.And if we can do that, where there's no nuclear weapon going into the hands of Iran, I think — and if they're satisfied, we will be probably satisfied also.We've informed Israel.We've informed other people in the Middle East that have been involved with us.

And, you know, it's a very positive development, but we'll see whether or not it amounts to anything.We've had periods of time where we had — we thought pretty much getting close to making a deal, and it didn't work out.But this is a little bit different.No, we're ready going tomorrow, very big.And not something I wanted to do, but we have no choice because we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.

I mean as you say Adi it's a little bit of a confused picture because one of the things he's now saying is that the reason he's not going to attack is because the UAE are having conversations with Israel and maybe are about to make some kind of peace deal but you know it was only the other day wasn't it the UAE nuclear plant got hit by Iran.

Exactly I must admit I'm not entirely convinced that the script or the scenario that Mr. Trump just described, I'm not sure that this is exactly what happened.I think, if anything, the UAE is perhaps the most aggressive or has the most aggressive stance towards Iran.We know that they were lobbying, we heard report that they were lobbying the United States not to let Iran off the hook.Again, as you just said, yesterday's attack, I think there were just reports a few days ago that both Emirati and Saudi Air Forceattacked Iran in the first couple of days of this in March, I think in the beginning of March.Qatar is a little bit different.

Qatar, I could believe, Qatar wants to play all the fields.They want to be good with Iran, good with Americans, good with everybody.Qatar is a very, very complicated story.But UAE and Saudi Arabia, I find it very hard to believe.I assume something is going on.I mean, they're all kind of exchanging messages.

Regarding Trump.I think that the most important thing is not to judge his words, but to judge his actions Yeah, because I can tell you as someone who's here in Israel and we are seeing American very very large heavy aircrafts Non -stop coming into the area.What are they carrying?They're not carrying, you know presents.They're carrying ammunition They're coming here and there's a massive buildup of So either you're just, I don't know, spending millions of dollars each day for all these planes coming in and out, bringing something, perhaps bringing new interceptors for the UAE or Israel if you anticipate another round or another cycle.So I think actions are more important than words.

Again, it is very, very hard to guess what Mr. Trump is about to do.But I think it's more likely that we will see another round of attack.the chances of either Iran capitulates or Trump capitulates.I think that in this moment in time, it is almost impossible for either of them to do that.So I think again, as hard as it is to speculate and to guess, I think we're closer to a new round of attack.I don't know if it will be that long.

I mean, the last one was 40 days.I think everybody assumes that this will be shorter.But again, as you said,it's guessing Mr. Trump is a very difficult task.

It is.Well listen Eddie, good to talk to you.Wish you well and look after yourself.Thank you very much indeed.Eddie Schwartz the author of War of Return, a journalist out there in Israel.Thanks very much indeed.

We'll keep our eyes on the skies and I guess if you live in the UAE that's very much what you'd be doing just in case some stuff comes firing at you from Iran which can't be pleasant.Coming up, we're going to speak to AY Audits, aka Anthony.I think I'm allowed to say his name.Anthony, very good morning to you.Nice to see you.We're going to get stuck into that in a minute.

First of all, let's get some news with Edward Hughes.

Good morning.I'm Edward Hughes with your news.Surprise, surprise.Labour's in yet another leadership meltdown.Keith Stalin is clinging on to number 10 like a limpet after getting absolutely slammed in the local elections.He insists he's focused on the job.

Translation, please don't make me set a resignation date.Ministers have already jumped ship or politely suggested he packs his bags.Meanwhile, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has been cleared to run in the Makerfield by -election.He's promising to change labour because, in his words, the current offer is not good enough.A revelation that's only slightly more obvious than rain being wet.In other news, fresh allegations that two women were raped by their on -screen husbands on Married at First Sight UK, with Channel 4 apparently knowing about one claim in advance.

Shocking.Another perfectly normal Tuesday in clown world.Please remember to like and subscribe.Laters, tigers.

Now we've spent a lot of time this week talking about Keir Starmer, talking about Andy Burnham, talking about West Streeting and the uselessness of this Labour government, but today the meltdown isn't about them, not specifically.It's about HS2.High Speed 2 is what it stands for.This is a project that was started many, many years ago, decades ago, in fact, by the Tories, to get a high speed train link that would link London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and other points north, west, south, and east.It now turns out that not only is it only going to go to Birmingham and nowhere else, but it's not going to be high speed either.But it turns out today, we're going to find out that the cost of this ridiculous white elephant project is going to cost £100 billion, and probably a little bit more than that.

That's the cost of the UK taxpayer.That's you, me, and everybody else in this country, apart from the people who don't pay tax, obviously.The high -speed link is set to become the most expensive railway line in the world, which is bad enough.But it's worse than that.It's actually going to cost more than then it cost NASA to send the last moon mission up.So Artemis, the thing that went up just recently, to the dark side of the moon, cost less money than HS2.

And the difference, of course, between that and HS2 is that it actually did go.79 billion quid was spent, but they did go around the back of the moon and came back down to Earth.These people haven't gone anywhere.They haven't actually built any track.They've stopped building it because of bats.They bought a load of houses that they now have to sell back to the people they bought the houses from, because now they're not going to be using the track anywhere near them.

They've spent an absolute fortune on consultants.People have told me that if you work for HS2 and you're a contractor, you can put any bill in that you like and they'll just pay it.It's completely and utterly ridiculous, right?It turns out that the transport secretary will announce cost -saving measures such as slower speeds, right?The completion date will be pushed back, probably, to 2035.I'm not even sure I'll still be alive at that point.

And so what they'll do is they'll workthe current Birmingham train that goes to London in a reasonably quick time with another train which goes to London in about the same time for 100 billion quid.Is it any wonder that this country is in the deep doo -doo?Because we haven't got any money because we keep wasting it on stuff like this.We did a poll today on what should happen to it.I thought people would want it to be completely and utterly destroyed right now.

Let's not go any further with it.Let's not do any more with it.Let's not spend any more money on it.But actually, most of you agreed with me that we should make the MPs pay for it and the civil servants pay for it.There's thousands of them all signing off on their little idea of how they can modernise Britain.We don't need any more railway lines.

We just need trains that run on time and trains that run quickly and don't get cancelled because they haven't got a driver or don't get cancelled because somebody's on strike.That's what we need.OK?It's not difficult.HS2, a complete and utter load of crap.It pretty much sums up what's wrong with Britain.

They spent 100 billion quid and they still don't have a train.And it's going to be nine years before they have a train.And even then it probably won't work.And you probably get on the first train, the first journey on HS2, and it will stop.And you'll have to get a replacement bus, won't you?HS2 bus.

It's got a nice ring, hasn't it?That's my meltdown.Now, I'm delighted to say, for the first time, we can invite lots of people into this show that perhaps I couldn't have got onto my show when I was at all.AY audience is here.Anthony, very good to see you.Great to see you, man.

Now, there'll be people that might not know who you are, but they'll recognise your voice, I think.Most probably, yeah.From many of the clips that many people have seen on social media.Shall we play one of the clips?Charlotte, let's have a look.This is what AY does.

He's over there, look.Oh no, just got a phone in me hand and yeah.

There you go guys.

I do want to point you in the direction of this sign here, yeah?You see that?See what that sign says there?Do you want to read it out to me?You see?Do you want to read that?

Can you read it?What's it say?What's that say?What's that say?Yeah, yeah, yeah.Thank you, yeah.

So what you should do is, buddy, talk with these ones.You're wasting your time, yeah?Yeah, I am, but I want your point of view from it as well, yeah?Well, you don't need my point of view.

I like you, right, because you like me and quite like annoying people, which is a good thing to do, by the way.That was, I believe, Luton.Was it Luton and Ibis?

Yeah, so that was a processing centre.When you say processing centre, you mean hotel?Yeah, so...This is where they'd bring them?They'd bring them into a place like Luton for maybe two, three, four days.Now you've got another one in Canary Wharf, Britannia.

And would they have come from somewhere like Manston?

So they come, I followed that coach from Manston.So the day before, they would have, they come off of the board of taxi service.Yeah.Yeah.And then they're whisked through onto the coach into Manston.And then 16 hours later, 24 hours later, they start shipping them into these hotels that are processing centres.

Yeah.And then from there, then they go to another hotel.which is their longer term hotel then.But then, like a lot of these, and I've spoken to a lot of them, a lot of these migrants over the last year, and they're told like there's...Like, kick off, get in a little bit of trouble in this hotel, they'll move you to another one.It's all designed to get them, certain ones, into a certain location.

Then they can go and do their jobs, their cash -in -hand work on their bikes, car washes, and then start paying off their debts then, I suppose.Yeah, right, the whole black economy thing.

Because I've always said, I'm sure that it's not true that these people, many of them, are paying money to come across the channel.What they're doing is they've been signed up by these sort of gangmasters to say right we'll get you into Britain you know then you'll owe us five grand or whatever it is and you'll work doing this and then you'll pay us back.

Well we all know like with these Uber accounts and things that you can have what's it five six seven yeah different people that actually operate on that account yeah so it's like you've got the account you open it fire it up log init I then go and do the I'm the illegal immigrant I then go and do the work yeah and then the money just obviously gets filtered back to It's kind of common sense, really, to think...

And it's obvious, a bit like, you know, we discover this week, or the BBC discovers this week, that, you know, all of these vape shops and barber shops and, you know, dodgy kind of businesses that are in high streets all over the country.It turns out, oh, they're bankrolling the illegal migrant business.Really?Well, we told you that two years ago, you know.And the thing that I find interesting is whenever you turn up anywhere where you're filming, there's always some jobsworth who comes up to you and goes like that woman, you know, what are you doing?

You're always going to get that, in whichever way.But it's like they don't want you to film it.No, they don't want you to film this at all.Even when I look at last year, the stuff that they've tried to do to me, to get me to stop filming, was unbelievable.And it was all just for showing the truth.And it wasn't for the support of the people that actually follow me, etc, etc.

So what sorts of things were they trying to do to you then?

So they, first of all, they had some story on Channel 4, ITV and BBC, then they demonetised me, then I was arrested five times for crimes that since I've actually been exonerated from.And well, two, I haven't, I've still got to face them, but I expect them to be...

But when they arrest you, what do they say they're arresting you for?trespass or something?

Well so no I've never actually been arrested at a hotel okay yeah so it's only at protests okay so I will argue because I would like to film I'd like to go to the the left side so to speak and ask them questions you know like just simple questions reallythen you just end up getting the you end up getting like the police want to try and move you on and then you end up I was I'm just trying to do my job like legally you know just ask a couple of questions yeah and then they twist it and say section 14 blah blah blah.

Well they've started this business haven't they, we had Ryan Bridge on yesterday, he was arrested at Union before he even got to the United Kingdom march, it turns out probably in error, but he was held for about 11 hours in a cell so that he couldn't go to the rally and then he was left to go, he had to spend quite a lot of money getting home because it was the early hours of the morning and it's almost like they're harassing you.in a way which is, in my mind, actually illegal.Because if you're standing, as you are always, on a public space, filming, there's nothing to say that you can't do that.But if the police suddenly go, oh, we're going to have a dispersal order brought in, I think those can all be challenged.I don't think they've got the right to do that.

And I will stand there and I will try to challenge this.I recently went to court, last week actually, or a couple of weeks ago I think it was, and when I actually got to court, and you're not going to believe this but the police forgot to send the email to tell the court that I was in court so they gave me a bail form and said you need to attend court with very strict bail conditions and you've got to attend court on so and so date so I went to court my name wasn't on the list so I spoke to the prosecutor and they said look the police have forgot to send us the file now it's up to you you either just go and forget about it or you go to the police and remind them and I was like hold on a minute like what sort of not right I'll kind of foresee it yeah right if I do if I just forget about it one day yeah and it's not gonna help us I went to the court I went to the police station explained to them what's happened oh we're really sorry about thatBlah, blah, blah.We're going to send it now.So I said, OK.So I've gone back to the court.

The prosecutor just looked at the paperwork.And she's turned around and she says, do you know what?She said, for the honesty and integrity that you've shown, I'm just going to throw it out.and I was like oh thank you very much.

All of that will take your time, your money and presumably affects things like if you're in court quite a lot or if you're getting charged with things does it affect your credit rating, does it affect your life in that sense?

To be honest with you I've only been to court twice so far but I've raised the point where if they can just forget to send bit of paperwork.How many other cases is there out there?Loads.

I used to talk to a lot of lawyers, criminal lawyers, who would be either defensive lawyers or prosecuting.And they say the number of cases that just get dropped because the police either forget to do something in terms of a document or they forget to send anybody to the case as a witness or the witness turns up and they haven't got any notes.You know, it's a complete broken system, a complete shambles.And so there's a very good chance if you ever finally get charged with anything and you ever finally get to court that you'll get off with it if you're a criminal because the chances are the police will screw something up.But tell me about how you got into this in the first place Anthony, when did you start doing it?

So roughly about two years ago, I was in the work van with one of the guys that worked for me.He's watching tick -tock.I've had social media.I've never had when you say the work van.

What was it?What was a business?

Oh, so I've got my own business.Yes.I run my own business.Okay So above board, etc, etc So now I've just got two people to work for me now instead of instead of one and I just constant not to concentrate on this But I am I still obviously concentrateon that, because that's my bread and butter.But anyway, TikTok, and I never had TikTok or anything, I never used social media.

And then one of my colleagues was showing, was watching videos, and he said, yeah, look at this.And I said, no, it's rubbish, it's AI.Yeah, and he says, no, yeah, I said, seriously, yeah, I said, they wouldn't do this.And it was from a guy called True Ferts 101.And then, so I kind of got hooked and I was looking and I thought...And what were you seeing?

He was going inside these hotels and he was reporting on these hotels and it was majority all men.And then I found a couple of others, Yorkshire Rose, Active Patriot, etc.Then I started like, I thought, you know what?I'm going to go and find out for myself and I'm actually going to go to these hotels and I'm going to find out.Never had used a camera or anything.So I went around with a camera for a little bit just to get at ease with it you know and just to see what like making a video was all about etc and then I started going to the hotels and I was just going inside and I was looking around and I was looking at all the notice boards and the food and I was looking around and I thought bloody hell it's true and I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing because Because the people organising it all spent a lot of time trying to keep it secret, didn't they?

They didn't want anybody to know.No.And you look now, and more and more and more people are waking up to this situation.And 2024, 2025, you could probably say that the country's very much aware of of what is going on now.

Well now what you've got is people like the Pink Ladies turning up outside the Bell Hotel in Epping and saying to Britannia in Canary Wharf and in other parts of the country.I remember I think there was one up in ManchesterAltringham, where they took over a hotel there right next to a girls' school.And people have fed up with it.People have gone, we don't want this.

The Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf, I actually started receiving, because I get a lot of messages, so I started receiving messages about that before it closed, in a matter of days.So I actually went down there.So I actually went down there, and yeah it was actually getting taken over they was letting staff go and I was speaking to members of staff and they was like this is this is like single mums that are doing trying their best you know and they've actually just lost their jobs and they're coming out crying and saying like like I've got children like how do I pay my rent you know like things like this and it actually chokes you a little bit people was coming up to the hotel with bookings to stay there.And I'm standing there filming it and I'm like, oh my god, where do these people actually go?These people have booked holidays, etc, come and see family and they've just shut the hotel.

people I've spoken to in the last two or three years who've had, you know, hotels near them suddenly taken over and they've had, you know, wedding plans cancelled, they've had, you know, retirement parties cancelled, birthday parties, they've just been told, sorry, we can't do it.And they get no compensation, they get no kind of, you know, explanation really.And many of these hotels are making an absolute fortune, aren't they?I mean, we've got the government now today and this week saying we've reduced the number of people in hotels.Because they're moving a lot of them now into HMOs and housing, which in many ways is worse, in a way.Because you don't know where they are, you don't know where you're going to be living next door to.

But you've spoken to quite a lot of the migrants as well, haven't you?Yeah.And so where do a lot of them, do you find they're all coming from one place?or a small number of places?

You see predominantly it's Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea okay predominantly is from them countries okay and it's like with these you know like they've come straight off of a coach come straight off of a boat onto a coach yeah they're out walking around the streets See, this Luton Hotel, if you come out of it, if you look over one side, there's actually a Holiday Inn.And there's some really nice ladies that work in there and they actually let me film from there, down onto that building.And they've told me stories, like they're coming out late at night, finishing their shift, and these migrants are sitting in the bush.And I went down there and actually had a look, and you can see the beer cans and stuff, just standing up, sitting in the bush.And I said to him, like, what on earth are you doing sitting in bushes?Yeah, and then it, like, I don't know, people probably say I'm gonna sound a bit wrong for saying it, but they're used to staying in bushes.

You know, like, this is what they do.They've lived in camps.Calais etc.Do you know what I mean?

Well I mean I don't know if you know Christian Drogen?Yeah I've seen a bit of his stuff.He went over and walked through one of the migrant camps in Dunkirk for us and they were chucking stuff at him and it was horrific, there was rubbish everywhere.I mean the conditions that they've created in which they live, it's not the conditions they have to live in, it's the conditions they've made worse because of how they live.

well and they're gonna bring that to here yeah yeah and we've already seen this in some places in London and probably other major cities around the country yeah where they've actually where these have taken up camp yeah and they are treating it and it's only gonna get bigger it's only going to expand yeah you know and this is how these people want to live and these people are coming from places where they're not they're not their culture is not suitable with our culture and a lot of these people they're not going tothey're not going to like, they're not going to come here and settle, you know.

No, also the majority of them are not going to work.The majority of them are going to end up on benefits, having a house paid for, you know, getting their council tax paid for and never actually doing any work.It's completely insane.This is why, yeah, like.I mean, I've been around the country probably slightly, I'm slightly older than you, Yeah, I've never seen anything like it.I mean, every now and again, you sort of have to give yourself a crack across the face and go, is this really what Britain is now?

It's literally a holding pen for people, for anyone who wants to come here from anywhere in the world.You know, I say this all the time that, you know, you travel around London now, which is a minority, you know, white British city.And it's not about colour.It's about finding people that actually speak English.You know, I go to my local supermarket yesterday.I didn't hear anyone speak in English.

No.You know?it's it's never it's never been about color yeah and I'll go back to Epping I was at Epping right from the beginning yeah and I know a lot of people were at Epping and they never cared about the hotel all the time well there was always anti -social behavior regarding it do a little bit of shoplifting they used to from the Tesco up the road shops started having more security etc but then I The only time they started protesting outside of the bell was when a serious sexual assault happened.They didn't do it before, it was from then.Because this has happened in their community and a lot of people, they knew the family directly.Because it is a small village and this is why the anger and the tension was so much.

It was never about colour, it was never about race.

It was about the fact that people have warned about things that are about to happen, and then they happen.And the guy was right.arrested, he was sent to prison, he was released by mistake, he gets told how to get on a train to London.He ended up giving himself up, didn't he?Well, I'm not too sure.Yeah, he did.

In Finsbury Park or something, wasn't it?

Yeah, he ended up going up to some cops and said, look, I don't think I should be out.And then they deported him, but they gave him three and a half grand to go back to Eritrea.For all I know, he's back here.

And put him on Sky News.

I mean, it's just ridiculous.It's hard to believe that this is going on.So, I mean, do you feel as though you're creating a sort of, an information point for people?Do you feel, I mean, do you get, presumably you get accused of being a racist, of being accused of being, you know, stirring up hatred and all of that, which is what they all say, just because you're asking questions about what they're doing?

Look, I've been labelled everything under the sun.

Yeah.

Yeah.Does that bother you?It used to at the beginning, yeah I'm not gonna lie.I used to sit there and think, it used to really bother me.You're getting called nasty names.

I've seen videos where whoever it is that's at the hotel telling you to stop filming and they go, why are you spreading hate?

Oh that was at Dumbchurch I think.

Well you go, I'm not spreading hate, I'm just filming.

All I aim to do is just show the people, and it's clear that there's a huge public interest in this, and it's to show the people exactly what is going on from an unfiltered point.And it was the same when I followed the coach from Britannia at Canary Wharf to the apartments in Chelmsford.And then you look, they're 90, off the top of my head, 94 or 96 apartments.They give 300 grand for each one of them.And they're going to people that have come into this country 24 hours previous.And this can't be right.

you know, I'm sorry.And then just to be left in a city centre like Chelmsford to be walking out and around.Like we will see on Braintree on Thursday, this Thursday, you will probably see hundreds of them just get dumped into one community and just left to be roaming around.

Well we saw from this, we were showing this video from Crowbury today where people are now saying we need to have a kind of not vigilante unit but you know we've got our own security, they've got their own security now walking around because the migrants in that camp there are actually getting quite emboldened you know they're coming out and they're telling people to stop filming them you know they're getting involved in scuffles, they're starting to get sort of pissed off that people are wondering what they're doing there.

Right they will do, when I've been at these hotels I've had hot coffee thrown in my face I've had migrants threatened to do bad stuff to my mum, to my sister, etc. that you could only imagine, you know?Coffee, like, chucked full in my face.I think the police actually come and attended.People actually, from my live stream, actually telephoned the police, because they was worried, because he started picking up rocks and stuff.But I wasn't going to run, I wasn't going to, you know, I'd stay on my ground and try and show exactly what it is.The police ended up coming.

They didn't arrest him.They let him go back into his hotel.I actually fought for them to arrest him.And they wasn't going to arrest him.So I published it on social media.You can imagine.

it went absolutely everywhere.The next day the police are on me, oh Drekker you can take this down and then we're gonna start prosecuting him but we can't if it's up.I said no, your only reason you're contacting me is because he's just done millions and millions of hits and you don't want to be, you don't.Well anyway, they did arrest him, well they didn't arrest him, theybrought him in for a voluntary interview they did charge him though but he's gone on the run yeah and he's disappeared well this is what happens they disappear and you never see him again and this is the problem you're letting undocumented unvetted men yeah into our country yeah and these people can disappear that's you know that's It's totally shocking.

So what's your plan?Are you going to continue just with your campaign?

Yes, it's not a campaign, you know, I don't look at it like that.I will still keep going to these hotels.I've been to nearly every single hotel in the country.Is it worth going around them all again?You know, like you've shown them once, you know, so you think like, is it, you know, unless something like comes up there or something in the in like a story or something there may be but like document them coming off of these into these like processing centers and then trying to follow them from there to their next destination because that's when you find them going into these big multi -HMOs where you've got like 98 rooms in one office block you know like and that's when you can and they might as well be a hotel in other words Except they're getting money, presumably, to eat, to buy food, to pay for their electricity and all of that?Well, I think electricity and all that there was probably included.

Yeah.But food, et cetera, guaranteed.But even in the walls inside there, you've got, do you need a dentist appointment?Right.Scan this QR code.Yeah.

do you need self -defense lessons because the far right are getting too much, so we'll take your kickboxing.And you're looking and you're thinking, so they're training these people, they're already conditioning them to think that a white person, because we want to talk about immigration, that we're far right and racist, so now you're actually training them to fight.You see it.It's bonkers, isn't it?And they're feeding these people up so well that you go to these hotels and I think the one in Peterborough, the Verve, they was going to the thing and getting two plates because one plate wasn't big enough.So you had each migrant getting two plates of food and I'm looking and I'm thinking, I'm looking on the wall and I'm like, so they actually get four meals a day.

Breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner.And you're looking and you're thinking, like there's people here that, I'd love to get four meals a day.I probably look like I do get four meals a day.Yeah, but you know, like seriously, like you would love to be able, there's a lot of people that doesn't even get one meal a day.

No, because they can't afford it.

It's shocking.You're paying for these ones to have this.Yeah.And it's just, yeah, it's just absolute, it's ludicrous.Yeah.Yeah.

When I, when you think it's not, we can't afford it.It's not sustainable.

Well, listen, there's no way on earth that we can keep having this influx of migrants, whether it's legal or whether it's illegal.They need to put a curb on this.Even these people coming in on these visas, they're playing the system.And you can't blame them.playing the system no but the system has to change the system has to change you know it needs to be broken down it needs to be rewritten yeah and well whatever they need to do with it and just you know and just say look we need to curb this like yeah we look at I think Dorset the other day didn't they release some figures yeah 44 % of the sex crime committed by Afghans and they're only they make up 0 .8 percent of the population yeah like a 0 .8 percent of the population commit 44 % of the sick, well we know how they do it.Well yeah, well Bournemouth does now.

a no -go zone for most women.

Well there's one, there's a migrant on trial there for, I don't know if I can say the word on your YouTube channel, but very serious sexual offence on the beach.It turns out that this gentleman was actually refused asylum.He was appealing and he was still, you had him refused and you still allowed him to be walking around the streets.And I spoke to one of them outside Bournemouth.I don't know if it was him, you know, like a migrant outside the Roundhouse Hotel in Bournemouth.And he was waiting, so he had been refused and he was appealing.

And I said, so what are you going to do?He said, I'll run off.Clear as day, in front of the police.You know, and I'm like...There you go mate.

Well there was a case the other day, the girl in Brighton who was punched, knocked out cold outside a nightclub because she wouldn't go with this guy who was from, I think he was from Eritrea, they arrested him, charged him, he's had a court case but he didn't turn up, he's on the run.He's on the run.And she's going, I don't know if he's going to come back and try and do me in, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

There's another one at Brighton, I think they've just released another one, a Syrian migrant who has just been arrested for another serious sexual crime and I just, You looked, I think only a couple of months ago, the government, they put a ban on student visas from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Atria, Sudan was on the list, there was other countries on the list as well.And I said to people like, why do you honestly think that they're banning the youngsters from coming here?Because they've seen what these ones are doing.They're trying to get ahead of it, but they're doing it slyly.They're not telling us, well we know anyway.Everybody knows now.

The cat's out the bag and they've got a serious problem.

It's the Thought Police.

This happens every Tuesday, by the way.It's a fire alarm.

Yeah.

It'll go off in a minute.

The building's gone too hot.

Anyway, listen, Anthony, it's all right if I call you Anthony?Yeah, yeah, it's fine, yeah.I mean, you obviously don't want everybody to know exactly who you are.

Mate, Channel 4 put me over on my full name.I've had police officers might come up to me and say, do you still live at so -and -so address?Oh, yeah.live, and I look at them and say, do you know what, how would you like it?How would you actually like it if I took a police officer's details and I published them all over the internet?Because I could do that if I wanted to, but I never would do that by the way.

I'm not saying that anyone should do that, but how would you like it?Don't do to others what you wouldn't like done to yourself, first and foremost.That's how the police are, isn't it?

And they need to stop painting people like yourself as the bad guy, you know, because we know who the bad guys are.

Well, I think they need to stop, everybody needs to stop painting everybody as these bad guys.You see people like Tommy Robinson, etc, you know, like they paint him as this big bad monster, yeah, when in reality, look what he's doing, you know, like he's bringing everybody, he's bringing everybody together, like, in successive protests that I've been to, you know, like the amount of people that are at these demonstrations, you know, like they need to...

Yeah, because people are fed up, they're sick to death of it, yeah.

People have started to realise that these labels, and they've started to realise that people like Tom Robinson ain't racist, you know, like he's not a racist, and they've started to realise because they've seen what it can do to ordinary people, you know, like myself, etc.The lies and stuff that they told, and how they tried to put me in a picture, or with a police officer and then have a little talk over, have a conversation, try to make out that it was me and the police officer was having the conversation.

It didn't exist.

And I understand it.it's live streamed and you look and you think right they can just do this to an ordinary person what are you gonna do to somebody that actually actually like has a little bit of a bigger voice No, it's shocking, absolutely shocking.

Listen, we've got to go because we're over time.Yeah, no problem.Listen, great to see you though.Yeah, you too.Keep up the good work.Yeah, thank you very much.

Thanks for having us.Do we need to do a pooches pooch before we go?

We should do a double one tomorrow.

Do a double one tomorrow, yeah, OK.Yeah, because we're running a bit late.That was AY Audits, ladies and gentlemen.Brilliant guy.Fantastic work that he does.Incredible that we now know what is going on, thanks to people like him.

And how widespread it all is.But that was the show for today, thanks to all the great guests that we had, including Anthony there, A .D.Schwartz who was on, Nigel Pauley, Kristian Drogen, Linda Dubele, Will Geddes, Russell Quirk, thanks to Charlotte as well of course for a great show, and we'll be back tomorrow morning at 7am, don't miss it.