TRIGGERnometry - How Wokeness is Destroying the British Army

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00:00:30.820 The Army are relaxing security checks for non-UK recruits to boost diversity in the Army Intelligence and Officer Corps.

00:00:41.660 Now, obviously, there are obvious problems with this.

00:00:44.760 Yeah, I think so.

00:00:46.620 So, for example, the Armed Forces' non-binary policy said that.

00:00:51.500 And they do have, of course, they've got to have a non-binary policy.

00:00:53.500 So, this has infected every single level of the top hierarchy.

00:00:58.860 Unfortunately, of the Armed Forces.

00:01:00.680 And I think that only under a Labour government, likely going to come in later this year, this is going to get worse before it gets better.

00:01:07.420 We've lost the plot, haven't we?

00:01:08.620 Stephen, great to have you on the show.

00:01:11.440 You're about to swoon off to America.

00:01:14.140 So, we're glad to have you before because you've been doing some actually really important work, I feel, revealing a lot of the takeover of our institutions from the inside.

00:01:23.380 You've been talking to whistleblowers in the military and the civil service.

00:01:26.860 Tell us a little bit about that because I found it absolutely fascinating, frankly, also quite terrifying.

00:01:30.880 Yeah, so this has been a subject I've been focused on actually for a few years now.

00:01:36.060 And it all started when I was a journalist during the kind of post-Brexit debates.

00:01:41.800 And there was a lot of accusations against the civil service and civil servants that they were anti-Brexit.

00:01:48.360 And I was interested in finding out whether there was any truth to that, whether this was under ministers' instructions like Theresa May.

00:01:56.200 And there were famous examples of civil servants like Ollie Robbins, who was one of our negotiators during the Brexit years,

00:02:01.980 who was accused of basically being a Remainer and undermining the British negotiating position.

00:02:07.540 So, I started to speak to civil servants through various friends, contacts in Westminster, to find out whether, as I said, there's any truth in this idea that the civil service was biased against Brexit.

00:02:19.980 And I started to build up a dossier of evidence and did a bit of freelance reporting for various different newspapers on this subject.

00:02:28.180 And I think what I found was quite interesting.

00:02:30.240 I think there was a sort of strain of anti-Brexit feeling within the civil service.

00:02:36.700 So, what you've got to remember is that Whitehall is in Whitehall, it's in London.

00:02:41.040 You know, so civil servants are definitely going to skew towards that liberal, metropolitan, Remain perspective.

00:02:49.120 And whether they can hold those views and remain impartial is one thing, but I don't think that they were doing that.

00:02:56.000 And I think, to an extent, that did impact the negotiations.

00:02:59.340 You definitely had civil servants, particularly in the Foreign Office and in the Department for Existing the European Union,

00:03:05.080 who felt ideologically that Brexit was a mistake and they approached the whole project with the wrong mindset.

00:03:12.180 They saw it as something very negative.

00:03:15.040 They didn't see it as something where there may be positive, something that Britain can take advantage of.

00:03:19.760 And I think we've seen that in things like the outcome in terms of immigration policy.

00:03:24.260 We've seen massive increases in immigration over the last few years.

00:03:26.980 I think that's partly down to civil servants, but also you have to, of course, blame ministers for that as well.

00:03:33.100 So, this kind of interest in Brexit and how that had impacted the civil service really led on to, I suppose, years really of reporting

00:03:41.040 and sort of having contacts within various different departments across Whitehall, who suddenly were starting to send me things not about Brexit anymore,

00:03:48.160 but about wokeism, about issues of transgenderism and critical race theory infecting different parts of Whitehall.

00:03:56.400 And in the last few years, during these kind of cultural debates, unfortunately, those institutions, which are taxpayer funded,

00:04:04.180 which legally have to be politically neutral, have to be impartial, cannot take a political view,

00:04:10.380 have unfortunately been taken over by ideological zealots from, as I say, the trans debates, the sort of pro-trans argument,

00:04:19.080 and also since 2020, the Black Lives Matter critical race theory ideologues.

00:04:24.800 And I've been doing a lot of reporting on those issues since.

00:04:28.120 Well, that's all great, but give us some meat on the bone, because people will listen to that who maybe don't agree with you.

00:04:35.100 By the way, you're talking to two Remain voters, so it's kind of like those are talking points.

00:04:41.700 That's what we will sound like to people.

00:04:43.820 Give us the specifics.

00:04:45.100 What have you been told?

00:04:46.160 What are people telling you?

00:04:47.260 What have you found?

00:04:47.880 Because that's where I actually was very keen to speak with you,

00:04:51.060 because what you were revealing was very, very interesting in terms of what people were telling you.

00:04:56.380 Yeah.

00:04:56.720 So to give you some specifics on the woke stuff, which is the more recent reporting,

00:05:01.420 and you mentioned the armed forces to begin with.

00:05:03.120 So this was an investigation I did over a matter of weeks with various different sources within the MOD,

00:05:08.960 across the forces, sending me internal documents, policy papers,

00:05:14.580 and kind of posters and other bits of evidence to do with diversity and inclusion.

00:05:19.660 And in the last few years, the MOD have become obsessed with diversity and DEI as an ideology.

00:05:26.300 They view it as important for operational effectiveness.

00:05:29.740 This is a direct quote from the head of the armed forces, General Sir Patrick Sanders.

00:05:33.720 And they also view diversity as important in terms of their recruitment targets,

00:05:38.840 because they see that basically the armed forces have a massive recruitment problem

00:05:42.120 where not enough people are joining the forces.

00:05:44.760 And they think that this is partly because it's not a welcoming place for ethnic minorities,

00:05:50.500 women and gay people.

00:05:51.720 That's how they're coming at it.

00:05:53.700 So in order to solve these problems as they see it,

00:05:56.300 they've instigated a series of policies, which we revealed in the Telegraph.

00:06:00.100 The worst, I think, of these policies was the fact that the army are relaxing security checks

00:06:06.740 for non-UK recruits to boost diversity in the army intelligence and officer corps.

00:06:13.540 Now, obviously, there are obvious problems with this.

00:06:16.880 Yeah, I think so.

00:06:18.340 Yeah, I think that's a fair point.

00:06:21.760 That's ridiculous.

00:06:23.500 Yeah, well, we had the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove,

00:06:27.100 saying that this really could undermine national security.

00:06:30.100 These positions are incredibly important.

00:06:33.020 And the reason these checks are in place is because we don't want extremists,

00:06:37.060 frankly, Islamic extremists on the most part, and to an extent, other types of extremists,

00:06:42.460 having access to what they call, and this is an exact quote, again,

00:06:45.760 from the army's race action plan.

00:06:47.880 That's their diversity document.

00:06:49.460 They would have access to uncontrolled state secret assets in the intelligence and officer corps.

00:06:57.240 And those are the areas where they wanted to relax security checks in order to boost diversity.

00:07:01.480 So that was probably the most egregious policy that I found.

00:07:03.940 Other things to mention very briefly, in terms of acts of remembrance on Armistice Day,

00:07:08.440 a very important cultural event for England, for Britain as a nation,

00:07:13.720 particularly for the armed forces, for soldiers,

00:07:16.220 they said that those events should be non-religious.

00:07:20.300 And for Britain, which has been a historically Christian nation,

00:07:24.580 and for the armed forces, particularly in World War I,

00:07:27.120 where you see all those crosses in Flanders fields,

00:07:30.220 we've got a really strong Christian tradition in this country.

00:07:33.100 Obviously, we're more secular today.

00:07:34.940 But for those in the armed forces, Christianity is still important,

00:07:37.780 and that connection to Christianity is still relevant.

00:07:41.140 And to say that it should be non-religious in order to boost inclusivity,

00:07:44.520 in other words, to be more inclusive to, let's say, Muslims or people of no faith at all,

00:07:49.280 was quite insulting, actually, to a lot of people who are serving in the armed forces

00:07:53.120 and former people who I spoke to.

00:07:55.120 So those are the two issues that we've really focused on.

00:07:57.300 And there's kind of more minor things that are a bit silly and a bit funny,

00:08:00.940 but really do have an impact as well.

00:08:02.440 So, for example, the armed forces' non-binary policy said that,

00:08:07.040 and they do have, of course, they've got to have a non-binary policy,

00:08:09.760 says that men can now wear makeup on parades and grow their hair out

00:08:14.220 to the same length that women are allowed to wear if they're saying that they're non-binary.

00:08:19.520 There's a series of other policies in relation to, I'll give you a good example, here we go.

00:08:24.160 On the Royal Navy, in various ships, they have posters from official Royal Navy LGBT groups

00:08:30.200 and networks, which they say defined 51 of the most commonly used terms,

00:08:34.840 there's that quote in terms of LGBT issues.

00:08:37.480 And the first term that they defined was the following.

00:08:41.040 I'm not going to get this quite right.

00:08:42.720 L-G-P-T-Q-Q-I-I-A-A+.

00:08:47.300 And they defined what all those word sort of alphabety spaghetti or whatever meant.

00:08:53.600 And for some reason, sailors, this is literally prominent on Royal Navy ships,

00:08:58.060 including the two aircraft carriers that we have.

00:09:00.220 So, again, why are we seeing this endless political LGBT propaganda

00:09:05.060 plastered across official Royal Navy posters?

00:09:08.160 And it's also in the Army.

00:09:09.360 It's also in the Air Force.

00:09:10.360 More recently, we saw the Air Force actually apologising for discriminating against white men.

00:09:15.980 And I think that really, that sort of goes to the essence of why this is a problem.

00:09:20.580 Because all of these policies, as I see it,

00:09:23.000 and as many people who are serving in the armed forces see it, are demoralising.

00:09:26.640 Frankly, they're anti-white male.

00:09:29.180 They claim that they're trying to be inclusive.

00:09:31.180 They claim they're trying to boost diversity.

00:09:33.260 But actually, they're alienating the largest group of people

00:09:37.100 who historically have joined the armed forces and want to join the armed forces

00:09:41.220 because they're patriotic, because they have a family tradition,

00:09:44.380 they have a local tradition.

00:09:46.100 And by obsessing over these new DEI ideologies,

00:09:50.460 you're actually putting off those people from not only wanting to apply to join the forces,

00:09:54.600 but also to stay in the forces.

00:09:56.020 And again, the armed forces have a huge issue where people are leaving the office corps

00:09:59.620 and they're retiring early.

00:10:01.320 And I think that's partly because of their new obsession with race and trans.

00:10:05.580 Stephen, do you think part of the problem is

00:10:08.260 there have been numerous scandals within the armed forces, particularly the army?

00:10:13.280 I mean, take one example.

00:10:14.520 It's a horrible story.

00:10:16.020 The story of Deep Cut, the barracks and everything that happened there.

00:10:19.480 Do you think that this might be them trying to say,

00:10:23.140 look, this is never going to happen again, these awful, awful scandals?

00:10:27.440 So look how progressive we are.

00:10:29.940 I think you're absolutely right.

00:10:31.200 And I've spoken to a lot of senior serving people who have told me exactly that,

00:10:36.240 that they're concerned that there are issues around bullying and harassment,

00:10:39.640 particularly of women, where there have been some really serious problems.

00:10:44.780 And to be fair, there have been some incidents which are pretty outrageous.

00:10:48.880 However, in order to tackle these issues,

00:10:51.200 one would hope that the existing policies in place would be able to deal with that.

00:10:55.100 If someone's broken the law,

00:10:56.240 or if someone has done something absolutely outrageous,

00:10:59.180 they should leave the armed forces and that should be the end of it.

00:11:02.040 They should be disciplined in the proper way.

00:11:04.820 However, turning to this diversity inclusion ideology that we've seen kind of infect across all of Whitehall

00:11:12.360 through all of the policies that I've mentioned is not the way to tackle those issues.

00:11:18.940 And I think that one would assume that the armed forces is one of the most more conservative,

00:11:25.360 I suppose, departments of government or parts of government,

00:11:29.240 because naturally the people who sign up to the army just naturally tend to be more conservative.

00:11:35.760 And I think that, weirdly, they don't believe in this DEI stuff.

00:11:39.400 They're not kind of massive ideologues,

00:11:42.080 but I think they view it as a way to deflect criticism,

00:11:46.560 as a way to kind of funnel anger with all the issues you mentioned in terms of bullying,

00:11:51.220 harassment and other serious incidents that's happened in the army.

00:11:53.920 To kind of, I suppose it's almost like a PR exercise for them.

00:11:57.640 And to an extent, there have been some individuals who are really woke

00:12:02.880 and have been promoted, I think, above their station,

00:12:06.680 who have instigated many of these policies in the last few years.

00:12:09.700 And I should also mention, by the way, that when we did this reporting a few weeks ago,

00:12:14.180 Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary,

00:12:15.760 said he was going to launch a review into all diversity policies in the MOD,

00:12:20.040 which is pretty rare.

00:12:20.800 I've done lots of reporting on various different wokeness in lots of departments.

00:12:24.220 And that doesn't happen all the time.

00:12:25.940 That's pretty rare that they'll actually come and say,

00:12:27.640 we're seriously concerned about this stuff.

00:12:29.840 A lot of the time, they'll come back and say, no, you're wrong.

00:12:32.080 We support these policies.

00:12:33.640 You know, we put them in place, et cetera.

00:12:34.860 We're proud of them.

00:12:35.600 We believe diversity is really important.

00:12:37.220 But in this case, the Defence Secretary felt that it was important to review some of these policies

00:12:43.600 and hopefully get rid of them.

00:12:45.240 Do you think that's because it represents an existential threat to our armed forces

00:12:49.680 and therefore an existential threat to the future of our nation?

00:12:55.340 I think that's right.

00:12:56.200 And, you know, as a part of our reporting,

00:12:58.960 we featured quotes criticising these policies from the former head of MI6,

00:13:02.700 the former head of the Royal Navy, not quite the former head of the Royal Air Force,

00:13:07.500 but someone very senior in the Air Force, Edward Stringer, an air marshal.

00:13:10.960 And we had 12 senior former commanders signing a letter which was criticising these policies

00:13:18.080 as undermining our operational capabilities, undermining morale.

00:13:21.920 And also, it makes the British armed forces seem like less of a threat

00:13:26.020 to our potential adversaries in China and Russia.

00:13:28.860 And that's quite a controversial thing to say.

00:13:31.460 I know a lot of Trump supporters and so on in America are, again,

00:13:34.340 worried about these similar issues in their armed forces where, you know,

00:13:37.140 they've got these sort of trans generals and people talking about white rage and things like that.

00:13:41.720 And they say, well, actually, in Russia, in China,

00:13:44.660 they're focusing on how to fight, how to win wars.

00:13:48.200 And yet we're obsessing with this new diversity ideology,

00:13:52.400 which may be undermining the purpose of why we have an armed forces.

00:13:57.880 And also, it gets in the way of just general practical things that are going on in the army.

00:14:02.080 So to give you a few examples, things that I found of various different diversity positions within the forces,

00:14:08.520 you have diversity champions, diversity advocates, diversity, what they call lead allies.

00:14:14.080 There are over 111 of just those three things in the MOD, across the MOD.

00:14:18.400 They have 93 diversity networks in the MOD, including 14 specifically to focus on the issue of race.

00:14:25.380 Now, a diversity network is sort of a group where soldiers and civil servants can meet to discuss

00:14:30.140 and lecture on diversity in their particular topic of gender, race, trans, whatever.

00:14:34.880 They also have, on top of the diversity champions, the lead allies and the advocates,

00:14:38.880 they have diversity practitioners, diversity associates and diversity advisors.

00:14:44.560 Every single subunit has to have at least, I think, three practitioners and advisors.

00:14:48.980 So again, you've got all of this massive, what I call the sort of diversity, industrial complex,

00:14:53.840 diversity bureaucracy infecting across the entire forces, where these people should be focusing on,

00:14:59.500 as I say, winning wars, how to fight properly, look what's happening in Ukraine,

00:15:03.280 potentially what's going to happen in Taiwan.

00:15:04.920 There's some really serious issues in the Middle East and so on.

00:15:07.260 And instead of focusing on that and how we can make the army the best it can be,

00:15:11.240 suddenly we've seen this massive growth in the last 10 years of this diversity bureaucracy.

00:15:16.320 And I think, as I said, it undermines our operational, the sort of purpose of why we have the forces,

00:15:20.780 but also gets in the way of just general day-to-day activities.

00:15:24.240 Stephen, first of all, sorry for laughing earlier.

00:15:27.160 It's just so ridiculous.

00:15:28.100 No, you're right to laugh.

00:15:28.280 It's hard not to laugh.

00:15:29.720 But I wouldn't want people to take away from that that Francis and I don't appreciate how serious this is.

00:15:34.300 It's because it's very serious that it's so outrageously funny in a tragic sort of way.

00:15:40.540 And I think it does sound to me like we've kind of forgotten what the army and the navy and the air force are for.

00:15:46.720 They are for killing the enemy, not for making people feel good about being included or whatever it is.

00:15:52.780 And by the way, I haven't done anywhere near as much research into this as you have,

00:15:57.960 but I am going to guess that the people that speak to you within the armed forces are probably not on board with this in any sort of way at all.

00:16:08.320 Like most of the people I know that want to go into some kind of profession that involves killing the enemy,

00:16:13.820 they don't tend to be all about, you know, their feelings and stuff like that.

00:16:17.660 So, like, I'm guessing the rank and file of the British military are probably not on board with this.

00:16:23.080 Honestly, it was an extraordinary response that I had from people serving in the military.

00:16:27.220 I've never had so many people contacting me out of the blue through Twitter, through other connections,

00:16:32.180 saying that they're just totally frustrated and outraged at what's going on in the forces.

00:16:36.660 To give you one example, we published an anonymously written piece by someone in the Royal Navy

00:16:42.120 who talked about how the diversity stuff kind of gets in the way of his just general activities.

00:16:46.680 He was given unconscious bias training where he was told that everyone has hidden prejudices.

00:16:52.420 And the important thing in somewhere like the Navy is that actually you've got to be a really tight unit

00:16:57.620 where you've got to have kind of comradeship and you're actually going together potentially to fight and die

00:17:05.360 as a really strong kind of bonded unit.

00:17:08.900 And to be told that actually secretly you all hate each other because you're all racist, you're all sexist,

00:17:14.620 and you've got to kind of remove from yourself these hidden prejudices actually undermines that capability of fighting with an effective unit.

00:17:23.740 He said he never thought about people's race or gender before.

00:17:26.300 But when suddenly you start pointing that out, that actually undermines that really important,

00:17:31.000 as I said, that really important sort of purpose of having these tight units across the forces.

00:17:35.220 So not only that, as I said, there's the issue of people completely disagreeing with it.

00:17:40.820 And also to mention from his piece, at one point he was told he had to salute the white ensign,

00:17:46.580 the famous symbol of the Royal Navy, what he described as a symbol that had brought millions of hope to millions

00:17:53.080 across the empire and our Commonwealth and has a real sort of historic tradition.

00:17:56.840 And right next to it was the LGBT Pride progress flag.

00:17:59.820 And for him to have to sort of salute that in a parade was actually quite an insult because,

00:18:05.200 you know, this again, it's imposing politics on people where there shouldn't be any politics in place.

00:18:09.620 And to talk about this issue of whether people support wokeness in the armed forces or not.

00:18:14.240 Interestingly enough, I did a follow-up story for The Telegraph where I got leaked a letter from General Sir Patrick Sanders,

00:18:20.240 someone I mentioned earlier.

00:18:21.060 He's the head of the army, head of the army.

00:18:23.600 So literally the most senior guy in the British army.

00:18:26.280 He wrote a letter following my reporting to some retired generals that was given to me

00:18:31.460 where he criticised my reporting, saying it was insulting, saying most people in the armed forces

00:18:37.860 or almost everyone in the armed forces would find my reporting offensive.

00:18:42.080 And it's like you live in a completely opposite world if you think that,

00:18:46.560 because if you actually spoke to people serving kind of junior people in the armed forces

00:18:51.000 and actually senior people and mid-ranked people,

00:18:53.020 you'd find that there is a huge discontent against these policies.

00:18:56.520 And by the way, in that letter, he explicitly backed the policy to challenge security checks

00:19:02.900 among non-UK recruits for the Intelligence Corps.

00:19:06.260 So this has infected every single level of the top hierarchy,

00:19:11.500 unfortunately, of the armed forces, not only in the army,

00:19:13.880 but as I said, also in the Royal Air Force,

00:19:16.540 where again, I think last year or the year before last,

00:19:18.940 they had to apologise for discriminating against, I think, 161 white men

00:19:22.960 in their kind of recruitment processes.

00:19:24.400 It also shows how completely disconnected he is,

00:19:27.820 which goes back to the point you made,

00:19:29.980 but in a different way for me,

00:19:32.640 because when you do comedy to people in the armed forces,

00:19:37.700 you would realise that they are people who are fundamentally unshockable.

00:19:42.240 You can't really offend them because they've been in war.

00:19:46.060 So they have seen some of the most horrific things that life has to offer.

00:19:51.160 And for the head of the armed forces to say he's offended?

00:19:57.080 I totally agree.

00:19:58.580 And I think he's on his way out.

00:20:00.640 I mean, everyone knows that he's on his way out

00:20:02.320 and he feels that he's a bit at war with the defence minister,

00:20:05.020 the defence secretary.

00:20:05.740 The letter also featured criticism of the MOD,

00:20:09.060 criticism of his boss saying that they weren't listening to him on other issues.

00:20:13.560 And in January, he made this speech,

00:20:15.500 which basically said that we might have to have conscription

00:20:17.640 in the medium to sort of long term,

00:20:20.460 if there's any kind of war with Russia.

00:20:22.940 And Downing Street were very quick to slap down any suggestion of conscription.

00:20:26.920 So I think he feels that he's more able to speak his mind

00:20:30.320 because he knows he's on his way out,

00:20:32.420 which is, in one sense, it's kind of quite concerning

00:20:35.200 that him speaking his mind is actually supporting the woke policies

00:20:38.400 and actually going even further than I ever thought he would.

00:20:41.900 And I don't think he believes in this stuff.

00:20:43.520 I don't think he believes in a word of it.

00:20:45.440 I think that he is, as I said earlier,

00:20:48.040 trying to use it as a PR exercise,

00:20:50.580 potentially to cover up some of his own failings in the forces.

00:20:54.760 That's something that various people have made comments to me about that.

00:20:58.620 And there's lots of stuff going on behind the scenes

00:21:00.320 that I can't report, that I can't talk about,

00:21:02.120 conversations that were off the record and so on,

00:21:04.060 where people have raised real concerns

00:21:06.920 about the leadership in the army

00:21:08.640 and their descent down this path.

00:21:11.260 And I think that only under a Labour government

00:21:13.380 likely going to come in later this year,

00:21:15.560 this is going to get worse before it gets better.

00:21:18.040 This review into diversity by Grant Shapps and the MOD

00:21:20.980 I don't think will achieve very much.

00:21:23.240 Grant infamously made a speech in January

00:21:26.240 where he was supporting diversity

00:21:27.960 and supporting some of these policies and initiatives.

00:21:30.160 And suddenly he did a sort of reverse ferret

00:21:32.740 and wanted to get on top of this.

00:21:34.900 I think, personally, I think it was quite a cynical move for him

00:21:39.480 to launch this review.

00:21:40.360 I'm glad that he did it.

00:21:41.640 But I don't think that ideologically he's conservative.

00:21:44.540 I don't think he's particularly concerned about some of these issues.

00:21:48.020 I mean, if you look at his previous statements on this stuff,

00:21:50.320 he doesn't seem like someone who's focused on wokeness in the MOD,

00:21:54.160 for example, or any other department that he's been in before.

00:21:57.340 And frankly, it shouldn't take me reading these documents,

00:22:01.580 which are open to everyone in the army on the MOD intranet page,

00:22:05.540 literally tens of thousands of people,

00:22:07.660 for Shapps to launch a review into this stuff.

00:22:10.340 It was so interesting speaking to some of the people who work in the MOD.

00:22:14.240 They had no idea what was going on.

00:22:16.360 They hadn't read any of these documents.

00:22:18.240 And that's another area which I'm really concerned about,

00:22:20.480 where you can blame civil servants and, you know,

00:22:23.160 hold them to account.

00:22:24.040 I'm trying to do the best I can on that front, you know,

00:22:27.040 naming these people, shaming them,

00:22:28.660 making sure that they're exposed in everything they're doing.

00:22:32.420 But at the same time,

00:22:33.360 ministers must take responsibility for initiating these policies.

00:22:37.180 Suddenly you had all these Tory MPs.

00:22:38.620 I remember going on GB News at the time with Marc Francois,

00:22:41.780 who used to be an Armed Forces minister,

00:22:43.220 and he was, you know, obviously outraged.

00:22:44.940 He's quite right-wing at some of the things that I'd found.

00:22:47.820 And it's like, well, actually,

00:22:48.720 all the policies that I was investigating and reporting on

00:22:51.200 have been in place since June 2022.

00:22:53.700 Who's been in charge for the last 14 years?

00:22:55.680 It's been the Conservatives.

00:22:57.000 And particularly in the last few years,

00:22:58.300 where these cultural issues,

00:22:59.820 these cultural wars, you know, so-called,

00:23:02.200 have been raging in the press.

00:23:03.420 And suddenly these things have been allowed under their leadership,

00:23:06.440 under the leadership of people like Ben Wallace,

00:23:08.440 who's a very popular Conservative politician.

00:23:11.280 But I think he endorsed this stuff.

00:23:13.960 I don't think there was some conspiracy of civil servants.

00:23:16.520 I think that the Tory ministers are totally on board.

00:23:20.060 Broadway's smash hit,

00:23:21.420 The Neil Diamond Musical,

00:23:22.820 A Beautiful Noise,

00:23:24.300 is coming to Toronto.

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00:23:27.520 destined for something more,

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00:23:30.960 including America,

00:23:32.240 Forever in Blue Jeans,

00:23:33.420 and Sweet Caroline.

00:23:34.940 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful,

00:23:36.760 the next musical mega hit is here,

00:23:39.020 The Neil Diamond Musical,

00:23:40.600 A Beautiful Noise.

00:23:41.700 April 28th through June 7th, 2026,

00:23:44.700 The Princess of Wales Theatre.

00:23:46.760 Get tickets at Mervish.com.

00:23:49.500 And this is why I think it's important.

00:23:51.540 You mentioned, you know,

00:23:52.640 this guy's not a real Conservative,

00:23:54.440 this guy's quite our wing,

00:23:55.560 therefore,

00:23:55.920 I really honestly don't believe

00:23:58.420 that the majority of the British public,

00:24:01.520 left or right,

00:24:03.240 support any of this crap.

00:24:04.560 Yeah.

00:24:04.800 Like, I would imagine,

00:24:06.560 whether you're left-wing or you're right-wing,

00:24:08.140 you want your country's armed forces

00:24:09.640 to be good at their job.

00:24:10.760 Like, that's the number one thing

00:24:12.520 that the government is for,

00:24:14.680 is protecting the country.

00:24:17.180 And you want those armed forces

00:24:20.020 to be effective,

00:24:21.260 whatever your other,

00:24:22.280 whatever your view on tax policy

00:24:24.020 or whatever else it is.

00:24:26.060 So I don't see this as a Conservative

00:24:28.340 versus not Conservative issue.

00:24:30.180 This, to me, is,

00:24:31.380 it's like, it's a mind virus, this stuff.

00:24:34.220 It really is.

00:24:35.160 I think you're right.

00:24:35.940 It's not necessarily political.

00:24:38.280 I mean, the argument

00:24:38.960 from the diversity supporters,

00:24:40.740 as I said earlier,

00:24:41.400 would be that,

00:24:42.200 oh, well, this is important

00:24:43.160 for recruitment,

00:24:44.280 this is important

00:24:44.940 against bullying and harassment,

00:24:46.300 and this is important

00:24:47.340 because we have to be

00:24:48.360 a modern army

00:24:49.900 that reflects society.

00:24:51.780 Now, I don't know

00:24:52.860 whether an army

00:24:53.420 should reflect society.

00:24:54.400 I don't give a shit

00:24:55.140 if it reflects society.

00:24:56.760 I don't care.

00:24:57.420 I want the army

00:24:58.060 to be good

00:24:58.800 at doing its job.

00:25:00.200 Why does every institution

00:25:01.780 have to be a tool

00:25:03.100 of social,

00:25:04.820 like, social engineering,

00:25:07.540 effectively, right,

00:25:08.200 which is what it is?

00:25:08.940 I don't care if the army

00:25:10.160 represents me

00:25:11.400 or my neighbour

00:25:12.220 or whatever.

00:25:12.760 I just, like,

00:25:14.440 I care if it's good.

00:25:15.580 What, what,

00:25:16.160 like, I don't get it.

00:25:17.680 Absolutely right.

00:25:18.520 And, you know,

00:25:18.880 every single institution

00:25:19.860 in Britain,

00:25:20.800 particularly the public institutions

00:25:22.120 like the BBC and so on,

00:25:23.440 feel that they must,

00:25:24.580 for some reason,

00:25:25.240 I don't know why,

00:25:26.320 reflect every single,

00:25:28.020 actually,

00:25:28.320 it's not even every single

00:25:29.180 section of society.

00:25:30.100 No.

00:25:30.500 It's just,

00:25:31.440 it's black people, frankly,

00:25:33.480 and it's,

00:25:34.760 it's the trans stuff.

00:25:36.120 And I think those are

00:25:36.860 the two areas

00:25:37.540 where they're obsessed with.

00:25:38.680 I think other ethnic minorities.

00:25:40.320 And potentially,

00:25:41.000 to an extent,

00:25:41.480 other ethnic minorities.

00:25:43.000 But I'll give you an example.

00:25:44.460 I have a lot of Polish friends.

00:25:45.820 I think there are about

00:25:46.220 a million Polish people

00:25:47.120 in Britain.

00:25:48.000 How many Polish people

00:25:48.700 do you see on the BBC?

00:25:49.720 Yeah.

00:25:50.260 How many people

00:25:50.740 with Polish accents

00:25:51.740 do you see in BBC programmes?

00:25:54.080 Where are the dramas

00:25:54.980 around Polish people?

00:25:56.580 Where are they,

00:25:57.120 why are they not represented

00:25:58.080 in any way

00:25:58.780 in this diversity obsession

00:26:00.380 in somewhere like the BBC?

00:26:02.060 They're not because they're white

00:26:03.200 and therefore all white people

00:26:04.080 are the same.

00:26:04.520 They can't be in a diversity.

00:26:05.360 That's how they,

00:26:06.000 that's how they view it.

00:26:06.720 They're too busy

00:26:07.160 fixing the plumbing.

00:26:07.900 Yeah, exactly.

00:26:08.760 Well, there's nothing wrong

00:26:09.360 with that.

00:26:10.240 I love our Polish guys.

00:26:12.300 You know,

00:26:12.420 they can fix the plumbing.

00:26:13.480 We all love Polish guys.

00:26:14.520 Maybe there's a funny comedy

00:26:18.040 to have in Polish plumbers.

00:26:19.280 I don't know.

00:26:19.880 But do you know what I mean?

00:26:21.500 I know exactly.

00:26:22.280 They obsess over one area

00:26:24.020 of representation

00:26:24.580 and not others.

00:26:25.500 Yeah.

00:26:25.760 Because that's the kind

00:26:26.460 of trendy thing to do.

00:26:27.340 So the whole thing

00:26:27.820 is totally inconsistent.

00:26:28.960 Yeah.

00:26:29.400 And you're right.

00:26:29.900 The army shouldn't,

00:26:31.320 it's,

00:26:32.060 it's sort of degrading

00:26:32.960 from the purpose.

00:26:33.820 It's forgetting the purpose

00:26:34.880 of why we have an armed forces.

00:26:36.680 And this goes to an overall decadence,

00:26:38.620 I think,

00:26:39.600 amongst probably

00:26:40.480 sort of the decline

00:26:41.420 of our civilizational,

00:26:43.060 I don't know,

00:26:43.440 values or whatever.

00:26:44.360 Civilization as a Western country,

00:26:46.280 like Britain.

00:26:46.880 We're forgetting

00:26:47.580 that actually

00:26:48.660 the war in Ukraine

00:26:50.320 shows where,

00:26:51.440 shows that armed forces

00:26:52.400 are really important.

00:26:53.340 We do need a proper army.

00:26:55.120 The world isn't,

00:26:56.240 so it isn't the end of history.

00:26:58.080 There's lots of threats to peace.

00:26:59.580 I think,

00:27:00.020 you know,

00:27:00.240 I think a lot of people

00:27:00.860 in the army

00:27:01.160 do recognize that.

00:27:02.460 But at the same time,

00:27:03.440 whilst they make speeches

00:27:04.500 about how,

00:27:05.240 you know,

00:27:05.460 budget cuts

00:27:06.040 and,

00:27:06.420 you know,

00:27:07.080 General Sir Patrick Sanders

00:27:08.060 said that in his letter

00:27:09.260 to the generals

00:27:10.000 that the armed forces,

00:27:11.760 the army faces

00:27:12.420 becoming a static

00:27:13.520 domestic land force.

00:27:15.140 In other words,

00:27:15.540 we can't go out

00:27:16.300 and do operations overseas

00:27:18.440 like we have in the Falklands

00:27:19.480 or Iraq or wherever

00:27:20.420 in the future

00:27:21.820 because of these budget cuts.

00:27:22.900 So he recognizes

00:27:23.640 there's an issue.

00:27:24.700 He recognizes

00:27:25.180 there's threats to peace.

00:27:26.020 He recognizes

00:27:26.540 the importance of the army.

00:27:27.580 But at the same time,

00:27:28.780 he doesn't understand

00:27:29.540 that the purpose,

00:27:30.660 he doesn't,

00:27:31.020 I suppose he doesn't understand

00:27:31.780 the main purpose

00:27:32.760 of the armed forces.

00:27:33.420 It's not to represent people.

00:27:35.040 It's not to,

00:27:35.840 you know,

00:27:36.880 to sort of modicoddle people.

00:27:38.140 It's not to be

00:27:38.600 an HR organization.

00:27:40.280 And again,

00:27:40.640 it's this kind of HR attitude,

00:27:42.200 again,

00:27:42.620 amongst all of the sort of

00:27:44.580 departments

00:27:44.960 and civil service.

00:27:45.920 The civil service

00:27:46.900 and government institutions

00:27:48.060 are no longer aimed

00:27:49.380 at serving the taxpayer

00:27:50.520 or,

00:27:51.660 you know,

00:27:51.980 reducing immigration,

00:27:52.960 let's say,

00:27:53.160 in the home office

00:27:53.900 or fighting in the armed forces

00:27:55.740 or whatever it is.

00:27:56.960 Instead,

00:27:57.300 the purpose has become,

00:27:58.820 or in the NHS,

00:27:59.760 to protect the staff,

00:28:01.460 to protect them

00:28:02.240 from potentially

00:28:03.500 mental health problems

00:28:04.600 or making sure

00:28:06.400 that,

00:28:06.700 you know,

00:28:07.080 they reflect society

00:28:08.140 or supporting the staff

00:28:09.800 in all sorts of ways.

00:28:10.960 And I think

00:28:11.280 that weird growth

00:28:13.140 of HR

00:28:13.700 as an importance,

00:28:15.200 as a sort of,

00:28:16.160 as a vital part

00:28:17.200 of any organization

00:28:18.200 is a very novel

00:28:19.760 and new concept.

00:28:20.800 And again,

00:28:21.120 it undermines

00:28:21.680 the main things

00:28:22.460 that these institutions

00:28:23.580 should be doing.

00:28:24.640 Stephen,

00:28:25.980 I read something

00:28:27.620 and I think

00:28:28.100 this sums it up

00:28:29.260 and maybe you'll be able

00:28:30.080 to pinpoint it

00:28:30.960 because I know I read it

00:28:31.940 but I can't quite remember where.

00:28:34.180 Where it was talking

00:28:34.940 about the army

00:28:35.700 and the problem

00:28:36.460 with toxic masculinity

00:28:37.760 in the army.

00:28:39.920 And I was thinking

00:28:40.560 to myself,

00:28:41.640 if there's one place

00:28:43.020 in the world

00:28:43.960 I want my men

00:28:44.900 to be toxic

00:28:45.640 and masculine,

00:28:46.840 it's the army.

00:28:48.380 Yeah,

00:28:48.640 it's really interesting.

00:28:49.420 I think,

00:28:49.800 I don't know specifically

00:28:50.800 where that quote's come from

00:28:51.940 and I'm sure

00:28:52.440 that people have accused

00:28:53.240 the armed forces

00:28:53.820 of having toxic masculinity.

00:28:56.740 But there's an interesting debate

00:28:58.100 I think amongst

00:28:58.720 all modern forces

00:28:59.840 as to the balance

00:29:01.660 between the genders.

00:29:03.200 And if you look at somewhere

00:29:03.860 like the IDF

00:29:04.700 in Israel,

00:29:06.100 women are conscripted

00:29:07.520 into the armed forces there

00:29:08.680 and there's some real debates

00:29:10.680 amongst academics

00:29:11.520 as to how successful

00:29:12.720 that integration has been.

00:29:14.620 Some people,

00:29:15.440 like Patrick Sanders,

00:29:16.280 says it's been a great success

00:29:17.360 and it's worked very well

00:29:18.300 for Israel.

00:29:19.200 Others,

00:29:19.700 like Professor Guthien Prins,

00:29:20.780 who's someone I've worked with

00:29:21.880 in some of these stories,

00:29:23.640 criticizes the IDF's

00:29:25.520 operational capability

00:29:26.640 in terms of women

00:29:28.360 being allowed

00:29:28.800 on the front line,

00:29:29.420 for example.

00:29:29.900 He would make the argument

00:29:31.200 that actually

00:29:31.860 what this leads to

00:29:34.040 is the male soldiers,

00:29:35.880 let's say you're

00:29:36.340 in a sort of fighting zone

00:29:37.420 or whatever,

00:29:38.260 the male soldiers

00:29:38.940 instead of focusing

00:29:39.760 on fighting the enemy

00:29:40.660 might be thinking instinctively

00:29:42.160 as a kind of human instinct

00:29:43.520 as a man,

00:29:44.240 I've got to protect

00:29:45.060 the person next to me,

00:29:45.960 I've got to kind of help

00:29:46.900 the woman in some way

00:29:48.060 save her

00:29:48.720 from this mortal danger

00:29:50.920 that she's in.

00:29:51.880 That's not something

00:29:52.560 that you can deprogram

00:29:53.680 someone to do

00:29:55.060 and it's really important

00:29:56.000 that you focus

00:29:57.540 on the sort of main

00:29:58.340 thing at hand

00:29:59.440 when you're in

00:29:59.920 one of those situations.

00:30:01.040 Now,

00:30:01.160 I'm not an expert

00:30:01.700 in the army or anything

00:30:02.280 but I'm just giving you

00:30:03.300 the different kind of perspectives

00:30:04.560 on the gender balance

00:30:05.980 and toxic masculinity

00:30:07.260 is an interesting phrase

00:30:08.760 because I think historically

00:30:10.340 armies around the world

00:30:11.440 have been very,

00:30:12.420 very male dominated.

00:30:14.280 Not all,

00:30:15.280 by the way,

00:30:15.660 you know,

00:30:15.880 in the Soviet Union

00:30:17.160 during the Second World War

00:30:18.260 there were female fighter pilots

00:30:20.060 who were serving

00:30:20.720 in the Soviet Air Force

00:30:22.260 who were very successful

00:30:24.340 and women can actually

00:30:25.240 make brilliant pilots

00:30:26.300 and we've got a lot

00:30:27.000 of women pilots

00:30:27.780 in the RAF

00:30:29.120 and they're very,

00:30:30.000 very effective

00:30:30.580 but again,

00:30:32.200 it's a balance.

00:30:33.120 It's about where women

00:30:33.940 can be used

00:30:34.600 in their most effective way

00:30:36.880 because obviously

00:30:37.520 the female physiology

00:30:38.540 is different from men's

00:30:40.020 and they're weaker,

00:30:41.540 their bone structure

00:30:42.120 is different and so on.

00:30:42.940 Obviously,

00:30:43.380 we can get into

00:30:43.780 the whole trans debate,

00:30:44.720 you know,

00:30:45.040 that's kind of where that goes

00:30:45.960 but so you've got to place

00:30:47.680 them in the right places

00:30:48.460 and once you have women

00:30:49.540 and men in any institution,

00:30:51.200 especially something

00:30:52.100 like the armed forces

00:30:52.900 where it's a very tight-knit thing

00:30:55.100 where you're with them

00:30:55.800 all the time

00:30:56.480 in some really kind of

00:30:57.340 tough situations,

00:30:58.480 that's always going to cause

00:30:59.760 tensions between the sexes.

00:31:01.320 You're going to have

00:31:02.200 sexual interest,

00:31:03.120 frankly,

00:31:03.800 between men and women.

00:31:04.780 You're going to have

00:31:05.600 sort of paternal instincts

00:31:07.100 in a way,

00:31:07.980 as I said,

00:31:08.380 to sort of perhaps

00:31:09.180 save the person next to you

00:31:10.320 instead of focusing

00:31:10.920 on the other thing at hand.

00:31:11.820 So I think it's a really

00:31:12.960 interesting idea

00:31:13.780 that toxic masculinity

00:31:14.760 is a bad thing

00:31:16.620 in the armed forces.

00:31:17.340 As you say,

00:31:17.620 I think it's probably

00:31:18.080 quite a good thing

00:31:18.760 but when we live

00:31:20.140 in sort of a modern world

00:31:20.960 where armed forces

00:31:21.580 are having different

00:31:23.100 kind of groups

00:31:24.480 that historically

00:31:25.020 haven't been involved,

00:31:26.340 there are always

00:31:26.920 going to be tensions

00:31:27.640 and it's kind of,

00:31:28.680 I think that's part

00:31:29.520 of that issue,

00:31:30.480 toxic masculinity.

00:31:31.460 There probably are tensions

00:31:32.700 between men and women

00:31:33.480 in the army

00:31:34.100 where you have had

00:31:35.040 some inappropriate incidents,

00:31:36.500 frankly,

00:31:37.240 where men are harassing

00:31:38.260 women and so on

00:31:38.880 and that's just going

00:31:39.780 to happen

00:31:40.280 when you have men

00:31:41.400 and women

00:31:41.740 in a room

00:31:42.540 in that kind

00:31:43.540 of tight-knit situation.

00:31:45.300 And it's also as well

00:31:46.120 when people talk

00:31:46.900 about the language

00:31:47.600 that is used

00:31:48.420 in the army

00:31:48.900 and they say

00:31:49.340 how unacceptable it is,

00:31:52.100 these are normally men

00:31:54.240 in a war zone.

00:31:56.740 Language is going

00:31:57.720 to be different

00:31:58.680 than if you're working

00:32:00.080 in Croydon Council.

00:32:02.320 I don't know,

00:32:02.760 I mean,

00:32:02.900 that is a war zone, mate.

00:32:05.640 I mean,

00:32:06.340 that is a good point.

00:32:07.440 But it's going to...

00:32:08.540 You meant in a cafe

00:32:09.320 in central London.

00:32:10.140 In a cafe

00:32:10.800 in central London

00:32:11.620 or if you're going

00:32:12.440 to the theatre.

00:32:13.260 It's going to be different

00:32:14.560 because you're in

00:32:15.120 a highly pressurised situation

00:32:16.640 where it's literally

00:32:17.780 a matter of life and death.

00:32:19.440 You are going

00:32:19.980 to be desensitised

00:32:21.260 because of what

00:32:21.920 you've been exposed to.

00:32:23.220 So your language

00:32:23.940 is going to be,

00:32:24.880 dare I say,

00:32:25.420 more industrial

00:32:26.100 and your humour

00:32:27.280 is going to be

00:32:27.980 far more dark.

00:32:29.040 Absolutely.

00:32:29.640 And I think

00:32:29.980 this issue of language

00:32:30.760 is actually fascinating

00:32:31.740 in terms of how

00:32:32.520 the new woke ideologues

00:32:34.740 are impacting that

00:32:35.440 in the armed forces.

00:32:36.120 So to give you

00:32:36.460 a few examples,

00:32:37.480 they warn everyone

00:32:38.640 in the MOD

00:32:39.160 against what they call

00:32:40.160 microaggressions.

00:32:41.680 So the armed forces

00:32:43.000 is meant to be

00:32:43.520 a pretty aggressive

00:32:44.080 institution,

00:32:44.840 I would hope.

00:32:46.260 You would think so,

00:32:47.000 wouldn't you?

00:32:47.940 I would hope

00:32:48.660 macroaggressions

00:32:49.540 would be something

00:32:50.400 to be celebrated,

00:32:51.340 particularly against

00:32:51.980 our enemies.

00:32:52.640 But microaggressions

00:32:53.580 are very unacceptable

00:32:54.280 and one of the examples

00:32:55.220 they give is

00:32:56.200 misgendering someone

00:32:57.500 or labelling them

00:32:58.400 in the wrong type

00:32:59.180 of pronoun.

00:32:59.560 obviously total bollocks.

00:33:01.980 You know,

00:33:02.800 when you have,

00:33:03.460 I suppose,

00:33:03.900 trans,

00:33:04.340 there are very,

00:33:04.980 very few trans people

00:33:05.820 in the armed forces,

00:33:06.660 but one would hope

00:33:07.780 that people are

00:33:08.240 disrespectful to each other

00:33:09.360 and you don't have

00:33:09.880 to obsess over asking

00:33:10.900 what someone's pronoun is.

00:33:13.120 One of the stories

00:33:13.640 I actually reported

00:33:14.300 last year

00:33:14.720 was in the Royal Navy.

00:33:16.080 Their sort of

00:33:16.980 trans guidance

00:33:17.840 for all sailors

00:33:18.620 said that you had

00:33:19.260 to introduce

00:33:19.860 your pronouns

00:33:20.460 before any interaction.

00:33:22.980 And that again

00:33:23.400 was immediately withdrawn

00:33:24.520 by the defence minister.

00:33:26.140 When I exposed

00:33:26.980 this thing,

00:33:27.360 it was like immediately

00:33:27.800 I got a comment

00:33:28.380 from the MOD saying

00:33:29.000 we're reviewing the document,

00:33:30.240 we're withdrawing it.

00:33:31.360 Why did it happen?

00:33:32.100 Why was it there

00:33:32.680 in the first place?

00:33:33.680 The other issue

00:33:34.280 about language

00:33:34.760 is again

00:33:35.420 this gender neutral obsession.

00:33:37.360 So you can't say riflemen,

00:33:39.680 you can't say servicemen.

00:33:42.640 In the RAF,

00:33:43.400 they changed,

00:33:44.160 a few years ago,

00:33:44.920 they changed ranks

00:33:45.800 to be gender neutral.

00:33:47.060 You can't say airmen anymore,

00:33:48.260 you have to say aviators.

00:33:50.100 And this issue of,

00:33:51.720 one guy in the army

00:33:52.620 said to me

00:33:53.060 he's never seen

00:33:53.920 someone,

00:33:55.060 a worse bollocking

00:33:56.080 in Sandhurst

00:33:56.920 than the military

00:33:57.500 kind of education,

00:33:58.560 army kind of education

00:33:59.680 establishment.

00:34:00.880 And when someone said

00:34:02.000 the word rifleman

00:34:03.380 and a senior commander

00:34:05.040 completely sort of

00:34:06.740 came down in the sky

00:34:07.740 with a ton of bricks,

00:34:09.100 completely unprofessional way

00:34:10.220 because it wasn't

00:34:11.580 gender neutral.

00:34:12.840 And then later on

00:34:13.660 there was a commander

00:34:14.300 who again was given

00:34:15.040 kind of educational instructions

00:34:16.540 that this guy told me

00:34:17.480 when he published

00:34:18.100 in the Telegraph

00:34:18.520 where he was saying

00:34:20.060 you must use

00:34:20.680 gender neutral language,

00:34:21.700 you can't say all these terms

00:34:22.760 like rifleman and so on.

00:34:23.960 And then immediately

00:34:24.900 he forgot about that

00:34:25.840 subconsciously presumably

00:34:26.760 and he used

00:34:27.700 the exact same terms

00:34:28.960 that he just said

00:34:30.220 that you shouldn't use.

00:34:31.220 So it's quite ironic.

00:34:32.200 I think again

00:34:32.620 it's this kind of weird

00:34:33.420 imposition of

00:34:34.280 you just have to say

00:34:35.320 the thing,

00:34:35.900 you have to kind of

00:34:36.660 repeat the

00:34:37.420 almost like religious mantra

00:34:39.140 and then you sort of

00:34:40.660 go back into normal mode

00:34:41.660 and you kind of forget

00:34:42.280 about that

00:34:42.680 because really

00:34:43.680 it is totally irrelevant

00:34:45.180 to day-to-day

00:34:46.520 kind of interactions

00:34:47.360 with people.

00:34:48.260 So yeah,

00:34:48.460 that is definitely a concern

00:34:49.260 this use of language

00:34:50.100 that has been

00:34:50.600 a massive imposition

00:34:51.680 in recent years

00:34:52.640 trying to make sure

00:34:53.720 that all language

00:34:54.380 is somehow gender neutral

00:34:55.340 and no one's offending

00:34:56.280 each other.

00:34:56.660 And it's also the issue

00:34:58.080 of meritocracy as well

00:34:59.220 because if you take

00:35:00.040 something like the SAS,

00:35:02.240 the reason the SAS

00:35:03.280 as a fighting force

00:35:05.660 is so famous

00:35:06.620 is because

00:35:07.220 they are the best

00:35:08.460 of the best.

00:35:09.540 It doesn't matter

00:35:10.680 who you are,

00:35:11.840 it doesn't matter

00:35:12.620 where you come from,

00:35:14.100 you are the elite.

00:35:16.340 Absolutely.

00:35:16.960 And I think this issue

00:35:17.720 of standards

00:35:18.600 and lowering standards

00:35:20.400 frankly

00:35:20.800 in order to boost diversity,

00:35:22.180 I mean the security checks

00:35:23.300 is one policy

00:35:24.040 but this applies

00:35:25.120 across a lot of

00:35:25.940 public institutions

00:35:26.760 somewhere like the Met

00:35:27.580 somewhere I've been

00:35:28.200 speaking to people

00:35:28.800 in the Met recently

00:35:29.460 who again concern

00:35:30.420 that they're lowering

00:35:31.600 the fitness tests

00:35:32.560 in order to enable

00:35:33.340 more women to join

00:35:34.280 and I think again

00:35:35.660 that causes issues

00:35:36.420 where you see videos

00:35:37.200 of women

00:35:37.660 who are trying

00:35:38.420 to arrest people

00:35:39.020 in the street.

00:35:39.480 You might have

00:35:39.740 three women in London

00:35:40.740 trying to arrest

00:35:41.840 sort of a big tall bloke

00:35:43.760 and he gets away

00:35:45.280 and he can put up a fight

00:35:46.680 and you kind of have

00:35:47.520 these kind of overweight women

00:35:48.760 who unfortunately

00:35:49.780 it looks quite embarrassing

00:35:50.720 for them

00:35:51.100 and I feel quite sorry

00:35:51.960 for them really

00:35:52.480 that they've been put

00:35:53.900 into this situation

00:35:54.800 so I think things

00:35:55.920 like the bleep tests

00:35:56.680 and so on

00:35:57.100 have been reduced

00:35:57.800 I think to a certain extent

00:35:58.840 in the Met

00:35:59.260 I think in the armed forces

00:36:00.400 again there are some

00:36:02.000 accusations

00:36:02.480 that they're lowering

00:36:03.120 physical fitness standards

00:36:04.300 in order to boost diversity

00:36:05.600 or particularly

00:36:06.640 to have more women

00:36:08.080 in the forces

00:36:08.620 and again it's that

00:36:09.820 whole lowering of standards

00:36:10.640 as you say

00:36:11.000 you want to be the best

00:36:12.340 that's the point

00:36:12.920 of the SAS for example

00:36:14.000 I think the SAS

00:36:14.600 probably quite protected

00:36:15.480 I hope in most ways

00:36:17.180 because their levels

00:36:18.500 of their kind of

00:36:19.160 fitness standards

00:36:19.680 are so high

00:36:20.400 that I think

00:36:20.720 it's very very difficult

00:36:21.680 for women

00:36:22.200 to get into those institutions

00:36:24.300 and I've spoken to

00:36:25.360 actually people

00:36:25.940 who have been training

00:36:26.720 recently trying to pass

00:36:28.140 their fitness levels

00:36:29.720 to be in the special forces

00:36:31.320 and there was actually

00:36:32.720 one woman I think

00:36:33.520 in this

00:36:33.860 in my sort of

00:36:35.440 contacts

00:36:36.300 regiment

00:36:37.640 who did actually manage

00:36:38.680 to almost pass

00:36:39.760 who just

00:36:40.240 almost

00:36:40.900 just found

00:36:41.680 she would have been

00:36:42.220 the first woman ever

00:36:42.900 to get into this

00:36:43.600 into this kind of

00:36:44.940 special operations

00:36:45.680 regiment

00:36:46.880 so yeah

00:36:47.740 I think

00:36:48.000 again

00:36:48.480 it's a concern

00:36:49.160 and I hope

00:36:49.840 that our allies

00:36:50.400 aren't looking

00:36:50.860 at this stuff

00:36:51.340 like in France

00:36:52.180 and other

00:36:53.040 European nations

00:36:54.300 in NATO

00:36:54.800 and Poland

00:36:55.360 for example

00:36:55.880 who are massively

00:36:56.460 investing in their

00:36:57.340 armed forces

00:36:58.140 concerned about

00:36:58.880 the threat

00:36:59.260 from Russia

00:36:59.800 and they're laughing

00:37:01.260 I suspect

00:37:01.780 they're laughing at us

00:37:02.620 and the same

00:37:03.080 in China

00:37:03.500 the same

00:37:03.800 in Russia

00:37:04.140 why are we

00:37:04.700 doing these

00:37:05.140 things to

00:37:05.840 undermine

00:37:06.260 our operational

00:37:06.960 capabilities

00:37:07.540 do you know

00:37:08.140 what's interesting

00:37:08.680 about this

00:37:09.260 we have more

00:37:11.540 meritocracy

00:37:12.240 in something

00:37:13.500 like football

00:37:14.260 which is

00:37:15.540 basically

00:37:16.060 entertainment

00:37:16.740 than we do

00:37:18.140 in the

00:37:18.760 in the service

00:37:20.200 that is there

00:37:20.820 to protect us

00:37:21.660 from foreign

00:37:22.140 threats

00:37:22.720 and enemies

00:37:23.400 and the police

00:37:25.600 which is there

00:37:26.160 to protect us

00:37:26.820 from domestic

00:37:27.360 enemies

00:37:27.780 we've lost the

00:37:29.620 plot

00:37:29.880 haven't we

00:37:30.340 I think this issue

00:37:31.320 of meritocracy

00:37:32.100 is really important

00:37:33.260 and it doesn't

00:37:34.180 just go to

00:37:34.600 fitness standards

00:37:35.280 and the Met

00:37:35.700 and the armed

00:37:36.040 forces

00:37:36.320 but it also

00:37:36.820 impacts

00:37:37.340 promotions

00:37:38.160 across all

00:37:38.980 of Whitehall

00:37:39.980 where people

00:37:40.980 are basically

00:37:41.480 being selected

00:37:42.380 based on their

00:37:43.860 identity

00:37:44.500 and their

00:37:45.500 characteristics

00:37:46.320 rather than

00:37:47.420 whether they're

00:37:48.160 good at the

00:37:48.660 job or not

00:37:49.200 and one of the

00:37:49.800 things that I've

00:37:50.340 spoken to lots

00:37:50.920 of civil servants

00:37:51.520 about particularly

00:37:52.240 in various

00:37:52.760 departments

00:37:53.060 like the

00:37:53.340 home office

00:37:53.900 or the DWP

00:37:54.820 or wherever

00:37:55.280 is that suddenly

00:37:56.320 they go up

00:37:56.760 for a promotion

00:37:57.340 and they're asked

00:37:58.640 about all of these

00:37:59.460 issues around

00:38:00.100 diversity and

00:38:00.840 well-being

00:38:01.240 and HR

00:38:01.780 kind of

00:38:02.880 topics

00:38:03.800 rather than

00:38:04.920 whether they're

00:38:05.480 good at the

00:38:05.760 job or not

00:38:06.240 and what the

00:38:07.540 civil servants

00:38:07.980 have is something

00:38:08.560 called

00:38:08.760 success profiles

00:38:09.980 now this is

00:38:10.560 what all

00:38:11.000 civil servants

00:38:11.660 are measured

00:38:12.040 against in

00:38:12.580 terms of

00:38:13.300 recruitment

00:38:13.820 and promotions

00:38:15.500 internal

00:38:15.840 promotions

00:38:16.320 and I think

00:38:17.220 in one of

00:38:17.720 the success

00:38:18.420 profile documents

00:38:19.440 that I've

00:38:19.760 studied

00:38:20.020 there's 12

00:38:20.880 mentions of

00:38:21.440 diversity

00:38:21.880 now you

00:38:22.740 don't need

00:38:23.200 to be obsessed

00:38:23.700 with diversity

00:38:24.200 to be an

00:38:24.860 immigration officer

00:38:25.620 or to be

00:38:26.280 an advisor

00:38:27.080 in the

00:38:27.340 Department of

00:38:27.720 Work and

00:38:28.020 Pensions

00:38:28.340 or to be

00:38:29.680 someone who

00:38:30.540 is coming up

00:38:31.160 with education

00:38:31.780 policy

00:38:32.300 that's totally

00:38:33.200 irrelevant

00:38:33.580 but suddenly

00:38:34.640 this has become

00:38:35.300 something which

00:38:35.960 they're all

00:38:36.640 measured against

00:38:37.260 and they've

00:38:37.600 all got to

00:38:38.060 come up

00:38:38.320 with a load

00:38:38.700 of again

00:38:39.320 like almost

00:38:40.420 semi-religious

00:38:41.240 bollocks coming

00:38:42.240 up with their

00:38:42.900 using the language

00:38:43.960 using all of the

00:38:44.760 things that are in

00:38:45.380 the success profiles

00:38:46.260 in order to get

00:38:46.760 ahead and

00:38:47.700 unfortunately I

00:38:48.360 think we've seen

00:38:48.800 a real over

00:38:50.140 promotion of

00:38:51.180 people who are

00:38:51.800 very good at

00:38:53.040 using the HR

00:38:54.320 woke language

00:38:55.560 in their applications

00:38:56.860 in their job

00:38:57.600 interviews versus

00:38:58.780 the people who

00:38:59.340 are potentially

00:39:00.220 more apolitical

00:39:01.080 more focused on

00:39:01.940 their just their

00:39:03.040 normal roles I

00:39:03.900 suppose

00:39:04.200 one of the

00:39:05.200 stories I

00:39:05.600 reported on

00:39:06.100 was in the

00:39:06.440 BBC

00:39:06.760 something really

00:39:08.460 interesting

00:39:08.860 it's very very

00:39:09.960 difficult to get

00:39:10.660 sources in the

00:39:11.460 BBC

00:39:11.700 I think that's

00:39:12.500 such a liberal

00:39:13.360 metropolitan

00:39:13.880 institution frankly

00:39:15.620 where there are

00:39:16.140 very very few

00:39:16.740 people

00:39:17.220 maybe I'm wrong

00:39:18.380 and people

00:39:18.840 the BBC

00:39:19.180 watching this

00:39:19.680 may disagree

00:39:20.620 with me

00:39:20.820 but there are

00:39:21.520 very few

00:39:21.860 people I think

00:39:22.360 in that

00:39:22.640 institution

00:39:23.100 who frankly

00:39:24.380 are concerned

00:39:25.120 about these

00:39:25.780 woke issues

00:39:26.880 there are lots

00:39:28.520 of Jewish people

00:39:29.160 who are worried

00:39:29.620 about the BBC's

00:39:30.400 coverage of

00:39:31.180 Palestine

00:39:31.660 I think to a

00:39:32.700 certain extent

00:39:33.080 there are kind

00:39:33.500 of turf type

00:39:34.420 gender critical

00:39:35.240 people in the

00:39:35.980 BBC

00:39:36.220 so it's very

00:39:37.060 rare to find

00:39:37.580 someone who

00:39:37.880 will actually

00:39:38.120 speak to you

00:39:38.680 on the record

00:39:39.140 or off the

00:39:39.480 record about

00:39:39.820 this stuff

00:39:40.160 but I did

00:39:40.820 find someone

00:39:41.340 recently and

00:39:42.120 it was

00:39:42.340 fascinating

00:39:42.980 some fascinating

00:39:43.960 conversations

00:39:44.660 and one of

00:39:45.980 the things

00:39:46.320 that they

00:39:47.280 gave to me

00:39:48.080 was this

00:39:49.200 HR hiring

00:39:50.360 document

00:39:50.840 which said

00:39:51.860 that all

00:39:52.460 candidates in

00:39:53.440 this major

00:39:53.920 non-editorial

00:39:54.580 department

00:39:55.020 had to be

00:39:55.780 asked a

00:39:56.100 question about

00:39:57.000 diversity

00:39:57.720 and if

00:39:59.220 the sort of

00:40:00.420 hiring manager

00:40:01.240 was given the

00:40:01.920 correct and

00:40:02.940 the incorrect

00:40:03.440 answers

00:40:03.960 so it

00:40:04.320 literally said

00:40:04.740 don't hire

00:40:05.760 the candidates

00:40:06.820 who are

00:40:07.180 dismissive or

00:40:08.660 derisive of

00:40:09.480 diversity and

00:40:10.160 inclusion and

00:40:10.840 surrounding topics

00:40:11.720 so even if

00:40:13.020 you question

00:40:13.680 any kind of

00:40:15.220 topic around

00:40:15.760 diversity and

00:40:16.320 inclusion

00:40:16.600 immediately you're

00:40:17.600 disqualified from

00:40:18.880 a position within

00:40:20.080 the BBC

00:40:20.560 and people wonder

00:40:21.840 why the BBC

00:40:22.560 has a more

00:40:24.300 liberal left

00:40:25.160 bias frankly

00:40:26.020 and a more

00:40:26.420 kind of woke

00:40:27.000 bias amongst

00:40:27.760 all of its

00:40:28.320 programming and

00:40:28.920 all of its

00:40:29.360 output

00:40:29.680 and I think

00:40:30.500 frankly it's to

00:40:31.200 do with

00:40:31.640 partly at

00:40:32.360 least to

00:40:32.720 do with

00:40:33.040 its hiring

00:40:33.520 processes

00:40:33.980 and its

00:40:34.600 hiring

00:40:34.900 practices

00:40:35.380 now the BBC

00:40:36.460 claimed to

00:40:37.120 me in their

00:40:37.780 press office

00:40:38.200 that this

00:40:38.580 was an

00:40:39.640 old document

00:40:40.180 from 2022

00:40:40.900 yeah very

00:40:41.420 old

00:40:41.660 it's probably

00:40:42.980 been upgraded

00:40:43.780 to like

00:40:44.440 publicly

00:40:45.560 defenestrate

00:40:46.560 anyone who's

00:40:47.280 dismissive of

00:40:47.940 diversity

00:40:48.400 honestly it's

00:40:48.940 mental they

00:40:49.460 sent to me

00:40:50.360 the updated

00:40:51.380 version of

00:40:52.060 the document

00:40:52.680 which is a

00:40:53.020 public thing

00:40:53.520 which says

00:40:53.840 everyone has

00:40:54.280 to champion

00:40:54.720 inclusion

00:40:55.220 why should

00:40:56.320 everyone have

00:40:56.740 to champion

00:40:57.100 inclusion to

00:40:57.620 work in the BBC

00:40:57.920 anyway but the

00:40:58.820 point is that

00:40:59.380 document was still

00:41:00.160 in place despite

00:41:00.900 what the BBC

00:41:01.420 were telling me

00:41:02.040 I knew it was

00:41:02.580 still in place

00:41:03.080 I knew people

00:41:03.660 who were applying

00:41:04.440 for jobs in the BBC

00:41:05.320 who were being

00:41:05.740 asked these

00:41:06.140 questions so they

00:41:07.240 completely lied to

00:41:07.940 me and this is

00:41:08.260 something that

00:41:08.660 happens all the

00:41:09.380 time civil servant

00:41:11.080 press officers people

00:41:12.120 across public

00:41:12.820 institutions will

00:41:14.240 openly lie to my

00:41:15.860 face on phone

00:41:16.720 calls and

00:41:18.100 sometimes even

00:41:18.860 over email over

00:41:21.000 my reporting in

00:41:22.560 order to try and

00:41:23.060 shut down my

00:41:23.720 reporting and this

00:41:24.520 is something I

00:41:25.080 found that's really

00:41:25.800 interesting is they'll

00:41:26.680 try and shut you

00:41:27.880 down they'll tell

00:41:28.960 you that what you're

00:41:29.620 doing isn't woke

00:41:31.280 actually it's very

00:41:31.960 important for various

00:41:32.800 different reasons that

00:41:33.640 ministers support it

00:41:34.620 and when you speak to

00:41:35.500 the spads they're like

00:41:36.240 we don't support this

00:41:36.940 we didn't do any of

00:41:37.900 this stuff we're trying

00:41:38.540 to root it out to a

00:41:39.820 certain extent that's

00:41:40.840 the special advisors

00:41:41.580 those are the people

00:41:42.620 that advise ministers

00:41:43.500 who are appointed by

00:41:44.200 ministers who are

00:41:44.820 more who are from the

00:41:45.940 Conservative Party

00:41:46.620 essentially and it

00:41:47.320 should be their job to

00:41:48.180 try and root out the

00:41:49.340 stuff and to an extent

00:41:50.040 some of them do some

00:41:51.120 of them don't and I've

00:41:51.800 had issues with a few

00:41:52.560 spads as well so it's

00:41:54.140 really interesting so to

00:41:55.200 get back to the point

00:41:55.680 about the hiring thing the

00:41:57.240 BBC I think that's a

00:41:58.860 problem with with in

00:41:59.980 terms of meritocracy

00:42:00.700 across the public

00:42:01.580 sector where this

00:42:02.820 obsession with identity

00:42:03.840 diversity and so on in

00:42:05.180 terms of hiring means

00:42:06.460 that we're not getting

00:42:07.100 the best people and if

00:42:08.380 you're wondering why the

00:42:09.560 government aren't

00:42:10.200 delivering let's say on

00:42:11.820 issues of immigration or

00:42:13.280 why you're not getting

00:42:13.840 your pension or why it

00:42:15.280 seems that public

00:42:15.840 services are kind of

00:42:17.320 grinding to a halt the

00:42:18.700 trains and so on I think

00:42:20.060 that can partly be

00:42:21.580 explained through this

00:42:23.420 lack of meritocracy

00:42:24.360 suddenly there's a whole

00:42:25.800 new criteria of how

00:42:27.540 people are promoted of

00:42:28.500 how people get ahead in

00:42:29.960 these really important

00:42:31.300 roles where they are

00:42:32.920 impacting millions of

00:42:34.180 people's lives you know

00:42:36.040 as I said things like

00:42:36.960 going on your commute or

00:42:38.480 even going to the

00:42:39.040 hospital and so on

00:42:39.740 because these people

00:42:41.540 being hired or promoted

00:42:42.700 based on things other

00:42:43.620 than meritocracy

00:42:44.300 it's you know the more

00:42:50.120 we're rarely speechless but

00:42:51.420 yeah yeah do you know

00:42:53.260 what this to me and again

00:42:55.720 yeah I'm about to have an

00:42:57.660 aneurysm but we'll you know

00:42:59.420 I was going to say

00:43:00.240 there won't be anyone in

00:43:01.000 the hospital to help you

00:43:02.020 because no you know and

00:43:03.320 there'll probably just be

00:43:04.140 somebody who will just be

00:43:05.020 like it's fine you can have

00:43:05.900 a corridor just die here you

00:43:07.380 know in peace and quiet but

00:43:09.340 what this talks about to me and

00:43:12.500 maybe I'm being hyperbolic and

00:43:14.280 please push back if you think

00:43:15.380 I am this speaks to me of

00:43:17.560 civilizational collapse

00:43:18.820 really if you think about it

00:43:20.880 if we've got an army which

00:43:22.240 is more you know talks about

00:43:24.460 non-binary and length of

00:43:25.960 hair and is not concerned

00:43:27.080 about meritocracy and we're

00:43:29.080 more worried about what

00:43:31.260 someone looks like and what

00:43:32.580 they identify as than their

00:43:33.920 ability to do a job once you

00:43:35.940 get rid of something like

00:43:36.900 meritocracy I mean it's

00:43:38.500 basically over isn't it

00:43:39.820 really now I'm not a

00:43:41.400 historian but I know that

00:43:42.420 lots of people make

00:43:43.460 comparisons with the collapse

00:43:44.540 of the Roman Empire where

00:43:45.640 again they became kind of

00:43:47.000 decadent because they felt

00:43:48.820 that they were very safe in

00:43:50.040 the world they became rich

00:43:51.220 they they didn't have kind

00:43:52.440 of those concerns those

00:43:53.560 sort of basic instinct

00:43:55.040 concerns of wars and so on

00:43:56.620 and I think that's what's

00:43:57.420 happened to us to a certain

00:43:58.300 extent is that we become

00:43:59.660 very complacent very decadent

00:44:01.460 we're we're no longer faced

00:44:04.000 with having to I don't know

00:44:05.500 collect food in the same way

00:44:07.440 or you know there's a kind

00:44:08.920 of basic survival level

00:44:10.900 instincts that we've had

00:44:12.120 previously only until about

00:44:13.340 150 years ago and I think

00:44:14.680 suddenly when when you when

00:44:15.960 you can live a life which is

00:44:17.140 basically automated and you

00:44:19.360 don't have to worry about

00:44:20.200 the sort of more serious

00:44:21.200 things that humans previously

00:44:22.340 had to worry about and in

00:44:23.700 our sort of rising

00:44:24.380 civilization you can start

00:44:26.100 obsessing and you feel that

00:44:27.200 you can start obsessing with

00:44:28.120 other things and when

00:44:29.360 ideologies fill that kind of

00:44:31.060 secular gap in countries like

00:44:33.820 Britain which have massively

00:44:35.140 declined in terms of our

00:44:36.240 religious connection with

00:44:37.920 Christianity and so on and

00:44:39.560 politics become the new kind

00:44:42.060 of religion for people I

00:44:44.080 think that that leads to all

00:44:45.400 of the issues that I've been

00:44:46.200 discussing within the civil

00:44:47.280 service and you're right I

00:44:48.320 think this is leading to

00:44:49.460 civilizational decline one of

00:44:51.620 the areas where which is

00:44:52.760 really interesting where DEI

00:44:54.020 does have a major impact and

00:44:55.860 could impact anyone if

00:44:57.640 they're flying for example

00:44:59.000 look at America look at

00:45:00.220 their DEI policies in the air

00:45:02.180 traffic controllers which

00:45:03.100 Obama put in place

00:45:04.600 everything changed very

00:45:06.080 quickly in 2013 when the

00:45:07.320 Obama administration embarked

00:45:08.520 on a plan to diversify the

00:45:10.260 ranks of air traffic

00:45:11.260 controllers Obama's FAA chief

00:45:13.500 at the time announced that

00:45:15.040 he intended to transform the

00:45:16.980 agency which includes air

00:45:18.160 traffic control into a quote

00:45:19.760 more diverse workplace as part

00:45:22.520 of that plan air traffic

00:45:23.520 controllers no longer needed to

00:45:24.980 take a more demanding

00:45:26.120 cognitive assessment before

00:45:27.920 being hired instead all they

00:45:29.100 needed was a high school

00:45:29.800 diploma and the ability to

00:45:31.620 speak English and apparently to

00:45:33.040 do very basic math that like a

00:45:34.780 third grader could do all the

00:45:37.440 tests were dumbed down to the

00:45:38.480 point of being absurd and

00:45:39.860 pointless now the result over

00:45:42.220 the past decade has been

00:45:43.320 exactly what you would expect

00:45:45.360 even if you haven't heard about

00:45:46.660 this the number of air traffic

00:45:48.960 controllers who are not white

00:45:50.860 men has significantly increased

00:45:53.240 while the number of white men has

00:45:55.020 decreased that was the whole

00:45:55.940 idea according to the FAA this is

00:45:57.820 what they tell us coincidentally so

00:46:00.720 have the number of near

00:46:01.920 collisions involving commercial

00:46:03.340 airlines those have increased

00:46:05.400 significantly according to a

00:46:08.140 database maintained by NASA

00:46:09.520 which relies on data self

00:46:10.660 reported by pilots the number of

00:46:12.240 near misses has more than

00:46:13.700 doubled over the past 10 years

00:46:15.420 just the past year there have been

00:46:18.280 more than 300 near misses

00:46:19.860 involving commercial airlines

00:46:21.060 averaging more than five per week

00:46:23.380 and just to emphasize that point

00:46:25.300 again they diversify the FAA and

00:46:29.420 near misses immediately doubled

00:46:31.580 now correlation does not prove

00:46:34.300 causation but it can point towards

00:46:36.840 it and in this case there is a

00:46:38.120 giant glowing sign pointing in

00:46:40.960 that direction of course only a

00:46:43.020 handful of these incidents receive

00:46:44.080 any major media attention so it's

00:46:46.020 easy to underestimate the scale of

00:46:47.580 the problem no matter what social

00:46:49.280 media platforms you frequent you

00:46:51.680 don't really hear a lot about a lot

00:46:53.140 of this and that's why in a moment

00:46:54.740 I'm going to go through some of the

00:46:55.900 near misses that have gotten very

00:46:57.400 little coverage but I'll start with

00:46:58.400 an incident that did get some

00:46:59.460 attention for the national news media

00:47:00.780 because it helps put the broader

00:47:02.100 problem into some context so this

00:47:04.060 incident happened in July when air

00:47:06.680 traffic controllers put two

00:47:07.820 aircraft an allegiant air passenger

00:47:09.340 plane and a Gulfstream jet on a

00:47:11.300 collision course shortly after the

00:47:13.320 allegiant plane had taken off from

00:47:15.280 Fort Lauderdale Hollywood

00:47:16.620 International Airport and here's how

00:47:19.020 that all played out watch the FAA and

00:47:21.940 NTSB are investigating a very close

00:47:24.640 call in the skies over South Florida

00:47:26.780 an Allegiant Airlines plane and a

00:47:29.280 private jet forced to take evasive

00:47:31.660 action to avoid a collision at 23,000

00:47:34.900 feet here's Tom Costello

00:47:37.140 Allegiant Air 485 had just taken off

00:47:40.640 from Fort Lauderdale headed for

00:47:42.260 Lexington Kentucky when it happened

00:47:44.140 the pilot forced to make a sudden

00:47:46.320 extreme climb 600 feet in seconds to

00:47:49.840 avoid another plane throwing flight

00:47:52.180 attendants to the floor and terrifying

00:47:54.100 passengers including Jerrica Thacker and

00:47:56.840 her family flying to Kentucky after a

00:47:59.360 Caribbean cruise it was honestly the

00:48:02.260 scariest thing I've ever been through

00:48:03.540 it felt like when you go on the top of

00:48:05.540 a roller coaster and you go straight

00:48:07.180 down from the highest point the FAA

00:48:09.340 says it happened when controllers put

00:48:11.280 the Allegiant flight and a Gulfstream

00:48:13.180 business jet on intersecting routes

00:48:15.740 both at 23,000 feet that's when both

00:48:20.200 planes collision avoidance warnings

00:48:22.080 known as TCAS activated ordering the

00:48:24.820 Allegiant pilot to immediately climb and

00:48:27.280 the Gulfstream pilot to descend if not

00:48:29.620 for TCAS these airplanes would have

00:48:31.120 gotten very very very close or have

00:48:33.120 potentially collided again it was about

00:48:35.580 lowering standards it was about putting

00:48:37.260 in new tests for people in terms of

00:48:38.920 diversity rather than meritocracy and

00:48:41.240 people are seriously concerned you're not

00:48:43.260 getting people who are trained properly

00:48:45.440 on those jobs in air traffic control which

00:48:48.240 is one of those areas which you'd hope you'd

00:48:49.700 have properly trained people because if

00:48:51.660 you don't and they make mistakes people

00:48:53.840 can die and the same thing applies to

00:48:56.340 pilots so when you have these you know

00:48:58.740 it's probably okay to have a civil servant

00:49:00.260 who's an HR officer in the DWP talking

00:49:03.160 about trans issues it doesn't really impact

00:49:05.160 people in a huge way but when your pilot or

00:49:07.680 your air traffic controller was hired because

00:49:09.820 of their skin color and their kind of you

00:49:13.520 know or race or gender rather than because

00:49:16.500 they're good at the job or we've lowered

00:49:17.860 standards in order to boost diversity in

00:49:19.680 that industry people can die and I think

00:49:22.740 we'll probably see in the next 10 20 years

00:49:24.680 more examples of institutional failure

00:49:27.640 among governments around the world

00:49:29.180 particularly in Western countries that

00:49:30.980 have taken up these woke obsessions

00:49:32.540 there's a very good article in this

00:49:34.480 called complex systems won't survive the

00:49:36.960 competence crisis which breaks a lot of

00:49:38.760 this down particularly in America but I

00:49:40.860 actually think speaking to your point

00:49:42.700 Francis I do think it's actually worse

00:49:44.900 here in Britain than it is in America in

00:49:47.080 some ways because the Americans they still

00:49:49.500 have the willingness to be powerful

00:49:52.180 whereas Britain lost its empire and

00:49:55.420 accepted it and now there is no no will to

00:49:58.680 be great anymore like in America where

00:50:01.180 you're about to go there you'll see when

00:50:02.760 you'd fly around the first people allowed

00:50:05.900 on a plane is not first class or business

00:50:08.420 class or anybody but it's anyone who's a

00:50:10.180 combat veteran or is served in the

00:50:11.720 military they still have this thing of

00:50:13.880 like praising the people who serve their

00:50:15.760 nation and risk their lives to do so

00:50:17.800 but it's it's so it's so worrying that

00:50:22.980 this is our attitude and I guess the

00:50:26.920 question is you exposing it have you you

00:50:30.440 know we've got the Grand Shaps review

00:50:31.960 and you know you're obviously not that

00:50:34.960 convinced that it's going to be a

00:50:36.040 massive success but do you feel that

00:50:38.160 there is some kind of chance that this

00:50:40.260 trend can be addressed or reversed because

00:50:42.860 the truth is yes we've lived a very

00:50:44.980 comfortable life but I think you have to

00:50:47.200 be blind not to see that that is not

00:50:49.660 necessarily going to be the case going

00:50:51.340 forward it's a really interesting

00:50:53.340 question something I thought about a lot

00:50:55.140 is kind of hopefully the impact of my

00:50:57.740 reporting and what's going on within

00:50:59.300 government departments and I try and get

00:51:01.360 feedback when I do a story about the

00:51:03.660 armed forces about the home office and

00:51:05.180 ask my sources in there what do they say

00:51:07.540 about it how do they respond what are

00:51:10.000 people talking about and sometimes I get

00:51:11.960 really positive responses people will

00:51:14.480 send each other messages colleagues and

00:51:15.920 so on and say wow I wonder who leaked

00:51:17.980 this I wonder who exposed that and they'll

00:51:19.520 be like no you know hopefully they don't

00:51:21.260 realize it was actually me and they'll send

00:51:22.480 me those messages so you know some of

00:51:24.140 them I think there's a huge kind of

00:51:25.480 groundswell of support for my reporting

00:51:28.220 amongst many civil servants and I think

00:51:30.220 that once you kind of have one person

00:51:33.080 putting their head above the parapet or

00:51:34.980 leaking a document or exposing a thing that

00:51:38.040 gives a lot more people confidence to

00:51:40.200 push back against this stuff because

00:51:42.160 sometimes it can feel very lonely if

00:51:44.080 you're in a job where all of your bosses

00:51:45.960 are signing up to the DEI stuff you're

00:51:48.600 getting emails about it from senior

00:51:50.040 people about sort of trans day of

00:51:52.080 inclusivity or they're hosting some kind

00:51:53.900 of event where they're talking about

00:51:55.240 critical race theory they're told you know

00:51:57.080 they're telling people to support BLM or

00:51:59.220 to read some woke book about you know

00:52:01.420 white fragility or whatever and suddenly

00:52:03.420 when the press openly this stuff is

00:52:05.960 exposed in the press where ministers to

00:52:08.240 an extent start to talk about it in

00:52:10.320 speeches Shaps is launching his review I

00:52:13.100 think that does give people a certain

00:52:14.460 confidence to say to their manager

00:52:16.680 actually I don't support this this isn't

00:52:18.300 impartial this isn't correct look at what

00:52:20.380 the minister's saying about this we

00:52:22.120 shouldn't be doing these things and

00:52:23.900 particularly those senior civil servants

00:52:25.560 who are making those decisions in the

00:52:27.980 future about trans or race issues I hope

00:52:30.400 and I think to a certain extent they are

00:52:31.900 taking a step back and thinking well

00:52:33.780 actually what why am I doing this what is

00:52:36.600 the impact of this I hope they're taking

00:52:38.740 a more critical perspective and using

00:52:41.180 more critical thinking skills in terms of

00:52:43.740 diversity and inclusion policies and

00:52:45.280 particularly even if it's just what will

00:52:47.340 happen if this gets exposed in the

00:52:48.980 telegraph or the mail how will that

00:52:50.640 impact my own career I think one of the

00:52:53.600 most powerful things you can do as a

00:52:55.060 journalist something that I found really

00:52:57.240 interesting is the thing that civil

00:52:59.600 servants hate most is when they're

00:53:01.660 named they never want to be named in

00:53:04.340 stories they always want to remain

00:53:06.080 anonymous whether they're senior or

00:53:07.540 junior particularly they say civil

00:53:09.460 servant press officers say to

00:53:10.700 journalists all the time oh no you

00:53:12.480 can't name that civil servant who may

00:53:14.700 have done something egregious who may

00:53:16.140 have said something outrageous who may

00:53:17.580 have you know done something completely

00:53:19.580 against political impartiality or

00:53:21.060 whatever oh you can't name them because

00:53:22.920 they're too junior you can't they say

00:53:24.560 you can't name them because there's a

00:53:26.060 rule or there's some sort of agreement

00:53:27.820 between journalists and the civil

00:53:29.320 service that you don't name junior

00:53:31.380 civil servants there's no such rule

00:53:32.860 there's no such law there's no there's

00:53:34.320 no regulation that says that it's an

00:53:35.900 ethical judgment by editors to say does

00:53:38.840 this person really have the

00:53:39.840 responsibility and the authority over

00:53:41.900 what they've done and how egregious is

00:53:43.840 it and what how much in the public

00:53:44.900 interest is it for us to name this

00:53:46.620 civil servant and the reason they don't

00:53:47.680 want to be named is because they claim

00:53:50.380 it's because of you know they might be

00:53:51.520 bullied or something like that no it's

00:53:53.620 because of their career progression

00:53:54.680 and if if an employer even in the civil

00:53:57.260 service is googling their name and

00:53:58.720 suddenly they're mentioning an article

00:53:59.840 that doesn't look great for them that

00:54:01.880 looks like they're a bit of a

00:54:02.620 troublemaker or at least they've done

00:54:03.700 something wrong for us to be reporting

00:54:05.400 on it and they've got to do something

00:54:06.500 pretty wrong for us to actually name

00:54:07.940 them if they're a junior guy if they're

00:54:09.440 senior people it's a slightly different

00:54:10.800 situation because those people have

00:54:12.320 responsibility and authority and we

00:54:13.720 have there's a stronger public interest

00:54:15.320 in naming those individual civil

00:54:16.740 servants so I think as journalists we can

00:54:19.640 have a big impact I hope on some of the

00:54:22.340 decisions that are making it inside

00:54:23.740 various Whitehall departments but

00:54:25.400 interestingly enough actually the fight

00:54:27.660 back within the civil service is

00:54:29.240 occurring independent of journalists

00:54:31.340 and independent of pressure from

00:54:33.440 people like me and newspapers there's an

00:54:36.320 organization called scene in the civil

00:54:39.100 service which represents gender critical

00:54:41.000 civil servants it was set up in October

00:54:43.280 2022 it was what the first of its kind and

00:54:46.700 this was following the my four starter case

00:54:48.360 which I'm sure you guys are very aware of

00:54:49.840 where gender critical beliefs are now

00:54:51.700 protected against discrimination under law

00:54:53.920 under the equality act of 2010 and this

00:54:56.380 means that civil servants can generate their

00:54:59.060 own network their own group across Whitehall to

00:55:02.780 talk about gender critical beliefs and they're

00:55:06.200 enabled to do this because of the my four

00:55:08.080 starter case in law so the cabinet office

00:55:09.740 agreed that they could set up this

00:55:11.020 organization there's over 700 members of

00:55:13.700 scene now across the civil service which is

00:55:15.340 very impressive they've ran surveys of their

00:55:17.680 members discussing sort of widespread bullying

00:55:20.040 harassment of civil servants for holding

00:55:21.640 gender critical beliefs some of the stories

00:55:23.400 that I've reported on have exposed some of

00:55:24.920 this harassment for example a gender critical

00:55:27.520 civil servant was accused of holding beliefs

00:55:29.720 similar to the Nazis in a call in which senior

00:55:32.260 civil servants were there and said nothing to

00:55:33.860 defend them in another situation a gender

00:55:36.720 critical civil servant in the DWP was in a call

00:55:40.400 about International Women's Day a sort of

00:55:42.000 discussion about that and she said there are

00:55:45.280 there she said quote there are two sides to the

00:55:47.460 trans debate that was used in an official

00:55:49.960 investigation against her that someone

00:55:53.100 complained that that was bullying and harassment

00:55:55.940 and discrimination saying there are two sides to

00:55:57.940 the trans debate and in an official investigation by

00:56:00.680 the department she was given an official warning

00:56:03.480 and that quote was used as evidence against her as

00:56:05.680 harassment so what Sina doing is they're pushing

00:56:09.340 back against this stuff they've written to Simon

00:56:11.620 Casey's the cabinet secretary the head of the

00:56:13.340 civil service to raise their concerns they're

00:56:15.460 meeting with senior civil servants they recently

00:56:17.200 met with the permanent secretary at the math the

00:56:19.840 home office called Matthew Rycroft who is the what

00:56:22.520 they call this ridiculous name the gender no no the

00:56:26.320 faith and belief champion of the civil service now

00:56:30.280 just a very quick side note Matthew Rycroft is the

00:56:33.200 man in charge of our police and our border policy and

00:56:37.260 he spends time being a faith and belief and a race

00:56:40.520 champion in the civil service to talk about trans

00:56:43.060 issues why he's wasting any time on that I don't

00:56:44.940 know but anyway so Sina have done some fantastic

00:56:47.460 things where they've really been pushing back

00:56:49.780 internally against some of these woke policies

00:56:52.260 they found documents that they're upset about they

00:56:55.600 sent it to senior civil servants pro-trans stuff for

00:56:58.080 example and to give you an example one of the things

00:57:00.800 they found recently in a letter they wrote to Simon

00:57:02.720 Case agender now agender is a network for pro-trans

00:57:07.380 civil servants so there's lots of different networks

00:57:09.320 across the civil service as I mentioned earlier there's

00:57:11.300 93 networks in the MOD specifically for talking

00:57:15.400 about diversity and inclusion 14 for race so all

00:57:18.160 across Whitehall there are all of these groups which

00:57:19.880 by the way I don't think should exist but a total

00:57:21.960 waste of time but anyway they exist and that's the

00:57:24.700 reality agender is the pro-trans group in the civil

00:57:28.680 service they they came up with training slides which

00:57:32.100 compared gender critical people to the KKK and racist

00:57:35.420 nationalists now that's totally unacceptable civil

00:57:38.020 servants should never say that sort of thing I mean

00:57:40.680 it's just it's discriminatory it's bullying it's

00:57:43.300 horrible so they're again exposing these things

00:57:46.280 internally they're having those conversations which is

00:57:48.300 really impressive on the race front the and I think

00:57:51.600 generally and I know maybe you guys disagree with this

00:57:53.500 but I think generally the people who are opposed to the

00:57:55.640 critical race theory and the civil service at least in

00:57:57.520 my experience the people who approach me about these

00:57:59.420 stories tend to be more conservative minded less focused

00:58:02.900 on let's say being feminists and sort of turfs and more

00:58:05.360 focused on you know kind of this anti-white propaganda it could

00:58:08.000 be leftists could be conservatives but generally it's

00:58:09.440 conservatives those people are far less organized they

00:58:12.040 don't have their own organization partly because there

00:58:14.680 is no protection in law for anti-critical race theory

00:58:16.900 beliefs yet and that actually could change soon there's some

00:58:19.800 interesting legal cases that's going through the system now

00:58:22.320 where that may become a protected belief under law so and I

00:58:26.220 hope it will I think there was a recent success I can't

00:58:28.320 remember the exact details but a recent success in one of the

00:58:30.120 courts to do with that so they don't have their own

00:58:32.100 organization they don't have their own network the

00:58:33.760 anti-critical race theory but they do speak to each other to

00:58:36.900 a certain extent they do blow the whistle on a lot of stuff

00:58:40.300 that's going on in Whitehall and again they're having an

00:58:42.440 impact externally through newspaper reports and so on so I

00:58:46.380 am that was a very long-winded answer but I am basically

00:58:48.580 hopeful that there is there are some successes going on but

00:58:51.600 unfortunately the other side of it is Labour about to come

00:58:53.720 into the Parliament very very soon probably so things are

00:58:56.540 going to get better so things I expect will get a lot worse

00:58:59.300 unfortunately but but you know there are some brave civil

00:59:01.420 servants out there who are fighting this stuff and I think

00:59:03.380 will continue to do so.

00:59:04.560 Stephen we've talked about this and we've covered almost every

00:59:07.540 facet of it there's one part that we haven't covered when you

00:59:10.660 think that we're living through a cost-of-living crisis when

00:59:12.860 every government department is having its budget slashed how much

00:59:17.580 money are we wasting on this nonsense?

00:59:19.940 It's difficult to calculate because partly because the

00:59:22.720 government doesn't release the figures partly because it's so

00:59:26.080 bureaucratic that it's very difficult to find where they're

00:59:29.000 spending this money I think we know it's in the billions there

00:59:32.180 was a report a couple of years ago from I think Conservative

00:59:34.760 Way Forward that estimated it to be around seven or eight

00:59:37.200 billion pounds they're spending on diversity and inclusion

00:59:39.480 kind of policies and bureaucracy.

00:59:42.000 Is that across the board?

00:59:42.820 Across the board exactly which is a lot of money but it's also

00:59:46.180 having other detrimental effects on let's say procurement

00:59:49.180 where suddenly a good example of this is HS2 where suddenly

00:59:52.520 contracts are being handed out based on...

00:59:54.740 Sorry to stop because we've got a global audience and they'll be

00:59:57.040 like HS2 is the new high-speed rail project that the government

01:00:01.440 have been spending a long time talking about and it's currently

01:00:04.160 being built very costly huge 100 billion pound project where

01:00:07.880 they're connecting London to parts of the north of England

01:00:10.260 through a high-speed rail network and there have been huge

01:00:13.760 issues of the budget being inflated massively you know hugely

01:00:18.240 over cost and sort of what's the word I'm thinking of it hasn't

01:00:23.860 been delivered in time.

01:00:24.760 For contracts for HS2 diversity have suddenly become a kind

01:00:31.240 of tick box that companies have to comply with so this can interfere

01:00:36.160 in all sorts of ways where and particularly under a Labour government

01:00:39.200 by the way where they want to introduce legislation potentially that

01:00:43.060 would prioritise black-owned businesses in government contracts which is a

01:00:46.920 completely racist and disgusting policy could also lead to massive corruption

01:00:51.040 so this is the Labour's race equality act that they want to instigate

01:00:54.520 potentially they're still sort of discussing their plans we don't know

01:00:57.520 exactly what they're going to do but this is something that one of the

01:00:59.600 proposals that's come up people in the Treasury that I know are terrified of

01:01:03.040 this policy because it could cause as I said massive corruption it's also

01:01:05.640 morally abhorrent so this is not just it's not just about the amount of money

01:01:10.520 we're spending on diversity officers or on networks or on whatever it's

01:01:15.440 actually about the way that diversity can impact procurement decisions impact

01:01:20.280 really important decisions on spending where that also skews excuse taxpayer money

01:01:25.760 away so this could you know we don't really know how much it's costing but I

01:01:28.640 suspect it's a huge amount of money yeah Stephen it's been great to have you on we

01:01:32.620 are going to go to locals for our supporters questions in a second but as

01:01:36.020 always we end with the same question which is what's the one thing we're not

01:01:39.000 talking about as a society that we should be before Stephen answers at the

01:01:44.220 end of the interview make sure to head over to our locals the links in the

01:01:48.420 description to see this it's the first time in almost 250 years that we've seen

01:01:53.580 a kind of religious mob cowing Parliament and cowing the speaker of

01:01:58.440 Parliament this is really not normal let's not normalize the fact that MPs are

01:02:03.180 being murdered by Islamic extremists did you or any other of your colleagues at

01:02:07.500 the Telegraph consider resigning had the UAE backed investment fund taking

01:02:12.220 control of it if you're going to interview Vladimir Putin in the current

01:02:15.900 geopolitical context you have a duty to be informed I agree but I don't think

01:02:21.000 Tucker knew and how would he know that Putin would go down that historical

01:02:24.780 rabbit hole you can't be informed about everything about Russia something I'm

01:02:29.260 totally fascinated with as a journalist and just as a punter is history and I

01:02:34.880 love reading history and I love reading historical comparisons to what's going on

01:02:39.440 today and in the past and I think that people as journalists we don't talk

01:02:44.780 enough about history I don't think that it's some I think it's something that we

01:02:48.080 tend to ignore I think history you can learn there's so many lessons so many

01:02:51.800 things that you know errors that we that we're repeating today and I really hope

01:02:55.340 they're not just journalists but politicians intellectuals and so on we'll start to

01:02:58.640 think a bit more about about historical comparisons their own countries culture and

01:03:02.460 history and that's something I think that we don't talk about enough now I know

01:03:05.940 some people are interested in it and but others aren't and if you look at

01:03:08.760 contemporary politicians people like Liz Truss you know even Rishi Sunak to a

01:03:13.180 certain extent I don't think that they they have that kind of historical basis

01:03:17.280 that historical mindset that perhaps historical intellectualism that politicians

01:03:22.400 and perhaps even journalists in the past did have so I think that's something

01:03:26.080 that people should focus on more. That's so true and actually we have probably

01:03:30.400 interviewed a bunch of historians for a show that's mostly cultural and

01:03:33.880 political and we've got a ton more coming out because I couldn't agree with

01:03:38.940 more if you don't understand your own history then you really have no idea where

01:03:44.320 you're going and I think it's so important particularly in a world where people

01:03:48.760 are just losing touch with with what made their societies what they are. I don't know

01:03:54.740 we just interviewed Andrew Roberts about his book about Winston Churchill and like I

01:04:00.640 talking to him I realized how uneducated I was about Churchill and I'm probably more

01:04:06.080 educated than many people about Churchill himself so yeah I couldn't agree with him

01:04:11.420 more it's a really really important point. Yeah and I also think it ties into as well

01:04:15.120 I always cringe when I see conservatives saying oh you shouldn't study an English

01:04:18.680 degree you shouldn't go to university to study English and then you complain that

01:04:22.560 people who don't understand their culture so how can you understand what it

01:04:26.260 means to be English if you don't understand Shakespeare if you've never

01:04:29.040 read Dickens if you've never read if you don't understand the art that has been

01:04:33.640 produced by our country that has literally changed the world. I totally agree and by

01:04:38.360 the way the one thing I might disagree I don't know if but it's about

01:04:41.400 university I didn't go to university I don't think you need to go to university I

01:04:45.400 think you can teach yourself you can be an autodidact that's something that I've

01:04:49.040 done particularly in my fascination with history I've read Andrew Roberts

01:04:51.260 fantastic biography of Churchill and Napoleon and others and I think I just

01:04:54.760 urge everyone you don't have to do that you don't have to go down that route

01:04:57.920 particularly if you want to go into something like journalism it's a it's a

01:05:00.720 trade it's not a profession you don't need to go to university to study stuff

01:05:03.700 you can you can learn by yourself there's so much stuff on the internet and I

01:05:07.560 think that you know that's somewhere again where I just I'm a bit worried

01:05:10.400 that too many people today are just going down that academic route without

01:05:14.380 thinking about it. Perfect well we've got two for the price of one join us over on

01:05:18.080 locals where we continue the conversation. John Bryce says does Stephen think it's

01:05:23.620 still possible for a young person to have a long-term career in journalism and I

01:05:27.360 imagine he means mainstream journalism. Yeah. Yeah.

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TRIGGERnometry - May 01, 2024

How Wokeness is Destroying the British Army - Steven Edginton

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