Peter Blexley returns to the show to discuss the attack on a synagogue in Manchester, and the heroic actions of armed police in responding to the attack, and to ask the question: were the police prepared for this?
00:00:00.480Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of, unscheduled episode of Trigonometry, of course related to the terrible attack in Manchester on a synagogue yesterday.
00:00:10.680Joining us again, returning to the show, is former police detective Peter Blexley. Peter, welcome back.
00:00:16.880It's a terrible thing for all of us that we only get to see each other when terrible things happen, but that is where we are.
00:00:23.420What do we know, first and foremost, about what happened yesterday?
00:00:26.800Okay, at 9.31am yesterday, Thursday 2nd October 2025, a member of the public dialled 999, calling the emergency services, and they reported that they had seen a car drive in to people, and that the driver of that car had got out and was attacking people with a knife.
00:00:49.700So that was the scene setter for the people receiving that call, and the information that's then going to be relayed to the police and other emergency services.
00:01:01.500What we then know is that at 9.37am, probably based on other information that had come forward, Greater Manchester Police declared this as a major incident,
00:01:14.980and that means that other resources basically can be deployed to it, and at 9.38am, we know, and the footage has been widely available on social media and elsewhere,
00:01:29.920that armed police officers shot a 35-year-old man, Jihad al-Shami, who was apparently born in Syria and came to Britain as a child.
00:01:46.040Jihad al-Shami had had what looked like a potentially explosive device strapped around his waist.
00:01:54.180Again, the images are widely available on social media and broadly mainstream media.
00:02:01.220After he'd been shot, because he has a device that the police do not know whether that is a viable bomb or not,
00:02:13.260they have to work on the theory that it is.
00:02:16.420And so, of course, huge caution has to be exercised here.
00:02:21.500A bomb disposal robot was deployed, which then carried out a controlled explosion of what appeared to be the device on Jihad al-Shami's body.
00:02:36.420They later told us that, in fact, it was not a viable device.
00:02:41.600And I would imagine, in my opinion, something designed to spread fear and terror into the very hearts and soul of anybody that saw it,
00:02:53.680along, of course, with his murderous actions.
00:02:57.500And as we move on to that, tragically, two people were killed by him, were stabbed to death by him,
00:03:05.260although there has been recent reports that one of the victims, one of the dead people, did, in fact, have a gunshot wound.
00:03:15.160And Jihad al-Shami did not have a weapon.
00:03:18.900So that gunshot wound must have come from a weapon fired by a police officer.
00:03:26.000I'll perhaps touch on that in just a little while.
00:03:29.620Three people remain in hospital, seriously injured.
00:03:33.940And that is, with a very broad brush, the dreadful, appalling, terrorist events that happened at a synagogue in Crumpsell, Manchester, yesterday.
00:03:48.580Now, one of the things that I think it's really worth saying, well, two things, really.
00:03:53.240One, of course, the thoughts of everybody will be with the victims, their families, the people who are in hospital.
00:03:58.540We hope for the swift and speedy recovery and full recovery.
00:04:01.780But the other thing, before we get into the other ramifications of this, is, you know, on this show, we are often critical of certain aspects of what people have described as two-tier policing.
00:04:13.460There's criticism, rightfully, in my opinion, under police.
00:04:16.860But in this instance, you have to say that this is an incredibly fast response.
00:04:21.620To get there in seven minutes and deal with the terrorist threat in this way is a testament to their professionalism.
00:04:29.160Was there also a stroke of luck, do you think, in them getting there that quickly?
00:04:33.340Is this a standard speed of response to this kind of incident?
00:04:36.180Like your show, when justifiable, I am a very fervent and vocal critic of the police.
00:04:44.060Likewise, when they do brilliant things, and our police do do brilliant things, they are rightfully deserving of praise.
00:04:53.280What we don't know about yesterday's timings, in other words, they were there and they'd shot him dead within seven minutes.
00:05:02.540We don't know if those armed police officers were nearby by default, by design or by luck.
00:05:13.420That will come out, I'm sure, in the ongoing inquiry.
00:05:17.420Perhaps they were deployed to be close to synagogues, because, of course, it was the most holy day in the Hebrew calendar yesterday, Yom Kippur.
00:05:27.460It would make sense if the police, given the heightened tensions in the world and in Britain today,
00:05:34.800had deployed more armed police officers to be in those kind of locations.
00:05:41.940Either way, what is clear to me, from the footage that I've seen, everything I've heard, everything I've read,
00:05:51.620those police officers, having initially shot Jihad al-Shammi, saw him fall to the floor,
00:05:59.760and then he starts to move again, after having been originally shot.
00:06:05.860Those officers, without any concern for their own safety, by the looks of the footage,
00:06:16.720were less than 15 metres away from Jihad al-Shammi as he laid on the ground.
00:06:23.140As he tries to lift himself back up, I don't know, but I would imagine that perhaps the officers thought,
00:06:32.020is he going to come at us again with a knife, and he's already wreaked so much havoc,
00:06:40.040or is there a possibility that he's going to detonate that device?
00:06:45.960And had that device been viable, and had he detonated it,
00:06:52.720then in all probability, those police officers would not be here today.
00:06:57.860But they got close enough so they could engage him, and they then shot him again as he tried to get up from the ground.
00:07:06.380And I would imagine it would be perhaps the final fatal shot, but all of this will come out at a later inquiry.
00:07:13.600Peter, so we know that the belt wasn't viable, the bomb wasn't viable.
00:07:19.120Is there another reason why these terrorists wear those belts, is so that they almost ensure the fact that they're never going to be captured?
00:07:27.380Because the police really have to kill them.
00:07:29.960They have no other option, because you simply can't risk the detonation of a bomb in a crowded area like that, next to a place of worship.
00:07:37.740Yeah, I think you raise a very good point here.
00:07:40.700Perhaps it is, in their sick, twisted, evil minds, perhaps it is a way that they can try and claim some form of martyrdom by being shot dead by the police.
00:07:57.620He is a murderous, repugnant, repulsive piece of garbage.
00:08:02.780And the good thing about the police shooting him dead is that he will never be able to carry out such despicable acts ever again.
00:08:11.720One of the worrying things about the case, I mean, there's lots of worrying things about the case, but one of the particularly worrying things for me was, is that he wasn't known to the authorities.
00:08:21.520He wasn't known to counterterrorism, which then begs the question, well, if somebody like him, who is clearly as extreme as he was,
00:08:31.640and there were reports which haven't been confirmed, that he sent death threats to a conservative MP, aren't they thinking, well, how many of these people, how many other jihad al-Shamis are there wandering the streets, who we don't know about, as well as all the people on terrorist watch lists, who we do?
00:08:48.860Well, we know that of the people that are of interest to the security services and counterterrorism police, around about 75 or 80% of that workload is radical Islamists.
00:09:18.960Then if he did do that, and he has not been referred to counterterrorism police, or even local police, at the very, very least, that will be a major failing.
00:09:31.100But we will have to wait and see what happens as a result of that.
00:09:34.740But while we're talking about MPs, and I'd just like to echo your words right at the top of this interview, and thank you.
00:09:41.780Of course, my thoughts with the family and the loved ones of those who lost their lives, and those who are still in hospital, and all of that community.
00:09:51.480But let's think about MPs, because, of course, we've had two MPs murdered in recent times, Sir David Amis and Joe Cox.
00:10:00.660We've got a lot of bloodshed in this country, unfortunately.
00:10:06.720So there should be huge attention and suitable resources, when required, deployed to the MPs where we do feel there's a risk.
00:10:18.580And on that very note, what happened this week?
00:10:21.600We heard that the Home Office had cut the funding for Nigel Farage's security by 80%.
00:10:30.520And they'd offered up a kind of mix and match, whereby 20% of funding, so 20% of security staff, would come from the Home Office side of things.
00:10:42.600And the remainder would have to be made up from private costs, and a different security company, which would have been, of course, largely unworkable.
00:11:03.140Peter, can I take you back a little bit?
00:11:05.180We'll talk about the political ramifications of this, I'm sure.
00:11:07.940You mentioned that almost immediately the decision was made to designate this a major incident.
00:11:16.300How would that decision have been made so quickly?
00:11:19.400Is it because there was reports of somebody stabbing numerous people, or would they have had some other information going, this guy is actually potentially a terrorist?
00:11:29.400How did they know so quickly that it was a major incident?
00:11:32.320There's a number of criteria that have to be met by somebody senior within the control headquarters of Greater Manchester Police.
00:11:42.700I'm sure that the 931 call wasn't the only call they got.
00:11:46.380We know there were other people there.
00:13:18.700You don't have to be Sherlock to work out what his motivations probably were.
00:13:23.660So how great a threat does this ideology pose to this country, to the stability of the country and to the safety of people?
00:13:35.54080% of the workload of counterterrorism police and MR5, radical Islam.
00:13:42.940That's a huge chunk of their workload.
00:13:46.400And they're just the ones they know about.
00:13:48.420The security services and our counterterrorism police, while we sleep soundly in our beds, together with some hugely courageous people, are out there thwarting plots, observing people, endeavouring to frustrate and otherwise stop murderous terrorist plots.
00:14:12.240And they do that 365 days of the year.
00:14:21.320Of course, with the scale of the problem, as it is, there are going to be individuals that act alone or in a small cell that does not come to the attention prior to the police or the security services.
00:15:19.600We have getting on for 4 million Muslims in the UK.
00:15:26.320Many of whom, of course, are law-abiding, peaceful, worship as they want to, contribute to the country, pay their taxes.
00:15:36.540But there are some that don't, some that make up that 80% of the security services and counter-terror police's workload.
00:15:47.820And bear with me one moment while I just delve into my phone, because this is apposite and relevant as I see it.
00:15:59.200In the last five days, for the figures that are available, in the last five days, 2,037 illegal migrants have entered the UK on 30 dinghies.
00:16:19.1002,037 people who are not, with a sweeping statement, going to say they are all Islamic jihadis, right?
00:16:31.840But we don't know where they've come from.
00:16:41.020And we don't know how they're going to fill their time while they are in the UK.
00:16:48.140And because we have had an abhorrent government, followed by another pathetic government, who are not gripping this problem, who are allowing these people into our shores, in fact, with the help of border force and such like, facilitating it by bringing them in on their vessels.
00:17:36.460It is an absolute disgrace that our government are not stopping it, because time, sadly, will tell us that amongst that number are coming, are people coming to our shores who are a threat.
00:17:53.520If not a terrorist threat, then a threat in terms of so many people that we've seen arrested for sexual offences and the such like.
00:18:01.960And it's a great point, because, look, we can then turn around and point the finger at police, counterterrorism.
00:18:07.460But then the police and counterterrorism can go, look, there's only so much we can do.
00:18:12.360And we're working as hard as we possibly can.
00:18:15.400Eventually, one is going to slip through.
00:18:17.240Well, on that very thing, I was speaking to somebody earlier today who is, I won't give the details, but who's familiar with the security case workload.
00:18:25.240And he was saying, basically, there's so many plots now being stopped.
00:18:30.800Everybody always knew at least one, maybe more, I hope not, would get through by the year end, because there have been so many of these, because the scale of the problem now is so vast.
00:18:42.740Yeah, and let's face it, let's talk about some more uncomfortable truths, shall we?
00:18:49.620Many of these people, and I'm talking about immigrant populations that have come together, live together.
00:18:58.200They occupy street after street in their own little environment, their enclave.
00:19:04.620And I can see why people who come to this country as a migrant might be attracted to wanting to live in the same street as another migrant.
00:19:13.340But it's not really integrating, is it?
00:19:15.860If all you're doing is living with people that look like you, talk like you, sound like you, as an immigrant, you're not really integrating, are you?
00:19:26.660If ever I was to live in another country, the last thing I'd want to do is live in a community surrounded by expats, British expats.
00:19:34.140That wouldn't be the point of going to live abroad, would it?
00:19:39.100So when you've got, you know, we have a huge number of people that are off the radar, live in the black economy.
00:19:47.320We know all this because we see so often when immigration officials or border force or people from HMRC carry out searches, raids on premises,
00:20:03.020and they end up levying fines because people are here illegally and working illegally.
00:20:07.920The bottom line is our nation does not know the identity of everybody here, and we don't know how many undocumented people living under the radar there are.
00:20:21.000Well, up to a million at this point from some of the figures.
00:20:24.940Peter, I know it's a tangential question because this person, as far as we know, this jihad guy was not monitored by Prevent.
00:24:14.360This is about people who feel entitled to kill and maim and destroy other people's lives purely for a political and religious ideology.
00:24:23.300My question is, when are we going to just be honest about this and talk about it bluntly instead of hiding behind terms like, oh, hate and hate must never be allowed to exist and all of this, quite frankly, bollocks that we're talking about?
00:24:39.200So terrorism driven by a faith and political kind of motivation is no stranger to me, because I grew up every time going on a bus or the underground or an overground train looking for an unattended bag, because the IRA carried out attack after attack after attack after attack during my childhood and into adulthood.
00:25:07.040And, of course, the IRAs bomb took some of my B division colleagues with it, tragically, and injured many others.
00:25:14.460So I've had a terrorist threat virtually for as long as I can think of or remember.
00:25:21.360That threat, of course, was tackled by politics, because we eventually, thanks to the brilliance of, and he never gets very much pressed for this,
00:25:34.960the process being started by John Major, then Blair, of course, who took all the glory, but people like Mo Molen and many, many others who, I hope they'll forgive me because I've forgotten their names.
00:25:50.120Many, many people played a huge, huge part in bringing about the Good Friday Agreement.
00:25:58.080So when it's politics, essentially driven by faith, I think it can be tackled.
00:26:06.360When, however, somebody's grievance and their hatred is driven purely by a religious ideology without kind of trying to establish any acceptable political norm, how do you tackle it?
00:26:42.020That's a significant growth of that population in my lifetime.
00:26:47.160I think those figures, understandably, alarm many people.
00:26:53.740A lack of integration, driven by hatred, an ideology, a religious ideology, which people certainly are, and I would fundamentally suggest Jihad al-Shamid was yesterday,
00:27:09.140is a deeply worrying thing, and I don't suspect there's going to be any simple answers to it.
00:27:16.040But there may be multiple answers, if only people were willing to grasp the nettle, stand up, be courageous, and say, this is what needs to be done.
00:27:26.700But what are the answers, though, Peter?
00:27:28.660What are some of the answers to dealing with it?
00:27:30.840Because I've heard a lot of people make the comparison with Northern Ireland, and for the reasons you give, I think it's completely inappropriate,
00:27:37.160for the very reasons that you state, because Northern Irish terrorism in the mainland of Britain was about achieving the political end of a united island.
00:27:46.600And let's say the government of the day had been willing to do that, we would not have had terrorism in this country.
00:27:53.020But I don't even know if the British state was prepared to surrender to Islamism, might well be at this point, frankly, what the surrender would be.
00:28:03.120Like, what do these people want from us, exactly?
00:28:06.400Why are they killing our fellow citizens?
00:28:39.880Now, of course, I sincerely hope that's a plan that will never come to succeed and can be thwarted and won't be, won't be the desire of the moderate Muslims, but is the desire of the lunatics off the scale radical Islamists.
00:29:04.880You know, it's Friday, so I'll probably go for a curry tonight.
00:29:09.960My local curry house is amazing, and it's run by Muslim fellas, right?
00:29:16.120The father, who's since retired, originally came over from Bangladesh 40-odd years ago, ran the business, drew it, wonderful restaurant, amazing, a real kind of centre point for the community, and he's handed it over to his boy now, okay?
00:29:37.300And I say to him, a few weeks ago, again, McCurry, I said to him, you know, what do I say to people who are concerned about the rise of Islam and are concerned about people who claim that they're here to take over and not to live side by side and contribute?
00:29:55.740And he says, well, he says, it's them not, isn't he?
00:29:59.780Because, of course, there's a huge great division, isn't there, in Islam between Sunni and Shia.
00:30:05.020He said, it's them, he said, it's not us.
00:30:07.840He said, my dad came here 40 years ago, built this business, provided our family with a great living.
00:30:14.580He said, why would I want to change anything?
00:30:27.340But, of course, his moderate, as I would call it, version of his faith that he follows, is very, very different, I would suggest, to somebody who went to a synagogue in Manchester yesterday.
00:30:41.600So, coming back to ways of dealing with this problem, what are your thoughts?
00:30:51.980I'm not the most learned man on the planet, as I've made blatantly obvious.
00:30:58.060I'm an ex-cop and a keen observer of life.
00:31:02.060I think the problems are probably multiple.
00:31:06.500How do we stop people being radicalised in this day and age of the internet?
00:31:13.720Very, very difficult, I would suggest.
00:31:18.500I think there's a huge responsibility on people that come to this country, or live in this country, to have concern, compassion for their fellow citizen.
00:31:32.540Listen, if I knew that either of you were a danger, I would be on the phone within the blink of an eye, because I love my fellow citizens, and I love this nation.
00:31:49.160If anybody has a suspicion, or they know that somebody is a danger, and they do not notify the authorities of that, then they are an enemy of this state.
00:32:03.360But the problem is, Peter, there is a lot of people like that.
00:32:06.800We've seen it, not just with this particular crime, but crimes going back 20, 30 years.
00:32:12.200You look at the members of the grooming gangs, family members were covering it up, and you just go, wives, covering up for their rapist husband, daughters, sons, all the rest of it.
00:32:24.080And you think to yourself, these are people who have no alliance.
00:32:28.760They have no connection to this country.
00:32:31.620Their only connection is to their clan, to put it quite frankly, or to their religion.
00:32:41.700And I genuinely think that unless we are prepared, and by us, I mean the political class, to have a very uncomfortable conversation about this, that's got to be the first step.
00:32:53.640But we can't even have an uncomfortable conversation without saying, oh, we need to stop online, hey.
00:32:59.560I'm up for the uncomfortable conversation.
00:33:32.960Now, he came here as a young boy, so you can make the argument, okay, well, he could be stripped of his British citizenship.
00:33:38.760But we know that's not going to happen.
00:33:40.360What, are you going to send him back to Syria?
00:33:41.960There is no way in a million years that that was going to be allowed to happen, even if he provided the level, if they knew he provided the level of threat that he did.
00:33:51.100And he hadn't been sent to his maker by Greater Manchester Police.
00:34:02.500And I completely agree with you when you say it's going to require brave conversations.
00:34:10.020I look at some parts of London these days.
00:34:15.260And, of course, I'm old enough to remember Brixton and Notting Hill when they became centres for Afro-Caribbean communities that drew one another together and lived together.
00:34:28.580And, of course, I policed Beckham, where there was a sizable Afro-Caribbean population.
00:34:35.280But some of the swathes of East London and other major cities, there's talk about your Rochdale's, Oldham's and so on and so forth, where there's communities that don't look very integrated to me in any way, shape or form.
00:34:55.560And then, is it an intractable problem?
00:35:01.200Do we all just have to say, well, that's how it is.
00:35:04.300Governments aren't going to do anything about it.
00:35:29.500I could see people rising up to fight against, if there became a significant amount of people that followed one particular faith that was hugely damaging and wanted to take over, like some of those clowns on social media claim they do, then I could see a huge number of people rising up to take that on, head on.
00:35:53.560And this is the worrying thing, the fact that you actually said that.
00:35:59.980And a few years ago, I'd be like, oh, come on, Peter, chill out, mate.
00:36:03.660Let's keep within the realms of reality here.
00:36:08.120But you're saying that and I'm going, well, that's not outside the realms of possibility because that's where it feels that we are.
00:37:29.720And that's where I think we get into a lot of difficulty because the mainstream media is already in overdrive mode to, you know, the Emily Maitlis and John Soppel on their podcast yesterday.
00:37:44.140They were talking about the fact that the real problem is the right wing journalists who are exploiting this tragedy.
00:38:05.380But Emily Maitlis and John Soppel are two former respected, I'm using inverted commas for people who are listening, authoritative using inverted commas, balanced inverted commas, unbiased inverted commas, stalwarts of the BBC, the national broadcaster, until like two years ago.
00:38:23.900Right. So we are talking about the very core of the center of the mainstream media in this country.
00:38:31.240And what they're already attempting to do is to distract people's attention away from the fact that this type of terrorism and this type of incident is coming from a very particular subset of the migrant population.
00:38:46.340Radical Islam. And the reason they're doing this is very clear, because one of the things that you see Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, talk about this, you know, this guy was, how did she phrase it?
00:38:58.580I don't want to get it wrong, but he is the only one responsible.
00:39:22.080Not at all. And so I guess what I'm saying is one of the reasons that they're attempting to say that this is not that Islamism has nothing to do with Islam.
00:39:30.780I mean, how you can say anything of that kind with a straight face is hard to understand, is that the inevitable logical conclusion of believing that Islamism has something to do with Islam is what you said, which is if you have four million people who are the overwhelming majority of whom are peaceful and law abiding and wonderful people and so on.
00:39:53.100But if a small percentage of the Muslim community are prone to this kind of extremism, then the greater your Muslim population, the greater the absolute number of people in your country who are prone to this kind of extremism.
00:40:06.360And the logical conclusion of that is you have to stop pretending that all immigrants are the same.
00:40:12.180You have to stop pretending that all cultures are the same.
00:40:14.920You have to stop pretending that all religions are the same, as you pointed out about Jewish terrorism in Europe.
00:40:22.100And then, unfortunately, you have to start dealing with the reality that not everyone is the same.
00:40:27.500And that is the greatest threat to everything that we are forced to believe, because then you have to start treating different people differently.
00:40:35.600You have to start saying, well, according to the numbers, people who have come from this particular part of Syria are way more likely than other people to commit terrorism or rape or whatever.
00:40:45.760And therefore, if we are going to allow people from that part of the country of the world to come, if we are going to do that at all, we have to have extra vetting.
00:40:54.540We have to be extra thorough. We definitely have to close the bloody border, because when your border is open, you don't know who's coming in.
00:41:00.340Right. But all of that makes our elite.
00:41:04.860It's so uncomfortable that what they would rather do is what Francis is talking about.
00:41:09.020When David Ames gets murdered by an Islamist, let's talk about online.
00:41:12.480And hey, when this happens, let's talk about not looking back in anger, as they did after the Manchester Arena bombing.
00:41:19.480And that's why you guys are talking about having an honest conversation.
00:41:23.480The honest conversation is not all cultures are the same and not all religions are the same.
00:41:28.100And until we recognize that, we're not going to do anything about this problem.
00:43:11.180We don't have to listen to those people.
00:43:13.940I occasionally listen to another unhinged lunatic left broadcaster just because I want to know what the enemy are thinking.
00:43:22.100But I normally suffer it only for about 10 minutes and then I have to get a grip of myself once again and move back to sanity.
00:43:31.560Because the big issue that's coming out of those appalling events of yesterday now is not only the protests that took part last night in Whitehall,
00:43:42.240but the protests that are planned for tomorrow, Saturday.
00:43:47.940It's Defend Our Juries, isn't it, in Trafalgar Square on Saturday.
00:43:52.440And I don't know what ragtag and bobtail lot it was last night in Whitehall, but I saw many of them.
00:44:00.900I was travelling through Westminster Tube Station and they come with these packages over their shoulders.
00:44:06.860The poles of the banners are poking out in front of them and the sort of part of the placard is over their shoulder.
00:44:15.340And I was tempted to go and buy some of them some soap, but anyway, moving on.
00:46:24.060If they've got credible intelligence, there will be disorder.
00:46:27.420I would say, well, last night's protest, if it's anything to go by, would give me plenty of reason to suspect there will be disorder on Saturday.
00:48:43.640And I think it's fair to say that, of course, the hardcore you're talking about definitely exists.
00:48:49.200I also think, actually, the majority, I would say, of the people there are people who are very captured,
00:49:00.380you might say, or very badly affected by the horrific images they're seeing from the conflict in Gaza.
00:49:07.300This is really the first conflict, urban warfare type of situation in human history where it's been broadcast through the smartphone into people's living rooms in that way.
00:49:17.020And a lot of the young people in particular who go along to those protests, they're not there because they hate Jews or even hate Israel.
00:49:24.800A lot of them are just horrified by what they see and they don't have the understanding of war, urban warfare, conflict, history to contextualise it in any way.
00:49:36.500So all they're really there to say is, I have this horrible image on my phone and it makes me feel bad.
00:49:42.540And therefore, I feel like I'm doing something.
00:49:44.860Have they not listened to the stated aims and the primary goal of Hamas?
00:49:53.860So there's a clip on our channel, Peter, that I go and talk to some young people and they have a sign which says something, something socialist intifada.
00:50:06.260They have a sign which says socialist intifada.
00:50:08.900And I go up to them and I say, what's a socialist intifada?
00:50:11.240And the guy goes, well, I actually don't know because I picked up the sign over there.
00:50:15.980And I said, well, do you know what the word intifada means?
00:50:19.320There was about five or six people in that circle.
00:50:21.680Not one of them knew what intifada means.
00:50:26.600It's hard to imagine they don't know anything.
00:50:29.460So the reason I'm interjecting with this is I think it's really important for us not to dismiss the entire group of people as Jew haters or whatever,
00:50:38.060because we have to believe that young people, look, we're all young people once.
00:50:42.880Were you the most educated, the smartest?
00:51:06.280So I don't want to dismiss all of them as that because we're going to have to win a lot of them over to the side of sanity.
00:51:12.660And we're going to have to persuade them to look at Hamas's stated goal, to understand the history of conflict, to understand what war is like generally and why you ought not to start wars that you then end up losing, why you shouldn't use human shields, why you shouldn't take hostages, you know, all of this stuff.
00:51:30.240When you educate yourself about things, it gives you a different perspective.
00:51:34.220And we are going to need those young people to open their minds.
00:51:37.640If we just dismiss them as haters now, I think it's a bad part to go.
00:51:40.860And it's also as well, look, we know that when you're young, your friends are the most important thing to you at that time.
00:51:48.900And if all of your mates are pro-Palestine and talking about a genocide, and it's not just, by the way, I was in a cab on the way here to the studio.
00:51:59.640James O'Brien was using the word openly, genocide, several times over a four minute period on LBC, which goes out to 1.4 million people just in London.
00:52:12.520Think how often it's been repeated, not just in the mainstream, but on social media.
00:52:16.680So these people think that there is this genocide happening.
00:52:21.020So to them, it's the morally right thing to do.
00:52:25.020And I just think that we just we all need better messaging and we all need to be able to connect and go across the threshold and actually be able to persuade these people.
00:52:37.220This path that you're going down is not a good one.
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00:58:51.220I think I would be saying, if I was the leader of the country, which, of course, I'll never be, saying to the police, give me the intelligence that says there's going to be disorder at the protest on Saturday, then we can stop it.
00:59:06.560This is from Helen, who says, what legal consequences should and will there be for the imams of the four British mosques recently shown on videos encouraging their followers to kill Jews?
00:59:31.880If there is such footage, please send it to the police.
00:59:37.260I beg of you, send it to the police so that they can deal with it appropriately.
00:59:42.140You say that, Peter, and I'm sure that's the right thing to do.
00:59:45.060I'm just remembering only a week ago there was a trial for a man who wielded a knife and attempted to stab someone who was burning a Koran.
00:59:56.420He got off without a custodial sentence.
00:59:59.540Yes, he was convicted of crimes connected to that event, but he didn't receive a custodial sentence.
01:00:05.880I think the whole different issue now of activist judges within the UK is something that very much needs to be looked at.
01:00:16.280And we are, fortunately, having people that are exposing the background of many of our judges, particularly those who sit on immigration tribunals, for example, and make decisions relating to deportation.
01:00:31.580We're seeing so many of those who have previously been attached to either chambers, barristers' chambers, that did human rights work.
01:00:43.440So you would imagine there could be a bias there, or people that have judges who are now judges who have worked for refugee charities, for example.
01:00:52.100Then how on earth could you expect anybody to give an impartial and unbalanced judgment when sitting presiding over such cases?
01:01:06.300I was talking to a judge some time ago, basically talking, and he was saying, look, I don't say this publicly, but our profession has been captured.
01:02:48.060Look, having praised the police as the very outset of this interview, I sort of think the egos of police constables and chiefs don't matter as much as the safety of people in this incident.
01:03:12.080Do you feel the only way to protect our Jewish community is to change our feeble government, sack the duplicitous mayor of London, and root out the culture of appeasement amongst senior police officers?
01:03:37.020I'm afraid the Jewish community is going to have to do more of protecting itself through the Community Safety Trust, which has had some government funding to do that.
01:03:46.940They're going to have to do more of it.
01:03:50.960There are now leafy suburbs and nice parts of the home counties where private security companies are patrolling the streets, paid for by residents, protecting them because the police can't do it.
01:04:06.040We are on this inexorable slide towards all having to pay other people to protect ourselves because the police can't do it and because division, divisiveness and hatred is so prevalent in our society.
01:04:33.340We have seen case after case after case where there have been various failings, whether that's at the level of immigration.
01:04:40.560I remember, I think the guy's name was Abdul Yazidi, who threw acid on a woman.
01:04:45.660And he, I think, if I remember correctly, in his instance, he was given asylum based on fake claims that he was a persecuted Christian when it was blatantly not true.
01:04:55.520I don't understand the legal system well.
01:05:14.020It is, of course, not the criminal law we're talking about here.
01:05:18.240It's the whole immigration process, which, interestingly enough, of course, Shibana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, only this week said the Home Office is not fit for purpose in many regards.
01:05:31.180Because this all needs gripping, the whole Home Office, the immigration department, the borders, it all needs gripping because it is simply becoming the number one issue on the doorstep, as political campaigners tell me.
01:05:51.140They say when they're leafleting, when they're knocking on doors, people are saying immigration.
01:05:56.100And then, secondly, when they say, and who are you voting for, people increasingly and increasingly and increasingly are saying reform.
01:06:06.980I guess what I'm asking is, again, I'm just thinking out loud, this may be totally wrong and un-British or illiberal, or I don't know what the words are.
01:06:14.880But if you're an activist judge, or if you're a Home Office employee who's rubber stamping these people and letting people through without proper checks, you're letting people off, having committed crimes that then go on to re-offend.
01:06:30.320If there are no sanctions for that and you are an activist, well, you'd carry on, wouldn't you?
01:06:38.500So, presumably, I think that ought to be looked at.
01:06:41.620Are there some repercussions to be had for people who are negligent in their duties?
01:06:45.940I mean, if you were guarding a military base, right, and you just waved people in who don't have the right past, presumably you'd be punished for that in some way.
01:06:54.020Well, look at Palestine Action, who got into a military base very, very reasonably.
01:07:02.900So, we're going to have more idiots with their, I have to pull, I have to pull, I have to pull in action banners, getting arrested, the clowns, thereby draining police resources away from dealing with crime anyway, preventing crime, and protecting the Jewish places of worship.
01:07:20.280And, of course, you know what's going to be protected this weekend?
01:07:25.840The police will have additional patrols around mosques, because they'll be thinking, once the full background of jihad, I'll say that again, jihad al-Shammi is revealed, and his devout Muslim beliefs become public knowledge.
01:07:44.740I'm guessing that's what will happen, all right?
01:07:53.760Well, I really very much hope that churches are also protected this weekend, because I don't think Jews are the only group of people who are targeted by Islamic terrorism.
01:08:02.120I mean, we know from their very statements they consider Christians and Jews infidels in the same way, and would happily kill them both.
01:08:08.600So, I hope our Christian friends are also kept safe this weekend.
01:08:11.040As was dreadfully exhibited at an Arianna Grande concert on London Underground trains and elsewhere.
01:08:53.600Yeah, it's, you know, it's so, it's so, so worrying that when you saw yesterday's attack, one of the emotions that I went, had, I was just, actually, I'm surprised it took this long.
01:09:12.500That's one of the, it's not an emotion, that was a genuine thought that went through my head.
01:09:16.140And I went, I'm surprised it took this long.
01:09:38.560We were all on eggshells waiting for something to happen because our leaders throughout the world do nothing, all talk and just say stupid things and forget about it.
01:11:39.200And even on a very basic level, if you're on a train and you can't hear the train announcement, that again could be something really, it could mean life or death.
01:11:47.920Listen to the podcast when you get home.
01:11:50.240Listen to the new album when you get home.
01:11:53.320Listen, you need these, you need those, and you might well need these, and to be on your dances in an emergency.
01:12:28.880People won't understand what the Muslim Brotherhood is, Peter.
01:12:31.620Can you just explain that to the people who don't know?
01:12:34.580Well, Constance didn't know far better than I the full history of it, but it's basically a very dangerous organization,
01:12:41.780which essentially, from my standpoint and from what I've seen, spreads a lot of bad stuff into a lot of decent places and therefore needs to be stopped.
01:12:55.400By the way, the Muslim Brotherhood, this is one of the great ironies that I've talked about often,
01:12:59.160is Muslim countries are much better at dealing with Islamist extremism than we are.
01:13:03.860The Muslim Brotherhood has been banned across the Muslim world for decades now in modern countries
01:13:09.480because they don't pretend it's Islamophobic to be concerned about Islamic terrorism.
01:13:16.880They know that these people are extremists and they don't pretend they aren't and they deal with them.
01:13:22.660We obviously, we banned Hizb ut-Tahrir like last year.
01:13:25.960Hizb ut-Tahrir has been banned in the entire Muslim world for like 20 years.
01:14:15.040I send nothing but thoughts and best wishes to everybody affected by it, for what that's worth.
01:14:22.840I was having lunch with a great mate of mine who happens to be Jewish on Wednesday.
01:14:29.560And, of course, one of the great things about having friends from other faiths and people of faith, you get to learn so much about their faith.
01:14:38.840And, of course, he was saying, yeah, it's Yom Kippur tomorrow.
01:14:46.720So I then see that horror unfolding so early on that day.
01:14:50.120And, of course, the murderous bastard knew it was Yom Kippur and planned it for Yom Kippur because in the way that many people might be Christian but don't go to church, so many of them do on Christmas Day, don't they?
01:15:07.040And it's kind of, and if it sounds clunky, it's not meant to be an insult anyway, but it's kind of that sort of equivalent.
01:15:14.080And Jews who don't go to the synagogue very regularly will go on Yom Kippur, which is why they get vast numbers, same as, like, Church of England churches get packed on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning.