TRIGGERnometry - Suspended From GB News： What Really Happened - Dan Wootton

00:00:00.000 The first presenter in the world who has been cancelled for not being offended

00:00:04.960 enough by something and effectively that is what it was. It became too much

00:00:09.240 pressure for GB News and they effectively gave in. I think Lawrence was really

00:00:15.180 wrong to release those messages. Do you feel let down by GB News then? Yes, that

00:00:19.860 massively. Organisations like GB News need to stand up now that they've got

00:00:26.020 rid of me. They want to bring down the whole channel. This is not the channel of

00:00:30.860 free speech. Can they be with Ofcombo? No. Dan Wooden, welcome back. Since we last saw 1.00

00:00:37.420 you, a few things have happened. You're no longer with GB News. You've been the

00:00:42.620 subject of various allegations and all sorts of things that have now materialised

00:00:48.400 and you sitting here as someone who writes around Substack and lots of other

00:00:52.280 things that you're working on. What happened? What happened? How are you back

00:00:55.960 here in the cancelled seat? Yeah, it has been crazy. I think it's been about two

00:01:00.560 and a half years since I was last with you guys and at that point, life was good

00:01:08.760 in a traditional sense. The show at GB News was building. I mean, Constantine, you

00:01:13.280 were there with me at GB News right at the start and you saw how difficult and

00:01:19.100 actually truly traumatic that was. Well, let me tell the story now that I'm allowed to.

00:01:22.560 I mean, because GB News, that chaos that we saw in the early days is not there

00:01:26.680 anymore. I think they've kind of sorted it out. But the day I came in to do the

00:01:30.440 dress rehearsal for your show, the dress rehearsal was abandoned halfway through

00:01:35.560 so that you and some other people could go and have a big bust-up basically about

00:01:40.040 getting it sorted. So you weathered the early storm, I guess is what you're saying.

00:01:43.240 I mean, yeah, but that was literally the last dress rehearsal before we went on air.

00:01:47.640 Yeah. We couldn't put a show out and it was nothing to do with the editorial. It

00:01:51.540 was all to do with the technology. So yeah, we did weather that storm. And over

00:01:56.820 the period of time, I so believed in the mission of GB News or what the mission of

00:02:00.820 GB News used to be. And we ended up by 2023 becoming the number one rated show on

00:02:08.740 the channel. We were beating BBC News. We were beating Sly News every night.

00:02:14.280 Did you just say Sly News? Yes, I did. He's got all these little lines now. I love it.

00:02:21.140 I'm sorry, I can't resist. Yeah, actually, they wanted me to stop using all of my nicknames

00:02:25.040 at GB News. So now that I'm free, I'm like, no, no, no, no. Slippery Starmer and Fishy

00:02:30.320 Rishi, they are here to stay. But it was an incredible period. Because everyone thought GB News

00:02:37.680 was going to be a disaster. We were a laughingstock. Actually, people talk about how it's like the

00:02:42.400 Tory channel now. Well, at the start, no Tory MPs or cabinet ministers, and certainly not

00:02:46.500 the prime minister. None of them wanted to come on. And so I really felt like I was in

00:02:51.540 GB News from the ground up. I was the first regular show. We ended up being the top rated

00:02:57.940 show. And to me, it felt like it was my family. It was a huge part of my life. And so what

00:03:04.420 happened was obviously really, really difficult.

00:03:10.000 And what happened?

00:03:11.060 So what happened is that after that brilliant patch, where we had become the number one rated

00:03:18.040 show, we'd overtaken Farage, the knives came out for me. And the knives came out for me in

00:03:25.100 the left wing, the hard left wing media, not the mainstream media, actually, a blog called

00:03:31.520 Byline Times. And they ran a whole series of allegations against me, which I've since proven

00:03:37.240 to be untrue. But what they did was so immoral. They went to the police with these false allegations

00:03:43.740 before anything was published. So it didn't allow me an opportunity to talk about these things

00:03:49.960 in public. I mean, actually, it's incredibly corrupt and malicious journalism that was actuated

00:03:58.060 by a desire to destroy me and to destroy my reputation and to destroy my career.

00:04:03.780 And I'm happy to talk about what they did, because I think it's so important that people

00:04:07.220 know the new techniques that the left are using in order to try and cancel people. But so what

00:04:12.660 that meant is I was under intense pressure, intense pressure from July last year until the

00:04:20.380 end of September, when, as you know, because I watched your interview with him, Lawrence Fox

00:04:24.560 came on my show, said he didn't want to shag the journalist Davis Antina.

00:04:29.560 We're past the watershed, so I can say this. Show me a single self-respecting man that

00:04:35.600 would like to climb into bed with that woman ever, ever, who wasn't an incel, who wasn't 1.00

00:04:41.780 a cucked little incel. That little woman has been fed, spoon-fed oppression day after day 1.00

00:04:48.320 after day after day, starting with the lie of the gender wage gap. And she sat there and

00:04:54.340 I'm going like, if I met you in a bar and that was like sentence three, chances of me

00:04:59.340 just walking away are just huge. We need powerful, strong, amazing women who make great points 1.00

00:05:06.320 for themselves. We don't need these sort of feminist 4.0. They're pathetic and embarrassing. 1.00

00:05:12.380 Who'd want to shag that? 1.00

00:05:13.380 Oh, Lawrence. Well, look, she... I'm just going to provide a touch of balance from her because

00:05:23.420 she did actually respond to this earlier today, saying that she regretted her comments, but

00:05:31.860 she didn't apologise. Yes. So, there you go. And she's a very beautiful woman, Lawrence.

00:05:41.240 Very beautiful. There you go.

00:05:42.640 It was decided that I hadn't reacted with enough horror and shock and awe and I hadn't

00:05:49.300 told Lawrence off in the way that I was meant to, to please the off-communists, as I called 0.88

00:05:53.520 them. And so I was suspended at that point. Now, would I have been suspended if there hadn't

00:06:00.660 have been all of these other allegations swirling around me? I think it's unlikely. Because

00:06:07.100 as I say, I'd been at GB News from the start. I was their top-rated host.

00:06:12.640 You know, I hadn't said the thing. Lawrence had released these messages between us, and

00:06:19.300 all of it was, I thought, nasty and grim and dark. But I hadn't actually said anything.

00:06:25.520 And so I called up Megan Kelly, who I watched your great episode with recently, and she said to me,

00:06:32.180 Dan, you were the first presenter in the world who has been cancelled for not being offended

00:06:37.120 enough by something. And effectively, that is what it was. I mean, Constantine, you'd been on the show

00:06:42.620 with me. You knew I wasn't prepared to be that devil's advocate presenter, to just pretend that I was

00:06:49.720 horrified about something simply because that's what someone in my earpiece was telling me to do.

00:06:55.460 That wasn't me. Everyone knew that wasn't me. I thought that we had established some sort of

00:07:01.800 understanding. But I think when the knives were out for me, it became too much pressure for GB News.

00:07:08.600 And they effectively gave in to the woke mob, who decided, by the way, I mean, how ridiculous looking 0.78

00:07:14.300 back. But they decided that this was the number one story in the country. Lawrence Fox's little rant

00:07:19.980 on my show, according to the BBC, was the most important story in Britain for 48 hours.

00:07:28.140 I mean, it was ridiculous when you saw the hyperbole and the way that people went absolutely

00:07:35.480 nuts over it. But let's go back to the byline times, because I think this is very important.

00:07:39.660 And obviously, this is a chance for you to talk honestly and openly about it. There was a lot of

00:07:45.420 allegations that they made, and then they went to the police. So why was it that you weren't allowed

00:07:51.800 to go, I completely refute these allegations, etc, etc?

00:07:55.060 Well, I mean, I did. I did. I appeared on GB News. And I said that there were dark forces out to get me

00:08:02.740 and that what is being said is untrue. But the problem is, is when allegations are with the police,

00:08:09.500 your lawyers will be saying to you, you can't go into the specifics of this, because the most

00:08:15.500 important thing is that you clear your name criminally. But the thing is, I knew this was

00:08:21.300 all a complete lie. It was all a complete witch hunt. It was basically two journalists actuated

00:08:26.300 by complete malice against me. They've been former colleagues of mine at the News of the World. One of

00:08:30.380 them is a convicted phone hacker. So a convicted criminal, the most prolific phone hacker, actually,

00:08:34.680 in British history, was the big hacker at the Sunday Mirror and the News of the World.

00:08:39.480 So his career was over. And he then started working closely with Prince Harry and Prince Harry's legal

00:08:46.120 team. You know, Prince Harry has a real issue with me because I've broken a whole load of stories about

00:08:50.040 him. And then the people that they were relying on were two convicted criminals, one who had been

00:09:01.320 imprisoned. This is really important, I think, that people know this, because these people should not

00:09:05.400 have been relied on. So one of them was a convicted criminal who had gone to jail in Scotland for four

00:09:10.760 years for extorting gay men, specifically gay men, out of tens of thousands of pounds. When he went to

00:09:18.280 jail, the judge said he was a compulsive danger to society. I had never met him. The other was another

00:09:26.600 convicted violent criminal who had just been released for jail after nearly ending someone's

00:09:32.920 life, who on tape had tried to extort £100,000 out of me. And I had that tape. And then the other

00:09:42.680 was my ex, who was an abusive guy. I mean, it's really difficult because the more I talk about him,

00:09:50.920 the more I give him what he wants and the more he tries to damage me. But all I will say is that

00:09:57.320 the allegations were untrue. It went through two separate police investigations. And again,

00:10:03.320 this is really important. It seems like it's, I guess, technical, but it matters, right? The police

00:10:10.040 did not even hand any evidence to the CPS. So it didn't even reach the first stage because I was able

00:10:19.400 to prove categorically with irrefutable evidence that the allegations against me had been a lie.

00:10:27.240 Now, Byline Times literally gave me one hour before publication. They had no interest in me proving

00:10:35.560 that what they had been told was a lie because it wasn't about truth for them. It was about

00:10:40.520 destruction. And people shouldn't have given in to Byline Times. People should have stood by me

00:10:46.760 because it could be you. Because as I say, I hadn't even met this person. Loads of people have exes who

00:10:52.600 are actuated by malice because you're in the public eye or you happen to have a political view. In my case,

00:10:58.040 it's important to say that my ex has become a hard left activist. He campaigned against GB News. He was

00:11:05.320 promoting stop funding hate. So you've got to think about that context. And when it comes to the

00:11:12.440 mainstream media, both The Guardian and The Daily Mirror, Britain's two biggest left-wing newspapers,

00:11:18.760 have issued apologies and paid me substantial damages for following up on the Byline Times reporting. So

00:11:27.400 this is irrefutable. The problem is you've got an organisation like Byline Times that are so

00:11:33.000 out of control. They're not regulated by anybody, even though they claim to be advocates of press

00:11:40.600 regulation. It's utterly bizarre. So you can't complain to anyone. And actually, they want me to

00:11:46.280 take them to court so they can continue crowdfunding. They've never made so much money as when they were

00:11:51.960 writing stories about me and got so many hits for their website. So these are not honest journalists.

00:11:57.480 As I say, my dealings with The Guardian and The Mirror were actually completely respectful. They knew

00:12:05.080 they'd got it wrong. They apologised very quickly. So what happened was shocking. More people should

00:12:13.240 be horrified about it because we're seeing time and again now personalities who are considered conservative,

00:12:20.200 on the right or pro-free speech being cancelled for aspects of their past, whether it's tweets that

00:12:29.400 they've liked or allegations. And it's wrong. And so what actually needs to happen is these organisations,

00:12:36.840 like GB News, need to stand up against these nefarious plays. Because I knew once they'd given in when it came to me,

00:12:44.280 they reset the playbook. These left-wing organisations know now that they can be pressured.

00:12:51.880 OK, so I'm going to play devil's advocate here, Dan.

00:12:54.760 I don't like people doing that.

00:12:56.760 But it's maybe actually something I kind of believe in. Doesn't that mean that there's a role for Ofcom

00:13:02.760 to regulate people like byline times and go, hang on a second, you've just made a series of spurious

00:13:08.920 allegations here. That contravenes law A, B, C, D and E. We're going to prosecute.

00:13:14.920 Well, the press regulation in the UK is very different to the broadcasting regulation. So

00:13:20.280 IPSO, which is the press regulation body, is not at all focused on political bias or patrolling a newspaper

00:13:31.800 because they happen to platform a particular viewpoint or person. So that sort of regulation

00:13:39.320 is different in my books to what Ofcom is doing. I believe that Ofcom, the Ofcommunists as I called 0.99

00:13:46.280 them, I think they should be disestablished. I don't think they should exist. Now, I've never called on IPSO,

00:13:51.160 which is the main press and newspaper regulation body to be deregulated, sorry, to be disestablished,

00:13:57.320 because they do two very different things. The problem with Ofcom is that they are having to

00:14:03.480 make political judgments all the time. And we see this. They have one set of rules for GB news

00:14:10.360 and a totally different set of rules for LBC because they consider LBC a sort of palatable,

00:14:17.640 acceptable establishment station. So it's completely fine for David Lammy, Labour's shadow foreign

00:14:24.440 secretary to go on LBC and present breaking news. But it's completely wrong for Jacob Rees-Mogg,

00:14:29.400 a former cabinet minister, who's a member of the Conservative Party, to do it on GB news.

00:14:34.600 Dan, one of the things I wanted to ask you, and this may feel like an unfair question,

00:14:38.200 but I think it's important to talk about this because it happens to many people, they get accused

00:14:42.680 of things. And I've seen a lot of people go through where they don't quite know exactly the way to react.

00:14:47.800 So for example, when the allegations were made against you, from memory, and you'll correct me,

00:14:52.280 obviously, if I'm wrong, you basically said, these aren't true. And I'm not saying I'm perfect.

00:14:58.680 I've done bad things in my life or something like that, from which some people may have deduced that

00:15:03.640 there's no smoke without fire. Do you know, did you feel pressured to say that or?

00:15:08.360 No, I really did. And actually, I spoke to Douglas Murray after and he said, you should never have said

00:15:12.760 that because as soon as you, as a gay man, admit to doing something wrong or being ashamed about 0.61

00:15:20.440 your previous life, you're immediately inviting people to come and attack you.

00:15:26.120 These past few days, I have been the target of a smear campaign by nefarious players with

00:15:31.320 an axe to grind, notably by an ex-partner who I was, and this is something I've never spoken about

00:15:38.680 and it's very difficult to talk about publicly, but who I was previously abused by

00:15:44.360 and who has been on a campaign to destroy my life.

00:15:48.040 In the past, he has written to me confessing to being a, quote, psychopath. 0.69

00:15:53.480 And I saw this firsthand when he threatened in writing to, quote, slit my throat, many years

00:16:00.440 after we had broken up. I, like all fallible human beings, have made errors of judgment in the past,

00:16:07.240 but the criminal allegations being made against me are simply untrue. I mean, who doesn't have regrets?

00:16:13.960 Should I be cancelled for them many years later? Or do you accept that I have learned and changed?

00:16:21.400 The last few years, I've grown professionally and personally. And I've also found the meaning of

00:16:29.160 true love after that truly toxic relationship with my ex that hurt me and damaged me.

00:16:36.680 So I shouldn't have done that, but I was under a huge amount of pressure.

00:16:39.400 From whom?

00:16:40.040 From the investors of GB News, who wanted me to show some form of contrition and humility.

00:16:51.400 Why? Why did they want you to show contrition if you were telling them that you were innocent?

00:16:56.200 I don't know. I don't know. I think it was because I had been

00:17:00.760 very outspoken when it came to the Philip Schofield story, which had happened a few weeks

00:17:06.600 beforehand. And I also believe they thought my show was too bold, was too loud.

00:17:15.720 They wanted all of it to be toned down. So I actually think, weirdly, they saw these allegations

00:17:24.680 against me as sort of an opportunity to try and mold me into the type of presenter who they wanted.

00:17:30.760 And that was not the type of presenter I was ever going to be. I just wasn't going to be that person.

00:17:36.840 Do you feel let down by GB News, Dan?

00:17:39.000 Yes, massively. Of course I do. Of course I do. I mean, this is really difficult to say because I'm

00:17:46.520 genuinely not arrogant when it comes to this. GB News was a huge team of people who worked behind

00:17:52.920 the scenes to put it together, as you know. But people who are connected to GB News, including

00:17:59.080 people who were the initial investors in the channel, have told me that if it wasn't for a

00:18:04.280 handful of people, myself and Nigel Farage being the two key ones, they don't think GB News would

00:18:11.880 have got through those first three weeks. Because the pressure was so intense. You've got to remember,

00:18:19.480 I came on a promise that I was going to have this big 8pm lead in from Andrew Neil, who was

00:18:26.520 the big name connected to GB News. He was the chairman of GB News. He walked out after 10 days

00:18:34.920 and slagged all of us off like he called me a shock jock in the Daily Mail when I had pretty much signed

00:18:42.440 up for the station because of his involvement in it. And I had offers to return to News UK because

00:18:49.800 they were launching Talk TV with Piers Morgan. And I stayed loyal to GB News. And so I do feel very

00:18:55.960 let down. Very, very let down. Because if you actually look at what happened, like, let's just

00:19:00.600 look at what happened. I basically made one mistake, according to them, on air. One mistake.

00:19:07.640 I'm sorry, presenters make mistakes every single day. It's live TV. You're under huge amounts of

00:19:13.640 pressure. I didn't want to turn the Lawrence Fox thing into some huge big drama. I mean, in hindsight,

00:19:20.120 that was very naive, given what happened. But I just thought, look, if I'm apologizing for

00:19:25.160 Lawrence and turning this into a big thing, it's going to blow up. Now, of course it blew up anyway,

00:19:30.440 right? It was a bad judgment call that I made, apart from the fact that actually, do we really

00:19:38.040 want to live in a society where people keep apologizing for things that they aren't actually

00:19:42.600 sorry for? Now, as it turned out, I did apologize on Twitter, on X, after I came off air. Megyn Kelly

00:19:51.000 called it my hostage video apology. She had done the same thing on NBC when she was under lots of

00:19:57.640 pressure over her so-called blackface comments. Now, in both cases, the apology did not save us.

00:20:06.040 When they want you gone, you are gone. So one of the lessons I've learned from this is don't say

00:20:12.760 sorry, just because someone tells you to. I was right with the decision that I made while I was

00:20:19.240 on air. Because of course, it was my apology for Lawrence's behavior, which I didn't write,

00:20:25.400 and I didn't actually believe that sparked Lawrence to post our private communication.

00:20:32.200 In which you basically said, you know, lol, this is kind of funny.

00:20:35.240 Yeah, but I wasn't talking about... The thing is, again, none of these details really matter,

00:20:40.040 apart from that it's important to me and for people to know the truth. I was never talking about

00:20:45.960 the segment with Ava Santina. What people forget is that in the previous segment that Lawrence and

00:20:51.000 or the earlier part of the segment, Lawrence and I had been talking about Caroline Dynage,

00:20:54.680 the head of the Media Select Committee, who had just written a letter to GB News,

00:20:59.960 effectively campaigning to get both me and Bev Turner taken off air, me because of the allegations

00:21:06.040 from Byline Times, Bev Turner because of her defense of Russell Brand. And Lawrence had said,

00:21:11.080 and again, people have totally forgotten this, but had said some very spicy things regarding Caroline

00:21:17.800 Dynage. Doesn't sound like Lawrence. Because we had basically been told that there were allegations

00:21:23.320 being made against her, and he had referred to that. Now, that's the thing that I was referring

00:21:28.920 to in my messages. I will say, and Lawrence and I are friends, and I have no beef with Lawrence as a

00:21:37.800 person, but releasing someone's private messages is wrong. I've spoken to so many people about this,

00:21:47.000 and loads of people have been big supporters of Lawrence for years and years and years,

00:21:50.920 lost faith with him because of that decision. We have to operate in a world where we have the

00:21:56.600 public sphere and we have the private sphere. Now, I literally was sending a 10 second message to

00:22:03.160 Lawrence in the ad break. I wasn't thinking about it. I was just effectively wanting to be polite,

00:22:08.680 replying to a message that he had sent to me, because I would do that. If I had a guest on the show,

00:22:13.160 they contacted me, I'd say thank you. There was no malice intended in that message. It certainly

00:22:20.360 was not me trying to mock or take the piss out of my production team or the production team at GB

00:22:25.720 News, which is how it was interpreted. And I think Lawrence was really, really wrong to release those

00:22:32.680 messages, because how can anyone trust anything that they send to Lawrence ever again in the future?

00:22:38.840 Because let me tell you, just like with Byline Times and they're going to the police with things,

00:22:43.960 I've never released private messages that someone has sent me because I've fallen out with them.

00:22:49.320 It's just the wrong thing to do, isn't it? There's a kind of man code around it. It's just not what you

00:22:56.280 do. Well, of course, because otherwise, how can we have any form of private communication in life

00:23:00.680 at all? Given that so much of what we do now is on WhatsApp, is on email. If those lines become

00:23:07.160 blurred, and I think they have become blurred in public life, you look at the COVID inquiry and

00:23:12.920 the fact that Scheming Sturgeon and Boris Johnson deleted all of their messages, it's because they

00:23:17.560 felt like they had a right to have those private conversations. Now, in a public context, maybe that's

00:23:23.880 different. But yeah, I think that's wrong, because probably at the end of the day, it was the release

00:23:30.040 of that message that caused me to be suspended. Just to finish this line of inquiry, Dan, you said

00:23:36.120 right at the beginning of this conversation, I think your words were something like the mission that

00:23:41.800 GB News had, or then you corrected yourself that they used to have. What is your view of how that's

00:23:49.320 evolved? Do you feel like some people have said this, that they're not sticking to the principles

00:23:55.640 on which they were founded? Is that what you're saying? I am saying that, yeah. And it's not said

00:23:59.880 out of any malice towards them. Actually, GB News was such a big part of my life, but this is not the

00:24:07.880 channel of free speech. Can they be with Ofcom though? No, no. I guess that's where my empathy for the

00:24:14.600 people running it comes in, because I feel like if you are being regulated by Ofcom, Ofcom

00:24:19.720 and you are the target of what is quite clearly certainly imbalanced, if not outright skewed

00:24:25.960 policing of broadcasting, then you are going to end up making all these decisions that to the

00:24:31.960 public just look like completely outrageous. 100%. But if you're in that position, you probably

00:24:36.840 would end up making very similar decisions if you were regulated by Ofcom. They're in a really

00:24:41.320 difficult place, and I'm not trying to deny that for one second, but they set a dangerous precedent

00:24:47.640 with me. Because what they're saying is that a presenter cannot make an error of judgment. That's

00:24:55.320 the first thing. And secondly, they're saying that a presenter must say whatever their producer tells

00:25:02.840 them to say in their ears. And you can see it on GB News. I mean, I don't watch much of it now,

00:25:07.160 not out of negativity, just because it's too painful for me to watch it. But people have sent me examples

00:25:13.000 examples of presenters absolutely freaking out at very, very minor things that guests have said,

00:25:20.280 because none of them wants to be me. None of them wants to lose their career and be unable to pay their

00:25:25.320 mortgage because they've ignored a producer's instruction. But I believe that presenters should

00:25:31.840 have that authority and that authenticity to make their own decisions on air. Especially, by the way,

00:25:37.560 when you remember that you're dealing in a context of most of the producers at GB News being uber-woke,

00:25:43.640 being people that are on the left politically, that want to go on and work for the BBC or Sly News

00:25:49.960 or ITV News, because that's who works in production. Now, something I had really tried at GB News,

00:25:56.680 and I was successful with a couple of key examples, was to bring in people who were ideologically aligned

00:26:02.040 with the channel's overall mission. But it was impossible to staff the whole station with people

00:26:09.000 who think like that. So, yeah, I mean, look, all I'll say is that if I'd listened to my production team

00:26:17.400 on everything, I wouldn't have done 95% of the items that I covered on GB News.

00:26:26.360 Dan, when did you know that your time at GB News was done, with the benefit of hindsight?

00:26:31.480 Was there one particular instance?

00:26:37.080 It's really hard to know because I hoped, because the thing is, what you've got to remember,

00:26:43.880 if GB News had stood by me, they would have had that moment of vindication against Byline Times,

00:26:48.680 because Byline Times is not stopping now that they've got rid of me. They want to bring down

00:26:55.160 the whole channel. They've attacked the CEO. So they could have had that vindication with me.

00:27:03.720 But I think the moment I knew it was over, actually, was quite a few weeks before any of

00:27:09.800 this happened. And it was when the chief executive told me that I needed to stop attacking the mainstream

00:27:16.600 media on air because he said, we're part of that. That's what we want to be.

00:27:24.440 And I really struggled with that. And I disputed what he said. And I continued to use the term

00:27:30.040 MSM because I wasn't going to be told that I couldn't use that term. Because the whole reason I went

00:27:35.960 to GB News is because I was so disillusioned with the mainstream media in this country. Remember, I'd

00:27:41.640 seen what had happened with Brexit. I'd then become incredibly politically engaged as the drive

00:27:46.520 time presenter on talk radio during the year of the COVID pandemic. And the whole reason I went to

00:27:52.680 GB News, and he knew this, was because I didn't want to be part of what I saw as the mainstream media.

00:27:59.320 And I stand by this to this day, because obviously I'm now independent. And I just,

00:28:06.280 honestly, I knew at that moment, I knew when he picked up the phone, I think it was in about

00:28:10.840 May or June of 2023, and my show was flying. We were number one in the ratings, thrashing all of our

00:28:19.400 rivals. And yeah, I just remember this call, you need to stop using the term mainstream media. And then

00:28:26.200 those requests kept coming, you know, you can't call Keir Starmer, Slippery Starmer,

00:28:31.400 you can't call Rishi Sunak, Fishi Rishi. And so I knew at that point that there was a change

00:28:38.040 happening within the channel. It was like, we've used you for what we needed you for. And we're now

00:28:44.840 going full on establishment. We want the Prime Minister, we want to have Rishi Sunak, we want to

00:28:50.600 have Keir Starmer. And you're not helping us with that.

00:28:55.800 You know, it's interesting you say that, because like Constantine said, I have a lot of empathy

00:29:01.320 for GB News, not in this instance, but you look at the criticism that they get. It's completely

00:29:07.640 disproportionate. When you look at what the BBC does, and then you look at what Lawrence did,

00:29:13.160 all right, he said something crass and ridiculous. Is that it? 0.94

00:29:17.720 And then you have people on the BBC, I think it was on Newsnight, saying that GB News essentially

00:29:23.960 needs to be cancelled because it's disrupting the delicate media ecosphere.

00:29:28.760 And they had no balance. So they had three guests all saying that GB News should be shut down

00:29:33.800 with no balance, which is what Ofcom is meant to judge people on. Plus, you have the BBC over

00:29:40.200 the same period, by the way, literally parroting talking points of Hamas. And there's no Ofcom

00:29:50.520 investigation into those mistakes. So yeah, I do have sympathy. Of course I do. But the only way

00:29:59.000 to beat Ofcom was to fight. And they're fighting now because they're coming for Nigel Farage. And I

00:30:04.520 thought, oh, that's so interesting. Because it's like, you've left it too late. You should have been

00:30:09.560 fighting when they came for Mark Stein. You should have been fighting when they came for Lawrence Fox.

00:30:14.200 You should have been fighting when they came for me. Because Nigel is their golden goose. He's the

00:30:20.360 one person at that channel who is untouchable. And he's the one person who they cannot afford to lose.

00:30:26.360 Ofcom is coming for Nigel Farage. Mark my words. Because the problem that Nigel has, and I'm a big fan

00:30:33.080 of Nigel and a big supporter of his, but he is the honorary president of Reform UK. Reform UK is about

00:30:40.520 to become a major political force in this country over the course of the election campaign. From Ofcom's

00:30:47.080 point of view, that's untenable. And I think they are going to force Nigel's hand. He's either going to have

00:30:55.560 to stand down from Reform UK or he's going to have to stand down from GB News. But I found it really sad

00:31:03.240 that finally GB News decided to fight Ofcom. Up until that point, it had been, no, no, no,

00:31:09.480 we believe in what they're doing and we want to be regulated. And I think they left it too late to fight.

00:31:16.520 To illustrate your point just very quickly, byline times is byline times, but there have been other

00:31:23.640 publications that are going after other people who either work or are part of the ownership of GB

00:31:30.280 News in exactly the way they went after me. And, you know, I know it would have been a difficult

00:31:36.040 decision, but I sort of feel like there was this thing about Andrew Huberman the other day. I mean,

00:31:41.240 I couldn't get to the end of the article because it was so shit and boring, but you just kind of have 0.97

00:31:45.400 to, I do feel that when allegations are being made against people that are clearly spurious, 0.97

00:31:50.600 or they liked some tweets, or they made some jokes in a private chat group or whatever, 1.00

00:31:55.240 the answer should be, fuck off, it's none of your business. 1.00

00:31:57.800 100%. 1.00

00:31:58.280 Ultimately.

00:31:59.320 100%. And with me, for example, surely the question should have been, byline times are claiming you

00:32:07.320 broke the law. Did you break the law? Yes or no? I say no. The police investigate and say no,

00:32:14.760 don't even hand the evidence onto the CPS. To me, that's cut and dry. And I read that article too.

00:32:21.240 And I thought, this is so interesting what people are doing now. Basically,

00:32:24.920 any toxic ex can destroy a high profile figure. Now, in the case of my toxic ex,

00:32:31.800 because this is the one that I know about, and as I say, I'm sometimes nervous talking

00:32:34.600 about it because every time I do, he does something new. He messages someone I know.

00:32:41.080 It's sick.

00:32:41.640 Well, if you're watching, chill out.

00:32:42.760 Yeah.

00:32:43.080 Yeah. Just move on. Just move on.

00:32:45.160 But with me, I know what it's about. It's to do with jealousy. I went back and I read through all of

00:32:51.240 our emails and he had said things like when we broke up, oh, I always wanted to be a famous newspaper

00:32:58.920 editor or journalist one day. And he hadn't achieved that. So it's so easy for accusers to

00:33:06.600 destroy high profile people because the bar is now so low. And I've done a 180 on this because

00:33:14.520 I was a tabloid journalist. So I always believed in the freedom of the press over everything else.

00:33:21.560 And obviously, as a fundamental rule, I still do. But now that I have been subjected to false

00:33:27.560 allegations, I do believe that there needs to be limits. So those limits are that there should be 1.00

00:33:34.520 no reporting on allegations until you're at the stage of being charged. And we saw that happen

00:33:40.680 very recently with the leader of the DUP party in Northern Ireland. No one knew that he was being

00:33:46.600 investigated for historical sexual offences. Clearly, the police believed that there was

00:33:51.720 something in the allegations. So he has now been charged. At that point, it can be reported on widely

00:33:58.040 because the argument that's always made is if you're unable to report on these early investigations,

00:34:03.720 other victims won't come forward. But I don't think that's true. Because if you're charged,

00:34:11.320 then it does go public and people can come forward at that point. But what we've seen happen with folk

00:34:17.400 like Andrew Tate and Russell Brand, and look, I know they're controversial men. Personally, I support

00:34:23.160 both of them. I know a lot of people don't. But what we've seen happen with men like them is

00:34:29.480 absolute establishment-driven witch hunts played out in the mainstream media. And I couldn't work

00:34:37.960 that out. The Metropolitan Police were dancing to the beat of Channel 4's drum when it came to Russell

00:34:45.640 Brand. They literally were releasing press releases after a Channel 4 documentary saying,

00:34:51.080 please, if you've been a victim of Russell Brand, come forward. Well, the Channel 4 documentary didn't

00:34:55.320 even allege illegal activity. It alleged some immoral activity. For example, should a 30-year-old

00:35:02.360 comedian be in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl? Maybe not, morally. But from a

00:35:10.200 legal point of view, Russell had not broken any laws. There was no allegation that he was breaking any

00:35:15.480 laws. So why are the Metropolitan Police bringing their megaphone out, asking victims to come forward?

00:35:23.480 I'm, you know, the chance of him getting any form of fair trial after the trial by media that he's

00:35:29.880 gone through is nil. And that's the other thing. If these journalists, these media organizations really

00:35:37.160 want justice to play out, for example, byline times, then let the police do their job without this huge

00:35:44.680 amount of media pressure. But by the way, I don't give the police a pass in all of this because they only

00:35:50.120 care once something's in the media. So I think there was allegations about Russell that were illegal.

00:36:00.440 It wasn't just that one. There were allegations.

00:36:03.080 In Los Angeles. So the only, because I've looked at this really closely, the only claim of illegality

00:36:09.640 in the Channel 4 documentary was a claim of rape that took place in Los Angeles.

00:36:17.880 So that wasn't in the Met Police's jurisdiction. Do you see what I mean?

00:36:23.240 Yeah, no, I do actually see what you mean. So moving on, but just focusing back on GB News, because

00:36:29.960 another reason why I have empathy for them is a campaign by Hope Not Hate

00:36:34.360 when it comes to the advertising ban. And I don't understand how this is being celebrated

00:36:40.920 and championed, quite frankly. To me, this is trying to throttle free speech.

00:36:46.360 It's so anti-democratic. And it was before GB News even launched. So there's Hope Not Hate,

00:36:52.440 who are now digging into the social media backgrounds of everyone at GB News, including

00:36:58.360 Paul Marshall, the owner. Now, I hoped, actually, once they came for him, that it meant GB News would

00:37:06.040 start standing up for its presenters, but maybe different rules apply, you know, if you're a

00:37:10.600 billionaire compared to if you're a presenter for hire. But Stop Funding Hate launched an advertising

00:37:18.600 boycott before GB News was even running. So they had just decided what GB News was going to be.

00:37:27.320 Mark my words, the people who make all of these complaints and who sort of perpetuate these

00:37:36.040 broadcasts are not watching GB News. So you know, the incident with Lawrence Fox on my show was the

00:37:42.600 most complained about moment of British television in 2023. But that was off the back of a campaign

00:37:49.640 led by Carol Vorderman. And I've been sent these emails, right? They're actually quite threatening,

00:37:55.480 these emails that get sent out to the lefties. It's like, complain about GB News now. They are

00:38:01.400 terrible. Click this button. I mean, come on. That isn't democracy. That's not how things should work.

00:38:07.720 These whipped up social media campaigns shouldn't actually make a decision, make a difference about

00:38:13.880 whether something's going to be investigated or not. I mean, I honestly think the whole thing is

00:38:17.720 corrupt, but it's up to organizations to stand up to them. And that includes advertisers and woke

00:38:26.600 advertising agencies. But they don't. And I mean, I've been looking into this whole area,

00:38:30.680 and I'm really interested that, for example, you guys have a non-woke advertising agency. And I'm

00:38:38.920 really supportive of that. And I want to work with them as well, because it's so important that

00:38:45.320 there are alternatives for advertisers who don't believe in only putting their message out to

00:38:54.120 folk who think like them.

00:38:55.240 Well, one of the reasons for that is, and it's actually an interesting thing to explore is

00:39:00.120 most of our advertising comes from the US, where none of this is in any way remotely

00:39:05.720 controversial or triggering or offensive. It's like, you know, they've got all sorts of

00:39:10.600 conversations being had on all sorts of different platforms. It's the same with comedy in America.

00:39:15.480 Comedy in America is way more pushing the boundary and it's considered less. We just have a culture

00:39:22.280 in this country of like very, we have a bit of a limited mindset, unfortunately, when it comes to

00:39:27.400 things, including in the political realm. And so, you know, the idea that GB news is some sort of

00:39:33.720 fascist organization or that the conversations we have here are in any way unreasonable for people

00:39:40.520 to have and ought to be prevented from being monetized is just a very strange way of looking

00:39:47.960 at it. And, you know, when you look in the dictionary and you look up what fascism or far

00:39:51.400 right actually means, and then you compare that to the things you were told are far right or fascist

00:39:56.520 or whatever, you just go, this isn't the same universe even.

00:39:59.800 Yeah. I mean, Americans can't understand it at all. I mean, no American who I spoke to was

00:40:04.680 even slightly offended by Lawrence Fox's comments because, come on, if you watch the American

00:40:09.240 independent media like I do, I mean, Stephen Crowder says more offensive things. I mean,

00:40:13.400 I think he's brilliant, by the way, but in about 10 times an hour, you know? So that's the first thing.

00:40:19.880 The second thing I would say is that I actually don't believe the people of Britain sign up to

00:40:31.320 any of this ideology. I mean, I was looking back at the coverage of Lawrence and me for a project I was

00:40:40.920 doing the other day. And it was really actually horrible looking back and seeing like these people

00:40:44.440 who you thought were your friends in the media, you know, at Talk TV, describing me

00:40:51.240 as working for a hate channel. And I, it was, it was ludicrous. It was completely ludicrous, 0.85

00:40:55.800 but I looked down all of the comments and all of them overwhelmingly, especially the top rated ones,

00:41:02.440 didn't matter what media I was looking at, by the way, whether it was YouTube or Daily Mail or whatever

00:41:06.680 it happened to be, all of them were saying this was a complete overreaction. It's totally ridiculous. 0.97

00:41:12.920 So the thing is, is that you know how the media works in this country. It's a tiny pool of people. 0.94

00:41:18.280 It is the establishment media. They are all mates with each other. They all care about the same

00:41:23.640 things. They all socialise, usually in quite posh houses in North London, and they get whipped into

00:41:31.320 hysteria in Westminster by ridiculous things that do not impact the lives of ordinary people. And there

00:41:37.800 are so many examples of this. I mean, the Partygate investigation into Boris Johnson was one example.

00:41:42.840 The ridiculous bid to overturn Brexit, which even people who had voted to remain didn't want

00:41:51.880 that because they knew it would tear the country apart. So the media in this country is a malignant 0.74

00:41:56.680 force. Luckily, this is the great news, isn't it? That they're dying. You know, the mainstream media

00:42:03.640 is dying. They are on their deathbed. They only survived the COVID pandemic through government

00:42:09.400 advertising, which, by the way, is the reason that they were so in the pocket of the government when

00:42:15.080 it came to pushing mass vaccination of children and locking down the country unnecessarily. I mean,

00:42:21.320 seriously, the government was pumping millions and millions of pounds into all of those media

00:42:26.280 organisations to keep them alive. So there is a way too close relationship. I know now that I can't

00:42:34.840 work in the mainstream media in this country. I tried. I failed. I came from the mainstream media,

00:42:40.680 but the media has changed. I thought GB News was going to provide a haven. Ofcom cracked down on them.

00:42:48.120 And also GB News, I think, gave in to the people who hated them too much. But that's the negative.

00:42:53.560 The positive is, look at the impact that you guys are making. Look at the impact that the independent

00:42:58.840 media in this country is making. It is the future. A revolution is coming. You might even argue the

00:43:04.600 revolution is already here. Most people who I know only consume their news on their mobile phones,

00:43:11.240 via YouTube. They're not turning on the television. Do you think GB News has a future, Dan?

00:43:15.960 I think it's going to be really tough now. Really tough. I mean, we've got a Labour administration

00:43:22.440 coming into this country. They are going to crack down on regulation even more of the right-wing

00:43:30.360 media. They're also going to empower the BBC, by the way. I mean, the Conservative Party did a

00:43:34.840 useless job of bringing down the BBC, but I wouldn't argue that empowered the BBC. So they're going to

00:43:40.840 have to deal with all of that. The choice that they can make is to come off terrestrial television

00:43:49.000 and become an independent media outlet where they're not regulated by Ofcom, which is something

00:43:55.080 they've said they don't want to do. But the problem is, if you look at the numbers that the big

00:44:01.240 mainstream media organisations get on YouTube, they pale into insignificance compared to the

00:44:07.000 independent media because people can sense. I mean, look, it's been so funny for me. You know,

00:44:13.960 I've been in the mainstream media for years and years and years. All of a sudden, I'm completely on my own.

00:44:17.800 I'm doing everything myself. I'm editing my own videos. I'm a one-man band. It's been totally

00:44:23.640 liberating and also very scary. But I'm getting numbers that are hundreds and a hundred times

00:44:31.640 higher than anything that GB News is putting out on YouTube, or anything that The Sun or The Daily

00:44:37.160 Mail is putting out on YouTube. Because I think people are number one now attracted to authenticity,

00:44:45.240 and they want to know that the people who they're listening to can be trusted. And also,

00:44:50.760 it's that thing of, I've been looking at a lot of research from America, actually, which is more

00:44:55.000 advanced than us in the independent media space. And people are much more likely to want to invest in

00:45:01.000 or subscribe to an individual now, an individual journalist or an individual broadcaster,

00:45:07.080 rather than an organization, because they've learned. I mean, look at Fox News and Tucker Carlson.

00:45:12.760 Literally, one moment, the guy's gone. He was the number one host on Fox News. Well,

00:45:19.320 why would you trust Fox News after they made a decision like that and don't actually ever explain

00:45:24.360 to their viewers why Tucker is gone? Even now they haven't. It's such a good point,

00:45:29.720 because even for me, I look at a lot of these channels and 10, 15 years ago, I think we all

00:45:36.360 would have watched the BBC. We would all have believed the BBC. But it happens that you get

00:45:41.320 let down time and time and time again. And for a lot of people, I think COVID was the moment where

00:45:48.360 we collectively went, oh, we're being sold a dud here. Well, it was for me. And remember,

00:45:53.800 I was the executive editor of The Sun. But people think that I was in charge of The Sun. I wasn't.

00:45:59.240 There's an editor. I was under the editor. And I was very outspoken on COVID and lockdowns

00:46:07.160 right from the start. And by the end of my time at The Sun, I would be constantly being told,

00:46:13.160 oh, we just want you to stop talking about lockdowns. You know, they were in the pocket

00:46:17.960 of the government. It was so wrong. And all of the media made terrible, terrible judgments.

00:46:27.160 There were a couple of little pockets of sanity. And talk radio was one. And the Daily Telegraph

00:46:35.080 was another in the mainstream media. But they were small pockets of sanity. And it exposed the media for

00:46:41.880 what they are. And they still haven't been held accountable for any of it. And people often say

00:46:48.840 to me, how could you have supported Boris Johnson during that time, given he was the leader of the

00:46:53.800 day? And obviously, I was completely outraged and disgusted with the decisions Boris Johnson made

00:46:58.920 about lockdown. But hear me out on this. I can guarantee you, if Boris had done what he actually

00:47:05.640 wanted to do, and remember, he never wanted to lock down. He believed in a herd immunity strategy.

00:47:10.920 He wanted to do shielding of the vulnerable, which is always what I believed in the Great 1.00

00:47:15.880 Barrington Declaration theory. I promise you, if he had done that, the guy would have been driven

00:47:21.720 from office within six weeks. He wasn't just fighting the health establishment, the medical

00:47:26.120 establishment. He was fighting the entire mainstream media all around the world, who for some reason had

00:47:33.320 decided that COVID was the hill they were going to die on. And if you say that can't happen, look at

00:47:39.240 Liz Truss. Out within weeks, because she goes against the establishment view on economic policy. 1.00

00:47:47.960 It happens now. And the thing is that, again, this is where organizations have to stand up to the

00:47:54.520 media. They have to stand up to the establishment. But the Conservative Party is fundamentally weak.

00:47:59.960 Well, there's definitely no disagreement about that, Dan. And I'm curious, you mentioned, I would have

00:48:05.880 thought, you know, a Labour government would be good for GB News because it's an opportunity for them to,

00:48:11.800 obviously, it's a natural punching bag for them, you know, a right-leaning channel talking about a

00:48:17.400 left-leaning administration. But I guess what you're saying is, and we tried to get into this a

00:48:24.520 little bit earlier, is if Ofcom, the regulator, is there, GB News essentially is never going to be

00:48:30.600 able to live up to its own mission because it's supposed to, like, be another BBC, basically. And

00:48:36.840 that isn't really compatible. Yeah, exactly. And look, so my plan was always to see through

00:48:47.880 the election. I think I would have been really valuable for GB News there because I was one of

00:48:52.360 their few main presenters who doesn't want to be a politician, has never wanted to be a politician.

00:48:58.360 If you look at their primetime lineup now, Michelle Dubry, Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg,

00:49:04.280 Patrick Christie's, they all either have wanted to be politicians, have run for parliament,

00:49:10.120 are politicians, or want to be politicians in the future, right? I never wanted to be a politician.

00:49:14.440 I'm a journalist through and through, and I'm an independent journalist. I've never been a member

00:49:18.200 of a political party either. So I think I could have been really valuable for them over the course

00:49:23.560 of the election when it's going to be much harder for them to keep people like Jacob and Nigel

00:49:28.520 on air, especially, by the way, in the six-week Purda period. This is a really weird thing.

00:49:32.920 Loads of people wouldn't have heard of it. But basically, in the six weeks before the election,

00:49:37.480 it's impossible to cover politics honestly as an opinion broadcaster in the UK. Literally,

00:49:45.320 they get their stopwatches out. So if you've had a conservative politician on for six minutes,

00:49:50.040 you've got to have a Labour politician on for six minutes. You've got to have a Green Party

00:49:53.000 politician on for six minutes. It's impossible to do. So that's why you don't get good sort of

00:49:58.120 debates happening over the election period. I'm really excited about that, actually, because,

00:50:01.240 of course, I'm going to have my show up and running by then, and we'll have no regulation

00:50:05.480 over the election campaign whatsoever, and can interview whoever I want and back whoever I want.

00:50:11.240 But then I was also planning to stay for the first year of a Labour administration too,

00:50:15.640 because I do think it is a, or I thought it was going to be a huge opportunity for GB News,

00:50:20.520 but I just don't have that faith anymore. I mean, the chief executive is trying to,

00:50:25.640 or was trying to hire Carol Vorderman. He's spoken about being desperate to hire Labour MPs.

00:50:33.720 There's nothing wrong with hiring Labour MPs, surely.

00:50:35.960 No, of course not. But I would argue, why is GB News wanting to hire any more politicians

00:50:42.360 at all? I mean, I don't get that really.

00:50:45.960 I get, I mean, they would argue it's the optics, that they've got Jacobs Rees-Mogg, who is a sitting 0.96

00:50:51.720 MP. I don't know what's happened with Boris Johnson's show, but he was, well...

00:50:55.560 Yeah, I think he's still coming.

00:50:56.680 Is he still coming? So they've had plenty of current Conservative politicians and plenty of

00:51:02.840 former Conservative politicians and Prime Ministers. The fact they've had very few,

00:51:07.080 I can't really name one, they may have had one, but they would...

00:51:10.120 Well, they have Gloria Di Piero, who's still a host, a former Labour MP, but...

00:51:15.320 So they would say, from an optics point of view, they need somebody to come on to present,

00:51:21.560 a left-leaning point of view.

00:51:23.000 I know, but look at Fox News, right? No major Fox News presenters over its entire history

00:51:32.040 have been current or former serving politicians. Now, don't get me wrong, they have lots of big

00:51:39.320 name former or serving politicians who come on as guests, as contributors, but not as presenters.

00:51:48.360 Personally, I just think we can do better than that as broadcasters and journalists.

00:51:50.520 I mean, having sitting politicians... I mean, we try to stay away from even interviewing sitting

00:51:55.720 politicians, really, or certainly sitting members of governments and so on, because it's hard to get

00:52:02.440 a straight answer.

00:52:03.320 Yeah. Well, they have to follow whatever their party message is, so you're not getting honest answers,

00:52:08.760 or even honest questions. I mean, in saying that, I actually think Jacob Rees-Mogg is a brilliant

00:52:13.880 broadcaster. He led into my show. I really like him as a person. But remember, he replaced Mark Stein,

00:52:20.840 who was the ultimate independent thinking journalist, who was challenging narratives when

00:52:27.000 it came to grooming gangs and the COVID vaccine. It's just a very different thing. It's a very

00:52:33.640 different thing. GB News wants to be part of the establishment. Personally, though, I would challenge

00:52:37.320 them and say, stop hiring politicians. It's lazy. Jacob aside, I don't think they make good presenters,

00:52:45.960 and I just don't think it's really what you should be doing. Because I'm sorry, imagine if GB News had been

00:52:53.640 running during the pandemic, and they had a whole load of serving Tory MPs or party members. Well,

00:53:00.120 they wouldn't be challenging the lockdowns, would they? It was only people outside the party political

00:53:05.480 system who did challenge the lockdowns and challenge the vaccine. I think that's actually a very good

00:53:10.760 point. And it comes back to your point about independent media as well. We get stuff wrong all

00:53:15.560 the time as well. And I'm worried about the amount of misinformation and all sorts of crazy stuff

00:53:20.840 that's flying around in the new media space. But the one thing I think people do connect with,

00:53:25.640 as you talked about earlier, if you don't have a producer in your ear, then at least you generally

00:53:29.960 speaking know that this guy might be crazy, but at least he's saying what he actually believes.

00:53:33.960 Exactly. Whereas the BBC has a God complex, doesn't it? It's like, if it's said on the BBC,

00:53:41.160 it's true. But we know actually that the BBC are now purveyors of more disinformation and more

00:53:48.120 misinformation than, and I genuinely mean this, than any broadcaster in the UK, including independent

00:53:55.160 broadcasters. And they have the cheek and the arrogance to say that their fact-checking service,

00:54:01.080 BBC Verify, is what we should believe. It's like, no, you need to have an independent fact-checker

00:54:09.160 on you. You shouldn't be fact-checking other people because they have got so much wrong,

00:54:15.960 provably wrong. And they immediately buy into propaganda. And obviously the really terrible

00:54:21.000 example recently was when they repeated Hamas talking points over the bombing of the hospital

00:54:28.680 or the non-bombing of a hospital during the Gaza conflict. But that's just one. I mean,

00:54:34.040 there's hundreds and hundreds of examples of BBC disinformation and misinformation.

00:54:41.400 So this is why I hate this idea that the mainstream media should decide what's true.

00:54:49.560 We live in a post-truth world in a lot of ways. Now that's terrifying. Don't get me wrong. But again,

00:54:56.040 I come back to the pandemic and all of the things that folk like me were being labelled as conspiracy

00:55:04.040 theorists for talking about, and remember, I was talking about in the very early days, I mean,

00:55:07.960 right back to March 2020, you can go back and I've got the receipts for this, you know,

00:55:11.960 talking about a lab leak theory, talking about how lockdowns were part of a globalist bid to change

00:55:21.800 the world order. Now we were called conspiracy theorists. Those types of conversations were

00:55:27.880 literally labelled as misinformation and disinformation and would see you banned from

00:55:32.520 YouTube or taken off the algorithms on Facebook. And we were right. So we're in a post-truth world.

00:55:42.760 We can't trust the mainstream media anymore. And you shouldn't. You shouldn't. You should never believe

00:55:48.520 something that the BBC tells you. I mean, by the way, remember the BBC tries to say they're not

00:55:52.840 politically biased. Well, two of their main presenters, including the guy who they wanted

00:55:57.320 to be their current political editor for this election, John Sopel, are now hard left propagandists

00:56:04.920 on their own podcast. Finally, by the way, saying what they believe, which is fine. But my point is,

00:56:11.160 this is the guy who was meant to be the political editor providing unbiased coverage of the election.

00:56:16.280 This is the woman who was meant to be hosting Newsnight providing unbiased coverage of the election.

00:56:20.520 They're not. They are completely biased. Now, people might say that I'm biased. I would argue

00:56:26.040 I'm not biased. I'm just honest about what I think. I don't claim to be someone that is providing

00:56:32.760 a completely non-partisan, equal view of the world.

00:56:37.720 I think as well, it's important to acknowledge, I don't think anyone can be unbiased. It's utterly

00:56:44.280 impossible. We have biases. We have our beliefs. Some of them may be correct. Some of them may be

00:56:49.960 wrong. But that's just human beings. And to pretend that we're going to be unbiased is

00:56:56.200 engaging the audience in a lie.

00:56:57.720 Totally. But the thing is, on the left, although they wouldn't view themselves on the left,

00:57:01.640 but if you look at all of the mainstream media organisations in this country, BBC,

00:57:05.080 ITV, Sly News, they all think it's just a matter of right or wrong. So for example,

00:57:11.720 if you question the trans movement, which I absolutely do, anytime someone tries to say

00:57:18.520 you're part of the LGBT community, I say I am absolutely not. So I have questioned that strongly 1.00

00:57:24.440 and had a lot of hate from that community as a result. If you question that and you're part

00:57:29.400 of the mainstream media, you're just told that you're wrong. So they don't think that they have

00:57:33.720 a bias. Do you see what I mean? They think that they are just presenting the accurate, the correct

00:57:40.920 position. Likewise, by the way, on net zero, or as I call it, nut zero, do you know it's the one issue

00:57:47.320 in the mainstream media that you don't have to provide any balance? Climate change. Ofcom has said,

00:57:51.880 no, no, no, that is scientifically set when it comes to Ofcom. There doesn't need to be

00:57:57.000 any balance if you're discussing climate change. And I would argue that none of these positions are set,

00:58:02.760 because a few years ago, most people might have thought that trans ideology was just like gay

00:58:10.840 rights. But actually, what we've seen is that it's totally different. This is actually about erasing

00:58:16.920 gender altogether from society. It's about challenging scientific realities, which is 1.00

00:58:24.440 something that I think any honest journalist should not do. And it's also about degradating

00:58:31.320 the role of women in the world as well. Not to mention some of the practical challenges around issues

00:58:39.240 like safeguarding and women's sport, which is something that I'm really passionate about,

00:58:45.240 which people might find weird, but I'm a huge, huge fan of women's netball. I support the London

00:58:50.760 Pulse team. And let me tell you, all it would take is one trans person on court in a netball team, 0.90

00:58:59.480 and the game's over. Might as well all go home. And so that's what we're fighting against. And so 0.86

00:59:06.520 the point that I'm making is that if you're in the mainstream media and you raise any of this,

00:59:10.520 you're just a transphobe. You're wrong. They don't view it as a debate.

00:59:14.600 Yeah, that is true. Dan, it's been an utterly brilliant interview. Thank you so much for coming

00:59:19.960 on the show. The final question is the same every time. What's the one thing we're not talking about as

00:59:25.320 a society that we really should be? But we will go to locals for your questions very shortly. Go for

00:59:30.040 it then. Do you know what? I honestly believe it's the fundamental question of democracy. And I think

00:59:41.240 there's loads of different aspects to that. Obviously, one that I'm very big on is postal voting,

00:59:50.120 which we've seen both in the UK and the US, is fundamentally changing the results of elections.

00:59:57.960 And I don't think anyone is properly tackling this in either the independent or the mainstream media,

01:00:05.080 because actually it's such a massive issue. If how we vote is being corrupted, then we need to actually

01:00:14.200 have a really honest national conversation about it. And we saw in the UK, to give an example,

01:00:21.080 in the recent Rochdale by-election that something is seriously wrong if you look at the postal votes.

01:00:28.120 What are you suggesting, Dan? Because I'm not across this, to be honest.

01:00:31.400 I'm suggesting that sectors of society are using postal voting to fix certain election results.

01:00:41.240 And the fact that you don't know about it-

01:00:46.440 I have heard the allegation, but I want you to flesh it out.

01:00:48.840 But it absolutely proves my point though, because people knew about that statistic,

01:00:53.800 but where are the investigations into it? That's right.

01:00:56.280 In a UK context, there's not, because it would be considered Islamophobic to have that conversation.

01:01:03.000 In the US, there's not, because it's generally considered that postal voting is good for the

01:01:08.280 Democrats, so the mainstream media love it. I know Trump has made a big issue of it,

01:01:13.240 but then that's viewed as like a Trump issue. And what I'm saying is that actually it's a big story,

01:01:20.680 and we need to genuinely be looking at it. And I would challenge anyone

01:01:26.520 to say why there is a need for this postal voting. Seriously, go and vote on election day.

01:01:33.800 And I don't understand why you don't need to-

01:01:36.680 Well, I look forward to seeing your reporting on it to get to the bottom of it and get to the truth.

01:01:41.400 Dan, thank you so much for coming on. Follow us over to Locals, where we ask Dan your questions.

01:01:47.640 I'd like to know his opinion on King Charles' cancer diagnosis,

01:01:51.640 and how the now Queen Camilla is basically acting like a stand-in monarch to him.

01:01:57.800 Oh my goodness, yeah, I mean...

TRIGGERnometry - April 09, 2024

Suspended From GB News： What Really Happened - Dan Wootton

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