Dan Wootton Outspoken - HOUSEWIFE LUCY CONNOLLY A POLITICAL PRISONER: JAILED FOR 2 & A HALF YEARS FOR POST ON

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Tory councillor, has been jailed for TWO AND A HALF YEARS for an inappropriate post on X after the Southport Massacre. In his Digest, Dan slams the sentence of “truly sick”, explaining she was devastated because her own 19-month son had been killed by NHS neglect. He describes her as a political prisoner. Then his guests Younes Sadaghiani and Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert weigh in. PLUS: Mrs Brown’s Boys mired in a new BBC race row AND: Jim Davidson lashes out at Labour’s threat to free speech To watch the exclusive Uncancelled After Show for 30-minutes extra content EVERY weekday, sign up at: https://outspoken.live/premium Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Then you'll be alerted to our brand new live shows, uncancelled interviews, and special royal episodes too first today my sympathies to the family bandmates and fans of liam payne the one direction superstar who has tragically died aged just 31 this one hit me i have to say because i was there for the formation the success and then the implosion of One Direction. And I'm sorry, but the music industry really is evil in terms of what it does to child stars. I think, in reality, there shouldn't be any under-18-year-old signed to a record deal. It's just completely wrong. I saw Alex Phillips earlier describe it as child abuse and I have to say I agree. But if you're interested, I have recorded a special video about Liam and I will pay tribute to him at the end of the show.

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Public Mobile. Different is calling. But today, Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Tory councillor, has been jailed for two and a half years. 31 months in jail for an inappropriate post on X in the wake of the Southport massacre. In my digest next, I'll explain why this sentence is truly sick. After all, this was a woman devastated because her own 19-month-old son had been killed through NHS neglect. This is wrong. She is a political prisoner.

Then my guests Eunice Saraghani and Alka Selga Cuthbert weigh in too. Also coming up today, Mrs Brown's boys mired in a new BBC race row and Jim Davidson lashes out at Labour's threat to free speech. Labour continues its war on free speech by making employers liable for members of their staff feeling offended. So if you feel offended by your boss telling you off or something, you can f***ing complain. Right?

Any theatre, any theatre under the protection of law will be able to refuse edgy performers. Then in the uncancelled after show, according to Taz, on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's shock Portugal move and why they've been snubbed by People magazine. You can register to watch right now on our own website www.outspoken.live. That is a safe space, free of censorship, your support at just £5 a month. Not only gives you 30 minutes for extra content every single weekday, it allows me to continue

making this independent daily news show. But now, let's go. The UK is now a police state. A police state where dissidents of Keir Starmer, even if they are harmless housewives grieving over the loss of their own baby, get punished. Because what else can excuse the truly ludicrous and sickening 31 months in prison? Yes, that's two and a half years. Two and a half years for Lucy Connolly, the housewife wife of the Conservative West Northamptonshire councillor, Raymond Connolly.

Now, I've kept in touch with Raymond throughout this process. And in fact, I've heard from him in the past few minutes. Raymond says this verdict, this sentenceencing is very raw he says that there's been incredible support, that Lucy is being looked after by the other women in prison he's been remanded in prison remember since her arrest and that he's

going to have to play mum and dad for quite a while longer now Raymond was praying sense would prevail at today's sentencing in Birmingham. That hasn't happened. But I think it's important I show you what he has previously said of his wife, who remember deleted her ex post soon after making it in the horror of hearing about three young girls stabbed to death in Southport at the Taylor Swift dance class.

And I do need to remind you that the reason this hit home with Lucy is because she lost her own baby at just 19 months as a result of NHS neglect. Here's what Ray means. These last few months have been quite traumatic for Lucy and the children. The stuff I hear on the TV is not really Lucy. She's probably the opposite of what she's having to admit to, but she knows that she's overstepped the mark and there's consequences for it. So hopefully she'll be able to learn from this and move on with her life.

What has she said about it to you now, reflecting on what happened when you were here? It's just a moment of, you know, an upset housewife really. Just seeing children in the report with all the misinformation and just got dragged into it. And obviously she regrets. She did a couple of hours after she put the link up, but obviously it came back on a week or so later. And then obviously underneath it, and her husband's a Tory councillor, and here we are today.

Here we are today. His wife has just been locked up for two and a half years, Lucy Connolly. And obviously this is a breaking story. I have just at this moment been sent the defense sentencing note that was used today in court to try and present the mitigating features as to why Lucy shouldn't have been locked up. And I think it's important that I run through them with you. She has a lack of previous convictions. She has a positive good character caring for other people's children. There is no evidence that she did not perform her duties in this role properly with care. Remorse. She had remorse for what she did. And that was the view of the probation officer in the pre-sentence report. She is the primary carer for her 12-year-old daughter.

And then they talk about the personal mitigation. In the horrendous way Lucy Connolly lost her son. And the effect of not only the loss of her son, but the way she lost her son. And remember, her son was incredibly young when he died as a result of NHS neglect. also say that one of the mitigating factors was the difficult condition with prison overcrowding, especially given that this is Mrs Connolly's first experience of custody. So Lucy's 12-year-old daughter without her mother for up to two and a half years. And I say anyone who thinks that Lucy should be locked up when violent men who attack women at petrol stations for not dressing conservatively enough or when people like Hugh Edwards receive no

custodial sentence for making child pornography well I think if they still think Lucy Connolly should be behind bars for such an extraordinary long sentence then they have truly lost the plot but the sick and twisted authorities are having to come for women like Lucy one of just 400 so-called rioters or social media criminals who are being locked up and they're doing it because their far-right bogeyman is nothing more than a figment of the imagination. Sly News had to admit as much this week. Sky News has, for the first time, uncovered and mapped the networks on Telegram.

The encrypted messaging app where the the flames were fanned, and the riots were organised. We've been working with Proz, an open-source intelligence start-up which has a deep penetration of far-right and conspiracist networks on Telegram, to find out who is behind the messaging. One interesting thing we can see here, especially considering this is the first day, is that the source of most of the information

that people are talking about on Telegram isn't British English language communities. The most widely shared content on Telegram during the initial three days of the unrest was primarily authored by non-domestic accounts from the USA and Europe. And as Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, posted on X after I had pointed out that report, summer riots were whipped up by foreign agitators. Even Sky News now admits apologies, please, from lefty loons. Now, Lucy Connolly made a mistake with her post on X.

Yeah, it was vile. I'm not actually trying to defend what she said. She admitted it. She deleted it. She said something in anger. But she is a political prisoner, made an example of by Tu Te Ke and the MSM. And I think we have to think of the slippery slope that such a sentence creates. Because what Starmer is trying to do here is terrify his critics into silence. And for the moment, it may have worked. But I think the dam will burst soon enough. And now it's time for The Outsider. and i'm delighted to be joined today by eunice sadigiani he is a contributor to reasoned uk who has launched his own youtube channel which i will be putting in the show notes eunice so great to have you on outspoken for the first time your your reaction to Lucy Connolly receiving a two and a half year prison sentence for an ex-post?

Well, thank you, Dan, for having me on your show. I just want to say that I am so tired of this Labour government already, because they are going after people that speak about the problems rather than the problems themselves and slowly but surely we are heading to a tyrannical state where people are being jailed and thrown in prison because of an opinion so one of the pillars of a free democratic society is the fact that we have freedom of speech we can express ourselves freely even though we might not agree with each other and you know freedom of speech we can express ourselves freely even though we might not agree with each other and you know freedom of speech only applies when someone says something you don't like all right you know the wording she used is not probably the best and i don't necessarily agree with her 100 but she should not be in jail for two and a half years because as you said there are people

that work for the bbc that have child pornography on their phone and they walk away freely. And we also have a lot of, you know, machete gangs and a lot of Islamists in the streets that set buses on fire carrying machetes. Where is the justice for them? And it just seems to me, you know, it's two-tier policing. And soon, if we go down this rabbit hole, we're going to end up in a very dark place. Because, you know, tyrants don't come and take control of everything straight away. It's these incremental steps towards tyranny. And, you know, I'm Iranian myself. So I have seen this happen after the revolution in 1979, where the government slowly but surely was taking back control of people.

I know at first it was like, oh, well, women don't have to wear the hijab. And then after a year, they're like, no, women have to wear the hijab. And then they started enforcing it. And now, you know, women die in Iran if they don't wear the hijab because they get stopped by the morality police. And that's what you saw in the Mahasamini protests. So I just hope the Labour government will implode soon because their, you know, approval rate ratings is tanking. And I hope soon we can move away because they have two third majority seats. And I just don't understand how you can get a third of the votes, but two third of the majority. So,

but they're imploding, they're imploding very fast. The Keir Starmer's approval ratings is, you know, going to the minuses now and sure hopefully i can see reform maybe or you know the conservatives have a leadership um battle right now but i'm a reform supporter i used to be a conservative actually but i'm reform now like a lot of people yeah exactly and i actually was working with reform on uh communication strategy during the elections and did very well you know i think you know reform is what we need in this country right And I actually was working with reform on communication strategy during the elections. You did very well. I think reform is what we need in this country right now.

I agree with that. And I do want to talk about the political situation in just a second, Eunice. But can we just for one second longer concentrate on this sentence? Because isn't it particularly shocking when you look at the priorities of who the government wants to lock up? And number one, we're actually meant to have a judiciary that is free of political interference. Well, Keir Starmer blew that out of the water over the so-called riots.

He made it abundantly clear, did he not, that he was going to weaponize his experience as the former deputy, sorry, the former director of public prosecutions. So that's the first thing. But how can we as a society say, actually sort of look our kids in the eyes when we say you can go to jail for posting on X, but you will not go to jail for making child pornography. You will not go to jail as a man for beating up a woman at a police station

because she wasn't in Muslim dress. That is, I mean, does that not represent the breakdown of a society? It does. And I think it's the woke mind virus that is taking over the West. You know, we're trying to be politically correct to the point of no return and to the point of harm look sometimes certain things need to be said

i am quite famous for questioning islam and you know the islam is the rise of islamism you know i i'm ex-muslim i come from a muslim background but i don't agree with islam because i feel like there are certain parts of islam that are deeply dangerous and they have no part in western civilization or any civilization for that matter and now we have the labor government trying to outlaw or call it Islamophobia the Islamophobia bill and I actually made a video for reason which actually done very well it got close to a half a million views where I actually opened the Quran and go through the verses that are deeply problematic. And I was asking Keir Starmer, are we Islamophobic

if we question these verses? It says in the Quran, you know. And, you know, it's weird because I can say that because I come from Iran. I'm Persian. I'm Middle East. And maybe I can question Islam.

But if someone like you, Dan, I said it. You're a white man. If you question Islam, you'll probably go straight to jail. I might be locked up. I might be locked up. And this is the chilling thing about the Lucy Connolly sentence. And I think you've raised a really important point, Eunice.

Do you remember Christopher Hitchens? I think it was back in 2009. The late, great Christopher Hitchens actually predicted this. He actually predicted that we were going to get to a point where Islamophobia would become illegal. And what that means is that we cannot question some very disturbing aspects of this religion. So, for example, me as a gay man, I know for a fact that in lots of mosques in East London, near where I used to live, the young people who were being radicalized in that mosque were told that gay people should be pushed off the top of buildings. That is no exaggeration. That is literally happening. and so that's why i think i look at a sentence like lucy

connelly's with horror because yes she expressed her feelings on the day of the south port massacre terribly and artfully but i'm a free speech absolutist and i think if we can't criticize religion then we are effectively starting to give in to authoritarianism i really really do believe exactly and lucy connelly wasn't making a look where it's because she's been done for inciting violence right but she wasn't saying, Eunice, go down to this address and blow up this mosque or kill this person. She was making a very inartful explanation about why she's furious about mass immigration into this country. Now, again, I need to stress because, you know, people don't take nuances with these issues, Eunice. I am not for a single second saying that I agreed with her tweet, that I thought her tweet was appropriate. What I'm saying is she doesn't deserve two and a

half years in prison for it. And it's utterly terrifying for those of us like you, like me, who want to challenge some of these prevailing narratives. Exactly. And like yourself, Dan, I am a free speech absolutist and it's not necessarily i'm picking on people i like to challenge ideas i don't think there's any idea on the face of the earth that is beyond criticism you know nothing big time and unfortunately now we have a government where you cannot criticize ideas and when you cannot criticize ideas then you when you cannot tell the truth then lies start to take hold in society where everyone is lying all the time and people have the silent majority and people are scared to say the truth and that is the sure way for society to go downhill i've said this before but there is a saying that says, save your society from three things, war, hunger, and lies.

And the woke mind virus leads to lies because people don't have the guts to tell the truth because they're scared they might be called Islamophobic, xenophobic, sexist, racist, you name it. And that's what they do. kindness and affection to hide their utterances and their dark sort of control and tyrannical narrative and they try to pretend to be the good guys but believe me when i tell you at no point in history the people that try to censor you were the good guys okay like people that are good they believe in freedom of speech they believe in because at the end of the day like okay what do we have to lose you lose we have nothing to lose okay let the truth be out let people speak you know and if we're right over time our arguments should be strong enough to win so people that try to censor you deep down they probably know they don't have a strong enough

argument and by silencing you and by trying to marginalize you they try to stop you and you know it's a fear mongering or it's a fear tactic because now a lot more people are going to see this case and they were like okay i'll stop you know commenting on immigrants i'm not going to criticize the government exactly okay so look let's talk about the political solution because you talked about reform uk you backed them and helped strategize with them during the election campaign some fascinating figures emerging unis over the past 24 hours look at this headline in the daily telegraph uh voters now more positive about reform than labor some 29 of those survey took a positive view of farage's party compared

to 27 percent for labor and then we have rupert low one of reform uk's mps predicting that there will be a reform uk government at the next election is it possible do you dare to dream unis well i certainly hope so however we have a first-past-the-post system, as you know. And unfortunately, I feel like that rigs the system. Even in the last election, Reform had 4.1 million votes, but only they got five seats, which is ridiculous. They should get at least 150 seats, you know. And Conservatives got 6 million and Labour got close to 10 million. So Reform are already halfway there. And, you know know they really got going

like a month before the election so now they have five years to build that momentum but then the problem is is that we have a first possible system in which reform is probably going to finish either first or second across the country but then somehow end up losing i feel like in order for reform to win there needs to be a deal with the conservatives because the conservatives are imploding. More and more conservative voters are leaving the conservative party to go and vote for reform. And I am one of them. But because they are the conservatives, they're like, OK, we'll wait for reform to implode. But I don't think reform will implode.

So it's a losing strategy. And I think actually the country's center right the country is not center left however the vote on the right has now been split into two between reform and conservatives which gives the advantage to labor so in the near future i don't know what's going to happen but i feel like the conservatives need to do some sort of a deal with reform or reform should really go for the juggler and try to beat the conservatives and take majority of the conservative votes i don't know if that will happen but i hope i hope more and more people wake up and start voting reform because the conservatives are not conservative anymore

that's why i keep telling people they're like a center or center-left party you know they don't have any new ideas they're stuck in the past you know they're you know globalist they're i find them a bit corrupt in some aspects i feel like they don't really career politician and yeah i just don't like them anymore well there's a divide isn't there within the conservative party i mean zia yusuf who is the new chairman of reform uk actually posted today on ex a comment from miriam cates the former conservative mp now working as a presenter on gb news and she said reform uk is rapidly professionalizing and building infrastructure and there is no reason to believe that their advances will not be reversed so she

is clearly on the side of the conservative party and i would call this the robert jenrick side of the conservative party the jacob reese mogg side of the conservative party the side of the Conservative Party, the Jacob Rees-Mogg side of the Conservative Party, the side of the Conservative Party that I used to be on, which says, actually, we've got to do a deal with reform. We have to find a way to unite the right. But significantly, you have Michael Gove, the new editor of The Spectator today, backing his protege, Kemi Badenoch. Yesterday, Sarah Vine did the same thing. I think they have an arrogance to believe that they can somehow neutralize the reform threat. But personally, I think that is naive, which is why I back Jenrick, because what I would like to see is a deal, not necessarily a merge. But there is a world, isn't there, where you could allow reform uk to focus on the seats with our second to labor and take the red wall and then you could allow a more moderate conservative party

to fight the lib dems and try and retain the blue wall yeah very true but then as you said they have this arrogance and they have probably maybe a little bit of corruption because probably the donors don't want the conservatives to merge with reform. But any sane person, any sane political advisor would be advising exactly that. Because it's not the conservatives, it's not reform, reform is just gathering momentum. They're the biggest party on social media, their posts get more traction than any other party, and they have a very charismatic leader, something that the Conservatives don't, or as a matter of fact, no other party has at this moment in time.

So it's in their own self-benefit in order to save the Conservative Party to do a sort of a deal, or maybe a merge, or whatever. But at this rate, the Conservatives will be destroyed in the next two or three years. And I think this whole leadership battle is a distraction because I don't think neither Bednok or Jenrick are good enough to lead the party.

I was more of a Jenrick guy at first, but then I've seen more and more videos from Bednok and I kind of like her. But at the end of the day, I just think like they're different sides to the same coin. Nothing much will change if you want real change. It's partly an irrelevant conversation. There has been a fascinating scandal, though, today, Eunice, in the race for the Conservative Party leadership that I want to discuss with you.

There's a Tory MP. You may have heard of him. I actually love this guy. He's called Christopher Chope. He's a contrarian. He refuses to go with whatever the prevailing argument is and i like that we need people like him who are going to question the narrative and where christopher choke gained my respect forever is that he was one of the only

mps who questioned the vaccine rollout and who was there for the vaccine injured. When I was part of Mark Stein's vaccine injury special on GB News, the victims of the vax, who was the only MP in the audience, Eunice? It was Christopher Cho. But today, the mainstream media are hysterically rounding on him because of an interview he's given with ITV. And let me set this up. So he is asked about whether he's going for Badenoch or Jenrick, and he's a supporter of Robert Jenrick.

And he says that one of the reasons is because that Kemi Badenoch is too focused on her family. Now, the background to this is that Badenoch literally went on holiday earlier this year when there were hustings going on. So he's trying to say, I think, that she's a bit lazy. But obviously, it's been blown up into a massive sexism storm. So now that I've said it up, let's have a look at what he had to say. And Eunice, I'll get you to react off the bat.

I myself am supporting Robert Jenrick because I think he's brought more energy and commitment to the campaign and being leader of the opposition is a really demanding job. And much as I like Kemi, I think she's preoccupied with her own children, quite understandably. But I think Robert's children are a bit older. And I think that it's important that whoever leads the opposition has got an immense amount of time and energy. Sorry Christopher, can I just clarify that? You're saying that a woman shouldn't be standing to be leader of a political party because she's got young kids? I'm not saying that at all. I was one of Margaret Thatcher's strongest and staunchest supporters.

What's given you that concern though? What gives me the concern is because i understand from talking to colleagues that kemi spends a lot of time with her family which i don't resent at all but the consequence of the consequence of it is that you can't spend you all your time with your family as at the same time being leader of the opposition unicy you mostly offended no I'm not because he makes a valid point whether we like it or not

women tend to burden most of their reproductive responsibilities and that's just nature's call it's not my call or your call it's women are the ones that have to get pregnant and usually the infants and younger kids are more attached to their mothers rather than their fathers

however as I was saying earlier I I don't really trust Jenrick. I am starting to lean more towards Bednock because of her policies. I've seen some more videos, recent videos of her. I actually like the fact that she says the things that she says and she's a black woman because you would think she would play identity politics. But that's why I like the right more than the left, because people on the right don't like to play identity politics. However, he makes a valid point.

By the end of the day, personally, I don't care. I feel like if she's strong enough to be able to stand in competition, then she's strong enough to lead the party. Jim Davidson, my friend, the the controversial comedian although i don't find him controversial i just think that he talks common sense unis he is becoming one of i genuinely believe this one of the sharpest opponents of this labor government because you know jim davidson has a huge following sure he might be cancelled by the mainstream media, but that doesn't matter now because he has his own Ustream platform. And he has decided to take on Labour directly

and take on Keir Starmer directly in the way that only he knows how over this issue of the crackdown on free speech. Have a look at this. Let's go on about this Labour Party lot. Have you ever known that people fuck up so much it's it's a joke but you know this is um it's a strange old time that we're going through they want to cut down on free speech and so they've got they'll bring out a law anyone

that says anything about anyone anywhere anywhere, in the workplace, if you say something that causes offence, you can be nicked for it. So what if someone that doesn't like me, and there's a few, don't you worry about that. I've seen some of the comments, you know, when they were advertising the stand-up show that's on now, on here. Oh, a dinosaur, I thought he was f***ing dead, never been funny. I answer them back, why don't you f*** off? I do all that and start arguing with these people.

I'm not as witty as James Blunt. And they annoy me, all these dodgy people that do that. And why watch me in the first place? Oh, he's a dinosaur, never was funny, he's just a thug. Bloody cheek, isn't it? So any of them can now complain and say I was offended by what he said so much more that it's affecting my mental illness, I've got ADHD, PSD, MGB, GT and so that's it, it's daft. But he wasn't finished there, he wasn't finished there there labor continues its war on free speech by making

employers liable for members of their staff feeling offended so if you feel offended yeah by your boss telling you off or something you can fucking complain right any theater this is any theater under the protection of law will be able to refuse edgy performers. And she's putting brackets like you, Jim. F***ing hell, I'm not edgy. In case a member of their staff gets the ump. Right? And they're protected by law. You know what I mean?

Anyone that's in a pub and tells a dirty joke or says something can be reported for upsetting the barman. What the f***ing hell has happened here? Do you know what? Sometimes when I get to a theatre and I do the sound check and I see during the sound check the front of house manager is giving the brief to the volunteers, you know, the usherettes of people like that.

And I always go up to them and say, look, and they're nice little old ladies, aren't they, from the Women's Institute. They look a bit like that. And they say, oh, I'm ever so sorry about what you're going to hear. Oh, don't worry about us. No, I think it's quite filthy. You're probably best when I'm on to wait outside.

At least they've been warm, but they all flock in. They all love it. But Eunice, he is so right to be calling out labor isn't he because it is this creeping dystopian authoritarian move to destroy free speech i mean they've already done it on universities you know that's already happened immediately under the labor government by getting rid of the free speech bill now what moves to the workplaces this is insidious it is 100 and i do you know dricky gervais the famous comedian oh i love he has a famous line about this and he says you know just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right

and i want to get this through people's skull just because you're offended by something doesn't put you in the right you know and who decides what if you know what's offensive who decides what's true who decides you know what can cause offense or what can obsess because people are offended by anything nowadays so you can literally say anything and someone somewhere would be offended so just because someone's offended does that mean you have to lose your job or go to prison and what if you want to so i take it back to the argument that the mp was making about bed knock what if you say well you know men and women are equal but they're not the same you know biologically speaking they have different needs you know they go through different phases you know men are probably better at certain things women are probably better at other things and this is all scientifically proven

is that somehow a sexist comment and should you be fired for making that kind of comment or you know i spoke about you know the gender madness of lgbtq i do not believe there's 100 different genders i believe there's only two genders i mean you can be gay you can be lesbian you can be bisexual but this whole idea of lg and gender fluid, in my opinion, is just nonsense. So is that somehow homophobic to say that or think that, even though it's supported by science? So it's a very slippery slope that we're going down. You know, free speech is one of the pillars of democracy, is one of the pillars of the first world. We are slowly deteriorating to become a third world.

And they're using kindness and understanding, which is the most manipulative way to, you know, take free speech away from people. And we can see it happen under the Labour government. And us as people should stand up to this. We should not give in. We should keep speaking. We should protect platforms such as x you should carry on what you're doing and i will carry on what you're doing and we are the resistance to this tyrannical tyrannical government we are and you're so right by the way units to

raise hiding behind the be kind movement because i always think of jacinda ardern who is tyrannical actually and proved that she was tyrannical during COVID. But she says, oh, I just want to spread kindness. At the same time, she does the absolute opposite of kindness in terms of her policy while telling the population, we are your only source of truth. Well, actually, no government should be our source of truth. Our job is to challenge the government, to challenge kirsten and that means actually sometimes not wanting political opponents to be locked up for free speech uh but look absolutely love having you here it's the devouring mother complex i mean in psychological terms it's

called the devouring mother complex where you try to over protect your children to the point of damaging them because you don't let them free to go out and adventure, to go out and make mistakes so they can grow as people. And we have a nanny state, basically. Or maybe we have a tyrannical state pretending to be a nanny state. Yes. I think that's what it is, to be honest. And I think more and more of that is going to be proven over the next few

months but look so important that we have young voices like you on the scene unis saragiani who is a contributor for reason uk but also a youtuber i'm going to put the link to his youtube in our show notes i'm a subscriber and i really recommend that you should be too but unis thank you so much for joining us today thanks for having me dan cheers Now it's time for the uncancelled interview. And I am absolutely delighted today to be joined by Dr. Alka Segal Cuthbert. She is the director of Don't Divide Us, as well as an educator, academic author and campaigner i heard her speak very recently at the third anniversary of the together declaration was incredibly impressed she believes passionately in the essential importance of impartiality in education and this is the important thing as a

prerequisite for the civilized conversations necessary for democracy to flourish. So Dr. Alka, so great to have you on the show. I absolutely love what you're doing with Don't Divide Us. But actually, it's the most important day for you to be here, really, because we see Lucy Connolly jailed for two and a half years, a housewife. Now, based on what you say, I think you would agree that her post on X was definitely not a civilized conversation. It was a post that was made in a lot of anger in the heat of the moment after what happened at the Southport community and the Southport community with the slaughtering of the three young girls at the Taylor Swift dance class, but how do you feel about her being put behind bars for two and a half years when she's a housewife with no previous convictions, a carer to her 12-year-old daughter, and at the same time, we see so many hardened criminals on the streets?

Well, thank you, Dan. Thank you for your kind words and for inviting me um i uh i think it's wrong it it's um i think um imprisoning putting people uh behind bars criminalizing hate online hate and she's not the only one there have been many others as well uh it it's it's kind of fundamentally flawed really because you know hate feeling hate is part of being human so you know like you i i don't particularly like well in fact no no more than that i really dislike what she said i don't agree with it i think it's pretty disgusting but the thing is here's the thing about being part of a civilized country or civilized way of governing things is that we can tolerate what we hate right we do not our response

to what we don't like is it is a civilized response to say exactly what we're saying now but to say it is not criminal right it was not incitement it It nowhere met the bar, which is a different set of laws. Yes. She wasn't directly saying, go to this address. Here's the name of the person. Kill this person. She was using very inartful wording to express her anger about the situation. Well, you know, I mean, the thing is, Dan, is that, you know, you know, we've seen about 200 odd, I think, arrests very swiftly ensuing from the riots. And, you know, they've been 400 now, 400. Really? Well, I think, you know, last I had a quick peek at the kind of horror, I thought rather nasty films that the police were putting out kind of remind me of sort of show trials meanwhile the four people in from manchester airport who didn't just say hateful things they kind of you know knocked police

women to the ground are out on bail right so they actually haven't even been arrested yet that's the extraordinary thing i know i mean you know we all understand that you know we want due justice to be done there are procedures to be followed but come on you know, we all understand that, you know, we want due justice to be done. There are procedures to be followed. But come on, you know, at least let us know exactly what is what state of play is. All we know is that they're out, you know, they're out on bail. Well, it's two-tier justice, isn't it? And it really makes me think hard.

And this is why I love the name of your organisation, Don't Divide Us. don't divide us because isn't the problem alka that race divisions are now being weaponized to the point where actually it's starting to encourage racism that wasn't there i i i really think so i think we're seeing the re-racialisation of our culture and our society. We're seeing it in schools. We're seeing, you know, I've had at least two people this week contact me saying they're very puzzled, upset and annoyed that their children's schools are organising racially segregated events. Right? What's that about?

So if you're white, you can't go? Or is it specifically for black students or Asian students? How does that work? I mean, I don't know the details, but what has happened in one of the places is that there is an outing being arranged for the school, but it's only available to ethnic minority children. So it's like these blackout performances where white people are discouraged from attending. Yes, it's all justified under the rubric of safe spaces,

giving space for people. But these are children and that is racial thinking and it's racism, right? It's simply not, you would think in schools of all places with young children, that is a particularly pernicious thing to be doing because you're saying right from the get-go, you know, you can't actually form the bonds with your fellow people online, you know, due to what you are, your character, your personality, what you say, what you do,

how you treat people. But all of that has got to be first and foremost seen through your skin colour. I mean, that, you know, to me, that's racism. That's racist thinking. It really is. It really, really is. And then you have.

Well, I want to show you this article in The Guardian, this headline in The Guardian. And this is quite an extraordinary explanation as to why the riots took place. Dr. Alka. explanation as to why the riots took place dr alka so uh the headline says make black history mandatory in england to counter hatred urges campaigner and this is lavinia stennett who founded the black curriculum and she believes that one of the reasons that the so-called riots broke out in England and Northern Ireland is because Black History Month only lasts for a month and she says it needs to be taught all year round. What did you make of her intervention? Two things really, Dan. First of all, I think it is putting the cart before the horse because she's saying it's lack of race thinking being taught in schools that is the problem.

Whereas I actually think that it's the, you know, the presence of so much racialisation of the of racism, unconscious bias, et cetera, that I think is encouraging the kind of silencing of people being able to speak, the chilling of people being able to speak and communicate freely that is adding to the frustration that may well have, that may well have contributed to the right. So you don't need more of it. We need less of it. Right. And then the second thing I think about, especially, you know, people,

well, I don't think Lavinia Stennett has actually ever been a teacher or an educator. And I think she set up this company after she did her degree at ZOAS that I don't believe was anything to do with education. But, you know, this is like, you know, justifying the kind of the legitimacy of expert cliques, you know, like racism is something so complicated

and, you know, that you might all be racist and not even be aware of it. So we, the experts, need to make you aware of it. So it's very anti-democratic. And I mean, it's patronizing. It should not be in schools. No, it shouldn't be. I mean, I am the generation, Dr. Alka, that was brought up to believe in a colorblind society. And the thing is, I know that if you're taught in school to believe in a colorblind society, and it doesn't matter what color your classmates are actually it's the best way to discourage racism

which i never even thought about to be honest probably in any depth until the black lives matter movement started to explode but race seems to now pervade so many areas of society and breaking right now the mrs brown's boys race storm has grown so we spoke about this earlier in the week but this is about brendan o'carroll who is the star of mrs brown's boys making a joke at a cast read-through so it wasn't in front of any members of the public or anything like that but at a cast read-through where he used an implied racist term now this is really interesting to me because they're not saying the daily mirror that he used the n-word they're saying he made a joke which in some way implied the n-word now what's happened is that the bbc have issued brendan o'carroll with a final warning after a black crew member quit an outrage over the joke so this raises so many

issues for me dr alka because first you have the issue of comedy right comedy is meant to be offensive and i totally sign up to the ricky gervais view of the world which is that just because you're offended about something in a comics act it doesn't mean necessarily that you're right because the whole point of comedy is to shock and horrify but in this case what's interesting to me is he he didn't use the word. They say he implied the use of the word. Yeah, yeah. What do you make of it? Well, this is, you know, I think you have to bear in mind,

this is coming very shortly after we've seen the teacher, Mariah Hassan, being cleared in court for using racial slurs on the back half of the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrations. And that was, you know, she was a teacher. She was voicing the right opinions and in the right opinions justified as satire or irony or one academic, one race, in my view, academic, tried to call it, you know, sort of political critique.

I mean, that's really a low bar for political critique. But, you know, that was justified. Calling Swellabraven, you know, having pictures of Swellabraven and Rishi Sunak with coconuts there is like, OK, that's not a racial slur. And this is. And I mean, the thing is, rather than get into was it, wasn't it, you know, it was, you know, in both cases, they are racial slurs. The answer to me is not to kind of be going down a rabbit hole of who can say it, where and when, who has the right to say it, because then you're just policing speech. It just should be free. I think, you know, I think, you know, to be honest, I think we should all just need to get to a point where we accept we can have the right to offend and we have the right to be offended. But that right does not mean that it doesn't give you kind of any claim on organisational authority or setting the rules within a, you know, within something like the BBC.

And yes, you can say something, you're offended by something and personally I love Mrs Brown I mean my family don't, they look at me aghast but I really like her The thing is it's one of the BBC's only working class comedies and so what's so interesting is actually there's a feeling

at the BBC Dr Alka that they're very embarrassed about Mrs Brown's Boys, it's not, Dr. Alka, that they're very embarrassed about Mrs. Brown's Boys. It's not the type of posh comedy that they like to watch. You know, they like things like Fleabag. You know, the thing that Phoebe Waller-B some way, which I absolutely don't think it is. But I do wonder if there is a bit of a move at summer at Best Western and get $50 off a future stay. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions.

Well, I mean, I don't know, but I think you're absolutely right about the kind of nervousness and squeamishness that the, the clerisy, and I'd include the kind of leading people at the BBC in that feel about you know everyday life ordinary people the way we speak the way we you know the way we eat the way we the way we bring up our children all of that is is kind of you can see we've had quite a few years of that trying to be kind of managed and nudged in the right direction so that we um become more like so the cliques of the middle class um think we should be which is the

opposite of a kind of democratic open free and tolerant society so you know even though you can you know you can think well you know taken in isolation these little things you think oh it's just one comedian or it's just one show. But it is you can see a kind of accumulation of things happening, a kind of cultural and under the surface kind of moral judgment. There's a kind of process of moral stigmatization going on here. I mean, as it happens, I like Fleabag as well, but I love Brendan Carroll. And, you know, I can I could what you know you should watch a comedy and okay if you you can be offended you know had not had he not implied the n-word had he implied

the p-word you know I might think oh no that's horrible you know it can be painful it can I'm not saying it would be but it it can be right things like that can be upsetting um but but but the thing is is that it's not you know we can't run society according to how we feel as individuals you have to think what is the what is the best for the overall what is best for all of us and it's not going to be best for all of us if we just say we're going to try and measure offense because offense is subjective you can't organize everybody around that kind of principle so you think okay you know offense is the price we pay for being in a democracy for because offence is subjective. You can't organise everybody around that kind of principle. So you think, OK, you know, offence is a price we pay for being in a democracy, for being in a free culture.

I don't think we can accept anything less. And it is so interesting when you think about the fact that actually the BBC tends to be uber-woke when it comes to issues like this. But obviously, they have a track record that involves people like Hugh Edwards and Jimmy Savile. So it's all quite ironic. But look, Dr. Alka, don't go anywhere. Stand by, because in just one minute, I want to talk to you about the reparations debate.

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when the Prime Minister of Barbados demands that amount of money? What he should say is exactly what Richard Tice, the Deputy Leader of Reform UK, says is his position on reparations. It's not a single penny in reparations because, look, the reality is, frankly, lots of other countries owe us. I mean, it is the Royal Navy and the British taxpayer that stopped the slave trade over many years, about 170, 200 years ago. And we should be we should be thanked for that. Not then said you've got to pay a bill. And there were vast legions of people along the way who made money out of the vile slave trade, including tribal leaders and rulers and kings in African countries. So let's just stop. So, Dr. Alka, where do you stand on the reparations debate?

Well, you know, I would agree that we should not be talking about reparations. And I have to say, much to my surprise, credit where it's due, Keir Starmer has said, no, we will not be paying reparations. We just hope that he stands up to that when he's under pressure from David Lammy and academics and the Church of England Commission who are also wanting to pay reparations. So there is a lot of pressure from the great and the good for Britain to be doing this. And that is part of the wider cultural self-loathing that's going on, the kind of attempt, this idea that nothing about Britain can be free from the taint of a past sin. It's not really even about the past. It's certainly not about reality today or trying to help developing countries that might be struggling. So, for example, you know, there are about six or seven countries

in the CARICOM Reparations Trust, the organization that's putting forward these demands. You know, we've got a country like Barbados, whose GDP per capita in 2023, I just looked up some figures here, is about is $22,672. This is according to World Bank data. So that's kind of at the highest end, right? But then you've also got in that group, by the way, Barbados won, it got its independence in 1966. You take a country like Haiti, which is also in that group,

which got its independence in 1804, and its GDP per capita is 1,693. So there's a huge difference there. And you would have thought that if you were concerned about trying to improve the lives of people who need it, who are in countries where development, for whatever reasons, is less than it should be in order to give a decent, provide a decent life for people, then you kind of ought to be looking at things happening today, at trade deals, at the way global corporations work somehow, often to the detriment of weaker, smaller countries. Those are the kinds of issues you could be looking at.

But no, instead, we've got this blanket condemnation, this absurd statement from CARICOM that says it is illogical because on the one hand, Britain is meant to have been kind of on a genocidal spree to get rid, to kill everybody, you know, all indigenous peoples and slaves. But that would be like the slave owners destroying their property, right? They wanted slaves so they wouldn't kill them because they wanted them to work. Right. So that's that's an absurdity for a start. I mean, it has no logical credibility. The only reason I think I mean, I don't know why they're doing this, whether they've kind of, you know, they have their own internal problems, maybe modernity, maybe independence hasn't worked out for them in the way for them to solve their problems and this is certainly not something Britain should be agreeing to either not just practically not giving them the money but they

need to be really we need to be you know far more confident in standing up and saying look I'm sorry slavery colonialism that was just one you know in terms of history you think of how far back history goes that was a very small part of it. Right. And as Richard Tye says and his other historians say, much effort and money was put in. Britain stood alone. You know, it was the first country. Loads of other people still thought slavery was OK. There was a fight in Britain. Right. It wasn't just easy. You just wake up one day. Oh, yeah. OK, we'll get rid of slavery. People here had to argue for it, fight for it. People say, you know, ordinary working class people in the north of England saved money to buy the freedom of Frederick Douglass when he was over here from America.

Right. So this is just a complete attempt to morally stigmatize what Britain is today, right? And it's a very disempowering, cruel, emotionally and morally and cruel thing to do and politically very dangerous because it will just fuse with a kind of fractious grievance, lack of solidarity that we're already seeing in our society. So no, reparations, no. Very, very well put. Absolutely loved having you. That is Dr. Alka Seagull Cuthbert, who is the director of Don't Divide Us. And I hope you come back to Outspoken soon, Dr. Alka.

Thank you you Dan. I want to end today by paying tribute to Liam Payne, the guy who I knew and I think possibly the most lovely thing I've seen over the past 12 hours because there's been a lot of horror online online I mean could you believe that TMZ posted a picture of his dead body showing his tattoos could you believe that the Daily Mail is trumpeting pictures inside his hotel room there's a lot of grim stuff out there about Liam Payne but after I heard this news last night the thing that gave me a lot of hope and a lot of positivity in the darkest of times because this is a real tragedy. And as I said, I have made a separate video which you can find on my YouTube page right now about why I think the music industry, the evil music industry, has a lot of blood on its hands over Liam Payne. But it was the videos I saw in the days before his death where Liam Payne continued to give so much of his time and so much of his heart to his fans and I wanted

to share one of them to end the show with today. Awwww Here we're gonna take a picture Let's do this right? That's awesome I have your t-shirt You do have my t-shirt I have your t-shirt Let's pretend Oh What's your name?

Guido Guido. Guido. Me llamo Leon. Me llamo Leon. Thank you. Good to see you. Thank you, Leon. Thank you very much. Oh, one last thing.

I have another tattoo. Oh, you got the whole thing. Whoa! You know I drew that, right? That's my drawing. No, it's my drawing. I drew it, yeah. Nice to meet you.

Absolutely. Thank you very much. Really, really sad stuff, but beautiful to see that just in the days before his death. Now, coming up in the uncancelled after show, a royal special with According to Taz. And we're breaking news on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle making a big move to Europe. Plus, Prince William wants to end homelessness in the UK. Is he the right person to be doing that? Well, William has responded to that criticism.

I'll show you what he has to say. You know, it's very important to me that we have a safe space, not patrolled by big tech, where censorship and control runs deep. So that's why I have launched www.outspoken.live. It is our membership section where you get half an hour of extra content every single day. So at this stage, we come off YouTube and Rumble. We move to our own platform to continue the conversation in the uncancelled after show all you have to do is sign up at www.outspoken.live i'm back tomorrow at 5 p.m uk time midday eastern 9 a.m pacific please hit subscribe right now on youtube and rumble most importantly i promise to keep fighting for you and i hope to see you on the after show with according to Taz in just one moment. We'll see you next time. you