TRIGGERnometry - Cancelled for Criticising BLM - Nick Buckley MBE

Episode Date: September 16, 2020

Nick Buckley founded the Mancunian Way charity in 2011, helping thousands of disadvantaged children in Manchester, and was awarded an MBE for this work. In 2020 Nick was dismissed from his position as... chief executive after he posted a blog regarding Black Lives Matter. Support TRIGGERnometry: Paypal: https://bit.ly/2Tnz8yq https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:19 Nick Buckley and Bee, welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you very much. It is great to have you here, Nick. Before we get into your story, which a lot of our audience are going to find very interesting, I think. Just tell everybody who are you, how are you where you are, what is the journey that leads you to be sitting here talking to us? That's a 50-year journey. So kid off a council estate in Manchester in South Manchester, went to a failing school,
Starting point is 00:01:45 didn't do really well with me exams, didn't go to university, did a lot of travelling around the world. I think that really changed me who I am. Then I got a job with Manchester Council, started looking in different roles in there, started working with young people, trying to stop them getting involved in crime and antisocial behaviour.
Starting point is 00:02:03 And then when the cuts came in 2011 or steved to him, I took redundancy and used that money to invest in a charity and I set up my own charity to carry on working with young people on the streets and starting getting involved and making poor decisions. And then June this year, I did some blogging and I did a blog on Black Lives Matter because they'd just come to the fore. Nobody knew who they were.
Starting point is 00:02:30 So I went on the website, had a bit of a read, and was quite shocked about what it said on their website. Not rumors, not gossip, what they put themselves on their website. And I thought, I don't know anybody knows any of this. So I wrote a 700 word blog, really talked about their website and what was on their website. And that hit the fan. People thought it was a racist, the Nazi.
Starting point is 00:02:56 And when you think I've spent 20 years working in the most challenging neighborhoods across Greater Manchester, working with thousands, tens of thousands of young people and helping supporting them and everything just turned sour overnight. There was an online petition to have me fired from the charity I set up and founded. That got 450 signatures. There were some other email complaints went into the board who I appointed. So a lot of them were friends with and I appointed for their skills.
Starting point is 00:03:26 I was then summarily sacked via email. And then I mounted a fight back. I thought, I'm not having this. You know, if you knew me, you would think to yourself, you wouldn't take Nick on if you weren't completely sure that what you're doing was right. So I'm out of the comeback. The online petition got 18,000 signatures compared to the form of... To get your reinstated. To get reinstated.
Starting point is 00:03:51 Got some press attention with the mail on Sunday. And then I had a solicitor's firm involved free of charge called Keystone Law. Excellent. We're going to need that. Yeah. I highly recommend Jeffrey Davis. Fantastic. They looked at my case.
Starting point is 00:04:09 And within a few hours went, they've made so many mistakes in. A week later, reinstated back at the charity I founded. And the Free Speech Union, very helpful, I believe. Species Union were fantastic. It's the only organisation I've ever joined. I've never been there member of a political party, any other union.
Starting point is 00:04:27 I think the only things I've ever joined is local library and blockbusters. For your younger viewers, the older viewers will know what blockbusters is. But then I joined the Free Speech Union in June, and they were amazing. I'd recommend anybody. If you like talking, join the Free Speech Union because you don't know when you need them. And you're contributing to their coffers, and they're going to help people like me. I never thought I was going to need any help. It was my charity.
Starting point is 00:04:55 I set it up. I appointed the board. I got an MBA for it. I'm not going to get cancelled. How little did I know? Well, that's the great thing about nowadays is that anyone can be a Nazi, Nick. Yes.
Starting point is 00:05:10 You know, there's everything, Black, Nazis, white Nazis, Jewish Nazis, it's incredible. Anybody you don't like is a Nazi. Yeah. I got poor service in the shop one day. I'm convinced statement with that. Well, listen, let's get into a little bit.
Starting point is 00:05:26 So, first of all, it just boggles the mind because as comedians, we can understand, we make a bad joke, we say something wrong, we haven't really done anything with our lives. We're sort of useless. We're just talk. So if we get cancelled, it's sort of par for the course. You expect it, blah, blah, blah.
Starting point is 00:05:43 But you're someone, 20 years, you've spent working with disadvantaged kids, helping them make a better lot for themselves, right? Having yourself come from a very difficult background. Yeah. You've worked your way up. You start a charity with your own redundancy money. You get an MBE.
Starting point is 00:06:05 It's your own charity. And you say something in public, which is factually based about the BLM organization. And then you're just, you're sacked from your own charity. That's got some, it's unimaginable, isn't it? Up to the email of I being in my inbox, it was unimaginable. It's, I'm still in shock now. You know, at the last couple of months, I'm still in shock. And it's deeply affected me as well.
Starting point is 00:06:35 You know, it's affected my relationships. It's affected how I view the people on the board who I class as my friends. You know, I'd known one of them 15 years. And I don't particularly blame those individuals. I don't blame individuals. You know, I put them in a very difficult situation with that blog, even though that wasn't my intention. That's what I did because I take personal responsibility for this. No one else did this.
Starting point is 00:07:01 I wrote the blog, I posted it, so I need to take responsibility for it. And I still look at those individuals, and they were still wonderful individuals the day before they sent that email. So therefore, they're still wonderful individuals now. They just weren't up for a fight. And that's the only difference. So I don't want to fall into the trap that other people do. You know, they're nasty, their evil, their left-wing commies. They were just nice people just weren't up for a fight.
Starting point is 00:07:30 Yeah. And Nick, the question I'm really interesting asking is this. What were your criticisms of the BLM, of the BLM organisation? I'll make that overt. What in particular did you disagree with? So I think first thing I need to tell you why I wrote it. Because I didn't write this because I had spare 10 minutes and I'm always sticking my nose into people's business.
Starting point is 00:07:49 And I know, I've never commented anything around Extinction Rebellion, who I don't support. But extinction rebellion doesn't fall under the remit of my charity of what we're trying to do, what we're trying to achieve. so I wouldn't comment on that, because I'm not an expert. But when I read Black Lives Matter and what they were talking about,
Starting point is 00:08:07 which I'll get into in a minute, I thought to myself, this philosophy and ideology is going to damage the lives of the young people I've spent 20 years trying to help. It's hard enough being brought up in inner city. It's hard enough being brought up in poverty
Starting point is 00:08:24 without having a national movement and then just that's going to be with telling you that you're a victim, that the police about hunting you down every night, that the reason why you fail is because you're black, you're brown, because you're Muslim, because you're this, because you're a woman.
Starting point is 00:08:40 And I know a lot of young people, and it's quite tempting. And I was one of those, that's why I've only been doing this for 20 years and I'm 52. So what they do for 30 years? I wasted my life. That's what I did. So I know how easy it is to get distracted.
Starting point is 00:08:54 So if we're giving young people, a solid gold reason not to try in life because what's the point I'm black? What's the point? I've been told by all these politicians that I'm a victim. Then I'm there going, no, you're bloody not. And don't listen to them because that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think you're going to fail in life, I guarantee you're going to fail in life. And success is what you make it.
Starting point is 00:09:21 Success isn't you're going to be an international footballer. The odds are you're not going to get that. but you can judge what success is. And success might be stacking shelves at Azda and having a legal job that pays the rent and you can have a wife and kids. That's success, but also if you want to be a doctor or a nurse, it doesn't matter.
Starting point is 00:09:43 Sort out yourself what success is and an aim for that. Because we're not all going to be brain surgeons or footballers. So you deem what success is. And when I read what they wrote on their website about dismantling the nuclear family. That's the biggest problem we've got in these cities. No bloody fathers. And they want to dismantle the nuclear family and break it down.
Starting point is 00:10:09 And then you read, they want to defund the police, which means abolish the police. I don't know anybody who wants to abolish the police. It tends to have police where we have crime. And the poorest people in the poorest neighborhoods are the biggest victims of crime. Not the leafy suburbs. It's the people living in the cities.
Starting point is 00:10:30 And all of them, someone who speaks to a lot of them, they all want more police, not less police. We've seen what happened in America when all of a sudden the police disappear. You know, gun trang goes through the roof, violence goes through the roof. Look at New York City at the moment. I think homicides have increased 2, 300%, something like that over the last few months. And we're telling the poorest people and the people who need the most and the most protection that we're going to abolish the police for you, mate.
Starting point is 00:10:57 And I'm reading all this on their website and I'm thinking, they're either nutcases, but I've heard someone thought they're not nutcases, the Marxist. This is the way to tear down our society and our culture and our country, especially when they say we want to overthrow capitalism. But what does that mean? Well, there's only one option from capitalism, and it's socialism, which means communism.
Starting point is 00:11:21 and we tried communism maybe a dozen times last century. We gave it a really good go, mate. We gave it a really, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Your ancestors gave it a really good goal. And did it work anywhere? No. All it left was tens of millions of bodies. And capitalism isn't perfect.
Starting point is 00:11:43 You know, capitalism, it's, you know, I want the church will say, it's the work, it's the worst, best system I've ever come across at the moment that we've developed at the moment. It's not perfect. You know, and capital has a tendency of leave, you know, the poor and the vulnerable stacking up at the bottom. And that's people we need to help. So we need a compassionate capitalism. We don't need to tear all this down and try again, a failing system that has never worked anywhere else. So I read this. And I thought, this is going to destroy everything. I've spent two decades trying to change across great and Manchester.
Starting point is 00:12:22 And that's why I wrote the blog. I thought people need to know about this. Not because of me and my big mouth, because it's going directly against what the charity was set up to do to help the exact people, this is going to damage. And that's why I want the blog. So let's talk about that. You talk about, I can't remember the exact phrase.
Starting point is 00:12:41 I don't think it's about dismantling the nuclear family, but something about disrupting the nuclear family requirement or some shit. but they used to want to live in massive communes or whatever it is. You talk about the inner city. Let's start with the rise of the single-parent household. What sort of impact on the young people that you work with would having more single-parenthood have for those people? So if we go to my experience, my personal experience,
Starting point is 00:13:13 single-parent household. Mom did a fantastic job. We had no money, but I knew I was loved. How did we know? A nice, happy family growing up. And all my friends had dads, so we're not. We're looking at 30, 40 years ago. And if you'd have asked me then, do I miss having a father?
Starting point is 00:13:31 I had no memory of my father. I think we left when I was two. And the answer would be, no, I've not missed it at all. You know, there's nothing, I could have got extra out of it. But then the first time I realized I had missed out. I was 23 years old. sat with my friends and the beer garden in Manchester on Somersday having a drink
Starting point is 00:13:50 and everyone's talking about shaving and someone just bought the new Gillette shaver or bought this or bought that and we're all talking about shaving and they all said they shaved the way the dad taught to shave and when it came to me they said how do you shaving it?
Starting point is 00:14:04 I went oh I've got electric razor oh why do you let's a razor and I said well I looked in some drawers once in the house when I was 14 I found an old electric razor and I started shaving with that and I've shaved with it ever since And it was that conversation, I realized, oh, I had missed having a father in my life. Not dramatically.
Starting point is 00:14:23 It wasn't, you know, a life-changing thing. And then I started thinking, if I missed out on that, what else have I missed out on? To help me mold me into being a man, to having, you know, inspiration to trying to achieve something. And the answer is I don't know, because you don't know what you've missed when you don't know it was there. So taking that forward now to young people. In the inner cities, when I meet young people, I've got two ways of knowing if they're vulnerable to making really poor choices in life. The first one is the failing education.
Starting point is 00:15:00 So if I'm talking to young people and they're saying they hate school, they're never in school that being kicked out of school is a huge warning sign to me because I know they're vulnerable to being pulled into criminality, making negative choices. and the other warning sign is I have no father at home. And if you've got both of them, then you're extremely vulnerable to making poor choices. We really underestimate as a society. We're not allowed to talk about this
Starting point is 00:15:30 because if you talk about this, it's as if we're attacking single moms. And I'm not attacking single moms. Single moms do an amazing job under so much pressure than stress. What I'm saying is they'd be under less pressure than stress. and have an easier life. If we have the father there and who I'm blaming
Starting point is 00:15:50 are the fathers. I'm not blaming the single moms. I'm saying to men and boys, how dare you knock somebody up and it's your child and you take no responsibility ever for your child, then how dare you do that? This is your flesh and blood growing inside, you know, this woman who's then going to give birth,
Starting point is 00:16:11 it's going to be your child, who's then going to have other children. children and you don't want to be part of their life and you don't want to provide for that child and be a man and take responsibility. How dare you not want to do that? And you're going to leave it to the state to bring up your child. I'll tell you what, the state will do a bloody poor job of bringing up your child, a poor job. You need to get some responsibility and you need to raise your own children. That's what you need to do. And that's aimed at the men, not at single moms, a good job under hard circumstances, I want them to have more help and support. And it's the men
Starting point is 00:16:50 as a society we need to be going after and saying, just like we used to do with drink driving. When I was a kid in the 70s, I always went to my uncle's car who was drunk and we drive us home. And we all knew he was drunk and it was acceptable. Now, you'd phone the police. If you knew someone someone's driving someone's kids home, you'd phone the police. And that's what we need to do with men who are not taking responsibility for their children. Children need a father and a mother in less exceptional circumstances. Of course.
Starting point is 00:17:19 If your dad's a violent, murdering paedophile, you'll do better than life without having a relationship with him. So that's a caveat. But on the whole, children need both bands. Look, I spend a lot of time telling you what's wrong with the world, so let me tell you about something that's actually right.
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Starting point is 00:18:16 I'm the person who's been on the same mattress for eight years and called it fine. But the older I get, the more I notice that fine isn't actually fine. Your body tells you, if you're going to invest in anything for your home, your bed is the one that pays you back every single night. Avocado products are made, not manufactured, and thoughtfully crafted with real materials to deliver lasting comfort and support. Go to avocado greenmatress.com slash trigger to check out their mattress and furniture sale. That's avocado green mattress.com slash trigger.
Starting point is 00:18:50 Avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. So that BLM recommendation, not constructive, not helpful. That's disastrous. Disastrous. Okay. So let's go to the next one, which is abolish the police, defund the police. Now, they say defund means something else. There's a lot of bullshit.
Starting point is 00:19:09 but then there's a New York Times article comes out where they go, no, no, we mean abolish the police. So let's take them at the word abolish the police. What would be the impact in the inner city like Manchester of removing the police officers who are there? Yeah. And replacing them with quote-unquote social workers. What would be the impact of that?
Starting point is 00:19:31 Well, first of all, I spent nearly a decade as a community safety manager for Manchester County. and every residence meeting I went to, every victim of crime I spoke to, in the inner cities, lots of them being me would all say, I want more police on my street. Where are the police?
Starting point is 00:19:50 I want more police. Not one person ever said to me, do you know what, Nick? I'm sick of saying, I'm sick of saying police around here. Not one person has ever said to me in the decade I worked in the crime field at Manchester Council.
Starting point is 00:20:05 Everybody wants more police. it makes you feel safer. If we reduced the amount of police, and we have done the cross Great Mansions, I think we've lost over 2,000 police officers in the last decade because of austerity. The Met has lost a hell of a lot more than that. If you take police out of those neighbourhoods,
Starting point is 00:20:24 you're basically handing it over to organise crime and you hand it over to dysfunctional young people who commit low-level crime in antisocial behaviour and will run amok. I remember growing up on a council estate 50 years ago where anti-social behaviour and low-level crime was not only every day, it was culturally acceptable.
Starting point is 00:20:47 I remember some kid running across my street with half a leg of lamb, half a lamb, because someone was delivering meat to local butchers and as he popped in, this lad jumped to the back and picked up half, half a sheep and ran on with it, and everybody knew who'd done it. No one said anything. it was all acceptable.
Starting point is 00:21:05 We've got away from that now because it looks like a victimist crime, but there is no victimless crime in society. And if we remove police from these areas or just reduce them, antistuch behavior will go through the roof. Low-level crime will go through the roof and then we'll have organized crime taking over.
Starting point is 00:21:24 And what we'll have then is then we'll have vigilantes. You know, we'll have organized crime walking around going, I'll sort that burglar out for you. And there might not even be the person who burgled your house, but they'll get a good idea and we're stabbing because we thought it was him and that's not how we want to run our society
Starting point is 00:21:40 with lawlessness and vigilantes and gangs running our neighbourhoods. We need more police, not less police. There's an argument for better policing. Absolutely. I've trained police officers and community engagement.
Starting point is 00:21:55 You know, I did that for several years every now and again working with great master police. Police need, you know, to improve their training. I'm sick of police. You sit on TV. Those TV shows drive me mental. If I hear one more police officer speaking to a member public and calling him, mate, what are you doing tonight? Right, love, you know, calm down, don't be drinking.
Starting point is 00:22:16 Excuse me, you call him, sir, and you call her madam. You don't call him mate and love. If someone from British gas turns up my house, I want them to call me, sir. I'm paying for a service here. I'm not your mate. Be professional. And so we can improve the police, and we need to, you know, we need to raise their game. On the whole, the fantastic, I'm a big support of the police,
Starting point is 00:22:37 but they can be improved. So we can improve and help train the police better. But reducing them and getting rid of them is absolutely crazy. I can only say it's a craziest idea I think I've ever heard. I like that because halfway through it sounded like you were giving him a bollicking. Which I deserve to be fair. Which you do deserve, which I very much enjoy. Now, I think pretty much everybody who looks at these ideas knows that they're crazy.
Starting point is 00:23:04 knows that they are fundamentally unworkable. So why have we got into this position where they have become impossible to criticise? Do you remember the documentary the BBC did on Black Lives Matter when they went into the background of who they are and how they set up? We didn't see it.
Starting point is 00:23:21 No, I don't. Did you see it? No, no. Does it exist? That's why no one knows what Black Lives Matter stands for because not one reputable mainstream media organisation has done half-hour documentary into Black Lives Matter. That's why nobody knows about it. As simple as that, I speak to my friends. All my friends up to me educating them think Black Lives Matter
Starting point is 00:23:44 is just a movement that came out of racism in the UK. And I say, it's an organisation. They have a website. They've collected millions of pounds. Have they? I didn't know that. Well, these are some of their views. I never knew that.
Starting point is 00:24:00 Well, how would they? Unless they've got the time and inclination to do some research, which most people haven't, then the mainstream media has completely let us down. Where is the documentary about who Black Lives Matter are? I'm not saying a tack-ham, but a factual BBC panorama, horizon, news night, type of documentary. This is Black Lives Matter, started six years ago in America, over shooting of some black young person who said he had his hands up, it turns out he didn't have his hands up, all the way through now.
Starting point is 00:24:37 And let's have a proper factual documentary, but no one's made it. And the mainstream media don't want to make it. So we're kept in ignorance. They're scared. I mean, this is why you say people aren't educated, but there are also people, and I can tell you this from personal experience in the media, higher up in different echelons of different organizations. You talk to them, you sit them down, and you go, you know, here's the fact about this.
Starting point is 00:25:00 This is what they propose. And they got, hmm, and then they don't say anything. Yes. Because they know the punishment, as you now know the punishment. Which is if you make these perfectly legitimate observations, I mean, they say so themselves. One of the co-founders of BLM said in 2015 that they're trained Marxists. I saw the video with her talking about it. So it's not a secret.
Starting point is 00:25:22 It's not a secret. There's no secret about it. But a lot of people simply don't want to say that that's what's happening. therefore they'll pretend they don't know. It's a bit like Five of Christmas on the Easter Bunny. We know it's made up. We know it's crazy. But we're not going to go around saying it's all made up and crazy because it might upset the people you still believe in it.
Starting point is 00:25:44 We call them children. So we don't want to upset them. And if you've got the big directors at those big organizations, you know the truth. They're not stupid. They've already looked into this. But you're right. They're seeing what's happened to people like me and other people. and they're thinking, I don't want to lose my quarter million pound year job and my amazing pension
Starting point is 00:26:07 for saying something that I know people don't want to hear. This is my job. And Nick, did you have any idea of the hot water you were going to get into by writing this blog? Or did you think it was a legitimate criticism and you were just going to go about your day? I thought there would be some criticism. Because social picture. You know, I could put on social me my date of birth, somebody's so there would be some criticism.
Starting point is 00:26:40 Did I think it'd be anything like what happened? No. Because, you know, would I have posted it if I had, if I had known? I really don't know. I'd like to think I would. I'd like to think, yes, I would. But that'd be, that's far too easy an answer.
Starting point is 00:26:58 Would I have posted it knowing that the turmoil and, you know, the hurt and, you know, just what I've been through, what I have done it, I really couldn't answer that. But no, I didn't expect it to go back shit crazy like it did. But do you regret posting? No. Why not?
Starting point is 00:27:20 Because I believe I was right and I believe I've been proven right. And I believe if I had posted that blog today, it had made no waves. I agree. I was ahead of the curve. Yeah. And if you're trying to be a leader in any field you're in, and if you're trying to improve the lives of people you care about,
Starting point is 00:27:41 then you need to do what's right, not what's convenient. And it was right at that moment in time for me to try to educate whoever was following me on social media about what I discovered. I didn't know. I discovered it and went people need to know about this. so I then try to educate and inform other people. So I don't regret doing it at all. And so you say that you don't regret doing it.
Starting point is 00:28:09 And you look at the government's handling of BLM. I personally think it was weak. What handling? Exactly. So what are your criticisms of the government? Do you think they handle it? Well, that's the biggest problem we've got. I can only say, I've never been so disappointed in the government
Starting point is 00:28:28 than one we've got at the moment and I voted for this government and not because of policies not because of COVID because let's be honest we're all making COVID up as we go along because no one knows what they're doing just everyone, every country is doing the best what they think is right
Starting point is 00:28:42 because when they've had this before so I'm not even blaming them for that all of us, you know, we have even now where's the leadership when they're pulling down statues and graffiti you know the Churchill statue and attacking the police
Starting point is 00:28:57 and I can't I can't name one politician who stood up and went no no no no not in this country not today and not while I've got my seat in parliament if you don't like what I'm saying vote me out
Starting point is 00:29:16 because I'm going to say what I believe vote me out if you disagree with me but I'm having none of this the whole country was begging for someone to to stand and Boris Johnson was on death store. So he still could have done more regardless.
Starting point is 00:29:33 You know, we had a World War II pilot with no legs flying spitfires. So just because, you know, you're ill or you've lost. It doesn't mean you can't do anything. He still should have done more. I'm extremely angry and disappointed without government about how they did nothing, how they made everybody else feel. I better say nothing because even the government's afraid of the mob. And if they're afraid of the mob, I work in Tesco's.
Starting point is 00:29:58 work in a factory, I don't say anything. And I'd better put that BLN post room window. I'd better start making those fist salute. I'd better start putting a black square on Instagram. Because if government's afraid, then I need to be terrified. And they really dropped the ball. Absolutely dropped the ball. I know an actor who was forced by her agent to put a black square on their Instagram because if you don't, you're going to lose work. Yes. So that terror you're talking about, and you're right, I think it rose all the way to the top, all the way to the top.
Starting point is 00:30:38 But coming back to you and your situation, it sounds to me like the people who sacked you from your own charity, they didn't do it because they were sort of ardent BLM marchers who'd been out there protesting. they did it for likely the same reasons that people were doing everything else, which is, this is scary, we're going to get punished, this looks bad, and they just didn't want to make the stand that you did. Yes. It was a sort of soft cowardice, you might say.
Starting point is 00:31:11 Possibly. I mean, I'm putting it quite strong terms. I'm not attacking the people. I'm just saying they were unwilling to make a stand, let's say. Was that it? Was that the extent you think of it? Yeah. They just didn't want to deal with the trouble.
Starting point is 00:31:24 Yeah. But why fire you then? Why not just, like, say they don't support you? Why would they sack you from your own charity? Again, a lot of this comes down to COVID. Months and months being locked away. All of us hypersensitive. All of us spending far too much time on social media.
Starting point is 00:31:42 I've got nothing else to do. If there's been normal times, I think the email would have been, Nick, we all need a face-to-face it. It's COVID. so there was no face to face. They were probably looking at a charity and thinking, we've got lots of corporate supporters, and they're probably looking,
Starting point is 00:32:01 some of these corporate supporters are actively supporting BLM. They're not happy. And my answer would have been, I don't care. I set this charity up. They can pull their money. It's not a lot of money anyway. But I'm not sacrificing the futures
Starting point is 00:32:16 of the young people on the streets just so we can get a couple of, extra grand off this corporate because I'll take a pay cut. You know, we can save the money somewhere else. I'm not selling my soul and what I believe just for an extra couple of grand because we're damaging young people that the charity was set up to help. And that's what I always came back to. And that's all the decisions I've made for the charity was, is this decision the right
Starting point is 00:32:44 thing for those kids on the streets? Because if it is, well, we make that decision. is this the best decision for me to get a pay rise? Well, I shouldn't be answering that question. The question always should be about young people were trying to help. And they probably looked at many things. I'm guessing I wasn't in their mind.
Starting point is 00:33:04 I didn't even sit down and have a conversation with them. They panicked. They saw some complaints come in. They saw the 450 signatures, which at the time seemed a lot of people, 450 people all what Nick sacked. These people are. saying he's a Nazi, he's a racist. Some of these people have obviously black. Look at the faces
Starting point is 00:33:23 on Twitter. They must know what they're talking about. So we've got to letting it go. And how did it work? Did you have any inkling that you were going to get fired or did you simply walk into an office and then it get delivered to you there? Emails. It was all over email. So you've got psyched from your own charity by email? Yes. Immediate. I mean, the effect on, and did you have any idea that this was going to happen? No. So effectively you got an email out of the blue firing you from your own charity that you set up. The effect on you must have been devastating. The first week, it's hard to admit I was a beaten man the first week because I walked out. I went, you idiot. You in your big mouth. When will you ever learn to keep your mouth shut?
Starting point is 00:34:13 That's all I was saying to myself. laughing at you now. Those 450 people are definitely laughing at you. People you've worked with other agents and other charities, they're all laughing at you. Who does he think he is? He was always spouting off in meetings. He was always saying we could do better. He was always saying our plans were wronged. And look at him now. Mm, yeah. Some, well, glad that. That's what I was thinking. First week, I was a beaten man, absolutely. I look back now and I think, oh, I couldn't have got any lower. And then the second week, I got a phone call for friends who said, what are you doing, Nick?
Starting point is 00:34:50 I said, what do you mean to me? You've not replied to anybody. Not one email, not one, anything on social media. You've not challenged anybody. You know, they're calling your Nazi here. You're not even come back, even with an insult to them. You've just accepted it all. And as if you're guilty.
Starting point is 00:35:09 And we all know you're not guilty. Why are you lying down? because I was beaten. So I went to bed that night and that was, I didn't sleep. That's all that was going on in my head was that conversation. I woke up next morning and I thought, right,
Starting point is 00:35:25 the least I can do now is fight back and clear my name. Probably won't get my job back. But unless I clear my name, my next step in my life is going to be a lot harder because it'll be, do you remember me? The Nazi. And I thought, well, that can't be around my neck
Starting point is 00:35:40 rest of my life. So I thought, I need to fight. back and then coincidence happening in life, you know. I've always had a lot of good luck. I always argue, is it good luck or is the fact that I was willing to take an opportunity that of those? So I don't think it was luck. Anyway, that morning knocking a door, open my front door. Hi, I'm a report from the mail on Sunday. Can I have a chat? And I went, just a man. You get a kettle on. Let me get a kettle on. So it wasn't that flipping. I went, coming. I need to
Starting point is 00:36:11 properly think about this before I do an interview. you know, I wasn't that flipping. So we had a good chat, gave an interview, and I thought, well, that's the beginning of the fact of that, let's get some national press on this. And then one of the former trustees of the charity phoned up and said, I can't believe what's happened. He said, do you mind if I set up a alternative petition to get you reinstated? Because I don't want to do it about asking you in case it makes things worse.
Starting point is 00:36:35 I went, no, do it. So he set that up. And then I went on the offensive, as much press I could do. I'm on talk radio quite a bit. Lots of stuff on Twitter and Facebook. That was generating lots of complaints then to the charity board to say, why did you sack this man? So all of a sudden, I flipped the pressure.
Starting point is 00:36:57 Pressure wasn't on me anymore now. The pressure went back onto the board of the charity. Why have you done this? What was their formal reason for stacking you? The formal reason was bringing the, I think it was three points, never mentioned the blog. So the three points were something like bringing the charity in disrepute, spouting political ideology, and breaching Charity Commission
Starting point is 00:37:21 guidance. It's interesting. Do you think that if you made a statement in support of Black Lives Matter, do you think that would have been regarded as spouting political opinions? No, because almost every charity before that was all supporting Black Lives Matter. That's interesting, because I would imagine that's sort of a political position as well, isn't it? If it's a political position to criticize, then it's a political position to endorse. It turns out when you read the Charity Commission guidance,
Starting point is 00:37:49 none of that comes under their definition of political. It's about supporting British political parties around laws or getting him elected. This was the American organisation, so it didn't even come under that. And so this happened, so you started your fight back. At this point, did you want to return to the charity? or did you just want to highlight what actually happened to you and the injustice behind it? So beginning with I was trying to clear my name.
Starting point is 00:38:19 That's how I thought this is, like you do in life, when you've got plans, you have a series of goals. My first goal was I need to clear my name. I can't be known as Nick, remember the charity guy, the Nazi, so I wanted to clear my name on that. The best thing that someone called me was a compassionate Nazi. I got a tweet saying, I'll take on board your two decades of working in these tough,
Starting point is 00:38:41 able, supporting kids, and you're obviously very compassionate, but you're still a Nazi. You are a compassionate Nazi. And I thought about changing my Twitter handle. And I thought, no, I don't want to go for the last of a life with the word Nazi in my Twitter handle and stuff like that. But I thought it was quite funny. So I want to clear my name first of all. And when I could see that was happening and I was getting, I mean, I literally got maybe
Starting point is 00:39:04 a thousand personal messages on Facebook, on Twitter from all over the UK, from France, from Australia, from America saying we've seen it in the press. You've got our full support, anything we can do. I had the one English businessman offered to pay my wages in case I was really struggling. I was getting so much support. That changed my perspective. Then I thought, if I had any doubts that what I'd done was right, and I did have doubts on what I done was right,
Starting point is 00:39:35 because when all of a sudden you face that, it's like, and I am a reflective person. So I was thinking, maybe I am one. Maybe I did cross the line here. Why would all these people be against me? And no one for me. That was another strange thing. No one, in that first couple of weeks,
Starting point is 00:39:53 no one came to my defence. No one. I had just a couple of emails and phone calls and I'd like to. But after I see what's happened to you, Nick, I don't do anything public. But just letting me know that I am on your side, just not publicly.
Starting point is 00:40:07 And then when all that happened, I thought, oh, I might be able to get the charity back here. So it was a second of your thought. It wasn't my initial thought. And then when I got a solicitor's Keystone Law involved and they looked at everything, they went, this looks like an open and shutcase to us, mate. They're saying, we really think you'd be back in the seat this time next week.
Starting point is 00:40:27 Oh, really? And they were spot on. Wow. And what would you say to people who invariably say, cancel culture, it's a myth. It doesn't exist. You know, you're free to say whatever you want. We need to define what cancel culture is because it's become this term for everything now.
Starting point is 00:40:45 So if I, I'm sick of your posts on Twitter and I block you, that's not cancel culture. That's made us just sick of your tweets. But people that are going, oh, he's blocked me. You're talking about cancel culture, but yet you block me. And that's not cancel culture. And it's not canceled culture if it's, you know, you're an actor. And also I don't like your political view. And it's not cancelled culture to say, do you know what?
Starting point is 00:41:11 I used to be a fan of yours, but I'm not now. That's not cancelled culture. Cancel culture is when you say, I don't like what you're saying or what you think. And I'm going to try to destroy your life. I'm going to go after. If you work for someone, I'm going after them. So they know, I'm going to go after. You put on Twitter that your sister works for Virgin trains.
Starting point is 00:41:33 Well, I'm going to go after your sister on Virgin trains now because I'm going to, I'll destroy you. you. If you're an actor, you know, I want to set a petition up that we all boycott the film. You had a four second rolling. And I want to make sure that all you were directs producers. No, if you're in anything that a lot of trouble comes with that, that's council culture where you try to destroy someone's life. Not when you say, I don't, I don't have you, mate. So therefore, I'm going to do something so I don't hear you. That's perfectly acceptable. That's not cancel culture. It's when you want to destroy someone.
Starting point is 00:42:08 And having experienced it yourself, do you think it's more prevalent than we actually like to think in the UK? I'm bound to say yes, because I'm more tuned to it now and I see it more. I probably didn't see it as much before. But you two gents who do this podcast and speak to lots of people, you're probably a better position to know. It looks like it's happening more, especially since Black Lives Matter, because we've suddenly got this new justice warrior type now who weren't involved. a few months ago. And it's easier to do it now.
Starting point is 00:42:43 And it's easier to do it because every one of those individuals completely believes that they're 100% right and that they're on God's side, that they're on Martin Luther King's side, that have Gandhi and Mandela were here today. They're on their side and they 100% believe that. And what we believe, people like us, is, I think I'm right.
Starting point is 00:43:10 I'm not saying I'm 100% of that. I think I'm right based on what I've read and what I've seen and what I've felt. And I'm quite happy listening to somebody else in case they can change my mind of in case they know something I don't know. So it's hard to have a fair fight when we think we're right and they know, they know they're right. And it's unfair fight. I think a lot of it is what we talked about earlier.
Starting point is 00:43:35 And you sort of cringed a little bit when I suggested the people who sacked you are cowards. But I think, not speaking about them personally, but more broadly, I think that's a big part of it, because in your case, 450 people signing a petition, you could get 450 people to sign a petition about the color of trains, right? That anything. But it seems like a lot.
Starting point is 00:43:59 And then at that point, people have to have some backbone to say, actually, we don't care that 450 people who we don't know, who have no identity verification. We don't even know if there's one person who created 450 accounts. Could be, right? It takes some backbone to stand up against it. And I think part of the reason
Starting point is 00:44:20 that there is cancellation happening is that people are just afraid. Good people. Good people are just afraid. So let's talk about the process further down the line, which is you get the lawyers involved, they tell you it's an open-a-shut case.
Starting point is 00:44:35 What happens from there? So the board of trustees, the slits about them, outlining their mistakes and where they were wrong, and that I was going to sue them, but unfair dismissal. So I breached a contract. Upon hearing that and seeing the evidence, and obviously then getting legal advice themselves, which you probably should have done before,
Starting point is 00:45:03 they realised the mistake and decided to resign. So they appointed another board who I approved. A new board was appointed and then they reinstated me. Wow. And so you're back where you should rightfully be at the home of your charity? Yep. And what advice would you give to people about speaking out? About criticising.
Starting point is 00:45:28 We all need to speak out. And when you were just saying then about cowardice, we're all guilty of that. We're all guilty. None of us do enough. even now I see things I think should I comment or shouldn't have comment and I don't comment anything even though part of me wants to comment on that
Starting point is 00:45:47 because I believe in something and I like to think at the moment I'm probably still a little bit vulnerable and probably still a little bit damaged and it's could I mentally cope with a dub of outbreak and it's like
Starting point is 00:46:05 do you know what I don't want to give that a go so maybe in a couple of months time when I'm a bit stronger a bit more solid, then I do, and hence why I'm on your show. This is the real reason why I'm here, because I want to speak out. I want to be a voice for everybody else.
Starting point is 00:46:25 I want to show people and tell people, this can be beaten. And it can be beaten fairly easy. Nobody put up, when I fought back, no one fought back against me. They didn't rise back up, just like school bullies. When it's 10 of us, we're going to pick on you something awful.
Starting point is 00:46:44 All of a sudden, you're fighting back. Someone easy around the corner to bully. Let's go have a go with them because you're just causing too many problems for me now as a bully. I'm going to pick someone else. Nobody, when I started to fight back, there was no negative comments on social media. No one's emailed me to complain that I'm back in post. No one's emailed the board saying, why did you take that Nazi back? they shut up.
Starting point is 00:47:10 Once that mail on Sunday article hit, every single one of them shut up because all of a sudden there's thousands of people online in support of me and they all went, we're not taking on a crowd. It's too dangerous. We know it's like when you're a crowd
Starting point is 00:47:25 and what you can do to people. That's a bigger crowd. We're not taking them on. So we all need to stand up. What we don't need is martyrs. I don't want people losing their jobs standing up over something that was trivial or something you couldn't change.
Starting point is 00:47:39 You know, we don't need more martyrs out there who are self-sacrifice themselves, but everyone can do a bit. And if everyone just doesn't, we're the silent majority. The vast 90% of the country agree with us, if everyone in them just did a tiny bit and you add all that up, that's like a tidal wave of support.
Starting point is 00:47:58 And we can crush the dissent that we get and these lunatics, we can crush them in a nice way. And that's what we need to do. need to do their bit. So if you read something on Twitter and you think, yeah, I can retweet that, retweet it or like it. If you want to comment on something, comment on something, but be sensible. What we don't need is our version of those nutcases out there. Because all you do then is you'll give them another reason to double down and say, look at that. Some of them are racist. We don't need to play their game the way they go. We need to beat them. First of all, with emotion. Not a
Starting point is 00:48:37 facts, they don't want to hear facts. You can give them all the facts you want. They're running on emotion. So we need to tackle them with emotion. We need to say, this is what we're trying to achieve. We want to achieve the same things as you, a fairer society, no racism, lots of opportunity for everybody, no homeless people. We want the same things as you. Of course we do. But these are our ways of getting there with some of your ideas and some of our ideas, we can get there. We can get as opposed to saying we're just going to attack them, attacking them safe. We need to have a better strategy of how we're going to do this.
Starting point is 00:49:15 I'm sort of formulating one at the moment. So I'm either going to write some articles or maybe a book or something about how we do it. And it's not about attacking them. Yeah. Because the vast majority of them are decent people. We need to pull them onto our side. What we don't need to do is to be knocking them off one at a time
Starting point is 00:49:34 and beating them. Let's pull them all on our side. and then you've got a couple of cent of Marxist lunatics that we can all turn down and then just mock. So it's about being a compassionate Nazi. When you run for office, that can be your slogan, mate. No, I agree with you. And I think the point you're making is very important,
Starting point is 00:49:53 which is, and I've been thinking about this for the last few months, which is if this is a war, which is kind of been set up, it can't be a war. That's my point. It can't be, because what we're doing, it's a civil war. Yeah. We all lose in a civil war.
Starting point is 00:50:09 This has to be, I hate the word war. I hate the term culture war. Because what we're doing is subconsciously we're setting each of a whopping camps. And, you know, America now is getting close to a civil, a physical civil war. We've got people killing each other now. This needs to be a war of ideas.
Starting point is 00:50:29 It needs to be a war of emotion. What it really needs to be is a conversation, make. And that's what you're saying is you have to be sensible so that other people don't get put off. So you can actually have a conversation. I don't think we're there yet for conversation. That's why I'm saying to people, we need to tackle them with positive emotion because they're running on emotion. They're not willing to listen to facts or have a conversation or to give you the benefit of doubt that used to are not racist. So if they can't give you the, I give everyone a benefit of doubt that they're not a racist, unless they're they prove me wrong. I give everyone a benefit of doubt that they're a decent person, unless they
Starting point is 00:51:10 prove me wrong. And that's how we should treat everybody in society, but everyone ain't going to emotion. So we need, I'm not sure how we do it yet, but having conversations and telling facts, we can do that for like how's come on. And would you change anything about your experience or what you went through? Choice hotels get you more of what you value. Comfort in, it's calling your name. Save on the stay Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim Book direct at storieshirtails.com I would have, the blog would have been bought better
Starting point is 00:51:51 because I didn't realize how much scrutiny it was going to get. So even there's nothing in there that I regret writing, as you know, you can word things slightly differently. I could have made points slightly better. So I don't regret writing, and get nothing there I'm ashamed of either. but I could have wrote it a little bit more academically, a little bit more as if I was a English lit major or something.
Starting point is 00:52:15 I could have made it a bit better, but I didn't because I'm just a kid off a councillor state and I had the spare half an hour, read a website, but oh, right, on this and did. So that could have been better. I'd have changed that. No, I'm not one for regrets. I'm not one to, you know, could or woulda shudder.
Starting point is 00:52:35 No, done's done. I need to learn from what I did because you're a fool if you don't learn from things that go wrong in your life. So I need to learn from that. I don't regret any of it. It's taking me to a place where I am now. It's given me new challenge in life. So I'm still going to work for the charity, but I'm looking at going part-time because I want to start dedicating some of my time, do a lot more writing on social issues.
Starting point is 00:53:02 I want to get involved in policy. I want to drive some of the agendas. and be an influencer as opposed to helping a few thousand kids a year, which is great and amazing. But if I can influence policy and I can help bring down something like Black Lives Matter, the organization, not the phrase, then I can have a bigger impact and do more good. Well, let's talk about that because I think if we put a bow on your story, there's a happy ending. And that's a good thing.
Starting point is 00:53:31 And congratulations to you on that and to all the people who supported you. Yeah, big thanks to the people who supported me. You know, Keystone Law, the students union then, but the free speech union were amazing. And everybody, everyone who messaged me really helped me get through this because I was at a really low place. And having reading weeks of being called an answer to then get messages saying, you're not.
Starting point is 00:53:57 Look at the great things you've done. And look at this and look at that. And look at this old article that I heard about four years ago where you saved a girl from being sexually abused. used and, you know, the sent me the article, I thought, I have done some good words. And, you know, you start doubting yourself, so they really helped me. So let's talk about the future then, because I think one of the most important conversations that we started sort of at the beginning was it was about what made you criticize the
Starting point is 00:54:24 organization of BLM, which is you thought their prescriptions for what should happen in inner cities were fundamentally mistaken. Yes. They're fundamentally damaging to people who live in those communities. and particularly the vulnerable young people with whom you work. So what are the things that people don't understand about in the city, young people, knife crime, gun crime, gangs, all of the sort of stuff that you would have experienced dealing with? What do people need to know?
Starting point is 00:54:53 We have politicians who watch the show. We have journalists who watch the show. What do they need to understand that they do not understand at the moment? That's a billion-dollar question. that well, I think we could do a 10, 10 episode series on that. It's just really complicated. So some of the simple things,
Starting point is 00:55:14 one is education. I've just spoke an article for the critic magazine on what I think we need to look at in our education system because one size fits all doesn't work for everybody. So according to government stats, 8 to 2% of young people in England who attends school, achieve the five GCSEs, which is a government minimum standard.
Starting point is 00:55:35 That means 18% don't. It's the 18% who are being failed at school. And we need to look at how do we educate them. And I give a couple of examples of a girl I knew who was a lovely girl. It wasn't very bright, but was just a lovely person. And, you know, could achieve in life because of her innate ability of making people go I like her. And we've all met those people.
Starting point is 00:56:03 And she left school with no qualifications, hardly attended in the classes, because she just was academic. And Matt, if we had a different school around the corner, that wasn't a dumping round for academically challenged kids or behavioral challenged kids. This isn't, you know, a pupil referral unit. This is a school your parent chooses for you,
Starting point is 00:56:24 as opposed to you get sent. Because it's all about choice. What parents and kids are of choice? But could have other schools where young people who are not academically gifted, or it might be, or just don't, as sick as sitting in lessons, and they have a choice. They go to these schools where it's more practical. So I'll still do English maths, things like that.
Starting point is 00:56:42 But then, you know, there could be classes where people could do coding if that's what they want to leave school and do. And this girl, I give an example where she could have been trained as a chambermaid. It was never going to do an academic job, but she could have understood, you know, working, turning up on, customer service, invoicing, simple hotel computer systems.
Starting point is 00:57:07 She left school. And there's hundreds of hotels in on the city centre. She did a job like that. But I bumped into her when she was 17. Now morbidly obese, never had a job, and he's now unemployable. And we've taken her spark away.
Starting point is 00:57:22 She smelled all the time when I knew her. When I met her when she was 17 in the city centre, just walking past, we stopped at the chat. Didn't smile once. Whatever was in her, our education system rips out of it. And that's only a small percentage of young people. But that doesn't mean we let them fail just because the vast majority are doing well at school. And those young people are also the young people then who then get dragged into crime,
Starting point is 00:57:46 they get groomed, because they get kicked out at school, could the behaviour? Or they stop attending school because you imagine you go school for 11 years. Imagine going to school every day and you're not academically gifted. And every day you sit in a class and every day they make you feel, more and more stupid. And you see other people getting it and you can't get it. And you start getting angry.
Starting point is 00:58:08 And you start thinking, I'm not coming anymore now. And you start getting disenfranchised. You start thinking society's against you. And you wonder why by the time you've left at 15, 16. You're an angry young man. You wonder why? We just talked to you for 11 years. Made you feel
Starting point is 00:58:23 stupid, inadequate. And nobody all those years. But the best intention They don't do it on purpose. I get that. And then you wonder why the hang on the streets hanging out. And you wonder why I jog these are going, come here, mate.
Starting point is 00:58:39 Want to earn 10 quid? Do you want to do this, this, this? It's like, well, I'm finally being treated like an equal. They're not, but they think I'm being treated like an equal. I could be him. I could be the godfather. I could have this big house. And the odds are, no, you're going to get stabbed in a couple of years,
Starting point is 00:58:54 time and end up in jail. But they're buying to the dream because I've education, let him down. That's something we can do. You know, the way we're kicking kids out of school into the arms of criminal gangs is tremendous in all the inner cities. And then we've got an issue with our culture. If you look at some of the biggest hits for TV shows over the last couple of years, Peky Blinders, what's that?
Starting point is 00:59:22 Organised crime. Breaking Bad. What's that? Organized crime, drug dealing. We're selling. telling young people the dream of it's a career. Subconsciously, look at the music we listen to, back music and stuff like that.
Starting point is 00:59:40 All negative messages all the time. You know, gangs and drugs and killing and respect. And then we've also got some in the city, culture and family about not appreciating and looking at the value of education. We've got lots of immigrant families. who's coming, big on education. You speak to a British-Chinese kid, a Indian kid, or Nigerian kid.
Starting point is 01:00:08 Their kids are going to do well at our state comprehensive in a poor area. They're the kids who Excel. Their parents are saying, what we don't say, look at your report card, go get the belt. Two Bs, go get the belt. And that's, they're doing really well. To be clear, we're not advocating for that. But I know what you mean. They're strict on that and they value education.
Starting point is 01:00:31 Yeah. And I remember once 20 years ago sat in a... You're not that compassionate if you've got the bell, right? You've got to stick to your label, compassionate and not. We all need discipline. And I don't condone, you know, go back. But I know some families do that. I remember sitting in a house talking to a mum once about her daughter,
Starting point is 01:00:51 who was causing problems and local chippe. A bit of racial abuse and local chippy. And I visited the house, sat down and said, you know, this can't go on. These are the consequences for your daughter, if this goes on. And I'm sat in this house, nicely decorated, the biggest TV I'd ever seen. This was like 15, 20 years ago. I don't have a flat screen TV at a time, and she had this size of a wall, flat screen TV.
Starting point is 01:01:14 It was on benefits. Didn't it work? And I'm trying to say she needs to go to school. That's the problem. She goes, well, I never went to school, and I did okay. I'm looking at this nice house. All the events paid for. Everything's paid for.
Starting point is 01:01:27 Nice big TV. I'm thinking, you have done okay. She's got a point. How am I telling this girl that if you don't go to school and get an education, you're going to be the where her mom's going, neither are right? So part of it's cultural as well. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:01:44 So if we live in those cultures where, you know, we don't value education or we don't value aspiration or we're not saying to our kids, you can be a doctor, you know, or I want you to be a doctor. Or we're saying, I want you to, you know, work here or do this or do this. I'll do that. If we're just saying to young people, I don't care what you do. Makes no difference to me, mate.
Starting point is 01:02:07 So how do you help kids? It's really about giving them a dream. It's about building the aspiration. It's about making them believe in themselves. The thing I've heard the most and the thing that upsets me the most is when young people, when I say to young people,
Starting point is 01:02:23 what do you want to be? No, what's your dream? And they go, nothing I've got a dream. I prefer when they say I want to be a football player. And, you know, we know they're not, but at least I've got a dream. But when you've got young people saying, nothing, I've got a dream. And you dig down, you speak, so you get to know them over weeks and you find out. And you realize they meant it.
Starting point is 01:02:49 What happened to them was they had a dream, they tried stuff. And they either got no support, usually from home or parents or school, or they failed or stumbled and nobody helped them up and no one gave him the encouragement with to start again and eventually they learnt themselves that if I don't try,
Starting point is 01:03:11 I don't fail. But doesn't this go back to fatherlessness? They've got nobody there to go come on, pick yourself up, look, we all fail. And that's what fathers do. So when you come out, you know, you run in the house crying, you've cut your knee, your dad goes,
Starting point is 01:03:24 stop being a big baby, you're fine, get back out there where your mum goes, oh, go get the first day there. And your dad goes, oh, your leg's not going to get out. That builds resilience in you. You go, all right. And dad's come across as cruel sometimes, but they're not cruel. That's what dads do.
Starting point is 01:03:46 That's why we need a mum and a dad. Less extraordinary circumstances. And, you know, when you come home and you're being bullied, your dad doesn't go, we're going to have to speak to school. and we know we're going to have to get taxed to pick you up and we're going to have to do this and do that. Your dad goes, right, well tomorrow, when the first one comes up to you,
Starting point is 01:04:07 you smack him as hard as you can in the face and the others will either run away or you're going to get battered, but I'll tell you what, they won't mess with you the day after because they'll all know someone's getting a fist in the nose. Or your dad will walk with you to school. Your dad will threaten him. And they all go, don't mess with him. His dad's mental.
Starting point is 01:04:25 And we've all got different roles. And that's what we're missing out. with fathers. We're missing these young people seeing their dad go out to work every day. In the wind, the snow, the hovercane, getting up at 6, 7 in the morning, not coming back till 6, 7 at night,
Starting point is 01:04:40 knackered, sitting down. What's Dad, you can't play football with this one? I'm absolutely shattered. I've been working. Oh, but Dad, well, do you know why the lights are on? Can I pay the rent and I pay the bills. Do you know why you're just eating? Because I give you more money,
Starting point is 01:04:59 And she goes out and buys food for you. Where does that money come from? It's me working six, seven, eight, nine, ten hours a day. And young people go, right, someone's got to work for me to have stuff. And these are all the lessons we used to teach our children. And there weren't lessons as in we knew we were teaching them. They were just in heaven. But all that's gone.
Starting point is 01:05:22 And especially young boys are just drifting. And they're looking for that father figure. that someone to look up to and someone to respect. And they're finding it in negative male-level models outside the house. Do you know, I listen to you, and you're so right. And I listen to you with the Twitter brain on. And I'm going to get cancelled so fucking hard for this. Because these things have become unsayable.
Starting point is 01:05:52 I was a teacher in East London, a very deprived part of East London in Newham. and I looked at the boys who were struggling in my class and I'd be like, no, dad, no dad, no dad, no dad, no dad. The vast majority of them. And it's not their fault with those kids. It's because, as you said, they've been failed by their fathers. Because, and people don't want to say this,
Starting point is 01:06:16 but if you have a kid, that is your responsibility. Your responsibility. We can't say it enough. It's your responsibility. And men who abandon their children should be, publicly shamed. You should be ashamed of sitting in the pub and saying, oh yeah, I've got two kids. Oh, yeah, I've not seen many years. That should be like saying, well, yeah, I did four years in jail for paedophilia. It should be almost the same as that because you're damaging your own children.
Starting point is 01:06:46 You might not see it and it goes a long time and it's emotional, but you're damaging your own flesh and blood. And if you don't want to have your own flesh and blood, they're called condoms. so we've got a choice and that's not to say that every young person who doesn't have a father in his home is destined to be a criminal that's not the case
Starting point is 01:07:06 because I don't have a five in my home so it's not to say you know that happened but when you look at the overall stats and who's failing in the years I've spent working with young people it's like oh yeah again
Starting point is 01:07:20 again again and we see it and there's a wonderful book by um called The Boy Crisis by, I think it's Warren Favill. Have you read it? Yes. You need to, if you're not read it, you need to read it. It's a wonderful book. And it talks about all of this.
Starting point is 01:07:39 Before we go, just one question I want to ask, Nick, what advice would you give to someone who's going through an experience similar to yours? What should they do? What should they not do? First thing is join the Free Speech Union because they're great and they can help you. don't ever apologise for something you're not sorry for because I wouldn't do it. So if you've done something and you know it's wrong, then you need to apologise.
Starting point is 01:08:07 It's called being a decent human being. But if you've done nothing wrong, don't apologise. And then depending on your situation, you need to work out how you can fight back and try to use some of the tactics that they've used against you for you, such as social media, such as online petitions, seek out people like me and other people who have got a presence online and let's get a petition started for you.
Starting point is 01:08:37 It might not work, but make you feel better when 18,000 people have signed it. And don't do what I did the first week, which was to accept defeat. The biggest mistake they made with me was they gave me nothing else to lose. And when you put someone in the corner who's got nothing else to lose, you either die or you fight your way out that corner. And if they've done the same to you, then that's your choice. Either die in that corner or fight your way out, because you've got nothing else to lose. One of our favorite quotes on this show is the Fight Club,
Starting point is 01:09:15 I don't know if you've seen that movie, which is it's only once you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything. And thank you for coming on the show, Nick. Thank you for taking the stand. I'm glad you landed on your feet. And it sounds to me like there's some really great things ahead in the future for you and as a result for young people in this country because I really think you can make a huge contribution to improving their lives.
Starting point is 01:09:36 And I hope people who watch this and people who listen to us who have the ability to change things, take what you've said on board. With that in mind, as always, we've got one more question for you. Which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society, but we really should be? We're talking about a little bit, but not anything like we should. And it's the knife crime epidemic that we've got. How have we got hundreds of young people stabbing each other to death every year?
Starting point is 01:10:04 And it seems as if we are lost for an answer. It baffles me. Part of it is we don't understand. People are tackling it obviously understand it. But the vast majority of people don't understand it. You know, people think it's really drug turf wars and it tends not to be about drug turf war it tends to be about respect.
Starting point is 01:10:27 It tends to be about, have you seen what he put on Twitter about you, about your mum? Are you going to have that? I wouldn't have it. If he said that to me about my mum, I'd knife him. And all of a sudden that young person then
Starting point is 01:10:40 feels like there's nothing else I can do now. All my friends are saying, I wouldn't have that. And then they're backed into a corner and then we have violence. And we're not looking at it, savagely enough, and we're not tackling it enough
Starting point is 01:10:54 because of the racial element we have. And everyone, again, is paranoid about looking at it because it's predominantly young black men stabbing other young black men. And I had a thought the other day, which I've not really looked into, and it just popped in my head. 100, 150 years ago in the UK,
Starting point is 01:11:11 we had a problem with dueling, and that was all with respect. So we'd have, you know, sir, you said, what about my, my wife? I will see you tomorrow at dawn. And we had people stabbing and shooting each other to death over respect. We need to look at why that happened and how we tackled it. And other countries, how have we tackled young men taking offence, which is easily done in every culture throughout history and resorting to violence,
Starting point is 01:11:42 which is what young men do. So this is a new problem. But we don't, I can't see anywhere where we're looking at it and coming up with solutions. We just seem to be, all we seem to do is an outcry. How can this happen? And I think it's a shame. Well, Nick, thank you so much for coming on the show. If people want to find you on Twitter, Facebook, all those places, Nick Buckley, MBE.
Starting point is 01:12:10 Perfect stuff. Thank you so much for watching the show, guys. We hope you enjoy it. please follow us on Twitter and all the usual socials. And if you want to see a show of ours, Wednesday and Sunday are episodes. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are our live streams. And we always go out at 7pm UK time.
Starting point is 01:12:28 Tuesday.

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