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

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

Dan Wootton is a journalist and TV presenter who has worked for The Sun, The MailOnline and latterly GB News. Dan is now the face of Outspoken, an independent YouTube channel and website. Check it out here: https://www.danwoottonoutspoken.com/ Sponsors: Raycon Everyday Earbuds. Get 20% Off + Free Shipping at HTTPS://BUYRAYCON.COM/TRIGGER Buy gold and earn interest on it! https://monetary-metals.com/triggernometry/ Go to https://givesendgo.com and raise money for anything important to you. Join our Premium Membership for early access, extended and ad-free content: https://triggernometry.supercast.com OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist 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

The first presenter in the world who has been cancelled for not being offended enough by something. And effectively, that is what it was. It became too much pressure for GB News and they effectively gave in. I think Lawrence was really wrong to release those messages. Do you feel let down by GPN News? Yes, massively. Organizations like GB News need to stand up now that they've got rid of me. They want to bring down the whole channel.

this is not the channel of free speech. Can they be with Offcom? No. Dan Wooden, welcome back since we last saw you, a few things have happened. You're no longer with G.B. News. You've been the subject of various allegations and all sorts of things that have now materialized in you sitting here as someone who writes their own substack and lots of other things that you're working on.

What happened? What happened? How are you back here in the cancelled seat? Yeah, it has been. been crazy. I think it's been about two and a half years since I was last with you guys. And at that point, life was good in a traditional sense. The show at G.B. News was building. I mean, Constantine, you were there with me at G.B. News right at the start. And you saw how difficult and actually truly traumatic that was. Well, let me tell the story now that I'm allowed to. I mean, because G.B. News, that chaos that we saw in the early days is not there anymore. I think they've

kind of sorted it out. the day I came in to do the dress rehearsal for your show, the dress rehearsal was abandoned halfway through so that you and some other people could go and have a big bust up basically about getting it sorted. So you weathered the early storm, I guess, is what you're saying. But that was literally the last dress rehearsal before we went on air. We couldn't put a show out. And it was nothing to do with the editorial. It was all to do with the technology. So yeah, we did weather that storm. And over the period of time, I so, believed in the mission of Gb News or what the mission of Gb News used to be. And we ended up by

2023 becoming the number one rated show on the channel. We were beating BBC News. We were beating Sly News every night. Did you just say Sly News? Yes, I did. He's got all these little lines now. I love it. I'm sorry, I can't resist. Yeah, actually, they want to be to stop using all of my nicknames at GV News. So now that I'm free, I'm like, no, no, no, no. Slipped. freestama and fissie-rishy, they are here to stay. But it was an incredible period. We, because everyone thought GB News was going to be a disaster. We were a laughing stock. Actually, people talk about how it's like the Tory Channel now. Well, at the start, no Tory MPs or cabinet ministers and certainly not the prime minister, none of them wanted to come on. And so I

really felt like I was in GB News from the ground up. I was the first regular show. We ended up being the top rated show. And to me, it felt like it was my family. It was a huge part of my life. And so what happened was obviously really, really difficult. And what happened? So what happened is that after that brilliant patch where we had become the number one rated show, we'd overtaken Farage, the knives came out for me. And the knives came out for me in the left wing, the hard left-wing media, not the mainstream media, actually, a blog called Byline Times, and they ran a whole series of allegations against me, which I've since proven to be untrue, but what they did was so immoral. They went to the police with these false allegations

before anything was published, so it didn't allow me an opportunity to talk about these things in public. I mean, actually, it's incredibly corrupt and malicious journalists. that was actuated by a desire to destroy me and to destroy my reputation and to destroy my career. I'm happy to talk about what they did because I think it's so important that people know the new techniques that the left are using in order to try and cancel people. But so what that meant is I was under intense pressure, intense pressure from July last year until the end of September when, as you know, because I watched your interview with him, Lawrence Fox, came on my show, said he,

didn't want to shag the journalist Davis and Tina. We're past the watershed so I can say this. Show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman, ever, ever, who wasn't an in-cell, who wasn't a cucked little in-cell. That little woman has been fed, spoon-fed oppression day after day after day after day, starting with the lie of the gender wage gap. And she sat there and I'm going like, if I met you in a bar and that was like sentence three, chances of me just walking away are just huge. We need powerful,

strong, amazing women who make great points for themselves. We don't need these sort of feminist 4.0. They're pathetic and embarrassing. Who'd want to shag that? Oh, Lawrence. Well, look, she... Sorry, I'm just, I'm just going to provide a touch of balance from her because she did actually respond to this earlier today saying that she regretted her comments, but she didn't apologize. Yes. So, so there you go. And she's a very beautiful woman, Lawrence.

Very beautiful. There you go. It was decided that I hadn't reacted with enough horror and shock and or and I hadn't told Lawrence off in the way that I was meant to to please the off communists as I called them. And so I was suspended at that point. Now, would I have been suspended if there hadn't of been all of these other allegations swirling around me? I think it's unlikely. Because as I say, I'd been at GB News from the start. I was their top-rated host. You know, I hadn't said the thing. You know, Lawrence had released these messages between us and

all of it was, I thought, nasty and grim and dark, but I hadn't actually said anything. And so I called up Megan Kelly, who I watched your great episode with recently, and she said to me, Daniel, you were the first presenter in the world who has been cancelled for not being offended enough by something. And effectively, that is what it was. I mean, Constantine, you'd been on the show with me. You knew I wasn't prepared to be that devil's advocate presenter to just pretend. end that I was horrified about something simply because that's what someone in my airpiece was telling me to do. That wasn't me.

Everyone knew that wasn't me. I thought that we had established some sort of understanding. But I think when the knives were out for me, it became too much pressure for GB News and they effectively gave in to the woke mob who decided, by the way, I mean, how ridiculous looking back. But they decided that this was the number one story in the country. Lawrence Fox's little rant on my show, according to the BBC, was the most important story in Britain for 48 hours.

I mean, it was ridiculous when you saw the hyperbole and the way that people went absolutely nuts over it. But let's go back to the byline times because I think this is very important. And obviously, this is a chance for you to talk honestly and openly about it. There was a lot of allegations that they made, and then they went to the police. So why was it that you weren't allowed to go,

I completely refute these allegations, et cetera, et cetera. Well, I mean, I did. I did. I appeared on GB News and I said that there were dark forces out to get me and that what is being said is untrue. But the problem is when allegations are with the police, your lawyers will be saying to you, you can't go into the specifics of this

because the most important thing is that you, clear your name criminally. But the thing is, I knew this was all a complete lie. It was all a complete witch hunt. It was basically two journalists actuated by complete malice against me. They've been former colleagues of mine at the News of the World. One of them is a convicted phone hacker, so a convicted criminal, the most prolific phone hacker actually in British history, was the big hacker at the Sunday Mirror and the News of the World. So his career was over. and he then started working closely with Prince Harry and Prince Harry's legal team. You know, Prince Harry has a real issue with me because I've broken a whole load of stories about him.

And then the people that they were relying on were two convicted criminals, one who had been in prison. This is really important, I think, that people know this, because these people should not have been relied on. So one of them was a convicted criminal who had gone to jail in Scotland for four years. for extorting gay men, specifically gay men, out of tens of thousands of pounds. When he went to jail, the judge said he was a compulsive danger to society. I had never met him.

The other was another convicted violent criminal who had just been released for jail after nearly ending someone's life, who on tape had tried to extort 100,000 pounds out of me. and I had that tape. And then the other was my ex, who was an abusive guy. I mean, it's really difficult because the more I talk about him, the more I give him what he wants. And the more he tries to damage me. But all I will say is that the allegations were untrue. It went through two separate police investigations.

And again, this is really important. It seems like it's, I guess, technical, but it matters, right? the police did not even hand any evidence to the CPS. So it didn't even reach the first stage because I was able to prove categorically with irrefutable evidence that the allegations against me had been a lie. Now, byline times literally gave me one hour before publication. They had no interest in me proving that what they had been told was a lie because it wasn't about, truth for them. It was about destruction. And people shouldn't have given in to byline times. People should have stood by me because it could be you. Because as I say, I hadn't even met this person.

Loads of people have exes who are actuated by malice because you're in the public eye or you happen to have a political view. In my case, it's important to say that my ex has become a hard left activist. He campaigned against G.B. News. He was promoting stop funding hate. So you've got to think about that context. And when it comes to the mainstream media, both the Guardian and the Daily Mirror, Britain's two biggest left-wing newspapers have issued apologies and paid me substantial damages for following up on the Byline Times reporting. So this is irrefutable. The problem is you've got an organisation like Byline Times that are so out of control, They're not regulated by anybody, even though they claim to be advocates of press regulation.

It's utterly bizarre. So you can't complain to anyone. And actually, they want me to take them to court so they can continue crowdfunding. They've never made so much money as when they were writing stories about me and got so many hits for their website. So these are not honest journalists. As I say, like my dealings with The Guardian and The Mirror were actually completely respect. full. They knew they'd got it wrong. They apologized very quickly. So what happened was shocking. More people should be horrified about it because we're seeing time and again now.

Personalities who are considered conservative or on the right or pro-free speech being canceled for aspects of their past, you know, whether it's tweets that they've liked or allegations and it's wrong. And so what actually needs to happen is these organisations, like Gb News, need to stand up against these nefarious plays because I knew once I'd given in when it came to me, they reset the playbook. These left-wing organisations know now that they can be pressured. Okay, so I'm going to play devil's advocate here, Dan. It doesn't that... I don't like people doing that. But it's maybe actually something I kind of believe in. Doesn't that mean that there's a wrong. for Ofcom to regulate people like byline times and go, hang on a second, you've just made a series

of spurious allegations here. That contravenes law, ABC, D&E. We're going to prosecute. Well, the press regulation in the UK is very different to the broadcasting regulation. So, Ipso, which is the press regulation body, is not at all focused on political bias or patrolling a newspaper because they happen to platform a particular viewpoint or person. So that sort of regulation is different in my books to what Ofcom is doing. I believe that offcom, the offcominess as I called them, I think they should be disestablished. I don't think they should exist. Now, I've never called on Ipso, which is the main press and newspaper regulation body to be deregulated, sorry, to be disestablished because they do two very different things. The problem with

Ofcom is that they are having to make political judgments all the time. And we see this. They have one set of rules for GB News and a totally different set of rules for LBC because they consider LBC a sort of palatable, acceptable establishment station. So it's completely fine for David Lamy, Labor's shadow foreign secretary, to go on LBC and present breaking news. But it's completely wrong for Jacob Bree Smog, a former cabinet minister who's a member of the Conservative Party, to do it on GB News. Dan, one of the things I wanted to ask you, and this may feel like an unfair question, but I think it's important to talk about this because it happens to many people, they get accused of things, and I've seen a lot of people go through it where they don't

quite know exactly the way to react. So, for example, when the allegations were made against you from memory, and you'll correct me, obviously, if I'm wrong, you basically said these aren't true, and I'm not saying I'm perfect, I've done bad things in my life or something like that, from which some people may have deduced that there's no smoke without fire. Did you feel pressured to say that? No, I really did. And actually, I spoke to Douglas Murray after and he said you should never have said that. Because as soon as you, as a gay man, admit to doing something wrong or being ashamed about

your previous life, you're immediately inviting people to come and attack you. These past few days, I have been the target of a smear campaign by nefarious players with an axe to grind. Notably, by an ex-partner who I was, and this is something I've never spoken about, and it's very difficult to talk about publicly, but who I was previously abused by, and who has been on a campaign to destroy my life. In the past, he has written to me confessing to being a, quote, psychopath. and I saw this firsthand when he threatened in writing to, quote, slip my throat many years after we had broken up. I, like all fallible human beings, have made errors of judgment in the past, but the criminal allegations being made against me are simply untrue. I mean, who doesn't have regrets? Should I be cancelled for there many years later? Or do you

accept that I have learned and changed? The last few years, I've grown professionally and personally, and I've also found the meaning of true love after that truly toxic relationship with my ex that hurt me and damaged me. So I shouldn't have done that, but I was under a huge amount of pressure from the investors of GB News who wanted me to show some form of contrition and humility. Why? Why did they want you to show contrition if you were telling them that you were innocent? I don't know. I don't know. I think it was because I had been very outspoken when it came to the Phillips-Skofield story, which had happened a few weeks beforehand. And I also believe they thought my show was too bold, was too loud, was they wanted it to, all of it to be toned down. So I actually think, weirdly, they saw these allegations against me as sort of an opportunity to try and mold me into the type of presenter who they wanted. And that was not the type of presenter I was ever going to be.

I just wasn't going to be that person. Do you feel that down by G.B. News, time? Yes, massively. Of course I do. Of course I do. I mean, this is really difficult to say because I'm genuinely not arrogant when it comes to this. Gb News was a huge team of people who worked behind the scenes to put it together, as you know. But people who are connected to GB News, including people who were the initial investors in the channel, have told me that if it wasn't for a handful of people, myself and Nigel Farage being the two key ones, they don't think GB News would have got through those first three weeks because the pressure was so intense.

You've got to remember, I came on a promise that I was going to have this big 8pm lead in from Andrew Neal, who was the big name connected to G.B. News. He was the chairman of G.B. News. He walked out after 10 days and slagged all of us off. Like he called me a shock job in the Daily Mail when I had pretty much signed up for the station because of his involvement in it. And I had offers to return. to News UK because they were launching Talk TV with Pierce Morgan, and I stayed loyal to GBC News. And so I do feel very let down, very, very let's do feel very let down, because if you actually look at what happened, like let's just look at what happened, I basically made one mistake, according to them on air, one mistake. I'm sorry, presenters make mistakes every single day. It's live TV, you're under huge amounts of pressure. I didn't want to turn the Lawrence Fox thing into some huge big drama. I mean, in hindsight, that was very naive, given what happened. But I just thought, look, if I'm apologising for Lawrence and turning this into a big thing, it's going to blow up.

Now, of course it blew up anyway, right? It was a bad judgment call that I made, apart from the fact that actually, do we really want to live in a society where people keep apologising for things that they aren't actually sorry for? Now, as it turned out, I did apologize on Twitter, on X, after I came off at, Megan called it, Megan Kelly called it my hostage video apology. She had done the same thing on NBC when she was under lots of pressure over her so-called blackface comments. Now, in both cases, the apology did not save us. When they want you gone, you are gone. So one of the lessons I've learned from this is don't say sorry just because someone tells you too. I was right with the decision that I made while I was on air.

Because, of course, it was my apology for Lawrence's behavior, which I didn't write, and I didn't actually believe, that sparked Lawrence to post our private communication. In which you basically said, you know, lull, this is kind of funny. Yeah, but I wasn't talking about. The thing is, again, none of these details really matter. Apart from that, it's important to me and for people to know the truth. I was never talking about the segment with Ava Santina. What people forget is that in the previous segment that Lawrence and, or the earlier part of the segment, Lawrence and I had been talking about Caroline Dynage, the head of the Media Select Committee, who had just written a letter to GB News, effectively campaigning to get both me and Bev Turner taken off air, me because of the allegations from Byline Times, Bev Turner because of her defense of Russell Brand.

And Lawrence had said, and again, people have totally forgotten this, but had said some very spicy things regarding Caroline Dynage. Doesn't sound like Lawrence? Because we had basically been told that there were allegations being made against her, and he had referred to that. Now, that's the thing that I was referring to in my messages. I will say, and Lawrence and I are friends, and I have no beef with Lawrence as a person. But releasing someone's private messages is wrong. I've spoken to so many people about this and loads of people have been big supporters of Lawrence for years and years and years. Lost faith with him because of that decision.

We have to operate in a world where we have the public sphere and we have the private sphere. Now, I literally was sending a 10 second message to Lawrence in the ad break. I wasn't thinking about it. I was just effectively wanting to be polite, reply. to a message that he had sent to me because I would do that. If I had a guest on the show, they contact me, I'd say thank you. There was no malice intended in that message. It certainly was not me trying to mock or take the piss out of my production team or the production

team at GB News, which is how it was interpreted. And I think Lawrence was really, really wrong to release those messages. Because how can anyone trust anything that they send to Lawrence ever again in the future? Because let me tell you, just like with Byline Times and they're going to the police with things. Like, I've never released private messages that someone has sent me because I've fallen out with them. It's just the wrong thing to do, isn't it? I think everyone... There's a kind of man code around.

Yeah. It's just not what you do. Well, of course, because otherwise, how can we have any form of private communication in life at all, given that so much of what we do now is on WhatsApp, is on email. Well, if those lines become blurred, and I think they have become blurred in public life, you look at the COVID inquiry and the fact that scheming Sturgeon and Boris Johnson deleted all of their messages, it's because they felt like they had a right to have those private conversations.

Now, in a public context, maybe that's different. But I think that's wrong because probably at the end of the day, it was the release of that message that caused me to be suspended. Just to finish this line of inquiry, Dan, you said right at the beginning of this conversation, I think your words were something like the mission that GB News had, or then you corrected yourself that they used to have. What is your view of how that's evolved? Do you feel like some people have said this, that they're not sticking to the principles on which they were founded? Is that what you're saying?

I am saying that, yeah. And it's not said out of any malice towards them, actually. Gb News was such a big part of my life, but this is not the channel of free speech. Can they be with off-com? No, no. I guess that's where my empathy for the people running it comes in, because I feel like if you are being regulated by F-Com and you are the target of what is quite clearly, certainly imbalanced, if not outright, skewed policing of broadcasting, then you are going to end up

making all these decisions that to the public just look like completely. completely outrageous. 100%. But if you're in that position, you probably would end up making very similar decisions if you were regulated by Ofcom. They're in a really difficult place, and I'm not trying to deny that for one second, but they set a dangerous precedent with me. Because what they're saying is that a presenter cannot make an error of judgment.

That's the first thing. And secondly, they're saying that a presenter must say whatever their producer tells them to say in there is. And you can see it on GBC News. I mean, I don't watch much of it now, not out of negativity, just because it's too painful for me to watch it. But people have sent me examples of presenters absolutely freaking out at very, very minor things that guests have said, because none of them wants to be me. None of them wants to lose their career and be unable to pay their mortgage because they've ignored a producer's instruction. But I believe that presenters should have that authority and that authenticity to make their own decisions on air,

especially by the way when you remember that you're dealing in a context of most of the producers at GB News being uberwoke, being people that are on the left politically, that want to go on and work for the BBC or Sly News or ITV News because that's who works in production. Now, something I had really tried at GB News, and I was successful with a couple of key examples, was to bring in people who were ideologically aligned with the channel's overall mission. But it was impossible to staff the whole station with people who think like that.

So, yeah, I mean, look, all I'd say is that if I'd listen to my production team on everything, I wouldn't have done 95% of the items that I covered on GBUs. Dan, when did you know that it was, that your time at G.B. News was done with the benefit of hindsight. Was there one particular instance? It's really hard to know because I hoped, because the thing is, what you've got to remember, if GB News had stood by me, they would have had that moment of vindication against byline times,

because byline times is not stopping now that they've got rid of me. They want to bring down the whole channel that have attacked the CEO. So they could have had. had that vindication with me. But I think the moment I knew it was over, actually, was quite a few weeks before any of this happened. And it was when the chief executive told me that I needed to stop attacking the mainstream media on air because he said, we're part of that. That's what we want to be. And I really struggled with that. And I disputed what he said. And I continued to use the term MSM because I wasn't going to be told that I couldn't use that term because the whole reason I went to GB News is because I was so disillusioned with the mainstream media in this country.

Remember, I'd seen what had happened with Brexit. I'd then become incredibly politically engaged as the drive time presenter on talk radio during the year of the COVID pandemic. And the whole reason I went to GBC News and he knew this was because I didn't want to be part of what I saw as the mainstream media. and I stand by this to this day because obviously I'm now independent. And I just, honestly, I knew at that moment. I knew when he picked up the phone.

I think it was in about May or June of 2023 and my show was flying. We were number one in the ratings thrashing all of our rivals. And yeah, I just remember this call. You need to stop using the term mainstream media. And then those requests kept coming. You can't call Kyr Stama Slippery Stama. You can't call Rishi-Soonak, Fishi Rishi. And so I knew at that point that there was a change happening within the channel.

It was like, we've used you for what we needed you for, and we're now going full-on establishment. We want the Prime Minister. We want to have Rishi-Sunak. We want to have Kyrs-Stama, and you're not helping us with that. You know, it's interesting you say that because like Constantine said, I have a lot of empathy for GB News,

not in this instance, but you look at the criticism that they get. It's completely disproportionate. When you look at what the BBC does, and then you look at what Lawrence did, all right, he said something crass and ridiculous. Is that it? Yeah.

And then you have people on the BBC, I think it was on News Night, saying that GB News essentially needs to be cancelled because it's, disrupting the delicate media ecosphere. And they had no balance. So they had three guests, all saying that GB News should be shut down with no balance, which is what off-com is meant to judge people on.

Plus, you have the BBC over the same period, by the way, literally parroting talking points of Hamas. And there's no off-com investigation into those mistakes. So, yeah, I do have sympathy. Of course I do, but the only way to beat Offcom was to fight. And they're fighting now because they're coming for Nigel Farage. And I thought, oh, that's so interesting. Because it's like you've left it too late. You should have been fighting when they came for Mark Stein.

You should have been fighting when they came for Lawrence Fox. You should have been fighting when they came for me. Because Nigel is their golden goose. He's the one person at that channel who is untouchable. and he's the one person who they cannot afford to lose. Ofcom is coming for Nigel Farage. Mark my words, because the problem that Nigel has, and I'm a big fan of Nigel and I'm a big supporter of his,

but he is the honorary president of Reform UK. Reform UK is about to become a major political force in this country over the course of the election campaign. From offcom's point of view, that's untenable. And I think they are going to force Nigel's hand. He's either going to have to stand down from Reform UK or he's going to have to stand down from G.B. News. But I found it really sad that finally GB News decided to fight offcom.

Up until that point, it had been, no, no, we believe in what they're doing and we want to be regulated. And, yeah, I think they left it too late to fight. To illustrate your point, just very quickly is, Byline times is byline times, but there have been other publications that are going after other people who either work or are part of the ownership of G.B. News in exactly the way they went after me. And, you know, I know it would have been a difficult decision, but I sort of feel like there was this thing about Andrew Huberman the other day. I mean, I couldn't get to the end of the article because it was so shit and boring. But you just kind of have to, I do feel that when allegations are being made against people that are clearly.

spurious or they liked some tweets or they made some jokes in a private chat group or whatever. The answer should be fuck off. It's none of your business. 100%. Ultimately. 100%. And with me, for example, surely the question should have been, byline times are claiming you broke the law. Did you break the law?

Yes or no. I say no. The police investigate and say no. Don't even hand the evidence onto the CPS. To me, that's cut and dry. Yeah. And I read that article too, and I thought this is so interesting what people are doing. Now, basically, any toxic X can destroy a high profile figure.

Now, in the case of my toxic X, because this is the one that I know about, and as I say, I'm sometimes nervous talking about it because every time I do, he does something new. You know, he messages someone I know. It's sick. If you're watching, chill out. Just move on. Just move on. But, you know, with me, I know what it's.

about it's to do with jealousy. I went back and I read through all of our emails and he had said things like when we broke up, oh, I always wanted to be a famous newspaper editor or journalist one day and he hadn't achieved that. So it's so easy for accusers to destroy high profile people because the bar is now so low. And I've done a 180 on this because I was a tabloid journalist. So I always believed in the freedom of the press over everything else. And obviously, as a fundamental rule, I still do. But now that I have been subjected to false allegations, I do believe that there needs to be limits.

So those limits are that there should be no reporting on allegations until you're at the stage of being charged. And we saw that happen very recently with the leader of the DUP party in Northern Ireland. no one knew that he was being investigated for historical sexual offences. Clearly the police believed that there was something in the allegation. So he has now been charged. At that point, it can be reported on widely because the argument that's always made is if you're unable to report on these early investigations, other victims won't come forward. But I don't think that's true because if you're charged, then it does go public and people can come forward. At that

point. But what we've seen happen with folk like Andrew Tate and Russell Brandon, look, I know they're controversial men. Personally, I support both of them. I know a lot of people don't. But what we've seen happen with men like them is absolute establishment-driven witch hunts played out in the mainstream media. And I couldn't work that out. Like the Metropolitan Police were dancing to the beat of Channel 4's drum when it came. to Russell Brand, they literally were releasing press releases after a Channel 4 documentary saying, please, if you've been a victim of Russell Brown come forward. Well, the Channel 4 documentary didn't even allege a legal activity. It alleged some immoral activity. For example,

should a 30-year-old comedian be in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl? Maybe not morally, but from a legal point of view, Russell had not broken any laws. There was no allegation that he was breaking any laws. So why are the Metropolitan Police bringing their megaphone out asking victims to come forward? The chance of him getting any form of fair trial after the trial by media that he's gone through is nil. And that's the other thing. If these journalists, these media organisations really want justice to play out, for example, byline times, then let the police do their job without this, you. huge amount of media pressure. But by the way, I don't give the police a pass and all of this

because they only care once something's in the media. So I think there was allegations about Russell that were illegal. It wasn't just that one. There were allegations. In Los Angeles. So the only, because I've looked at this really closely, the only claim of illegality in the Channel 4 documentary was a claim of rape that took place in Los Angeles. So that wasn't in the Met police's jurisdiction. Do you see what I mean? Yeah, no, I do actually see what you mean. So moving on, but just focusing back on GB News, because another reason why I have empathy for them is a campaign by hope not hate when it comes to the advertising ban. And I don't understand how this is being celebrated and championed, quite frankly. To me, this is trying to throttle free speech.

It's so anti-democratic, and it was before G.B. News even launched. So there's hope not hate, who are now digging into the social media backgrounds of everyone at Gb News, including Paul Marshall, the owner. Now, I hoped, actually, once they came for him, that it meant GB News would start standing up for its presenters, but maybe different rules apply. if you're a billionaire compared to if you're a presenter for hire. But stop funding hate, launched an advertising boycott before GB News was even running. So they had just decided what GB News was going to be.

Mark my words, the people who make all of these complaints and who sort of perpetuate these broadcasts, they're not watching GBUs. So you know the incident with Lawrence, Fox on my show was the most complained about Moment of British Television in 2023. But that was off the back of a campaign led by Carol Fordman. And I've been sent these emails, right, they're actually quite threatening these emails that get sent out to the lefties. It's like, complain about GB News now. They are terrible. Click this button. I mean, come on. That isn't democracy.

That's not how things should work. These whipped up social media campaign. shouldn't actually make a difference about whether something's going to be investigated or not. I mean, I honestly think the whole thing is corrupt, but it's up to organizations to stand up to them, and that includes advertisers and woke advertising agencies, but they don't. And I mean, I've been looking into this whole area, and I'm really interested that, for example, you guys have a non-woke advertising agency, and I'm really supportive of that. And I want to work with them as well because it's so important that there are alternatives for advertisers who don't believe in only putting their message out to folk who think like that.

Well, one of the reasons for that is, and it's actually an interesting thing to explore, is most of our advertising comes from the US where none of this is in any way remotely controversial or triggering or offensive. It's like, you know, they've got all sorts of conversations being had on all sorts of different platforms. It's the same with comedy in America. Comedy in America is way more pushing the boundary. And it's considered less. We just have a culture in this country of like very, we have a bit of a limited mindset, unfortunately, when it comes to things, including in the political realm. And so, you know, the idea that G.B. News is some sort of fascist organization or the conversations we have here.

are in any way unreasonable for people to have or to be prevented from being monetized. It's just a very strange way of looking at it. And, you know, when you look in the dictionary and you look up what fascism or far right actually means, and then you compare that to the things you were told are far right or fascist or whatever, you just go, this isn't the same universe even. Yeah, I mean, Americans can't understand it at all. No. I mean, no American who I spoke to was even slightly offended by Lawrence Fox's comments

because, come on, if you watch the American independent media like I do, I mean, Stephen Crowder says more offensive things. I mean, I think he's brilliant, by the way, but in about 10 times an hour, you know. So that's the first thing. He's not regulated by office. No, of course not. Of course not. But the second thing I would say is that I actually don't believe the people of Britain sign up to any of this ideology. I mean, I was looking back at the coverage of Lawrence and me for a project I was doing the other day. It was really actually horrible looking back and seeing like these people who you thought were your friends in the media at Talk TV, describing me as working for a hate channel.

It was ludicrous. It was completely ludicrous. But I looked down all of the comments and all of them overwhelmingly, especially the top-raised ones, It didn't matter what media I was looking at, by the way, whether it was YouTube or Daily Mail or whatever it happened to be. All of them was saying this was a complete overreaction. It's totally ridiculous. So the thing is, is that you know how the media works in this country. It's a tiny pool of people. It is the establishment media. They are all mates with each other.

They all care about the same things. They all socialize, usually in quite posh houses in North London. and they get whipped into hysteria in Westminster by ridiculous things that do not impact the lives of ordinary people. And there are so many examples of this. I mean, the party gate investigation into Boris Johnson was one example. The ridiculous bid to overturn Brexit, which even people who had voted to remain didn't want that because they knew it would tear the country apart. So the media in this country is a malignant force. Luckily, this is the great news, isn't it, that they're dying. The mainstream media is dying. They are on their deathbed. They only

survived the COVID pandemic through government advertising, which by the way is the reason that they were so in the pocket of the government when it came to pushing mass vaccination of children and locking down the country unnecessarily. I mean, seriously, the government was pumping millions and millions of pounds into all of those media organizations to keep them alive. So there is a way too close relationship. I know now that I can't work in the mainstream media in this country. I tried. I failed.

I came from the mainstream media, but the media has changed. I thought G.B. News was going to provide a haven. Offcom cracked down on them. And also G.B. News, I think, gave in to the people who hated them too much. But that's the negative. The positive is look at the impact that you guys are making, look at the impact that the independent media in this country is making. It is the future.

A revolution is coming. You might even argue the revolution is already here. Most people who I know only consume their news on their mobile phones via YouTube. They're not turning on the television. Do you think GB News has a future, Dan? I think it's going to be really tough now, really tough. I mean, we've got a Labor administration coming into this country. They are going to crack down on regulation even more of the right-wing media.

They're also going to empower the BBC, by the way. I mean, the Conservative Party did a useless job of bringing down the BBC, but I wouldn't argue that empowered the BBC. So they're going to have to deal with all of that. The choice that they can make is to come off terrestrial television. and become an independent media outlet where they're not regulated by offcom, which is something they've said they don't want to do. But the problem is if you look at the numbers that the big mainstream media organizations

get on YouTube, they pale into insignificance compared to the independent media because people can sense. I mean, look, it's been so funny for me. You know, I've been in the mainstream media for years and years and years. All of a sudden, I'm completely on my own. I'm doing everything myself. I'm editing my own videos. I'm a one-man band. It's been totally liberating and also very scary. But I'm getting numbers that are hundreds and hundred times higher than anything that GB News is putting out on YouTube or anything that the Sun or the Daily Mail is putting out on YouTube.

Because I think people are number one now attracted to authenticity and they want to know that the people who they're listening to, can be trusted. And also it's that thing of, I've been looking at a lot of research from America actually, which is more advanced than us in the independent media space. And people are much more likely to want to invest in or subscribe to an individual now, an individual journalist or an individual broadcaster rather than an organisation because they've learned. I mean, look at Fox News and Tucker Carlson. Literally, one moment the guy's gone. He was the number one host on Fox News. why would you trust Fox News after they made a decision like that and don't actually ever explain to their viewers

why Tucker has gone, even now they haven't? It's such a good point because even for me, I look at a lot of these channels and 10, 15 years ago, I think we all would have watched a BBC. We would all have believed the BBC. But it happens that you get let down time and time and time again. And for a lot of people, I think, COVID was the moment where we collective,

went, oh, we're being sold a dud here. Well, it was for me. And remember, I was the executive editor of The Sun, but people think that I was in charge of the Sun. I wasn't. There's an editor. I was under the editor. And I was very outspoken on COVID and lockdowns right from the start. And by the end of my time at the Sun, I would be constantly being told, we just want you to stop talking about lockdowns. You know, they were in the pocket of the government. It was so wrong. And all of the media made terrible, terrible judgments. There are a couple of little pockets of sanity.

And talk radio was one. And The Daily Telegraph was another in the mainstream media. But they were small pockets of sanity. And it exposed the media for what they are. And they still haven't been held accountable for any of it. And people often say to me, How could you have supported Boris Johnson during that time, given he was the leader of the day? And obviously, I was completely outraged and disgusted with the decisions Boris Johnson made about lockdown.

But hear me out on this. I can guarantee you if Boris had done what he actually wanted to do. And remember, he never wanted to lock down. He believed in a herd immunity strategy. He wanted to do shielding of the vulnerable, which is always what I believed in the Great Barrington Declaration theory. I promise you, if he had done that, the guy would have been driven from office within six weeks. He wasn't just fighting the health establishment, the medical establishment. He was fighting the entire mainstream media all around the world, who for some reason had decided that COVID was the hill they were going to die on. And if you say that can't happen, look at Liz Truss out within weeks

because she goes against the establishment view on economics. policy. It happens now. And the thing is that, again, this is where organizations have to stand up to the media. They have to stand up to the establishment. But the Conservative Party is fundamentally weak. Well, there's definitely no disagreement about that, Dan. And I'm curious, you mentioned, I would have thought, you know, a Labor government would be good for GB News because it's an opportunity for them to, obviously, it's a natural punching bag for them, you know, a right-leaning channel talking about a left-leaning administration. But I guess what you're saying is,

and we try to get into this a little bit earlier, is if Ofcom, the regulator is there, GB News essentially is never going to be able to live up to its own mission because it's supposed to be another BBC, basically, and that isn't really compatible. Yeah, exactly. And, look, so my plan was always, to see through the election. I think I would have been really valuable for G.B. News there

because I was one of their few main presenters who doesn't want to be a politician, has never wanted to be a politician. If you look at their prime time line up now, Michelle Jubri, Nigel Farage, Jacob Brie Smog, Patrick Christie's, they all either have wanted to be politicians, have run for Parliament, are politicians or want to be politicians in the future right. I never wanted to be a politician. I'm a journalist through and through. And I'm an independent journalist. I've never been a member of a political party either. So I think I could have been really valuable for them

over the course of the election when it's going to be much harder for them to keep people like Jacob and Nigel on air. Especially, by the way, in the six-week per to period, this is a really weird thing. Loads of people wouldn't have heard of it. But basically, in the six weeks before the election, it's impossible to cover politics, honestly,

as an opinion broadcaster in the UK. Literally, they get their story. stopwatches out. So if you've had a conservative politician on for six minutes, you've got to have a Labour politician on for six minutes. You've got to have a Green Party politician on for six minutes. It's impossible to do. So that's why you don't get good sort of debates happening over the election period. I'm really excited about that, actually, because of course I'm going to have my show up and running by then and will have no regulation over the election campaign whatsoever and can interview whoever I want and back whoever I want. But then I was also planning to stay for the first year of a

Labor Administration too, because I do think it is a, or I thought it was going to be a huge opportunity for GB News, but I just don't have that faith anymore. I mean, the Chief Executive is trying to, or was trying to hire Carol Vorderman. He's spoken about being desperate to hire Labor MPs. You know, they... There's nothing wrong with hiring Labour MPs, surely. No, of course not. But I would argue, why is GB News wanting to hire any more politicians at all? I mean, I don't get that, really. I get, I mean, they would argue it's the optics that they've got Jacobs re-smog, who is a sitting MP.

I don't know what's happened with Boris Johnson's show, but he was, well... Yeah, I think he's still coming. Is he still coming? So they've had plenty of current conservative politicians and plenty of former conservative politicians and prime ministers. The fact they've had very few, I can't really name one, they may have had one. Well, they have Gloria DiPiero, who's still a host? a former Labour MP.

But... So they would say, from an optics point of view, they need somebody to come on to present a left-leaning point of view. I know, but look at Fox News, right? No major Fox News presenters over its entire history have been current or former serving politicians.

Now, don't get me wrong, they have lots of big-name former or serving politicians who come on as guests. as contributors, but not as presenters. I think, personally, I just think we can do better than that. I mean, having sitting politicians, I mean, we try to stay away from even interview and sitting politicians, really, or certainly sitting members of governments and so on,

because it's hard to get a straight answer. And so you're not... Well, they have to follow whatever their party messages. So you're not getting honest answers or even honest questions. I mean, in saying that, I actually think Jacob, Smog as a brilliant broadcaster. He led into my show. I really like him as a person. But remember, he replaced Mark Stein, who was the ultimate independent thinking journalist, who was challenging narratives when it came to grooming gangs and the COVID vaccine. It's just a very different thing.

It's a very different thing. GB News wants to be part of the establishment. Personally, though, I would challenge them and say, stop hiring politicians. It's lazy. Jacob aside, I don't think they make good presenters, and I just don't think it's really what you should be doing, because I'm sorry, imagine if GB News had been running during the pandemic and they had a whole load of serving Tory MPs or party members, well, they wouldn't be challenging the lockdowns, would they? It was only people outside the party political system who did challenge the lockdowns and challenge the vaccine. I think it's actually a very good point. It comes back to your point about independent media as well is we get stuff wrong all the time as well.

And I'm worried about the amount of misinformation and all sorts of crazy stuff that's flying around in the new media space. But the one thing I think people do connect with is you talked about earlier. If you don't have a producer in your ear, then at least you generally speaking know that this guy might be crazy, but at least he's saying what he actually believes. Exactly. Whereas the BBC has a God complex, doesn't it? It's like if it's said on the BBC, it's true. true. But we know actually that the BBC are now purveyors of more disinformation and more misinformation

than, and I genuinely mean this, than any broadcaster in the UK, including independent broadcasters. And they have the cheek and the arrogance to say that their fact-checking service, BBC Verify, is what we should believe. It's like, no, you need to have an independent fact-checker on you. You shouldn't be fact-checking other people because they have got so much wrong, provably wrong. And they immediately buy into propaganda. And obviously, the really terrible example recently was when they repeated Hamas talking points over the bombing of the hospital or the non-bombing of a hospital during the Gaza complex, but conflict. But that's just one. I mean, there's hundreds and hundreds of examples of BBC.

disinformation and misinformation. So this is why I hate this idea that the mainstream media should decide what's true. We live in a post-truth world in a lot of ways. Now that's terrifying. Don't get me wrong. But again, I come back to the pandemic and all of the things that folk like me were being labeled as conspiracy theorists for talking about. And remember, I was talking about and the very early days. I mean, right back to March 2020, you can go back and I've got the receipts for this, you know, talking about a lab leak theory, talking about how lockdowns were part of a globalist bid to change the world order. Now, we were called conspiracy theorists. Those types of conversations were literally labeled as misinformation and disinformation and would see you banned from YouTube or taken off the algorithms on Facebook. And we were right. So we're in a post-truth world. We can't trust the mainstream media anymore. And you shouldn't. You shouldn't. You should never believe something that the BBC tells you. I mean, by the way, remember the BBC tries to say they're not politically biased. Well, two of their main presenters, including the guy who they wanted to be their current political editor for this election, John Soapwell, are now hard left propagandists on their own podcast, Finally, by the way, saying what they believe, which is fine. But my point is, this is the guy who was meant to be the political editor, providing unbiased coverage of the election.

This is the woman who was meant to be hosting news night providing unbiased coverage of the election. They're not. They are completely biased. Now, people might say that I'm biased. I would argue, I'm not biased. I'm just honest about what I think. I don't claim to be someone that is providing a completely non-partisan equal. view of the world. I think it's as well, it's important to acknowledge, I don't think anyone can be unbiased. It's utterly impossible. We have biases, we have our beliefs, some of them may be correct,

some of them may be wrong, but that's just human beings. And to pretend that we're going to be unbiased is engaging the audience in a lie. Totally. But the thing is, on the left, although they wouldn't view themselves on the left, but if you look at all of the mainstream media organizations in this country, BBC, ITV, sly news, they all think it's just a matter of right or wrong. So, for example, if you question the trans movement, which I absolutely do, anytime someone tries to say you're part of the LGBT community, I say I am absolutely not. So I have questioned that strongly and had a lot of hate from that community as a result. If you question that and you're part of the mainstream media, you're just told that you're wrong. So they don't think that they have.

have a bias. Do you see what I mean? They think that they are just presenting the accurate, the correct position. Likewise, by the way, on net zero, or as I call it, nut zero. You don't, do you know it's the one issue in the mainstream media that you don't have to provide any balance, climate change. Offcom has said, no, no, no, that is scientifically set when it comes to offcom. There doesn't need to be any balance if you're discussing climate change. And I would argue that none of these positions are set. Because a few years ago, most people might have thought

that trans ideology was just like gay rights. But actually, what we've seen is that it's totally different. This is actually about erasing gender altogether from society. It's about challenging scientific realities, which is something that I think any honest journalist should not do.

And it's also about degradating degrading the role of women in the world as well. Not to mention some of the practical challenges around issues like safeguarding and women's sport, which is something that I'm really passionate about, which people might find weird, but I'm a huge, huge fan of women's netball. I support the London Pulse team. And let me tell you, all it would take is one trans person on court in a netball team and the game's over.

Might as well all go home. And so that's what we're fighting against. And so the point that I'm making is that if you're in the mainstream media and you raise any of this, you're just a transphobe, you're wrong. They don't view it as a debate. That is true.

Dan, it's been an utterly brilliant interview. Thank you so much for coming on the show. The final question is the same every time. What's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be? But we will go to locals for your questions very shortly. Go for it then. Do you know what? I honestly believe it's the fundamental question of democracy. And I think there's loads of different aspects to that. Obviously, one that I'm very big on is postal voting, which we've seen both in the UK and the US, is fundamentally changing the results of elections.

And I don't think anyone is properly tackling this in either the independent or the mainstream media. Because actually it's such a massive issue. If how we vote is being corrupted, then we need to actually have a really honest national conversation about it. And we saw in the UK, to give an example in the recent Rochdale by election, that something is seriously wrong. look at the postal votes. What are you suggesting, Dan, because I'm not across this, to be honest? I'm suggesting that sectors of society are using postal voting to fix certain election results. And the fact that you don't know about it, I have heard the allegation, but I want you to flesh it out. But it absolutely proves my point, though, because people knew about

that statistic, but where are the investigations into it? That's right. In a UK context, there's not because it would be considered Islamophobic to have that conversation. In the US, there's not because it's generally considered that postal voting is good for the Democrats, so the mainstream media love it. I know Trump has made a big issue of it, but then that's viewed as like a Trump issue. And what I'm saying is that actually it's a big story and we need to genuinely be looking at it. And I would challenge anyone to say, why there is a need for this postal voting. Seriously, go and vote on election day.

And I don't understand why you don't need to. Well, I look forward to seeing your reporting on it to get to the bottom of it and get to the truth. Dan, thank you so much for coming on. Follow us over to locals where we ask Dan your questions. I'd like to know his opinion on King Charles' cancer diagnosis and how the now Queen Camilla is basically acting like a stand-in monarch.

Oh my goodness, yeah, I mean...