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Aug. 25, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
45:41
20220825_piers-morgan-uncensored-gcse-results-day-the-homes
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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GCSEs and Military Bullying 00:02:15
Tonight on Piers Morgan Uncensored with me, Jeremy Kyle, top results down on GCSC Results Day.
The question, is it time to re-examine how we grade success?
Claims of bullying, harassment and drunkenness and the red arrows.
Does Britain's military have a bullying problem?
And the cash-strapped family who might just have to kick out the Ukrainian refugee plus the new partying prime minister.
Finland's PM faces fresh calls to quit tonight.
question is, is she being treated unfairly?
Good evening, my friends, and a big, big welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
I'm Jeremy Carle.
So tomorrow is the day we have all been dreading.
Energy prices set to go up again.
Labour tonight's saying we should put a new cap on the energy bosses.
I personally think they should wear whatever they like, but I'm more worried about the price.
And yet, it does feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel right now.
Sadly, for all of us, it's a train.
Good.
Experts today warned it's getting so bad we need COVID-style bailouts from the government.
Rishi Sunak says it's a hard act to furlough.
Brilliant.
Number 10 is on board though.
They say we should eat now and turn the lights out.
Good.
We do have good news tonight, my friends, on the crisis of raw sewage flowing onto Britain's beaches.
This makes me so happy.
It's upsetting the French.
Thank you.
MEPs in front.
Apparently they want to sue Britain over the waste leaking into the channel, claiming it's harming marine life.
Apparently the outflow of effluent hasn't deterred migrants though who continue to arrive in record numbers.
But at least the UK sent its first unwanted visitor to Rwanda this week.
Sadly, it was Prince Harry.
It does, thank you.
Even he loved.
It does feel like just about everything's going up at the moment, doesn't it?
School Exams and Marine Waste 00:10:19
Exaggerations in this country have increased a billion percent.
You're building your part up.
There's one exception though.
Spare a thought for the school kids.
Let's get serious.
Top grades in GCSE results fell by three percentage points this year.
Results have also exposed massive regional disparities across this country.
Now, one person, and I'm so proud to say this, who did remarkably well is my daughter Ava.
She has suffered from severe dyslexia from the moment she went to school.
And five years ago, myself and her and her brothers and sisters wouldn't have even imagined that this young lady could have sat exams.
And I have to tell you without any shame, I burst into tears this morning.
At eight o'clock, this girl got eight GCSEs and she's going on to study A-levels.
And I'm so, so, so proud of her.
But that got me thinking.
That's a great place to start the show tonight.
Momentous day for thousands of teenagers, yes, planning their futures after that long ordeal, but for many, a very difficult day who won't get what they need and are concerned about what is next.
So the big question tonight is, is the exam system itself now out of date?
Joining us is the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, Chris McGovern, and the Education Editor of the Sunday Times, Sean Griffiths.
Welcome both.
Thank you very much indeed.
You got through my opening monologue.
Let's start with you, Sean, if we can.
I did O-levels, then they became GCSEs.
I'm interested.
Tony Blair raised this and said that examinations at this point, A's, GCSEs, are not preparing our children correctly for later life.
What's your view on this?
I think he's right about GCSEs.
I think they don't prepare children well for later life.
We know that employers are saying that they want children who can work in teams, they can problem solve, they can come up with new ideas, they can communicate.
And we have a very old-fashioned system, I think, in GCSEs.
It's turning out kids who memorise lots of information.
It's a lot of remote learning, a lot of cramming for exams, but it's not really turning out kids who are equipped for the 21st century.
What would you say to the argument?
And I'll bring Chris in just a case.
What would you say to the people who, like me, who think that it's all well and good to do exams or coursework or a combination of both?
What about practical education?
What about teaching kids how to fill out a passport form or apply for a bank statement or understand how you go about, I don't know, signing for whatever.
Why are we not having a more practical education system?
I think that's a really good question.
And I think one of the things that's really, really wrong with the GCSE system is that, and people don't really know this statistic, but one in three kids at GCSE fail maths and English GCSE.
Those fundamental qualifications, you know, which are very practical, maths and English, about writing, about being able to do maths, able to do science.
And if you haven't got those basic qualifications, you can't go on at all.
So we have a forgotten third of children.
And that exam system is failing.
I agree.
And the thing is, Chris, Chris McGovern, Campaign for Real Education, I highlighted in the introduction my daughter Ava, if she hadn't got maths and English today, which was a remarkable achievement, I repeat it and we'll repeat it all night.
Would she have been on the scrap peep?
I understand that you want to go back to O-levels and all that, but for me, that leaves a lot of people with a very uncertain future.
Should it not be a combination?
Yeah, it should be a balance, shouldn't there?
You say go back to O-levels, but actually if you go to Singapore, they still do O-levels.
And interestingly, Singapore, about three years ahead of us.
Explain to me the difference in layman's terms between GCSE and O-level.
Well, the O-level was a grammar school exam.
It was more academic.
GCSE is more knowledge-light, but Tony Blair is saying there's too much knowledge in GCSE.
Make it even lighter.
Look, Tony Blair's ideas about communication schools, collaboration skills, creativity, they're all very important.
But they can be taught through traditional subjects.
Knowledge is really important.
You can't think critically unless you have some knowledge.
More practical knowledge, though, more common sense, less of, you know, Latin, whatever.
Do you not think we should be teaching our kids how to open a bank account, fill out their passport form?
Do you not think that?
Absolutely we should.
But they don't in school.
Hang on a moment.
Schools actually are doing perhaps a slightly better job in your suggestion there.
They do do some of that.
What I would suggest is that we should be perhaps doing GCSEs at the age of 14.
Then we'd only be one year behind the Asia Pacific.
And then they should perhaps be going on vocational courses or academic courses.
Well, here's the thing, at universities, of course, they have gap years.
My daughter's about to go to Edinburgh University, bless her, and do sports psychology.
We'll get that gap year, which is, of course, part of the deal, but is also to prepare you for the outside world.
Is there an argument to say that at 15 and 16, going out and doing an apprentice-type thing or work experience or something in the workplace gets you more prepared for the outside world?
I think that's a really good idea.
And there are some schools that are starting to do this.
So there's a school called XP, and it sends pupils out on kind of real-world expeditions into workplaces to solve real problems and work in teams with employees to really understand and learn about the workplace.
There's a school that asks kids to come to school in suits to kind of prepare them for the workplace.
So I think schools are starting to change.
But I think the problem with the GCSE system, it's so kind of fixed and it's like 10 subjects and it's two years.
It is.
It is.
But there is flexibility.
And I know this from Ava, to go to the foundation course and there are certain courses you can do differently.
I want to go back to how we make our kids, Chris, smarter, more adaptable, more ready for life.
Is it...
Right, a full set of exams, 10 exams, fantastic.
Is it exams that have more coursework?
I mean, the argument about including coursework can be, you know, what if the teacher doesn't like you or doesn't get on with you?
And here's the big, you know, elephant in the room.
All schools we know are interested in how they look and how many people they pass.
So if a large percentage, and this is a relevant point I know you'll agree with, if a large percentage is coursework, are they not going to mark the coursework higher because they want their school to do well?
Well, we've seen that in the last couple of years.
We've seen teachers predicting Gray's been very, very generous.
Understandably so.
We do definitely need more practical skills in school.
But what we need to also look at...
Crucially, everything depends on the quality of the teachers.
Not many of our viewers tonight will understand that in schools, the majority of staff are not teachers, which is extraordinary.
Is that one of the major failings of the education system?
Well, it is because what we have is that we've got in a primary school, for example, we have tables in most schools with children sitting around with their backs to the teacher half the time and they have classroom assistants.
That's expensive.
Go to China where they have a class perhaps twice the size, all the children are facing the front, and the teacher is actually teaching those children.
And they reach, they're about three years ahead by the time they're 15.
Are we in danger then from what you're saying?
And it's interesting watching your reaction.
Are we in danger of making it too open, too general and too scattered?
And the old, you know, teaching kids doing English maths and all those sorts of things.
Are we missing out?
Are we sending our kids into the wider world less prepared?
If you're going to build a house, you need to have foundations.
Primary schools are important.
When I, as a head teacher, spoke to incoming parents, the first thing I said, the most important year in the child's life is their first year in school, or even earlier than that, of course.
The least important is when they're 18.
You have to get the foundations in right.
And in these private schools, they teach the basics.
They teach the foundations of English and mathematics and science.
We have to do that with all kids.
But by the time they get to 14, as they do in Asia Pacific and parts of Europe, they can go into more vocational courses.
We've got to get away from this snobbery.
Academic versus vocational.
They're equally important.
Yeah, John, I think that's the point.
It's balance, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
And to be fair, the Tony Blair Institute think tank report is saying that.
Did he think all of this when he was going education, education, education?
Or has he suddenly become very vocal now?
He's no longer thought of in high regard by many people.
He's pretty vocal at the moment about it.
But one of the things he's saying is that you have, so you have continuous assessment at 16, and you have some tests as well.
And then you do have an exam at 18.
You have like a baccalaureate, and that would have five or six subjects.
And a lot of people are thinking this now.
It would have a mix of practical subjects, vocational subjects, and academic subjects.
So at 18, you leave with a kind of certificate, which covers a whole range of things.
But also, it covers not just those academic things.
It will go into, are you good, you know, sport, music, art, drama, and your character traits?
Are you resilient?
Are you determined?
I mean, this is really old.
You're going to work in a team.
Well, you go on about teams, but this is really old-fashioned.
I'm allowed to say this because I'm 57.
Some of the most intelligent people I know have got absolutely zero social skills and cannot have a conversation or be involved in any level.
And I think for me, it's about balance.
It is about sport.
It is about public speaking.
It's about, I don't think we should ban exams in any which way.
I think there should be a degree of practical, you know, the coursework.
But I absolutely say, as I said at the start, and you both agree, you know, we should be preparing our kids, not by saying, oh, by 16, by the way, we'll have judged when you're any good or you're not.
If my daughter had failed maths in English today, and she had every reason, by the way, with dyslexia to fail it, but didn't, you'd been on the scrap peep for another year, right?
And that's frightening.
So how do we help those kids?
And also, I keep going on about it.
I'll give you a very quick story of a school that my son's going to, and we went to see that.
My son's, you know, he's at a reasonable level of education.
And the headmaster was telling a story about this kid.
And this kid was doing no good in exams.
And the headmaster said, we took time with this boy because he didn't seem to be switched on at all.
And they found out, you'd all laugh, he likes skateboarding, right?
So this headmaster used his brain and gave him, I think, three, one hours in afternoons during a week to do skateboarding.
He now represents Europe for the United Kingdom under 16s, and he's passing maths in English because they found something practical that galvanized him as a human being.
That's the point, isn't it?
That's the exact point.
And Jeremy, what inspired that boy would have been great teaching.
Yeah.
We need great teachers in our schools.
That's the key to everything.
We get great teachers.
Well, whatever they teach them, it's going to be successful.
They are inspiring children.
They've got to do that.
So actually, yeah, the teachers may be on strike in a few months' time.
And I have some sympathy with them.
They do deserve more.
And there would be more money for them if we got away from having so many non-teaching staff in schools.
Good teachers need to be rewarded properly.
They get 19-weeks holiday, though, don't they?
Good teachers inspire kids and they get...
Yeah, they inspire because they're crucial.
And if you go look at our system, we tend to recruit from the lower end of the graduates, go to a place like Finland, they're recruiting from the top 10%.
Toxic Culture in the Services 00:11:14
You can't talk about Finland.
The Prime Minister dances with the people within the world.
That isn't you good.
Yeah, I think so.
Steady, man.
Sean, final word from you.
We agree balance, right?
There must be exams, there must be coursework, but let's give our kids a practical education.
Yeah, I agree balance.
And there must be exams, but we do not need 30 papers at the age of 16, 10 subjects.
We've got kids with mental health problems, you know.
And COVID and all that locks.
And COVID and everything else.
No other European country does this.
We are not doing our kids a service with GCSEs.
Chris McGovern, Sean Griffiths, really delighted to see you both.
Thank you very much indeed for joining us right next on Uncensored.
The Red Arrows are in crisis.
There's claims of drunkenness, misogyny and assault at the heart of the RAF.
The big question for us, does the British military have a culture problem?
We're coming back in three plus, kick her out or work more hours.
That, my friends, is the dilemma facing one family who took in a Ukrainian refugee.
I will speak to them live on this show before nine.
Welcome back to Uncensored, my friends.
Now, Royal Air Force Display Team, the Red Arrows, are one of the jewels in the crown of the British military.
Their colourful patrigal air performances are the signature of major national celebrations like the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in June this year.
But behind the pageantry, the Red Arrows are in crisis, facing claims of harassment, bullying, drunken balls, and treating brawls, even treating female recruits as fresh meat.
So, just a few bad apples or evidence, my friends, that something rotten is at the heart of the British military.
Joining us now are former commanding officer of the British Parachute Regiment, Major Chip Chapman, and former British intelligence officer Philip Ingram, who is co-founder of the Independent Defence Authority, a body set up to advise military personnel.
If I can say to both of you, welcome and just start by just listing those Red Arrows allegations.
Female recruits to the RAF scamps and base Red Arrows were considered fresh meat.
Young recruits were pestered and bombarded with WhatsApp messages as soon as they joined the squadron.
Drinking sessions took place just hours before flights and alcohol-fuelled fights took place regularly.
Let me start with Chip Chapman.
Is this allegations a mirror of a toxic culture in the British military or is this being over-exaggerated, Chip?
Well, I'd hope they're not, but what you can say is that this is predatory behaviour of the worst sort.
We've been trying to get rid of this for at least 20 years.
I remember going to a focus group in 1999 about letting gay folk into the military.
And of course, it wasn't the fact that we're going to let gay folk into the military.
It's whether it's heterosexual or homosexual people that are predatory.
This is just wrong, predatory behaviour.
Now, the Red Arrows, of course, have team, task, and individual.
That's the three ways that we look at things.
They're very good at the team and task.
It's the individuals and the flaws in their character which is really the issue here.
And they needed to be weeded out.
What's really interesting, Philip, if I could bring you in, is that Major General Chip Chapman just said that 20 years ago he was part of a focus group to get rid of this, which would give the impression that these problems have been obvious to many for many, many years.
How widespread are these problems, in your opinion?
The problems are widespread in that they exist in all three services.
And the issues within the RF Red Arrows, I know very well indeed.
And unfortunately, a large number of the allegations, there's a lot of substance behind them.
They're not across the whole of the services.
The majority of the armed services are very good, very well behaved, and there's not an issue with them.
However, the trouble is with these toxic small pockets that there are, there are failures in command to deal with the issues that are causing the toxicity.
That gets worse and leads into not just inappropriate behaviour, but also verging on criminal behaviour.
And it's that that undermines the operational effectiveness of those particular units.
I see this as a failure in command.
So this is about leaders.
Chip, can I just say something?
We were talking about this in the pre-production meeting, and I was saying that in many services, presumably the military, many emergency services programs I've done on, there is a gallows humour.
And many people in the emergency services would say, we wouldn't get through our day unless there was gallows humour.
But there is a massive difference, is there not, between gallows humour and bullying, misogyny, harassment, and the military, if this is as widespread as Philip says and has been going on for as long, that doesn't shine a great light on us, does it?
No, it doesn't.
And any organization should mirror the culture of its time.
It's the fact that cultures change.
So all the stuff that was going on 20, 40 years ago, doesn't matter what timeframe of banter, which would now be deemed to be unacceptable, is a modern age when cultures change.
We've seen that over the last hundred years.
Women didn't have the vote 100 years ago.
Cultures move on.
And it's people, sort of the dinosaurs of the veterans, people like me, and often people criticise, who are the ones who are the loudest to shout on this.
But of course, you had sort of three years ago this new set of recruiting posters, for example, which lots of people said woke.
It wasn't.
It really just informs the people who are out there today, Generation X, Generation Z, and they're the people being recruited.
So, you know, the odor element in all the armed forces needs to wise up about the modern culture and those that we're recruiting into the Army, Navy, and Air Force these days.
There's nothing wrong with these kids.
A year ago, they were doing amazing things on ock pitting in Afghanistan.
You call yourself part of the older generation.
You say that, you know, 20, 40 years ago, the world was a different place.
We accept that.
But what would you have done in a different world if a soldier came to you and said, I'm being bullied, there's sexist behaviour, I'm being harassed?
What would you have done?
Would it be, I'm not criticising you, I'm saying how different the world is.
Would you have said, come on, stiff up a lip, get on with it?
Or would you have taken those allegations seriously?
I would have brought the SIB in straight away, which I did at least two occasions when I heard those sorts of things.
There is no nature or way that that stuff is tolerated.
There are no shades of grey in discipline.
There's just something happens or something doesn't happen.
If something happens that's wrong, you deal with it.
If you don't, you've lost your morality and your leadership.
Particularly if people don't come to you in the future, you are no longer a leader if you allow that to be acceptable.
Philip, you've talked about how you think there's a problem with the leadership in the military across the military.
What sort of evidence have you got to back up your claims?
What are people coming to you and saying from across the military spectrum?
I've got tens of stories.
The common theme across the board is that they don't trust the chain of command with their complaints.
And that's actually backed up by the previous service complaints commissioner, who turned around and said in her final evidence to Parliament that 90% of those who should complain don't complain because they don't trust the chain of command.
And part of the reason behind this is what the chain of command does is it tends to obfuscate, it tends to delay, it tends to try and sweep things under the carpet, it tends to try and solve things in an inappropriate way and bully complaints in many cases.
And people get concerned about that.
And therefore, a lot of the issues are sort of either not brought out to the front or they're hidden.
And that has a huge effect on it's a relatively small number of people, but it's got a huge effect on that small number of people's mental health and their ability to operate.
And it has an effect on the operational capability of the units that they're part of.
I'm very proud of our military despite.
The Minister of Defence.
If I could just say this, I'm very proud of our military.
And so am I despite what austerity and the cuts have done to them.
But what's really interesting is, as you quite rightly said, I mean, I remember over the years you heard stories of initiation ceremonies at Sandhurst and places like that and kids not seeing it through.
The world is a different place.
And it's not good or perhaps right to hear that an organisation would poo-poo somebody saying, you know, I'm being bullied, I'm being.
But I'm going to ask the obvious question that will go down like a lead balloon.
I'll start with you.
And I don't disrespect anybody.
Would there be part of the military, Philip, that will go, come on, get on with it, stiff upper lip.
It's happened for 40 years.
What are you moaning about?
Still.
I've already experienced that.
I've already had people commenting to me on social media and elsewhere saying exactly that.
And that's part of the problem.
People don't sit up and listen and deal with it.
This is something where it's gone beyond what would be considered even 20 years ago as banter or something else.
It's right into the very nasty levels of inappropriate behaviour.
And Sir Mike Wigston himself, before he took over as Chief of the Air Staff, did an investigation into inappropriate behaviours in the military and made a series of recommendations.
The MOD says they've implemented those recommendations, but it's quite clear in his own service they haven't.
Well, bearing in mind that the Sun reported last week that one pilot had been suspended from the Red Arrows, another had resigned due to the toxic culture tonight.
Chip, we hear from the MOD.
This is their statement.
Sexual assault or harassment has no place in the armed forces and all allegations are taken seriously and investigated by the service police.
We continue to improve reporting mechanisms so personnel feel safe in raising issues and confident allegations will be acted on.
My response for a quickly chip is, you know, sexual assault or harassment.
No talk about misogyny and bullying in that statement.
What's your response to what the MOD say tonight, Chip?
Well, justice delayed is justice denied.
I'd like to see swift action in all those sorts of things.
We know that all the armed forces are trying to change into something where, for example, emotional intelligence is something these days which a leader must have and all those things that you mentioned earlier on about stiff upper lip is against that sort of ethos of the emotional intelligence which is a facet of leadership these days.
But it is those character flaws.
That's what really this is about.
This is not leadership.
It's the flaws in attitude, behavior and character.
And those are people we need to weed out from any aspect of the services because none of that is acceptable.
I guess to finish very quickly that the issue is the world has changed.
The military must change as well.
And I guess get themselves away from the belief that, you know, if you don't go through everything and take everything, you're too soft to be a soldier.
Actually, that's not the case.
The world is different.
Philip Ingham, Major General Chip Chapman, thank you very much indeed.
We discussed the military and next on uncensored.
Fighting for her right to party.
Is the Finnish PM's wild dancing a dereliction of duty in these serious times or is the criticism just a sexist double standard?
We'll debate that right next, but coming right back.
Disgusting Drug Allegations 00:09:46
Welcome back, my friends.
Now, the Prime Minister of Finland is under increasing pressure after yet more leaked footage showed her raunchily partying with friends.
Santa Marin's already been forced to apologise and take a drugs test over the videos.
Today, she told reporters she's extremely disappointed by the number of leaks.
Memo to British water companies.
So are we.
And that's not the only thing we have in common with the Finnish Prime Minister.
We know a thing or two about partying politicians here in the UK.
Bojo famously turned Downing Street into a mullet.
We wrote this.
Business in the front, parties at the back.
But we did think this was a fine opportunity, my friends, to look at some of the other politicians who've committed murder on the dance floor.
Yes, my friends, stand by.
It's strictly come dancing, or as we call it, top of the flops.
Here we go.
Right in at number four, the original party prime minister himself up 14.
There, somebody called the nurse.
What a complete idiot.
At number three, climbing four this week, you know him, we love him.
Emmanuel Macron's got the clap.
Not looking remotely uncomfortable.
Rising four places to number two, my friends, our dancing queen.
That was the night that Bojo resigned, and Shereza May looked like a right idiot.
Where is she?
There, look.
But at number one, it's been there 17 weeks.
The bastard of multicultural homosexual men singing about hooking up in a cheap accommodation.
Take a breath.
Donald J. Trump.
I said, Young man.
Pick yourself off the ground.
I said, Young man.
Cause you're in a new town.
There's no need to be unhappy.
Young man.
Sorry, it's Josh.
Stark.
I'm now joined by talk TV presenter Mike Graham and political journalist and good friend Ava Santina.
What did you think?
Yeah, what did you think?
Donald Trump, what did you think of my little did you?
I thought it was great.
Brilliant.
Yeah, it's great.
Ava, you look completely underwhelmed.
Let's start though, on a serious note.
Finnish Prime Minister.
I mean, is there double standards between men and women in politics?
I mean, Australia's PM Anthony Albanese was spotted chugging down a pint of beer and he was celebrated.
Yeah, but he wouldn't be celebrated here, would he?
Because here we're terribly frurried about all this kind of stuff, except if it's a woman.
Now that it's a woman, all the women in Britain are going, isn't it great?
Look at her.
A fine upstanding vision of femininity.
You know, if it was a bloke, they would all be going, that's disgraceful.
Why is anybody with his wife?
Where's her husband?
Is she having some kind of midlife crisis?
But that's what all the men are saying.
All the men are gawking, like kind of like feral 15-year-olds staring at her.
That's why that's what the uproar is.
They are, they're obsessed with it.
I mean, even, you know, newsrooms up and down this country can't get enough of her.
Frankly, it's really embarrassing.
But don't you think it's more important?
I mean, I actually believe she should be able to party and have a good time.
Probably not the greatest thing to put out when you've got a border with Russia.
No, no, no, but hang on, hang on.
The border she has, her neighbour, okay, Putin's out all the time with this top-off, singing rape jokes and invading sovereign nations.
And for some reason, we're putting all of our anger towards a woman who's having a dance.
I think people are angry.
Oh, they are.
She had to take a drug test.
And how ridiculous is that?
Well, she actually offered to, didn't she?
Well, that's because there were people in the background calling out for some cocaine, I think.
And that's why she took the drug test.
But the other reason that's interesting is actually...
But can I make that point without you looking at me?
Can you imagine?
And I know you hate him, right?
But can you imagine if Boris Johnson had had a party, right, in Downing Street where there were topless women and somebody was shouting out for cocaine?
Let me tell you that every single liberal stroke left media outlet in the land would have said you're a disgrace and you should be gone.
So there is another side to it.
But there wasn't any cocaine.
Well, we don't know that, do we?
Well, we did it.
I'll give you a good question.
If there was a video of Boris Johnson, serious question, with topless women partying, what would you like?
You'd always say, get him out.
I would like to see a video inside the Garrett Club or inside the Beefsteak Club and see what all of those Tory MPs are in the private members' clubs every single night.
Well, I don't agree with that.
Well, then don't ask me the question about would I like to see Boris Johnson because that's possibly, if anywhere, that's where you're going to see it.
Are you telling me off?
I have a feeling I would say this, right?
Party away if you like.
Party away if you want.
Probably not best it came out.
Probably not best it came out.
There are some who think that it's actually a Russian plot to get rid of her because they don't like her very much and she wants to join NATO and all of that.
So they could be hacking into somebody's eye cloud, possibly.
But it's a bit unwise to let all of that stuff be taken up.
The impetuosity of youth, maybe the youngest leader in the world.
Yeah, she's not that young though.
She's 36.
That's very young.
But you know, we need to be able to do that.
It is for Mike and I.
Well, it's young, but it's not young enough.
Let's move on that I actually am going to stake my not my career because I've got one.
I'm going to stake what I believe on the next thing.
There is a story this week that I hope we all find absolutely disgusting.
A town at the center of one of Britain's most notorious child sex scandals, Rotherham.
Asian grooming gangs, we all know about this, has been named as the world's first children's capital of culture, Ava.
I mean, what?
What do you say to that?
I mean, what do you say to that?
It's just.
The only thing, the only slightly good thing about this being in the press is that maybe we can have a re-examine about the fact that since that whole scandal was broken, barely any funding has gone into social housing, barely any funding has gone into social homes or rectifying the issue or preventing a future problem.
I mean, I spoke to a slightly different this week, and she was obviously one of those campaigners who managed to get something done about all this horrible stuff.
And she was absolutely amazed that anyone would think that this will somehow rejuvenate the area and it will somehow make people think of Rotherham in a different way.
It's just bizarre.
I don't think Rotherham will be looked at in any different way until they deal with this and they haven't dealt with it.
And there are still cases coming up all the time.
But I mean, without wanting to sound like your love child, what idiot went, oh, I'll tell you what, the children's capital of culture, let's pick, it can be any city you want.
Let's pick Rotherham.
That just doesn't make sense.
It's probably the same idiot that doesn't allocate the correct funding where it should go.
Completely agree.
We were all quite rightly, the world has been shocked.
The United Kingdom in shock about Olivia Pratt Corbel's senseless murder on Monday night.
In terms of where we're at, there's a new statement from the family tonight because it's a big thing that the man that was chased into the house won't open up and it's all about will the criminal underworld in Liverpool say anything to find this man.
Others say he's already gone.
The family have just released a statement saying Liv was adored by everyone who knew her and would instantly make friends with anyone and everyone.
She was often seen going up and down the street on a new bike.
She just got for her birthday.
All her life was short.
Her personality certainly wasn't.
And she lived it the most she could and would blow people away with her wit and kindness.
We as a family are heartbroken and have lost a huge part of our lives.
And if anyone knows anything, now is the time to speak up.
It's not about being a snitch or a grass.
It's about finding out who took our baby away.
Please do the right thing, Mike.
It's just heartbreaking, isn't it?
I mean, you look at those pictures and we've got children.
I was remember when it happened, I just remembered my daughter who you know when she was nine years old.
And I mean, it's just awful.
You can't even begin to think.
You know what I was thinking today?
The people who are going to spend this weekend ordering cocaine, middle-class people that make quite a lot of money, they should think about where that's coming from because it's coming from there.
And that's what they're doing.
And that's what they're funding.
And that's what they're actually, you know, helping to make sure that it continues to be like that.
Ava, you might actually agree with me.
I look sometimes at this country, a country I'm very proud of, and I'm becoming increasingly unproud of it.
I look at lawlessness, I look at gang culture, knives, guns, I look at the social problems we've got.
How do we deal with this?
I think that we're probably getting a bit excited there, as much as I agree with you, but this has always been endemic.
It's just that we're now talking about it a lot more, and that Liverpool has had this issue for years, for decades.
And then the second that it comes into the media spotlight, suddenly they're now allocating more money for bobbies to go onto the bee, for police cars to be sent around the city.
There's been a gun problem for years in Liverpool, and it's shocking that no one's bothered to deal with it.
But the trouble is now, because of the way that the gun crime is fueled by the drug business, the drug business is now so big, you know, that...
Somebody once said to me that you're not going to be able to do it.
It's a county line and you take out a drug bar and within five minutes, there's another one in the middle.
Well, I mean, they get something like one-eighth of all of the drugs that come into this country, they confiscate.
But there's loads more coming in.
There's loads more people doing it.
Britain is now the cocaine capital of Europe.
You know, it's ridiculous.
I just hope that actually somebody does open their mouth because that kid does justice.
And also the other thing.
But you're right.
How awful that the guy who was shot was taken to hospital by his mate who left the little girl there.
Yeah.
Didn't take her.
And the one that's in hospital won't speak.
And he won't speak.
I mean, what a pair of scumbags.
I'm not allowed to say on television what I think.
But yeah, good luck.
Stephen Barkley, on a lighter note, have you seen this, Keep?
Just watch this.
It's brilliant.
This is the health sector being ambushed by could be a labor activist or just an angry pensioner.
Have a look.
That plan for jobs has protected.
Are you going to do anything about the ambulances waiting and the people dying out?
Well, don't you think 12 years is long enough?
Yes, and we are with him.
You've done bugger all about it.
People have died and all you've done is nothing.
He's disgraceful.
Look at the way he looks at her.
Like she's a constituent.
She votes him in.
She pays his wages and that's the way that he looks at her.
They don't care.
They don't care at all.
War Fatigue and Lord West 00:12:01
And they keep saying as well, well, he was about to make that statement, wasn't he?
Well, we are building 20 new hospitals and we are actually getting the waiting list down.
No, they're not.
They're actually not.
They are doing nothing.
You saw the picture in the front of the mirror last week that I'll never forgive.
Forget that the guy with an awning over his body for 16 hours.
Do you know, apart from the patients, I feel sorry for the people who work in ambulance control centers?
Imagine this.
I've got four ambulances and 70 people.
Do I go to the granny who's broken a leg on the floor?
Do I go to the kid who's been in a car crash or somebody who's been knifed?
I don't understand why we can't.
I mean, don't start me, Manish S, because we need to stop pouring money down to brainstorming sessions and spend it on things that matter.
But it's just appalling.
And this woman, who perhaps in the past would be seen as some sort of labor weirdo, is speaking what most people in this country feel now, isn't she?
It's always true, isn't it?
That one incident kind of sums everything up and that's it.
You know, it's her saying, you've done, you know, I don't know if I can say it.
Am I allowed to say bugger all?
You've done bugger all.
They have done bugger all.
They've been doing bugger all since about three months ago.
Well, they've been doing a lot of deflection as well.
I mean, 12 years in power and somehow it's still not their fault that waiting times are this long.
It's shocking.
It is absolutely shocking.
You are my favourite duo.
Thank you for that.
You obviously prepare brilliantly.
Yes, I do.
Michael Graham, 10 o'clock tomorrow morning on talk.
Breakfast before that with me.
Ava, thank you very much indeed.
Thank you both of you.
We'll see you next week.
Right next on Uncensored on the eve of another energy price hike.
Can public support for Ukraine survive the economic crisis?
We'll speak to a family who took in a refugee but can no longer afford to keep them.
We're coming back in three.
Welcome back, my friends.
Now tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Of Gen will announce another hike in the energy price cap signalling more bad news for hard-up families.
Fuel prices have rocketed around the world in part because of that war in Ukraine.
But as Brits pay higher bills, Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants us to remember that the Ukrainians are paying in blood.
It's another sense that we want to know, can the public support for this war survive the economic crisis?
And should those taking in Ukrainian refugees be getting more than 350 quid a month?
Joining me now from East London is Admiral Lord West, who thinks we must continue. to confront Russia and it's a small price to pay.
In Wales we have Oliver Orchard who's taken in a Ukrainian refugee but is struggling by his own admission to pay the bills and in the studio is Heritage Party leader David Curtin who says that Britain should be putting the British people first.
I'd like to go to Oliver in Wales if I can, really as a starting point.
Oliver, you and your family made that decision in May.
You say that you have received your £350 per month in lieu.
But the reality for you now is it's a struggle financially.
Well, I suppose I should actually sort of preface this and say that, you know, it's not that much of a struggle as it stands.
We are in a position where we can do this.
We believe in the principle of what we're doing.
We stand by it.
Everybody is feeling the pinch and we are making our way through this and it will be absolutely fine.
So we are not struggling.
But what I will say is on that note, the early days of this, when she first arrived and we had to sort out everything from food and utilities and making sure she was finding work and all those other bits, that's when we felt the pinch initially.
And I think that's where a lot of people may have struggled in that first stage of the eight to ten weeks.
Oliver, you told my team, because we built up such a relationship with her, we don't want her to leave in a difficult situation.
But we're finding ourselves increasingly in a financial situation.
Either she has to go or we have to work extra hours.
So that is an issue, isn't it?
It's something, it's an issue, but there are bigger issues than that.
You're a good person.
It can only speak for us.
Well, no, we discussed this with your team.
And the way I see it, yes, I have worked a lot more days and more hours.
I'm still feeling the echo and the echo of Dunkirk's spirit.
I think of my great-grandfather at times like this.
He was a captain in World War II.
And it's instinctive.
I don't have a problem.
It's okay.
If I've saved one person and I saved her son from being injured, wounded on the front line, then we've done our part.
It's okay.
Let's bring in, if I can, David Curtin, Heritage Party leader.
You say about Boris, who said yesterday, you know, we're struggling, but your bills that are increasing, you know, they're paying in blood.
I do wonder...
I mean, I find myself in a difficult position because I absolutely know that Ukrainian war is not just about Ukraine, it's about Europe.
But I also always, it's like the immigration issue, and nobody talked about it for years.
The British people are really struggling right now.
And the British people, I don't know whether it's called war fatigue or whatever, I worry, not only the ones that have taken people, Ukrainians in and shown their nice side, but that could be a struggle.
But people are struggling to survive.
And they will look at 54 million yesterday, no disrespect to Ukraine, will they not?
And go, we can't pay our bills.
And that's on the top of a billion or so that's already been given to the Ukrainian government in weapons and money.
I think Boris there is making this statement because he wants to sound like Churchill.
He's got this great idea that he's going to be seen in history as a churchill-like figure.
But he's not putting the British people first.
And he is not going to suffer from this.
He's not going to struggle because he has a very, very large MP salary.
Even when he steps down as Prime Minister, he'll still get a lot of money coming in.
And he's completely out of touch with ordinary British people who are suffering.
A quarter of British families taking part in the Homes for Ukraine scheme are set to quit in the coming weeks, citing lack of support amid soaring inflation energy bills.
With the greatest respect to my man Oliver in Wales, you can tell he's a thoroughly decent man.
But he did say at the end, yes, I don't regret doing it, but I'm having to work extra hours.
It is becoming more difficult for people.
Tomorrow, that off-gem announcement at 7am could save £6,000.
I'm terrified that families will go to the war, aren't you?
Absolutely.
I mean, Oliver there obviously did it from the goodness of his heart for the best of reasons.
I mean, I think we should sit down actually on a wider sense and try to end the conflict so that we don't need to take more refugees.
That's another kind of issue.
I mean, it is another cushion.
And I'd like to bring in Admiral Lord West, former First Sea Lord.
You say, Admiral West, Boris is right.
We have to confront Russia and Ukraine.
I might agree with that as well, but I want to ask you this.
In doing that, are we causing our own people to suffer unnecessarily?
I think there are a whole raft of things that are making a perfect storm in terms of people's incomes and the amount of money they have to spend.
But I have no doubt whatsoever that making sure we support Ukraine is putting the British people first.
We have in Putin a man who used polonium, a radioactive, very unpleasant material, quite freely in London to kill someone.
We know he then used a nerve agent to kill people, kill someone in Salisbury.
He breaks all of the accepted norms of behaviour.
He has made it very clear that he wants to see Russia back to where it was when it was a Soviet Union.
And I'm afraid we had to confront him.
Now, I'm afraid that is costing money and it's difficult.
I think Boris is correct that actually Ukraine are paying in terms of blood and that's not very nice.
But if we don't stop him, we will end up being a position where our people are paying in terms of the government.
But the point is, I think weirdly I agree with that.
But as David Curtin says, and Oliver alluded to, David, I wonder whether politicians actually truly understand, because they've had six weeks holiday and we've had a government that's not been there.
Do they know what tomorrow morning means to so many families, the length and breadth of this country?
Well, first of all, I'd say I do actually disagree with Admiral Lord West.
I think we shouldn't have got into the conflict in the first place and we should be de-escalating the conflict rather than trying to prolong it because that is actually...
But does he want to de-escalate it, Vladimir Putin?
If you don't take on somebody like that, as Lord West says, what do you get?
Is he going to run over everywhere else?
If you sit around the table and negotiate and stick to the Minsk agreements, which we had in place.
But he didn't agree with them.
He's been smarting since the Soviet Union was split up and he's gone into a sovereign independent nation.
Not at all.
I think if you look at the wider issue, the Russian, ethnic Russian people in the Donbass area were being shelled and maimed and killed for eight years and he's gone in to protect them.
So that's a different way.
I don't agree with that, but we've all got opinions.
Lord West, you want us to jump in?
I haven't got much time.
Sorry, I totally disagree with that.
Why?
I've seen I've lost something there.
Oh, he's gone.
He disagrees with me.
He disagrees though.
I mean, that is the fact.
I mean, if we'd stuck to the Minsk agreement.
Well, I disagree with that as well.
Okay, by the way.
I disagree.
I genuinely disagree with that.
Well, we may have to disagree on that.
Coming back to how this is impacting on British families, that's what we need to put first.
And we need to actually try to alleviate the suffering and the cost of living, the cost of energy crisis, which is coming tomorrow morning.
Let's just talk, Oliver, very quickly back to Wales.
You are the person that took in a family.
You're such a good man.
I've got 30 seconds.
You're not going to say you regret it.
But as things get tougher, as that off-gem announcement happens tomorrow, what happens if you can't make ends meet?
What goes first?
Your family or the Ukrainian lady?
30 seconds.
Go.
No, no, we'll always find a way to protect her.
I minimise the windows on the desktop on this one back down to just human stories.
She's been for a lot.
Her son has been for a lot.
I still believe if we just do right by another Ukrainian person, we can end the war that way.
It's human stories for me anyway.
Thank you very much indeed, Oliver.
Let's finish with Admiral Lord West, whose sound is back.
You were very vocal.
You said I disagree.
30 seconds, sir.
Yeah, I disagree entirely that we mustn't confront Putin.
When it comes to spending money, I'm afraid when you're faced with the possibility of war, that is where you've got to spend your money.
If Putin succeeds and if we then went to a greater war, then the NHS, welfare, these things would mean absolutely nothing because it's the destruction and end of your country and your civilization.
Very quick final question.
Do you think the British people have the stomach to suffer as they are and keep supporting this war?
Admiral Lord West.
Yes or no?
I think the British people have.
Yes, except they do want to know that the people ruling them understand the pain that is being caused by a whole series of other things.
Thank you very much indeed.
And David, that's the point.
Where is the damn government?
Nobody's explaining anything to us.
20 seconds.
Yeah, well, Boris Johnson's on holiday and he's gallivanting off to Kiev.
He's doing public relationships, doing public relations for himself, but he's not understanding what people are going through.
And that is the key thing that he should be attending to.
Thank you very much indeed, Oliver in Wales, David Curtin in the studio.
Admiral Lord West tomorrow morning, off-gem, 7am.
They say bills could be upwards of six and a half grand.
What will that mean?
We're on breakfast on talk from 6.30, but that, my friends, is it from me tonight on uncensored.
Back tomorrow night from 8.
Whatever you're up to, he told me to say it.
Make sure you keep it uncensored.
Have a great Thursday.
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