Piers Morgan Uncensored features a heated Brexit debate where Lord Heseltine claims record foreign investment proves post-Brexit triumph, while Anne Whitticomb argues the deal is merely "Brexit in name only." The show shifts to US-China tensions as Stanley Johnson defends Chinese espionage against Western surveillance, facing challenges from Douglas Murray regarding Xinjiang abuses. Finally, the Tavistock scandal emerges through Hannah Barnes' allegations of children receiving puberty blockers without assessment and Richie Heron's account of regretted surgery, suggesting ideology replaced medical ethics. Ultimately, despite a £1.4 billion Valentine's spending surge, the episode highlights deep societal fractures in politics, geopolitics, and healthcare. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Maximizing Brexit Opportunities00:14:34
Tonight on Piers Morgan Uncensored with me, Richard Tice.
And me, Isabelle Oakshot.
So the revenge of the Ramonas.
After the secret summits, the cozy cross-party chats, is there a Valentine's plot to unravel the Brexit divorce?
I'll ask one of the EU's not-so-secret admirers, Lord Hesseltine.
And spy balloons, stealth social media apps and investments worth hundreds of billions in critical infrastructure.
Is it time to wake up to China's threat to the West?
We'll debate that.
Plus, the Experimental Gender Clinic, where a thousand British children, some aged just 10 years old, were given powerful puberty-blocking drugs.
Did fears over the toxic trans debate cause the horrific Tavistock scandal?
Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored with Richard Tice and Isabel Oakeshott.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored and tonight we have a bit of a Valentine special.
The big question we're going to be asking is after a very messy breakup, what exactly is the state of our relationship with the EU?
It's four years since we told Brussels we wanted a divorce.
Now what followed was pretty typical of all big breakups.
A lot of hurt, a lot of anger and a lot of expensive lawyers.
The big hope of course was that when the nasty paperwork was all finished, it, and that would take another two years by the way, for us to get out, we'd all be able to move on and very soon we'd strike up new, more rewarding and exciting relationships with other countries.
Unfortunately, it seems some people are still nursing a broken heart.
All they want to do is go back to what many people who voted for Brexit feel was at best a very dysfunctional relationship with Brussels.
The question is, are shadowy figures in government and the civil service conspiring to rekindle the romance?
What's that rendezvous in Ditchley Park where remainers like Peter Mandelson and David Lamy flirted with levers like Michael Gove?
The beginning of an illicit affair that they hope will lead to something more serious.
Well, joining us now are former Conservative Minister Anne Winnicombe, Talk TV contributor Paul Roan-Adrienne, plus former Deputy Prime Minister down the line, Lord Heseltine.
Good evening to you all.
Lord Heseltine, thank you for joining us on Piers Morgan Uncensored.
We really appreciate it.
So we've only just actually left the trading relationship just over two years ago.
It's the beginning of a long-term new relationship and yet already it seems that some people are trying to sort of bring us back ever closer together.
I know that was always your view.
Were you invited to this conference?
No.
Would you like to have been?
So you feel you missed out.
But in terms of where we are...
I don't feel I missed out at all.
Okay, well in terms of where we are, since we left the trading relationship, we've got our trade with the EU is actually up some 10% since the end of the transition period.
It's up some 40% since the end of 2016.
Our foreign direct investment since 2016 is about the highest of any European nation, well comparable.
So it seems to me that people are sort of Essentially, sort of talking down Brexit before actually it's been given a chance to maximise the opportunity.
Well, if the figures that you've just given were accurate, why are people so upset?
Why is there a concern?
I mean, you just depicted a triumph.
Let me just sort of help you a little.
You see, it's not the people like me.
Did you see today's teletelegraph?
Brexit is dead.
Yes, I did.
That was an idea.
Those are your most fanatical supporters.
How can your greatest supporters allow this sort of adverse propaganda to be published?
So that was the editor.
That was an article by the first time.
But the point is, what she was concerned about is that the establishment figures...
Let's start again.
What about this one?
The Bank of England.
People a thousand pounds worse off.
The Daily Telegraph.
It's not me.
It's your friends.
The reality is that our GDP growth is a very good thing.
So the reality, I've just told you what the reality is.
I've just told you what the reality is.
No, the reality is the figures look.
You're going to delete people as you've been doing for six years.
How can you dare to say that it's only two years or four years?
The referendum was 16 years ago.
Nearly seven years ago.
And the people who were in charge in the government of the day, Boris Johnson, Liam Fox, David Davis, did you think they knew what they were doing?
Two years before we had a general election.
Then we were told we'd get Brexit done.
Why now?
Are we still waiting to know what that means?
I'll tell you why.
Because it meant a pack of lies.
Well, Lord Hesseltine, let me tell you why.
The reason that we're in the position we are is because Romainers such as yourself worked very, very hard to thwart Brexit ever happening.
So you can recite the many years since 2016 thing, but we've had no time to mention that.
You've had six years with your hands on the levers of power.
We'd love to have had six years.
Tell me it's people like me or Simple Sims.
Lord Hesseltine, bear with us a second.
Let's come to our panel.
Anne.
Many people say that we've got Brino, Brexit in name only.
What's your view of that?
Where do you think we are in terms of the journey and the opportunity?
Well, I certainly think we're not taking advantage of the opportunities that are available to us.
That is the first thing.
Secondly, those opportunities are limited by the agreement that was reached, which was, I think, Brexit in name only.
But even so, we have got some freedoms that we could use, and we're not using them.
And that is why people are so disappointed.
Also, of course, things have been conflated.
You know, we've got inflation largely as a result of huge spending during COVID.
It's not just confined to Britain.
It's in other countries as well.
But everybody says, ah, you know, post-Brexit, therefore on account of Brexit.
And that is a nonsense argument.
And I, you know, I mean, with all due respect, Lord Hesseltine, you'll know I'm a huge admirer of Lord Hesseltine.
But he's just got this one completely wrong.
We have not had six years.
We've only been legally out for two.
I think that's a very valid point, Anne Whitticomb.
But do you think we Brexit is, and of course I was also a very vocal supporter of Brexit, would we do well to acknowledge that thus far it hasn't been a triumph?
We have to kind of accept that bit.
It isn't that Brexit hasn't been a triumph.
It's that how we have handled Brexit hasn't been a triumph.
That deal, which we all warned was fraud right from the start, is at the root of a great many of the problems that we have.
Brexit isn't to blame.
What we are doing, or rather, what we are not doing with Brexit is to blame it.
I can see Paula.
Paula, if you're going to do a job, let's do it properly and let's give it a fair time in order to show itself.
Absolutely.
That's it.
Let me finish the do now.
But you can't do that if the foundation upon which you are working is false.
Is faulty.
Which bit.
And that premise was made on a lie.
It was built on a lie.
We lied to those of us in the East End.
We lied to those of us up north.
We lied to the fishermen.
We lied.
We lied to those concerned about immigration.
Who's we?
Who lied for Brexit?
I pushed for Brexit.
Lied about what was going to happen in relation to immigration.
Lied about what was going to happen to the NHS and how it was going to be cared for.
We know that because we are paying the price.
Is it true?
Well, then let's flip it round.
Is it true that the NHS are now receiving $350 million?
Actually, it's receiving a lot more.
It's receiving way more.
And is it a lot more that we were inundated by Turkish immigrants who wanted to come and settle here?
Was that true?
I think the point threw that we were able to regain control of our borders.
And the truth is, we've had the highest immigration in the year to June 22 ever.
Because you didn't regain control of the borders in the way that you promised that you would do.
We promised that we could have, would have, should have.
We coulda, woulda, should have.
That is not the way to win something as important as making us.
I would like to ask him whether he thinks that the voters were sold a pack of lies.
Yes.
What are you going to say to that?
Absolutely.
You think absolutely that was okay?
So what was a lie as far as you were concerned?
Can I just answer the question?
Please.
They were sold a pack of lies.
Yes.
And the greatest evidence of that is that six years later, when the Brexiteers have been in charge, we have not seen any of the benefits that we were told we would get.
And that's because they were all fiction.
So I think your six years is fictional.
You can't justify that six years.
Forgive me.
Let us be pedantic on this one matter.
Did the referendum take place in 2016?
Yes, but we didn't leave in 2000.
Six years.
Lord Heseltine, look, can we just stop Hesseltine?
We just agree.
Will you please enter the relationship?
Will you please allow me to answer the questions you put to me?
In 2016, a government was formed in which Boris Johnson, David Davis, and Liam Fox, the principal advocates of Brexit, were put in charge of the three most important departments.
So they were there six and a half years ago.
And Lord Heseltine, we left two years ago.
I'm going to ask one final question to you, Lord Hesseltine, before we let you go.
Yes, would you rejoin me or would you get on with doing the job properly?
I would get a job done properly by rejoining the European Union.
So then, Lord Hesseltine, you're going to negotiate the worst possible deal with no leverage.
How ridiculous.
I thought you were a successful businessman.
I am a successful businessman.
But then you know that that would be a terrible negotiation.
That's a disaster.
I love your interruptions.
You see, you won't let me answer the questions because you can't bear the truth.
But we're listening.
We're listening.
Let me tell you, frankly, You never listen.
That's your whole problem.
You just interrupt so that anyone who talks something you don't like, you try to shout them down.
And I mean, we dealt with the issue a few minutes ago.
What was the motive of Boris Johnson's electoral victory?
Get Brexit done.
So why hasn't it happened?
Because people thwarted us.
The promises.
You see, there you are, interrupting again.
Exactly.
It's a conversation.
Lord Hesseltine.
It's a conversation, not a monologue.
No, this is not a shout.
This is a shouting match in which your technique is to shout down anyone you disagree with.
You're doing a lot of time.
Your technique is to lecture.
You knew perfectly well out of it.
There you are, you're doing it again.
You're doing it again.
I knew when I came on this program, I would have to behave in a way that I deplore and to fight, get a word in edgeways, because you think that if you can censor what people are saying by shouting them down, you'll win the argument.
Lord Heseltine never win the argument.
Lord Heselton that way.
We're very grateful for your time, but the truth is you've actually spoken more than anybody else.
Yes, you're not.
Thank you very much indeed for your thoughts.
And by the way, just to clarify, it's only two years since the end.
Trying to get the last word.
I know the tricks.
We remember it.
Just finally, Paula, Paula, before we conclude this piece, Lord Heseltine would rejoin tomorrow.
Would you rejoin tomorrow?
And can I answer that in as long a time as you can give me?
George Eustace told us how things have gone wrong.
He finally admitted how things had gone wrong.
And I have my friends and family in the East End who can tell you how it's gone wrong.
We have the fishermen who can tell you how it's gone wrong.
We have those up North who's telling you how it can go wrong.
We can have those who are sitting in hell AI.
Oh, I say get it done properly.
We're going to get it done properly.
Don't get it done properly.
It's voted.
Get it done quickly.
Yep.
Next tonight, our US-China tensions about to explode over spy balloons.
And how scared should we be?
Welcome back to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Well, just before we move on to talk about China, I do think we need to just catch up on that extraordinary debate and interaction with Lord Hesseltine.
I mean, Lord Hesseltine, I did expect him to, you know, to be pretty punchy.
He is, after all, an arts remonero.
He was completely brilliant.
I thought he would like to.
We'll come to you in a minute, Annie, because we know you share this with you.
The reality is that he keeps using the word lies, but he couldn't admit that it was.
Well, that was actually, that was Paula as well.
The Reality of Spying00:07:47
Both of them.
But Lord Heseltine couldn't admit that it was only two years since the end of the train.
I mean, I think we've got to completely nail this six years thing.
Absolutely ridiculous.
They keep on using it, don't they?
As if the more they say it, the more true it'll become.
Hey, I've got to tell you, hey, Heseltine nailed you two.
He did a brilliant job.
Welcome to the show to Stanley Johnson, who we're going to talk now about China, because we can be reasonably sure that aliens were not indeed responsible for the four unidentified flying objects that were shot down in the last few days over America.
China, despite official denials, is of course suspected of launching balloons to spy on our American friends.
The first one travelled across the US before being shot down on the 4th of February off the coast of South Carolina.
And a further three objects were taken out in the last few days.
A former head of MI6 today said the West is under the full press of Chinese espionage.
And next week, world leaders are gathering in Munich for a major security conference.
And they'll be connecting their mobile phones to, you guessed it, telecoms infrastructure provided by none other than Beijing telecoms giant, who are we?
Well, joining us is the author campaigner in China fan, Stanley Johnson.
You may say that's fair or unfair.
We'll come to that.
And best-selling author Douglas Murray, who's joining us from New York.
We will, I think, first of all, we will have to come to you, Stanley.
So keen to get involved in the debate.
Look, Stanley, the bottom line is here.
Put it simply, the Chinese are spying on our allies.
We've probably got to assume that they are spying on us too.
Are you now embarrassed at your stance of being so pro-Chinese?
I'm not at all embarrassed.
Absolutely not.
Look at the debate you just had with Lord Hesseldine.
Here we are, an isolated country, more or less losing our friends in Europe.
We are not in a good shape as far as Russia is concerned.
So let's cozy up to the Chinese country.
Can we really afford to develop a hostile relationship with China?
I think not now.
You ask your point.
Am I a sinophile?
Well, in 1961, I tried to ride a motorcycle from Oxford to Beking.
We got to the Chinese border.
I'm going to finish that journey off this summer.
I've been in China.
I think I was the first EU delegation to go to China in 1975 when Ma was still in charge.
I've been there lots of times.
One of my sons was educated.
Not Boris, by the way.
One of my younger sons was educated in Singhwa University.
But you haven't answered the question.
I am spying on Stanley.
Well, we're spying on them.
That is the nature of it.
However, I happen to believe that if the Chinese say this is a meteorological, you know, let's wait until they're disproved.
We have satellites.
I'm not sure Britain has satellites, but the US certainly has satellites.
We certainly have all signs of signs of...
Are we floating balloons over Beijing?
Well, that's a pretty antiquated form.
It might be totally appropriate for British technology to have a few balloons.
The French could do it with Monsieur Blérier.
No, I think the real tragedy of the whole thing is just at the moment when Mr. Blinken, Anthony Blinken, was about to go to China to, as it were, reset a relationship which had been slightly knocked off killed by Mrs. Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
Just at that moment, this unfortunate episode occurred and the balloon floated over North Carolina.
Yeah, let's move on.
That's my line.
This seems an awful lot of apologist waffle to me with apologies from me for saying that to you.
I mean, you seem to be actively proud of cosying up to Beijing.
We're all cosying up to Beijing.
If you look at the trade figures, we'd cosy up to Beijing every day.
You just pointed out, all the things we use every day, all the things which we buy from China every day.
And by the way, in the world I do, you very kindly, I think, introduced me as an author.
Well, one of the things I do is write books about the environment.
I campaign, that's the campaigning part on the environment.
Without China, a lot of the work we do on the big environmental issues would go down the drain.
I'm sure that's true.
I'm not sure they're being terribly helpful.
Can I just let's just establish just how close your relationship is with the Chinese?
How often have you been in and out of the Chinese embassy here in London?
Well, you could probably get some records of that.
I'm asking you the question now.
Have you been in and out quite a few times?
The first time was in 1961 when I was trying to get a visa to go.
Let's not go way back to 16.
No, I was talking.
Well, then...
Didn't you visit it 10 times, 20 times?
Oh, not as many as that.
But I have certainly been, I went to the Chinese embassy, had a very good conversation with the then Chinese ambassador just in the run-up to COVID.
And that, I think, was on, it was on the 19th century.
Right.
Just in the run-up to COVID.
So you've been in and out quite a few times.
Well, I think you might say three or four times over the period of time.
Right.
And that I think is perfectly legitimate.
Do you make any money at all from any companies?
No, I don't at all.
And they're very happy.
Not one penny.
No, not one penny.
Not one penny.
I work in an honorary capacity, and by a bit is tremendously important.
It makes my point, actually, about the whole thing about China and the relationship.
I work as an advisor to the Chinese non-governmental organization called EcoForum Global, which is working to try and put in place a World Coastal Forum.
And that is crucially important.
Sounds all very worthy, but the reality is they're spying on us.
They haven't got our best interests in heart.
Let's bring in Douglas Murray in New York.
Douglas, very good evening.
Thanks for being with us.
Look, how serious should we take this threat?
Stanley Johnson has just said it's sort of old technology, the spying balloon.
But geopolitically, what's really going on here and how should the Western allies respond?
Well, first of all, we're learning on a day-by-day basis more and more about this.
And the American government has been perhaps understandably coy about exactly what it is that's been going on and what they've shot down and what they've intercepted and what they've indeed missed so far.
The balloon that first caused the tension was, of course, described by the Communist Party of China as simply being a weather balloon that had gone astray, a story which absolutely nobody believed.
And you could only spin if, like the Communist Party that rules China, you're used to just asserting things and not having to prove them to anyone's satisfaction.
Beijing tried this line.
Nobody was convinced.
Although there have been people, I'm sorry to hear Stanley Johnson just play this trick himself.
I think it's quite a disgraceful thing to do to say, oh, well, we spy on them, they spy on us.
Here's just one of the many differences.
Western satellite technologies have indeed been used to look at, for instance, the concentration camp network operated by the Chinese Communist Party in the Xinjiang province.
That isn't anything like what the Chinese were trying to do with America.
Chinese were flying balloons over, for instance, American atomic bases.
So this isn't anything like parity.
As for the larger question of our relationship with China, nobody wants war with China, but we are in an increasingly dangerous standoff thanks to the behavior of Beijing.
Just look at what Stanley just mentioned has happened in the last few years.
Look at what happened with COVID.
China crashed the entire global economy by, at the very most benign explanation, not telling the world that an incredibly infectious respiratory disease was coming out of Wuhan.
TikTok and Xinjiang Concerns00:06:08
It did everything it could to cover that over.
And you get up to more recent times, they have the gall to threaten a Democrat, a Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for asserting her right to go to Taiwan.
This comes after years of threatening British officials.
Perhaps something we should get into.
Douglas.
Because anyone who pretends that what we're dealing with with the CCP is a sort of benign operator can't possibly have their spectacles on.
Douglas Murray, can I ask, are you on TikTok?
No, absolutely not.
TikTok is not.
And Stanley, are you on TikTok?
Do you think that we're naive about social media apps like TikTok?
There have been some concerns expressed that it's not all as it seems with TikTok.
I'm not sure.
TikTok is a piece.
TikTok, I do.
TikTok, I wrote the first piece in the British press about this after interviewing then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the Sun several years ago.
TikTok is a piece of Chinese malware, which is a data harvesting entity, among many other things.
It's not permitted to be operated in China.
It is used in the West to collect data from young people in the West.
Anybody watching who has TikTok or whose children have TikTok, take it off your phone.
are not the user of the product, you are the product.
Let's just, we've just got a clip on TikTok.
Let's just watch this.
It always blows my mind when I look at the number of people who use TikTok.
I mean, I'm one of them, right?
You know, you use this little videos.
Are we being a bit...
Sophie, get off it.
Are we being naive?
Are we?
I'm worried now.
We are.
We are being naive.
So look, you know, TikTok gave evidence to my committee where they said that there was no way that individuals working in China could get access to the data of Britons.
But what we've now seen is that people working in China for TikTok hacked into European data so they could track down the source of a journalist.
Stanley, I know you're itching to come in here.
I mean, you've actually travelled out to the province, haven't you?
You were intending to travel to the province where the Uyghur crimes have taken place.
I mean, how are you comfortable with that?
You're using words which, you know.
Oh, you don't think the treatment of the Uyghurs is criminal?
No, I'm not getting into that.
I'm not getting into that.
Why not?
It's too important.
I'll tell you why.
Why?
Why?
Isabel, the journey I'm going to do is to follow, to re-follow the steps of Marco Polo in China in the 13th century.
And it's a bridgebuilding exercise.
And I want to make a point here, because all of you, the people on the far right of the Conservative Party.
Excuse me, I don't think either of us are on the far right.
Just to be clear.
Even more right then.
What we're trying to do, I think, is not whip up the temperature on China.
That is not the game.
Is that what you'd say to the Uyghurs?
It is a big, big mistake to whip up the game.
And I'm certainly not going to play that game.
So I think I'm there for bridge building.
That is the point.
And so you're just going to blinker yourself to the mistreatment of the Uyghur Muslims.
You're just going to ignore that because it's inconvenient to you.
Well, hold on.
I don't know what I'm going to see.
Do I know what I mean?
You haven't even researched that?
You haven't researched the human rights abuses?
Everything is there.
I've read the reports of the UN rapporteur.
I've read them.
And that is that.
And you're still comfortable with that.
Well, who is not?
Are you comfortable buying Chinese food, buying Chinese products?
That's different to national security interests.
Let's go back to Douglas.
How do you respond to Stanley Johnson's sort of view of the Uyghurs that it's irrelevant to the broader economy?
I didn't say that.
Mr. Stanley has his own.
Stanley Johnson has his own game he's playing.
I'm not entirely sure what it is.
But it's obviously not an investigative game.
We can say that at the very least, can't we?
I mean, you don't have to know exactly what's happening in Xinjiang, although I would if I were you.
You can just look at what the CCP's done to our friends in Hong Kong over the last decade.
Just look at what it's doing with its overflights into territorial airspace of the Taiwanese.
Look at its assistance to Moscow.
Go back 10 years.
If Stanley doesn't care about our allies like America and its treatment by the CCP and doesn't care about the people of Hong Kong, doesn't care about the people of Xinjiang and so on.
Perhaps you could care about the way in which the Chinese government has treated the government of Our own country.
Ten years ago, the then Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron had the gall to meet with the Dalai Lama.
He met with Nick Clegg as well, the Deputy Prime Minister.
After that...
I'm sorry, Dr. Speaker.
Please finish my point.
May I please finish my point?
Because it's very important.
It's better than the waffle you're going to get from Stanley.
The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, after having the gall to meet the Dalai Lama, were informed that there would be no more trade negotiations with Beijing.
They were put in the freezer, those negotiations, until there was a formal apology by the British government, which at the next meeting with their Chinese counterparts was pushed across the table and the British diplomats were asked to stand up, read the apology, and were told we just wanted to know you meant it.
So that's how the Chinese have treated us for years.
Anyone who at this point is ignorant is willfully so.
Indeed, thank you very much, Douglas.
Murray, finally, Stanley, you boasted about one of your sons being educated in China.
Was all this apology shared by your other son, Boris Johnson, when he was a Prime Minister?
Did he share your attitudes towards China?
I can't speak for Boris on this, but I'm perfectly sure that he, like any other sane person at this moment, does not want to get into this bidding up war of let's really drive China into a corner and so on.
You're basically just going to appease them and just kowtow to them.
We have to wrap up.
Kowtao is a good word.
That's a good word.
I'm going to have to have you back on this programme.
We could spend a lot of time.
I can see that you were vexed by Heseltine.
Not at all.
We're vexed by your position on China.
Mental Health Crisis in Medicine00:12:00
That's what we're vexed by.
Thank you very much for coming in and sharing that with us.
Next tonight, we'll talk to a former patient who's suing the NHS over gender reassignment surgery that he says he didn't need.
Welcome back.
The controversial clinic that pushed teenagers into changing their gender when they might actually have been gay or had autism.
The Tavistock in North London is set to close this spring after an independent review said it risked harming those in its care.
Now a new book sheds further damning light on the clinic.
In Time to Think, the writer Hannah Barnes says that medics ignored the fact that a huge 97% of children who were looking to change their sex were actually autistic or suffering from depression or other mental health problems that might have caused their unhappiness.
Instead, doctors routinely referred under 16s for drugs to block the onset of puberty with no idea of the long-term effects.
Kids as young as three were sent to the clinic and anyone who spoke out against it was demonised.
Well joining us now is journalist and campaigner for sex-based human rights Helen Joyce, Richie Heron who's preparing to sue an NHS trust following his sex change and in the studio Paula Roan Adrienne is still with us.
To start with, Helen, can we go to you please?
Can you just set the scene here because many people will not be familiar with the details and the extraordinary scandal that's emerged?
It really is a scandal, completely shocking.
It's been clear to anyone who has paid attention for several years now that evidence was not properly used at this clinic.
It wasn't run the way that other NHS services were.
Ideology had taken over rather than proper medical practice and proper medical ethics and evidence.
But yet, if you tried to say something about this, you got called transphobic, and you, for example, people would say you should lose your job.
So, it's so kudos to Hannah Barron, there's a wonderful journalist that she managed to get this book published.
She used FOIs, she pushed through, she found a publishing deal when publishers tried to blacklist her.
And she's got this book out now.
And as I say, we've known for years that things weren't right.
But now we've got chapter and verse.
She's got it there in a book with all the evidence, amazing quotes from former patients, former clinicians, whistleblowers.
And now it is written in black and white that this was not done properly.
Children were not properly cared for.
And Helen, why has it taken so long?
I mean, when we look back at it, you look at the extraordinary growth in numbers from something like 50 children a year being referred to thousands of children being referred.
Why did it take so long?
Was it all about the money, the growth in revenue for the trust in question?
I'm sure that played a bit of a part, but I wouldn't say it was the main part.
Sadly, this happens in medicine.
We see medical scandals again and again.
And what happens is that people who are inside a particular paradigm, who have a particular idea about how treatment should work, become completely obsessed with that and they push it.
They don't look for evidence.
They, you know, they demonize people who say that, hang on, you haven't got the evidence.
And unfortunately, on this occasion, identity politics got involved too.
So these children were seen instead of being ill children or unwell children who needed help and had very complex problems.
You mentioned autism.
You mentioned that maybe they were going to grow up gay, so they face homophobia.
There was child abuse, depression, self-harm, anorexia, all sorts.
And instead, they were seen as trans children.
And that meant that they had to be just affirmed.
You know, absolutely shocking.
Yeah, well, I'd really like to bring in Richie Heron here because I suppose when all said and done, what really matters is not the politics of this, but the actual profound impact on patients and on children, impacts that would be lifelong.
And Richie, whilst you were not treated at the Tavistock, you have a very powerful story to tell, don't you, from your own experience of what can happen when young people are, as it were, rather rushed through this treatment.
They are transitioned, they're put on puberty blockers.
They may have second thoughts later.
Can you tell us what happened to you?
Yeah, I found the Jeff gender affirmation approach to be a little bit of a slope that got steeper after every passing appointment.
I am gay.
I still have severe mental health issues, one of them being RCD, which they knew about before me going into the clinic.
And all these issues were kind of explained away.
And then when I eventually had the surgery, I was told that the reason that I regretted the surgery was because of those mental health issues, which before weren't related.
So I was kind of like gaslit a lot on the way there, you know, and it felt very unfair.
And to me, one of the reasons why I want to raise the alarm is it's terrible what's happened to children.
And credit Hannah Ellis, Hannah Barn, sorry, for bringing it to this book.
Yeah.
Just by way of background with your story, am I correct that you were born male, then you thought you wanted to transition to female?
You went through pretty brutal surgery.
And then was it how long a period passed before you thought actually maybe that was a terrible mistake?
Well, the surgery itself, as soon as I was conscious, I knew it was a mistake, even before I knew it hadn't went well.
Really?
And then, yeah, after I realized how bad it was, it just got worse and worse.
And then that brought into question a lot of my whole transition and why I individually wanted to transition.
And it wasn't until like reality hit me that I was able to really think about the reasons why.
And it was just too little, too late, I'm afraid, for me.
So what is your situation now?
Are you sort of at peace with where you are or do you have more surgery to do?
What's the next step for you, if there is one?
I think the lesson learned in this is that mental health problems can't be solved with hormones and scalpels.
And I'm reluctant to touch another scalpel unless it's to help fix what I currently have.
For instance, I'm about to undergo a procedure that'll have to have every four or five years for urethral dilation because my urethra constantly gets constricted, which causes a lot of issues, pain and incontinence and a lot of personal things.
I don't want to get too much impulsive.
Yeah, of course.
Paula, I think that Richie puts it so powerfully there, doesn't he?
You know, a lot of people's mental health problems can't be fixed by hormones and scalpels.
And the reality is that once you've gone down the hormones and scalpels route, there is no turning back.
And he's so right.
And before we even get to the difficult issue about gender identity and we look at the issue of mental health and in particular the treatment of mental health issues with children, it is in a shocking state, an absolutely shocking state.
And when you are a parent of a child who's suffering with mental health, you have very limited options in terms of where you can turn to for help.
And what seems to have happened in relation to some of these children, particularly we know that there's up to a thousand cases that are going to be brought against the Tavistock in relation to treatment that was being received, that it seems that issues in relation to their mental health just were not addressed.
And the title, Gender Identity, was what was in focus.
Where was the safeguarding in this?
I mean, I've been a governor, many of us been governors of schools.
Safeguarding is absolutely false at the centre of everything, including, as you say, mental health.
And yet safeguarding seems here to have gone completely out of the window for some of the most vulnerable, anxious, depressed children, very often victims of bullying.
I mean, I cannot believe, having been a governor of a normal school, how this could have got through.
Well, ultimately, remember, the treatment pathways lie with your medic, with your treating clinician.
And that's where that duty and responsibility lies.
And one of the things that I understand from having read the interim report is that they were just simply overwhelmed with the amount of patients that were being referred to them.
They simply couldn't cope and the systems weren't in place, the processes weren't in place to manage that overflow.
Yeah, well, I think it's important because we've been very critical here just to give the Tavistock and the Portman NHS Trust a bit of a right of reply.
They're the ones that run the Tavistock Center for the NHS.
And they say that the Gentility Development Service, often known as GIDS, worked on a case-by-case basis with every young person and their family thoughtfully and holistically with no expectation of what the right outcome for them might be.
Concerns relating to young people's well-being are taken seriously and investigated.
So that's their defence.
I mean, Paul, are you speaking quite from the heart on this?
Is this something that you've come across in your work as a family lawyer or just something you've taken an interest in?
Absolutely.
In terms of children who are in the care system, in terms of children whose parents are unable to agree on where the child should live, it's incredibly hard for that child who unfortunately suffers emotionally and expresses that suffering through their mental health and will struggle with their mental health.
For the parent being able to access help, it's practically non-existent.
Can we just bring in Richie before we wrap up on this?
If we can bring Richie back.
If there was one thing that you could change about the way young people who go to clinicians to seek their advice on these matters are treated, what would you change?
I think it's not just a one single issue.
Of course, I'm just looking for a quick hit here.
A quick hit.
I would say more information about your background and motivations for trauma, a lot more work around trauma, I think, would be helpful.
And perhaps more time because a lot of patients are saying actually they only needed a couple of consultations before they were prescribed this stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah, more time, maybe.
But I mean, for those who are like obsessed as I was to go down it, I don't know how much time would have helped, but some maybe if they addressed the obsession itself.
Yeah, that would be.
That's a really interesting point.
Richie, thank you so much.
Just before we have a chat, Helen, can I just bring you in one last time?
I'm concerned that when GIDS closes, these are going to be pushed out to regional centres in the country and that these horrors, frankly, will continue.
Celebrating Valentine's Day00:05:48
This worries me too.
At least with one clinic at JIDS, although it was a terrible clinic, it was the focus of everybody's attention and campaigners could look in one place to see what was going wrong.
We'll have to watch like hawks how these four regional centres are run and make sure that the ideologues don't come back in.
Indeed, thank you very much to all of you on that debate.
Really quite disturbing.
I mean, I did think Richie made an important point about the obsession that young people develop.
And, you know, the clinics themselves are on a lot of pressure to come up with a solution, aren't they?
Absolutely.
Well, on a lighter note, yes, it's Valentine's Day, the most romantic day of the year.
Here's my roses.
Happy you.
We'll be looking at who's been paying the right price and who's been paying through the nose for one of those red, red roses.
Welcome back.
Well, Paula is still with us and Anne is back and happy Valentine's Day to you both.
Happy Valentine's Day to you two.
Thank you very much.
I was actually a bit worried you were going to forget it.
Of course I wouldn't forget it.
How could I forget it?
I mean I spent a fortune on roses.
I don't want to know how much you spent.
Well I probably on the subject of money it turns out that actually you can spend a massive range.
You can go from five pounds at Tesco's.
Is that what you were going to do for me?
No, certainly not.
£14 at Morrison's, £15 at MLS.
If you go to Liverpool Street Station.
This is just for red roses.
This is just for red roses.
Have a guess, Anne.
How many hundreds of pounds at Liverpool Street Station for a dozen red roses?
Three quid.
Three quid?
Three quid.
Where's your generosity, Anne?
MP salary in doublet.
Paula, how much at Liverpool Street Station for a dozen smart roses?
Posh ones.
Posh ones.
£150 rose.
Well, actually, since you aren't...
You know, what is a posh rose?
Since I should ask, I give you this rose, which was one of the 12 that this gorgeous man gave me.
I believe he says it's a posh rose.
I mean, I have no way of knowing.
This is a high-end rose.
You can get supermarket versions, which are, I don't think they're as good.
Mine was not a supermarket version.
But it does seem that we are a very romantic nation.
Last year, despite the cost of living crisis, it turns out that almost £1.4 billion, Anne, was spent on Valentine's Day.
In the UK alone.
In the UK alone, that's a 15% increase on the previous year.
Were you part of that spending power?
I certainly wasn't part of that spending power, no.
And that, quite honestly, it hasn't even got any sent.
I mean, I'd cheerfully send that.
I was going to say I cheerfully send it to Giva Hofstadt.
Maybe I need to do that.
Well, look, Richard's very romantic.
We know this because he's even written a poem for Valentine's Day.
Oh, wow.
Oh, Spera.
Come on, Richard.
Come on.
I mean, obviously I'm going to recite your poem.
Sperrus.
Go on, man.
Oh, yeah, dear.
Well, I put this on Twitter.
Roses are red, violets are blue.
It's great being free outside the EU.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Yeah, I like that.
Exactly.
Isabelle, you're a lovely, lucky little girl.
That's all I can say.
What do you mean?
Talking of embarrassing.
He didn't warn me he was going to do that, by the way.
Otherwise, I'd have stopped him.
That is so cheesy.
Talking of embarrassing, we did come specially early this evening in order to open the multiple cards and roses that we thought Piers would have.
But it turns out that there were no bunches of flowers in here.
Absolutely Niente.
So, Anne, is it fair to say that you're not a fan of Valentine's Day and you don't celebrate it?
I certainly don't celebrate it.
Celebrate red dress.
I certainly don't celebrate.
Yes, I know by accident.
I certainly don't celebrate Valentine's Day, but I'm always pleased for British business.
And if people want to go and spend their money on rot, that's fine.
What did you get, Paula?
What did you get?
Maybe.
Oh, still waiting, it sounds like.
Yeah, are you serious?
Exactly.
No doubt it'll be there waiting for me when I get home.
I've been in Luton all day.
Why she's coming in this studio, please.
There'll be trouble.
I'm sure.
I've been in Luton all day.
I think she deserves something from you.
You absolutely deserve it.
But you say you don't celebrate Valentine's Day, but do you celebrate love?
No.
And I think that's the end of the show.
And come on.
And the great thing is, you're happy that actually in terms of business, British corporate is growing.
That's going well.
That's what they want to do.
If they want to celebrate, what is it you said?
Celebrate.
Celebrate love.
If they want to celebrate Valentine's Day, if they want to celebrate anything at all and they want to go out and they want to spend their money, that's good for the economy.