Is the UK's grooming gang shame just the tip of worldwide iceberg?

you Hi, Gemini. The football transfer window's open. How are my team's stats looking? Well, your team definitely has a lot of star power. Do you think we're going to have a good season? It's going to come down to consistency and a little bit of luck on your side. I'll let you know if we win. I'll be keeping an eye on the score. Yeah, me too. Rachel Reeves is not up to this job. She is totally out of her depth.

You cannot tax and spend your way to prosperity. As Winston Churchill said, trying to do that is like standing in a bucket trying to pull yourself up. Over time, in their vision. all of Europe is going to fall to Islam, not through the SAD, not through military means, but simply by outnumbering. You know why I'm an economist? Because I was good at maths at school, but I didn't quite have a...

a good enough personality to become an accountant. One. We have liftoff. Welcome once again to Planet Normal, the telegraph podcast with Alison Pearson. Hello. And me, Liam Halligan. Should we be popping out for another lettuce? That was the front page of the brilliant Daily Star earlier this week as the tabloid cheekily compared Chancellor Rachel Reeves with former Prime Minister Liz Truss. Truss was forced to resign, of course, as Prime Minister.

back in the autumn of 2022, drummed out of office by a political media class that blamed a spike in the cost of government borrowing, the 10-year gilt yield to 4.2%, squarely on spending measures in the so-called mini-budget statement overseen by Truss. The Daily Star wondered aloud if a putrefying lettuce would last longer than Truss's 49-day stint in number 10, and of course, the lettuce won.

Now, with government-boring costs testing 5%, way higher than under trust, the staying power of Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves is being compared to the time it takes a lettuce to rot. It would be hilarious, Alison, if it wasn't so serious.

Because when the markets demand sky-high interest rates, borrowing costs for mortgages and other household and corporate loans also go up, even if the Bank of England is cutting benchmark interest rates. That seriously hinders growth, causing the economy... to stagnate making the public finances even worse plus more and more government money is diverted into debt service payments leaving less for frontline services

You've weighed in, Alison. The long-awaited Pearson verdict on global bond markets was in Wednesday's Telegraph, link in the show notes to this episode. And with the Tories blaming Labour and Labour blaming the Tories for our increasingly shaky public finances, reform is benefiting mightily. With Nigel Farage's party now ahead of the Tories and just one point shy of Labour, in the latest opinion polls.

Farage will relish the inauguration of his chum Donald Trump as US President next Monday. But Reeves and Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be petrified that the US could soon be imposing tariffs on many of its biggest trading partners. including Britain. Many other UK bien-pensants are also dreading the return of the Donald to the White House. But you've said, Alison, many now view righteous liberals

as the real extremists, not Trump, his advisor Elon Musk or the likes of Nigel Farage. So there's much to discuss. Plus, we've got a quite astonishing interview from our latest Planet Normal guest. Highlighting once more the plight of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of young British girls at the hands of the hideous so-called grooming gangs. But let's kick off with Rachel from Accounts Allison.

Did you know that she's the first ever female Chancellor? Because she never seems to mention it. The first female Chancellor? Well... She's been very modest about that, hasn't she? I never noticed. Shire retiring Rachel, issuing hourly videos of her progress in the Treasury. Well, I think the first thing to say to Planet Normalists is I have now put Economist on my CV. Because if Rachel Reeves can have it there.

She's been taking it off her LinkedIn profile. You've been adding it to yours. I've been adding it to mine. What a week. I mean, I think we were ahead of the game, weren't we, Co-Pilot, with your excellent, naughty interview last week with Andrew Lillica. So really doing a deep dive into the accusation that this trust and her mini budget crashed the economy. And while that was going out, Rachel Reeves was actually crashing the economy.

And it came to mind, Liam, because I remember before the general election, and you're always a reliable mystic halligan, your crystal ball and your gypsy rose headdress. That's a racial hate crime, referring to my Romany blood in disparaging terms. I'm very proud of where I come from. It's a non-crime hate incident calling a strapping Irishman. Gypsy Rose Lee but nevertheless your powers of prediction you said to me basically if Labour

do get into government, as we assumed they would. And if they try the same old Labour playbook of thinking they can tax to raise growth, you said to me, the bond markets will bring Labour to heel. And boy, have they done that this week. They certainly have. Government borrowing costs, what we call the 10-year yield, what it costs the government annually to borrow money for 10 years, have been testing 5%. Up much higher than 4.2% at the height of the so-called panic after.

Liz Truss's mini budget. The reality is, as Andrew Lillicoe, I thought, brilliantly explained on last week's Planet Normal in an interview that was lauded. It's one of our most popular ever episodes, it turns out. What really happened in the autumn of 2022 had to do with the so-called liability-driven investment crisis, the fact that the Bank of England was actually selling bonds back into the market and a host of other factors. And similarly, look, the spike...

I can guilt yields now the increase in borrowing costs, which, of course, ripples across the economy. Whatever the Bank of England is doing and saying about its own benchmark interest rates, it's not entirely due to Rachel Reeves.

Let's be fair. The fact that the US economy is going gangbusters means that it's less likely the US is going to cut interest rates to help the US economy, which means the dollar is more attractive because you get a higher return on your dollar deposits because there's a higher interest rate.

which of course undermines the pound which makes international investors then charge more to lend the government money in pounds so there are lots of other factors going on but it is undoubtedly true and i have had conversations with many many of the leading bond traders in the market some of the leading investors in the world who decide where to park money from

pension funds insurance companies and all the rest of it literally squillions of pounds as a technical term squillions it isn't really and they are concerned And they are concerned because Rachel Reeves said high taxation would lead to growth. Nobody really believed her. They gave her the benefit of the doubt for a bit. But it's clear now that high taxation is not leading to growth. Labour inherited a pretty ropey fiscal situation.

with taxation at 70-year high, with the national debt pushing 100% of GDP compared to 35% of GDP when new Labour came into office in 1997. But Labour... Today, Starmer's Labour, much more ideologically left than Blair's Labour, much more determined to borrow and spend for ideological reasons, doubled down.

whacked up government spending by 70 billion quid a year in rachel reeve's october budget having talked down the economy for four months pretending there was a black hole so they could increase taxation and blame it on the tories That £70 billion a year in extra government spending, a lot of it going to public sector unions and all the rest of it, public sector workers, was financed by...

40 billion quid a year in extra taxation and 30 billion quid a year in extra borrowing over this parliament. Now, if you are growing, if the economy is expanding, you get more tax revenue. The government has to spend less on benefits and so on. could maybe have withstood that but the latest figures show the economy flatlining zero percent growth throughout the autumn with some people now saying we could have an economic contraction in 2025.

If you get two quarters of contraction, two quarters of a shrinking economy, you've got a recession. This is why the bond markets are upset. This is why they are charging more to borrow because if you don't have growth and you're spending and taxing more, you can get in a doom loop.

and the economy can stagnate. I don't want that to happen because if it does happen, a lot of people, particularly poorer people, more vulnerable households, are going to suffer a great deal. But that is where we are. Labour have...

double down by borrowing and spending more into the face of a slowdown. They're causing that slowdown, in my view, I think it's fair to say, to get worse. You cannot... tax and spend your way to prosperity as Winston Churchill said trying to do that is like standing in a bucket trying to pull yourself up it doesn't work Well, I know I've learned from you that we economists, we have to be very measured in what we say. We economists, I love it. Can't go stirring up unnecessary.

fear or gloom unlike the chancellor of the exchequer we can't you know why i'm an economist because i was good at maths at school but i didn't quite have a good enough personality to become an accountant you didn't have You didn't have quite a strange enough personality to become a leading mathematician. Now, I'm going to say this regardless of how temperate we're supposed to be. Bond traders are poised around the world, say it. Rachel Reeves is not up to this job.

She is totally out of her depth. Now, we were told this week, Liam, that she was feeling very depressed because she can't see a way out of the bleak economic outlook and the choices are all SH1T. Well, my view is that at least Rachel, now very depressed, can start to empathise with the farmers threatened with losing their family farm, the shivering pensioners fighting off hypothermia, the small businesses shutting up shop.

The parents forced to drag distraught kids out of private school. All of these and many more are the casualties of Reeves's vindictive student politics. And we've actually had this. even more farcical thing, Liam. I mean, sometimes you just laugh, the black humour of this stuff. So the Chancellor's now writing to quangos, asking for their ideas for growth.

I mean, you'd be better off asking a random selection of people in the Tesco's frozen food aisle. It's even worse. Quangos are generally deeply... unproductive, highly politicised, state-funded bodies. It's like asking a fox about chicken welfare. It certainly is. But if you think about it, so Reeves is asking for ideas. to promote growth while she has been basically busy, the Labour are busy de-industrialising the country, so much so that this week Sir Jim Ratcliffe warned that our...

multi-billion pound chemical industry is basically on the way out because of net zero. They're supporting mass immigration which continues to cost far more money.

than it generates. And we can also look forward to a £5 billion bill added to business costs in Angela Rayner's forthcoming employee rights bill, which will give so many rights to people that nobody you'll ever have to get out of bed or indeed go into an office again and plus Liam something I'm quite interested in Things are bad now, but a lot of Rachel's taxes on her jobs tax, as it's been called, that's not even going to bite.

till April when these really stoked up employers' national insurance contributions kick in. And I'm sure you've heard, because you're very plugged into people, I've been hearing about businesses which... are closing now in anticipation, in dreadful anticipation of what people are going to be experiencing.

in April, when they will suddenly have to pay a much higher minimum wage. And you made the point to me before, didn't you, that it's not just the minimum wage increase, but that these employers now... insurance contributions are going to kick in at a much lower level five grand yeah rather than 12 12 grand or so it's worth saying that Jim Ratcliffe of course is the the owner of Ineos which in turn owns a big chunk of

the Grangemouth refinery and petrochemical complex, the largest one in the UK, which is now closing down. which is now closing down. And you use the very emotive phrase deindustrialisation, which is often linked by academics to what happened to Britain in the 1980s. What's happening now, and the trade unions know all about it.

is net zero is hollowing out what remains of britain's industrial complex you've got leading trade unionists comparing net zero no friends of ed miller man by the way comparing net zero to you know

what the Tories in their view did to the mining industry in the early 80s. This is a major, major issue. I personally think today's Tories should be talking about this a great deal more than they... are you have the north sea oil drilling ban and lunacy in my view not because i'm any friend of hydrocarbons the oil and gas industry i've spent a lot of my life writing and researching ways to

wean the world off petrochemicals and and oil and gas not only for environmental reasons but for efficiency reasons and security reasons geopolitical reasons but even the government's own climate change commission the sort of in-house legally empowered watchdog of meeting those pesky net zero targets even they acknowledge that by 2050 if everything goes to plan we'll still be you know using oil and gas for about a third of our energy

So if we're going to use that oil and gas, use our own so we get the tax revenue. And because it's much, much more environmentally friendly.

to drill our own oil and gas than it is to import it from around the world in big ships as liquefied natural gas. This is completely economically illiterate. And it's also immoral because we are... massively harming really good industrial jobs relatively well paid jobs in many parts of the country not just in oil and gas but in car making for reasons we've discussed the way the net zero car targets and fines are being imposed on

car makers now to a much much greater extent than anywhere else in the world certainly more than in the eu and this is hollowing out jobs in manufacturing and other industrial processes in parts of the UK where there are not that many well-paid jobs. With all respect, it is madness.

You would think, we have said this before on the podcast, you would think our country was being run by our own worst enemies. You really would. A week ago, Liam, there was about a week's worth of gas left in storage in the UK. to any other developed nation absolutely insane and we we talked about during the pandemic i remember learning the name rough which was our big gas storage the things i know now

I used to know about English literature. Now I know about the rough gas. I remember when I first told you about the rough gas story. Your little forehead wrinkled up. What are you talking about? Rough? I know. Are you doing a dog impression? We've had an informal sweepstake, haven't we, on when Red Ed's first power cuts are going to be. And we've actually had listeners writing this week saying they have.

actually had power cuts. And we've actually got something today through with one of the power companies basically telling their users when they shouldn't be using electricity. So this is an advanced economy, allegedly, which is being taken back to the Stone Age, but just briefly to come back to Rachel Reeves and her status. So Sir Keir Starmer did say the Chancellor...

had his full confidence. I mean, no wonder, because those two are joined at the hip. I mean, her failure is really his failure, and they'll go down together. Now, initially, Liam, he refused to answer about how long she would be. in number 11 with the pound plummeting against the dollar, but then Downing Street clarified.

that Reeves would remain Chancellor for the whole of this Parliament, which could be next Thursday at this rate of decline. But can I ask you, as my fellow economist, do you think... You're the economist, I'm your research monkey. The sorcerer's apprentice. She sent the CBI about a month ago when she went into the frostiest reception imaginable from all these business types who've been falling over themselves.

stupid idiots to endorse her before the general election. And she said, oh, we'll never need another budget like that again. You know, there won't be any more tax rises. How feasible is it that she can get out of this almighty mess without more tax rises. And do you think we will need an emergency budget in March, Liam? In March, it could happen. March or April, of course, on the turn of the tax year.

I actually think that if she doubles down and raises taxation even more, the markets could spit the dummy to an even greater extent. Because the idea that you can keep taxing...

Raising tax rates and extract more revenue from an economy just doesn't add up. Economies have tax tolerance. And of course, over a period of time, over many... years and decades and generations you can take you know there are economies with higher shares of tax in their GDP than the UK like the French and the Swedish economies but they've taken many years to get there

You know, we're usually sort of, you know, 35, 40 percent of GDP. But, you know, we're heading a lot higher than that now. And you're seeing taxes being introduced that are actually leading to less tax. revenue. And that is a major problem. So I think if she tries to solve everything by taxing even more,

I'm not sure the markets would accept that because what the markets want to see is growth, because that's what really solves your fiscal problems. You grow your way out of them by expanding the economy. So you get more tax for a given tax rate or even more tax for a lower.

tax rate because there's just more economic activity you know you've just been talking rightly about how an increase in employer and i sees and a drop you know a quite a small headline increase then a sneaky drop in the because, you know, frankly, political journalists who report these things in the first instance don't understand the allowances very well.

But that is clearly already, even before it's being introduced, leading to a drop off in hiring. So when tax rates go up, you often get less activity and less actual tax revenue. So I think what the markets want to see. is a concerted attempt to actually rein in spending, at least slow down the rate of increase. Labour bashing heads together, taking on the left and saying, look, guys, we can't do this. Back off.

Would you prefer the Tories were in power? Because that's what happened. That's what the Labour Party... did in the run-up to New Labour, they had major internal rows to try and curb their more infantile ideological elements. Some of whom are well-meaning, some of whom are just plain nasty, by the way. some of whom are well-meaning, but they just don't really understand how economics works. They just think because...

They want to see more government spending. And because it's, quote, the right thing to do, that if you oppose it, you're evil. You're not evil. You can just add up. And you understand what happens when you spend more than you receive in taxation consistently over a long period of time and you borrow too much to try and fill the gap. What happens is, as we're seeing right now, as.

Some of us have been predicting for several years, you see government borrowing costs going up and you see more and more and more tax revenue consumed by debt interest. We're now paying... more in debt interest than we are on schools, right? We're spending more on debt interest than we're spending educating our children. We're spending, you know, two getting on for three times the defence budget. on annual debt interest how much higher does the debt interest have have to go dead money

Money going often to foreign creditors before people in the left realise that their arguments are deeply counterproductive and actually immoral. It is obscene. Something I've written this week, which I think listeners will find very, very interesting. Is this concept called the far centrist? Now, people on our part of the pitch are often called far right for essentially championing, you know, basically common sense, sensible ideas that any kind of bright 12 year olds could.

could tell you were true. But we've seen these people on the liberal left who've got away with saying, oh, yes, but we're the nice people. And I quoted actually any questions of last Saturday, which some Planet Normal listeners may have... have had the misfortune to hear which was absolutely astonishing the framing of every question

was like with the child rape gangs. It wasn't, you know, should there be an inquiry? And, you know, is Elon Musk's intervention helpful or not to be desired? It was literally, what can we do about Elon Musk? that patently dreadful man who happens to be the richest man in the world. Absolute deluded liberal fest. And I was told about this lecture by a very eminent guy called Professor Jonathan Clarke, who is one of Britain's

great historians of the Enlightenment, Liam. And Professor Clarke had coined this idea, the far centrists, in which he argues that actually the extremism... is all the nutty ideas, all the sort of, you know, the maddest net zero stuff we've just been talking about, the mutilation of children in the name of trans ideology, the quasi-defense of child race.

in the name of multiculturalism. Many of these ideas, which are supposed to be all about being a nice person, actually lead to really dreadful things. And I would say that segues nicely, Liam, into the other for me. and you, big story of the week, which is the first poll showing that Reform UK are just behind Labour. Reform was coming in on 25%, Labour just ahead on 26%. a truly mortifying result for them six months after an apparently resounding general election win and the Conservatives.

down at 22%. Now, I think this is reflecting the fact that these weary, far-centrist tropes of Hateful rhetoric, unacceptable, all the things that they use to silence good, decent, middle-of-the-road people with. They're not working anymore. We know that they're basically... talking rubbish and I just want to say Liam that over Christmas I had

several friends entirely separately, not particularly political, one a banker, one a GP, volunteering, that they had joined reform. Very, very far from the stereotype of, you know, dragging racist lovely people just very concerned to push back to normality in our society Yeah, I've had that in my life as well. And I think a lot of people, even people that don't follow politics.

in the way that we do but are just interested in the future of the country are thinking crikey labor are making a mess of it crikey it could be 1976 all over again of course when the uk had to be bailed out by the international monetary fund If that happens, you know, where is the right? Where is the sensible right of British politics, the adults, the grownups in the room who can solve this? Well, they're arguing and they're bickering and they're split.

because the Tories and reform are at daggers drawn. So many people I talk to in the street, so many of our planet normal emails, so much of what I see on social media, ordinary, sensible. People saying. When is the right going to sort itself out to be there as a viable alternative? Because at the moment, when the right is so split, as you just said there in those polls show that if reform and the Tories got together, worked together, cooperated, collaborated.

They would trounce labor. And yet there's so much bad blood increasingly between them that that looks millions of miles away. And I think that's concerning the bond markets too. I know it is because I've talked to lots of traders. that Labour could do really badly and then win again. Because a split centre-right of British politics, characterised as far-right by so many, you know... Bien pensant, a phrase we like on planet normal, broadcasters and commentators, the liberal commentariat.

that rights will be so split that Labour get in again. And I should just say on Nigel Farage, obviously he's had a bit of a to-do with... Elon Musk, and there's talk of, you know, splits in reform. Rupert Lowe, who's a very impressive, successful business leader, who is now one of the five reform MPs, is seen to be somebody who's...

kind of outrider for reform moving, you know, further away from the Tories towards the right. I, you know, I think Nigel Farage is exactly right, correct to distance reform from Tommy Robinson. Whatever you may think of Tommy Robinson, whatever you may think of his utterances, you may think he's brave and courageous. You may think he's a rebel rouser. You may have concerns about the way he has been put in prison. I certainly think there's some.

oddities around that that case certainly but having said that having said that the political reality for now is that if Farage aligns reform with Tommy Robinson and the English Defence League and so on, many of whom are just thugs, frankly. They just are. Whatever sympathy some listeners may have for their... cause, then Farage is just putting a target on reform's back. And the sensible, well-meaning, well-informed people that you know and I know who are now saying...

you know what, I'm going to join reform. They wouldn't join reform because Tommy Robinson would act as a huge disincentive for them. to do so. So whatever Elon Musk says, I think Farage is right about that. I think the fact that Elon Musk highlighted that and Farage pushed back publicly actually helped reform because it made many people think, oh, he really is.

determined to keep a kind of cordon sanitaire between reform and more unsavoury elements of British politics. And that makes that reform, in my view, even more appealing to mainstream voters.

the kind of mainstream voters who are increasingly exasperated by a sense in their view that the Conservatives aren't saying things that are Conservative enough at this point. That's well said. I think... I would say I don't think there's a cat's chance in hell of this Labour government forming another government. They are already so despised. The figures are quite astonishing. You've got them down in one poll of how much people like them. 16%, Liam. I think it could unravel.

even sooner. If your friends in the bond markets come for Rachel from accounts, I think we could see some pretty seismic upheavals. And I'm sorry, I do think that no one... will forgive Kemi Badenoch or the Conservative Party if... come 28, 20, 28, 29, if they don't find some way of coming to a pact with reform. And I think it's perfectly clear what that pact should consist of. It's very obvious that the reform...

potentially doing very, very well in the so-called red wall seats. And as I keep banging on about this, but in my own homeland, next year we have the elections for the Senedd. And I think there's a... strong possibility that reform could win a lot of seats in the Welsh Assembly and that will be a gladsome day my god because that my poor country has been under the yoke of those lunatics for 25 years. And if reform can breach...

the socialist citadel, then it will be extraordinary, but also it will set the tone for the general election. And I absolutely think that we will follow America. And Germany and so many other countries that have been under the far centrists, I think their ideas are now open to scrutiny and indeed to ridicule and disgust.

the rape gangs. I found one quote, Liam, just to find a quote you'd like. Ronald Reagan. I thought you were going to quote me. I always quote you. I always quote you. Just under your byline. Yeah, well, you know, I did. I bigged you up this week. You did. You gave me a little mention. I gave you a little mention. My teacher, now my student. So Ronald Reagan said, amazingly prescient. If fascism ever comes for America, it will come in the name of liberalism. And that is why on Monday...

Donald J. Trump will become the new president of the United States. It's entirely because the far centrists went too far, much, much too far, and the normal people are pushing back. I think there's a lot in that, Alison. I think the idea of the fast centrists.

It's an excellent idea. I admire Jonathan Clarke. He's a Cambridge educated historian, previously at Oxford. What a shame that he felt he had to go to the US for... the rest of his career denying British students the benefit of his wisdom so much of academia seems to have gone that way but just a final thought from me from not really my friends in the bond markets people who contact me to

Talk about politics and I talk to them about market sentiment. It seems like a pretty good trade to me. And if I can inject into mainstream political media discourse what the markets are really thinking, then I think I'm doing something. worthwhile what's crucial now to reeves the market for uk government debt and indeed our financial solvency as a nation is geopolitics it's the geopolitics stupid you might say going forward

Is there going to be a spike in oil prices? Is there going to be a trade war? Is Trump really going to introduce really big tariffs that slow down global growth? Even more under any of those circumstances, the UK as a net energy importer, as a country where almost a fifth of our trade is with the United States is going to suffer badly. One bright. shining star on the horizon is we may have a hostage deal in the Middle East that may calm down now that situation yeah we've still got of course

daggers drawn between Russia and Ukraine. So those two big geopolitical squalls, sources of turmoil, which of course have massive economic and financial impact around the world. It may be that, you know, there is some kind of... pause even some kind of renewed stability in the Middle East it may be that there's some kind of pause some kind of renewed stability in the relationship between Russia and Ukraine and more broadly speaking the east and the west

the probability that both those issues are, quotes, solved over the next few months is actually quite low. And it only needs one of them to... be inflamed anew for there to be new pressures shockwaves across the global financial system and those shockwaves if they come and i absolutely hope and pray that they don't come of course i do

Of course I do. But if they do come, then I do fear. And I just think this is an objective statement of fact that the UK, having been through this bond market spike, much of the world is now talking about. the UK shaky public finances. We are now centre stage. Our bond market, our government solvency is now in the crosshairs of global bond markets. If...

Those two geopolitical squalls aren't solved. And if there is renewed turbulence, fingers and toes crossed, co-pilot, strap yourself in. It could be a bumpy ride. Hi, Gemini. The football transfer window's open. How are my team's stats looking? Well, your team definitely has a lot of star power. Do you think we're going to have a good season? It's going to come down to consistency and a little bit of luck on your side. I'll let you know if we win. I'll be keeping an eye on the score.

Yeah, me too. Now we're talking. Transfer to Google Pixel 9 with Gemini Live today. Sequences shortened. Gemini Live available for ages 18+. Internet required. Results are illustrative. Check responses for accuracy. Feature and account compatibility limitations apply.

We hope that every week on Planet Normal, we bring you an extraordinary guest. We've had so many wonderful people over the years. I know many people will often quote to us things that people have said. This week's guest is one of my...

I was going to say heroes, heroines, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. And you'll be familiar with her. She is a warrior for free speech, has put herself... in danger many many times when she was an MP in the Netherlands and was working on a film called Submission which was highlighting the predicament of women living under extremist Islam. Ayan's friend, the director, Theo Van Gogh, was butchered on a street in Amsterdam. And a warning note.

to Ayan was stuck with a knife into her friend's chest, saying, you'll be next for saying these kind of things. So Liam, I thought this week following the incredibly distressing revelations about the mainly Pakistani origin child rape gangs. which we believe have attacked, trafficked, assaulted, tortured several hundred thousand, maybe as many as a quarter of a million young white British girls. I thought that...

There was no one I would more want to hear from on this incredibly difficult topic than the woman who herself was born into a very strict... Islamic society in Somalia and who escaped and has, of course, got bringing her extraordinary mind and blazing clarity, one of the most upsetting, darkest issues. of our time. And it's a huge pleasure to welcome you to Planet Normal. Back in 2007, I read Infidel, your remarkable, harrowing

coming-of-age story about growing up in a strict Muslim family in Somalia. Among other things, you suffered female genital mutilation at the age of five. You say, my Quran teacher fractured my skull. You managed to get out of an arranged marriage and escape to the Netherlands where you became a politician, a celebrated campaigner. highlighting the oppression that women suffer in islamic societies i just want to say before we get into the nub of the questions infidel

is in the top five books that have had a profound influence on me and my journalism. But coming up to date, Diane, in the past week, we've seen... New focus on the story of child rape gangs in the United Kingdom, mainly Pakistani heritage Muslim men. Tens of thousands of white girls aged 10 to 14 subjected to the most sadistic sexual torture shared around by scores of men.

in up to 50 towns from Rotherham to Telford to Oxford. Ayaan, can you give us your overall reaction to this news? Are you shocked? Oh... Alison Fass, thank you for that very kind and generous introduction. And I wish I could say I was shocked. Of course, I'm always shocked. Every time you get into the details, you don't only get shocked, you get depressed and you get disheartened. And it's just absolutely awful.

But I'm not shocked. And in Infidel, I tell the story of my grandmother and the way she had this very harsh manner of preparing my sister and me for the world. There's one moment where... I want to get out of the house or I want to play with the boys or something. And she says she points to a piece of sheep fat in the hot sun covered in ants. And she says, look at that piece of sheep fat. She said, that's what a defiled girl is. Do you understand that?

And she uses this metaphor of the defiled, where if there's any kind of premarital sex... Or even it doesn't have to be sex. If there's gossip that you have been anywhere near a man that you're not married to or that is not your direct relative, you are like that. piece of sheep fat. She used to also tell us stories of comparing men to hyenas, where she says, when you go out to the men, they're just like a park of hyenas. They come after you and you're the prey.

And so this is why I don't want you to get out of the house. I don't want you to play with the boys or any of that. And recently, because now we live in this wonderful Internet age where the world has become open and Elon Musk. Both Twitter and there's all this radical transparency. But I saw an interview between two, what I thought were imams, doing a podcast. And one of them is Somalia. I think the other one is from the Middle East.

And they are discussing the rape of women. And the Somali man ends his remarks by saying, if you put a piece of red meat on top of a tree and there is a lion there. What do you expect? Women are objectified when they wear less clothes. I mean, the less clothes that she wears, the more revealing she is. the more skin that's displayed the more the woman is objectified and she's seen less intelligent and she's also belittled

I believe that the reason why women get raped is because of the clothes they're wearing. You take a piece of meat and you place it on top of a tree. Lions see it. They're not going to Let it go. They're going to eat that piece of meat. I think that sums up the whole story. It's not just white girls. It's all girls. This is the way the relationship between men and women is conceived of.

in parts of the world. And the problem with men coming from there and coming to the West is that the girls were not prepared. The way I was, they haven't been told that they're pieces of sheep fat and red meat and so on. They haven't been used to be locked up for our own safety. So if you go to any of these countries, you will see that.

Women are behind fences. They're behind gates. They're behind high walls. It's a very different world. And when these men come here and they see white girls, And especially in the summer in tank tops, again, I do explain in Infidel in 1992 when I come and I find all these women in revealing clothes and think, how on earth can this world function?

And it's the white Dutch people who explained to me over time that male sexual urges can be, men can be taught to control those. And that's actually the definition of civilization. That is, I think, when we talk about a clash of values or a clash of civilization, that's what we're talking about. And it's playing out on the bodies of these unfortunate young people.

women who are vulnerable from working class communities. And it's these working class communities, not just in Britain, but all over Europe and even in America, that have been overrun by hordes and hordes of men from... developing countries. You talked about that in a very timely book called Prey, Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights. And that's Prey, spelt P-R.

And you did discuss quite boldly something a lot of people don't want to talk about was the influx of men into Europe with, as you just described it very vividly. men with very drastically different attitudes to women and to sexuality. And during, I've gone back and... read some of the transcripts of the trials of these child rapists. And in one, quite a young Pakistani British man, his lawyer explained that he'd been taught

that white girls were like a piece of chewing gum in the road. Yes. Now, how has it... come to pass because we have had in Britain and obviously the United States is the great example of a melting pot traditionally what happens is people come from different cultures, different parts of the world, and integration happens. And that can be the great solvent, can't it? In the past, we've had Jews, we've had Huguenots, wave after wave of an indeed from the Caribbean.

and so on, wave after wave of people coming into our country and gradually absorbing the British way of life and the British values, but to a striking degree. That has not happened with the Muslim community. And I don't mean all Muslims, because I have a Muslim, a great Muslim doctor friend and so on, who are great additions and ornaments to our society. But certainly...

in some of the very closed communities where we see small girls covered, completely covered. I've seen pictures of Yorkshire schools where little girls, maybe age five or six. are completely covered. So what has happened, Diane? How did it come about that this beneficial process of integration didn't happen with those people? In one word, I would say perhaps numbers.

And I think early days of immigration from Muslim countries, it wasn't very different from immigration, say, to the UK from, as you said, the Huguenots or... But later, much later, from different places that were former British colonies, the best place to compare is on the one hand people from India and on the other hand people from Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The matter is complex. If you already spoke English and you come from a former colony and you lived in a city and you were familiar, you had some familiarity. with not just living in a city, some interaction with Britain and what to expect. The integration was very swift because it came, there was this strong desire to assimilate because... Even for the people back home, you becoming more British than the British was seen as something prestigious. But later on, when...

People come in large numbers and they come from rural areas and they're deeply dangerous. You see a change. And this is taking place almost exactly in the same time. that the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure is being established in Britain. They're building mosques and Islamic centres, they're writing books, and they have a ready-made congregation.

among these low-income, low-education immigrants. Some came as guest workers, some just followed their family, some really fleeing places where economic hardship and trouble. No matter, these Islamists find these ready-made congregations and they preach to them that they are different. They are Muslim.

and that their creed, the Quran and the Seerah and the Hadith, that is superior to anything that the British have, the infidel British. And you see that in European countries, but I'll just focus on Britain for the moment. So you see it's very... interesting to see the first cohort of immigrants who came are much more assimilated than later generations than the children.

And the grandchildren, so the people who were born here are the ones who are least assimilated because they are the ones who are most exposed to the radicalization that is happening within these mosques. and within these Islamic centers. And over time, they started to apply for licenses for Muslim schools and so on. And then the radical left in Britain, as in other countries, came of age.

adopted more institutions of power and the two of them formed, the radical left and the radical Islamists, have formed this alliance. that has enabled and is more than enabled, emboldened and empowered the Islamists to come out openly because most of the things that they used to say behind closed doors and it would be journalists with hidden cameras who would go and record them now they're getting it

in the open and they're posting it on social media. And so I think what you're facing is no longer the traditional. It's actually wrong to use the word immigrant. Again, as I say, many of them are not even immigrants. They're born and raised in Britain.

They're born and raised in Sweden. They're born and raised in Holland and in France and in Germany. They're not immigrants anymore. One of the things many years ago when I had recently graduated, I... taught English as a second language in Muslim communities in the east of London. And something that occurred to me then is A, the women and children I was in a room with, a tiny room with, maybe like six little children on the bed and the mum sitting at the kitchen table.

A, if the women come from very rural areas, they're not literate in their own language. It's extremely difficult to teach English to people who don't have an elementary grasp of their own language. But the other thing I would say is that I came across lots of evidence of men not wanting the women. to learn English or indeed to participate in the society. We have very low workforce participation.

among Muslim women. And it strikes me, Ayaan, that one of the great agents and drivers of integration is mothers wanting their children to fit in and do well. But that has been prevented. by a dominant patriarchal clannish society. Is that a fair comment? I think it's a fair comment. And again, it's also layered. So when I look at Muslim women who live in the West, I see three categories.

I see one category that I would describe as heretics. Again, they're quite strong. They speak English. They know the freedoms of the West, and they know the constraints of Islam, and they fight quite boldly. And these women do the fighting. not within their communities, but outside of the communities, because they've been ostracized. I think they had more influence probably in the 60s and the 70s. But now, none of those women, I'm an ex-Muslim, there is no way I can go into these communities.

start talking to them about why something else is better than what the lifestyle that they have or the way of life that they have now the second group unfortunately are part of the system they do speak English and other European languages. And they have been to these mosques and Islamic schools. They are, if you will, the enforcers. Very often, if you...

go to these television shows whenever an event occurs, almost always a negative event. Now it's the grooming gangs in Britain that are causing so many headlines, but very often it's terrorist attacks and things like that. And you find women with tight headscarves speaking perfect English coming on and apologizing for what's going on.

accusing people of Islamophobia and so on. So they are the apologetics. And then it is, number three, it's the group that you describe. It's the totally downtrodden who lead lives. They are not allowed out of the house. If they go to school, it's very limited. They're married off to men they don't want. One or two will rebel and they're subjected to this.

incredible series of punishments, beatings. I think very recently you had the story of Sarah Sharif. Yes, the little girl, 10 years old. 10 years old, who was literally beaten to death by her own father. And now there are many girls who are not beaten to death, but who undergo similar beatings systematically.

And then, of course, there are the other girls who are watching the beatings, who are watching the punishments and who think, I don't want this to happen to me. So those are the three categories of women. And you just... I've tried. I spent the first few years of my public life and still do trying to bring to the attention of the Westerners.

The honor violence, the female genital mutilation, the forced marriages, girls who are kidnapped from Western countries and taken to the country of origin. So that is their fate. And because... And here we get to these rape gangs and grooming gangs and the attitude of the Muslim men who participate and who perpetrate these horrendous acts. It starts the attitude.

they have towards their own women. And they are puzzled, they're baffled that white men don't lock up their women. And so every time when you have, and I put this in the book, Pray, obviously. we ask the question, what is it that Muslim leaders and I'm talking about religious leaders, what is it that they say about the sexual misconduct? And most Muslims come from honor and shame cultures. And when one Somali man or one Pakistani man or one Iraqi man misbehaves in public,

The whole community is tainted. And so you ask yourself, why are they then not disciplining these men?

They are not because in their concept, it's not the men who are wrong. It's the women who should not be in public. It's the women who should put on more clothes. I don't know if you've seen it, but on the internet now, it's very new. There's this... campaign of the hijab, where they're showing, I saw yesterday a video, I think it's a little propaganda video put out by the Islamists, where women in Western dress are knocked down the stairs.

And then the women in hijab, they are treated with respect. And the men look away. So this is what they are trying to convey to... The Europeans and the Americans and the Westerners, if you want us to keep away from your daughters, if you really care about your daughters, then they should not be out and about. You very eloquently describe what's going on. within those communities. For me, the parallel and disturbing thing about this scandal is obviously police, councillors, social services.

were too afraid of being called racist or Islamophobic to intervene and to protect those extremely vulnerable girls. Now, Lucy Allen, who was... Conservative MP for Telford. She told me last week, I'll quote from her, The people in power believed that being honest about what had happened to the girls would fuel racial tensions. They pushed a narrative that hiding the problem was in the interest of the community. Looking the other way would cement social cohesion.

and protect society. Now, Lucy Allen thought that line was coming direct from the UK Home Office. Ayan, do you think that there has in any way... been a deliberate strategy by islamist leaders to make liberals in the west feel guilty about criticizing their beliefs and actions and how did the West so swiftly abandon its own values? Have they deliberately played us, really, because we're so liberal and well-meaning?

The answer is yes, a resounding yes. The Islamists, in particular the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Brotherhood is the most sophisticated, best organized, best resourced. among the Islamist groups in the world. They have now, for years, they have been working with the Islamist regime of Iran, which has also become sophisticated. And when I use the word sophisticated, it is in understanding and playing.

what the west really honing in on the west's weaknesses yeah ways to subvert its culture on finding the discontented and common ground with progressives, not liberals, but the people who call themselves progressives, who do have in their own way a hatred of the West. They're Westerners, they're white, they're American, they're British, they're Australian, they're French. They are the far left. They hate capitalism. They hate the West. And they have their own agenda of bringing down the West.

And the Islamists among the Muslim Brotherhood have found common cause with them, which is very interesting. So they know how to play the West. And this incredible... relationship between the two groups, the Islamists and the far-left progressives. It has resulted, I think, in the conditions that we see now where the rest of us are reacting to the premises that they put forward. I think you are almost my age. If you look at this...

Maybe let's say, let's go back and look at a history of censorship in the West. And when I came 30 years ago, most of the censorship was really soft censorship. It was to downplay by... reassuring the public by talking down the seriousness of these issues. And then there was this whole political correctness, which I came to understand as a conspiracy of self-censorship. But I think that broke up when Salman Rushdie was issued a fatwa of that debate.

the relationship between Islam and the West, the ground zero for that debate, was Britain. And it was under Margaret Thatcher. And the government she led stood up for... Western norms and values and protected Salman Rushdie, whatever you may think of her. But then after that period, I think we come again to what I think of as the rise of the progressive West, of the progressive liberals. And they were using, I found this in the academic scene, where books that...

accurately described the Middle East or South Asia were discarded as Eurocentric and ethnocentric and Orientalist. And then the media started to adopt. very quickly, words like xenophobic and racist and so on, to describe people who are opposed to the negative consequences of immigration. And now we've landed in a place where it's not just the self-censorship, which is still there. It's not just in academia still.

The Eurocentric books are completely gone from the shelves. So if you're going to school, I don't know, after the 2000s, you probably wouldn't even see those books. The throwing about of far-right and fascists and Nazis has only gone up. And we're in a place now where the Islamists have been marketing this word Islamophobia. Pascal Bruckner, the French philosopher. says it originates with Iran, the Iranians, successful at marketing it. And in Britain, it's the Runnymede Trust.

in 1997 that formalizes as an expression. And then after that formalization, it starts to seep into the media world, academia, and into public policy. It was very subtle in the beginning. If you had written anything critical about Islam, I remember you would either not be promoted or you would not be hired or you would not be invited to parties.

And this went on and on. And I think now scale of immigration, because of the sheer scope of the negative consequences of immigration, in particular from Muslim countries. What we have now is the so-called censorship and the self-censorship is not working. So now we are moving on to hardcore censorship from the government. What happened to you? And the introduction of hate crimes and non-crime hate this and all of this Soviet language. This is where, if you ask me, what's the result?

of this alliance between the Islamists and the far left progressives. It's this reality of using the government to use... hard censorship, the sort of thing you would see in the Middle East or in Africa or in the former Soviet Union for saying the wrong things. But it's totally, what a strange marriage it is of ideologies because...

On the left, which is obsessed with misogyny, right? God forbid you're... some man in an office in the UK who says somebody looks nice in a blouse that's a hanging offence now but they make an alliance with a group which clamps down on women in a way that that you and I can only see

as obscenely misogynistic. In my own experience, I have many times written against the burqa. I don't want to see that in our country. You hear Muslim women saying it's a choice. What a choice to literally obliterate. yourself as a human being and when you write against the burqa as a woman defending young women I want Muslim girls in my country to be British Cheyenne I want them to have the full range of and human experience that they're entitled to as British girls. But when you write that...

You appear on an Islamophobia list. So it's actually very chilling, isn't it, that criticism of multiculturalism, and let's say that there have been lots of interesting things and benefits and so on, but point to these. very drastic downsides and people like me I'm sure there are people like me who'd like to speak out but they're intimidated and then

We actually see, as far as I'm concerned, some of the bravest people on planet Earth at the moment are Iranian girls and women. So they are risking not only arrest, but execution for casting off the veil. Many amazing videos online of these young women, one young woman this week being persecuted by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and then all the girls around and they took off there. veils as well. It was just such a stirring spectacle. But what is the West doing to itself?

by facilitating beliefs which are completely inimical and indeed hostile to the freedom of women? Well, the West is divided and the West is divided into... I would say a silent majority that is not so silent anymore, judging by our American election, not so silent anymore, who are committed to... Western civilization and nationhood and citizenship and national heritage and identity. And part of all of that is, of course, the position of women.

women as dignified human beings equal before the law with men and all the freedoms and things that you said you wanted for British Muslim women. On the other side, people who, I don't know, they go by many names, but it's quite the opposite. They promote what they call multiculturalism, which is a theology in its own right now.

And it's about undermining the nation state. It is believing in a utopia that there's going to be a one government. In any case, everything that you think of as the history of the West. These far-left progressives, they find it all wrong. They only emphasize whatever it is that the West did that was negative. slave trade, colonialism. This is the picture they create of the West. And in this division, I think for some time, the radical left had the upper hand.

And I think in Europe, they still do have the upper hand. You asked me the question, how is it possible that the Islamists and these radical left groups Elon calls them, says they have a woke mind virus. Mind virus, yes. Mind virus. I really agree with the mind virus description. The Islamists are very sophisticated. I follow them and I read. There are internal debates and discussions of who do we work with and how long. Some of them say...

We have to work within democracies. We have to work with unbelievers. We have to take our time. We have to participate. They have a very long game. Some of their key strategics is the birth rate. It's a change of demography. Over time, in their vision, all of Europe is going to fall to Islam, not through the sword. not through military means, but simply by outnumbering. And unfortunately, the people with the mind virus think that...

If the West were to fall, they would celebrate. They don't have a clear idea of where they really want things to go. But for some reason, they think that the Islamists will continue to be an ally. And what they don't see is... Previous collaborations between Islamists and progressives, the Islamists simply exploited them, locked them up, exiled them, did to them what they would do to any infidel.

But for the moment, in Europe and in America, the far left progressives think that the Islamists are their best friends. Unfortunately for the rest of us, it is... These far-left agendas such as multiculturalism and diversity, equity and inclusion, it's these schemes that give Islamists access. to the corridors of power, to positions of power in academia, in the media, in politics, and give them recognition. The people who are truly far-right, truly fascist, are the Islamists.

But they have zero scrutiny because, of course, if you say anything about them, you are Islamophobic. You are the one who gets the police in front of your house. We actually had this week Wes Streeting, who's a very senior member of the Labour government. He's the health secretary. And he has a tiny majority in an Essex constituency where it's a very strong Muslim area. And he was very nearly defeated in the general election by an independent Muslim candidate. And West Streeting said this.

week in response to the child rape gangs that yes obviously these were terrible stories and it was all disgraceful but there were members of his british pakistani community who By saying these things, we might be risking something like the massacre in New Zealand, the dreadful massacre in New Zealand where a guy ran amok at a mosque, tragically killing hundreds of people. And I thought...

Here we go again. So we're just about now getting permission to talk about tens of thousands, possibly quarter of a million white girls raped and tortured. We're just about allowed to mention that. Probably the biggest scandal, really, in British history. And then politicians on the left will say, oh, well.

this could have an effect on the Muslims. And the same thing happened after the killing. The three little girls died in Southport in these horrible, they were at a holiday, Taylor Swift dance class. Keir Starmer turned up the day after. He laid a very perfunctory wreath to the children, was shouted at by the crowd, how many more children have to die, Prime Minister, and then scuttled off to a mosque where he said his basic...

his solemn vow was that he would be protecting Muslims. And this is what we see, Ayaan, the pattern repeated again and again, is you think, surely this topic is so horrific that they can't shut us off. down now but there's nothing that they not there's no topic so bad that they don't think we can be told to shut up is there Yeah, I think that politician is obscene in his words, really horrendous. And people who might have wanted to carry on demanding an inquiry.

for these girls will now check what they're saying and think, oh, but God forbid, I don't want anything like that to happen. It's effective. What people forget is... What happened in New Zealand, it met with universal condemnation, not just in New Zealand, but all across the West. All our governments were horrified and condemned it. And I would say 99.99% of all the populations, anybody in the West who saw this, they condemned it. People marched against it. People collected money.

for the victims' loved ones. So it just does beg the question, how many terrorist attacks have we seen unfold in the West and outside the West? Where are the Islamists marching? against those sorts of things. Even today, where are the Islamists or the Pakistanis or Bangladeshis and others who are coming out and marching against what this topic is, the sort of impact it has on there?

on their communities. So I think it is, again, the silent majority that is not so silent anymore to emancipate itself cognitively, intellectually. emotionally and spiritually, from these black males, to stand up to those who vilify them as racists. They are not racist. It is not racist. to stand up for those young girls and to put an end to these organised rape gangs that are active to this day.

Not just in Britain. I repeat to you, that was what the book Pray was about. It's in Germany, in Austria, in Sweden, in Holland. Everywhere where large numbers of Muslim men have come to reside, they are committing the same crimes. In your country, in Britain, it is the Pakistanis and so on. But in other places, in Sweden, It's majority of Muslim, of Somali men. In Austria, it was men from Afghanistan. I hope, let me say, that we are not blackmailed by this. And an inquiry, if it were to occur.

We know what happened to the girls. What it really would uncover would be these now opaque relationships between these politicians and the Islamists who harvest the votes for them. from the Muslim communities. I thought the Labour Party in Britain was supposed to be there for the working classes. Why have they abandoned the working classes? Why are Jewish communities in Britain and other European countries so frightened that they are now voting for parties like...

Marie Le Pen's party or the MFD. Why is that? Why is it happening? This is what an inquiry would reveal. There has been talk, very controversial talk, of deporting the dual nationality convicted. Pakistani rapists. That is the policy of Reform UK. Ayan, do you think that deportation might be one way of dealing with this obviously immensely thorny issue?

And how optimistic are you in general that in the future Islam can reach accommodation with the West? So on the first question, I think deportation. And ensuring that they don't come back, those who are deported. That is the most effective deterrent against these horrible crimes and other crimes, by the way. Number one. Number two. Even better and more effective is to dismantle the Islamist networks, in particular those run by the Muslim Brotherhood.

And on your question about, am I optimistic, can we reach accommodation with Islam? I'm very optimistic. I'm optimistic because I am seeing, as you are describing, the women in Iran. Women in Iran are able to protest the way they are protesting because they have cover from their men. And so when you have a society-wide change like that happening...

In Iran, which is a major country for Islam, it just fills me with hope. But also Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government have decided to ban the Muslim Brotherhood in their country. And even though they do practice Islam, and it is a Muslim country, they have decided that they want to build a future for their children. That is a future that is on earth, not the hereafter, and so is not suicidal. They want to educate their children and give them skill sets.

The idea that you can live on this earth and it's worth it and you can have a good life and be at peace with others. And so has the UAE. Yes, I was just going to say to you, extraordinary development in the last few days where the UAE is banning terrorist linked people in the UK. to the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the UAE, a Muslim country, giving Britain a humiliating lesson in how to act assertively with people who seek to undermine our way of life. Is that right?

It's right and it's completely justified. And I think what the Emirates, United Arab Emirates, the Emirates are telling Westerners is put your citizens first. Because in their country, that's exactly what they do. And that is what everyone expects. I was a Somali girl. We went to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis put the Saudis first. And they didn't put the Somalis first. They put the Saudis first. And so when people leave the Middle East and come to Europe...

They see that Europeans are not putting their citizens first and that gives them the green lights to exploit and to misbehave and to behave in ways that they wouldn't behave at home. So I think that we've got now to wise up and to demand more from our governments. I've seen the success of this in America and in 2020 when George Floyd... event happened and we had the Biden administration, I had almost lost hope thinking, this is not just decline. This is the end of Western civilization.

Alison, I was absolutely terrified that Kamala Harris would win the election because you now have Keir Starmer and he came to power and all the things he promised were false. It's very different from what he's executing. Now, Kamala Harris was Keir Starmer on steroids. She would have had the resources of America, and that would really have switched the lights of Western civilization. So I'm very optimistic.

that European countries can do the same. And Britain is probably where we were in America in 2021. And you are going to have to sit through this administration. But by the time they're done, I think every Briton who cares about your country will wake up to this and say, never again, no. I hope you're right. And finally, if I'm ever going to be stranded on a desert island, I'm taking Ayaan Hirsi Ali with me as my book.

You recently, Ayan, set up a fantastic substat called Restoration, which I would highly recommend to Planet Normal listeners. And you prefaced the substat with... I escaped the Islamic world and came to the West. Many don't know how good the West is or how fragile. I fight for the restoration of what made the West great.

What are a few things you'd like to restore, Ayaan? Christian morality, critical thinking and common sense. That's what I'd like to restore. And I think everybody's absolutely desperate for that. And people think they get confused and think when I say Christian morality that I want to convert people to believe in God. I wish I had that power. I don't. But it is.

Christian morality for me is dignity of life. It is the separation of powers. It's the emancipation of women. It's the Magna Carta. It's this wonderful... beautiful civilization that you built, the arts, the music, the literature, it's all of these things. And it is the fact that all of that could reach the heights they reached.

based on merit and accountability and transparency and critical thinking, which is the closed-mindedness of the Islamists is now married to the closed-mindedness of these far-left progressives. And it's resulted in the subversion of all that is good about the West. And so what I'd like to restore is to go to these institutions and put them back to the institution of the churches.

education and the universities and media and academia and politics, let's bring them back to what they were, restore them to their original objectives. The late, great Christopher Hitchens, I read his review of Infidel last night, and he described you as one of the most courageous people imaginable. I agree. I wholeheartedly agree. Iron Hersey Ali. God bless you. Well, I have to say, Alison, we've had many fantastic interviews, haven't we?

during our now 234 episodes of Planet Normal. We generally run our interviews at 20 minutes because we know people like to have podcasts of a similar length every week if they're walking the dog or whatever they're... doing but we decided to run that one at length because we thought it was particularly important a landmark interview by you with really an incredibly brave woman who

deserves, I think, all of our thanks and gratitude for the stand that she's taking, a stand, of course, which daily threatens her life. Yes, I should say to listeners that I was... Talked to her about where she was speaking to me from and she asked me to not say because there are people. who make death threats to her. And so she's mainly based in the United States with her youngest children and husband, Professor Niall Ferguson, now Professor Sir Niall Ferguson, distinguished.

British. Former Telegraph writer, of course. Absolutely. I think you can probably hear the strong feeling and the emotion running through that interview, something I have got into trouble for, Liam, through the years. is me sticking up for British Muslim girls, saying... What is their fate? Not just the victims of the child rape gangs, which Anne and I obviously discuss, but why are these young women born here, little girls born here? They should be able to...

When I was a teacher, I saw little Muslim girls not being allowed to go to the swimming lessons. Lots of Muslim children die. They drown.

because they haven't been allowed to be taught to swim. And that's just one example of the freedoms that they're denied. So I think that's a huge issue. One of the strongest things I think that emerged from the interview, I don't know if you agree, is... I am talking about this brand of Islamist extremism, which has been allowed to take root, not just in some of our country's mosques, but in some of civil society.

in charities and so on. Indeed, as we mentioned, the United Arab Emirates this week warned Britain that the named... eight organizations here which terrorists had infiltrated and i think it brings us back to our friend far centrism doesn't it I think it's a pretty astonishing state of affairs when concern about not being Islamophobic means you ignore the advice of a Muslim government, the government of an Islamic state.

telling you watch out for these really bad guys and as we have seen with some of the pro-Gaza marches there are, not all. Some of those people are very heartfelt, well-meaning people who are very upset about the death toll in Gaza. But we know. We know that Hamas-affiliated Islamist extremists have been involved in the backing of not just some of those marches, but as Ayan is talking about the education.

of Muslim children in this country, where particularly where young girls, as Ayan was growing up in Somalia, being told. Cover yourself up. You're easy meat. You're a sex object. Don't go outside. Don't be equal. Don't play with the boys because they'll sexually assault you. And equally, young men in our country being brought up.

with completely retrograde misogynist attitudes. And that's a huge, I think that going forward, that needs some real attention. What struck you, Liam, about what she said? The thing that really struck me was the alliance, which of course I knew about, between Britain's kind of hard left and extremist Muslim tendencies, both.

from different perspectives geared towards trying to destroy the British state, capitalism, if you like, and the ghastly... contrast between a lot of the left's championing of women's rights on the one hand, and yet their championing of a really ghastly abrogation of women's rights on the other.

I think, Alison, before we move to emails, why don't you tell listeners about the Southport trials, which you're going to be covering over the next three or four weeks, which are germane to this discussion. Yes, there's several things, a couple of things that are germane to this discussion. You mentioned briefly, Liam, the hostages. I just want to say I'm in touch daily.

with Mandy Damari, whose lovely daughter, Emily, age 28, has been a captive of Hamas today. When you're listening to this Thursday morning, 467 days. under the captivity of people who would like to rape or murder her. And I am praying, but not just Emily, but Romy Gonan, whose mother I also interviewed in Israel. I am praying, hoping and praying.

that the next few days may bring those young women and the children still, the Bebas children and all the hostages, many of whom, many of whom that the irony were... on the kibbutzes and were for wonderful relations with their guards and neighbours so let's pray Liam that we have great news on that and obviously we'll I will be um Planet Normal listeners will be the first to hear from Mandy and I texted Mandy before recording and saying

I'm so looking forward to meeting Emily, and I really am. But in a related matter... Monday not just the inauguration of Donald Trump is the first day of the trial in Liverpool of the alleged killer of three little girls who died horribly in Southport at a Taylor Swift.

summer holiday dance club their names as far as I'm concerned should be as well known as the name of Jamie Bulger they were Elsie Alice and Bebe, who were seven, eight and ten when their lives were taken from them and six of the other little girls. in that class also suffered horrendous injuries. So Monday is the start of the trial related to the Southport killings. And I am going to be, for the Telegraph, I'm going to be present at the trial.

for as much as I can. And we'll also have a regular court reporter. But my plan, Liam, is I will be under reporting restrictions while the trial is going on. But obviously, I'll be taking... notes and I will be reporting to you. and to Planet Normal listeners as much as I'm allowed to say, and then giving a very full account at the end of the trial. And my view, we've discussed this, haven't we? My view is that this case brings, you know, brings together.

Many of the concerns that we've discussed on Planet Normal about what's happening in our society and the bigger question of how did three lovely, blameless little girls on the first day of their summer... holiday club come to meet their death and i i hope we will come up with an answer to that well it's great you're going to be up there co-pilot returning to your roots as a you know sort of gumshoe reporter but also there of course as as one of the UK's major commentators

I'm glad you highlighted the reporting restrictions because I know you will. You're very experienced, but I sincerely hope... The press in general really is mindful of those restrictions. Southport's Labour MP Patrick Hurley rightly, and I applaud him for it, is warning today, Wednesday, as we record that.

If there's speculation on the investigations of Southport murders, if there is a contempt of court, it could actually undermine the trial. And seeing the case being thrown out, frankly, which, of course, the country would hold its head in its hands if the much lauded British...

justice system which of course is massively suffering the backlog in the courts and so on um but if if reporting restrictions are breached to the extent that the judge throws out the case that will be seen as justice severely So I can't say I'm looking forward to hearing from you from Southport, but I'm glad you're going. I think it's important that you're there.

And we will, of course, be talking about it to the extent that we can, mindful about those reporting restrictions on Planet Normal in the weeks to come. Now on to our listener emails, the messages you send to planetnormal at telegraph.co.uk. Please keep them coming. Of course, not only we... Do we learn so much from you, but we shamelessly steal and borrow from you for our respective columns, magpies that we are. Steady. I have to say, co-pilot, your unbelievable interview actually with Andrew.

got absolute tsunami we've had so many so many emails let me just let me just read one quickly which is on the rape gangs because also we got a lot about those as well Alison, Alison with one L. Thank you for highlighting the suffering of the rape gang victims. I can't help but think, says Alison, that if these gangs have been abducting and assaulting middle-aged white men, the actions of our government might have been very different. There would be an inquiry. The Navy would be in the channel.

stopping the boats and there would be long imprisonment followed by deportation of offenders. All immigration from Pakistan would be momentarily stopped.

Women's rights and safety have never been under so much threat in this country, quite right, Alison, with the assaults from immigrants and trans rights people invading spaces that have previously been women only. To be honest, I'm wondering whether... this is a safe country to bring up children anymore and whether I should be advising my son to take his young family to live in Australia.

Thank you and Liam for all the work that you do and the bravery you've shown in speaking common sense in a country where to do so seems to now involve. possible prosecution yes indeed it does just quickly to listeners who've been asking me about Essex police we

My legal team are pressing on with that and I will be updating you as and when we know about the next steps. I've had lots and lots of emails from... serving and retired police officers who say they want an end to the nonsense and I'm hoping to help with that but as I said we have had Amazing flooded response too. It's very exciting, isn't it? When we see the co-pilot, full brain power. Absolutely amazing. Like one of Elon Musk's rockets. I turned it up to 11.

The interview was superb, says Jonathan. The two experts, it's not me, is it, that one? The two experts made this complicated subject very clear. I was shocked that the Tories did not have the courage to stick with the essence of Liz Truss's plans and support her. Had they pushed back against the criticism, I think the true reasons for the crash would have become apparent more quickly. Jeremy Hunt's budget was a disgrace.

not least the hike in corporation tax. I would suggest that Sunak's government are as much to blame for our current malaise as starmers. Mind you, I didn't expect the Labour government to be quite as bad as this. Best wishes. Jonathan and Tracy says. I love the technical economics. Actually, I think you two, this is us, should do another podcast series focusing on Liam teaching the likes of us, Alison and Tracy, about economics. It would be hilarious. And I do love this Archie from Cardiff.

Hi both. I'm a listener from the very first episode of Planet Normal, but this week's guests spoke in forked tongues. I'm sure most of the economic debate was in English, but God, not even Liam's explanation could enlighten me. Are subtitles available? You can't please all the people all the time, can you? Everybody loved it. I say in my defence that... No, most people found it, you know...

Absolutely brilliant, honestly. I do think the public is much, much smarter than most journalists, particularly bosses of broadcast news channels, think they are. If you explain things carefully and if you actually, as a journalist, understand them yourself, then you can put across a form of words that simplifies without being... simplistic if you like it doesn't over simplify and to do that you have to really understand yourself what's going on or have a decent understanding anyway

And guess what? The British public is going to learn a great deal about financial markets in the coming weeks and months because that bond yield is going to absolutely dominate British politics. It's not going to be this minister resigning and that minister not liking. other minister and all the ridiculous personalities and political tricks that political journalists obsess about and i say that as a former political journalist myself it will be the cost of borrowing because the cost of borrowing

will completely dominate the government's ability to spend money. Whether or not the government can spend money, particularly a Labour government, will dominate internal Labour Party politics. Party's popularity, whether or not it can stave off a major systemic lurch that would impact everybody in the country. And here's a bigger point, Alison. You know, thinking in the last 25... 30 odd years. We had the dot-com collapse in the late 90s. We had, you know, the biggest...

Markets collapse since the Great Depression in 1929 in 2007, 2008. We had the Eurozone seismic moment in 2010, 2011. We had, of course, lockdown in. 2020 2021 and now we've had this bond market spike which world could get a lot lot worse that's five self-imposed events that have majorly undermined

The ability of ordinary people, hardworking families to build up a little bit of money, to buy a house, to keep hold of their house, to build a business. And people are wondering increasingly, you know, just how smart are...

the political and media class in the Western world. Because so many of these big events, we don't see them coming. We make the same mistakes again and again. You know, five big systemic events in 25 years. That's a pretty... bad hit rate when it comes to you know western capitalism being the best possible system and it's no wonder that electorates not just in continental europe but to some degree in the uk

and the US as well, are moving away from conventional politics and moving away from incumbent political parties and going for something a bit different. That is a major trend of our time. It's going to continue. And guess what? It's driven by economics. Now, I just want to pick up from that and just to refer everyone this week has said how grateful they are for Liam Halligan, some of them calling for you.

to be a chancellor. I think it would be a pretty good swap, Rachel, from accounts with Halligan from economics. But Liam, you did post something. From Planet Normal. Yes, Liam, Halligan from Planet Normal. You did post a rather moving thing on X. formerly Twitter, about the circumstances of your departure from GB News. It's quite unlike you to make things that personal, public, but I know you did it very strongly and for a good reason. And many, many Planet Normal listeners who...

absolutely adore you and respect you and hang on your every word, have written in expressing their love and sympathy. And this is from Kit. Dear Alison and Liam, a few weeks ago, I wrote to The Rocket to support Alison during her skirmish with the Essex Rossers, and I'm delighted at the outcome.

Now I am reacting to co-pilot Halligan's recent tweet regarding his broadcasting situation. I'm a retired accountant, says Kit, and hundreds of years ago I studied economics at A-level. I studied just to pass the exam and really... didn't engage with the subject but a few years ago I started watching GB News to escape the biased mainstream media and I was delighted to watch Liam and his lunchtime show.

Then, for reasons completely beyond comprehension, the programme was stopped and the time was handed over to shrieky young presenters. I have since followed Liam through his articles in The Telegraph and, of course, on Planet Normal. It has been one of the best services of...

At zero cost to the millions who have little or no grasp of economics. In addition to Liam's concise explanations, he encourages you to read and listen to other experts. On Liam's recommendation, I read John Moynihan's return. to Growth, a brilliant book. I hugely enjoyed last week's interview with Dr. Andrew Lillicoe, but though I have to admit I needed to listen to it a few times as unlike Alison.

I am not an expert on LDIs and derivatives. Glad you've noticed my expertise, Kit. I know these two things, none of which I can spell. Liam, says Kit, what you are doing is providing a public... service for free. Could you not set up your platform, for example, on YouTube and do it on a subscription basis? I and millions like me would readily pay an annual subscription in advance, provided it's not more than my non-existent winter fuel allowance.

Well, I'm sure it would come in under that. There are teenagers' influencers, says Kit, making lots of money for questionable broadcasts. Liam should start broadcasting and enlightening folk, especially now on such an important subject. I have little doubt that he would soon have a substantial following and the rewards to go with it by the way congratulations to both of you on your efforts with reducing weight economies of scale question mark we're practically invisible

It's lucky we're not seen on screen because people would be having to get out their magnifying glasses. Thanks again, says Kit, for your unmissable podcast. And thanks to you, Kit, for summing up what so many Planet Normal listeners. have said about the amazing co-pilot. Liam, are you touched by Kit's words? I am. I mean...

I wanted to do a tweet because I get so many people saying to me, why aren't you on TV? Why did you leave GB news, et cetera, et cetera. So I decided to make public for the first time that I didn't actually leave GB news. I was made. from GB news it wasn't my decision I was one of the launch presenters of GB news. I gave it three years of my life. I really wanted it to succeed. I still really do want it to succeed. There are some fabulous people working at GB news.

But I didn't like the fact that people at the top of the channel, who I think don't have a decent grasp of UK politics and economics, don't really understand. The UK, particularly well, are taking the channel in the wrong direction. They insisted on telling people that I left of my own volition. I didn't leave of my own volition.

I was chucked out of GB News and I thought it was important to make that clear while speaking more generally about the difficulty of getting... this type of economic analysis on mainstream television and radio. You know, I've been doing this for 25, 30 years, banging my head against the wall, trying to convince the sort of gatekeepers of mainstream broadcasting who are often extremely well off.

people with no understanding of economics and business because they're from extremely wealthy families they think it's boring men in suits boring well it isn't boring men in suits boring it's what makes the world go round and I can't tell you how often I'm stopped in the street or I get emails or indeed tweets from ordinary people coming out to me and saying,

What do you think of this? Why did that happen in the markets? I don't always have the answers, but I've generally got more answers than they have. And it's absolutely vital that we keep talking about this stuff. on mainstream broadcasting outlets. Print coverage of economics and business is a lot diminished compared to what it was when I was a kid.

doing my paper round, delivering papers from a house with no books, but reading the papers avidly. That's what made me a journalist, as we've discussed in the past, Alison. But having said that, you know, I think a lot of papers do a good job in this area. colleagues on the Telegraph have done a brilliant job and do do a brilliant job in the business section and even in the main part of the paper in covering these issues. We have some excellent writers, reporters and commentators.

But broadcasters, mainstream broadcasters are totally out to lunch. when it comes to covering economics and business. There are one or two exceptions, but they are very much exceptions. There are one or two people like me in mainstream broadcasting who do plug away at this. But it's really, really hard. And we are tolerated rather than championed in newsrooms. And when it comes to...

Getting airtime, in my experience, and I say this with a lot of experience, it's always economics and business that gets cut, even though the public is very, very, very interested. in it so who knows i may have to end up setting up my own platform to do this it seems pretty mad given what I've done in my life and a shelf full of prizes for broadcasting, that mainstream broadcasters remain so reluctant to really cover this stuff.

So there you go. End of sermon. The day I released that tweet was one of the main days where the UK bond markets were in turmoil. And as the kids say, my tweet went viral. It did. You were trending. It was ahead of tweets about the UK's bond market for a while. I didn't think that would happen. I don't really use Twitter very, very much. I'm actually a pretty low-key guy in many ways.

never really chased publicity if i wanted to do that i'd have started reading the news in my late 20s rather than becoming the economics editor of channel 4 news but i do think the tweet touched a nerve and i do think that Broadcasters, mainstream broadcasters need to get really serious about economics and business, though it may be that even if they ask me, I won't be willing to help them because I'll be doing stuff on my own.

Well, we know that a lot of fantastic broadcasters have now gone out on their own and have their own channels. And I personally tune in. to a lot of these people, some of your former colleagues from GB News, Dan Wooten, various, some of their...

Very, very fantastic broadcasters are now out on their own and building a huge following. So I know what you mean about the mainstream media. In fact, one thing I would say is this week, I've been so glad for you to have you because we have... such a left-wing bias in some of the coverage that while they excoriated Liz Truss's skirmishes with the bond markets, they were going very, very softly indeed on the predicament that Rachel Reeves has got us.

into do you want to read out brendan co-pilot because he's got a very nice take on the present situation okay here it is uh this is brendan an email that he presents to us as a vision It's 2030, writes Brendan. The Prime Minister looks from the highest capsule of the London Eye. Rachel stands at his side. Her battle's won. They look at the ranks of wind turbines where the House of Parliament once stood. No wind today, Rach. Not a sign of it.

Rachel glances down at the microscopic pensioners peddling the generators. Don't worry, the lights will stay on. The exercise will keep them warm too. Isn't dystopia great? No questions, no journalists. Rachel nods the way she does when having great thoughts. We've redistributed everything, boss. Now we have nothing. Greatness beckons. Keir looks at her quizzically.

Are you feeling okay, Rach? You look a little peaky. Rachel glances down at her charger lead, then through the window. The old folks are slowing down. Well, they do that. Old age. No, I mean they're peddling. I'm losing power. Rachel starts to panic. She grabs Keir by his high-vis lapel. My speech is going. It's going. Did I tell you I'm the son of a toolmaker?

Keir feels his own power fading. And my father was the first female chancellor in the Exchequer. He takes one last look down at the pensioners who give him a collective V sign. Rach, our legacy is assured, but Rachel doesn't answer. She's stone cold. And as Keir's power finally runs out, his face too is expressionless, but nobody notices. And on that bombshell, that's it from Planet Normal for another week as we leave our sanctuary of sweet reason, our flying refuge of reason views.

Email of the week. It's my turn this week, and I'm going to give it no bitterness to Archie from Cardiff for making fun of the fact that he kind of understood what Andrew Lilligan and I were talking about. but he pretended that he doesn't. Subtitles aren't available, Archie. You'll have to listen to the interview.

again so please send us an email to planetnormal at telegraph.co.uk put mug winner in the subject heading give us your postal address and we'll send you that rare as rocking horse poo planet normal mug if you enjoy planet normal

Jolly well hope you do. Please subscribe to this podcast and leave us a rating and a review on Spotify, the podcast app, or wherever you listen. It really... does help others to find us and as you can tell this week what amazing listeners you all are thank you so much and as we speed away from our beloved planet normal and the madness of planet earth comes back into view thanks as ever

To our brilliant producers, Isabel Burchard, Cass Ho and Louisa Wells, stay safe and in touch with us and with each other. Until next week, it's goodbye from me. And it's goodbye from him.

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