I don't know if you managed to see the Trump press conference live yesterday, but it was quite an extraordinary thing, wasn't it? I was actually in the car listening to it. thinking this is the kind of thing that people say in the pub, right? And I know that there will be those, and there are those who say... That's why people like him. Yeah, and there will be those who say, you know, it was in bad taste and it was too soon and he shouldn't be doing it. But actually, he makes a very...
very good point, doesn't he? He does. I have to say that is the most orange I've ever seen him. Yes, there's also that, yeah. On this issue, is there a problem with diversity hires? Absolutely. Is there any evidence that diversity hires causes crash? No. There is evidence. that not enough people
and may have been in the job at the time. So there's a staff shortages issue for sure. And the New York Times and other mainstream US media have been talking about this quite a bit. And he may know more than we know at this point as well. So, I mean, it could well be. I mean, he certainly referred to a piece of legislation that the Biden administration brought in in January 14th, which allowed for people to be hired who had neurological difficulties, disabilities, mental problems.
and then ended with dwarfism. Yeah, absolutely. But there is no evidence. I have to say, from everything I've seen in the papers, there's no evidence that actually that is the case here. There is a problem with diversity hires because people are getting hired for the wrong reasons, for sure.
And that's why this call for a colourblind, meritocratic society, I think it echoes absolutely in America and absolutely here as well. It does, because there's no question, is there, that we know for a fact that there are government departments, you know better than me, government departments which...
which have hiring policies, which are not based on meritocracy, which are not based on anything other than quotas, on ticking boxes and going, well, we've got to get a few of those people in, some of these people over here. For sure. And it needs to stop. For sure. I mean, I'm not quite sure how this is going to go down. I mean, what he said, because I...
If there was truth behind it, for sure. But if there isn't, then I think it's just going to give ammunition to its enemies. There's a broader point here that he's right on. However, there's no evidence that that caused the crash. I mean, the Mirror has done what you would expect the Mirror to do. I had big headlines.
called Shameful. And they're quoting from people like, you know, Pete Buttigieg, who he personally singled out. Well, Trump went for him yesterday and said, this is all your fault, mate. Right. He said, you know, he was in charge of the aviation business. The mirror is just, yeah.
I used to work for the Mirror, and I'm very happy to say that they are now a completely disgraceful operation and useless, quite frankly. There's no point in hiding the truth. Exactly. I mean, they are hopeless. But let's hear a few more from... Yesterday, former air traffic controller Michael Pearson spoke to Fox News. This is a preventable disaster. This is the system has been under attack due to DEI. and the FAA bowing to wokeness since 2010, since the Obama administration.
And the thing about what happened, and again, we wait, I mean, because one of the things he did say as well, he said, you know, if this was Keir Starmer, he'd be asking for another inquiry, wouldn't he? Because that's what they do at Labor. They just want to do more inquiries. And three years down the road, you don't really find out very much. Unless it's on group. than you knew now. Yeah, well, of course, doesn't like to do those. But at the end of the day, a helicopter...
should never have been in that space. The plane was 400 feet, it would seem, from the runway, so it was really, really just about to land. Okay, but this is one of the problems of that airport, which is why they've had accidents there in the past. It's a very tight... I've been there many times, yeah. Very tight, right.
in yeah and you've got a lot of military helicopters flying around as well that helicopter should not have been on that flight path no but again just reading all the papers I think what might have happened is that the helicopter had eyes on the airplane behind the one that it hit and then didn't realise because it was either blinded. Because if you're a pilot, again, just reading...
sort of picking this up, if you're flying into a plane or towards a plane, you can't measure distance quickly when you can. And they were wearing supposedly night vision goggles as well. And, you know, I'm no expert. You know, I haven't been on that many helicopters. I've been on plenty of planes. But there's a piece of footage
that I watched yesterday where you can see the helicopter coming from behind the plane and it appears to just fly straight into it. Straight into it, exactly. And they're given the instructions to follow it in, which is what you hear on the audio clip, which presumably means just keep your distance and stay behind the plane.
but as you say it seems mad to land a helicopter on in the same flight path as a and have all that traffic in the same vicinity yeah very very strange indeed um common sense is a word that we use here a lot and of course we are the home of common sense as you know, for a long time. Trump, when he made his inauguration speech, talked about common sense. Here he is talking about it again yesterday.
I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash. Because I have common sense, okay? And unfortunately, a lot of people don't. We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major chess game at the highest level.
It really is a fascinating deconstruction of where we are. And again, as you said, Bob, people like to hear the way he talks because that's how they talk. People would have been in the pub last night saying, how could this possibly have happened? Did you know that they were hiring all these people? people who might not have been qualified to do the job
Et cetera, et cetera. But what happens if that's not the case in this case? I mean, that is a bit of an issue. And this is the problem with Trump, is that you should take him seriously, but not always literally. No. Because what he does, though, is he raises issues. He does.
talks about they're eating the cats and everybody went mad and went that's ridiculous nobody's eating cats you know it may well be that one or two people did i think somebody did yeah somebody did but what he did do was he focused every everybody's um kind of attention on the Venezuelan drug gang problem, which happened to be in a Midwest town in North America. And people started talking about that. And that was why I won the election.
So, you know, there's a method in his madness. No, no. I mean, the guy, obviously, there must be a method because he's won a second election after nobody thought he was ever going to. But I just think on this issue, I mean, you're right, though. Trump defies...
political logic that he can get away with saying something that maybe have no basis in truth because, A, it's a point that he wants to make. There is a wider issue. I'm just not sure the wider issue is necessarily reflected in this. But sure.
If you're hiring people for government jobs and they can't do the job and they're a diversity hire, that is an insult, both to the taxpayer. But actually, it goes back to this thing I was reading last week, Oxford University. Now, it's basically saying if you're ethical...
minority we're going to dumb down right i'm sorry that is pure racism it is totally i mean why why we're actually going back to a highly racist society because anti-racism is anti-white yeah and oxford are basically saying if you're an ethnic minority we'll assume you're not as intelligent
as a white person. I mean, how incredibly offensive and stupid is that? And rightly, people were then calling it out and saying, wow, that is an incredibly racist thing you're saying. Right. But then if you look pretty much every week, you can find a story where the BBC put a job ad in...
whichever place they put it, asking for only ethnic minorities to apply for a particular job. White people need not apply. It's as simple as that. And you think, well, hang on a minute. If you said black people should not apply for a job, what do you think would happen? We're going back to the 1950s. Yeah.
It's just crazy. Common sense, though, is spreading, and I take the credit for it, obviously, as I would. You would expect that. Last night on Question Time, which gets worse and worse and worse, by the way, I sort of put myself through it every Thursday night. I have to go to bed. You're a brave man.
I gave up on it all the time. But the only reason I watch it now is because I can watch it slightly earlier because you can watch it early on the iPlayer so I don't have to stay up so late. But here's James Murray who apparently is a government minister. God knows how. Did you see the guy who runs Ryanair?
O'Leary. Yeah. Absolutely slated. He was fantastic. Absolutely slated. Have you got that clip? We have got that clip. We'll find it, actually. We played it yesterday. And that will cheer us up in the morning. It will cheer us up. I thought it would git, which was brilliant. And Rachel Rubbish. Yeah, Rachel Rubbish.
poll on Twitter yesterday, do you call Rachel from Accounts, is it Rachel from Accounts or Rachel Rubbish? And Rachel with Accounts was just winning out. Right, and she hates that apparently. Here's James Murray, even he apparently thinks common sense is the way forward.
I think when you talk about the programmes around the diversity, equality, inclusion programmes... I really think this is where we could do with a bit of common sense because, you know, I think people understand there is a value to having an inclusive approach to your workforce and making sure people have opportunities. but you don't want it to go too far. And I think it is just a common sense question here where most people have a reasonable view on this.
I don't know what he means by that. I don't know what he means. It's a complete gobbledygook, isn't it? This is a problem. If you're having a DEI policy, it means that you're not hiring a court. You're either not hiring the most talented because you're deliberately hiring whites or blokes or whatever.
And so it doesn't actually make sense. If you're doing the right thing, you don't need a DEI programme. So a DEI programme is an admission or failure on somebody's part. So why have it? Yeah. And Alison Phillips was on there from the former heads of the Bureau. funnily enough, who I used to work with, who said, oh, well, we need diversity and inclusion policies because when I started in Fleet Street, you know, it was mostly white middle-aged blokes. Absolute rubbish.
Complete rubbish. I mean, I've been in Fleet Street longer than her, right? And there were women running newspapers, there were women running features departments, news departments. There's always been very powerful women in newspapers doing very, very good jobs. Unfortunately, she wasn't one of them. I mean, when I started doing shifts on the Sunday Mirror a long time ago, we had a female editor.
I'll remember her name in a minute. Yeah, it was probably Eve Pollard, wasn't it? It was Eve Pollard. There you go. I mean, you know, Eve Pollard's a fine woman. She was a fantastic editor. And she certainly didn't need any help from men to get to where she was. Thank you very much indeed.
married to Sir Nicholas Lloyd, who was also editor of The Daily Express at the same time. He used to be very frightened of it. But that's another story. Here's Michael O'Leary. We played it yesterday. Yes, please. We could play it every day from now until Christmas. I think we should. Here we go. We should.
I get a letter back this week from some dopey junior minister, James Murray, who's the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury. He helpfully told me that actually the rate of APD increase is only going up by two pounds for those flying short haul economy. That is 1% of an average airfare. £2 is 1% of an average short-haul economy low fare. I don't know what f***ing airline this dopey...
Git actually flies on that has economy airfares of £200. But the £2 is not 1% of an average airfare. But it probably shows you just how out of touch His Majesty's Treasury are with f***ing reality. Well, I'll tell you what he's not doing. He's not flying on private jets, because the story that Guido did yesterday about David Lammy spent nearly a million quid. Yep, he spent a million quid on it. And the Labour Party, the amount of criticism that Rishi got for half a dozen flights on a helicopter.
And he's clocking up the air miles on private jets. But just on the O'Leary thing, he just showed the thinking of government. And actually, if you look at that letter... And the letter that O'Leary got back from the government saying, well, you know, it's an irrelevant amount because it's only 1%. And actually, O'Leary says, but if you look at the price of a ticket, it's not 200 quid, it was 44 quid. And so another £2 is quite a lot.
£13. Tax is now £15 on a £44 fare. And he's absolutely right. And this is a problem with the government's growth. It talks about growth. Having kicked the living hell out of the economy last year, it's now in a panic.
They're talking about growth, and yet anything and everything they're doing seems to be anti-growth, and the stuff they could do to help growth, they won't do. No, and they seem to believe that the only way to get growth is to spend public money, which is one, not their money, and two, it's our money.
And three, it doesn't necessarily stimulate anything. No, it doesn't. The word stimulates Rachel McCann's. Well, it does. We've got a great clip of her, actually, which we'll do in a minute. Across the UK. On DAB Plus. On YouTube. On your mobile. And on your side. This is Talk. Let's get a voice note from Laura.
Morning, Mike. Laura in Wiltshire. I read the front of the Daily Telegraph today with absolute horror. Read the solar panels going all over our beautiful farmland, which actually does something useful. If they are intent on just doing solar as opposed to things like... small nuclear reactors which surely are a more sensible idea then they should be mandated to put them first on council buildings schools hospitals airports supermarkets all new builds please
Please insist on some common sense, Mike. Yes, we do insist on common sense here and we have it with every single second of the show that we do here. We are the home of common sense. Isabel Oakeshaw also is a kid and signed up to Common Sense throughout. career. Isabel, very good morning to you. Morning. I couldn't believe that press conference by Donald Trump yesterday.
You played out the perfect clip there. There was a lot to choose from, by the way. I had another favourite, which was the moment that he laid into the boss of the transport department, basically calling the guy a disaster. the words he used was a disaster and then went on to say that the guy was very good at bullshit so that was the actual word yes he used um and as you say this is a very serious story and it's just the only reason i've got a smile on my face is because
Donald Trump's language is so entertaining for us Brits when we are so bored of hearing the robotic Keir Starmer. He does have a point, doesn't he? You know, if the policy is actually to be inclusive... of people with, quote, severe intellectual disability. It's kind of an accident waiting to happen.
Did happen. And I think the trouble for all of us is that we know that whenever, you know, we think about the United States of America, we know that we're doing the same thing here. And one of the reasons why our state, the ship of state, if you like, is kind of, you know... falling behind and sort of sliding into the sea slowly capsizing is because it's being run by people who think that the dei business is a good idea
that, you know, let's all be terribly inclusive. Let's get more dwarfs. Let's get more intellectually challenged people. And I think he was saying that in January, the Biden administration actually ordered people with severe mental disability. to be given jobs controlling aircraft. I mean, it's completely bonkers. Yeah, I mean, not to put...
To find a point on it, that is actually insane. And Trump made big politics out of this yesterday. And if he's to be believed, and I haven't checked out whether the chronology of events is as he says it is, but essentially he... said uh he put better measures in place when he was president but and then unraveled them and only last week trump tried to put them all back in place and not in time to make enough difference for this accident not to happen so
If that is all true, then Trump can justifiably make tremendous political capital out of this awful human tragedy. And there's no holding him back, is there? He's full on. absolutely gone for it. And the thing, and I said this, sorry to interrupt you, I said this earlier that I was listening to some of the commentary around it, you know, by some of our colleagues in the broadcast business, and they were all horrified as they always are, you know.
has never happened before you know so soon after a terrible disaster where people have died you know he's using it for political capital well actually no he's not absolutely using it for that what he's doing is saying that people are sick to death of inquiries sick to death of being told
out what happens in about three years time and report back you know no people who who talk as normal people do were saying yesterday how could this possibly have happened we need to know he said it shouldn't have happened somebody should have prevented it from happening he's absolutely right
Completely. And can you imagine if we'd had someone like Donald Trump leading our country after the Axel Rudicabana horror? Yeah. You know, the equivalent of that would have been Keir Starmer standing up and saying. Yeah, how horrific this was. And here's what we know, folks, including the whole terror dimension of it. But instead, we got British politics, which is to pretend there's nothing much to see here. Let's all move on.
an investigation underway which excuses politicians from having to say anything about anything. I love the way Trump rips up that playbook. He's just like, you know, I'm just going to tell you what I know, and I'm just going to tell you as much as I can so that you don't get fobbed off, you don't get told, we'll come back to you in three years' time when you've all forgotten about it, because there's been so many other tragedies in the interim. Right, exactly right.
and I've just got a bit of breaking news here from the FAA. Obtained by the Associated Press, apparently there was only one air traffic controller working at the time of the fatal collision. I mean, that beggars belief, doesn't it?
Well, I don't know how many should be on duty, but it sure as hell sounds like there should be more than one presiding. What happens when he goes to the toilet? Well, you make a very, very good point there. And is it perhaps that, you know, some of the staff there... only work on certain days are they the kinds of people that put at the end of their emails please no my working hours are
i'd fire all those people you know definitely absolutely right let's talk about what's on the front pages here this morning um although before we do that maybe we should mention brexit five years on Obviously, you know, you'll remember where you were, not so much on the day of the result of the referendum, but more on this day, because I remember feeling a great sense of optimism and thinking, you know, although I wasn't feeling particularly well, I seem to remember. So...
There was basically a sort of a feeling in the air. You and I may have been at the same party. I was at a party on Piccadilly somewhere. And we were sort of toasting. Jim Davidson was there. Nigel Farage was there. Toasting this brand new future that we were about to look forward to. where we were unfettered by those awful people in the european union and it all seemed like a great idea and it kind of all just didn't happen
Well, it was a great idea, and I do remember where I was. I think I was on the backstage at the big rally that we had to celebrate. In Parliament Square. in parliament square and i know julia hartley brewer was there and a number of colleagues were probably there too and giving speeches and we sang and it was really an absolutely amazing historic moment and Five years on, it has not yet...
fulfilled anything like its potential. I mean, Nigel Farage himself has been quite open that a number of things are not less difficult than they were. They're more difficult than they were. That doesn't mean it wasn't the right idea. It doesn't mean that it's not a great thing that we have the potential now to make the best of it but this government isn't going to do it it's been a massive massive historic betrayal not just by this new government which is
barely concealing its desire for close surprise with the EU. In fact, Rachel Reeves articulated that earlier this week, saying we've got to get closer to the EU. It's the last thing that we need to be doing. They're going down the pan faster than we are. But it's not just this government that is going to increase the betrayal. It's what the Tories did, because most...
voted for Brexit for one reason, and that is immigration. They were horrified by the uncontrolled immigration into our country that was associated with free movement of people. You know, that was part of the deal. were in the EU. And so we ended free movement of people. But guess what? We replaced it with come one, come all from all other parts of the world. Brilliant. So one million net migration.
Yeah, that's not what people signed up for. We've got to undo that. It's absolutely right. And Nigel Farage has written in the Express today. He's also in the Telegraph. But he's basically said he thinks that actually, in the end, looking back, he doesn't even believe Boris Johnson's heart was actually really in it.
Well, I mean, that doesn't really surprise me because Boris Johnson notoriously wrote two different articles, one in favour of Brexit and one against Brexit before he decided which one he fancied publishing. So, you know, Boris Johnson... is an opportunist and there are many good things about Boris Johnson, but no one can say that he's an ideologue. You know, all the things we thought that we could be sure of about Boris Johnson in particular.
that he's a libertarian, you know, that he believes in freedom of choice, all went out the window under the pressure of COVID, didn't they? I mean, this was a guy that used to say, you know, don't let us worry about standards for school life. kids let's shove them some pies through the railings of the playground if they're not getting turkey twizzlers you know that's how much he was in favor of freedom and then he went on to be the prime minister that locked us down again and again and again
So this isn't a man of high principle. He is a man who looks out first and foremost for Boris Johnson. He did good things. I don't want to take away from his leadership on Ukraine and a number of other things. But he didn't make the most of Brexit. He will, of course, blame the pandemic for that loss of opportunity. No doubt. What we can't see the Labour government blaming anything on, really, apart from themselves, is this farmland move that they're making, this land...
grab that they appear to be making um and i can't help thinking there's much more to this than than just a kind of westminster obsession uh with not understanding the countryside and deliberately changing the way that britain actually produces food because that to all intents of
purposes of what's happening we're told from the telegraph's front page story a tenth of farmland is going to be axed for net zero marvelous well look farmers here's my message to you you can't have it both ways you can't come out and complain rightly in my view about the inheritance tax bill that you're now facing on the basis of food security on the one hand and on the other hand sell off your farmland for solar panels which is
If you believe in food security, then don't sell out for net zero. And as far as I know, the government is not yet saying that they're going to actually compulsorily purchase farmland. Absolutely hideous policy of carpeting half of Britain with solar panels, not literally half, but a great deal of Britain. But it will feel like it, though.
It relies on the cooperation of farmers. So there's a simple way to thwart this, at least in the first instance. Farmers don't sell your land for these purposes. I know it's tempting, but you don't have to do it. And if you do do it, you can't complain.
about the inheritance tax thing. No, exactly right. And the thing that worries me more about this than anything is that it's Steve Reid, the Environment Secretary, who's kind of, you know, pushing it forward and championing it. And his previous job before he became an MP... was to be head of Lambeth Council. You know, a more unlikely kind of job to prepare you for reconstructing Britain's rural landscape. I can't think of.
I mean, these guys don't get the countryside, do they? There's many things that they don't get. They don't get the mindset of people that live in rural communities. They don't understand the way the rich work, the super rich. They don't understand why if you just clobber everybody. at that end with incredible taxes. They just leave. They don't get it. They are of the world of Lambeth Council. That is a microcosm of the Labour Party. It is those inner city councils up and down the countries.
that's their little mindset. And I don't think that we can change that, but we can put up a resistance to some of this stuff. And, you know, solar panels are not things of beauty, but there's a huge... on a farm just outside the village where I live in the Cotswolds. And yes, it's better than huge pylons without a doubt, but it still looks really weird.
And when the sun shines on it, you think it's a lake and it's actually just loads and loads of plastic. Yeah, it's very unpleasant. I'm not in favour of it. Just before you go, I'll give you this piece of good news. I know you heard it earlier. The new policy on stopping the boat.
and the snaggling guns or whatever Keir Starmer wants to call them this week. Basically we're giving some money to Tunisia to educate people to learn English so that they don't want to come to Britain. I don't even understand the logic of that. right okay but the more they understand english the more they may be tempted to think could get a nice job over in england deliveroo driver or something Like wackadoodle, more wackadoodle nonsense, more taxpayers' money down the drain, more hopeless.
completely ineffectual attempts to stop the boats. The only way to stop the boats is to turn back the boats. Forget all these little bits of tinkering around the edges that the government announced yesterday. A new power to examine the mobile... of people or arrest people on the boats for throwing threatening to throw people overboard no just turn them back it's not
complicated guys we have the power to do it also you know a bit of a pop quiz for the for the people making new laws that illegal migrants won't apply to them is that when people tend to be illegal migrants they tend to break the law they don't care what the law says they don't care what new law you've introduced they're criminals yeah i mean they're adventurers they're taking their chances and and honestly in many ways i don't blame them the statistics are all in their favor and they've got
a rubbish life somewhere not necessarily a war zone probably not a war zone and they think well they've got the resources to get themselves over to cali um pretty much better life beckons you know all they need to do is get it over the channel safely then they get a bunch of free stuff and sooner or later they get the right to remain and build a new life in britain good for them bad for us
I mean, to be honest, some parts of London are more of a war zone than where some of these people are coming from. So they've got to bring as much armour with them as they can possibly carry. Isabel, great to see you. Thank you very much indeed. Isabel Oakeshott there, talks international editor. How about this?
from, who is it, Glenn, from Leeds, who says, Mike, I'm recruiting for my steak restaurant. If you're a vegan, a haemophiliac, can't take the heat, can only work from home, visually impaired, can't work nights or weekends, we want to hear from you. DEI in action. And soon to close the... on hospitality that's i mean it's funnier than you think but it's also truer than you think i mean you might as well roll that out into every single business in the civil service in the state of this country
But of course, we already have, haven't we? Let's get a voice note from Christopher. Good morning, Mike. Looking forward to my dose of common sense. Obviously, Starmer hasn't got any common sense. As our new trade secretary, it's Miss... Osmore, whose son was a drug dealer, and when questioned by a journalist, she threatened to smash the journalist's face in with a bat.
Have a great day. Yeah, thanks, Christopher. You just reminded me of that. Kate Oswald, that's right, Labour MP, threatened to smash her at Paul's face with a bat. He's now a trade envoy. Maybe she'll take the bat with her. Maybe that's the new policy. You know, hello guys, I'm Kate. I've come from Britain. If you don't buy any of our stuff, I'm going to smash the place up with this baseball bat. And if you get in the way, I'll smash your face in as well.
Apparently her son was sentenced to a community order in a drugs case in 2018 and she had to apologise to Parliament. That's your lot. This is Talk. The home of common sense. This is talk. Let's hear the voice note from Liam. Good morning, Mike. Liam in Folkestone. Now, yesterday you said that £4 million per year is spent on clothes for those illegally crossing the channel. Well, back a couple of years ago, in just five months, they spent £40,000 on Domino's Pizza.
yeah 40 000. i put in a freedom of information request to the home office to ask how are they being fed they've got a private company and it wouldn't be in the public interest to let you know i mean come on they'll be spending far more than four million pounds on food for them anyway
Have a great weekend, mate. Cheers. Thank you very much, Liam. Yeah, absolutely right. Home Office spent 39,000 of taxpayers' cash on pizzas for hungry Channel migrants. And that's before they've given them a new puffer jacket because they might be a bit cold and wet from the trip.
marvelous isn't it uh here's a nice piece of p what i don't know what would you give them you know the the four seasons perhaps or you know american hot oh that's got salami and they probably don't want that um let's get a gaff here's jeremy kyle Rose, hello. Hello. Right, Rose, come on, sound a little bit happier. No, I'm fine, I'm watching Jeremy Carl and I'm thinking about my question. Right, have you got me on the television while you're speaking to me?
No, I've got Jeremy Kyle on. I am Jeremy Kyle. Well, you're talking to somebody else who's talking to Peter. No, I'm talking to... Yeah, but you see, you've got... There's a delay. Turn the radio or television off because I can hear it. Right, OK. Turn it off before you come back to the phone. Oh God. Sorry.
That used to happen a lot more than it does now, actually. I think people have more got used to the way the system works. But there we are. Let's talk to John Mayer, ex-BBC producer, because a big piece of the mail today. BBC staff were too frightened to speak up about Russell Brand because he always got his way.
Bosses have apologised amid the claims of rape, assault and emotional abuse that was supposedly carried out by Russell Brand when he was working at the BBC. There were claims of him exposing himself, having sex in the toilet, putting his fingers down someone's trousers and using a beep. car to drive a 16 year old from the school that she was in to his house you know all courtesy of her majesty's or his majesty's british broadcasting corporation uh john mayor is here very good morning to you john
We do. I mean, it beggars belief some of this stuff, doesn't it? I mean, you've worked inside the business more than I have. How is it possible that so many of these things that Russell Brand did... were not even worthy of him being sort of upbraided for or called in to see somebody and told, you know, you can't behave like this. Why didn't it happen? What might look to appear on television or to appear even on the radar or even on talk, you need a massive ego.
to put yourself in front of a camera. You always say that. You know, I don't have a massive ego. It's not true. I leave that for others to judge, Mike. Whether you have it or not. With that massive ego comes thoughts. What do we want our TV presenters to be? Do we want to be total vanilla? Well, I'd prefer it if they didn't expose themselves to people or have sex in the toilet in the office. That's probably two things I'd suggest.
Probably not a great start. And I'm delighted to see the BBC finally... got a system that actually investigates things and brings it out to the public. There is this question, what do you want them to be in? Something I think is fascinating is there's a shooting gallery with TV presenters now. About one a week gets shot.
down is that a good thing is that healthy thing in our society you know the tabloid press is like fox hunting they just go after something until until well i don't think it's a tabloid press they're going after russell brand it's the police actually
The police are investigating some of the things that he's been doing, right? And at the end of the day... Well, yeah, but it's a police investigation. It's nothing to do with the tabloid press. I think it was the Sunday Times that first broke the story in Channel 4.
nothing to do with the tabloid press i think you'll find well we'll go compare man this week you know and even the poor bishop well there are people that tell stories about the way that people behave you know here's a clue don't behave badly and nobody will tell stories about you behaving badly
That's true, but none of us are perfect. We have to realise that. Well, I may not be perfect, but I don't expose myself to the staff and I don't have sex in the toilets. Does that make me an extraordinarily, brilliantly talented presenter because I'm the only one that doesn't do it?
Look, with ego comes flaws and you have to accept that. No, I don't. I don't have to accept it. Absolute rubbish. You know, you can have a big ego and you can be in trouble for speaking to people badly and you can be taken into an office by HR and told you shouldn't...
speak to people like that. But this is altogether different. You know, he's taking a BBC car to pick up a 16-year-old girl from a school to bring her to his house, presumably for nefarious purposes. That wasn't proven, as you know. That wasn't proven.
actually wasn't proven oh so you're now defending russell brand no i'm not defending because he's got a big ego report no no defending the report which says in the car isn't proven you know they've got no way of proving that what they said actually no what they said was they couldn't find any evidence that any bbc staff had any knowledge that he had inappropriate engagement with competition winners well i don't believe that
I mean, everybody knows where cars go. I mean, we have investigations in all sorts of places in news organisations. If you want to know who's ordered a car... you can easily find out where it was ordered from who ordered it where it went from and where it went to
It's not difficult, is it? Peter Johnson, who wrote this report, said he can find no proof of that. I mean, look, the BBC has actually finally found a system of investigating England and doing it out in the open, as it should, as it absolutely should. But the basic question, what do you want your team...
Do you want nuns and vicars presented on TV? Well, that's the show for Channel 5, by the sounds of it, nuns and vicars. I mean, go put it out about 10 o'clock on a Friday night when people come back from the pub.
I'm sorry I keep giving you these ideas and can make you some money. No, listen, look, I take your point, but you can't surely equate people having a big ego with people misbehaving and being sexually... aggressive and being basically overbearing particularly to younger staff that's not acceptable even if it was acceptable in 1965 it hasn't been acceptable in the commercial business for a very long time
Mike, I'm sure that if we took some of your staff into a darkened room, they may have secrets. Listen, that's what you do at the BBC. We don't do that here. We don't take people into darkened rooms. That's Hugh Edwards' behaviour, that. Has he paid back his money yet, by the way, Hugh Edwards? No, he hasn't, and I think that's deplorable. It is. Absolutely deplorable. We should sue him for that. Who's going to be next week's target? Choose your presenter to shoot down.
I don't particularly want to shoot anybody down, but I think if people are reported to be misbehaving by people who they work with, then I think that's a valid use of people's time. And if the BBC can't control their presenters, then they need to get better at doing that.
Is it only BBC presenters, do you think? No, it's not. There's ITV presenters. There's all sorts of people who are in trouble all of the time. Who misbehave. Why do we never hear about the ITV presenters? Well, you do. I think you heard about Philip Schofield quite a lot, didn't you? You did, but only Philip Skelfield so far. Maybe he's the only one, I don't know.
Look, Mike, people like you take any opportunity to bash the BBC. That's not true. Sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong. Yeah, I've never been wrong. That's not saying correct. The BBC's in a precarious position. You know, the licence fee is coming up. And perhaps we'll have a discussion about that soon. Well, here's an idea for you. Sky News have just announced that because of the ridiculous expense of being on linear television, they're withdrawing from it.
Maybe the BBC should do the same thing. Sky News are coming off media television, like you. Going onto YouTube like you. Yeah, exactly right. They're going digital. We call it going digital, John. It's not just YouTube. YouTube is a very important part of what we do. You might have heard of something called a smart TV. I know you probably don't have a smart TV because you're not smart.
enough but if you did have a smart tv you'd be able to watch us on it uh because there's an app which you can which you can see which is called talk right so there's many many myriad ways you can also watch us on amazon prime there's a many myriad ways you can watch us and so it's not simply going on youtube and that's what they're going to do look i mean i thought sky was guaranteed to to exist for 10 years no well you've obviously not been reading the news have you
I'm not talking... But look, presenters, ego... Just don't finish the sentence. They present as ego problems. You have to accept that. I don't mind people having an ego. I don't accept that people should be allowed to misbehave and do whatever they like. That's not what you do. And I agree with you. If they misbehave, they should be slapped on the wrist and told to have. Russell Brand was never slapped on the wrist and was never controlled. And so he did what he liked.
People thought he had a direct line to the controller radio too. And she, of course, in this report says she doesn't remember some of these things. Well, the BBC have apologised, haven't they, for this lapse? They have indeed. So they must have thought they got something wrong.
Well, they've now got a system to do it. So they must have admitted they got something wrong, didn't they? They got it wrong. They have. They never admitted on Hugh Edwards. There's never been a proper investigation into Hugh Edwards. No, exactly right. wrong. We've got to run. John, thanks very much indeed for the lesson in how not to know anything about television. This is Talk.
Right now, let's talk to Katie Amess, daughter, of course, of Sir David Amess, who was brutally murdered while he was still an MP for Southend, a man who was universally regarded as one of the best... local MPs of all time, one of the best Tory MPs of all time. A wonderful father, a wonderful man, it would seem, to all the people who knew him. David's daughter, Katie, has been talking an awful lot about him recently because of the horrible business in the Southport story, the Southport killer.
because, of course, Prevent played a massive role in his death as well. Let's find out what she wants to say. Katie, very good morning to you. Good morning. Thank you so much for having me on. Not at all. You've been very vocal in recent days and weeks since the trial of the man who I don't name actually on this show, the Southport killer. Yeah, me neither. I don't want to give him any credence.
I don't want to name the man that killed your father. But tell us what your concerns are and tell us why you're speaking out now. Well, first of all, I just want to say obviously my heartfelt condolences to the families of the little girls in Southport. And it's just unthinkable that we are in this situation again.
The guy that did it in Southport was on the same monitoring scheme as my father, Prevent. And they had three and a half years since what happened to my dad to do an investigation into it. and they repeatedly ignored my questions about doing one and now we're in the same situation again these aren't isolated incidents we are seeing repeated failings of prevent over and over again the attacks in london bridge
attacks in Streatham, the friends that were attacked in a park, the London Bridge bomb that was detonated. It's just beyond stupidity that we are constantly having the same conversation. Thankfully, Southport is going to have an inquiry and I'm so glad for those families that they get the opportunity to have one.
But what about everybody else that doesn't have one? Unfortunately, I met with Yvette Cooper this morning and I was presuming that she would say, well, yeah, of course, we're going to do an inquiry for you because we're doing one. immediately for Southport. She wasn't able to assure me of that at all. She basically said that because she wasn't Home Secretary at the time that it happened to my father.
It's not as straightforward for her to say that we will get an inquiry, which doesn't make sense. No, that's ridiculous because, you know, the Home Office is the Home Office. We know that it's riddled with problems because not many, many, many parts of it work terribly well. And the Prevent programme has been set up for years and years and years. As you say, there are thousands of these people who Prevent are not properly monitoring and who Prevent have decided in their wisdom are not dangerous.
Yeah, it's just repeated failings time and time again. And until we do an inquiry into each individual case, we're not going to be able to get to the bottom of what's going wrong. So we're going to find ourselves in this situation. time and time again and the government can't pick and choose who they're going to help
But if they're going to help one set of people, they need to help everybody. So I don't accept the fact that because she wasn't Home Secretary at the time, we won't get an inquiry. That's not how it works. People have launched inquiries into... previous government's actions yeah and the post office inquiry for a start the post office inquiry is is about all sorts of different governments who are responsible for it yeah so that is completely um a red herring isn't it to hide behind
absolutely and you know I've been in tears because I just think I The Conservatives wouldn't help me. I thought the Labour government would help me, but it doesn't seem like they are going to. I tried to take it through the court system. I've tried to launch an independent police complaint, which has just been completely ignored. It's like nobody wants...
to find out what went wrong. And I'm just asking why. What is it that happened that we aren't allowed to know as a family? Right. And why do you think they are so reticent to have that investigation and to find out what happened or to tell you what was the problem?
I think it's going to embarrass them massively that it was such incompetence and it was a government scheme. And I think they just don't want to be embarrassed. But that's not good enough. Everybody wants to say that my dad was their friend. But if you have a friend that was... tragically killed like this wouldn't you stand up for him and do what is right and fight for him because that is what he would do for them so somebody just needs to stop being scared and just
blow this thing open and find out what it is that is being hidden from us and the public because people aren't safe right now people are infiltrating getting away from the system in my dad's case they took the guy out for a cup of coffee
He said he wasn't a terrorist and he went on his way. He even said in court it was so easy to get away from the people that were questioning him because they just said what they wanted to hear. What kind of message does it send to other potential terrorists if you're...
friend and colleague of 40 years that is a sitting mp is brutally killed and you won't even do an inquiry yeah it just doesn't make sense it really doesn't and also what's it all about prevent you know at the end of the day it's a voluntary organization you know People, you know, I've discovered this, that, you know, in the case of the Southport killer, you know, he didn't want to be investigated. He didn't really want to take part in the programme. So he didn't have to.
And you're kind of going, well, what sort of system is that? What's the point of having it then? It's pointless. It's like a chocolate teapot, literally. I mean, you might as well just not have it at all. Yeah, it's embarrassing. And for... For other potential terrorists to know that this is how easy it is to get away from us, they're just laughing at us.
And we can't scratch our heads after these terrible acts have been committed. We need to be in front of it and we need to be investigating all of the individual failings. So until we do that... we're just going to be in a repeat of this situation it's not difficult for them to get away with you know the questioning that they're having because due to an admin error in my dad's case it wasn't followed up with well i don't call that an admin error i call that a grave
grave mistake that somebody lost their life for and we need to investigate who did that why they did it and have some kind of accountability absolutely dereliction of duty you might say uh in in some cases well listen katie anything we can do to help you do let us know
And we'll keep trying to push your requests and your agenda forward as much as we can. Anybody you want us to talk to, we'll get them on and we'll put them to the sword, as it were. And let's try and see if we can get them to actually move.
on this because it's i mean this affects everyone i mean you know because it's it's you obviously a very brave woman talking about this you've had a terrible tragedy in your family which should never have happened you know and it will happen to other people and that's what we need to stop isn't it
And the problem is, I've only got this far because I have a platform. If my dad wasn't Sir David Amos, I wouldn't have even been able to get as far as I have. I've wasted tens of thousands of pounds. I've spoken... personally to the conservative leaders to the labor leaders other people don't have that kind of access and so if i can only get this far imagine how far anybody else can get with this and it's just not fair because i think the politicians are forgetting that they
work for us. They need to have our best interests at heart. So something needs to change and I'm not accepting no for an answer and I will fight until the end and I will get the answers that I deserve for my dad. Yeah, I'm sure you will. And anything else to say we can do, Katie, we'll be very happy to do it. Good to talk to you and good luck. Thank you very much indeed.
Katie Amos' daughter of Sir David Amos, who was so... um terribly it's so terrible it's what a waste of a life i mean the guy uh was right in the middle of his life right in the prime of his life he was doing a great job for his uh for his constituents in south end and as casey says everybody loved him everybody wanted to be his friend
well, it's time they did something and it's time they looked into Prevent and why it is so useless and why it is such a hopeless organisation. The FAA's website states they include... Hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism all qualify. for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot, a little dot on the map, little runway.
It's hard to believe, isn't it? Absolutely incredible stuff, but it's true. And we will continue to monitor that story, of course, as it develops throughout the course of the day. I think the black boxes have now been recovered from the Potomac River.
investigators will be looking into what could have possibly happened how it could have been even possible for a helicopter, a Black Hawk helicopter, a military helicopter to fly what appears to be into the back of a commercial airliner as it was coming into land just 400 feet from the runway.
Absolutely extraordinary. Tragically, 67 people lost their lives, and America obviously in mourning for that in the day today. We'll bring you up to date on that as soon as we can. Coming up in this hour, though, we're going to speak to Jerome Starkey, who's the Sun's defence
correspondent of course defense editor actually i should say he's on the front page of the sun today because of vladimir putin has issued an arrest warrant for him we'll find out what that's all about also we'll continue to have our conversations about the growth agenda front page of the daily
It looks like Keir Starmer has been told to prove his growth agenda isn't all hot air, which it clearly is. Rachel Reeves, of course, still lying about her CV, still lying about the growth that she's going to create by putting a third... runway into Heathrow, which isn't going to happen. It's all going on. Ryan Savey's here as well. 0344 499 1000 is the number. This is Morning Glory. It's Friday. Let's get it on.
Five minutes past eight, welcome to the home of Common Sense. And a big welcome on this Friday, before the big weekend, to Jerome Starkey, who's on the front page of the paper. Not for the first time, of course, but the headline says, How Vladi Dare You? Russian arrest warrant issued for...
the sun man, Starkey. And yesterday, when this news came out, Jerome put a little tweet out saying it's nice to be wanted. It's probably not as nice as you might like it to be, Jerome, but very good morning to you.
Good morning, Mike. Thanks for having me on. Not at all. This is a court order, isn't it, that's been issued because of the coverage that you have done in Ukraine, putting your life in the hands of some very reliable... people in the ukraine side of the of the battle but also putting your life on the line for the paper and for everybody else tell us what's going on
Well, in essence, this is a court which has issued or has ordered my arrest and detention. It's a Russian court in Kursk and they have charged me in absentia with the crime of crossing the state border of the Russian Federation illegally. Now, that's because. as you mentioned in august i traveled into occupied kursk that was the pocket of land which ukraine captured in that extraordinary lightning offensive they they seized russian soil for the first time in the conflict indeed
know the first time Russia had sort of seeded sovereign soil like that since the end of the second world war so it was a huge blow to Russia and a really important opportunity for journalists like us to try and report on what was happening it was really hard to get there understandably
This was a part of the world that Russia desperately wanted to win back. It was the skies were saturated with drones. It was an active war zone, but we did manage to get in with Ukraine's armed forces, not for very long, but it gave us. a chance to see and to speak to, crucially, a handful of Russians who'd been left behind. So Russian citizens who, you know, that was the first time I'd spoken to any Russian citizens about this conflict in Russia.
And what did they have to say? Well, the thing that really struck me was how indifferent they'd been to this conflict that was the people I spoke to lived just a few miles from the Ukrainian frontier this war had been raging right next door to them for two and a half years at the time that I spoke to them and yet Their lives, in many ways understandably, but also in many ways utterly shockingly, had just carried on as normal whilst this slaughter was waged in their name.
because Vladimir Putin claims he is defending Russians and Russia's interests. Yeah. it had come to them uh with a horrible shock and most people had fled this town of suja that we made it into but as i said there were a handful who'd been left behind yeah and so how will this affect you well i mean knowing you as i do i imagine you probably won't affect you at all you'll just continue to do what you've always done
I will continue to do what I've always done, 100%. It's hard. You cannot see this move by the Russian court as anything but an attempt to intimidate journalists like me who report on the conflict. and as a matter of principle i will will not be cowed and i will go back to ukraine certainly and will continue to report on this war
It's a real indictment, I think, ultimately of the Russian system. It's a sham justice system where, you know, Russian law has been totally undermined by decades of political judgments. We saw it last year with my colleague Evan Gershkovich, who spent well over a year.
fixed 15 or 16 months in prison on totally trumped up spying charges. Again, just another Russian attempt to silence and intimidate journalists who are doing their job shedding light on difficult subjects and subjects which Vladimir Putin would rather the world
world didn't hear about. Yeah, absolutely right. Well, we wish you well, Jerome. We look forward to your next report from the war zone. And thank you very much indeed for all the stuff you do. And we'll see you soon. Jerome Starkey there, defence editor of The Sun, who's now wanted, effectively.
by the Russian Federation for Crimes Against the Truth. They don't like the truth much in Russia. We love it here at Talk. And of course, we're going to talk some more truth with Ryan Seby, deputy political editor of the newspaper, The Sun. Ryan, very good morning to you. Good morning, Mike. Fifth anniversary of Brexit. Nigel Farage says he's not even sure Boris Johnson really had his heart in it in the first place. What do you reckon?
Yeah, it does seem like that. Nigel Farage is going to be out sort of campaigning a rally today. And I think one of those key messages that he's trying to get is, look. Nigel Farage is pleased, obviously, that Brexit Day happened five years ago. But has the Conservative Party and now this government, are they really going to seize?
the benefits of that. He looks back to the time of Boris. He didn't really massively take advantage of it. And I think the problem now for people like Nigel Farage, it seems that... that reset moment that Keir Starmer is talking about, about getting closer ties to Brussels, it's just going to bring us closer and closer. So I think people from Nigel Farage's side of the argument are just going to see...
Maybe the next few months and years is a betrayal of what happened back in 2016. Yeah, absolutely right. Growth very much still the order of the day on the front pages this morning. A piece in the mail from...
Daniel Hannan, basically saying that Britain has now elevated net zero over democracy. Ed Miliband, who some people thought was going to resign this week because apparently it now turns out he told the cabinet on Tuesday that basically he... didn't think a third runway at Heathrow was in any way compatible with their net zero commitments but now after a court case in Scotland has ruled that the Tories were unlawfully giving the go-ahead and the green light to some oil and gas exploration
The Prime Minister is being told, show us you actually mean business and resurrect these oil and gas licences and let's actually start getting some proper growth in the North Sea. Yeah, no, exactly. I think this will be a moment when it comes to this issue of oil and gas. for Zakir Starmer to show some backbone. We had that big speech from Rachel Reeves early in the week where she said the government's number one mission.
was to grow the economy. We heard also from Zakir Starmer saying that every single decision made in government has to be seen through this prism of growth. So I think lots of people are looking to the next steps. from the government, they'll be reading that court judgment and going through that line by line. But I think many people, if Keir Starmer really means growth, he's really got to act.
Well, yeah, I mean, that's the thing. I mean, Rachel Reeves has spent all week telling us about how, you know, everything seems to rebound around growth. Maybe the third runway in Heathrow will be built. Maybe it won't. But even if it is, it will be 25 years away. A railway line coming up somewhere between...
Oxford and Cambridge running past Milton Keynes you know it's all terribly sort of you know eager and it looks good on paper perhaps but it's not really ever going to happen if it does happen it's going to be a very long time away And I think that's the trouble this government could walk into very, very quickly. You go back to before the election, it was all going to be landed sort of milk and honey and people were going to be feeling better.
in this parliament. You had Jonathan Reynolds this week saying that people will feel better off this year. Will people be substantially feeling better off? And all these big projects, whether it's Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, the East-West Rail, as you say, these things could be the best part of two decades away. Is this government actually going to transform people's lives, make them feel better off? It's all very much up in the air. And people say...
It can't happen quick enough, and it's not like it's happened within the next few years, just because these projects, and we know what happens when people put planning applications into this country, and we know about the government's... their endeavours to try and make things happen. But they get held up in the courts and judicial reviews. Nothing tends to get off the ground. So it really will show this government's mettle whether they're actually going to push through with what they say.
Well, that's it. I mean, even Sadiq Khan says he's going to challenge the government in the courts. So, I mean, what chance have they got of getting it past him? Because he's the mayor of London. And that's before you even get started with the green groups and the environmentalists and all the kind of, you know,
the badger lovers and the newt lovers and the bat brigade. Yeah, no, that's right. And we had Sir Sadiq Khan saying that he will use every tool within the toolkit to... to actually try and stop this third one where he just doesn't think the extra capacity, the extra flights will do anything to improve. the environment in and around London. So you can see on top of that, you've got Ed Miliband who says that if the Heathrow runway will go ahead, that it has to be within those carbon...
So there's a little bit of wiggle room there for Ed Miliband to say, well, hang on a minute. You say that it's got to meet our sort of net zero targets and it doesn't look like it is. There are rows on the horizon in government, even though Ed Miliband has said...
He will not walk away from cabinet. So let's just watch this space on that. Absolutely. Well, you can always use David Lammy's private jet, I suppose, if they get the third runway up and running. He's apparently run up a bill, according to Guido today, of around about a million quid already. Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, the Foreign Secretary does travel around a hell of a lot more so than other ministers. But cast your mind back to before the election, and there was lots of calls from...
shadow cabinet ministers, Labour MPs about the use of Conservative ministers going around the world and how they wouldn't travel on private jets themselves. And you fast forward to a year or so and they're doing exactly... the same now i think a lot of people would that don't mind the prime minister and senior ministers getting on planes but i think it's when when you say one thing in opposition and then doing another thing in government i think that's what
That sparks that hypocrisy, Ralph. Also, you say he flies around a lot more than other ministers. I'm not sure he flies around more than the prime minister. So, I mean, I wonder what the prime minister's bill is. Can you find that out for us as well? Yeah, no, I'm sure we possibly can. We often travel with them, so, you know, to cover their every move. But, yeah, you can just look at the trips that the Foreign Secretary has been on.
the Chagos Islands to Samoa. Samoa, yeah. He's been to NATO. I mean, he's pretty much out of the country. uh every single is in sudan the other day banging on about how important sudan was and to which everyone went well why you know you've got plenty of other things to fix thanks yeah no no exactly and his uh his diary is uh you know is pretty packed but i think one thing that uh david lammy really uh has to try and sort of uh
bridges that relationship with America. We've obviously got Lord Mandelson going in there as ambassador. And I think the big thing on the horizon on that side will be that free trade agreement that Britain desperately wants. Absolutely. More trouble at home for Starmer, though. The Attorney-General on the front page of The Times this morning, that's Lord Hermer, who's already had to declare that...
You know, he does have conflicts of interest with the government and he does sometimes have to recuse himself. That is to take himself away from the conversations about, you know, giving government advice. In The Times this morning today, he's facing even more criticism from inside the cabinet.
people saying that he's obstructing government because he's more concerned about you know judicial reviews and and lawsuits and all the rest of it so i mean it's looking more and more like you can't really do the job this guy Yeah, and I think maybe if you haven't been in politics before and you get brought in, that maybe...
You're just getting used to the role and you may be used to doing different things. But I think the trouble is ministers try and want to make decisions pretty quickly. And I think if lawyers are putting... uh obstacles and hurdles in the way it's become a deep sense of uh frustration for ministers um in all departments so i think that is probably one to watch especially if it comes to you know lord hermer
actually holding up big big decisions yeah i'm looking at possibly before the end of march for this one to depart these shores yeah no no it's it's i think the one thing with uh lord hermit he's extremely close to uh uh to secure star so You just wonder whether all of this is done with the behest of Sir Keir Starmer. But don't forget, it's the lawyers that offer the advice and it's, you know, advisors that advise and it's the ministers to...
to make the decisions. So let's also keep an eye on the ministers and making sure they're making the right decisions. Yeah, absolutely right. Good to talk to you, Ryan Sobey. Thank you very much indeed, Deputy Political Editor, of course, at The Sun. We've got plenty going on. We're going to talk about Brexit.
Throughout the show, obviously, it's the fifth anniversary today. Let's get a voice note from Elle. I can't believe the BBC guy. I mean, every time I hear him, the stuff he comes out with and thinks it's acceptable, unbelievable. The poor Bishop. bishop good god the lot of them he defends all of them and he actually genuinely thinks that they're not doing anything wrong
It is extraordinary, isn't it? Here's another one from Tracy in Staffordshire. Mike, has the moral compass of your last guest moved so far that he honestly thinks it's OK for the talent to be morally corrupt and he blames the press? If it wasn't for you giving him what for, it would be deeply depressing.
absolutely right uh morning mike says graham uh down in birmingham yvette cooper is now saying labor will smash the gangs on the continent to prevent illegals making the channel crossing labor couldn't even smash the gangs in bradford and rotherham and they are on our doorstep That's a very good point. And finally, one from John. If a survey on Brexit was done outside of London, you would find that most people would vote to leave again.
Tim Davis is here, former RAF fighter pilot. Tim, very good morning to you. Yeah, good to see you, Mike. Thanks very much for joining us. Obviously a terrible, terrible accident. Lots of people, including the President Donald Trump, saying it should never have happened. It should have been avoidable. I'm not expecting you to have the inner working knowledge of...
good national air traffic control but but everybody says it's a very tight space it's a very small area that that is a sort of is a fly zone effectively and i'm also told that the helicopters the military helicopters are flying around that kind of part of the world quite a lot but looking at the looking at the footage it looks as though almost the helicopters behind the plane and just kind of flies into it
yeah it does and that's pretty much exactly what happened isn't it really it looks like there's there's roots mike around that part of the uh the part of the airspace that helicopters can use they're well established they've been there for a very long time and the helicopter that did hit this airline
was what's called a gold top so it worked for a unit that flew dignitaries from the from the military around a uh-60 blackhawk very reliable helicopter and a very reliable airline and it just seems that what's happened here whilst the airline's been on the final approach
is the helicopter has unfortunately crossed the path of it, which shouldn't have happened. And, of course, they've collided. Yeah. And, I mean, according to, again, people that we've spoken to, and the Press Association have issued this as a news release earlier on today, there was only one air traffic condition. in the building at the time of the accident that seems to me to be not enough people really not enough air traffic controllers
Well, you know, the policy is set, isn't it? So whatever their policy is needs to be questioned by a standardization unit above them. And obviously it was. It was deemed to be acceptable.
that that was the case now this is why you have standards officers and I was a standards officer in the Royal Air Force on fast jets so my job was to look at these policies and just to work out with my team whether they were acceptable and what happens Mike whenever there's an incident like this of course there's
a huge investigation and they'll be looking at exactly things like this yeah absolutely right and in terms of like the protocol of things like helicopters army helicopters and military helicopters flying around commercial planes i mean
Is there a specific protocol? I mean, I'm told that the people in the helicopter were also wearing night vision goggles, which is not necessarily the best thing for you to then see with, perhaps, at short distance. But there doesn't seem to have been much time between the tower saying... can you see them to the actual collision.
yeah well the route that the helicopter should have been flying on they're coming down from the north was a route that it should never have been above 200 feet in fact on the maps it says your maximum height here under that approach lane to runway 33
is 200 feet that's the maximum height you should be at should never be above that right now they actually collided i think around about 400 feet does look like the helicopter was above that and i think that president trump has alluded to the fact that the helicopter should never have been there
uh also the the traffic collision avoidance systems that the aircraft has they don't work they don't give you the advisories they don't tell you what to do below a thousand feet because they can't advise you to fly into the ground and the night vision god was when i was on tornado here i always do this the wrong around
there when I was using night vision goggles I was flying on the west coast of Scotland down at 250 feet there's not many lights on the west coast of Scotland but unfortunately in Washington there's a significant amount of lights and what you get Mike is the blooming like when you see the headlights of a car
towards you and it sort of dazzles you for a bit that's exactly what happens with night vision goggles so i was very surprised to hear that they were flying like vision goggles in that helicopter because personally you don't need to you can fly visual at night vfr visual flight rules so um
Yeah, that's something they're going to have to look at in their investigation. And obviously the DEI stuff that Donald Trump has talked about has caused a massive upset to an awful lot of people. They said, well, you can't say that. You don't know what the situation is. But there's no question that. some of the facts that he gave out in terms of the recruitment, excuse me, processes, obviously there's room for improvement, isn't there?
Yeah, well, absolutely. Now, we are Englishmen, Mike, so we're not going to comment on American governmental policy, of course, and we don't expect them to... Comment on ours. We're respectful for each country. However, we know there's been an issue with the Federal Aviation Authority with the recruitment of DEI. I think he actually said something about a week before he came into power that there was a move to bring in people with disabilities that wouldn't necessarily be.
conducive with the safe conduct of aviation necessarily. Now, of course, we knew it went too far. I campaigned, as you know, against the Royal Air Force for forcing diversity, equity and inclusion into meritocratic hierarchical organisations.
such as our British military. And of course, we managed to obviously get them to backpedal on that quite significantly. But I think America is still going through that phase. And I think Trump's doing the right thing by having a look at it and working out what exactly has happened. So how bad was it in the military here then, if you say it's improved? Has it got better here or is it in certain areas and not in others?
Well, yeah, a lot of people have left that were enforcing the policy, which is good. When the military tried to recruit me back in a few months ago, and I'm still having a look at whether I do go, but I probably won't, to be fair, because we're all a little bit older now, Mike, aren't we? You know what I mean? You need sharp minds to be defending this nation. I'd say that right now. However...
The military said to me, well, there's still some people that are enforcing pronouns in bios and signature blocks and things like that. But we know where they are, Tim. You know, we know where they are. We kind of avoid them. So the people are still in the military that are obviously indoctrinated with this.
neo-marxist diverse diversity policy we know but hopefully you know we're chucking them out because there's no place for them like there is a place for diversity within our military but only so far as you're bringing in the absolute best people you can to defend the country and uh obviously
I hope Trump gets to the bottom of this. I'm sure he will because it can't happen again. It absolutely can't. No, thank you very much indeed. Tim Davies, former RAF fighter pilot there, talking an awful lot of common sense as well. But we've got a caller called Anthony from Southend here.
who's going to tell us about his experience. His son, I think, was in the army. Anthony, very good morning to you. Good morning. Thank you. What can you tell us, Anthony? Well, my son is serving in the army and is serving now. And obviously we talk about his... job and what he has to do. And he is fed up to the back teeth of this diversity, Lark. He works in an area in the army where they have to carry an awful lot of equipment.
And you have to be very strong to do that. But now they're recruiting women to do this. They had to reduce the amount of equipment that they carry because the women can't carry it. So that means they need more people to carry the equipment. And the retention problem that he experiences is kind of in middle management in the army, let's say. The retention problem is absolutely enormous. So people leaving...
right, left and centre, because this diversity, idiotic inclusiveness is going on. Yeah. And they, I mean, it's not a place... Sorry, go on. One thing happened to him in Afghanistan. He's done two tours there. Yeah. A few people were talking about when they got back from Afghanistan, they were going to join the police. And they were told by a very senior man there, don't bother trying, you're not the right colour. Really?
That's extraordinary. And one of the things, of course, that we know is that, you know, in these kinds of jobs, you know, it's not just a job, as we've seen in Washington, D.C. You know, you can't mess around with these kinds of situations. You're in Afghanistan. You're on the front line. You're defending yourself.
you're defending, you know, your colleagues, you're defending an army base or something like that, or you're going out into Helmand province on a patrol. You know, you need everybody to be, as our last guest said, Tim Davis, you know, you need sharp minds, you need physically fit.
people uh strong people um you know whatever they might be they might be women that are strong enough to do it but you don't just bring women in because they can carry less equipment do you no you don't bring women in you bring the best people in right and it's quite clear that men basically are much
stronger. I haven't got anything against women. I used to employ 130 women in the business because they were the best for that job right well we've been to got into this situation now where this inclusive is cutting out so many good people yeah would you want biden flying a plane for you no definitely not i wouldn't want biden doing anything Thanks very much for lying down.
Yeah, exactly. You know, absolutely right. I watch it on my son's face all the time. He enjoys his career. He's been in the army 14 years. He enjoys it, but he's watching it deteriorate on a, I don't know, month by month basis. It's shocking. Well, listen, thanks for letting us know, Anthony. Great call. Very interesting stuff, isn't it? I mean, this diversity, equity and inclusion nonsense. I mean, where did it come from? I don't even remember when it started creeping in.
How refreshing, says Kath, to see and listen to Rupert Lowe. In my view, a good old-fashioned statesman. He is head and shoulders above the current rabble in the House of Commons. Yeah, absolutely right. And John says, I think David Lammy is so expensive to fly around because he's planning... classified as excess baggage. Very possibly so. 9.49 here. Russell Quirk is coming in to join us just before 10 o'clock. He's in for Alex Phillips. Let's get a voice note from Dan.
Morning Mike, Dan from West Yorkshire. Happy Common Sense Friday. I did a paper round from being 12 to 16. Do you think I'll be qualified to be editor at times? The home of common sense. This is talk. Maximum talk. Mike Graham's morning glory on talk.