I am sorry: Joshua Bonehill-Paine apologises to Jewish peer he terrorised

0:03The Telegraph.

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0:42Finally, a public apology to Luciana Berger, the Jewish Labour peer whose life was made a living hell by Joshua Bonehill-Payne. But after standing down as a Tory council candidate, should he be advising the party on anti-Jewish hate? Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini. And me, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Absolutely. Luciana, the way how I treated you was appalling. I am incredibly sorry for that. Many years ago, the ordeal that I put you through was disgusting, and I hope one day that you will forgive me. But all I can say to you is that I will continue to work in this space to fight anti-Semitism.

1:23and all I can say to you from my perspective is that I have nothing but great admiration for the work that you've done in anti-Semitism. I think that is really brave, really incredible after everything you have gone through. I am sorry from the bottom of my heart. Jacob, I'm back. From my holly bobs, do I look suitably tanned? You do absolutely refreshed and ready for action and I think your viewers and listeners will be happy when Tim is back too and you have the dynamic duo on rather than the second 11. I think we're probably a terrible trio, the three of us, with the addition of Poppy, of course, so a quartet.

2:03I've just been at the Reform Keeping Criminals Behind Bars press conference, which we'll get on to. Talk about a baptism of fire, coming back to work to this. And we've got a very important interview coming up. But I made the most fascinating discovery this morning that I'm going to share with you. Did you know that McDonald's, under the breakfast menu, serves porridge? I did not, no. Are you familiar with the McDonald's pre-11am menu? I'm not, no. I never eat breakfast. What? Have you never had an egg McMuffin? I've never had an egg McMuffin. I don't eat breakfast, ever. Okay, so basically this porridge is served.

2:36It's actually very good. It's very cheap compared to Pret. You can get a flat white there for£2.19, Jacob. Yes, but I can make myself a cup of Alta Rica with two large heap spoonfuls and some boiling water for about 10p. so my economy rate on coffee is much better. So you don't eat breakfast ever? Never eat breakfast and I try and avoid buying coffee from coffee shops. I think it's ridiculously expensive. You have got enough money to buy a coffee from a coffee shop though. But I can make it for myself and I quite like instant coffee. Also, if you bought it in Parliament, it's subsidised by the sax player, is it not?

3:10Not quite, no. Not the coffee. What is subsidised is that there has to be the facility for 24-hour catering when the house sits overnight. so there is a subsidy but it's not actually of the food. The cappuccino in Portcullis House is under three quid which I think is, that's cheap these days. I mean some people are serving coffees. I had this on holiday but over four pounds. What's happening? Well they can make themselves a cup of instant coffee for as I say next to nothing. Have you been on holiday yet? Are you going abroad? Well I opened the Clutton Flower Show on Saturday which is the highlight of my Somerset relaxation.

3:47What do you have to do for that? Are you cutting a massive ribbon with a big pair of scissors? I do it with an expert gardener who's called Mary Payne and we get shown the exhibits and people have done a fantastic job every year. It really is amazing. And this year we dedicated the tent to Aubrey Wilcox who used to win all the prizes but sadly died earlier this year. What, for flowers or like giant vegetables? He won for flowers. He didn't tend to do vegetables. But he won prize after prize. No, not at all. You look like you should be. I know, I should be, but I'm not. You look like you should have a little trowel.

4:22But compared to you, look how etulated I am. And so how much do you think I'd spend time in the garden? Not that much. Etulated. Translate. Etulated. Etulated. Etulated, pale as in a leaf that's been hidden from the sun. And this is because you don't go abroad. Why don't you go on, because I've been to Corfu and Marbella, both of those places you'll be familiar with, no doubt. No carbs before marbs. You'll be familiar with that. Not a phrase I'm familiar with. No, OK. Moving on, why don't you go on foreign holidays? Because I said to you just now, are you going on holiday before we start recording?

4:53You said, well, I'm going to Somerset. I'm going to Somerset because it's lovely being in Somerset. I've got a very nice garden. The children are playing cricket. I hope to get to watch Somerset play some cricket. Yes. It's just lovely being down there. I can even do my GB News programme from Somerset. It's perfect. But isn't it also quite hard booking flights and accommodation for a family of eight? Travelling with six children. They're fine now, they're bigger, but when they were little, it was not to be recommended. On the way here, by the way, I read a story in the Delegraph about a flight in Canada that had to be grounded.

5:22Oh, yes, I saw that. Because a child wouldn't sit down and put their seatbelt on. I know. Is this... This is liberalism gone mad. If you cannot control one child on a flight, what hope has civilisation? Well, the story said that both the flight attendants and the parents tried. It seems to be really odd that you could just push the thing over and plug it in. I know, but literally the flight had to be cancelled. I find it unbelievable. Right, we've got to get on to the serious... Maybe that child, by the way, could end up being... Behind bars, yes. ...dealt with by reforms policy. And we will get on to this in just a minute, but we've got a kind of running theme, I think, of crime and punishment on today's Daily Tea because we are going to be speaking and actually conducting the only exclusive interview with Joshua Bonehill-Payne, who basically gave up his candidacy to be a councillor for the Conservative Party after it emerged that he had got a pretty heinous past of crimes associated with anti-Semitism, assaulting a police officer and all the rest of it.

6:26So we're going to speak to him next and also, I think, have a conversation, you're a Catholic, I'm a lapsed one, about redemption. Yes, indeed. Joshua Bonehill-Payne, thank you for joining us on The Daily Tea. I'm just going to give some context to the audience who might not be familiar with what's happened over the course of recent days, just to put them in the picture. So on August the 3rd, you were selected as the Conservative Party candidate for Crew Kern South, which is in Somerset. It's for the upcoming council election. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenock, at the time defended your candidacy and said that the party believes in second chances and she highlighted your counter-extremism work and made a distinction between a local council role, which was responsible for, she said, parking in bins and then parliamentary seats.

7:12So you had been chosen, but actually there was then a backlash against you by anti-Semitism campaigners, opposition parties and your past victims. And you actually withdrew your candidacy and you're now not running in that election, although you are going to be an advisor to the Tory party on anti-Semitism. Is all that correct? That's correct, yeah. All right. And Joshua, you've not done any interviews, but you've decided to do the Daily Tea. Why did you want to speak to the podcast? I think it's important now to really get my story across. And it's a story of rehabilitation. It's a story of repentance.

7:50And now I feel ready to talk about that. OK, well, in the first instance, let me just set out my stall. I mean, I obviously do agree with redemption. I've described myself earlier alongside my properly fully fledged Catholic as a lapsed Catholic, but I was brought up to believe in forgiveness. I'm even an ambassador for an organisation called Tempus Novo that helps prisoners who are nonviolent to rehabilitate and get jobs in the local community up in Yorkshire. So I believe in all this. But my first question to you is this, Joshua. in order to be redeemed and forgiven you have to apologize to your victims and I understand that in the case of the Labour MP Luciana Berger you have not apologized for what you did and she said at the time and you were convicted of this and imprisoned for harassing her for being anti-semitic towards her for being frankly grotesquely misogynistic towards her it wasn't just that you singled her out for being Jewish.

8:48You also superimposed her image onto pornographic videos. She was six months pregnant when she had to give evidence at the Old Bailey. You basically nearly ruined her life. Why haven't you apologised? Look, I have apologised in press. What I haven't done is apologised directly to her in person because I recognise that she still is very concerned about my presence in public life. and you have to understand what I did was truly awful. You're absolutely right to highlight those things but I want to ensure that she is given the utmost respect in handling something so sensitive as this. What I can say is that I have spent the last eight years working in counter-extremism, working in the community.

9:35This isn't, of course, publicised work because I've done this work as having left prison or in the last year of my prison, I really wanted to address the reasons that led to my awful behaviour with Baroness Berger and indeed the others. I am a great believer in actions and there has to be a period of time between what happened in 2014 through to now to really show that I am somebody who has changed. And this work that I've been doing in our communities, going into schools, colleges, delivering sessions to the probation, police, all the professional services, is not ensuring that I can stop people from following in my footsteps, that I can directly counter extremism and anti-Semitism head on using my experiences.

10:29And I really think that it has been invaluable work because I can give you examples where I've gone into schools, I've spoken to younger people. And I think perhaps one of the most powerful moments on that journey was when a young boy stood up and said that he had been accessing conspiracies online about the New World Order and that his thinking was similar to how mine had been. As I explained my story, I was able to get him help and hopefully change the course of his life. And that's exactly what I can do going forward and I pledge to continue to do. All right we are going to explore the work you've subsequently done to raise and highlight the issue that you were once criminalised for but I'm sorry but I do we do need to go back because I'm struggling to comprehend and this is where you need to enlighten us as to the person that you once were I'm struggling to comprehend how anybody could post some of the material that you posted back then.

11:34One article headed the legacy of Operation Filthy Jew. That was described by your own defence as indefensible. You've posted back in the day appallingly racist videos. As I say, you're superimposing, as she was then, a Labour MP's face onto pornographic imagery. If I may, I really think that we have to be careful to not make the victims relive those things. The things that you're bringing are terrible. It might be convenient to you, but we do need to revisit these things because in order for us to believe your redemption story, I want to find out what on earth possessed you during this period of your life to post on social media material that I consider to be just abjectly heinous and most objective people will because it's crucial to the question of why then you thought it was appropriate to stand as a Tory councillor.

12:32So take us back to the Joshua of 2014 because the other curious thing about this is Kemi Badenock's written a piece in the Times at the weekend saying you were only in prison once. That's not right, is it? How many times have you been in prison and for what crimes? No, that's absolutely correct. I've been in prison for one period of time but for two separate sentences that ran consecutively. I was charged in December 2015 relating to anti-Semitism, an awful demonstration that I organised in London. And then I was charged again while in prison in 2016 relating to the charges against Baroness Berger.

13:10There was also an allegation that you assaulted a police officer. Can you give us any clarity on that? I think we need to go back and actually go back to your question where you asked about how I started to get into this. My story very much begins in the dark days of the new Labour government. I was a young man. I'd been in the care system. And I experienced some really traumatic things as a younger person trying to find my place in the world. I couldn't get a job. I went to hundreds and hundreds of different job interviews looking to find meaningful employment. but I just couldn't do it. And then my mind started to ask, what was the reason for this?

13:52What was the reason for the way in which I felt? And were there answers that I could find? So I spent an awful lot of time looking on forums, speaking to really quite nasty people who were pointing me towards the Jewish people and the ideology of anti-Semitism. and this was something that seemed to make sense to me as an impressionable and this really began around about the age of 17 18 it started to make sense that i could simply and this really sounds awful speaking about it today you know that i could blame an entire race of people for the way in which i felt you see anti-semitism is an incredibly selfish ideology um it's an ideology that offers answers but fundamentally you're not dealing with the the real problem and often the real problem begins with the person who takes on that ideology and that was my problem so i started to go down this rabbit hole i started to spend time on twitter as it was back then engaging with other people on the right wing and it became this vicious echo chamber with who could be the most anti-semitic who could create new ideas concoct solutions who could be the most extreme heinous and it was truly awful.

15:08Everything that I did from 2014 to 2015, two years of my life, was entirely focused on anti-Semitism. And this came to a head in 2015, where I organized a demonstration in London against the Shomrim. The Shomrim, of course, do wonderful work protecting the Jewish community. I organized a demonstration against them using quite horrific images depicting Jewish memes that were incredibly racist. That is when I was arrested in 2015. I then began three years and four months in prison. But you also mentioned earlier about the fact that there were two different offenses here. I was rearrested in 2016 relating to blog posts and images that I had created targeting Luciana Berger.

16:01But when I say that this is an echo chamber antisemitism when I say that people compete against each other to be more and more extreme this is what I'm talking about and Luciana Berger went through an awful amount of hatred it wasn't just me there were 2 500 messages that were sent to her of the most heinous and grotesque type and I live with that to this day I live with my actions and I am ashamed of my actions and I will spend the rest of my life using my experiences to tell other people to not follow in my footsteps. And this is really important now. Jewish people in this country are nine times more likely than any other race or religion to be the victim of hate crime.

16:48We arrive in 2026 in one of the most concerning times for Jewish people. There is an epidemic of hatred. Hatred against Jewish people has almost been normalised. I could never have imagined back in 2014 and 15 the level of acceptance towards anti-Semitism, especially on the left. This has become something that is currency for these people. They are attacking Jews every single day. Just quickly on that. This is why I must come forward and use my experience and background to help fight against anti-Semitism. But Joshua, on that point, you never could have imagined anti-Semitism reaching this peak.

17:30Well, anyone could imagine that because most people have a memory of the Second World War. So you will have been aware of the Holocaust. You will have been aware at the height of the most pernicious form of anti-Semitism, leading to the extermination of six million people. At the time you were making these social media videos and other posts, I mean, there was some reference to gas, to literally gassing Jews. So you were fully aware and cognizant back in 2014-15 of just how virulently racist your behaviour was. I'm sorry, but you did have context for this because the Jews are probably the most persecuted race in all history.

18:10What I'm talking about is the justice system. What I'm talking about is the way in which anti-Semitism was dealt with back then. It was dealt with robustly. We had sentences for people who committed these heinous crimes, as I myself faced. But when we're seeing art exhibitions in Margate, sponsored by the Labour Council there, promoting heinous anti-Semitism in the form of illustrations, things that, of course, I was very familiar with when I was committing these crimes, to see them not being prosecuted or challenged, to be accepted in communities, this, yes, you're quite right to say we have had this in the past.

18:44But I imagine back in 2014 and 2015 that we had a robust system that dealt with anti-Semitism, that took zero tolerance towards it. And I'm sorry, but I have to say now in society, certainly from the observations I am picking up on from my work in counter-extremism, that it's just not being taken to the point of it was in 2014 and 2015. and it is a real sense of urgency it is a real sense of urgency to ensure that people understand the dangers of anti-Semitism anti-Zionism and these kinds of hateful ideologies and just where they lead because I do think that the younger generation especially are losing track of just how bad it was for Jewish people in history so one of the things that I do when I go into schools and colleges and universities is I really talk about the Holocaust and I expose the conspiracy theories because, as you said, six million people lost their lives.

19:48But this is still happening today. When we look at October the 7th, when we look at the numerous attacks in this country and indeed across the world against Jewish people, it is still happening today. And I am very concerned in which the direction it continues to sell towards. Joshua, it's Jacob here. I wonder if you could talk a bit about repentance because Profumo, after his scandal, repented, but he did so quietly for decades and nobody knew that he was doing this good work until a long time after he started doing it. And I just wonder why repentance led you to think you should stand for the council, which always ran the risk that it would stir things up for people like Luciana Bircher?

20:34I think that's an important question, Jacob. And firstly, I would say the work that I've carried out over the last eight years has been very unpublicized. It's been work that I have been doing in private because that is, you don't need press attention or people knowing about it. It's about going into schools, going into the communities and directly combating anti-Semitism. in regards to your question about standing for election well i need to tell you that when i came out of prison in 2018 uh here in krugan the people here were absolutely incredible i had gone to prison for these awful things spent a long time in prison and i started working in a supermarket waitress in fact and people were obviously shocked about what had happened to me but they were willing to give me a second chance despite that the people here have been my rock over the years and that led me to the decision to stand for election because I wanted to give something back now looking at that decision you know I believe that was a mistake and my My reaction to address that immediately was to resign because the last thing I wanted was Jewish community, Jewish groups and the victims of which you've mentioned to really feel bad about this.

22:04Because for them, of course, they are living with this heinous anti-Semitism right now. So it was the right decision to step back. and thankfully I believe that I will now be able to use my experience and background in this new role to hopefully make a difference. You explained how you came to anti-Semitism from your background and you were looking for somebody to blame but anti-Semitism in this country seems much more widespread than that. You mentioned some of the Labour Party's activities that have It's why Luciana Berger left, because it's anti-Semitism, which are older and successful people.

22:44What else do you think is creating this new anti-Semitism in this country, other than people feeling that their lives haven't gone right? I think that what's really concerning right now is that it's almost as if anti-Semitism amongst the younger left wing is becoming trendy. when I spoke about this echo chamber and wanting to be more and more extreme when I was involved in the extreme right wing I think this is happening with the left wing it's who can be more offensive who can boycott who can target who can highlight and use these conspiracy theories to try and make an argument and younger people are seeing this I'm really concerned when I look on TikTok and places like that, all these younger people sharing the hate marches, the pro-Palestinian conspiracy theories that really are utilized by that movement.

23:40It seems so easily accessible, almost like somebody doesn't need to go into researching it. Somebody doesn't need to put themselves forward into forums and into groups speaking to people. You can just access it on your phone 24-7. And of course, that rabbit hole, if they keep following it, will lead to exactly the same place that I was in. Just in relation to that claim that you assaulted a police officer, can you give us any context to that? So I explained that I was in the care system as a young man. Unfortunately, I was kicked out of school. I didn't have the opportunity of an education because of how I behaved.

24:21and the care system has many problems in this country social services has a lot to answer for and I was placed in a B &B at the time where I was kicked out of the B &B so I went to the police station and I was essentially thinking that I would be able to get a lift to the nearest town it was a cold winter night one of the coldest winters on record and I made a very foolish decision to break into that police station and take police uniform. Upon walking out of the police station, some police officers pulled up in the van and, of course, immediately arrested me. And my response was to kick out and fight back, which I regret.

25:09And I have apologized to those officers. That was part of the rehabilitation element of that sentence. It was disgraceful behavior and again this is something that only I myself am responsible for you could say well it was a cold night and I needed someone and I was younger and vulnerable but ultimately I made that decision but what I would say is that going back to the care system there are many many younger people who have gone through much worse three of the people that I knew three girls have taken their own lives since being released from the care system under the age of 25 through drugs and suicide.

25:54Many other people that I know have got lifelong problems because of the trauma that they faced in that system. So my response was criminal and it was wrong. But we have to draw light on some of the atrocities that have taken place under the care system in this country. OK. It does sound somewhat, Joshua, as if you're trying to paint yourself as the victim here. Do you appreciate that you are not and never have been the victim of your own crimes? The victims are the people who I targeted. And all I can do is continue to work in counter-extremism, continue to fight anti-Semitism head on. I would, of course, never, ever have imagined that, you know, back in 2011 and before I got into anti-Semitism, that my life would have taken that direction.

26:49but I do think there are genuine harms and things in society that influence opinions and radicalize people and this is the same across the spectrum whether it's right-wing left-wing islamist extremism there are people who radicalize the vulnerable people and warp their mindset and turn them against these things that we've spoken about but no I absolutely agree I'm not a victim but I am somebody who will continue to fight anti-Semitism, continue to utilise counter-extremism as a way to engage with professionals to upskill them and give them the knowledge and advice to be able to spot people who might be in a similar situation to myself as I was back then.

27:34There's just another point of clarification we need as well because there's been a debate as to whether you are, quote, certified by the Home Office. Now, Kemi Badenoch made that claim twice. The Home Office has responded by saying, no, he's not certified. Precisely what training have you undertaken and what authority do you have in this area? A good question. And as soon as this question came up, my first response was to publish the certificates that I've received on my X account. The main certificate was the prevent one, I had to take that because that would then enable me to deliver these courses.

28:11Now, Prevent itself is an organisation that is operated as part of the Home Office. So when the Home Office is saying that they haven't issued these certificates, and yet I've released these certificates, which clearly state that they are from Prevent and the Home Office. You've undertaken Prevent training, and I understand that many, many people could do that. you're claiming something seemingly that's a little different that in some way the home office is authorizing you to carry out training that's not quite right is it i've never once stated that at all i've received certificates from the home office i've carried out counter extremism work via an education company uh that goes to schools colleges universities police probation professionals uh and i've carried out that work on behalf of that company that company was contracted by prevent they receive funding from the Home Office.

29:04But in order to carry out those courses and to deliver that training, it was a requirement to achieve the certificate that I have. Yes, but if I wanted to go and do anti-Semitism advisory courses in a school or what have you, if I wanted to go and talk about counter-terrorism, I too could go and sign up and do the prevent courses. I think there's just been some confusion. It's as if you've given yourself some kind of special status that you haven't actually earned. You've just carried out some prevent courses to enable you to speak in schools and other organisations. You don't have some special level of home office sanction, do you?

29:44I've never stated that fact. How many schools and organisations have you spoken in? During the pandemic, I was delivering two sessions a day in some cases. So it's really hard to put a number on. I should imagine in the hundreds. How were you doing that remotely? So both during the pandemic, it was remote work. After the restrictions were relaxed, then I could obviously go into the schools and continue, but still also digital as well, because I think the whole world changed after the pandemic. A lot more things became digital. And that's certainly easy when you're talking to mixed groups of professionals to get them all in one place at the same time as via digital.

30:26so yeah I've delivered many but I couldn't give you an exact number I think one of the ones that meant the most to me was the case that I gave you earlier where I went into this school and this boy stood up and explained exactly some of the thoughts and feelings that he was having and I was really able to help him and navigate him towards something that was much better for himself and that's exactly why I do this work and there are so many younger working class people in the country who are at risk of radicalization across the spectrum. You know, we often talk about extreme right-wing extremism, but we also have Islamism, we also have left-wing extremism, and certainly when we're looking at anti-Semitism, and also if you saw those prevent figures that were released recently, I think that we need greater clarity from these organizations about just how many of these offenses relate to anti-Semitism because it's just something that is so across the board.

31:28It's not one particular type of extremism group that is espousing this ideology. It's all of them. How do you do this training? What are you doing in the sessions with people? And how were you yourself trained to do it? So the company that I work for is essentially ran by a gentleman who went through something similar to myself. he was able to train me alongside the prevent training and the sessions surround my story so I peel back the clock and I look at exactly where it went wrong for me I look at some of the awful things that I did but then more importantly the second part of the session handles how we can prevent it directly looking at some of these signs symbols terminology language used in order to counter extremism directly and it's designed so that let's say teachers are able to spot when somebody is making an anti-zionist argument but the sessions can explain and show exactly how that's an anti-semitic argument and we're able to break down the narratives and show them as to why that person is in fact an extremist and what we can do to get them help to turn them on the path towards committing something similar that I had done myself.

32:50What's the company that you're working for called? So the company that I was working for, I cannot say because I've signed an NDA, but then I became self-employed in 2023, not so much working on the prevent side, but delivering to companies and individuals and groups that signed up to my sessions. Who made you sign an NDA and for what reason? The company that I worked for, and that is mostly about protection of the company and the institutions and organisations it works with. But surely if you want people to believe your redemption story, then you need to be completely transparent about who you've tried to redeem yourself for and on behalf of.

33:33I think it comes into the thing that we were saying earlier. It's not about publicizing the work at the time, because the people, and there's many people, there's many former extremists who carry out this work, and they are incredible people who, some of them have spent 30 years doing it. and they really deserve privacy in that work because as we can see from my case over the last week where so many people have reported on this, we have to ensure that the people we're working with are not given a negative message about rehabilitation and that is the danger. You're now appointed as an advisor to the opposition so we should be able to know who you once worked for.

34:18Which was this company? So we can find out what work you've carried out for them. CCHQ has that information. But it's very unusual for a company not to allow a former employee or contractor to say that he worked for that company. It's normal to say you can't disclose information that you received confidentially. But not to say the name of the company is not something I've ever come across before. I quite agree with you, Jacob. But I think that that is because of the specialist nature of the work carried out. There's a lot more to it. There's a lot of things that I can and can't say. I'm happy to send you a copy of the NDA yourself.

34:58But I have to abide by those terms. To bring the conversation full circle, Joshua, obviously you accepted that it wasn't appropriate for you to stand as a candidate in Crew Kern. and now you are in this advisory role, what makes it appropriate for you, considering everything we've discussed and the distress caused to your victims, including Luciana Berger, to whom you have not yet personally apologised, why is it therefore appropriate for you to be an advisor to a major political party? Well, I am a great believer in lived experiences and using those experiences to make right. I think that in this space, when we're looking at radicalization, when we're looking at extremism, we need people who have had that experience, who understand the manipulation, who understand the narratives, who understand the separatism that is in this country.

35:54so I will be able to bring an awful lot to that role based on my own experiences and I think that it will be something that will enable me to work to find solutions to many of the extreme problems that are faced by this country I've done this work now as I say for about eight years albeit differently going into communities and delivering training sessions but I believe that Now I can really bring a lot more to the table with regards to my own experiences and use those positively. And bearing in mind what we've said, just to ask you that question again, why won't you apologise? I'm still not clear on this.

36:33You've apologised through the media, but why don't you apologise to her? If you wanted to redeem yourself, I'm just going to put myself in her position. She is Jewish. She's already being hounded out of her own party by a load of anti-Semites. You add fuel to the flames. She's having to give evidence to the old Bailey. She's six months pregnant. According to the judge's remarks, you smirked your way through her testimony. She claims you made her life a, quote, living hell. She's still not quite over it. You're talking about redemption. You're now advising the Tory party, even taking politics out of it, because some people might say, oh, well, Berger would say this because she's on the other side.

37:14She wouldn't. She really wouldn't. Whatever. She's not like that in that respect. Just looking at this objectively, if I was trying to redeem myself and get forgiveness, the first thing I would do is I would be going, sending her a bunch of flowers, sending her a really long letter saying, Can I just come in? I mean, it's the most basic thing. Can I come in, please? Because I think that it's important when we look at stalking offences, when we look at harassment offences, sending somebody flowers would be equally inappropriate. OK, a letter then. No, no, let me continue. We have to respect the wishes of the victim and it may not be appropriate.

37:53She may not want to hear from me directly and I have to respect that. I think Joshua's got a very fair point, actually. On flowers, maybe not. No, no, but I think the last person Luciana wants to hear from is Joshua. I'm not sure about that because I've spoken to sources close to Luciana who are questioning why a personal apology. And I understand an intermediary some weeks ago did approach you and the Conservatives and it was suggested that, of course, if you happen to send her an email because she's a peer now, your email address is available, hers is, you could have sent her an email at any point saying, look, I apologise sincerely and profusely.

38:32I think most rational people would look at this and go, hang on a minute, why hasn't this apology been forthcoming? Well, you say an email a few weeks ago I mean, this has only been last week. There have been parties that have reached out to various camps over the years, even in the counter-extremism work that I have done. But at the end of the day, I have to respect her wishes. And if she does not want to hear from me directly, then that is the case. All I can continue to do is do the work that I am doing and hope that one day, after much time has elapsed, that she can see that. But Joshua, let me give you an opportunity.

39:14Assume that Luciana watches The Daily Tea. Would you like, and she's seeing you now, to make a personal apology to her that she can see if she watches this video? Absolutely. Luciana, the way how I treated you was appalling. I am incredibly sorry for that. Many years ago, the ordeal that I put you through was disgusting. And I hope one day that you will forgive me. But all I can say to you is that I will continue to work in this space to fight anti-Semitism. and all I can say to you from my perspective is that I have nothing but great admiration for the work that you've done in anti-Semitism. I think that is really brave, really incredible after everything you had gone through.

40:01I am sorry from the bottom of my heart. Joshua Bonehill-Payne, thank you very much indeed for appearing on The Daily Tea. Good to speak to you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

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40:54I just, I don't know I don't know what to make of that

41:01Just as a woman and knowing Luciano and what she went through at the time and it's also me just evaluating it as a mother and thinking you're six months pregnant and like this stuff was so vile, Jacob the nature of it to be superimposed onto pornographic imagery, to be repeatedly called a Jewish b****. He basically suggested at the time that gold is green shouldn't be home to the Jewish community. Like the worst elements of anti-Semitism that you can think of, inject them with steroids and you still don't even come close to what this guy got up to. He literally made her life a living hell. I take your point.

41:41Flowers was probably not the appropriate thing to say, but I was just trying to engender. The first thing you do is you say sorry. I did see his point that a direct approach to somebody who you have abused could in itself be abuse. Yes. And therefore I think he was right not to go to her directly without knowing that she would welcome that or would at least receive it. I think forgiveness lies with the victim ultimately. Yes. And that Luciana is the victim in this. Yes. And that she is under no obligation to forgive, having received such horrible, unrelenting, nasty treatment. I think he was right to withdraw his candidature.

42:28What were the Tories thinking, by the way? I don't understand what went on. I rather admire Kemi's willingness to forgive. I think it shows a good Christian spirit. But But I'm surprised that the Somerset conservatives allowed it to go through. It's an odd decision to have made and something that shouldn't have got through. Also, she made a mistake by saying, oh, well, it's only for a councillor role. They deal with parking in bins. I wouldn't allow him to stand as an MP. Well, I'm sorry. Locally, you would expect a councillor to be as responsible as a member of parliament. You would expect them to pass a test, a morality test.

43:07Would you not? I think you have to go back to the fundamental point that forgiveness lies with the victim and that you don't want to be selecting people who have in their past something that is as serious as this, as nasty as this, that has done damage to an individual of this scale without that person having given forgiveness. And even so, it's not necessarily the right sort of person to be getting into politics. It's why I mentioned Profumo. But John Profumo, after he disgraced himself, spent decades. You better just explain. John Profumo. Just for the uninitiated. I can't believe there are any daily teeth.

43:42I know. But John Profumo. Younger listeners. Defence minister in the early 1960s had an affair with a lady who was also having an affair with an attaché to the Russian embassy. all sorts of scandals but most importantly then lied to the House of Commons about it he resigned, lost his privy councillorship and spent 30 years doing charitable works privately which nobody knew about and was eventually given a CBE Was it supporting women involved in prostitution and things that he was doing? He was working with the Quakers I think in their London office and so I think it was soup kitchens and helping people who were destitute for whatever reason.

44:25And I think Joshua's been doing that for eight years, but eight years isn't long enough. It's not something you can go back into public life from. Also, CCHQ on that note, I was challenging him there journalistically because what he's saying needs to stand up to serious scrutiny. And this kind of, I've signed an NDA, so I can't mention the company that I once worked for, but CCHQ have got the details. And this confusion about the nature of his home office certification needs to be properly clarified because that's also raising suspicions. I think you've got pretty good clarifications on that. I thought on the home office certification that nobody's been saying anything untrue, that it's just what is a certificate given by the home office from home office certification.

45:16I know, but I feel that they're over-elevating the status of the certification. to justify him being an advisor. Very quickly before we go, because that interview, we should have given it the length that we gave it, but we've now been squeezed and we can't really talk about what I said we were talking about, which is keeping criminals behind bars. This is the Reform UK bingo sheet, which is very like the Tory one, by the way. Okay, number one idea, send foreign criminals back. Yes, there are 10 ,400 of them. Yes, and by the way, if they don't agree... But you've got to leave the European Convention on Human Rights to do that.

45:47True. and if the countries like Albania and so forth don't agree to take them back, take them to a third-party country like Kosovo or El Salvador. Yeah, absolutely. El Salvador? No, why not? I thought you were somebody who championed human rights. I'm all in favour of human rights, but these are criminals. If you commit a crime and you get sentenced to prison, you lose some of your human rights. All right. Rapid Nightingale-style prison build. Build 12 ,400 new prison places. in the vein of the Nightingale Hospitals, but hopefully these will actually open and be staffed. Well, the Nightingale Hospitals opened, but...

46:22There was no staff. It turned out there were no loos was the problem. Yeah. Because they thought that all the people would be on life support machines and therefore they didn't need them. Anyway, that's slightly, by the way, you don't need both 12 ,000 prison places and 10 ,000 removed prisoners. That would be... Overkill. Yeah. But you do if you're reform and you want to criminalise everybody and, by the way, make them serve their full sentences. So they're also saying, we're not going to be releasing on licence murderers and rapists. Right. If you're making a life sentence for every murderer really mean life, that would be a huge change and that would be even more severe than we were before the abolition of the death penalty.

47:03I know, but Nigel Farage and Jeeb Yusuf today were saying, we know we're going to have more criminals behind bars under a reformed government, so we're building more prison places. But they don't really mean that. Well, that's what they're saying. Yeah, but they're not going to do that. Murder is, quite rightly, a whole life sentence. Yes. But there are circumstances around murder. If you make all murders a whole life sentence, you will find that some murders get downgraded to manslaughter because people just won't convict the wife who kills her husband who has not been abused that day but has been abused if she's going to get a whole life term.

47:42Listen, there are different nature to different kinds of crime, murder, manslaughter. It depends what defence they give in court. Politicians get a terrible muddle when they keep on saying we will have the same sentence. But listen, we will abolish early release for those serious crimes that were previously set at two thirds point for early release. They're expanded upon in the annex. Let me get to the annex. Yeah. So very violent, very serious, violent offences, serious sexual offences, other serious violent and some sexual schedule 15 offences that can carry life, various terrorism offences, extended sentences where the judge finds the offender, quotes, dangerous.

48:20Well, I'm in favour of honesty in sentencing. I think we've had a long-standing problem on this. Yes. That politicians want to sound bold, so they say we'll have longer sentences, and they then don't want to pay for the prison places, so they say to the judges, let them out early, and we'll save them this long period. Now, actually, post-Michael Howard, sentences have gone up and sentences served have gone up. And I think it would be better if somebody is going to get out of prison after 10 years, having been sentenced to 15 years, to sentence them to 11 years. You need some release for good behavior.

48:54Otherwise, prisoners have no reason to behave well in prison. But I think 10 % would be sufficient. But then you need more prison places. But you'd probably find that some sentences that were handed down were lower. Yes. And funny enough, one surprising statistic in here is the fact that actually the prison population in total has gone slightly down. But that's probably because both the Conservatives and Labour keep on releasing people. But since the late 1990s, it's gone up by 50 percent, whilst the population's risen by 22 percent. The prison works mantra of Michael Howard turned out to be true.

49:30Crime has gone down. Prison population has gone up. Because one thing you can't do if you're in prison is commit a crime. Well, you can commit a crime in prison, but they don't matter so much. They're different. Also, Farage couldn't help having a pop at your old mate, Boris Johnson, saying the Boris wave created 6 million immigrants into this country, but the Tories only provided, I think, net 455 prison places in that period. Well, we had a plan for many more, all held up by MAD planning regulations and environmental BAT surveys. This is part of the real problem in this country. Nothing happens.

50:04There are another 2 ,500 places about to come on stream, all delayed by ridiculous environmental rules. And we've got to get a grip on the supply side, the supply side reforms to free up activities, say things happen. We love things happening. Jacob, we'll be happening again tomorrow, 5pm. I'll report it.

50:29Thank you.

50:59We're making it clearer for you to know exactly what your benefits cover. And to help you better manage your health, we're coordinating care between your doctors and your technology. We believe better, simpler health care is always possible. That's healthy optimism. That's Optum. Visit Optum.com to learn more.