‘We don’t feel safe’: Inside Piddington’s migrant revolt

0:03The Telegraph.

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1:18Residents of the tiny village of Piddington are taking the law into their own hands and even having self-defence classes in the face of a migrant invasion. We speak to the chairman of Piddington Parish Council who tells us the village is laying out a blueprint for other towns to push back. But will Andy Burnham take in a notice? Welcome to The Daily Tea with me Camilla Tomini. And me Jacob Rees-Mogg. The issue about this is it's not about a political issue, it's about proportionality and security. For us, it's about, if it was, you know, 1 ,258 priests and vicars, it still wouldn't be right. It's about proportionality and assimilation.

1:55If it was proportionate, we should be having five or six, ten. Pittington is represented by a Lib Dem councillor and a Lib Dem MP. And the Lib Dems are in favour of mass migration, are in favour of giving asylum to any old crook who comes into the country. and therefore democracy has led to them being in this position. If they'd voted Conservative and we had a Conservative government that was using the Rwanda scheme, we would not have this problem as it is. Well, hang on a minute. You didn't give it long enough. You sent more Home Secretaries to Rwanda than you did migrants. Jacob, have you heard the news?

2:29The very exciting news about you interviewing Bridget Phillipson at the Labour Party conference. Stop the presses. We must tell everybody about this. when I go to bed at night, I say, this is exciting. Carmella is going to be interviewing La Philipson, the terror of the class warfare. Indeed, the class warrior herself and I will be going to head-to-head at the Daily Tea on the road at the Labour Party conference. So do check out all of the details, which is going to be in the show notes, as to how to get involved. I was actually talking about different kinds of tickets involving Northerners. Are you familiar with the music of the Gallagher brothers?

3:05No, I don't believe I am. You know who I'm talking about? Liam and Noel? No, not particularly. Oasis? I know about Noel Edmonds. Nothing to do with him, no. You can't possibly be telling me that you've never heard of Oasis, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Well, I thought it was the thing you put flowers in. Don't you put... I think they also appear in deserts. How about if I started singing to you? so Sally can wait she knows it's too late as we're walking on by you're not familiar with that? I thought she wheeled a wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow cockles and muscles alive alive are they the same people?

3:50I know you live up to your double-breasted reputation but you cannot possibly be telling me as a father of six who has attended sporting fixtures I can tell you I've never heard about Sally in the Alley or whatever your song was. You haven't heard Wonderwall? I've never heard Wonder Woman. I've watched Wonder Woman as a child. She's a wonder wonder woman. Is that Oasis? Wonderwall? Don't look back in anger. I will confess I've heard of Oasis. Ah, I knew you were having me on. I didn't know the names of the people. What, Noel and Liam Gallagher? I didn't know they were called Gallagher. Fans of this podcast apparently, according to Rachel Johnson.

4:25Delighted to hear it and I wish them every success. So you won't be registering for tickets for their gig at Nebworth, as I have this morning. No, but I must get my tickets for Lords because Lords for next year's cricket, it's the Ashes, and the window for applying is open at the moment. What's the last gig you went to? I don't go around in a gig. I go in a motor car. Have you ever been in a mosh pit? Come on, be honest. I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. You must have gone to a concert quite recently. You like music. Yeah, I went to Glyndebourne over the summer. Glyndebourne. Of course.

4:57Well, on that bombshell, so two sets of tickets to be concerned about. Oasis, Gallagher Brothers, if you fancy sending me a pair, that would be great. And also Bridget Phillipson versus Camilla Tomini, which... Will be box office. One of us may be looking back in anger, but that's enough Hackney's references to that. Can we talk about Piddington? Do you have sympathy with the good people of Piddington who are facing the prospect of largely young men from overseas of working age being, quotes, dumped on their tiny village or at least to an MOD base nearby as part of the government's attempt to stop the boats?

5:36I mean, they're not smashing the gangs or stopping the boats because they can't even stop a village like Piddington being overrun by illegal immigrants. I do have a certain sympathy for some of the residents. But you've got to remember that Pittington is represented by a Lib Dem councillor and a Lib Dem MP. And the Lib Dems are in favor of mass migration or in favor of giving asylum to any old crook who comes into the country. And therefore, democracy has led to them being in this position. If they'd voted conservative, and we had a conservative government that was using the Rwanda scheme, we would not have this problem as it is.

6:12And so I think they have to take responsibility for their actions. So I'm sympathetic to the ones who voted reform and conservative, but I'm afraid a majority of them voted in local elections in May for a Lib Dem. All right, but hang on a minute. Homes of multiple occupancy did exist under the last government and the Boris wave produced four million extra people into the country, including dependence. All this is true. And you did have migrant hotels on your watch. And I appreciate the Rwanda thing, but whose fault is it that the first flight didn't take off? Rishi Sunak announcing an election in the rain.

6:48No, it's not. It's that Keir Starmer cancelled the policy as soon as he got into office. You should have proven the policy's effectiveness by having the policy run before he called that a jet election. Then you'd have it acting as a deterrent. It was already working as a deterrent before the election. People were going to the Republic of Ireland. Well, hang on a minute. So that they weren't in the UK. But you didn't give it long enough, And also there was that famous, you sent more home secretaries to Rwanda than you did migrants. We were coming, that's because the policy hadn't been implemented.

7:15Yes, so it should have been. But we were coming to a general election within a very short space of time anyway. And so there were a few weeks here or there wasn't going to make that much difference. What was the real problem was the policy that was ready to go, oven baked, as you might say. Yes, somebody once said that. Somebody once said that. It was abandoned the moment Labour came into office. and that has added attraction to coming to the UK. People know that if they get here, they have an over 90 % chance of staying and the Lib Dems of Labour are in favour of that. Yes. And the good people of Piddington have voted for that.

7:47Sorry, I'm going to push back a little bit more. So I'm going to feel very sympathetic to people in Lincolnshire who voted against all of this. But people who have voted for Lib Dem policies must expect Lib Dem policies. So the lesson is vote Conservative. All right. or Nigel Farage might say vote for reform. He might, but he's not here. So I'm going to say vote Conservative. I'm going to just push back one more time because in Australia, they stopped the boats by the right-wing party, the Liberals, coming up with a similar scheme to process migrants offshore in Nehru. And the reason why the Labour government that came in afterwards kept the plan was because it was proven to be tried and tested and effective.

8:26Where the Tories went wrong is they did not give the Rwanda scheme enough time to be established so that it was then undeniable to Labour that it was doing something to deter people from coming to this country. Yes, Keir Starmer cancelled it out of a degree of kind of political vindictiveness, but he might have been forced into the corner of just accepting it and carrying it on if Rishi Sunak hadn't panicked or got fed up or decided to call an election in the pouring rain because he was proving to be unpopular for the first time in his life. You unfortunately bottled it and that's why we're in this mess.

9:00I just don't think that's right. unless you were to suspend the Quinquennial Act, that an election was looming regardless. The Rwanda scheme would have been in its very earliest days, even if we had had a general election at the very last minute, which technically could have gone to January, but that always seemed very unlikely, December of 2024. The Labour Party was deeply committed to abolishing this policy, and not only that, but they changed the law so that people who arrive here illegally on small boats can now claim asylum, Whereas the Conservatives said they couldn't ever claim asylum. They changed that law.

9:32So they changed important parts of the law that make coming here more attractive, make it easier. Tens of thousands have come. And then they've got to be put somewhere. And it seems perfectly fair to put them in areas that have voted for these policies. That's what they asked for. And what's your response to those who accuse Brexiteers of starting all this? Because we know that the small boat crossings were very low pre-2019. and then they escalated because of Brexit, some Remainers claim. Well, this is absolute nonsense. People were using different methods. They were coming through in lorries in large numbers.

10:05It's not a Brexit issue. And the Dublin Agreement meant that we took more people in than we sent out because we accepted a very high percentage of the applications made to receive asylum seekers from the rest of the European Union and only 4 % of our applications to remove them back to where they'd come from were accepted. And we've been through that on the Daily Tea before. We went through all the figures on one of my previous visits. All right. Shall we speak to the leader of the local council in Piddington, a man called Tim McNally, who can give us the latest on the saga going on in his tiny village?

10:44Jacob, you grasp the Nethelmen because you're concerned that the good people of Piddington might have brought this upon themselves. Well, that does seem to me to be a problem, that Piddington is represented by a Lib Dem councillor and by a Lib Dem member of parliament. The Lib Dems are notoriously weak on asylum and that therefore people have got what they've voted for. And I quite understand that people in Piddington, a small village, are furious that they're going to get 1 ,500 asylum seekers. But if people like the voters of Piddington had voted conservative at the last election, there would have been the remander scheme and people would have been removed.

11:19Well, Jacob, on that, thank you both of you for having me on. Very simply, Pennington is a tiny little village as part of a brand new constituency that was set up specifically for 2024, which incorporated Vista and Woodstock. We have only potentially 190, 180 or so adults would be competing against basically a 9 ,000 majority. How could we have actually impacted against that? And in terms of, no, I don't have any affiliation to the Liberal Democrats. And even Callum Miller, who is the MP, has apologized to me for being associated in that way. But we've actually taken what I call an apolitical route to our campaign.

12:00We're not actually, because our village is full of everyone from all aspects, from the far right to the far left. There is no one strong position here specifically. And I think really the issue about this is it's not about a political issue. It's about proportionality and security. For us, it's about, if it was 1 ,258 freezes and dickers, it still wouldn't be right. It's about proportionality and assimilation. What are we having to do as an environment to actually assimilate against the numbers of 1 ,250? If it was proportionate, we should be having five or six, 10. We already have 600 Afghanis interpreters who have been brought in through the exchange process locally in our communities.

12:39We're not totally pushing back on everything. that this is a problem because the government doesn't want to discuss security. And when it does, it uses words which are very deceiving, security vetting. And that's unacceptable for people because they know they're going to be using the likes or validating through biometric systems and databases. But these people aren't part of any system. They only become part of the biometric system when they're actually fingerprinted and photographed when they arrive on the shores of the United Kingdom. and the people who are going to be in the camp they're free to roam aren't they that they are not kept enclosed they are entitled to go wherever they like at any time correct and you know i've personally gone to wethersfield where such a site already exists i've met with the residents there and i'll be perfectly frank it was quite an upsetting experience for me not because of pinnington but because of the fact that these people have lived with this behavior for the last four years, there's no press.

13:38There's no MPs. There's no Home Office representation. They are ignored. And they live in a hellhole. Men are walking through their properties at 4am in the morning. And so you're going to hold a referendum about this. The government won't be bound by that referendum. What else can you do? Can you hold pickets? I mean, I'm thinking perhaps of Passport to Pimlico. Can you really ramp it up to stop people coming in if the government persists? Jacob, as you will well know, it would be quite illegal to do such an act of blocking and controlling. We would do absolute transparency and legality in terms of everything we do is correct and proper.

14:20What we are doing is... Sorry to interrupt. You can't picket, can't you? Oh, yeah. The trade union laws don't apply to private pickets. You could stand outside the base and tell the bus drivers not to go through. Yes, we could do that. It's just not in our nature. You know, we're experienced professional people. We go ahead and get things done. We could have done protests all this time, but we've chosen action to go for what I call the political jugular. And the reason why I'm going for the political jugular is because politics is brought into the constituents of our society. The very fact that we elect MPs who go into Parliament, and the minute they go into Parliament, they're then told you cannot talk about certain subjects.

14:59They lose their brain and lose their tongue. And as far as I'm concerned, that's not democracy. That's a form of dictatorship. And I'm fed up with that. I want that fixed. Yeah, well, I mean, I agree with you. And it is the job of a constituent MP to stand up for villages like Pittington. And it's not proper, in my view, for an MP to sit on his hands and weep crocodile tears. He should be joining you and doing everything he can. and using every parliamentary mechanism to disrupt business in Parliament to make the point and embarrass the government. There are lots of things you can do as an MP that don't change the law but are annoying to the government of the day if you feel strongly about something.

15:44And I'm with you on that, Jacob. So one of the things we do keep into account, and although we have differing views, I cannot say that he's not doing his job. basically there's been two counts on the Prime Minister Andy Burnham in Prime Minister's question time on the question of Pittington and then again several days later he called the Speaker of the House at the dispatch box to call the government to account and to ensure that they deliver a message back at the dispatch box of which nothing has happened still he spent half an hour, was only given half an hour at the Home Office to ask four questions about a 10-year proposal and 1 ,258 men that's just a disgrace right so the whole process as far as i'm concerned who would want to be part of a country that does this to its people that's the question here um the other thing um tim is that you're saying that you're trying to uh hit them in the political jugular but villagers are also taking matters into their own hands so talk to us about the plans you've got for cctv emergency alerts?

16:50Well, the CCTV isn't a political piece in any emergency train, you know, in terms of defence, and we'll go through those things. The political juggler one is this. The very fact that we hold a vote that records the sentiment of this village is a national piece of work. Everyone knows that is what the sentiment is today here. But I will tell you now, that's the sentiment across this entire country. The number of people who are now following our blueprint and wants to be part of what we have done, has exceeded a huge number. I've had over, I'd say, a thousand emails asking us to teach them and give them the blueprint of what we've done so they can go and do the same and grow the grassroots of politics, make it interesting, make it effective, make it deliverable, make politicians understand what's expected of them if they go into politics.

17:39What's in the blueprint? How can others learn from Piddington's experience? Because what I'm saying is, yes, you're taking the fight politically, but you're also coming out with some practical measures to ensure that the local community there feels safe? Correct. So the practical measures we're doing is we're doing CCTV across, in terms of we're building out a wide area network of CCTVs. We're doing self-defence classes for anyone who wishes to be involved and be part of that process. We've consulted with the police. We're trying to engage and trying to get a security audit for the village and work out ways we can best manage the village and manage the people within it to ensure we're kept safe at all times.

18:15We don't anticipate everyone to be a bad egg, right? But all it takes is one. And unfortunately, one is more than it needs to be. So as I say, this blueprint we've got, the blueprint is more about spreading the word to other parish councils that they need to step up and that their communities need representation. Because half our problem in our politics is engagement. There is no engagement. There's not enough engagement. And that's how we get this disproportionate, from time to time of the wrong governments in play because people are just complacent at actually not attending and doing their part to vote.

18:51Sure. But there is a problem here, isn't there, in that you obviously identify and you've found kinship with other areas that are also fearful of a so-called migrant invasion. But if they don't end up down the road in Piddington, they're in somebody else's backyard. I mean, the core problem here is the government doesn't seem to have an ability, despite all of the rhetoric, to smash the gangs or stop the boats. And therefore, these guys have to be housed somewhere. And this is a problem. You could have some in northern, less advantaged towns saying, well, listen, we've had our fill of these people for months.

19:28Even Andy Burnham has advocated the idea of these migrants being moved into middle class areas, even though it might be more expensive in some kind of attempt to spread the misery across the UK. hey, don't rural areas like yours, despite the contrary demographics, have to take their fair share of the burden? And that's the word I like, fair share. Fair share. Define fair share for me. 350 residents, fair share, all right? That's what you've got to focus on, not on an absolute dumping of people. That doesn't suit anyone. And the impact on this community, people are now in traps. They're locked in their properties.

20:10They can't sell, can't move. There are pensioners who won't be able to get their pension value out of their property. So there's a whole myriad of impacts upon financial security and attitude towards life. And it's not we want ill harm on anyone. It's the issue of the fact that why isn't the government honest with us about the security implications so that we can actually take the appropriate measures to protect ourselves as we see fits? The aspect about other communities, about fearing this, it's not just this. There are massive planning proposals going through for 370 ,000 houses across from here up to Milton Keynes.

20:44People are not being heard. They're agitated. They want to be heard. And so the mechanisms which we're doing here is just the tip of the iceberg. This is just about asylum, but there's going to be other triggers, catalysts that will happen, which will basically bite the a** of this government. It's very interesting what you're saying, because the government's very keen on devolution. until local communities say no, at which point devolution seems much less popular. Yeah, I mean, it's devolution, but it's devolution without control, without consultation and without accountability, without anything.

21:20It's a bit like saying, oh, we'll give the mayor's 2 % tax to go and spend, but I'll tell you what, we'll tax you 2 % more to be able to spend 2%. It's a joke. Councillor Tim McNally, thank you very much indeed for joining us on The Daily Tea. We'll be following developments in Piddington on the Telegraph website. Thank you both very much. It does strike me as absolutely ludicrous that you've got a community needing to take the law into their own hands. I mean, we've seen this to an extent in Dover and in Portsmouth, haven't we? And then we've had legitimate protests almost overrun by people in balaclavas and things.

21:52Here, this is perfectly respectable residents from different political parties all making the point that if we feel the need to get self-defense classes, then something has gone very wrong. It's classic government mistake, misunderstanding. You've got a disused armed forces base. It's big. It's got housing. Let's put lots of migrants there. But what they forget is that those migrants can then wander anywhere that they like, that they're not kept confined. If they were confined in this space, the problem would be much, much lower because they wouldn't be going into the village. They wouldn't be walking through people's gardens.

22:37There wouldn't be the risk of crime. But because they're free to go, they are utterly disproportionate to a village of a few hundred people. So what should the government be doing then, saying that if we have accommodation like this, it needs to be in some form of lockdown with curfews and things? You've got to say that people have to be in unless they have permission to be out. Why wouldn't they say that? Because then you get lawfare and people claiming that the human rights are being free. But why should people who are in this country illegally have the right to wander around the countryside?

23:07Because they're persecuted and they're escaping persecution and they're asylum seekers. Well, not all of them, I suppose. 99 % we've heard from, I think it was exclusive. Well, 99 % of them do, and yet 90 % of the claims get granted. Yes. So because the left will say, well, if 90 % of the claims are being granted, they must be legitimate. But that's not true. They've played the system. And what we've got to do is remove them. We need a scheme like Rwanda. We just don't want these people staying here. And then you get rid of the problem. But if they are here, they shouldn't be free to move around the countryside.

23:39Telegraph readers have been responding to this story, and there drove some aren't sympathetic, saying, as you have earlier, listen, you get what you vote for. You brought in the Lib Dems. You've now got a Liberal Democrat MP who, to be fair, let's quote Callum Miller because he has previously said the plans have been veiled in secrecy and the process did not guarantee public participation beyond a narrow list of statutory bodies. So part of this is cock-up and part of it is conspiracy because the people of Piddington feel that things have been hidden from them and there hasn't been transparency.

24:10Of course they've been hidden. The government's not going to tell people any more than it absolutely has to because it doesn't want protests, obviously. But a point's been made. So previously on the podcast, we... Sorry, can I just say that? The government's very dodgy about this because I went to this migrant place in North Somerset. Yes. And the government won't say anything about that. The man on the gate said, oh, we're closing down soon. But the government would neither confirm nor deny that. The government wants to keep all this secret. It pretends it's to safeguard the people who are there, but it's actually to cover up its embarrassment and its shame at a failing policy.

24:47So that's what's happening in Pittington. No wonder the MP didn't know. Also, you'd be rightly cheesed off if you felt that your own government was prioritising the safety of the migrants over the safety of the local community. You would, but it does. this was an interesting I'm in touch with a lady called Gaia Cooper not her real name she wrote a book about being the victim of a grooming gang in the Buckinghamshire area back in the late 90s and early noughties now she's concerned about this plan for Bicester which is quite near to where she lives I don't want to sort of betray any confidences and I want her to preserve her anonymity but she's basically written to the authorities and I just think out of all of the comments that have been received, this is really quite chilling because imagine if you go about your daily life worried that you might bump into the people that attacked you as a teenager.

25:38And I'm talking about gang rape here. This is very, very serious. And a number of her perpetrators did go to prison, but some have been released. She says, as a survivor of multiple male perpetrators, when I was a looked after child in Aylesbury during that period, I spent many years providing lived experience consultation work, both paid and unpaid. So she's been on the panel of survivors. She's spoken to other survivors. She's put her testimony forward so that lessons can actually be learned and mistakes aren't made. I write to you requesting that you look very carefully at the options before you and seriously consider the long term consequences of housing, mostly male working aid migrants here.

26:16We're a tiny community with limited infrastructure. To place this ratio of unknown males into the local area is disproportionate and inappropriate. It's also frightening to our community and especially to me and survivors like me. I cannot understate the daily fear of running into perpetrators or one of their associates. She basically opted for a safer area to raise her sons and now it's nearby to this MOD base. She's also made the point that not only do these people have no background checks at all and often they come without documentation. And she points out that the Home Office actually had to produce a guide on why you shouldn't be raping women in the UK.

26:53which was hugely disturbing to remind migrants of their responsibilities. She also makes the point that the government has been very secretive about the crimes actually carried out by these migrants and that they're often treated as no fixed abode and then washed up with other statistics so that we actually don't know how many crimes they've been responsible for. People like Professor Matt Goodwin have said they're obviously overrepresented in the violence and sexual violence statistics. The left then say, oh, no, he's fudged the figures. So it's the opaqueness that worries people about all this, isn't it?

27:26Yes, absolutely. The government doesn't want to admit the figures. It's made it very difficult for people to get the figures about offences committed by asylum seekers or to get the breakdown of figures by nationality because it doesn't fit in with its image of a multicultural Britain where we're all rubbing along happily because actually such figures as we get seem to indicate that these migrants, who are by and large young men are committing more crimes than the bulk of the population. Indeed, they're committing a crime in the first place by coming here. So I go back to my point of saying that these camps should be secured.

28:01They should be detained within them rather than free to go wherever they want. They should be free within the camps. I'm not saying put them in prison cells. No. But they should be controlled about whether they're allowed in. And if they have outings, they should be escorted or something like that. Yes, and I'm not very much in favour of giving jolly outings in a shower bang to the seaside for illegal migrants. I don't think that's a good use of taxpayers' money. Well, it does happen. I know it does, but I don't think you should. Just on another note while we're together, because I know you're very anti-banning things.

28:32We mentioned protesters in masks and balaclavas earlier. Nottingham City Centre has officially banned face coverings. Anyone who refuses to comply could face a£60 fixed penalty notice or be prosecuted, with courts able to impose a maximum fine of£1 ,000. Now, obviously, this doesn't just apply to balaclavas and face masks, but one assumes burqas. Well, I think that people ought to be allowed to wear the burqa under all normal circumstances. But I think if you're taking part in a protest, your face ought to be visible. I think that's perfectly reasonable, partly because a masked protest looks much more sinister than an unmarked protest.

29:16Even if it's doing exactly the same thing, even if it's otherwise completely law abiding, the mask is there to intimidate. So I'm not against banning people from wearing face coverings when they're on a protest. I see that somebody on one of these protests, a man who was probably my height, was wearing a burqa and the police have arrested him. So I think the police are probably clever enough to work out. He was saying there's nothing wrong here. It's just a religious covering. They were like, I'm not sure. In a very deep voice, they probably gave it away. Well, I mean, you know, in this new age of being able to self-identify as any gender you like, Jacob.

29:51Yes, but we don't believe in that sort of nonsense. And also one final note, because you are a member of the Conservative and Unionist Party. Yes. How worried are you about this talk of separatism now that we have independence in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru in Wales, and indeed John Swinney up in Scotland making merry hell with our union because of his sympathies for Scottish independence? They've got together. They basically said, right, we're going to go at this hammer and tongs. Andy Burnham said things like, oh, well, we don't want any more constitutional referenda, but he hasn't been particularly punchy on it.

30:29Well, first of all, Plaid doesn't really want Welsh independence. Why do you say that? Because it doesn't, because it de-emphasised it at the local elections. It's terrified of independence. So they're just the anyone but Labour vote. They're just the anyone but Labour vote. I wouldn't take them too seriously. The Scots Nats do. They want to all drive off in their camper vans away from us. And they lost their last vote on it. And I expect they would lose it again. When they last had their vote, there was an easy option for them that they would leave the United Kingdom and join the European Union.

31:01Now they'd have to apply to join the European Union as an entirely new member. It would be a much more complicated issue, and we'd have to have border controls between Scotland and England if they did. So what about the Shinners? They've now got Donald Trump's support. Well, aren't you in favour of United Ireland under the crown? The Republic could say we got it frightfully wrong in 1924. We'd like to come back. I see. So you mean a United Ireland with the UK. Go back to the 1801 United Kingdom. Can't see that happening. Isn't that what Trump meant? Michael Portillo, if only he had looked at it that deeply.

31:36Actually, Michael Portillo made a very good point that does the rest of Ireland really want thousands of disgruntled unionists aligned with them making trouble? That was Philip Johnson's point in his excellent column today. Telegraph columnist Philip Johnson, ladies and gentlemen. Very distinguished telegraph columnist. Indeed, rights leaders. Watches cricket. A little bit scary, actually. And he was saying that he thought the Republic might vote not to take on Northern Ireland because of the cost and everything that went with it, the security problem and the angst. So it's not as likely as all that, I don't think.

32:10The union is safe, Jacob. The union is as safe as it will ever be. I think it is pretty safe before I become a Wessex separatist. No, please don't.

32:27Pessimism. It's never going to improve a disconnected healthcare system. Next. So what will? At Optum, we're working every day to connect primary, specialty, and pharmacy care, and help lower prescription costs. Will we fix it all overnight? No. But we'll wake up trying again and again until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's healthy optimism. Learn more at Optum.com.

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34:03Breaking news on the Lucy Letby case. Lady Justice Thurwall has today published her report into the failings by all those responsible for the safety of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital. And the headline of the report is that the hospital could have saved three more babies. I'm joined now by Mark MacDonald, who is the barrister for Lucy Letby. Lovely to see you again, Mark. Thank you very much for joining me on The Daily Tea. Basically, we've got this report finding that there was a failure of management, governments and safeguarding, that the collapse and deaths of some babies could have been avoided had safeguarding practices been followed.

34:43Lady Justice Thurwell paid tribute to the dignity and courage of the parents, thanked them for sharing their experiences with the inquiry. The report calls for urgent changes to protect babies. As the chair says, this must never happen again. First of all, where does this leave Lucy Letby's appeal or quest for an appeal? The case is currently being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Does this help or hinder that application? Totally neutral. They're going to take no notice of it. The expert reports that before the CCRC paint a very different picture and have a very different narrative, one where no crimes were in fact committed.

35:27So all the recommendations and all the findings of facts made by Thorough, if the experts are correct, are totally undermined and indeed redundant. And that's the problem with the whole of this inquiry. It was set up too soon after the convictions And I know that in Kaepernick there was a discussion about whether or not it was too soon. But the then Secretary of State for Health, I think it was under Rishi Sunak, who was Prime Minister at the time, felt that there was an urgent need to do it and did it. The previous Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, who was in charge of health when Letby was in fact meant to have been committing these crimes, has publicly said that he has real concerns about these convictions because he knows what was going on in the National Health Service.

36:28Yes. And I think that's the problem here. It was too quick in setting up. The terms of reference were too rigid. Another thing that Lady Justice Thurwell said is that it's not her job to re-look at the convictions of guilt. And that, I'm afraid, meant the holding crime was polluted with one narrative, one from the prosecution at the trial. Yes. And so, you know, if no crimes were committed, and I remember you being at the press conference that we had with Professor Xu Li, and you will remember, I think he went for about an hour, going through all the evidence and all the cases and concluding that no crimes have been committed.

37:20that I just wish that the inquiry had reached out and said, look, can we just look at this? Can we look at that evidence? Yes. But they didn't. So, Mark, let's just be clear about this. The inquiry never sought to confirm, clarify, re-litigate the case against Lucy Lepty and indeed her guilt. What it was commissioned to do was to look at the Countess of Chester Hospital and trying to determine whether there were failures across the board which led to Lucy Letby killing these babies. And we have to say that because she's still been convicted of being a serial baby killer. So they took those convictions.

38:04They treated it as read that she was a mass murderer of babies and then took that forward to basically asked the central question, how was this allowed to happen? Now, Lady Justice Thurwall has pointed to the sort of personal relationships at the heart of that particular neonatal unit, let's be honest, was under huge pressure. It was looking after gravely ill babies for an extended period with few resources and a staffing problem. She makes the point that some people actually defended Lucy Letby at the time, perhaps putting the personal ahead of the professional. What's your reaction to that? The question that was asked by everybody, apart from those pointing the finger, was where is the evidence?

38:56Where's the evidence here? Just give us one piece of evidence. Not, well, she's there when things go wrong. Give us one piece of evidence that she has done something wrong. That's the question that every senior nurse, that every manager, that every trustee were asking. And there was no evidence. You see, the whole of the trial was based upon a hypothesis, a hypothesis that was started by a retired pediatrician, Dr. Darry Evans. That's it. There's no direct evidence here. We previously explored some of the flaws in the data, there's a big piece on the Telegraph website that I urge people to read.

39:43And it's basically saying serial killer or victim of a miscarriage of justice. And it takes the reader through some of the problems around some of the data analysis, that famous chart with black dots every time Lucy Letby was on duty, when funnily enough, a baby died. But as some statisticians have pointed out, babies kept on dying after Lucy Letby was removed from the unit. There's also concerns about some of this tampering with insulin. There are concerns about the interpretation of some of the discoloration on the baby's chests. And you mentioned Professor Su Lee earlier, who says that basically his medical research was taken out of context during the trial.

40:26So we know all that. But I suppose moving forward, Lucy Letby had offered to appear at this inquiry to be questioned by Lady Justice Thurwall, why was that turned down? I applied for her to be a core participant in the inquiry and that was rejected. But if I was able to be there, I would have brought all that evidence with me and presented it to Thurwell. And so, you know, and indeed questioned some of the witnesses that were called and put an alternative narrative, one that we now know is more likely, as said by the international experts. And so, anyway, it was rejected. It was earlier on in the inquiry.

41:20I think the words used was that it would be too disruptive. Also distressing to the families of the victims, perhaps, Mark. Yeah. Well, yes, it would have been. But that's not my, you know, my job is to represent my client. You know, here's the thing. You know, I grew up in Birmingham. And I remember hearing the bombs has come off in Birmingham. The Birmingham bombs are two IRA bombs. And I remember the fallout and the victims that happened after that. And I remember my school, the windows were smashed in as it was, it was a Catholic school. And all those victims that died and were seriously injured and all the families.

42:11But then six men were caught on trial for that crime. And then later they were found to be innocent. That doesn't stop the people being victims. It doesn't stop the relatives. But what they're going to get and what they now have is the truth. And the same is that every miscarriage is of justice. There's going to be a victim. Of course there is. But that doesn't mean we all shut up shop and don't do anything. That doesn't mean that we don't expose faults in the case and bring in fresh evidence. But if your case is that Lucy Letby didn't kill these babies, they were killed as a result of a multitude of factors, including the failure of the Countess of Chester Hospital on many levels.

42:57So you're almost saying Lucy Letby didn't kill these babies, the NHS did. Then don't some of these findings help you? Because they speak to a degree of mismanagement, don't they? Well, yeah, but fingers have been pointed because the accepted narrative of the prosecution case and some of the people who are court participants in the inquiry has been accepted by Lady Justice Thurwell. But the fingers have been pointed at the right people. That's the question mark here. Did the managers do anything wrong? That was the question. So if we roll right back and Lucy Letby is innocent and no crime was in fact committed, did the managers do anything wrong?

43:50Because what they did is say, well, just show me the evidence. Yes. And there wasn't any evidence. I mean, of these list of recommendations, all cots and incubators in all neonatal units should be fitted with baby monitors. There should be incot cameras with live streaming video. There should be CCTV cameras directed towards fridges and other units storing insulin. I mean, actually, I'm sure you'll be arguing if only this was all in place, then if you're saying that Lucy Letby is innocent, then these measures would approve terror innocence. Yes, you would never have heard the name Mark McDonald.

44:32Lord. We would not be here. There would have been no trial. There would have been no conviction, because if these international experts are correct, no crime was committed, then they wouldn't have seen anything done wrong by Lucy Letby. Without going too granular, Mark, just briefly, why have these two experts left your legal team? So there's two lots of experts on the insulin two teams both the teams say the evidence of insulin is unreliable and they think that the jury are misled and there's possibility that lucy let me is innocent one of the team doesn't agree with the other team so this team that thinks lucy's innocent has withdrawn um this team has stayed and this team continues with the ccrc um and so you know it i i can't control that that is that is um um what's happened what i do know is that the seven international experts that remain um give very compelling reasons why the insulin is unreliable and i think the CCRC will take it seriously.

45:45And here's the interesting thing. You know, their report is before the CCRC. Their evidence, the ones that were withdrawn, is before the CCRC. CCRC are just not going to say, were you withdrawn? We're going to ignore your evidence that she's innocent. Their job is to think, is to decide whether or not these convictions are unsafe. It doesn't matter if they're withdrawn. CCRC are still going to continue. What's the timetable on this, Mark? when are we expecting a decision from them? They don't give a running commentary. They don't tell you. You know, I wish they did. And I can tell you, I've asked more than once and they said, we're not going to tell you and we're not going to let you know a timetable.

46:28But I, in my view, I think months, I think within six months, we're going to know. OK. And finally, have you discussed this report with Lucy Letby yet? No. I have a call with her in about two hours' time and I'll discuss it with her then. Mark McDonald, thank you very much indeed, as ever, for joining us on The Daily Tea. It's good to speak to you.

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