Up next in 10
James O’Brien addresses listeners after MPs concluded that misinformation was allowed to flourish because police and prosecutors withheld information following the Southport killings.
The Home Affairs Select Committee said it recognised that speculation and misinformation — particularly the belief that the suspect was an asylum seeker — were drivers of the disorder during the riots that rocked the country last summer.
MPs stated that the Crown Prosecution Service and Merseyside Police were ultimately limited in what they could publish about the then-unnamed suspect, Axel Rudakubana, due to the Contempt of Court Act 1981, which prohibits the publication of information that could prejudice criminal proceedings.
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0:00
I think I've already told you the answer to this, but it might be a helpful test of how much attention you were paying at the time
0:06
But there has always been, since the phrase first appeared in the outer recesses of social media, there has always been an extremely reliable way of working out that all talk of two-tier policing during the Farage riots last summer was, I mean, at best nonsensical and at worst downright dangerous
0:27
designed very deliberately to foster far-right claims that police services in this country
0:33
and indeed a criminal justice system that has been shown repeatedly and even found by official inquiries to be institutionally racist against people of colour
0:44
people with black skin or brown skin. Of course, far-right white supremacists are desperate to believe
0:52
or at least desperate to persuade the weak-minded to believe that the truth is in fact the opposite
0:58
of what their eyes and ears tell them, that the criminal justice system or the police services
1:02
are in fact biased against white people. It's five minutes after ten
1:07
and occasionally I stumble across a Rosetta Stone, a skeleton key to unlock a story so powerful
1:15
that I am very conscious of how bad I am at keeping things to myself
1:21
So I'd have been a rubbish spy. I always quite fancied being a spy as a kid
1:25
I'm reading a brilliant espionage novel at the moment, I told you about it last week but I gave you
1:29
the wrong title, for which I apologise I gave you the title of the first
1:32
novel in the series but I'll give you the correct information later in the programme, I'd have been a rubbish
1:39
spy because if I'd pulled off an amazing mission, I'd have wanted
1:43
to tell everybody, I'd have come on the radio the next morning and sort of started
1:47
dropping hints, I'd have been like you know that mysterious assassination in
1:53
Kiev at the weekend, well I'm just saying that I wasn't at home on Saturday or whatever it might be
2:00
Assassination of a baddie, obviously, of a Russian actor. So I'm very bad at keeping things to myself
2:05
And yet this observation is so powerful that I, I mean, I certainly can't run the risk of forgetting to tell you
2:15
But it makes such a nonsense of any claim whatsoever that there is or that there was two-tier policing over the course of last summer's riots
2:26
Just fall apart in your hands. Six minutes after 10 is the time
2:31
In fact, and we'll open Idiot's Corner earlier this morning. Mark's been in touch. He says the radical left mouthpiece takes his turn
2:37
Time to turn off. I think we can add the phrase radical left to phrases that really stupid people use without having the first idea what they mean
2:45
So I'm grateful to Mark this morning for not only opening up the gates of Idiot's Corner, but also for reminding us of the power of these phrases that excuse people, excuse bigoted people, the sometimes quite draining effort of thinking about things and trying to understand things
3:06
So there's something I don't understand. And we're going to put in the effort to try
3:11
So as I read this morning about police forces being unprepared for the level of violence that broke out during the Farage riots, and I read also that the inquiry by the Home Affairs Committee into the aftermath of the dreadful killings of those three little girls, that the police silence made the violence worse
3:39
I mean that's the headline in the Daily Telegraph it's a little greyer than that
3:45
in the detail it cannot be determined they conclude whether the disorder could have been prevented
3:52
had more information been published however the lack of information created a vacuum
3:59
where misinformation was able to grow further undermining public confidence can you work out what I troubled by here I thought this from the very start I thought this from the moment that Farage started bleating about how it wasn his fault
4:21
that people were spreading. It wasn't his fault that he spread misinformation about the Southport stabbings
4:27
and then tried to blame it all on Andrew Tate, who he has, of course, previously described as part of the same phenomenon to himself
4:35
made no secret of his admiration for Andrew Tate. But him trying to claim that it's the police's fault
4:44
that we spread misinformation troubled me at the time, and it troubles me now, for two reasons
4:51
The first is that we should surely be dedicating our attentions to telling people minded to spread misinformation
4:58
to sit down and shut up. In fact, to even bring measures against people
5:05
who could be shown in court to have incited violence by dint of spreading their misinformation
5:11
It seems to me, in a way, that you are coming at the problem from the wrong angle
5:16
You're coming at the problem from the wrong end. Oh, well, look, if the police don't go against operational procedures
5:21
and reveal everything they know about somebody accused of a crime before anybody has even been charged, perhaps
5:26
but certainly before anybody has been brought to court, then I'm afraid that you're just going to..
5:31
I mean, it's not our fault that we started spreading all sorts of lies about people having recently arrived here in a small boat
5:38
or people being asylum seekers or people being Muslims. Listen, if the police won't tell us things
5:44
that they don't particularly want to tell us, you can't blame us for making stuff up and lying about things
5:50
Do you see my problem? And I'm very, I don't think lonely is quite the right word
5:54
but I do seem to be paddling a fairly empty canoe on this one
6:03
And that's why the phone lines are open, because you could perhaps quite easily explain to me
6:08
why I'm barking up the wrong tree on this and everybody else is barking up the right tree
6:13
If someone tells lies, I mean, look, the point about the old freedom of speech adage
6:18
about shouting fire in a crowded cinema or a crowded theatre, you know that one, right
6:22
Everyone knows that one. So you say, oh, freedom of speech is wonderful. You must have absolutely unlimited freedom of speech
6:27
I say, what about if you stand up in a crowded theatre where it's only got two exits
6:30
and you shout fire at the top of your voice, everyone pegs it for the exit. God, there's a phrase I haven't used since about 1984
6:37
Everyone pegs it for the exit. It even rhymes. God, it's dropping them all over the place today
6:42
Everybody pegs it for the exit, and some people fall over, and in the stampede, people get crushed to death or people die
6:48
So you can't shout fire in an empty cinema. It would be difficult to bring criminal charges
6:53
but it's a figure of speech for a reason. You tell lies that cause violence
6:59
you are responsible in part for that violence. So what would happen here
7:05
What would they stand up and say in the event of someone shouting fire in a crowded cinema, causing a stampede that leaves people dead
7:14
and then being asked to account for their actions later? Well, I think you'll find that the failure of the cinema
7:19
to make regular announcements that it was not in fact on fire is the real reason that created the vacuum into which I could step
7:25
and then shout fire at the top of my voice. This is... I think I'm on..
7:30
I think I'm on the right track, aren't I? Since when did we start saying, oh, if you don't do that, then the liars will have a field day
7:40
And when did we stop saying lying is bad, silence and punish the liars
7:47
Of course, it happened online. Of course, Elon Musk is the owner of the platform where it happened
7:51
Of course, Elon Musk has joined in with all of the claims that this would somehow stifle free speech
7:57
telling people not to tell lies that prompt other people potentially to set fire to hotels full of human beings
8:04
doesn't strike me as stifling free speech. If they were telling the truth
8:10
we're nearly there, we're nearly at the problem, we're nearly at the thing that really, really troubles me
8:16
about this whole story, this whole scenario. But we're not there yet
8:24
It's backwards, right? It just looking at a problem that has been caused by people and trying to blame people who did not cause the problem I love to know what police officers think about this I love to know
8:38
what lawyers think about this. We respect, said the committee of MPs, the Home Affairs Committee
8:45
to be precise. We respect the Crown Prosecution Service's commitment to minimising risks to
8:52
successful prosecutions that is why they often don't provide information to the public that they
8:59
may have come across themselves because it can limit a successful prosecution it can prejudice
9:04
a trial but it is clear that neither the law on contempt nor nor existing cps guidance for the
9:12
media and police are fit for the social media age and that i think is the point and that might be
9:21
the chink in the armor of my confidence this morning my confidence that this is bad and or
9:28
backwards and the chink in the armor of my confidence might be the possibility or the
9:33
plausibility of the criminal justice system keeping pace with the social media age it's why
9:40
unfortunately i find myself having to mention elon musk again this morning if if twitter and
9:48
other social media platforms were properly regulated, then potentially insightful claims would arguably have disappeared very, very quickly. Certainly back when I was on Twitter a lot before
10:01
he took over, the regulation was not perfect, but it was pretty good. There were things you couldn't
10:07
do. There were people who would be removed. If you were found, for example, to be in the business
10:11
of spreading insightful lies like Andrew Tate was during that particular episode
10:17
your account would actually be closed down. One of the first things Elon Musk did when he arrived in the building
10:22
was to actually reinstall all of these provocative, often far-right accounts, all of these accounts dedicated to spreading often racist lies
10:33
They've all come back with a vengeance. They pay Elon Musk a few bucks a month and they can earn quite healthy livings
10:39
from just endlessly posting CCTV footage of people in other countries committing crimes
10:45
as long as they're not white. Just don't publish any footage. of any white people committing crimes
10:50
God forbid you do that. You let the whole cat out of the bag. So that's problem number one
10:57
And that is something you might be able to answer. Do I sound like a well-meaning dinosaur
11:04
Hocus pocus, I'm a diplodocus. Do I sound like a well-meaning dinosaur
11:09
when I say I think that the system should actually be able to deal with liars
11:15
rather than change to accommodate and acknowledge the fact that if we don't change the way that we do things
11:22
the liars will win out. The liars will cause riots. I'd like to see the liars punished
11:29
as much as the people who responded to the lies by taking to the streets
11:34
But that, of course, hasn't happened as much as you might have hoped. Some of them were, quite rightly, banged up
11:39
but not all of them, it seems to me, have been held accountable for the forces they helped unleash
11:45
during that season of rioting. So that is, I don't know who's qualified to answer that question
11:51
Hopefully you are. But is it actually the case that social media gets
11:55
I mean, it makes us, it's like a turbocharged version of that old line
11:59
about a lie being halfway around the world before the truth has got its trousers on. And that, of course, was a figure of speech
12:05
long before social media was invented. I think it was a figure of speech before computers were invented
12:09
or even perhaps telephones. A lie will be halfway around the world before the truth has got its trousers on
12:14
imagine a magnifying lens which increases images by a factor of a thousand
12:21
and now look at that figure of speech through that lens a lie is halfway around the world before the truth has got its trousers on
12:27
it's a thousand times truer than it was in the world before social media
12:31
a million times, a billion times and that is the bit I don't get
12:38
whether or not what seems obvious to me of course you don change the way that you do things because of the way that liars and often in this case racist liars behave but actually the changing technology means that they have to so so that question number one and this is by
12:54
far from the most troubling question that i'm going to ask you this morning should the police
12:58
be revealing details of suspects if bad actors are going to lie about these details in the hope
13:07
of causing the kind of riots that we saw last summer? Should the police actually be revealing details
13:14
And I think you can see the scary bit now, right? You can see the question that's been bothering me since this happened
13:22
And that is, what did they think would happen? So you say he's not a Muslim
13:29
He's not an asylum seeker. He's not recently arrived on a small boat
13:34
And everyone is just going to pack up their Molotov cocktails and go home
13:38
Well, maybe, fingers crossed. But what if he had been all of those things
13:44
I just worry that the subtext to all of these conversations is that if the man who committed these hideous crimes
13:52
had been any of the things that racists obsess about endlessly on social media, a refugee, the massive majority of whom
14:02
are entirely and utterly peaceful, a Muslim, the massive majority of whom are entirely and utterly peaceful
14:09
A small boat arrival, the massive majority of whom are entirely peaceful
14:14
What's the message that's being sent to the British public? If he had been any of the things that racist liars obsess about endlessly on social media
14:22
that it would have been okay to riot? I'm looking you in the eye now because I think I might be going mad
14:29
I can't see how else this story breaks down and I don't think I've heard anybody else ask this question
14:35
What makes this information so important? Answer, well, it would have calmed things down if they'd known he wasn't any of the things that they said he was
14:43
Well, what happens if he is? It's OK to set fire to emergency accommodation full of human beings if a former refugee or an asylum seeker or somebody raised in the Muslim faith has committed hideous murders in Southport
15:01
It's okay to attack entirely innocent people if the crimes committed over there on the other side of the country have been committed by somebody who fits into this demographic or this category or this pigeonhole
15:13
I can't see how else this story breaks down. 0345 6060 973
15:23
Should the police be revealing information of the kind that applies in this case, saying that he is a Christian, saying that he is not a refugee, saying that his family did not come across on small boats
15:40
or are they right to keep it quiet? And of course, contingent upon that question
15:45
is the notion of whether or not technology has overtaken what would once have been
15:50
fairly obvious principles, obvious at least to me. You don't change the rules
15:55
because of how the liars will behave. You go after the liars
16:01
And then the second question, possibly one of the most worrying questions
16:06
I've ever asked you, but do you agree with me and I really want you to disagree
16:12
but if you agree I want to hear your voice as well do you agree with me
16:17
that the way all of this has been covered makes it sound as if
16:24
had the killer actually been a Muslim asylum seeker rather than a British citizen of Christian origin
16:32
then the riots somehow in the minds of these people including quite senior, quite high up people
16:38
then the riots would somehow have been okay or permissible what what am i i don't think i'm
16:44
missing anything i ask you that question too often it's false modesty oh i don't understand this oh
16:48
what am i i don't think i'm missing anything i think that we're trying to reframe the rules to
16:53
accommodate the racist liars and i think that we're sending a message out to the british public
16:57
that oh if he had been a muslim asylum seeker then setting fire to emergency accommodation full of
17:01
refugees would actually have been okay
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