 Okay. Good morning. Thank you very much for joining me. I hope you're all doing well. I've got some strange noises going on here. I'm not quite sure what they are. But, yeah, I've got some... If you can hear it, you may not be able to hear it. I don't know if they're coming from outside. I think they might be. You may not be able to hear it. I can. Anyway, good morning. Thanks everyone for joining me this morning. There's an article in the Hartlepool Mail that I want to focus on. I want to talk about a little bit. It's a bit of a tricky one to me because I can see both sides of the argument on this, or I can see a few different aspects to this debate. So, I'll start by telling you what the article is, which would be a good starting point. The headline is Hartlepool Neighborhood Watch Group accuses Council of trying to shut down CCTV scheme. And it goes on to tell us that this Neighborhood Watch Group has 23 cameras paid for by the residents in this area. And they say it has been... These cameras have been instrumental in driving down crime. But members of this Neighborhood Watch have been issued with community protection warnings, telling them not to monitor public areas after Hartlepool Borough Council received public complaints. They ordered the council warned that they could be taken to court if they didn't stop. These are the orders, the protection warnings that they were issued. They could be taken to court if they didn't stop filming public areas with private cameras. The group responded by saying that they believe they have obtained all necessary accreditation to operate these cameras and will seek legal advice. And a spokesman for the group said, all we're trying to do is prevent and detect crime in our area and keep it at bay. We're not using it for anything else. People said they felt a lot safer with the cameras up. We wanted to monitor a large area for people who can't afford a camera so we could see the whole street. He also said that the footage of these cameras was only reviewed by two coordinators with Level 2 Security Industry Authority accreditation and the scheme is certified by the Information Commissioner's office. The spokesman added that when they asked the council for details of complaints so they could address them, officials refused to say. The rules are partly currently that cameras can only be aimed at homeowners' own property. A spokesman again says, in this day and age your image is an interesting remark. In this day and age your image is picked up thousands of times a day. Nothing was done with the images unless the police requested it. Hartlepool Barre Council in response said, this is an ongoing investigation so we are limited as to what we can say at this time. However, we can confirm we have taken action following the receipt of a number of complaints from Hartlepool residents who were concerned about being filmed and monitored by people in their community that they do not know. Okay, this is really interesting to me. I sympathise with people who say they don't necessarily want to be. I mean, do we want to live in a society where we are filmed all the time? No, is my own answer. And it's kind of thing to do with whether or not you have anything to hide. It's a privacy and privacy to me is very important and it's a part of our individuality and it's a part of our autonomy and self-determination in deciding who knows what about us. We all have private lives. Many of us would like value, the concept of control and autonomy over our private lives. It is true, though, that we as the spokesman for this group said we live in a society where we are images picked up thousands of times a day. So I think the argument essentially being made there is we're already filmed all the time. So what difference does an extra few cameras make? I'm obviously paraphrasing with that, but that's the gist of it, I think. That's true as well. We are picked up. Our images picked up thousands of times a day no matter where we go. So both points on that are followed. What is perhaps most crucial in this is the need, the feeling that people have that they need to do this to keep themselves safe and that they have put their own money in to have to install cameras around the area to keep them feeling safer and to drive down as they put it. They said it's having an effect on driving down crime. Perhaps that's the issue. Is it a nod towards private security over protection by the police? South Africa is a country that springs to mind and I have some contact and knowledge of South Africa. This is a country where policing is so inept that private security firms are thrive in South Africa. And what you will have, for example, private alarm systems and people are allowed to have arms in South Africa. So something, a business that is quite common and quite popular in that country is a private alarm system is installed in your home. Instead of phoning, for example, 999, if there is an intruder, a burglar, if the alarm goes off, this will trigger a response not from the police but from this private security firm who will attend your house in the way that the police might and they will be armed and they will respond to an intruder or potential intruder or criminal action in the way that the police were. But these are private firms, private companies and they are paid quite substantially by those who can afford this kind of private security. The reason this private security exists is because A, because South Africa is a very high crime country and B, to repeat, the police are seen as and probably justifiably seen as completely inept public trust in the police in that country is extremely low, it's extremely low because people have experience of the police failing to respond or prioritising completely in the wrong direction, i.e. not prioritising crime but political shenanigans and to feel safer, people don't feel safe relying on the police and that's been the case in South Africa for some time. When I read this article, that's what it reminded me of are we in the UK in a situation where we feel the need to keep ourselves free to keep crime down in our own areas we've built the need to do that ourselves that duty is now resting on our own shoulders they paid for these cameras and like in South Africa they pay for the private security to respond in the way the police would they're paying for private protection if you like so in other words this is for people this protection, this feeling of safety, this reduction in crime in their area you can afford private protection, private security which is this is private CCD cameras is an element of private security that's what it reminded me of and the reasons are similar people who feel the need for private security here for similar reasons that they feel the need for it in South Africa trust in the police has dropped that policing will keep you safe, has dropped and this is the result and it comes also like South Africa it comes from experience of the police police failing to prioritise crime over politics we know what that's like, we can see it getting further and further down that road and police even just failing to turn up so let me just have a little look at that in a little bit more detail I've got a couple of articles, couple of newspaper articles that I want to share with you one of them goes back to show you a little bit of time lapse and see if this is getting any worse which I suspect strongly that it is this is from 2014 and it's from the BBC and the headline is do the public still trust the police, read a little bit of it to you a string of allegations have been levelled at the police in recent months but that has eroded public trust says Simon Maypin Home Secretary Theresa May described as profoundly disturbing a report earlier this month that found undercover Scotland yard officers tried to influence the family of motive black teenagers Stephen Lawrence Metropolitan police is also facing legal action brought by five women who say they were deceived into intimate relationships with undercover police from the alleged Hillsborough police cover up to the arrests of current and former police officers as part of the Met's operation Elvedon investigation into alleged payments to public officials in return for information the institution has faced a raft of negative publicity recently so do the public still trust their colleagues we need to put what we see in the media in context says Chief Superintendent Irene Cortes President of the Police Superintendent Association of England and Wales there are over 120,000 police officers in England and Wales and whilst they don't condone any of the conduct of officers who do bad things who are corrupt the vast majority of police officers and police staff out there do a fantastic job day in day out however polling evidence suggests that whether or not public trust in police is as high as it should be it hasn't been much affected by recent bad news research company Ipsos Maori asked members of the public if they would generally trust the police to tell the truth or not 65% said they would compared with 31% who wouldn't the rating is as high as trust in the police has been in 1983 when the last such poll was carried out okay so a couple of things to comment on about that corruption exists in all areas of life every institution, every company, every every every area every facet of life there will be corruption within it sadly but I don't really think that's the issue the issue isn't necessarily whether people believe that all police officers are corrupt or not it's about whether or not the police can be trusted to keep to respond to keep crime down to focus on crime 30 even with that just that aside for the moment 31% still said they believed that the police wouldn't tell the truth so that's back in 2014 this one comes from 2021, April 2021 and it says Britain's have lost confidence in the police to deal with crime so this one is more relevant to what I'm talking about and most people now think officers do not take sexual assault seriously the latest data shows people therefore, this tells me people therefore are awake, more awake perhaps than some of us realize people out there are not stupid, they get it this will come from a variety of sources and it will come not because we think that there's no corruption in the police but from experience, the experience that I talked about over the last 10 years just look and it's got nothing to do with the odd corrupt police officer, it's to do with the police institutionally the cultural shift, complete transformation of police from law enforcers, enforcers is a keyword law enforcers to what can only be described as social workers or political activists how can you possibly trust the police to be on your side if you don't share the political views openly expressed by the police Mike Spiekman, our policing spokesman who has years of experience in the police, he told me that in his career this is not a million years ago the police would have to, if the police want a protest for example they would have to make sure, so strict was it that the police not be shown to take any sides out of protest that they would have to even make sure that they weren't walking in time with marches this is how serious it was taken the police not show any preference at any political protest their job was to make sure the protest came off safely and that the protest was able to take place at all because part of their job is to protect our rights to exercise civil liberties, one of which of course is the right to protest now we have a scenario where the police actively participate in protests if you do not agree with the police's expressed political view, how can you possibly trust them to deal with you justly and unbiasedly, you can't, I don't for example I know that the police have nailed their colours to the mast politically on the issues that I often speak about, so I don't have faith that the police will treat me because my political views are so vastly different to those expressed by the police I don't trust, I don't have faith in them to deal with me fairly and unbiasedly, and I think I'm right too and everyone who shares my politics will have those same fears, that's obvious it's a natural result of the police taking a political position in public, sexual assault taking sexual assault seriously, it's incredible talk about the understatement of the century we know where this lack of trust comes from you can name them, you know what I'm going to say the list goes on, Tellford, Oxford, Birmingham Newcastle, we know, we know what happens still happening, still happening in Rutherham every bit as much as more in fact Sarah champion told me, not Sarah champion the, oh her name escapes me it was a meeting held by Sarah champion one of the whistleblowers in this told me clearly that this is happening even more in Rutherham so when that's the case how can we possibly expect public trust in the police on this issue and it's not just the police of course if the police do manage to arrest someone and they are put on trial and they're jailed, the judiciary it's just as bad, they'll put them away for a few years, giving licence giving licence, this by the way is the value we place on the young girls being raped all over this country the judiciary, we must lost faith, I've certainly lost faith faith in the judiciary as well so it goes on to say, this article goes on to say you go track a pole, has revealed trust in police to deal with crime in your local area has dropped, so this is very much related to the issue of the CCTV cameras and the hardly prove that we started with trust in police to deal with crime the proportion of people who do not have confidence in the force rose from 31% but confidence fell very much, let me read that again I've confused myself here, I don't think it's written very well let me read it again, the proportion of people who do not have very much confidence in the force rose from 31% to 34% while those with a fair amount of confidence fell, people with no confidence at all rose up from 7% to 9% so adding those together it does show an overall fall in trust in the police with those having no confidence at all being the one that goes up the one a fair amount of confidence goes down, so with those two added together the overall result is that confidence has dropped in the police, so the new polling was collected following the death of Sarah Everard a 33 year old marketing executive who went missing after walking home from a friend's flat in London her remains were discovered in an area of Woodland in Ashford in Kent a week later, Metropolitan Police Officer Wayne Cousins was charged with her death and murder London in particular has seen a very marked change in police confidence since the 1st of March a separate Ugove poll asked if police take sexual assault seriously did not reflect well on the police the proportion of people who thought authorities did not treat the issue seriously rose significantly from 54% to 68% and that was in the space of a few months a further 19% thought the police treated sexual assaults with the right level of seriousness down from 29% I will add these to the YouTube video of this I'll add them to the links below so you can have a look for yourself statistics are never easy to read however overall just of it is that there's been a significant drop in trust in the police and particularly more significantly in when it comes to treating sexual assaults seriously so to take it back up here to Hartley poll for a moment I want to remind you of an article that I wrote on this issue not that long ago in January and it says Cleveland is the most dangerous area in England and Wales it is according to a recent report this report revealed that serious crimes such as murder rape, arson and robbery are highest in the north of England with staggering figures in the northeast one in ten people in Hartley poll have been victims of such crimes one in ten so the serious crimes listed are murder, rape, arson and robbery and one in ten people in Hartley poll, Middlesbrough and Radker have been victims of these crimes Cleveland has the highest rate of serious crime in England and Wales between June 2019 and June 2020 there were in Cleveland 23,675 instances of violence against a person falling within this category where 11 homicides 5,485 instances of violence with injury 9,135 without 9,040 cases of stalking and harassment and four deaths or serious injuries by unlawful driving I will link to this as well which gives further links to all of this data and these reports in my article on this I asked what are the causes ultimately a lack of leadership on a national scale police have been decimated under the conservatives they were the conservatives are promising to put those 20,000 police officers back on the street but what kind of police officers will we get my guess is university graduates the old school law enforcing police are being phased out I've spoken to several officers and ex-officers who tell me this the old school are being phased out to be replaced by politically correct social worker types and if that's what we're getting then to my mind you can keep your 20,000 we don't need this we need actual policing the Tories are not providing this the resources that police do have are often completely wrongly prioritized nationwide police are more concerned with political correctness than with crime this is the first thing that must change let me just show you by way of finishing up let me just show you a couple of clips that will have come to your attention a couple of images that will have come to your attention in previous months which will take another example first of all of the politicization of the police but secondly why the police in Britain have become something of a laughing stock let me show you a couple of images one was police wearing nail varnish this was a gimmick for anti-slavery day and police officers around the country went to work wearing nail varnish and took little pictures of themselves and posted them on social media wearing nail varnish policing in Britain 2021 what has campaigning anti-slavery day got to do with the police and this is the cultural shift that I talked about and this is why people have lost faith in the police as enforcers of law as protectors from crime slavery is obviously an abhorrence but political campaigning and social awareness is not the job of the police arresting people for taking part for facilitating slavery that's the job of the police it is not up to them to highlight social political issues it is up to them to go out there nail the crooks who do this and protect the innocent nail varnish on social media does neither of those things it merely continues to undermine trust in the police as enforcers of law the second one is more recent this is the rainbow cars the police are introducing rainbow cars with which they intend to tackle hate crime the whole concept whole concept of hate crime is a farce anyway crime is a crime and if we are to live in a functioning society of equal citizens it should not be more serious to beat up a black person than to beat up a white person or to beat up a gay person than to beat up a straight person we are all equal citizens to attack us and all should be treated the same way what this hate crime nonsense does is divide us even further and elevate some people above other people this is not how to run a functioning equal peaceful at ease with itself society quite the opposite but despite all the public distrust and the growing public distrust the police are digging their heels in all over the country every force digging their heels in they are not saying you know what you maybe have a point maybe we shouldn't be so political no one is reviewing this no one the police chief is not looking at this they are doing the opposite the opposite getting more and more absurd all the time less and less in tune with their duty which is to punish criminals or at least to catch criminals for the courts to punish them which the courts are not doing either but that's another matter catch criminals and protect the innocent and keep peace that's the duty of police they are further and further and further away from that further into absurdity and trust in police just goes down and down and this is why and if this continues which for the foreseeable or at least under the current crop of politicians I don't see it changing if this continues you can expect more and more people to be looking at private security to make themselves feel safe we'll be looking at a South Africa style society where people who can afford it will be hiring private security to keep their homes and families safe because the police don't can't or won't okay that's it from me for this morning thanks everyone for watching I shall be back actually this evening I have been really interesting this afternoon having a really interesting discussion which I'll publish tomorrow most likely I shall be speaking with a detransitioner this evening and you know the trans issue is huge huge enormous this evening I will or this afternoon I'll be speaking to someone who has been through a gender transition and now is what transitioning back to the news they're known as can't wait for that have a look out for that I'll publish it hopefully tomorrow I'll be back live Monday with my normal Monday night live stream and don't forget our videos Wednesday and Friday nights and have past seven on YouTube thanks everyone take care I shall see you all very soon