Why has Musk set the mob on innocent random British police officers?

This is a Global Player original podcast. This is grotesque. And I think, I mean, I think that Keir Starmer is right to say this is not who we are. Musk again has been interfering in our politics in the last few days, trying to whip up division. That is not who we are in Britain. But what on earth do you do with someone like Elon Musk, who has such copious amounts of power and seemingly so little responsibility for what he does with it? Something is clearly going on. I hope that on behalf of those two offices, action will be taken because otherwise they become well, I mean, it is it is a bit like the Wild West, isn't it? Yeah. Threats, threats of extreme violence, trying to find family, people that know me, you know, people saying that I shouldn't be put in a position like I have been. It's been really tough to read it. And it's just been an absolute onslaught. That is Christy Hill. She was a serving police officer till about two years ago. But she's now found her face, her name, her image plastered all over the Internet and social media, accused by many of being one of the police that attended the death of Henry Novak. It is a completely false claim. And another police officer has had to go into hiding. How is it possible there now seems to be a lynch mob deciding what justice looks like? How did we get here? And more importantly, who's to blame? Welcome to the News Agents. The News Agents. It's John. It's Maelis. And what we had there was Christy Hill going on GB News to talk about what had happened to her. There is another police officer who we're not going to name, but whose face is across the Internet, where it feels that social media is doing due process and the rule of law and deciding who should be held responsible for things that those who are making judgment know absolutely sod all about. Because they've misidentified somebody. They've put their face up there in lights and, ironically, just kind of laughs. This was a police officer who was in Downing Street because he'd been nominated for a bravery award. But the kind of Internet sleuths have decided that he is responsible for the terrible policing that took place when Henry Novak died. His face has been put out there. It's been amplified by the likes of Elon Musk. And hey, presto, your life is turned upside down. And this from the right of British politics, where they like to say, we are the party, we are the people of law and order. You can't make it up. It was so inevitable, almost from the moment that we heard from Henry Novak's father, Mark, outside Southampton Court on Monday night, begging people not to whip this up, not to make this about race, about tension, about hate and asking the country as a whole to focus on knife crime, asking people to understand where things had gone wrong in the policing, but also in the murderer who was carrying a 21 inch dagger and how quickly this has spiraled into something that, frankly, suits the purposes of people who are looking to make electoral gain. You talk about the right traditionally being the sort of the parties of law and order. I mean, if you cast your mind back to that utterly despicable, appalling murder of Sarah Everard in the middle of the Covid pandemic in 2021, killed by a serving police officer, raped by a serving police officer. At the time, Nigel Farage, if memory serves me right, said, we must not allow the tragic murder of a young woman to turn into attacks on men and attacks on police. My God, how far we've come. So when a woman is raped and murdered, it becomes a potential attack on the police if there are people who go out, as they did then, to protest her death. Farage was one of those saying, oh, let's all calm it down. We don't want to hurt the police. That was an actual serving police officer who raped and murdered her. Five years on, look where we are. The right is fighting with itself to be the party that doxes, outs, incites, whips up. And today we heard from Keir Starmer, who accused the tech billionaire Elon Musk of trying to whip up division. It was Elon Musk who actually doxed the young man you were talking about in the photo. And it was Grok that outed the woman we heard from at the very beginning of this episode. And this was Starmer's, I think, pretty punchy, fairly muscular response to that billionaire. We need to also assert who we are as a country because Musk, again, has been interfering in our politics in the last few days, trying to whip up division. That is not who we are in Britain. In Britain, we are reasonable, tolerant people. When we have a terrible case like Henry's case, Henry Novak, we react calmly as his family have done. When it comes to disgusting images on Grok, we take Grok on and fight because that's who we are as a country. And of course, Keir Starmer can do his best as the prime minister to take on Grok, to take on Elon Musk. But Elon Musk controls X. The algorithm will favour anything that Elon Musk posts with his millions and millions of supporters. And when that photo was put up on X, what was Elon Musk's response? When is this scumbag going to prison? When is this scumbag going to prison? A serving police officer who had nothing to do with the arrest of Henry Novak. Who was nominated for a bravery award. Who was nominated for a bravery award and now has his life upended, is facing death threats, has had to be moved to a safe house. This is grotesque. And I think, I mean, I think that Keir Starmer is right to say this is not who we are. This is not Britain. But what on earth do you do with someone like Elon Musk, who has such copious amounts of power and seemingly so little responsibility for what he does with it? Yeah. And it's not just Elon Musk. If you've been following our episodes over the past couple of days, you'll have heard those scenes in the Commons when Nigel Farage took to his feet in Prime Minister's questions and said he feared that the violence in Southampton was getting worse. And he understood if people responded to Henry Novak's death with pure, cold rage. What does that verb responded mean? Does it just mean you feel rage or does it mean you respond because somebody is suggesting that maybe there is action to be taken? We know that today, Kemi Badenoch, who has played an incredibly straight bat here, met with Henry Novak's family, with Lucy, his mum, with Mark, his dad, and with Katie, his stepmother, and praised their extraordinary courage. I believe that Keir Starmer is welcoming them to Downing Street, meeting them this afternoon as well. And I think if you want to sort of silver lining, actually, in this week, it has been what looks like a really comprehensive, grown up, mature response from the sort of major parties, I guess the central parties, we'd say, to this appalling tragedy at the heart of all the kind of noise and the flam of the political rhetoric. But something is clearly going on, because Farage, as we say, doesn't get his words wrong that often. He tends to know where he's going with his language. And he is fighting, Reform is fighting, a by-election where Restore have outflanked them on the right. And there will be voices now who say he's been pushed into a place which actually is not particularly attractive for Reform. It is not a good look for Reform's leader to be going against the wishes, the demands of a dead boy's family. And this may just be upending the race. I mean, it is too early to see what happens. We're two weeks out from that by-election. And it is a curious moment, I think, for British politics to try and understand where the British public is on this. I'm just going to very briefly give you some numbers. And I should warn you, a little health warning, that these come from more in common from two years ago, from August 2024, after the race riots of that time. But people were asked, the public were asked, do you think the police in the UK treat white people more favourably, treat people equally, regardless of race, or treat people from ethnic minorities more favourably? And if you look at the top line, the all, this comes from two years ago, only 18% of people thought the police treated people from ethnic minorities more favourably. In other words, the vast majority were in a space in between. 80% of people were either saying pretty much the same, white people, or don't know. Now, I say that's from two years ago. Is it possible that something has massively changed in that time? I guess it is. We will find out, presumably, and some of that make you feel voting may tell us where people feel. But as things were, the British public has been fairly accepting, I think, no, the British public has been fairly clear sighted about whether there has been what Nigel Farage called two-tier policing against white people. You know that Nigel Farage chooses his words with care. He doesn't just shoot from the hip. He makes political calculation. And I think it's ugly, but it's worth dissecting where Farage is, because what has happened is that as reform has grown more popular, Farage eyes the possibility of getting into Downing Street and therefore thinks, I've got to peel away conservative voices who might think that I'm a bit unpalatable. So therefore, I'm going to become slightly a bit more centrist. I'm not going to talk about forced repatriation of illegal immigrants and the way that Rupert Lowe is doing. I'm going to just be a slightly more moderate voice. Then he sees the Makerfield by-election, which has so much riding on it, like we've never seen before in a British by-election. And he suddenly realises that Rupert Lowe's party, Restore, is eating into his support. You get the Henry Novak case, and he's got a calculation to make. Do I look like a slightly right-of-centre conservative politician to hope to peel off Tory voters? Well, there aren't that many of them in Makerfield. Much better that I go hard for the Restore votes, which could split my vote, and that is the way to beat Andy Burnham. And so you see him calculating two-tier policing, white bias, and then that stuff where he doesn't contend the protesters, and he talks about the anger could spill out of Southampton, could even get worse. What does that say? I mean, it is almost like, guys, you're right. If you want to go out, attack the police, you know, that's what may happen. And he'll condemn it if the police get attacked, but he'll have said those words in the first place. Well, in a moment, we're going to be here from the former Home Secretary, Labour Home Secretary, Lord David Blunkett. From a range of trusted voices and award-winning journalists. Good morning, I'm Nick Ferrari. It's time to get to your calls. Find out the latest news and hear every side of the story. He was actually treated in a way that meant an accusation of a racial slur was treated more seriously than an act of murder. They wanted riots and they got riots, aided and abetted by people who really should know better. But the next dimension of this tragedy could be even more troubling. Listen on our free global player app or the LBC app. LBC, leading Britain's conversation. Well, we're joined now by Lord Blunkett, David Blunkett, former Labour Home Secretary. And we've just been discussing the background to this. What do you make of Elon Musk and his chat bot, Grok, doxing two police officers? Well, I think people are weaponising it. And Musk has a reputation on this and I'm afraid believes that it's his bounden duty to create havoc. And this is a way of doing it. I mean, he's aided and abetted, obviously, by both Reform UK and Restore, the very small Rupert Low party, in terms of stirring up hate and resentment. And it's very difficult to overcome that because once people have absorbed the notion that this terrible, tragic death demonstrates something about inequality more broadly in our society, it's very hard to get that out of their heads. What should be the response to Elon Musk? Is there any way of shutting him up other than closing X in the UK? Well, we clearly can't. I think the ramifications of that would be profound. I mean, in a sane world, you would say, we're simply not going to put up with any of this. But we're not we're not living in that kind of environment. So we do have to be able to have an immediate reactive response. And I hope that on behalf of those two officers, action will be taken because otherwise, they become, well, I mean, it is a bit like the Wild West, isn't it? It's the law of the jungle. It's the kind of hanging mob. What kind of action? I mean, what do you mean, action will be taken? Well, legal action against him, an action just as we've seen in terms of creative imagery and what he did on the Internet to allow people to create the most obscene images of other people. We also need to be able to protect people who are perfectly innocent from being abused personally. Otherwise, this is a lynch mob. We can't have lynch mobs. Can I take you inside the commons to the scenes yesterday? Nigel Farage stood up and said he believed that the anger was spilling out in Southampton and could get worse. He was booed. He was jeered by many MPs around him. What did you hear then, Lord Blunkett? Well, and could get worse isn't a kind of prediction. It's an incitement. And it is saying, you know, this anger, it's almost legitimizing what happened rather than as with all three of the main party leaders condemning it unequivocally, which I thought was very, very important, because as in our hit in the history of Europe and elsewhere, if we don't stand up and see off people who are taking this particular political line in order to win support, then we'll regret it at great length. Nonetheless, he has now started a conversation, and it looks like the Times newspaper is sort of picking up where he's leaving off, about whether DEI has gone too far. What do you make of these two-tier policing allegations? I mean, you've been right at the center of this. You will remember the Macpherson report when that came out after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the Macpherson report in 1999. You will remember the Casey report from a couple of years back. Do you see two-tier policing? Well, we've seen it in the past. The two-tier policing was totally detrimental to ethnic minorities. We all know that from those major reports and from a recognition of that across society. What we've had in the last two years is the pendulum in the political arena being pushed the other way. I ought to confess that I'm co-chair of an independent commission on police leadership, which will report in July. This commission is about recruitment, promotion. It's about training and development. It's about leadership at every level. And we've been examining what needs to be done to make the police service more effective, to make it more trusted, and above all, to make it deliver to people in their communities. And I can't say a lot at this stage because we haven't finalized the recommendations. But that report, I think, will be important in putting to rest the idea that there's somehow a new wave of discrimination. I'm very sorry if very serious newspapers are building their support, their base, on the back of going down this very dangerous rabbit hole. I mean, the Home Secretary couldn't have been clearer on Tuesday when she talked about policing without fear or favour. She talked about the equality of every citizen is the foundation on which the openness, tolerance and generosity of this country rests. And I mean, that is as clear as I can get. And I hope that our report will demonstrate that where there are problems, and there are within the police service, we will deal with them. Well, we'll try and stop the pendulum swinging from one way to another. I happen not to be politically correct. I, much to friends around me, back in June 2020, wrote in a wide circulation newspaper that I didn't think it was appropriate for the police to take the knee in the Black Lives Matters campaign, because I thought it demonstrated that they were getting themselves involved in a movement. And I don't think whether that movement is right, left or woke or otherwise, that they should be involved in it. So I have a bit of a back reputation here to be very clear that the police should steer clear of it. But it doesn't mean that the police shouldn't be trained in understanding the sensitivities that exist in our society. Otherwise, they're a blunderbuss. In the last 48 hours, though, we've seen the police chiefs organisation suggest that maybe they had to adjust the wording on some of their sort of value statements, mission statements. I mean, does that does that seem like the right response to this? Or do you worry that this is a kind of knee jerk caving in, which is going to have an adverse effect? Well, there's a there's a nice tightrope to walk, Emily. And I think on this occasion, they were right to say that whilst and they did say this, while they stick entirely to the principle and the foundation of what they were doing, they actually could take a look at wording. Wording does matter. I remember when my predecessor at the Home Office, Jack Straw, published the Macpherson report, and there was a ruddy runny mead report on race equality pretty much at the same time. It was individual wording that started hairs running. I just just think that we've got to be so careful now not to play into the playbook, into the narrative of people like Nigel Farage. Historically, and particularly with the Nazis, they were brilliant at being able to pick up what the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats said or did and twisting it. And if we're not aware of that, then we're not politically astute. So being politically astute means watching your back, watching what you say, being careful not to play into their hands. My great worry in the immediate term is, for instance, that the Green Party are God's gift to reform. So all of us have got to be incredibly careful that we don't say or do the right thing, ending up with the wrong outcome. So, David, look, we have ahead of us in the next two weeks the most consequential by-election in our lifetimes, potentially in British history. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's hard to divorce some of the reaction from Farage to this, to the Makerfield by-election. And I just wonder what your read is on how this could play out in a constituency which is very largely white, where reforms seem to be doing extremely well. Yes, and did extremely well on May the 7th throughout the Wigan Metropolitan District in which this constituency is based. And I think that that's why it is so consequential, irrespective of what happens after the 18th of June within the Labour Party and the government. Losing this election would be seismic for both the Labour Party and the potential danger of disintegration of our democratic system, with all its faults, with all the danger of people in the establishment not really understanding what's going on. And because of the nature of that constituency and its makeup, socioeconomically and politically, Andy Burnham winning is an absolute imperative. I shall be there with him. He used to be my PPS, my Parliamentary Private Secretary when I was the Home Secretary. So we've known each other a very, very long time. And his victory isn't about Andy, it's about the trajectory of our politics and the ability of the Labour Party to represent that section of our society that need their voice, understanding and hearing, but need also to be able to be challenged where perceptions become all, and reality takes on an entirely different meaning. I'm really struck by one of the words that you've just used, because I know I've known you for a very long time and you use words very carefully. You talk about the disintegration of our politics if Burnham loses this by-election. Yes, because where does that leave the official left-of-centre major party that currently is in government? I mean, I love history and I would recommend to those tapping into your podcast to see if they can get a dog-eared copy now of a book by George Dangerfield called The Strange Death of Liberal England, which takes us back over 100 years to the early part of last century, with a Liberal Party that leading up to and at the beginning of the First World War had the most enormous parliamentary majority and within years almost became an irrelevance. So to take you back to that critical by-election, which is actually two weeks today then, what do you think Andy Burnham's response should be today, tonight, to this week and the reflection on the Novak tragedy and the question of policing? I mean, do you want to hear him speak to Makefield? Do you want to hear him talk to the rest of the country, to Labour? There is a kind of weird sort of theatricality to what's going on, isn't there? We know it's bigger than one constituency, but right now it's one constituency that he has to win. I think he needs to talk to the people of Makefield and to do so from a position of strength in terms of delivery within Greater Manchester. He, together with Sir Stephen Watson, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, and Kate Green, the deputy dealing with policing, have turned round Greater Manchester Police. It's not perfect, but my goodness me, it's an exemplar of what can be done and the way that really big problems in the recent past are now being overcome. And he's got a platform there to say, we have done it, we can do it, and I will speak for you. And I will speak for you in a way that understands the respect you have for each other, the care that that community has built for each other over years. That's my experience from a white working class community that I grew up in. Are you not worried that even that is speaking, if you like, over the heads of the actual people of Makefield? I mean, when you look at the polling that's come out, a lot of the constituents there are saying, actually, we don't understand why Josh Simon's left. Well, you know, he was good, he listened to us, he did stuff, and we don't want the Manchester thing. No, I get that entirely. Sixty years ago, we had the same challenge in Smethwick in the West Midlands. And it is a really tricky situation. I think the answer is that there's a decision now about their future and our future as a country, and a great deal rests on their shoulders. They can only vote for Andy and for Labour if they believe that he will represent their interests and their voice nationally. And I believe he will. And that has to be the message, not what might have happened and why Josh Simon stood down. But do you believe this man who lives literally up the road, who's done such a good job for your greater region, is the right person to represent you in Parliament? And what kind of sense are you getting from Andy Burnham? I know you're close, you speak to him regularly. When he's knocking on doors or when he's campaigning, what's the message coming back? The message coming back, it's a very fine by-election. This is going right to the wire. Restore party may have an influence, but the main challenge is getting those who are still committed and willing to give Labour a chance to turn out. I've said to all of those who I've been speaking to, when someone tells you they haven't made their mind up, it's 90% certain they won't be voting for you. David Blunkett, Lord Blunkett, great to have you with us again. Thank you very much. Thank you. Sir Richard Moore, I know you were friends with Alex Younger for three decades. Tell us about the man. Oh, thank you. Thank you, John. It's good to be with you. It's been a very, very sad day. I found out the news of Alex's death as I got off a very long flight to Singapore this morning, and I'd known he was seriously ill, but it's still a real shock to hear my feel for Sarah and the family. What makes a real spy? Well, Alex personified it, really. And I would say, first of all, you've got to have, if you're going to be a case officer like Alex was, you've got to have good interpersonal skills, all the stuff that you expect in that space. You've also got to be very self-aware, and you've got to be very low ego because you're dealing with other people and trying to get to a point where you build their trust. And so all of those things, as well as the sheer cleverness, Alex always carried his intellectual heft very lightly. But beneath that very affable manner, you would never want to underestimate just the acumen and the intelligence combined with real decency. When it's a life lived in the shadows, Richard, I guess there's so much that he did that we wouldn't have known about at the time. Can you paint a picture for us of the things that he achieved that you have always been aware of? Well, inevitably, there's a limit to what I can say. But I think Alex spoke a bit to his alma mater, to St. Andrews University a few years back about some of the stuff he did fairly soon after joining the service in the early 90s, where he was involved in post-Dayton Bosnia, the Balkans, in work around trying to track down war criminals, people who'd committed awful atrocities in the Balkan wars. And then he went on to, I mean, he did a lot of work in counterterrorism, both overseas in places like Dubai, but also, as we know, the job that probably made Alex's name and really prepared him to take on the responsibilities of chief was that he led MI6's efforts in MI6's efforts alongside GCHQ and the MI5 colleagues to keep the 2012 Olympics safe. And it's a strange thing. I remember him saying this, you know, one of the weird things for an intelligence officer working on 2012 was it was lovely that Mo Farah and everyone else got the medals. But the most important thing was that nothing happened. You know, it went without a hitch. And there were plenty of people who would have liked to have done it harm. So that was, he did a lot of that early on in his career before becoming chief. And presumably there's another aspect to this, which is that when you're the head of MI6, you are carrying an awesome responsibility and presumably at times deploying agents in the field where you don't know whether they'll come back safely at the end of it. Yeah, it's the most awesome responsibility you have. And, you know, I completely know exactly what Alex would have gone through, but not least because Alex is such a very kind, caring man. And again, very sort of affable and all the rest of it. But he really cared. And there is no greater responsibility than, you know, worrying and caring for your people. And by the nature of that, MI6 and some of the intelligence work we do, particularly around counterterrorism, is difficult and dangerous work. And Alex had to oversee that whole response to the upsurge of ISIS when ISIL captured Mosul and then took over large swathes of northern Iraq and northern Syria. He was intimately involved in that. And yes, you worry about your own people and doing it. But also, I'm afraid, with this job comes sometimes exposure to real horror. And we all remember seeing those hostages in the desert in those awful orange jumpsuits. And Alex had to watch that and he had to watch the versions of the videos that, you know, rightly were never broadcast. And those things are tough. They are part of the responsibilities of doing this job because you have to meet and face evil in order to keep people safe. Alex is, I think, one of the most important things he ever said in public, though, was how important our own ethics and moral centeredness is in these things, because if you ever find yourself on the slippery slope of thinking you should engage in the same activities against the bad guys, then you've lost the plot. It's that sort of sense of strong sense of decency and ethics that sets us apart from, for example, the Russian intelligence services. He said you can break the rules, but not the law. He also gave an interview. About a year ago, I seem to remember where I felt he had repositioned my brain in the way he'd seen the world. And I think he was asked about the sense of sort of fluctuation and change and war in recent years. And his response was, this isn't this isn't abnormal. That's normal. The 60 years of peace that we had before was the unusual bit. I mean, did he make you did he sort of shift the way that you saw things? Well, I think he did me and the rest of the British public in many ways, because he just had that ability to sum up really complex, strategic, international issues in language and with an insight that had impact. You come away, as you rightly say, Emily, thinking, yeah, that's true, isn't it? I think that was that was Alex, because that comes back to the kind of carrying the cleverness very lightly. He had a really strategic brain and an ability to step back and look at things, I think, and provide insight, which is, I think, very unusual. I'm struck by the idea of how much MI6 has changed from the depiction of everything being in the shadows to it now seeming like it's a sort of I mean, it's not a public organisation, but there is a degree of accountability that may not have been there before. Is that his legacy? I think it's part of his legacy. I think it's something that that John Sawes started and then Alex really took on. And I try my best to sort of carry on with some of that. It's just important. I think Alex felt it was very important that in the 21st century that we we gained our earned our licence to operate. And to do that, you have to explain a bit. And the other thing is something, again, that that was a legacy from from Alex, which I tried to carry on, was that computer scientists from St Andrews all those years never went away. And Alex had a really profound understanding of the importance of technology to our business, both in terms of us harnessing technology. And he demanded that officers who came into MI6 and those that were there and perhaps longer in the teeth became digitally literate so they could understand that technology. And of course, technology is a raid against us in our operations. And unless you are prepared to really immerse yourself in that and understand the power of surveillance technology, of the way in which data can be aggregated from your telephone, then you can't run safe operations. And he really was a pioneer, I think, in that. And it sounds like to your point about responsibility, he resisted joining MI6. He was sort of tapped up much earlier on than he then he finally agreed to join the service. And one of the questions that I think on a very human level always sort of hits home is, who do you tell? Who do you confide your secrets to at this point? And I think there was a line in the Times obituary saying he'd finally told his mother that he was a spy. And she just turned around and said, yes, darling, so was I. I mean, I can't believe it really runs in the family. It's a lovely thing. It sometimes does. And I've certainly met plenty of colleagues who've got family relations and some of them didn't tell them before they joined either. So the story that Alex told has the real smack of authenticity. Look, it is, I suppose, in these circumstances, you can't go. The whole essence of doing an intelligence officer, you don't go and tell your mates at the pub on Friday. But you can tell your colleagues. There's a small number who are in the operation or perhaps a set of colleagues in MI5. And that sort of closeness, that joint endeavor, that sense of esprit de cause is very powerful. And Alex leant heavily on that. And of course, the other thing is they may not always know the detail of the operations, clearly. But the families do know who you are and what you're doing. And you can never underestimate the importance for Alex of family. They were the most important thing for him. And of course, he had a personal tragedy himself while in the job. And God knows what that must have been like to cope with whilst holding down such an important job. But he and Sarah really supported each other through that. And Sarah, I know, has been to, as of all the spouses of people working in the service, they're there and they provide this extraordinary support. You couldn't do some of the things that we have to do if you didn't know you had that support at home and you had that emotional release at home. Sir Richard Moore, thank you so much for your recollections of a great man, Sir Alex Younger. Thank you. Thanks very much. Thank you so much. Thanks for letting me come on and talk about it. And the news agents will be back tomorrow. See you then. Bye bye. This has been a Global Player original production.