WATCH - "If You REALLY Can't Take It, Become A HERMIT" | Anne Widdecombe On Free Speech

Añadido: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Now only two sorts of people oppose free speech and they are at opposite ends of the scale.

[00:00:10]Snowflakes and totalitarians.

[00:00:14]I am offended, upset, insulted at least 30 times a day. Tough.

[00:00:22]It is not necessary to flash your mas to do a decent ballroom dance.

[00:00:27]Free speech is for all, not for the privileged few.

[00:00:33]Nobody has the right to live their lives being protected from offense or from insult or from hurt feelings. And if you really can't take it, become a hermit.

[00:00:54]Let's just say a very happy bank holiday. Oh, look at this. Back holiday Monday to And Whitikim. Look at you.

[00:00:59]Morning.

[00:01:00]>> Well, I was I was told, Mike, that you were going to be in a Hawaiian shirt. I didn't believe it. I switched on and you were. So, I thought, well, I must get into the spirit of this.

[00:01:08]>> I love it. I love it. Absolutely brilliant. Fantastic. Great hat, by the way, and fantastic sunglasses. But, but it is it's it's I mean, it was literally like being on holiday this weekend. I thought it was really lovely. So I just thought to suddenly last night I thought to myself, you know, I know lots of people won't be working today, so they can uh they can gaze upon me in a slightly different manner than they normally would. Um but I must say I'm not um at all in favor of all of these bleeding warnings that we get from everybody telling us that, you know, please carry water with you wherever you go. I mean, we did grow up and I c certainly remember, as I'm sure you do, the summer of 1976, um, where we seem to spend most I spent most of my time sunbathing on my parents' flat roof um, in in Hamstead getting sunburnt.

[00:01:53]>> We are, they just try to infantilize the population completely. You know, it's you go on a station and the platform's wet and you get announcements telling you, you know, that the platform is slippery, so please don't come. You know, as if we're fivey olds and the whole idea of being an adult is that you assess risk and you decide whether to take it or not.

[00:02:14]>> Well, exactly. But we now live in this world, don't we, where we're constantly being advised. I mean, his Stella Crey, who's probably not your favorite politician, I wouldn't imagine. Stella Cesy warning uh of the heat wave coming.

[00:02:26]Have a look at this.

[00:02:27]>> Wam Stow. It's Friday the 22nd of May.

[00:02:31]The Met Office has issued what it calls a yellow weather warning. What that means is they are concerned that the temperature will rise enough over the next couple of days, basically until Wednesday of next week, that it may cause problems for some vulnerable people within our community. Now, they're predicting around 32°.

[00:02:51]So, for example, the tube might get really hot and uncomfortable. Uh, if you haven't drunk enough water, you might overheat. If you've got a health condition, you might find it very difficult to move around in those sorts of temperatures. I'm sharing this information so that you can share it with people. Please do carry water with you at all times over the next couple of days. Wear sunscreen, sun protection, sunstroke, a real risk as well. If you know of vulnerable people within our local community, please do check in on them over the next couple of days. Uh make sure that your pets and your kids are drinking enough water and have access to drinking water, too. Um, if you are a local business, please consider providing a shaded area so that if anybody needs to sit down and recover, they can come in and be aware of these potential risks. Uh, it's lovely to have sunny evenings in Waltham Stow, but actually at these sorts of levels of heat, there could be real problems for some in our community. So, by working together, we can help keep Wam safe in whatever the weather is.

[00:03:57]>> I've got some water here um just in case.

[00:04:02]I mean, you literally see people on the >> She really is. I mean, you know, to to spend all that. She sounded a bit puffed at the end. Maybe she needs to get fit.

[00:04:10]I don't >> I know.

[00:04:12]>> And I mean, we do not need talking down to in that fashion. I mean, that is how parents talk to children and say, you know, you must take some water with you and, you know, be very careful and and, you know, get in the shade and here's some sun cream. That's what parents do to children, not what adults do.

[00:04:33]>> Also, you know, the idea that, you know, on Stella Cre's advice, somebody's going to come knocking on my door to go, "You drinking enough water?" I think I'd be tempted some to bug her off.

[00:04:42]>> Well, I I wouldn't quite use that expression, but I would do exactly that in spirit. Yes.

[00:04:47]>> I mean, it is extraordinary, isn't it?

[00:04:49]Speaking of of of other sort of instructions that that I've seen over the course of the last couple of days, um there's a piece running currently on Sky TV saying that we're about to once again enter a war footing according to John Healey who is our Secretary of State for Defense. Right. However, the problem is for him, one I saw a piece last week that said that if we ever did go to war, we've only got enough drones for about a week, seven days worth of drones and then we'd run out. I also see on the front page of the times today an RAF jet carrying the defense secretary was hit by an electronic warfare attack after flying near the Russian border.

[00:05:25]And I seem to remember this happening once before. I think it was when the tries were in charge um where um somebody some Russian jammed the the radar on a on a military flight. You know, we seem woefully unprepared for any kind of conflration if there is one.

[00:05:39]Um how did we ever get this bad?

[00:05:42]>> Well, we are utterly unprepared. Yeah.

[00:05:44]>> Um the rot started but in a very small way after the end of the cold war when the Berlin wall came down and suddenly it wasn't necessary to have the buildup and the concentration that we'd had in the past. But uh once politicians saw oh look you know you can save money by that and we're all perfectly safe aren't we?

[00:06:03]You know because 911 hadn't happened then. Uh we're all perfectly safe aren't we? So it's worth taking the risk and unfortunately nobody cried halt. Nobody said, you know, we've now gone a bit too far. We need to reverse this a bit. We certainly need to stabilize it. They've gone on reducing our forces. You can trace it. You can actually trace it through the government's own figures.

[00:06:25]And when I say government, I I mean governments. You can trace it all the way through. Uh reduction in armed forces, reduction in the reserve, reduction in the armor and the weapons and the tanks, reduction in the navy, the navy, you know, reductions everywhere every year because that's the way you can save a bit of cash. And now we have a virtually, not quite, but virtually an undefended country. And it is the fault of every single government over the last 25 odd years.

[00:06:57]>> Yes. I mean it has been as you say a complete and that's a dereliction of duty it seems to me. I mean part I remember as well though part of the problem is that back in sort of um you know shall we say the mid- teens 2015 2016 we were being told and I remember being told this on on various different shows that I did from from from sort of army chiefs and military experts that you know the wars of the future will be fought on computers that cyber crim cyber crime and cyber attacks will be a bigger threat than than anything you know with boots on the ground which has turned out to be complete and utter nonsense. Well, it is and I mean what's the first thing that happened in Ukraine? You know, it was it was boots on the ground. Uh and it is a nonsense.

[00:07:39]I mean I I accept absolutely, you know, that the threats of the future probably will be cyber related. And I accept absolutely that we have moved from vast concentrations of troops to extremely targeted weaponry. But there is a limit.

[00:07:55]you are always going to need troops. Uh and at the moment we would be very hard put even to stand too, never mind to actually fight.

[00:08:05]>> Yes. No, absolutely right. And speaking of of of sort of defense of the realm, let's talk a bit about the criminal uh stories that are around today. Police will be caretakers in the community for criminals under Labour's soft justice.

[00:08:18]This is coming from Brian Booth on the front page of the Daily Mail today, deputy national chairman of the police federation. There was a terrible story um that happened recently um where Ryan Davis was a planelo um police officer uh on an operation in Heraford. He was savagely attacked by a father and son who punched, kicked and stamped him uh stamped on him strangling him until he was nearly unconscious. He suffered a broken leg, multiple fractures, dislocated, broken an ankle, face lacerations including damage to his eye.

[00:08:47]Um, one of the attackers has been freed um after being sentenced to three years in prison after just three months. And I mean, this is going on now all the time, isn't it?

[00:08:58]>> It says it all. And of course, criminals laugh at the system. You know, the only thing that will actually cause a criminal to pause uh is the thought that he might be caught and that having been caught uh what follows will be uh uh very difficult. uh and that is the only thing uh that that keeps them in check.

[00:09:17]And if they think that they're going to be lightly sentenced, released very early, uh maybe not jailed at all, of course there's no disincentive there to to do what they want to do.

[00:09:30]>> Yeah, of course not. And and at the end of the day, um we've also seen that other uh terrible case of the young girls who were raped by by the teenage boys who were not sent to prison because the judge said he didn't wish to criminalize them. Well, I'm sorry. If you're found guilty of rape, surely you're already criminalized, aren't you?

[00:09:48]>> Yes. I mean, I'm always very wary about pronouncing on individual cases because I wasn't there. I didn't hear the facts.

[00:09:54]The judge did. But nevertheless, when you consider what did you have? You had rape.

[00:09:59]>> And what have you got? you've had a non-custodial sentence. There is a mismatch there. And what is more is that that actually diminishes the public's faith in justice. So the public think we don't bother to report it to police.

[00:10:13]They won't do anything anyway.

[00:10:14]>> Uh and when the public starts to lose confidence in the law and order agencies, once they do that, um then you know you you've got a recipe for criminals to do whatever they want to do.

[00:10:27]>> Well, that is the problem currently in in the country, isn't it? because you've got so many cases now where um people report things that happen, fights that go on in the street, people waving machetes around, you know, um you know, sort of ram raided jewelry shops all over the place because technically speaking, if you are a criminal, there's a pretty good chance that you'll get away with it.

[00:10:47]>> Well, that is true. The other thing is police priorities have been very very warped. They are now gradually uh turning from investigating uh non-crime hate incidents. Well, if it's a non-rime, it's not the business of the police anyway. Uh they have now turned slightly from that. Um but the fact is that that for the last couple of decades, they have become more and more social police and much less criminal police.

[00:11:13]>> Uh and that is what has gone wrong. And it's gone wrong over a long time. And again, governments have been pretty complacent. The recruitment hasn't kept up with the need. Uh and um I mean a typical attitude now is if you've been burgled, why do you report it in order to get a crime number because otherwise you won't be insured. It's not because you think the police are going to be buzzing around with fingerprint powder in it. You don't think that at all. You just think I I've got to do this because of the processes.

[00:11:45]>> Yeah. Know I just I once did a phone in show on this about two years ago, maybe three. Um and the record time that I think I heard on on various different stories was uh somebody said they came home from holiday um around about4 to 8 one evening uh Sunday evening to discover the house had been burgled.

[00:12:01]They rang the police um at 8:00 and reported it and at 10:30 they got a call back from the police saying they'd closed the case without ever having come out to visit them. They just said, you know, here's your crime number. didn't even bother going through the motions, you know, and and you're right, they just I mean so and this is why I think crime is actually a lot worse than we think it is because a lot of people actually don't even bother doing that because if for example I mean when I had my phone stolen I had it luckily it was insured anyway so I got a new one I didn't have to report it to police so I didn't bother.

[00:12:31]>> Yeah I mean that is a problem. I mean, a couple of decades ago, um, my garden shed was burgled and they stole a strimmer, you know, I mean, it was not the end of the world.

[00:12:42]>> The police came and looked at it.

[00:12:44]>> Um, they didn't actually do anything.

[00:12:47]They said, "Well, we think there's been another burglary and they didn't, you know, look for fingerprints to see if they could match that to the other burglary." But what did they offer me?

[00:12:55]They offered me counseling for the loss of a swimmer. They offered me counseling. And when I roared with laughter, sarcastic laughter, they said, "Well, sorry, but we have to do this."

[00:13:06]So, they've got these stupid procedures whereby, you know, you offer the victim counseling. What you don't offer the victim is um a good hunt for the criminal.

[00:13:15]>> Yeah. Well, this is a bit like the Labor government's current state of play where they think taking, you know, VAT down to 5% uh in Legoland is going to be an incentive for people to go there even though it costs hundreds of pounds to go to Legoland. uh while you get a discount of a couple of quid, it's not going to work, is it?

[00:13:33]>> Complete absence of logic everywhere. Uh absolutely everywhere.

[00:13:37]>> Yeah, it is mad. What about this latest thing as well where um we've got now I think the longest um or the we've got the biggest rise in long-term unemployment for a decade, 477,000 people unemployed for more than a year.

[00:13:51]Um but also an awful lot of young people unable to get jobs. They're now suggesting, this is Alan Milbour, uh, an old hangover from the Blair days, who's now the apparently employment zar for the government. Basically, he's saying families on benefits could be paid hundreds of pounds a month to stop them discouraging their teenage children from taking apprenticeships. And I was just like, sorry. So, you're going to go around to somebody's house, you knock on the door and say, are you discouraging your children from taking benefits, from taking apprenticeships, rather? And they're going to go, yes. And so they're going to write you a check to say please don't.

[00:14:28]>> Uh the thing that will encourage young people to take apprenticeships is if they don't have the option of living on benefits.

[00:14:34]>> Yeah.

[00:14:34]>> Um that you know that that is the thing that will actually encourage them to go out there and find a job. Now you know I know lots of young people who are doing gap years who've managed to find jobs >> uh in order to save up you know to go on their travels or whatever it is.

[00:14:48]multiple jobs sometimes you know one by day, one in the evening, another one at the weekends. Uh so you can find jobs.

[00:14:56]You may not find jobs of your first choice. Yes.

[00:14:59]>> But you can find jobs and that is where the emphasis should be. But instead of that the emphasis is oh what can we do for people who haven't got jobs? Yeah.

[00:15:09]>> Uh to make life easier whereas what we should be saying is what can we do to incentivize them to go and get the jobs.

[00:15:17]Now I'm not denying um you know we are in one of those phases which the country has gone through at regular intervals where it is quite tough for young people to get a job and I I'm not denying that at all but the answer is not to shell out yet more money. The answer no is to is to make it possible to get a job.

[00:15:36]>> Yes I know but I think one of the things that they've done since they've been in is to make it impossible to get a job.

[00:15:41]But I mean I speak to people all the time whose kids are, you know, graduates from university who can't even get a job washing up because people aren't employing them because they've got too many expenses running the business that they're running. And so many of businesses that used to give you say a Saturday job working behind a a till or working stacking shelves in supermarkets, they're just not there anymore.

[00:16:04]>> Well, as I say, you know, I I also know young people who have managed to get multiple jobs because they're they're incentivized. they they they've got an aim to do it. Uh so it is possible uh to do that. Uh and the the crucial thing is to make it not only possible for young people to find work but for employers to offer them that work. Yeah.

[00:16:26]>> Uh and the first thing Rachel Reeves did was to put up national insurance contributions, then put up the minimum wage. uh and if you increase the costs of employment, you decrease the ability, never mind the incentive, the ability of the employer to employ. So you then have to look further than the government uh to see what's going on.

[00:16:50]>> Yeah, they do seem to have this terrible kind of their first instinct is always to hand out money, isn't it? To go, oh well, if you can't do that, well, don't worry, we'll just look after you. You're vulnerable. You know, you must need help. And and you know, as you say, that's not the way to do it, is it?

[00:17:05]>> It's all part of where we came in when I was talking about infantilizing the population.

[00:17:10]>> Uh and that's really, you know, what it's about. Uh it isn't about expecting individuals to stand on their own feet unless there is something catastrophic, you know, multiple disability. Uh it's not that what we do is we say, "Oh dear, has something gone wrong? Look, we'll help." uh and you know help has got to be extremely targeted towards the people who need it and they because the help is very thinly distributed amongst the load of people who don't need it the people who really need the help are not actually getting as much help as they need.

[00:17:45]>> No. And that is the big problem. And great to see you. Hope you enjoy the afternoon. Do you have any plans for bank holiday Monday?

[00:17:51]>> I'm afraid they're all lazy because of the weather, you see. and I I won't overexert and I'll make sure I've got my water bottles. I'm Oh, for heaven's sake. I'm going to have a lazy bank holiday.

[00:18:02]>> Okay. Uh this from Lance has just come in. Can you get an to tell us about her Morris Miner convertible? Uh I'm sure she'd love to. Do you have a Morris Miner convertible?

[00:18:11]>> No. Uh what he is thinking of is uh when I was uh young uh my very first car was a Morris Miner.

[00:18:17]>> Ah.

[00:18:18]>> Uh which I then kept for about 13 years and I sold it for six times as much as I paid for it. Oh, really? Oh, that's very good business. Wasn't a convertible, but but it was a good old Morris Miner with wing indicators and, you know, all the old stuff. Yeah.

[00:18:33]>> Yeah. Brilliant. Fantastic. Good to see you, Ann. Thank you very much indeed.

[00:18:36]And Whitikham Substack, of course, can easily be found. Uh, and all you got to do is look up Substack and look up Anne Whitikim and you will find it there.

[00:18:44]Wonderful woman. Wonderful woman.