0:00

This is the BBC. Ryan

0:13

Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price

0:15

of just about everything going up during inflation,

0:17

we thought we'd bring our prices down. So

0:19

to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile

0:22

Unlimited Premium Wireless! Have it to get 30, 30, a bit to get 30, a bit

0:24

to get 20, 20, a bit to get 20, 20, a bit to get 20, a

0:26

bit to get 20, a bit to get 20, a bit to get 20, 20, a

0:28

bit to get 20, a bit to get 20, 20, a bit to get 20, a

0:30

bit to get 20, 20, a bit to get 20, a bit to get 20, a

0:32

bit to get 20, a bit to get 20, a bit to get 20, 15, 15,

0:34

15, just 15 bucks a month. Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45

0:36

upfront for three months plus taxes and fees. Prom or eat

0:38

for new customers for limited time. Unlimited more than 40 gigabytes

0:40

per month. Slows. Full turns at mintmobile.com. Hey, I'm

0:42

Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's

0:45

legal team if big wireless companies are

0:47

allowed to raise prices due to inflation.

0:49

They said yes. And then when I

0:51

asked if raising prices technically violates those

0:53

onerous two-year contracts, they said, what the

0:55

f*** are you talking about, you insane

0:57

Hollywood a*****e? So to recap, we're cutting

0:59

the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just

1:01

$15 a month. Give it a

1:03

try at mintmobile.com/switch Give it a try at

1:06

mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up front for three months

1:08

plus taxes and fees. Promote for new customers for limited time. Unlimited

1:10

more than 40 gigabytes per month. Mint Unlimited slows. Hello,

1:14

I'm James Menendez Thank you for downloading the

1:16

BBC's world tonight podcast from Tuesday the 25th

1:18

of June a fifth Conservative

1:21

has been looked into by the Gambling Commission

1:23

in relation to alleged bets on the date

1:26

of the general election We'll

1:28

have the latest from Westminster and ask

1:30

how voters are responding Also,

1:32

at least five people have been

1:34

killed in Kenya during mass protests

1:36

against the government's plans to raise

1:38

taxes The founder of

1:41

WikiLeaks Julian Assange has arrived on

1:43

a remote US territory in the Pacific

1:45

to plead guilty to a charge of

1:47

espionage And the legendary Irish broadcaster Mihal

1:49

and where a hurt it has died

1:51

at the age of 93 After

1:54

a career spanning six decades will

1:56

have a tribute from the Irish

1:59

comedian O'Brien. There

2:02

are just nine days to go before

2:04

the election. We're coming into the final

2:06

stretch of the campaign and

2:08

there is one story that won't

2:11

go away. Politicians gambling. Tonight

2:13

a fifth conservative, a member of the

2:15

Welsh parliament, says he's stepping back from

2:17

the shadow cabinet there while the gambling

2:20

commission investigates a bet he made over

2:22

the timing of the election. And

2:25

another odd twist. A conservative cabinet

2:27

minister who claimed to the BBC

2:29

that he'd won more than £2,000

2:32

betting on a July election now

2:34

says he didn't. And a candidate

2:37

for Labour now suspended by the

2:39

party after it emerged that the

2:41

gambling commission is investigating him for

2:44

betting on the Tories to win

2:46

his seat. More on

2:48

all this in a moment. First let's

2:50

just rewind to earlier in the day

2:52

when the story was simply this. An

2:55

announcement from the Conservative Party that it

2:57

was after all withdrawing support from its

2:59

candidates Craig Williams and Laura Saunders for

3:01

allegedly betting on the timing of

3:04

the election. Two party staffers are

3:06

already on leaves of absence. Well

3:08

on the world at one, Conservative

3:10

Migration Minister Tom Perkzglove was asked

3:12

why action had only been taken

3:14

now. Well look I'm as disappointed

3:16

and angry as the Prime Minister is and

3:19

various other Conservative spokesmen who've commented on

3:21

this in recent days. These

3:23

bets should not have been placed and it

3:26

is right that we've had this internal process

3:28

and that has you know those inquiries

3:31

have led to the decision today to

3:33

suspend these candidates. And

3:35

this was Labour's campaign coordinator Pat

3:37

McFadden. Well the investigation must

3:40

continue but one of the

3:42

candidates involved has admitted on camera

3:44

to a gross error of judgment.

3:46

It's taken Rishi Sunak the best

3:48

part of two weeks to act

3:51

on this. That is just weak

3:53

leadership. Well Craig Williams

3:55

posted this message on social

3:57

media this afternoon. I

4:00

want a quick message to the constituents of

4:02

Montgomeryshire, England, or I remain on the ballot

4:04

paper on the 4th of July and I

4:06

hope to secure your support after years of

4:09

delivery. I committed an error of judgement, not

4:11

an offence, and I want to reiterate my

4:13

apology directly to you. And

4:15

this is Kevin Craig, the now

4:18

former candidate for Labour, suspended for

4:20

betting on the Conservatives to win

4:22

Central Suffolk and North Ipswich. The

4:24

seat he was contesting. I'm

4:26

Kevin Craig and it is the honour

4:28

and the privilege of my life to

4:30

be Labour's parliamentary candidate here in Central

4:32

Suffolk and North Ipswich. Well,

4:35

let's go live to Westminster and talk to the

4:37

BBC's Joe Pike. Hello, Joe. It is hard to

4:39

keep up with all this. Tell us, first of

4:42

all, about the Conservative cabinet minister,

4:44

Alastair Jack, because I know you've been reporting

4:46

on this. What did you find out? We'll

4:51

try and re-establish contact with Joe in

4:53

Westminster in just a moment. Well, what

4:56

impact is all this having on the

4:58

campaign? Here are some views from the

5:00

people in Welshpool, which is in the

5:02

constituency of Montgomery, where Craig Williams is

5:05

now standing as an independent candidate. I

5:08

think it's terrible that they've made money

5:10

out of that. That they've actually got

5:12

the information and gone and bet on

5:15

it. Not just once. One of them's

5:17

done it several times. A storm in

5:19

a teacup, personally. Well, I think Sounac

5:22

should have acted sooner to be stricter

5:24

about the situation. I think

5:26

Craig Williams has been incredibly stupid for

5:28

such a small amount of money, for

5:31

any amount of money, but for a

5:33

few hundred pounds. I mean, he's an

5:35

idiot, basically. What can I say?

5:37

I think it's all blown out of proportion.

5:40

Far more terrible things are being done in

5:43

the House of Commons than this. I

5:45

think, fine. We've

5:47

all done things wrong and there we

5:49

are. Let's go back to

5:51

Westminster and talk to the BBC's Joe Pike, who I

5:53

think now is on the line. Are you there, Joe?

5:55

I am, Joe. It

5:58

is, as I was saying, hard to keep up

6:00

with. these twists and turns. You have been looking

6:02

into that Conservative Cabinet Minister, Alistair Jack,

6:04

I know today. What did you find out? Well,

6:07

Alistair Jack is the Scottish Secretary. He has held

6:09

that job under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi

6:11

Sunak. And just as he is standing down from

6:14

Parliament, he is making headlines. A few weeks back

6:16

he told me that he had won £2,100 betting

6:18

on the date of the general

6:21

election. He had put various bets on,

6:24

he said. When I confronted him

6:26

about this last week, he had been

6:28

joking and pulling my leg. Today he said in

6:30

a statement that he had not

6:32

breached any gambling commission rules and

6:34

he had never made any bets

6:37

in May. It may of course be

6:39

the month where Rishi Sunak made that

6:41

surprise election announcement and the month we

6:44

believe the gambling commission are focusing on.

6:46

He asked however whether he

6:48

had ever bet on the election date.

6:50

Alistair Jack did not

6:52

respond. This case we should

6:54

though say James, it is different from many

6:57

of the others. This is not really in Alistair Jack's

6:59

case a question of whether he has breached

7:02

rules. Rather a question

7:04

of whether somebody who was in the Cabinet,

7:06

who was at the heart of government, who

7:08

is at Rishi Sunak's top table, should be

7:10

putting a bet on

7:12

a decision which will ultimately be made

7:15

by their boss. More

7:18

similar, the case of Russell George,

7:20

the member of the Welsh Parliament.

7:22

That is the most recent Conservative

7:25

to say he is stepping aside. What

7:27

happened? Well

7:30

it is not entirely clear. Russell George

7:32

as he says is a member of the

7:34

Senate who has said today that he will

7:37

cooperate with the commission, does

7:39

not want to go into too much details of

7:41

his own case but has stepped back from the

7:44

Shadow Cabinet, the Conservative front bench in

7:46

the Senate while this investigation is ongoing.

7:49

He is the fifth Conservative

7:52

that we understand is being

7:54

investigated by the gambling

7:56

commission after the Westminster candidates

7:58

Craig Williams. and Laura Saunders,

8:01

a couple of Conservative

8:03

staffers and then Mr

8:05

George, there is of course

8:08

a Protection Officer to, one

8:10

of Richard Dinek's Protection Officers

8:12

who was suspended from his

8:15

job and has

8:17

been arrested as part

8:19

of a police investigation.

8:21

But Russell, George

8:23

is one of five Conservatives whose behaviour

8:26

is being looked at by the Gambling

8:28

Commission, although that authority

8:31

is not going into really details of

8:33

confirming who they are looking at or

8:36

indeed any other aspects of

8:38

their investigation. And all this has now

8:40

spread to Labour which has suspended one

8:42

of its candidates but in

8:44

slightly different circumstances. Very

8:46

different circumstances for Kevin Craig who is

8:48

a sort of PR expert, he's an

8:50

expert in crisis communications and James he

8:52

had to sort of employ some of

8:55

those skills today in responding to all

8:57

of this. He put a

8:59

bet not on the election

9:01

date but he admitted on

9:04

the Conservatives winning in the seat he

9:06

was standing and has said he would

9:08

if he'd won the bet

9:11

and therefore not won the job, donated that

9:13

money to charity. Labour argue

9:15

that Keir Stalmer's decision to suspend

9:17

him as a candidate to withdraw

9:19

their support is in Mark Differ

9:21

and Sirishi Sunak who yes did

9:24

withdraw support from Craig Williams

9:26

and Laura Saunders today but did that

9:28

certainly for Mr Williams almost two weeks

9:31

after a story

9:33

first came out about his alleged

9:37

behaviour. But it does mean though any

9:39

sort of nod towards that James that Labour

9:42

don't have a sort of clean sweep

9:44

here, this is not just a Conservative

9:47

problem it has spread to them and

9:49

therefore there may be questions for the Labour leader too

9:51

in the next 24 hours. Joe thank

9:54

you very much indeed the BBC's Joe Pike

9:56

joining us live from Westminster. Well let's dig

9:58

a little deeper into what we've got here.

10:00

voters are making of all this. We heard

10:02

those views from a few voters

10:05

in Montgomery in Welshpool,

10:07

the constituency of Montgomery. Let's talk to Luke

10:09

Trill, UK director of More

10:12

in Common, a polling research organisation. Luke,

10:14

welcome to the programme. Is this story

10:16

cutting through with voters? It

10:19

absolutely is cutting through. In

10:21

fact, earlier this week we conducted

10:23

some research into which scandals and

10:26

missteps had cut through during the

10:28

campaign and what voters thought about

10:30

them. And there were two that

10:33

had cut through beyond any other.

10:36

One was the Prime Minister's decision

10:38

to leave the D-Day celebrations early.

10:41

The second was this

10:43

gambling scandal, which we

10:45

found significant numbers of the public. Well

10:48

over two thirds of the public were

10:50

aware of it and said

10:52

that it made them think badly of

10:54

the Conservative Party. And I think the

10:56

reason that it's had such cut through

10:59

and the reason that it's so damaging

11:01

for the Conservatives is it reinforces that

11:03

thing that we know voters are worried

11:05

about, concerned about when it comes to

11:07

politicians, that sense of there's one rule

11:09

for them and another rule for us.

11:12

I think this is very bad news

11:14

for the Conservative Party that it's continuing

11:16

this close to an election. I

11:18

also think there's a particular challenge for

11:21

Rishi Sunak because we know one of

11:23

voters concerns about the Prime Minister is

11:25

that he's seen as not very strong,

11:27

he can't stand up to his party.

11:30

And I think taking so long to

11:32

suspend those candidates will have reinforced some

11:34

of those concerns. Labour, as we've been

11:37

hearing, have had to suspend a candidate

11:39

to in slightly different circumstances. Do you

11:41

think people will make that distinction? I

11:44

think it's unlikely people will make that distinction

11:47

on the circumstances simply because most people

11:49

aren't paying as much attention to the

11:52

ins and outs of politics as people

11:54

in Westminster might be. I

11:56

think what a lot of people will

11:58

simply hear is that a Labour candidate

12:00

has been involved too and I think

12:03

it might reinforce this sense of a

12:05

pox on all your houses that we're

12:07

hearing in focus groups right across the

12:09

country at the moment. Where

12:11

there might be a difference however is

12:13

less in the details of what happened

12:16

and in the fact that Kia Stama

12:18

took action so quickly and I think

12:20

if Kia Stama can make that point

12:22

and if he can make it, you

12:24

know, obviously there's the debate tomorrow

12:26

when we expect this will be raised. If

12:29

he can make it there, that might convince some

12:31

voters, not all, that the Labour

12:33

Party has acted differently on this.

12:36

I mean in that case will that

12:38

reinforce that tendency towards cynicism and apathy

12:40

that you talk about? I mean simply

12:42

because it's a candidate who's effectively saying,

12:44

look I don't think I'm going to

12:46

win this seat, I'm going to bet

12:48

on the other lot. Yeah,

12:51

absolutely. I mean I think that

12:53

this whole scandal, you know, the idea of people

12:55

trying to make money from the

12:57

election day who might have been in the

12:59

know about it, people betting against

13:02

their own chances, I think lots of the public

13:04

just look at this and think, well actually, you

13:07

know, the worst thing is lots of them think,

13:09

I will say I'm not surprised because this is

13:11

just what I thought about lots

13:13

of politicians, that they're not in it for

13:15

the right reasons and that they don't put

13:17

us first and you know I know we

13:20

can say that people have always been cynical

13:23

about politicians, that trust has never been

13:25

particularly high, but I do think there

13:27

is something worse at the moment. I

13:29

do think in this election talking to

13:31

voters, it's not just apathy

13:33

and cynicism but a sort of sense

13:36

of futility that our political class aren't

13:38

up to the job and whoever

13:40

wins next week I think is going

13:42

to have their work cut out trying to change that. Luke,

13:45

thank you very much indeed, Luke Trill,

13:48

UK Director of more in common polling

13:50

research organisation, you can find a full

13:52

list of candidates standing in that Montgomery

13:55

constituency on the BBC website and

13:57

also don't forget that we do want to

13:59

reflect the election. election issues that matter to

14:01

you on the program. Do get in touch

14:03

to tell us what you still

14:05

want explained or indeed covered in more

14:07

detail. There are, as I mentioned,

14:10

only nine days to go but plenty

14:12

of time. We particularly want to hear from you

14:15

if you're one of the many undecided voters,

14:17

so-called floating voters or don't-knows.

14:20

Are you any closer to deciding how

14:22

you're going to vote and if not

14:24

why? Perhaps no party has captured your

14:27

imagination or as Luke Trill was saying

14:29

you're just fed up with everyone but

14:31

do get in touch. On text 84844

14:35

it's a 10 to 15p charge, WhatsApp 03700 100 454

14:37

or good old email world.tonight

14:43

at bbc.co.uk.

14:48

Now in the past hour or so

14:50

the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has arrived

14:52

on a remote US territory in the

14:54

Pacific. He's expected there to

14:56

finalise his guilty plea leading to his

14:58

release and then to return

15:00

to his native Australia. We can talk

15:03

now to our correspondent Shama Khalil who's

15:06

on the island of Saipan and

15:08

Shama just remind us why Saipan?

15:16

Crucially because it's not continental

15:18

USA Julian Assange deeply

15:20

distrusts the United States government and

15:22

he has refused to travel to

15:24

the USA because he has no

15:26

confidence of what might happen to

15:28

him if he landed there. Remember

15:30

in the past he had accused

15:33

US government of trying

15:35

to kill him something that Washington

15:37

has denied. I'm standing just outside

15:39

the US District Court here in

15:41

Saipan and I must tell you

15:43

it is quite a contrasting image

15:46

if you will from where he's just

15:48

been traveling from especially if you think

15:50

about that cell, the prison cell in

15:52

the UK in Belmarsh prison in London

15:54

where he's been released hopped on a

15:56

plane to Bangkok and now he's landed

15:58

here. This is lush

16:00

green, hot and humid and this

16:03

courthouse where he's due to

16:05

finalize his guilty plea overlooks

16:08

a beautiful beach. This is

16:10

where the final chapter of

16:12

this saga, this long and

16:14

bitter standoff between the

16:16

US and Julian Assange will play

16:19

out, logistically as well. This

16:21

is very close to Australia where

16:23

he's due to go after the

16:26

hearing, after pleading guilty for that

16:28

one felony. It is an unusual

16:30

and a unique location to end

16:32

a very dramatic case. Sharmira, it

16:35

does sound quite surreal. Do

16:37

we know exactly what's

16:39

going to happen next? I mean is it going

16:41

to be a fairly simple procedure over in just

16:43

what an hour or two? Do

16:49

you know what details are quite scarce? I

16:51

was looking at the website of the US

16:53

district court this morning and on their schedule

16:55

they had the I think it was

16:57

one of the first cases, 0900, 9am

17:00

local time, the USA versus Julian Assange.

17:02

It didn't tell you how long it

17:04

was going to last but essentially from

17:06

what we know and we don't know

17:09

many details, they've been very tight-lipped, those

17:11

close to the case, but we know

17:13

that this is the formality to essentially

17:15

finish off officially the deal that's already

17:17

been agreed between Julian

17:19

Assange and the US government and

17:22

essentially what he's expected to do

17:24

is plead guilty for that one

17:27

felony which is illegally obtaining and

17:29

disclosing national security material. No jail

17:31

time because according to the deal

17:34

he's going to get credit for

17:36

jail time served in the

17:38

UK. How long it will last will depend on

17:40

how long the back

17:42

and forth is but essentially what you're

17:45

looking at is a judge to sign

17:47

off on that piece of paper

17:49

to officially announce him a free man. Shaima,

17:52

thank you very much indeed, Shaima Khalil joining us from

17:55

Saipam where the time, just looking it

17:57

up, is 7.23. in

18:00

the morning. So if Shima is

18:03

right, that case should get underway in just over

18:05

an hour and a half. Coming

18:07

up later on the programme, the comedian Dara

18:10

O'Briam pays tribute to the legendary Irish sports

18:12

commentator Mihal Al Mwera-Hortig, who's died at the

18:14

age of 93 after a career spanning six

18:18

decades. There was something about

18:20

the joy in Irish sport of the

18:22

local me being made glorious and he

18:24

was the poet of that. Pat

18:27

Fox is on the field today. I bought a dog

18:29

from his father last week. That's just

18:31

another one of his. He then went on

18:33

to say the Pat Fox, Pat Fox is

18:35

taking the free. He's missed it. The dog

18:37

lost as well. So this sort of stuff,

18:39

this very conversational but very

18:42

lyrical stuff that he had. Wonderful

18:44

stuff. More from Dara coming up

18:46

here in about 15 minutes. But

18:49

we're going to head to Kenya now

18:51

after a day of violent clashes between

18:53

these security forces and mainly young protesters

18:55

opposed to the government's plans to put

18:58

up taxes. Those proposals contained in a

19:00

new finance bill went before parliament in

19:02

the capital Nairobi today, prompting some of

19:04

the demonstrators to break into the building,

19:06

sending MPs fleeing down a tunnel and

19:09

sending part of the complex on fire.

19:11

Well, out on the streets police responded

19:14

with force using live rounds and tear

19:16

gas. Well,

19:25

at least five people have been

19:27

killed. Among the protesters today in

19:30

Nairobi was the British Kenyan activist,

19:32

Ouna Obama. She's the half sister

19:34

of the former American president, Barack

19:36

Obama, and she runs a foundation

19:38

for disadvantaged youth and children called

19:40

Soti Ku. She was

19:42

tear gassed earlier today. My chest

19:45

is a bit congested, my eyes hurt, I

19:47

have a headache, but that's nothing compared to

19:49

what the young people have experienced. I was

19:51

a lot safer than many. Many of them

19:53

were standing in front of those canisters of

19:55

tear gas and were being sprayed with this

19:57

pink liquid at the time. I don't even

19:59

know what it is. So what

20:02

I experienced was nothing in comparison. So

20:04

in other words, when you ask me how I

20:06

feel, I can tell you I'm fine. I really

20:08

am fine. I worry about the young people. I

20:10

am fine. The Kenyan

20:12

president, William Ruto, has been speaking on

20:14

TV this evening. The BBC's Barbara Plattuscher

20:16

is in Nairobi. She's been telling me

20:18

what he had to say. The

20:21

president has essentially said that the

20:24

protests were hijacked by what he

20:26

called criminals and dangerous people, that

20:29

they could not expect to go

20:31

scot-free for having carried out treasonous

20:33

events. This is the

20:35

breaching of Parliament and

20:37

the ransacking of parts of it that he is

20:39

speaking about. He said that

20:42

the young people who had raised the

20:44

issue of the tax cuts had raised

20:46

a pertinent conversation and he still wanted

20:49

to establish a framework for conversation

20:51

with them, but this had to be done within

20:53

the rule of law. And this

20:55

would be, the state would mobilize all

20:57

its resources to make sure a

21:00

situation of this nature would not occur again.

21:02

So he came across as pretty tough about

21:04

what happened at Parliament and he has also

21:06

deployed the military to help the police. And

21:09

just tell us a bit more about what

21:11

did happen at Parliament because there have been

21:13

protests in previous days

21:16

over these proposed tax rises. Why did

21:18

things turn so violent today? Well,

21:21

there was a much, much bigger crowd today,

21:23

although it was peaceful largely during the day,

21:26

they did throw stones at police for

21:28

a bit. But they had come with

21:30

quite a determination to

21:32

try to stop the passage of

21:34

this tax bill and they were

21:36

determined, a core of them, to

21:38

get to Parliament to make their

21:40

point. And the security minister,

21:43

the interior minister, had warned the day

21:45

before expressly that they should not do

21:47

that, that they were allowed

21:49

to protest but they should not try to do

21:51

that. And so police had been deployed all along

21:54

the way to Parliament to stop them from doing

21:56

so. And so fairly early on, there was a

21:58

lot of teargating. gas rounds

22:00

fired to try to keep them at

22:02

bay. But they kept proceeding forward and

22:05

finally when they got to the Parliament

22:07

they essentially overwhelmed the police and surged

22:09

through the barricade and then police started

22:12

to fire live rounds to stop them

22:14

and there we have a

22:16

number of the protesters were killed and some of

22:18

them were injured. And

22:21

why are the demonstrators so unhappy about

22:23

these proposed tax rises? And I just

22:25

wonder are there other factors at play

22:28

here as well? Well

22:30

they got quite engaged with the whole

22:32

idea of the tax bill on social

22:34

media so you had these TikTok influencers

22:37

who were basically making explainers about what

22:39

it was all about and how this

22:41

was going to be taking money away

22:43

on things that they needed.

22:45

There's a cost of living crisis here

22:47

and there are already taxes and so

22:49

the taxes which were quite high actually

22:51

because the government is trying to raise

22:54

money to lower its massive

22:56

deficit and it doesn't want to borrow more

22:59

than it already has. So it

23:01

was just seen as too much to pay when they

23:03

are already struggling to make ends meet. I'll

23:05

add though that the other part of it which

23:07

has really been gaining steam in the last couple

23:10

of days is accountability and how their taxes are

23:12

spent. And so there's been a lot of talk

23:14

in these online chat groups about

23:17

corruption and about wastage and

23:20

about just saying that politicians if they get

23:22

the tax money should be using it to

23:24

actually benefit Kenyon. So it's a question of

23:26

money being taken away through more taxes but

23:28

then how is that money spent? So

23:31

what happens next over

23:33

this bill? It

23:35

looks as if it's going to be signed

23:37

into law because the third reading took place

23:39

today. It was passed during

23:41

these protests. In fact some of the

23:44

MPs were trapped in parliament when

23:47

the protesters stormed in and had to

23:49

be evacuated but it was passed and

23:51

the next step is that it goes

23:53

to the president for signing on Thursday.

23:55

That is the next step that he's going to sign

23:57

it or that he's supposed to sign it and that

26:00

The really worrying thing is

26:02

the risk towards women and

26:04

children who have been horrendously

26:06

abused in a multitude of

26:09

ways, knowing that their

26:11

perpetrator is being released after two-fifths

26:13

of the time that they thought

26:15

they were safe for. And that's

26:17

the scary factor for me. And

26:19

in fact, in their letter, the

26:21

association says that this reduction, 40

26:24

percent reduction, and I'm quoting here,

26:26

must be applied to all sentenced

26:28

prisoners currently in custody and

26:30

retrospectively. And it doesn't specify

26:33

any exemptions to that. I

26:36

think that's really the main crux

26:38

of this letter is that no

26:40

exemptions and retrospectively. So, for example,

26:42

my ex-husband is in prison serving

26:44

12 years custodial sentence for three

26:46

counts of rape and one of

26:49

sexual assault by penetration towards me.

26:52

If we take that aside, he also attacked

26:54

a child under the age of 14 in

26:56

1997 and got 200 hours community service for

26:58

it. We

27:01

also had women who came forward at my

27:04

trial and they gave evidence

27:06

in my favor to show that

27:08

it was a character thing. And

27:10

they described horrendous abuse perpetrated by

27:12

my ex-husband. Now, the likelihood

27:15

is that should he be released early,

27:17

he's still going to be a danger

27:19

to the public. He's still going to

27:21

pose a risk to people. And if

27:23

that's just one individual with that mindset

27:25

and that type of predatory, reoccurring behavior,

27:27

how do we know that it's not

27:29

going on in so many other cases,

27:31

too? There have been in

27:33

the past exceptions for early release, and

27:35

I think that still stands for the

27:38

most serious offenders, including those who've committed

27:40

the most serious sexual offenses. If there

27:42

were to be exceptions

27:44

in the future, could you accept

27:47

that some prisoners may have to

27:49

be released early to ease overcrowding?

27:51

Is that something you can understand?

27:53

Prison should not be somewhere that

27:56

we scoop up people, leave

27:58

them to fester for their senses. and then

28:00

expect them to go back out into society

28:02

and be able to function. People

28:04

have ended up in prison for a

28:06

multitude of reasons. I mean, I've had

28:08

a hand in training over 16,000 metropolitan

28:10

police officers now. And my

28:13

understanding for frontline workers, including my

28:15

work with the NHS and things,

28:18

there are so many reasons that can lead

28:20

somebody to committing an offense. And

28:22

everybody is human. When people ask me, do I

28:24

hate my ex-husband? Of course I don't hate him.

28:26

In fact, I can't think of anything in the

28:29

world worse than waking up and being him. But

28:31

I do believe that everybody deserves help

28:33

and everyone deserves support. But do you

28:36

believe that someone like your ex can

28:38

be rehabilitated? Because he will have to

28:40

be released at some point, won't he?

28:43

I think with the correct guidance, they

28:46

are able to judge the people that

28:48

can be rehabilitated. And there are people

28:50

out there, even domestic abusers, even people

28:53

who have been rapists. There are people

28:55

who can take accountability

28:57

and really show that they want

28:59

to walk a path of a

29:01

law-abiding person. Whether he's one

29:04

of those people, I'm not in a position

29:06

to say I don't have the qualifications nor

29:08

the training to be able to know. But

29:10

I would like to at least feel comfortable knowing

29:13

that he's not going to get out of prison

29:15

just because too many people are in there. Natasha

29:18

Saunders. So what can

29:20

be done to fix prisons in England

29:23

and Wales? Let's talk to Professor Ian

29:25

Acheson, former prison governor and

29:27

author of a book called Screwed about

29:29

his experiences of the prison service. He's

29:32

also been an advisor to Michael Gove.

29:34

Good evening. Good

29:36

evening, James. What would you do to

29:39

ease the immediate crisis with overcrowding? Well,

29:42

what I would do is inevitably what

29:45

Keir Starmer is going to have to

29:47

do on Friday week when this ceases

29:50

to be a stick to beat the Tories with. And

29:52

is, as we've been told, on top of

29:54

Sue Grey's list

29:57

of crises that's going to affect the country.

30:00

He has no choice. He's facing

30:02

the immutable physics of incarceration.

30:04

For up to 30 years now,

30:07

we've been locking up far too many people

30:09

with far too few staff or any good

30:11

that we can do them, victims, or society.

30:13

We've got to a point now which was

30:16

predictable and foreseeable and is

30:18

a shameful dereliction of government

30:20

over those last three decades where

30:23

we simply cannot build our way out of

30:25

this crisis. So what does that mean,

30:28

releasing more prisoners earlier? Well,

30:31

that means an effect that Alex

30:33

Chalk, the outgoing Lord Chancellor, fairly

30:36

inevitably it seems, will be leaving a

30:38

note on Shobana Mahmood's desk

30:40

saying, sorry, there's no space. And

30:43

emergency legislation that will, is

30:46

the only feel safe we have now to

30:48

get the numbers down in a system that's

30:51

running red hot that will effectively release people

30:53

at the 40% of

30:56

their sentence. And there'll be a lot of

30:58

victims out there. And I listened

31:00

very carefully to your

31:02

previous interviewer, Natasha, but there'll be

31:04

a lot of victims and members

31:06

of the public out there who

31:08

will be just baffled at the

31:11

mismanagement of the criminal justice system

31:13

that's brought it into such disrepute

31:15

that the custodial part of the

31:17

sentence that judges recommend people be

31:19

sent away for in retribution or

31:21

awful harm sometimes. Oh,

31:24

we're just, Ian, we're just, we're just... Contemplation

31:26

spaces. Ian, sorry, we were just losing

31:28

the line a bit. I'll just ask

31:30

you another question and see if it improves a

31:32

little bit. Should it be a blanket

31:36

release at the 40% mark as the prison

31:39

governor's association was suggesting in their letter

31:41

or will there need to be continued

31:43

exceptions? Well, there

31:45

will have to be continued exceptions, but

31:47

what people must understand now is that

31:50

the emergency release provisions that exist

31:52

right now mean that people who

31:55

are being convicted of violent offenses.

31:57

And these will include, for example, offenses.

32:00

related to domestic violence and stalking are

32:02

being released and they're being released into

32:04

a probation service, which is frankly on

32:06

its knees anyway. So there is a

32:09

great risk to the public, but faced

32:12

with the fact, the prospect

32:14

of being able, of governors locking

32:16

out their prisons and you've got people

32:18

convicted to prison from the courts who

32:20

are, I don't know, doing an endless

32:23

circuit of the M25 in

32:25

a prison van because there's no space

32:27

for them. This will become a major

32:30

issue that has to be solved immediately

32:32

with fairly drastic action. What we have

32:34

to do then when we've stabilized the

32:36

system is realize that we're

32:38

still running a prison system, red

32:41

hot, which is unable to

32:43

rehabilitate anybody because it's a wash with

32:46

drugs and violence. I was going to

32:48

say, so in the medium to long

32:50

term, while more space is being built,

32:52

does there need to be much more

32:55

of a debate about alternatives to prison?

32:57

There has to be a debate, but it cannot

33:00

be an abstract debate. What there has to be

33:02

is a foundation, first

33:04

of all, of safety in prisons. The

33:07

state is not in charge of many of

33:09

the prisons that it purports to run at

33:11

the moment. As I say, it's a wash

33:13

with violence, brutality against staff. We

33:15

cannot recruit or retain prison staff.

33:18

We certainly can't do rehabilitation in

33:20

prisons that are gripped by organized

33:22

crime running lethal

33:25

drugs into the place, which completely

33:27

destroys the idea of rehabilitation. We

33:29

must get safety back into prisons

33:32

as well as actually making prisons

33:34

places for people who are

33:36

violent, who are predatory, who must be

33:38

locked up. That would obviously include

33:40

terrorists as well. In effect, people that we're

33:43

afraid of, we've got to do something else

33:45

with the nuisance people who

33:47

are clogging up the system and making

33:49

that rehabilitation virtually impossible with

33:52

the people that we really do need to

33:54

pay attention to and try to

33:56

reduce their risk of dangerousness. Thank you very

33:58

much indeed for joining us this evening. Professor

34:00

Ian Acheson there. Now

34:03

some voices just come to embody a

34:05

sport, don't they? John Watson for football,

34:07

Murray Walker for Formula One, Harry Carpenter

34:10

for boxing, Bill McLaren for rugby. While

34:12

in Ireland, Mihal and Wera Huttig was

34:14

the voice of Gaelic sports, principally Gaelic

34:17

football and hurling. And he's died at

34:19

the age of 93. His

34:22

was the longest commentating career in the world.

34:24

He began all the way back in 1949,

34:28

and he didn't retire until 2010. By

34:31

then, his turns of phrase were

34:33

legendary. It's a goal for

34:35

Kilkenny, 2.18 to Kilkenny and 2.11.

34:38

Well, there's a streaker on the ground now.

34:40

He must be a Kilkenny man because he's

34:43

quite happy with the situation right now. He's

34:45

on the 60-yard line, the players on the

34:47

other side of the field. Wall

34:49

now on the 50-yard line. Tread back inside, picked

34:51

up again by James Ryan. James Ryan gets it

34:53

out to the corner, he's set down the field.

34:56

If the streaker just mind to be going over

34:58

his direction now, he sees that, he sees the

35:00

danger. He's moving out the field now, turns off

35:02

and tells it in the far side of the

35:04

field and the ball goes out over the line.

35:08

Well, the Irish comedian, Darrow Brien, grew

35:10

up listening to those dulcet

35:12

tones, and he explained to me how

35:14

important Mihal and Wera Huttig was to

35:16

the people of Ireland. Ireland

35:18

has the sports, Gaelic and football and hurling,

35:20

and they're sort of central both to, you

35:22

know, whatever, to our identity, but also to

35:24

our summer. They were the defining events. When

35:26

all the seasons ended, these things reached their

35:28

peak. And Mihal's voice

35:31

rang out across the summer in Ireland. He

35:33

was the poet of those games. He was

35:36

the chronicler of them. He had a particular

35:38

lyricism about it, but also they're games that

35:40

are constantly very exciting. The nature of the

35:42

game does its action all the way. And

35:45

he was able to get to fever pitch and

35:47

bring to the excitement. But it was

35:49

basically that his was a constant companion

35:51

to Irish people over the course of

35:54

61 seasons of

35:56

our national games. Yes, extraordinary. He started in

35:58

1948. Yeah, it is

36:00

amazing, isn't it? It's remarkable.

36:03

A competition did a test commentary on a sport he'd

36:05

never seen before. He'd never seen a game of her

36:08

own. And he said he was lucky. He knew the

36:10

name of one player, and this one player featured three

36:12

times in a row, taking a shot, taking a penalty.

36:15

He said, he says, his commentators have never seen a player

36:17

be as important to a match, and he was the only

36:19

person I knew. So thank God for that. I've

36:21

read somewhere that he, I mean, you say

36:23

the games are very exciting, and I'm sure

36:26

you're right, but I guess there must have

36:28

been some dull matches. But he managed to

36:30

make even a boring match interesting. Is that

36:32

right? Well, this is literally the comment made

36:35

by the president of Ireland today, that their

36:37

instances of his commentary are better remembered than

36:39

the games themselves. And

36:41

during the day in Ireland, there were quotes

36:43

being passed around, comments he's made about the

36:45

famous player, Koshaun Ogil, about

36:48

whom the incredibly famous line was, his

36:50

father is from Fermanna, his mother is from Fiji,

36:53

neither of them are hurling strongholds. That

36:56

was a comment, this is all off

36:58

the cuff, this is said during a

37:00

commentary, it was so

37:02

popular that today, on the day

37:04

of his death, Fiji, the word Fiji was trending

37:07

in Ireland on Twitter, that

37:09

that comment has become so synonymous with them. You

37:12

called him a poet. I mean, are there any

37:14

favorite quotes that you have? I mean, I've been

37:16

reading some of them, and they're just fantastic. I

37:18

just wonder whether any stick in your mind. I

37:21

mean, there's little ones, he said, there

37:25

was something about the joy in Irish

37:27

sport of the local me being made

37:29

glorious. And he was the poet of

37:31

that. Pat Fox is on the

37:34

field today, I bought a dog from his father

37:36

last week. That's just another one of his. He

37:38

then went on to say that Pat Fox is taking a free, he's missed it, the

37:41

dog lost as well. So

37:43

he was grateful, Pat's Balan passes the

37:45

ball to Tom's Balan, there's a mixed

37:47

Balan on the field as well, fair

37:50

play Mrs. Balan. This

37:52

sort of stuff, this very conversational,

37:55

but very lyrical stuff that he had, partly because he was

37:58

raised through Irish as well. he

38:00

could slip instantly into doing the same thing

38:02

through a second language. I've

38:04

just got to read you my favourite, which

38:06

I'm sure is familiar, was Teddy McCarthy, this

38:09

is obviously that I've read today, not from

38:11

my previous knowledge of listening to him, but

38:13

Teddy McCarthy to Mick McCarthy, no relation. Mick

38:15

McCarthy back to Teddy McCarthy, still no relation.

38:18

Still no relation, yeah. He was

38:20

glorious. He was a joy. To say

38:22

one word about him, it would be a phrase

38:25

said originally about a Kerry man as he was

38:27

a Kerry man himself, and in the Irish language

38:29

he would have understood, which was the echimid al-lehaydah

38:31

reach. We would never see his like again. Dara

38:35

O'Brien paying tribute there

38:37

to Mihal Omerah Huttig.

38:40

Before we go, a quick look

38:42

at tomorrow's front pages. Many of

38:44

them leading on those election betting

38:46

controversies. The Guardian's front page headline

38:48

reads, fifth Tory faces investigation as

38:50

election betting scandal grows. The Times

38:52

front page story says Labour man

38:54

suspended for betting on election referring

38:56

to the suspended Labour candidate Kevin

38:58

Craig, who placed a wager against

39:00

himself. That is The World Tonight.

39:02

I'm James Menendez for now from me and everyone

39:05

on the programme. A very good night. What

39:10

do you do with your old tech? Throw

39:12

it in the trash? Drop it in the junk drawer?

39:15

Why not turn it into cash? With

39:17

Trade In from Backmarket, you can get

39:19

paid for your old smartphone, laptop or

39:21

tablet. Just visit backmarket.com or download our

39:23

app. You'll get an offer in as

39:25

little as two minutes. Ship your old

39:27

device to us for free and get

39:29

your cash within five days. So

39:32

next time you need to upgrade your tech

39:34

or clean out those drawers, make some money

39:36

with Trade In from backmarket.com. And while you're

39:39

there, save up to 70% versus new

39:41

on your next verified refurbished device.

40:00

more. We'll hear from celebrities,

40:02

authors, experts, and listeners like

40:04

you.