Kemi Badenoch says the BBC must 'do better' after airing Bob Vylan Glastonbury broadcast

GB News

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has launched a scathing attack on "two-tier justice" as she compared the controversial Bob Vylan broadcast to Lucy Connolly's prison sentence.Speaking to GB News, Badenoch condemned the "intimidating" actions of the punk rap duo at Glastonbury Festival, and declared the BBC has "serious questions to answer".FULL STORY HERE.

Transcript

00:00How will you vote tomorrow?

00:02We asked Labour to bring the welfare budget down and to get people into work.

00:06And if their bill did that, we would support them.

00:08The bill doesn't do that, so we are voting against.

00:11A big moment then.

00:13How many Labour MPs might be on your team if you do vote against?

00:17Who knows? This is a government in chaos.

00:19Labour cannot govern.

00:21They came into office thinking it was going to be very easy.

00:24But what's happened is that because of Covid,

00:26we now have a million extra people on benefits.

00:29We need to get those people back into work.

00:31The bill just before Covid for health and disability benefits was £40 billion.

00:35It's going to be up to £100 billion on Labour's current plans.

00:38So they're not cutting the budget.

00:40They're just cutting how much they would increase it by.

00:42That is not good enough.

00:44We need to have people working.

00:45There are a lot of people who are genuinely disabled,

00:48who have significant conditions that need looking after.

00:51But what we've seen is that in that one million extra that we've got

00:54of people claiming benefits,

00:55a lot of people with low-lying conditions like anxiety,

00:59those people need to be in work and need to be supported into work.

01:03That's what we want to see.

01:04Do you blame the increase in mental health issues being used

01:07as reasons not to work as part of this bill going up?

01:10No, actually, what I blame is the way that they do the assessments.

01:14During Covid, we allowed remote assessments to take place

01:17for understandable reasons.

01:18But what's happening now is that people are just ringing up and saying,

01:22I'm too anxious to come in for an assessment.

01:25And they immediately get a classification and benefits.

01:29There are even people on social media called sick fluencers

01:32who are telling people what to say so that they can claim benefits.

01:36And that is not fair because it's clogging up the system

01:38for those people who need proper assessments.

01:41We're needing to hire more staff to look after a larger cohort of people.

01:46We need to get people back into work.

01:47Are people being work shy here?

01:50I think that there is an element of that.

01:52I think that we need to make sure that we don't have

01:55a lopsided incentive system.

01:57Right now, there are 28 million people working

01:59to help 28 million people not working.

02:02The rider is now as big as the horse.

02:04We've got to fix that.

02:05So the people we're supporting are those people

02:07who get out there every day working hard,

02:11some on minimum wage, whether you're a nurse or a plumber,

02:13you've got a small business.

02:14Those are the people that the Conservatives are supporting.

02:17We don't want to see the benefits bill go up.

02:20Reform wants more benefits.

02:22That is where we are different from them.

02:24We believe in fiscal responsibility.

02:26And what we're seeing right now is that we're overspending.

02:28A hundred billion pounds extra.

02:30Who's going to pay for that?

02:31It's our kids.

02:32That's not fair.

02:33Someone's got to change something.

02:34You're working out your policy programme now,

02:36if you're the next Prime Minister.

02:37What would you do to cut benefits?

02:39So we would deal with the remote assessments.

02:42People need to be assessed in person,

02:44whether they're being assessed at a job centre or at home.

02:47We need to do that.

02:48We also need to support those people

02:50who have those low-level conditions back into work.

02:55So there should be some support for that as well.

02:57But we need to cut the bill.

02:59There's a lot that can be done.

03:00You know, organisations like the CSJ

03:02have put in reports showing how they can save $9 billion.

03:05Labour is talking about saving $1 billion to $2 billion

03:08off a £100 billion bill

03:09when it was $40 billion not that long ago.

03:11That's not enough.

03:13Just on a different issue.

03:14We're here in Parliament.

03:15We heard from Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary,

03:17about these dreadful remarks, hateful remarks,

03:20broadcast by the BBC from the Glastonbury Festival.

03:24Should the BBC rip up its deal with Glastonbury?

03:27I wouldn't mind that.

03:29If they cannot stop acts from preaching hate,

03:32I mean, talking about from the river to the sea,

03:34death to the idea, that's absolutely disgusting.

03:37And there were two bands who do this sort of thing.

03:40One was the, I think, Bob Villain.

03:42The other one was Kneecap, which, if you remember, Chris,

03:45I stopped them getting government money

03:46when I was business secretary.

03:47An election happened.

03:49Labour caved in.

03:50Let them have that money.

03:51We're actually paying some of these people.

03:53It's completely ridiculous.

03:54This is a band where one of its members

03:56is being charged, I believe, with terrorism.

03:58That cannot be right.

03:59And the BBC needs to do better.

04:00There were loads of acts

04:01that they could have filmed that day.

04:03Why did they film the one that was pushing messages

04:06that were incitement to hate?

04:07Both of those are live criminal cases.

04:09We'll stay away from that.

04:09But the BBC's involvement is interesting.

04:12Tim Davies is in charge.

04:13He's the director general.

04:15Should he resign?

04:16I think that Tim Davies has a lot of serious questions to answer.

04:19This is not the first time that the BBC

04:21has been accused of allowing material

04:24that is intimidating to Jews.

04:26And what I want to say to the Jewish people in our country

04:29is that we back you, we support you,

04:31we can see what is happening.

04:33It is quite wrong for any sort of intimidation

04:35to be taking place.

04:36And you only need to look at what happened with Lucy Connolly.

04:39What she did was not as significant

04:41as many of these more horrific cases.

04:44So it's quite clear that sometimes

04:45the state knows how to tackle this.

04:47So let's see them tackle these people

04:48who are pushing hateful messages

04:51and stop rushing out, you know,

04:53putting mums in prison for tweets

04:55when actually there are a lot of other people

04:57who deserve much stricter sanctions.

04:59Just finally, on Tim Davies' future,

05:01should he walk for this?

05:02It's not the first time there are issues with the BBC.

05:06Well, I think that there is supposed to be

05:08a review that's taking place.

05:09I think that's the right place for that.

05:11So, no, I don't think that it's got to that point.

05:14But there are very, very serious questions to answer.

05:16And just on Lucy Connolly there,

05:17you mentioned that does exercise

05:19a lot of TV News viewers and listeners.

05:21It exercises me as well.

05:24There was a lot of leeway

05:25that could have been looked at at many points.

05:28The charging, the sentencing.

05:29What she did was wrong.

05:31But what we're seeing is that a lot of other people

05:33do the same thing and do worse

05:35and they get away with it.

05:36And that's what I hate.

05:37It's that inequality before the law.

05:39Let's have one law for everybody.

05:41Is that two-tier justice then?

05:42I think that...

05:43Well, it looks like it.

05:44And I do think that we need to get to a place

05:46where we have equality under the law.

05:48The same justice for everybody.

05:49That's what the Conservative Party stands for.

05:51Kimmy Berman, thank you there.

05:52And there you have it for Michelle.

05:53Kimmy Berman up there

05:54with some tough words there for the government.

05:56But the big news is

05:57the Tories will vote against tomorrow's benefits bill.

06:00It'll be a big night in Parliament.

06:01I'll be there covering it for GB News.

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