Peter Cardwell | 13-Sep-26

What's going on here? Yeah, he was the hunger striker, of course, and the IRA member. And every American bar you went, and every Northern Irish bar in New York, of which there are thousands, they were collecting for the IRA, without any idea what the IRA were actually doing.

And ironically, with the 25th anniversary of 9-11 being on Friday, I mean, the whole dynamic changed when terrorism came to the American shores. I just wonder what you make of this from Donald Trump, Candace, because he said, I don't want to cause any problems, and then just immediately caused a huge international diplomatic

incident. He also said, they're Irish. How can they be bad? I mean, Gerry Adams? Yeah, I mean, from what I know about this issue is that America has often taken a view on this that

is very different to the view we would take because of the huge, what would you call them, like heritage Irish communities in the US, like in Boston and New York, who often did support Irish republicanism. And there's always been a lot of conflict

between the British government and the US, usually under the Democrats, I think, who tended to get more of the Irish American vote on this issue. That's an element of this, actually, because we've got the midterms coming up in America.

There's a lot of Irish America that may be thinking of voting Republican. Of course, some Irish America has always voted Republican. But you're right to say that the Democrats are the key party when it comes to Irish America. Clearly, Donald Trump has got one eye on that as well.

Yeah, it must be. Look, to me, it sounded like he didn't really know what to say. He was sort of grasping for the right words. It didn't seem like a particularly substantive answer to me.

How much has he really thought about this? Probably not very much. Let's talk about other people who don't think about things clearly. It'll shock you. I hope everybody sitting down right now,

whether you're in your car, your van, or at home, I just hope you're sitting down because a shock is about to come your way. There is a member of the Green Party who's a hypocrite. It's really, really weird. This comes after the second Green Party deputy leader.

One's not enough. They have two. Rachel Millward, who campaigns on the platform to abolish private landlords, those evil landlords, those evil capitalists who want to make some money. How dare they?

She's a 49-year-old former film festival director. Of course she is, who campaigns to abolish landlords, yet she earns 5,000 pounds a year letting rooms in her family home. Piers, I'm shocked. Are you?

Oh, deeply shocked. When it comes to the Green Party, nothing would shock me. I mean, it's farcical. Everything about it is absurd. Even its leader, I mean, even his own name is false. And he picked the surname of a convicted child rapist.

Well, there you go. And I mean, the man is the leader of that. But the party is appalling. They've gone so far away from their original purpose. I actually had someone, we had a little local tiny election in my ward recently.

And a brave Green Party canvasser rang my bell. I did give him marks for trying. But I noticed he was wearing a very large plastic badge. And I said, so do you believe in using plastic as greens? Yes. Just saying Green Party, that's all it said.

Very inventive. And he had no answer to that. Yes. Well, they've moved away a lot, haven't they, Candice, from their eco kind of focus. And it's all about virtue signalling.

But her larger rent rooms in the six bedroom East Sussex house, a grand Edwardian property with an outdoor swimming pool, set on extensive lawns, she and her husband bought it for more than 1.6 million pounds. So if people have 1.6 million pounds and they want to buy a house, good for them.

And if they have a swimming pool, marvellous. I'd love to have a swimming pool. But don't lecture me about being a landlord. Yes. See, for me, this is very typical of left wing puritanism. They will denounce everything.

And everyone. Yes. And then you'll scratch a little deeper and you'll find, oh, they're guilty of it themselves. I often encountered this with people I know from university who, as radical students, would say, all property is theft.

And then as soon as they could, they got their hands on a property. Of course, which is a perfectly natural human thing to do. I want to talk about a couple of other stories just before we let you go, we unleash you into the wilds at 7 o'clock.

There's a dreadful story about an Eritrean illegal migrant raping a woman on a night out. This is after being freed from jail after a previous sex attack. He should have been kicked out of the country. And this is Radiet Melez, who's 35,

an ex-soldier from Eritrea, expected to be deported after finishing his sentence for a horrific sexual assault in 2019. However, was allowed to stay in Britain after a five-year sentence for attempted rape of an unconscious woman at a house party in Wales.

He came to the UK through the Channel Tunnel in 2015 after hiding in a lorry. And in 2019, the judge told him, after your release, it's likely you will be held in an immigration detention centre. As a consequence of this offence and sentence,

the Home Secretary is likely to make a deportation order in your case. That didn't happen, Candice. For me, once again, what is the message that is being sent to the women of Britain? Do we take priority, or is this a kind

of institutionalised left-wing misogyny where migrants who commit horrific sex crimes against women are not deported, not immediately removed from the country? It's shocking. This is a real feminist issue.

It is. This is very, very, very serious. Yeah. Piers. Yes, of course. It's absolutely shocking.

And this sort of thing should simply not happen. But again, we have some terrible problems here of being far too lenient on these sort of people. That's partly because, again, the judges who are in these courts, who are preventing many deportations, are politicised.

And this is actually Tony Blair's fault, going right back to those days. But this kind of thing is outrageous. If you also, I mean, we're going to have a really dangerous problem very shortly when all these new prisoners are released, because they say, well, we're going to tag them.

But no one's monitoring the tags, Piers. No one's monitoring the tags. Exactly. And if you think about it, if you're releasing thousands of prisoners, you're going to need thousands of people monitoring them

24 hours a day. And there simply aren't people enough to do it. The probation service already saying they may go on strike. And think of the cost of that as well. Absolutely correct. The whole thing, I mean, it is quite clear,

like so many major institutions in our country, they are at breaking point and need not just short-term tinkering, but major rethinking. The National Health Service, everyone who works in it knows it's broken. The prison service, the same.

Border control, well, that's just a joke. There is no control. There's no control. If you look all around our institutions, our tax office isn't working, because most of the civil servants determined to work at home.

We'll soon have airline pilots working at home. The whole thing, every single major institution needs really fundamental looking at. And it's not just this government's fault. This goes back many years. Many governments.

Yeah, I think, but look, I mean, there is a disregard for women. I mean, this is real. You know, a few weeks ago, there was the story of the Home Office handing out leaflets warning people, migrants who come in,

not to commit certain crimes. Yeah, don't rape people. I mean, astonishing. That's appalling. And that's been going on since 2015, just these weak, half-hearted attempts to educate people

about women's rights. Do you know how hard we had to fight for that, to be treated as equal and not to be assaulted like this? And for them to just throw it away, people in government and authority, it's deeply angering. It is.

I actually also feel very strongly that this government, too, is extremely bad at standing up for women's rights because they're terrified of the Muslims in their constituencies who, of course, treat women as second-rate citizens. And we've seen the terrible abuse

in Arab countries of women, which continues to this day. Not all Muslims, of course, treat women as second-class citizens. Uncriticised. No, no, not all. But a large part of it, unfortunately, does. And people are afraid to actually bring this to the forefront

and actually criticise it, as it should be. It shouldn't actually even be allowed. Meck's been in touch and says, nobody is listening, but I will continue to suggest that women should be allowed to carry defensive repellent pepper spray due to the total disregard for their safety.

Do you agree with Meck, Candice? You're forced into that position to do it, but you should not have to do that. We should not have to do that. We should be able to walk around freely. Of course.

Of course, there shouldn't be any restriction whatsoever. And a restriction, I would argue, as well, includes things like face coverings and niqabs and burqas as well. Kemi Badenock plans to abolish inheritance tax if the Tories win the next general election.

She's hoping to announce the plan at her conference speech next month, according to The Sun on Sunday. She's criticised Andy Burnham as a tax and spend prime minister. A source has told The Sun on Sunday, Kemi's team think Labour are weak in the economy and plan to go hard on inheritance tax.

This is the tax where 40% has to be paid and everything above, £325,000. The threshold rises to £500,000 if a home is left to children or grandchildren. What do you make of this, and do you think it's workable, Candice? Yeah, I think that this is...

I think that the Conservatives definitely draw a clear line between themselves and Labour, and I think that this is probably a very good one. A lot of people don't like inheritance tax. They think, I've already paid tax on all my income, it's not fair that you're taxing what I'm leaving to my children.

And I think Labour... But the children haven't paid any tax on it, I suppose, is the principle that they think about, really. Yeah, but for me, look, wealth is built over generations. I think being able to leave something to your children is something that my great-grandparents were never able to do.

They were never able to leave anything to their children, and that is how working-class people, once they were able to acquire a bit of capital, particularly in the mid-20th century under Margaret Thatcher, it transformed their prospects generationally. What do you think about inheritance tax and ending that?

Well, I think it's very important, particularly for farmers. And it's certainly a part of, again, a totally revised taxation strategy. It should be part of what she announces. I don't think it's a major plank, but I think it's very important, and it is unfair, and an awful lot of people dislike it.

But, again, there's going to have to be some level of inheritance tax. I think that is reasonable, but it's when it's unreasonable, as it is at the moment, particularly for farmers. And, as we know, the Labour government loathes the countryside,

does everything it can to damage it, because they don't see votes there. And Angela Rayner would like to urbanise the entire countryside, given the chance. But there is a flicker of some hope when David Blunkett, one of the last Labour politicians

who had a brain, has actually come out and suggested that they drop the idea of banning trail hunting. And he is speaking at a countryside alliance gathering, I think, tomorrow. Wow. And this is quite a move, and I admire David Blunkett. In fact, he writes about it in the Sunday Telegraph today,

very, very lucidly. And I hope that the people in the Labour Party might sit up and listen to someone who is actually a damn sight wiser than they are. I interviewed David Blunkett for my book, actually, and he's just such a pro.

I mean, you sort of forget the level at which people like that operate, actually, especially when you see some of the politicians who are running the country, I use the term loosely, at the moment. Candace and Piers, thank you both very much indeed. Candace Ullsworth and Piers Pottinger, political commentators both. Thank you to you as well, at home and elsewhere.

Indeed, from Italy, we have a listener there. Mark, we're on holiday, says, great show again this morning. Very happy about the donation to reform. This will help them a lot to win the next general election and put the country back on its feet, says Mark. In the Italian Riviera, three exclamation marks.

I would have three exclamation marks if I was in the Italian Riviera. Cliff in Berkshire says, I fear President Trump is correct that there will eventually be a United Ireland. I think that's because it became more likely, with the crazy position of Northern Ireland under the Brexit settlement. Cliff, I could talk to you all day about that.

Kat says, morning, Peter. On the latest Trump upset, anyone with half a wet nose, he loves stirring the pot. There are obviously sensitive negotiations going on in the Middle East, so taking a direct swipe at the UK government over sanctions was never likely to help.

Instead, he gets double brownie points. Charm their host flat out of the room and take a swipe at the historic enemies. The English very Trump, says Cath in Culrean, which is, of course, in Northern Ireland. And Margaret in Birmingham says,

brilliant show once again, brilliant news for Nigel. And reform, this is a clear message. We need a leader who will put the country front and centre, listens to the British people, not someone who can see this country is on its knees and buries his head in the sand.

Wake up, Andy. Nigel is on the way to number 10. What a great day that will be, in Margaret's opinion. She has texted me all the way from Birmingham. Well, whatever you want to say about all the issues of the day, let me know your thoughts on 03444991000. We'll speak to Kevin Hurley and a second former senior police officer

on what has gone on in Portsmouth. Yesterday, another protest and an extraordinary clip of the man, sorry, gender fluid person in the burqa. Stay with us. Our mission was to cross the channel by migrant dinghy and document the process,

learning, obviously, lots of things along the way. To many people, maybe that sounds simple, but it wasn't at all simple. Now, let me make this clear to you. I have been very careful. I'm quite a streetwise kid and I've been very careful

with my behaviour. I've been very careful with my behaviour. I'm quite a streetwise kid and I've been in these situations and we're taking great precautions. And the police have just popped the boat doors on and pointed, like, big guns at everyone.

Everyone was running. Armed smugglers.

Just trying to really find how you can get into this sort of... ..this line of smuggling without... ..without being detected. You cannot just turn up to France, north of France, with some money and get on a boat. They have people planted around the world

and this starts well, well before France. I heard a very well-known and intelligent politician on talk radio a few days ago suggesting that migrants had generally paid thousands of pounds to get to the UK. Nonsense.

Go to Calais train station? Yes, train station. OK. So I went back and reported to the group leader and, you know, once he'd checked out with the smuggler, he's like, right, yeah, go on, get yourselves down in the water.

Boat will be here in a minute. And that's what happened? And that's what happened. If you struggle to swim, you're drowning, shout help. Now or never, guys, yeah?

Push the boat! Lads, push the boat!

Oh, shit.

Relax, relax, relax, relax. Relax, relax. The police boat took control of our boat, so it put its bow on our bow and it turned us round in a circle and while they were talking to us, they said,

don't go ahead, it's dangerous out there, it's very wavy. It's very rough. This is very rough. Two explanations for why the French authorities are ferrying those smugglers back. Either A, they've had a massive intelligence fail

or they're doing this knowingly. They just don't have the will to stop it, they're just not bothered, it's not affecting them.

And on your side, this is Talk.

Good morning, this is Talk Breakfast. I'm Peter Cardwell. Welcome to your Sunday. It's seven o'clock. I hope you've been here with me for the last hour because Candice and Piers had great commentary,

really interesting stuff on all the big stories of the day, including the man in a burqa claiming he's a gender-fluid person called Dusty, yes, really, at Portsmouth, at the protest there over migration, a moment of levity perhaps,

although Dusty was later arrested. We'll speak to Kevin Hurley, the former Metropolitan Police Superintendent, about that in a second. Controversy in Ireland too. President Trump has set the cat amongst the pigeons

by saying that he's in favour of a united Ireland. What do you think about that? Kimmy Badenoch wants to abolish inheritance tax. Barry's been in touch about that from Sunnyside. He says, why do you keep pushing Badenoch's plans? We mentioned it once, Barry.

Yet make little mention of Generics. The former simply copied the latter. We certainly see a lot of that, Barry. We see a lot of politicians nicking other people's plans. Kimmy Badenoch says she wants to abolish inheritance tax. But you're right, Robert Generics talked about that too,

the Treasury Spokesman for Reform UK. There's so much to talk about this hour. Kevin Hurley coming up shortly.