>> tonight on the farage show we discuss things elon musk of course we do. his relationship with me, what he's been saying about keir starmer, indeed, his interventions in the german general election. has he got now too much influence? we'll talk grooming gangs. of course we will. the whole country is talking grooming gangs. but do you think actually in the end, that keir starmer is going to have to give way and allow us a full public inquiry because i think we need it? and unbelievably, the department of work and pensions has paid out in the last few years £500 million to dead pensioners and only got half of the money back. what on earth is going on in whitehall? but before all of that, let's get the news with

tatiana sanchez. >> nigel, thank you very much. the top stories. well, jess phillips says she has more important things to be thinking about than elon musk. after he accused her of being a rape genocide apologist. the safeguarding minister has hit back at the billionaire's criticism for the first time. >> being in the spotlight like this , and the intimation of what this, and the intimation of what elon musk is. the disinformation, as i believe the prime minister referred to it as has put out about me, is endangering. >> it's endangering you. i just want to be absolutely clear. are you saying that as a result of some of musk's tweets, the threat to you has gone up and things are in place to protect your safety? yes. >> well, elon musk made the comments after miss phillips denied a request for the home

office to lead a public inquiry into the horrific abuse in oldham, saying it should be done at a local level. the town in greater manchester was one of a number of areas where girls as young as 11 were groomed and raped over a decade ago, in a national scandal that was exposed in 2013. professor alexis jay, who chaired the independent inquiry, said today that people should just get on with implementing the recommendations made in previous inquiries. the comments come as the prime minister dismissed calls for a national inquiry yesterday, accusing the conservatives of jumping on a bandwagon. shadow justice secretary robert jenrick today once again called for a national inquiry. a home office spokesman issued the following statement we are working at pace across government to drive forward real action to implement the recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. in other news, a number of nhs trusts in england have declared critical incidents. this comes after the number of people in england's

hospitals with flu quadrupled in the last month. the royal liverpool university hospital declared a critical incident this afternoon due to exceptionally high demand on emergency care. it's understood the longest time that one patient waited to be admitted to a ward at the hospital was 50 hours. several other nhs trusts later declared critical incidents, with one saying it has seen high numbers of older patients with respiratory problems exacerbated by the cold weather, and a 14 year old boy has been stabbed to death on a bus in woolwich in south—east london. the metropolitan police says an investigation has now been launched. the incident occurred on a route 472 bus on woolwich church road. a police statement says paramedics treated him but the boy died shortly after medics arrived. no arrests have yet been made, but police are appealing for witnesses and those are the latest gb news headlines for now. now it's back to farage for the very latest gb news direct

to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to. >> gbnews.com/alerts. >> gbnews.com/alerts. >> well, it's very good to be back with you after quite a break. i have to say life has not been too quiet on my front, and elon musk absolutely guaranteed that over the course of the last few days. now, as you might just have seen, it's been reported that elon musk has gone apparently from being one of my most fervent supporters to thinking i'm just not up to the job. what's it all about? well, it's all about somebody who calls himself tommy robinson. he's a campaigner. he campaigns on grooming gangs and many other things. and fine, if he wants to be a campaigner, that's great. but i'm a political leader, and i don't think somebody with a long list of criminal convictions is the kind of

person i want to be associated with. well, musk took a rather different view, as indeed many americans do. many americans see tommy robinson as an absolute hero for free speech. i don't think he's wrong in everything he says, and i do question why he's in prison and being kept in solitary confinement. but i do think that much of what he says is kind of heading towards almost a religious war against the whole of islam, as opposed to saying there are problems within that religion that we need to deal with. so i wasn't going to budge on that position, and that's why i got the tweet from musk. but since then he's retweeted me twice. and who knows, maybe we'll make up, but of bigger and deeper significance than me is he has been really on the attack against the government, on the attack against the prime minister, on the attack against minister, on the attack against minister jess phillips. why is he doing it? all i can tell you is that our friends in america and around the world, as they've

seen over the course of the last ten days, court transcripts over the mass rapes that took place in many, many midlands and northern towns and cities. and people are just reading this stuff with absolute horror and disbelief. how on earth could this have happened? and i have to say, much of the reason we're having this debate is actually down to charlie peters gb news, his own reporter, who now says that he now believes that there are at least 50 towns and cities in our country in which these mass rapes were occurring. so that's why musk has been lashing out, and many others have, too. the question is, has he gone over the top? is he trying to interfere in our politics too much? is he trying to interfere in the german elections too much by supporting afd, or is this just the world we live in, where actually we're so interconnected that we very often influence each other's elections? the

other big shock on social media was mark zuckerberg. now, you might have heard that nick clegg. poor old nick. i say poor old nick. he's worth tens of millions now. but sir, nick has lost his big job at meta, and he's been replaced by dana white, the ufc guy from america, a fervent trump supporter. and then we get this statement from mark zuckerberg today , because mark zuckerberg today, because it's mark zuckerberg today, because wsfime mark zuckerberg today, because it's time to get back to our roots around free expression on facebook and instagram. >> i started building social media to give people a voice. i gave a speech at georgetown five years ago about the importance of protecting free expression, and i still believe this today, but a lot has happened over the last several years. there's been widespread debate about potential harms from online content. governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more. >> well, i couldn't help laughing because it was facebook. of course, that censored almost everything in the 2020 election that took place in america. it was him

himself who shovelled hundreds of millions of dollars, $400 million towards the democrats campaign. and those of you at home who have often liked posts that i've put up on facebook over the last few years have found yourselves shut down or suspended. zuckerberg even went on to say there'll be no longer any third party moderators. they will just have a sort of a system, a sort of correction system, a sort of correction system, rather like, interestingly, the same system that musk has on x. he even said that musk has on x. he even said that on facebook and instagram. we will be able to debate gender and immigration. goodness gracious me. isn't trump's victory absolutely enormous? so i'm asking you a question of has musk got too much power and influence? but actually, equally, is social media now just too powerful? and if it is, what on earth can we do about it? farage @gbnews dot com for your answers. now joining me on

the panel today is ranil jayawardena. oh, i'm so sorry i got that wrong. no no no no no he's not just ranil. good lord. no he's now sir ranil. well of course he is. thank you nigel, to the program. happy new year. i“lappy to the program. happy new year. happy new year. congratulations on your k. very good indeed. joe phillips, regular on this show. paddy ashdown's former press secretary. unfortunately missed out. >> must have got lost in the post. >> must have got lost in the >> must have got lo