up where top promising a shake up where top officials pay is linked to performance. the government insists it will create a more focused and productive civil service, but unions say it's just a soundbite with no real plan for change. mcfadden is expected to outline the reforms next week, alongside the prime minister's intervention on thursday. now, ministers are facing pressure over reports that an alleged palestinian gunman entered the uk illegally on a small boat. the mail on sunday claims abu wadee, a former militant, has called for the killing of jews and posed in pictures with ak 47 seconds. he is believed to be among the 235 migrants picked up in the channel on thursday. shadow home secretary chris philp says the government must find and remove him immediately. in other news, bereaved families and communities across britain have come together today to reflect on and mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the

covid 19 pandemic. families walked the national covid memorial wall in london, casting flowers from lambeth bridge in memory of those lost. there were emotional scenes in other towns and cities across wales, scotland and northern ireland as those difficult times were remembered. prime minister sir keir starmer said for many there is deep grief and loss that may never be relieved. elsewhere, the bbc pays senior managers who are from diverse backgrounds more than those who are not. that's according to the telegraph newspaper. statistics released in the corporation's annual report reveal that lgbt, ethnic minority, disabled and female senior managers earn larger salaries than those not from those backgrounds. the revelation comes despite the bbc having committed to equal pay the second half of england's six nafions the second half of england's six nations victory over italy was interrupted by a drone hanging a palestinian flag over the top of

the stadium. the intrusion happened towards the end of the round four win over the azzurri. a flying object entered the airspace over twickenham and descended beneath the top of the stands, while the six nations game went ahead just moments later, it further highlighted the growing unrest, including palestinian protesters in recent times. england went on to beat italy 4724 to keep their six nafions italy 4724 to keep their six nations dream alive. and today was the uk's hottest day of the year so far, according to the met office. with parts of the country warmer than spain and italy, crosby and lancashire reached 19.7 degrees today, but the mild spell won't last. temperatures drop from tuesday, with wintry showers returning in the north. some rural areas in scotland could even see lows of minus four degrees as the cold snap sets in. those are the latest gb news headlines. more in an hour. >> 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. >> and. >> and. >> welcome to free speech nation with me josh howie. this is a show where we take a look across the spectrum of culture, current affairs and politics, and we try our very best to make sense of a senseless world. coming up on the show tonight, anti—semitism is on the rise in the nhs, and the biggest culprits are the staff. i'll be discussing this with journalist nicole lampert. who should you decide whether you should smack your child or not.7 the parents or the state? ashley not? the parents or the state? ashley frawley has a very strong opinion , and our detransitioners opinion, and our detransitioners are being sidelined in an upcoming puberty blocker trial. director of shin bet uk, carrie clark, will be joining us in the studio, and of course, myself and my fantastic panel will be answering questions from our

wonderful studio audience. my comedian guests this evening are paul cox and aideen mcqueen. hello, hello. how are you doing, mate? all right. thanks, josh. how are you, mate? lovely. lovely weather out there today, josh. lovely. absolutely lovely weather. have you enjoying the weather? >> it's been fantastic. >> it's been fantastic. >> now we've got a few. we see we've got the audience in tonight, but these are the core hardcore free speech nation fans. everybody else is an alcoholic drinking somewhere in alcoholic drinking somewhere in a garden out in the pub. so thank you. i'm just going to come out and individually. no, i'm giving everybody i'm giving everybody an individual hug for coming out on this beautiful, beautiful night. not you john. thank you for coming out . later, thank you for coming out. later, john. later. save it for the interview. i'd like to get a little bit more time with you alone. right. we're going to get some questions from our audience. our first question is from anton here. >> should we worry about journalists speaking the truth? >> should we worry about journalists speaking the truth? yes. this is the press regulator. ipso has rejected a

complaint from trans footballer blair hamilton. hamilton complained that the oliver brown's description of hamilton as a biological male in the telegraph was a transphobic dog whistle, and disregarded players. blair's lived experience it has taken six months, but the press watchdog has decided to reject this complaint. so yeah, that's good news, paul. we can call out reality. of course it is. it's just a shame that i was going to say it's a shame that we have to keep discussing it. but if we didn't, josh, you'd have half the job. so i'm glad and i'd have half the job as well. so i'm glad that we do. it'sjust i'm glad that we do. it's just got to the point now where i think maybe, maybe because of what's happened in america with trump, lots of things have gone on with trump. not some, not not so good, some of them. but the fact that dei now is coming under a lot more scrutiny. perhaps we're seeing a little bit of that leaking over to the uk. i'm not sure if that's true or not, but it does feel like the environment in which we now exist is people are much more inclined to be honest about it.

well, you would say that, but the fact that this was even went to ipso that it's incredible that it requires a statutory body to allow journalists to be able to tell the truth. >> yeah. it's a complete waste of money. i mean, it reminds me of money. i mean, it reminds me of the time a few weeks ago, paul referred to me as a natural brunette. how dare you, paul? how dare you? i identify as a blonde, so i'm hoping to go to the. to the bodies that be. yeah. it's ridiculous. i'm glad that it was overturned, but the fact that i had to go there is silly. i mean, we've obviously overcorrected in one direction, and we're going to have to now go back and find the right happy medium for all of these kind of things. >> it's worth pointing out that blair hamilton and it was it was oliver brown, i think the journalist from the telegraph that said he she looked like a biological or is a biological male. okay. and quite obviously blair hamilton is a biological male. and whilst it may come

across as unkind to some groups, we have to. it's not just about facts, okay? facts are really important. it's also about protecting women's sport. what we do this seems to get lost in this. the degradation of women's activities and groups and spaces through men still is perpetuated. and this is just the start i fear. yeah. by different sports bodies allowing biological males to participate in women's sports. absolutely. but at the same time, this i still think that i agree that it is about sports, but to be able to state the truth. and also what was interesting in this ipso finding was it wasn't. that you you can like misnaming someone like trying to hurt someone's feelings or trying to be abusive. that's not the same as being able to state a fact. and those two things have been conflated by trans activists who have basically made it that the same thing, that if you were to state someone's biological

reality, then that is a hateful statement. >> again, it's like when paul brought up my actual age, i was mortified. but again, i can't sue him. yeah, these things are truths, aren't they? and we just have to do. if it's a truth, it's a truth. >> and absolutely. you're 23 years old. >> exactly. >> exactly. >> our next. question is from tony. okay. >> should christians only pray for non—europeans? thank you, tony, for that. i thought you were sort of invoking the sign of jesus like i was the devil before you asked the question. >> i don't worry, i've sprinkled with holy water earlier, you know? >> okay. anyway, i was like, as a jew, should i be offended here? no. so christians, yes. should avoid avoid eurocentric prayers in order to be more inclusive. according to guidance from a church of england diocese, parishes in the diocese of norwich have been issued with an anti—racist toolkit to ensure

they support diversity and inclusion plans mandated by senior clergy. the guidance tells church of england priests to avoid asking for god's help with problems relating only to europe and europeans. so paul, my understanding, though, is in norwich. it's 94% white. white. yeah, basically, whenever you see the term anti—racist, you know, there's going to be maybe an element of racism that follows it. and with the church, i'd like to give them a little bit of protection. i think they're probably trying to do good. there's no real need ehhen good. there's no real need either. there is no real need. if anyone and i do wonder sometimes, i've said on this show and headliners before, are the church reading the bible? because it says quite clearly in the bible that all people are made in the image of god. there is no more equity than that. so there is no need really to dig any deeper than that. the i, you know, the christian faith is built on people treating everybody equally. so i you know, i don't i don't think they

need to go to this length. and what we are seeing is they are being co—opted by every, every well—meaning thing that comes through. it seems entirely unnecessary to me. josh. yeah, unnecessary. but what do you think about this idea? i mean, the report actually had some some other examples in it that were equally troublesome. but this idea that you should be told what you're allowed to pray for. >> i find this fascinating because i grew up as a catholic, and i suppose i'm assigned catholic at birth. you can't leave the church, and we probably did nothing but pray for everybody else. it was it was a laundry list of all the different countries, nations, creeds, famines going on in the world. so i feel they're preaching to the gallery. i totally agree with paul here. it's already in the base text now, i do think it's a nice reminder that maybe if people are praying for selfish needs, that they could pray for something else. i mean, i brought up a catholic, i'm still in the catholic faith, but i actually go to 12 step group now. and that whole idea is that you could only pray for god's

will to be done. you can't be specific in any way. and so i think it's a bit petty and silly, this whole thing. really? >> yeah. but like i say, one of these things, they were like, you should be making prayers for ramadan. like, that was one of the examples. and i just doubt that there are any mosques in this country who are doing, who are sort of doing prayers for christmas. i would doubt that too. and, you know, it's because it's about faith. okay? the christianity seems to have lost its particularly the church of england. i should say catholicism is probably a bit different. they do stick to the book a little bit more. the church of england seemed to want to please all sorts of groups, all sorts of groups, forgetting that, you know, god wrote the bible. the bible is there for people to read. there isn't much more to do than read it and preach it. now, what they were saying within this. live it, live it. sorry. yeah. and that as well. so that's the bit i keep forgetting. but many, many religious people do. yes. so they, they were talking about not being eurocentric. so essentially, you know, i've been to church in recent times where

it's a, it's a prayer for ukraine. and the reason that they use ukraine is because within the communities that i'm going to church in ukraine is a big cause, and it resonates with the local community. they understand, they relate to it. they don't understand the stories that are going on. perhaps in africa they're entirely unaware of, well, it's a christian country, but i wonder how many churches are doing prayers for the 70 christians that were beheaded by islamists in syria? yeah. in syria, no, not in syria, no. but that's also going on now. and of course, but it seems also like they're sort of bashing themselves by going christianity or our culture is how evil was spread through the world. this was all created, by the way, in the post sort of black lives matter movement. and it seems like now these reports are that they've spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on. and we should remember, of course, the church of england, a lot of clergy are complaining how they're very low on funds. so we're now getting these reports. and but i feel like society has moved on a little bit.

>> yeah. are they doing it in a bid to win over more members? because interestingly enough, catholicism, especially in america, is really growing amongst young people. and they're going back to wearing they're going back to wearing the veil. they're taking it much more seriously. none of this guitar with the boomers singing like kumbaya. it's like holy, holy, holy, you know, back to the latin. >> you just wanted to get your voice out there. lovely work. >> yes. oh stop it guys. i'll do a shiri later. so it's. i don't know if all of this dilution is. >> going to. i think people are looking for authenticity. >> yeah, probably. >> yeah, probably. >> yeah. anyway, our next question is from duncan. good evening. good evening. should we be. >> allowed to burn the quran? >> allowed to burn the quran? >> should we be allowed to burn the quran or arrested for it? so, yeah, i'll. i'll explain this story first. a man arrested for burning a copy of the quran in bradford will not face charges following intervention by the free speech union. the fsu intervened immediately, instructed a solicitor to defend the man and covered all his legal costs. late last month, he

learned he would no longer be facing any charges. duncan, i understand that you want to do a protest now. ellie glaisyer, but this is this is obviously. what do you think about this, duncan? it's good news for free speech, right? i mean, i'm not saying that people should be doing this by any means, but this is good news for free speech. >> i believe so, yes. >> yeah. sorry. and hold the mic up. >> i believe it's good news for free speech. yes. >> okay. thank you. i'm glad you lifted the mic up for that bit. thank you. duncan. yes. so this is, there's sort of been a spate of these, i would say sort of 3 or 4 incidents. this is actually occurred before what we there was something in manchester then there was something in london recently. this occurred a while ago. and the fact that it took the free speech union to step up to provide the legal means to defend this is somewhat worrying because it is not against the law as it is. no, we don't have any blasphemy laws in this country anymore. we haven't had,

i think it was 1998, and that's solely what this is about 2008, 2008. okay. i know had a night in it. so i was close. but i mean, burning the quran is obviously a fairly vicious act, right? it's not a nice act. i wouldn't condone doing it myself, i think burning any books. exactly. i mean, you know, and i don't think there's any need to. however, there are we do stand particularly on this channel and especially on this show, for protecting people's rights to do things like that. so i'm very pleased to see that this guy, interestingly, this guy is a christian asylum seeker who is fleeing religious persecution in his country of origin and has come to this country and found out that perhaps that, you know, you can't say what you like anyway, mate. no. well, seemingly not this, by the way. this seems to be a sort of misuse of public order laws. so my understanding is that threatening somebody or abuse abuse that's illegal, but causing offence of course is legal. >> yeah. yeah. he i mean what he did again terrible thing to do.

very bad idea but not imprisonable not arrestable. i mean, imagine if somebody did a one woman show where, let's say i burnt the bible, i'd probably get government money for it. five star review. so, you know, wow. so edgy. >> so no, i think people would be like, that's so dumb. >> yeah, no, but i'll do it nude. i'll do anything to get a publicity. i'll sing. but it is, it is. they're pushing it. it's not fair. perhaps this man is fleeing, as a lot of christians are coming to this country who are coming to this country who are under persecution from islamist regimes. and he was making a genuine protest. he wasn't trying to just get into an edinburgh show. so there is an edinbu