Rod Liddle: UK Correspondent on the US State Department's claims the UK is not a free country

The US has accused the UK of backsliding on human rights over the past year, claiming it’s not a free country. 

The US State Department says the UK’s Labour government ‘repeatedly intervened to chill speech’, their annual assessment also highlighting laws limiting free speech around abortion clinics. 

UK Correspondent Rod Liddle told Mike Hosking it’s something that both Trump and Vance have said before, and it has a certain resonance with people like Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage. 

He says the claims are causing a problem for the Government, who are already under fire for being a two-tired government that seemingly penalises the right for saying things, but lets the left go scott-free. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To Britain. We go Rod Little A very good morning
to you.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good morning to you, mate.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Do excuse me for being rightfully superficial as always, but
I do need a weather update. Are you sweltering? Is
it above thirty? Is the end of the world meteorologically
upon you?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It is? It is even up here in the North.
I didn't go out today. I stayed inside and watched
cashing in the attic. It was too hot to do anything.
But it won't last. It'll last another couple of days
and then I'll.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Have the rape exactly well, at least it's been nice
for Lemmy and has best friend, his best fishing mate,
which I know they didn't have licenses for, which is
sort of ironic. But I knowpe that Jeremy Clarkson's waded
in as well, and there seems to be a little
bit of upset about JD and his entourage.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes, it does, I think, but I think that was
always going to happen, because he is not liked by
a certain section of the population and by a certain section,
particularly of the chapter in class. The truth is, and
I think a great deal of credit has to go
to David Lammy for this, for how he's dealt with JD.
Vans and brought him on side and struck a common

(01:08):
bond that it shows a certain knack of diplomacy which
I haven't thought was there. Vance himself is clearly, you know,
an angler phile. The licenses stuff gives them manner break.
I don't suppose Lammy's ever been fishing in his life.

(01:28):
I think it comes from an estate in Tottenham. You know,
I don't know what they'd have fished for there, but
you know, there's an awful lot of coughing anything which
surrounds Donald Trump or indeed JD. Evans, and this country
always comes under the snoping of the left.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
The speaking of Trump. It was it Trump or was
it the State Department? Or was it both of them?
And there's business of you being a free country and
the protest and the noise going on, and I thought
you got on, Well does this cause a problem.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
It's a shot across the bowels. It's certainly something both
Vance and Trump have set before, and now it's in
an official State Department investigation into human rights in various
countries of the world were particularly ours, and what the
State Department concluded was that over the last year human

(02:22):
rights has significantly worsened in this country as as a
consequence of the limitations on freedom of speech, and they
cited various examples, particularly incidentally, as you would imagine from
the State Department anti abortion demonstrations being stopped from even
saying anything. It has a certain resonance, and it has

(02:44):
a certain resonance with people like Kenrie beadenok with Nigel Farage,
and it does cause a problem for the government, which
is already under fire of that being a two tier
government which penalizes the for saying things.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
But let's the left go exactly so does does starmer
way in or does he just walk that tight rope
and let that stuff fly, given he's got seemingly a
reasonable relationship with Washington.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, well, he said rather petulantly when he was in
a meeting with Trump and Vance, while they've had human
rights here for a very long time, which was at
least nicely sort of barbed, given that the United States
hasn't been in existence for a very long time. But
I think he would be ill advised to say anything
at all about it, because it will only inflame the situation.

(03:36):
What you ought to do is just to en sure
that everyone has a right to say what they think.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, exactly. So I'm reading yesterday that Reeves's latest plan
for the mess of gap that we've been talking about
and the ability to spend money versus the money you're
bringing in. Is this inheritance text? If you're going to
go for texts, Is inheritance the better of the options
or not?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
I think they think it's the better of the option.
Shouldn't for not infuriating people, But it's already beginning to
infuriate people, largely people who object to being taxed twice
three times on one particular bit of income, you know,
which is what we're seeing with inheritance tax. Are there
are complex moral arguments about inheritance tax? You know. I

(04:20):
don't know what side of the line you're on, Mike,
but I find it difficult to call should should kids
be given a huge start in life? Or should they
have to work for themselves? Et cetera.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
But when she comes to do it, which inevitably she
is going to, and she breaks a promise, does she
how do you explain that I'm not going to?

Speaker 2 (04:39):
But what ses did circumstances changed, Mike? Is what she
will say. And it was forced upon us by the
by the refusal of her party to back the Welfare
Benefits Bill, and it's so on so so she will
try to wriggle through it by saying things have changed.

(05:00):
I planned to save this money through welfare reform, but
I wasn't allowed to.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
You're a very good black mite. Well, you have a
good weekend and we'll catch up next week. Rod Little
in Britain for Us this Morning. For more from the
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