Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on UK authorities investigating whether arson attacks linked to hostile state

Authorities are investigating whether the arson attacks on two properties linked to Keir Starmer are connected to 'hostile state involvement'.

Police are also investigating whether a suspected attack at another North London property linked to the Prime Minister 24 hours earlier is also connected. 

A car fire on the same street as Starmer's family home is also under investigation.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey says it's unknown where the 'hostile state' is - but Iran is a prime suspect.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gavin Gray are UK correspondents with us. Hey, Gevin, Hi,
there any idea what this hostile state is? No. I
think there's all sorts of potential rumors, of course, pointing
the finger at different groups, including the recent arrests we've
had in connection with activities said to be spying on
behalf of Iran. So I guess that country must be

(00:21):
high up the list. But these are three incidents that
have been linked to property that either Kirstarmer owns or
has owned, so our own prime ministers are former car
which he sold to a neighbor that's been set on
fire in North London near to a property that he
used to live in that was a converted house into
a number of flats. He used to live there he

(00:42):
doesn't anymore that have a fire. One person had to
be rescued. And now the house that he owns but
rents out because he's living in Downing Street that have
a fire outside the front door. Again nobody injured, thankfully,
but there was damage to the entrance way. So three
fires connect to two ski stama within three or four
days and police believe the culprit is intending to endanger life.

(01:07):
They have now arrested a twenty one year old man.
But the question is what is the motive and it's
being investigated by counter terrorism police. So is this some
sort of a hostile foreign state that's looking at this
or not At the moment, lots of unanswered questions, investigations continue. Devin,
tell me about this King of Germany. I mean, was

(01:28):
the sky serious? Yeah? He is in his own way,
shall I say, fifty nine year old Peter fitzg He's
among a number of people arrested in some raids involving
eight hundred security personnel and across seven states of Germany.
Now he is the leader of what's called the Reichsberger
or the citizens of the Reich. They seek to establish

(01:51):
what they call koenig Kraich Deutschland or Kingdom of Germany.
And he is quite a character and in the past
has called him self king. He says, Peter, he referred
himself to an au earlier court case. And Reichberger's had
their own currency, flag and ID cards. They want to

(02:11):
set up a separate banking and health system. And they
believe the current German state is sick and satanic. And yeah,
he has around about twenty five thousand members of this group,
of which he is their sort of self fulfilled king
and they are his subjects. But there does appear to
be some right wing extremist element to this. They pedal racist,

(02:33):
anti Semitic conspiracy theories. At least that's what the prosecutors
are saying. And in the past, although they've often been
dismissed as eccentric cranks because of these outlandish ideas, the
far right has grown considerably in strength politically in Germany
over the last decade. Okay, now, when these civil servants
that are being moved out of London, where are they going, Well,

(02:57):
to Manchester in the northwest of England, Dean in Scotland.
And the government says it's going to save roughly two
hundred million New Zealand dollars a year, aiming to take
twelve thousand posts out of London and close eleven offices
in London. Now, this is all meant to sort of,
you know, get the government closer to the people that

(03:17):
it's serving, etc. It's also about saving money. This is
not the first government to have pledged to do this. Indeed,
you know, I think of every single successive government that
we've had in the last few years said we're going
to do this, but of course civil servants who have
families in London are very reluctant to move, and already
the unions are saying we need to look at the
fine print of this and what it'll mean for our members.

(03:40):
But this is something that this government is absolutely desperate
to crack down on. The number of civil servants since
the pandemic has absolutely just rocketed and now tops over
half a million civil servants, increasing considerably since twenty sixteen. Hi,
thank you, Gevin, always appreciate it, given great UK correspondent.

(04:02):
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