Hannah Barnes on the News Agents

[JeannieDark]

So pleased to hear this full and Frank interview with Hannah Barnes (noted that Lewis Goodall was off for this episode) with Emily Maitlis and John Sopel.
It starts around 15mins in. I hope the link works.

Listening to The News Agents (Is Rishi Sunak prepared to pick a fight with China?)

<p>Once you have revealed that China is hacking British citizens on a major and global scale, the next question is - well, what are you going to do about it? </p><p>Well this is the one the prime minister is currently pondering. He's talking about putting China on an 'enhanced' list - which basically sounds like a glorified registration. But is he prepared to risk trading links? Or shut down Confucious institutes in the UK - China's soft power - or even say no to tiktok? </p><p>Also - the Tavistock child gender identity services are shutting their doors for good this week, after the Care Quality Commission declared the care they were offering our children was 'inadequate'. We speak to the investigative journalist Hannah Barnes, who helped expose the failures at the Tavistock. And we ask where children in need of help should seek it now?</p><p>Editor: Tom Hughes</p><p>Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus</p><p>Producer: Laura FitzPatrick</p><p>Social Media Editor: Georgia Foxwell</p><p>Video Production: Shane Fennelly and Arvind Badewal</p><p>You can listen to this episode on Alexa - just say "Alexa, ask Global Player to play The News Agents"!</p><p>The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - <a href="https://www.hsbc.co.uk/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.hsbc.co.uk/</a></p>
https://dax.captivate.fm/c8c8bc2d-d1d5-4ec1-bcff-fd137a484b0d/TUESDAY-EPISODE-encoded.mp3?aw001st.showid=c49390b9-6909-4cd3-a974-e270cf686f27&aw001st.episodeid=b05f46cf-265a-4ec3-a469-235dfb76fe58

I was really impressed with this interview, she was very clear and they gave her plenty of space. I had no idea how incredibly stringent the Dutch protocols were and how almost casually they'd been applied. The lack of follow up is also horrifying.

A lot of people in the twitter comments are very critical of Hannah and the interview so it may be good for Emily and Jon to get some different viewpoints

Good point I will send them an email to thank them.

I am glad they have covered this too. Emily Maitliss is quoted on the front of Hannah's book so she is aware of the issues.

Will add a positive comment to their twitter post.

Emily Maitliss was clearly much more aware of rhe issues than Jon Sopel, unless Jon Sopel was acting naive to avoid criticism.

I think Hannah Barnes is a clear communicator, facts led and compassionate.

I assumed he was playing naive to ensure the points were addressed? But maybe not. I definitely think it was significant that it was done on a day when Lewis wasn't there though as he seems more on the other side of the debate.
Annoyingly I can't email, can only Tweet. But as many positive Tweets as possible would be great.

It looks like the negative comments on Twitter have not listens. Shocker!

i reckon Lewis is one of the Be Kind brigade along the lines of Rory Stewart, James O’Brien, and Louis Theroux. There’s an excellent article in the Critic about these kind of men. I’ll find a link.

He may also be on the back foot a little after his unedifying demands that Kate should tell us all what was wrong with her. He was pretty insistent that her role in the royal family meant that she had a duty to share her diagnosis.

Whist I do agree to a certain extent that the public should be informed if the head of state or his immediate family is ill, his tone bordered on hectoring.

He displayed no empathy for Kate as a person, despite a bit of throat clearing.

It felt distasteful for his demands to be answered with; “I’m a 42 mother of three children and I’ve been diagnosed with cancer,”

Sorry - distasteful is the wrong word. I have not expressed myself property.

I would say that in light of the announcement, his tone seemed ill-judged.

I listen to the Newagents a lot & Lewis more does Fridays & some of the days, not all, so I would read less into this than others might.

It was a good interview.

It's such a good podcast, so much better than when they did Americast.

I gave up listening to The News Agents because of Lewis’ attitude towards this issue (felt the same about the attitude of Campbell and Stewart on The Rest is Politics) but I’ll give this episode a listen.

Thanks for posting the link 👍

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-sadness-of-sceptical-man/

this is great and well worth a read

Someone mentioned that James O'Brien is #bekind. Really? That would be so very disappointing, I have long been a big fan of his. I would have to rethink my attitude to him (I don't live in the UK any more so don't listen to him as often as I used to, but still have admiring memories about him during the Brexit years, Brexit being the reason I am no longer in the UK).

Yes this is true, I actually don't listen much on Fridays as I don't enjoy the episodes with Lewis on his own. I think I thought it might be relevant still though because he is usually on most of the other episodes and his opinion seems to sit on the other side of the debate whereas it was always fairly clear Maitlis was more GC. But I do take your point, it could be a coincidence.

Yes I went off JOB for this reason. I'd only ever listened to him during Brexit but started to find him annoying once that was over.

JoB is a dreadful champagne socialist who is also an appalling misogynist.

Here he is patronising Kellie-Jay Keen.

I listened to the interview and found it very informative. Since leaving the BBC, Hannah is a bit more forthright in discussing the events at GIDS. I thought Sopel’s questions would be useful for someone not as used to the information as FWR contributors tend to be. And I liked that when Emily praised Deb Cohen and Hannah for exposing the scandalous lack of treatment at GIDS, Hannah credited the various Tavistock and GIDS whistleblowers too.

I also learned from this interview that it was the BBC Newsnight reporters who contacted the Children’s Commissioner with their concerns which led to an investigation of GIDS.

O'Brien is the worst kind of hypocrite. Not only does he indulge in beliefs that he claims to believe that cost him nothing (and which he might not actually believe in any case), but he hectors those who don't believe (because they recognise the costs) for additional virtue points.

That's JO'B off my listening habits and my bookshelf!