Voting is upon some of us once again in England with Local Elections happening across the country with some 8000 seats up for grabs.
Darren Denslow joins us as someone who is vying for one of those seats, many will know him from Twitter as Wolsned or Darren of Plymouth and he is standing for election in his home city of Plymouth.
Most candidates stand for one of the main political parties but Darren chose to be an independent.
Why did he discount the parties? How has he campaigned as an independent? Is there a way of reversing voter apathy?
Tune in this episode to hear Darren's experiences and why he thinks you should get out there and vote.
Darren Denslow is a chemist, science teacher, ex military finance/procurement specialist turned political commentator, free speech advocate, radio host and runs two of the best 'Truth Speaking' Twitter accounts to come out of the UK, @DarrenPlymouth and @wolsned.
Darren has lived in Plymouth all his life and truly loves his city and that is why he is running as an independent councillor in St. Peters & The Waterfront to represent the wishes of local people on local issues.
Follow and support Darren ....
WEBSITE: https://www.darrenofplymouth.com/
RADIO: https://tntradio.live/
PODCAST: https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/category/darren-denslow
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/wolsned?s=20
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/darrenplymouth
Interview recorded 2.5.23
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Hello Hearts of Oak and welcome to another interview coming up in a moment with Darren Denslow or Darren of Plymouth as most of you will know him from his social media profile.And you can also catch Darren on TNT radio every Sunday afternoon but the reason I asked him on today was local politics. He is standing as an independent candidate in the local elections and as this goes out on Thursday today will be election day so you can make a decision to vote for candidates. So Darren joins us to explain why he's standing as a local candidate, why he discounted the other parties, what pushed him into that role. He stood before, so we talk about his previous experiences, and why local elections is so important. People often think of Westminster, central government as the place where it happens, but actually the importance and many of the issues are sorted out and dealt with at local level. So why is that important? Why should you vote if you're in the UK? And talk about apathy. I mean, there are massive voter apathy across the UK and it's just getting worse and worse. And Darren brings his passion, his energy, his enthusiasm for dealing with local issues. I would really inspire anyone to vote and to get someone in who cares about their local issues. So as you watch this, local elections will be on today in many parts of England. 8,000 seats are up for grabs, so do make a decision on voting if you haven't done already. But over to Darren to explain his experiences and why you should vote.Darren Denslow, or Darren of Plymouth as I would know you. Darren, thank you so much for being with us today.
(Darren Denslow)
My pleasure, mate. My pleasure. Glad to be on here. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk to you.
Great to have you with us. Now to follow your Twitter profile, and they're @Wolsned. People can follow you there and of course they can watch you on tntradio.live.
You're on the Sunday afternoon slot, I believe, 1 to 3 UK time or 8 to 10 am eastern time for our US viewers on the east coast. And I saw, I think the last two weeks, well you've had
Dan and Stan, Voice of Wales, who I know well and we've had on numerous times. Also James Harvey, Voice of Wales, Unity News Network, Students Against Tyranny. I think we had him last week hearing about his background as a student.
Good lad, he is.
Very good.
And of course you're the independent candidate for St Peter and the Waterfront Ward in Plymouth, and we'll delve into that a little bit deeper. But first Darren, can I ask you to introduce yourself before we get into elections and all that stuff?
Yeah sure, my name's Darren Denslow, I was known as you said as Darren of Plymouth on Twitter. I still actually have that Twitter account, Elon has graciously given it back to me, but they give it back to me in a mangled reck, It doesn't really work very well. So you can find me on Twitter @Wolsned. I am a chemist.
A science teacher by training. I spent 15 years working in finance and in the dockyard.
Prior to that, I was cancelled as a teacher because of the trans issue. And I now, after speaking out for sort of three years throughout the pandemic and through the Brexit period, I now work as a, someone called me a news anchor the other day, which was, which was quite nice, but I do news reporting during the week on TNT radio. And as you said, I have my own show 1pm to 3pm UK time on a Sunday. But I'm also for my sins, standing in my second local election.
I stood in 2021 in a different ward in Beverall in Plymouth. But that was really just me just spending a bit of money to try and poll the local population to find out who would vote independent and who didn't believe in the Covid narrative. This year I'm standing in the
St. Peter and Waterfront ward is probably one of the most historic
parts of England, let alone Plymouth. And so I'm quite honoured to have the Barbican and the waterfront as somewhere that I might potentially come Thursday represent. So I'm standing as an independent candidate. The reason I'm standing as an independent candidate in Plymouth.
The trigger was the destruction of the trees and the Plymouth tree massacre. No, I'm not a greenie, I'm not a tree hugger or an environmentalist or a climate change activist. I was really unhappy that the public's wishes were not represented by the people in the local council, the Conservatives, Labour and the Green Party all had an opportunity to prevent the cutting down of over 110 mature trees in the centre of Plymouth. They either abstained or voted for, even though a petition of 16,000 said don't do it. And so I decided, you know, there's no democracy here in Plymouth. In fact, there's no democracy left in the UK after the last three years. And so that is why I am standing. And I probably shouldn't say I haven't got a hope in hell, because people go, I ain't going to waste my vote on that geezer then, but you know I'm standing because if I didn't stand I'd be kicking myself for the rest of the year because I'll let those gits in power get away with it without at least doing something and I hope this year not only do people vote for me.
But people up and down the country vote for independent candidates. So that's just a little bit about me Peter.
Okay I think there are what 8,000 seats is it? Something like that, up for grabs and of course we'll not even get into the complications of UK. I don't have any where I am here in London. All different parts of the country are different, so I'd encourage our viewers. This will go out on Thursday. We're doing this two days before, so it'll go out on Thursday, on election day. So if you're watching this live at eight o'clock on Thursday, you've got, what, two hours to go and go and cast your votes. Exactly, it is important, although I'm moving away towards the more apathy side, but we'll get into some of that. So you've stood before, you're standing again. Standing the first time it didn't
put you off standing. Why did you stand for the first time? Because a lot of people, I'm curious to know why they put their names forward for the first time. And I haven't been involved in local elections. I mean, 2019 was when I was overseeing the campaign with UKIP for European and locals.
But I'm always curious to know why someone puts their name forward. If it's as an MP, it's glory, fame, I guess, although I would debate that, but locals is different. So why did you start originally as a local candidate?
In 2021, I mean, I sort of work and move, you know, I keep myself to myself generally, but in a sort of my social world, my connections within the city, I sort of loosely operate amongst political people. And my friend Danny Bamping in 2021 said, look, there's a seat, there's no one standing as an independent in Beverall, do you want to stand? This was at the I wouldn't say the height of the pandemic, but we had had 12 months of the pandemic.
Everyone was running around in masks. The vaccine campaign had just started, that we were still in some sort of lockdown in my city and right across the UK. People had still lost their minds. I was getting incredibly worried about what was coming down the line in the future. Plus I'm a teacher by training. I saw what was going on in schools, schools have been shut down, kids have been put in masks, they were talking about vaccinating them, or the rumours were that they were going to go back on Matt Hancock's word, and we also have a god-awful, I mean the worst local authority you can imagine at a time it was run by Labour, and we've got like the wokest of the woke in terms of Labour councillors and Labour candidates here, and so I thought I'm going to put my name down because, you know, I've got to do something.
And at the time it was all about COVID. I've got to do something. And I really felt that just screaming and shouting on Twitter doesn't achieve anything. So that's why I stood.
And I actually caused chaos and Labour diverted almost all of their attention and financial resources to the Pevrel Ward because Darren of Plymouth had a big Twitter account with 40,000 followers and I was making a lot of noise online so it was really good for the lols but the reality is having a big twitter presence doesn't translate into votes and I got five percent of the votes then, I have no idea what's going to happen now but I will say this Peter and I'll try and be careful of my language. People are more pissed off now
than they were in 2021, when you were locked down in a mask and being jabbed up to your eyeballs, which is quite interesting. And it's 15 minute cities. And it's the nonsense of the Conservative Party that have really, really upset people. And they're not necessarily going, I'm going to vote for red, I'm not going to vote the other way, because they look at the alternative, which is Labour and Keir Starmer. And the goons that we've got as candidates, Labour candidates here, you know, with their green hair and still wearing masks, there is a good opportunity for other parties and independent candidates to come through, even if it's just on a protest vote.
So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm going to do better than the 5% I got last time, even though I'm standing in a different ward.
Obviously, you've looked at the other parties and made a decision that actually none of them are any good and of course there are alternative views for the other parties, although they're becoming more reduced. But obviously if you're getting involved in politics the first thought is you know I should get involved in one of the political parties and get to know the local community, get to know the local association and then put myself forward. That's kind of the traditional process in the UK. We traditionally have not done independence, well we do more locals but it's still not the norm really. But you've obviously discounted other parties and decided to do it as an independent. How did you assess that when you looked at the other parties?
How did you kind of make that assessment that none of them? and give me your thoughts.
I really do want to hear them.
I never considered for one second ever being part of the Conservatives or the Labour Party.
And since Brexit it's been quite obvious to anyone who's paying even the slightest bit of attention to what's going on in the political environment that neither Labour or the Conservatives represent you. People go and vote, they're going to vote blue, going to vote red, and you know, and that's what people do. But then you're voting for a party to make decisions, not for an individual who might live in your community, care about the place, care about that. So for me, Plymouth is my home. I'm Darren of Plymouth, for God's sake. It's literally in my my little nickname, moniker. I spend most of my time in St. Peter on the waterfront. It's an absolutely beautiful area of the city that's just been trashed because of the the trees that have been cut down and because of their attack on statues you know Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawking's name has been taken down as a street name because he's a racist colonialist you know, the parties don't care about that they're following instructions from higher up they're following down here in Plymouth they're taking instructions from London in London they're taking instructions from the World Economic Forum or the UN or the WHO or whoever. Yeah, they don't represent you.
But trying to break that cycle of behaviour, voting behaviour in the public is incredibly difficult. And I'll give you a good example. In 2021, I was up on the Ho, which is, you know, very famous part of Plymouth, it's beautiful, sea views and there was some elderly ladies there.
And they had just voted in the local election. It was the voting day on Thursday, 2021.
You know, two years ago today. And I was explaining to them, with the other independent candidates, how it, exactly what I was saying, if you want change, don't vote for Conservatives, don't vote for Labour, because it's just a continuation of what you've already had.
And that's bloody obvious. And they agreed, they agreed with everything I was saying. And I was like, who did you vote for then? Oh, we always vote Conservative. And this literally happened.
And I'm just standing there, jaw on the floor that you've just agreed with everything I said about why you should vote for independent candidates or some small parties that are trying to fracture or move away from the mainstream political system and you've just gone and voted blue and red.
And the reason people do that is because we've been indoctrinated all our lives. You're conservative.
You're Labour, your right, your left, and people just vote in accordance with this behaviour that's sort of been implanted in us right from schooling until adulthood. And it's very, very difficult to break that train of thinking. I'm hopeful this year, but at the same time, I know that when people turn up at the ballot, they might be walking all the way up to the ballot box, I'm going to vote independent, I'm going to vote for this person and when they get there they go wasted vote and vote Conservative or Labour. And if that happens again here, just as it might happen in the general election which is likely to follow on from the locals, then we're just going to be stuck in the same shit show that we have been in for the last 3, 6, 10, 20 years, go back as far as you like. Nothing will change until we get Conservatives and get Labour out of government, especially local government, yeah, because that will then filter up through to London and we might be able to, you know, enact some real changes. Maybe if we did that right across the country, there wouldn't be any more 15-minute city talk.
I'm assuming that when you mentioned at the beginning about the, was the trans issue in schools and your vocal on that, so that comes from a more common sense, socially conservative, you look at around and concern of how things are changing for the worse and how things that were truth, that were normality are suddenly turned on their head.
But then that would probably make you look at some of the other smaller parties and I'm wondering why you didn't look at them, who maybe have traditionally been more on the right, traditionally been more, well, we need to conserve what we have as our culture.
That's been the general understanding and view of them that maybe hasn't necessarily transcribed out.
But why did you discount them?
Because I would still be taking direction from somebody. I'm an independent person, I'm an individual, I'm a free thinker, and the only interest I have, if I was to be successful in this election, is to represent the wishes of the people who live in that ward.
And a lot of them may not be conservative. A lot of them won't necessarily be, you know, left-leaning.
I already know a load of them are very, very, very woke and are obviously not going to vote for me, but I need to be my own person and I considered the Heritage Party. I've spoken with Dave Kurten in particular, I've had him on my show on TNT, lovely bloke, also a fellow chemist and we had a lot in common, but I would still be representing not the people, there would be that extra chain, there would be that like um a go between between me and the people of Plymouth. I would have to go through the heritage party or we'd have to go through UKIP or I mean there is a reform candidate, Reform did contact me and I said I'm not representing any party I'm independent and the thing about democracy especially at local levels it should be independent people who are sitting in our chambers here, you know every seat should be somebody from this city, especially you know hopefully they live in that ward as well and that they they have an interest and skin in the game in the city and I think a lot of our councillors either in Plymouth and elsewhere across the country don't have that. They're conservative first, they're Reform first, whatever, then they're the representatives of the people. I'm just going to be a representative of the people if I win.
Tell me, you talked about the conversations you have with people, I remember the conversation I had that really hit me, it was ages ago, probably about 15 years ago in the Church I go to in London, big, big black majority Church, and having the conversations with the congregation members as it came up to the election, I would list some policies and they would say, awful, awful, awful.
And I said, well, those are Labour policies. They'd say, yeah, but we will probably vote Labour.
We always vote Labour.
And it's that, as you said, that weird gulf between people's views and how they've been tribalized and forced into voting all their lives.
And people would have told me, well, you know, my parents voted for Labour.
Or it could be flip side. My parents voted for Conservative, therefore I do.
And I said, well, have you thought about it? Looked at the policies?
No, it's just show me the red or show me the blue and I'll tick.
Um so yeah it's a similar.
They don't even look at the candidate. They don't even look at the candidate. In 2021 I stood against a conservative guy called John Mahoney. Yeah I actually had an argument with him. He said to me, he's a doctor yeah, he said to me I will wait five years to find out if there's any uh adverse events or side effects from the vaccine and I was like, you're a doctor mate yeah he won yeah he didn't campaign he literally for a few days just before the election, just went around and chucked a few leaflets about, people turned up and just went, blue. They don't even know who he is, blue.
Yeah? Out all red, you know? That's what people do. And so they don't even look into who they're voting for, they just turn up at the ballot box if they're a voter and vote red or blue. And, you know, the problem with politics is inherent in what I just said there, i.e. our country and, the world is run by the people who turn up. And usually the people who turn up aren't the sort of people who should be running the world. And you know, how do we get people out to vote? Imagine if there was 100% turnout. Yeah, I'm pretty sure Conservative and Labour wouldn't be winning all the time.
Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, you look at the vote share and how they get in is bonkers. I think that people misunderstand the power of what happens at the local level.
People see Westminster as the place where politics happens, where true decisions are made, but you stand as local candidate, you have seen and you understand the reality that actually decisions are made at the local level. If Westminster doesn't sit for two months, three months, the country carries on. Actually, when a local council doesn't sit for whatever reason, suddenly there are issues with schools, there are issues with bins, there are issues with local services, And that's it's, at the local level that the country actually works.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, you know, I bought at the same in the same breath.
You know, we're talking about the trees because that is a look.
It's even made the newspaper again today.
It was a massive national story and scandal, that tree, the decision to support the felling of those trees, although it didn't directly, to my knowledge, come from London.
London did say, here's a pot of money.
Do you want that money?
Cut down the trees. Yeah. If you don't cut down the trees and begin this project, we take that pot of money away.
And that is how the local authorities are influenced. So even though decision-making is made down, made at the local level, it's still in accordance with the wishes of their party at London, and government, doesn't matter who's in power, they're the ones who control the purse strings.
And that, you know, that's the cycle of political influence and decision making that needs to be broken.
There is a council in the UK, as far as I understand, and I didn't Google or check this before I come on, Frome, that's wholly independent.
And if you go to that council, and you go to Frome's, as I say, not to the council, but if you go to the Frome, it's beautiful!
And it's great. All the services are provided, there's no in-fighting like we have here in Plymouth where we've had the last four years all they've done is fight against each other and not actually achieve anything because it's just you know if red says that it's left.
Then blue goes oh I'm going right. There's no cooperation between the parties in my city at the local level, there's no saying oh this is going to be in the interest of all the people and Plymouth, so let's work together on that, they will just fight each other no matter what the decision is that needs to be made. And so, yeah, all the action happens at local level and I will also say this, the corruption is off the scale at the local level. It isn't until you sort of dip your toes into local politics do you realize the level of corruption and the underhanded dirty tactics that will be employed particularly by the established political parties in order to get rid of any opposition. I am now the most racist person in Plymouth and it's been banded all around social media. I mean I think it's a badge of honour. When I asked why am I the most racist person in Plymouth, they didn't have an answer. They couldn't even tell me. But the mud sticks unfortunately.
Well it does. The issue of the trees issue is intriguing. I remember reading about it, I remember reading that the leader of the Conservative Council then stepped down over it.
And it's amazing how you do see pockets of this happening, not enough at all, we need to learn from the French, the one thing we need to learn from the French maybe, is that resistance, that pushback, that standing up for what you believe in your area, in your community. And it was heartening to see that pushback from the local community which forced the Conservative leader out.
And I guess that's what you want to see more of, you want to see local people standing up for local issues.
Yeah of course, you know, and again it should be local people. I mean that tree, the tree massacre, the great Plymouth tree massacre, is a really good sort of distillation to use a chemo chemistry term distillation of the problem yeah, the council were like we need to get rid of these trees so we can begin this project so we can get that pot of money from central government and that money will then be continuous throughout the next 12 months of our budget so that was their thinking, then the public went here 16 000 signatures said don't cut down the trees. And so the leader
under some influence from the sitting establishment of Plymouth City Council, the people who are there permanently, and that's another issue, you know, the employees or the
public sector workers, that's a separate issue because they don't get voted in, under pressure from them because they want the money for the business that is Plymouth City Council, wrote an executive decision. I don't know what Richard Bingley was thinking at the time, And a little bit on Richard Bingley, and I'm sorry I'll jump around, he's ex-Labour, ex-UKIP, he started Save Our Statues, yeah, but he wants to rename Sir John Hawking Square, Zelensky Square. Can you believe it? I mean I really am going to f***ing blind in a minute just thinking about it. And then he become Conservative, I think he was also an Independent, he might have even been a Green at some point. So these are the sort of people that put themselves forward to be in positions of power. They're only interested in the position and they're only interested in the power. They're not interested in representing the people. Anyway he wrote an executive order two hours later they cut the trees down under the cover of darkness and yeah the public are super, even now, super, super unhappy about what happened. The trees are still all there.
I haven't walked through the city centre today, they're about to be removed but there's some squabbling going on. But we don't live in a democracy, Peter, and nationally we don't live in a democracy. And I find it very, very concerning for the future because I suspect that that
semblance, the illusion of democracy that we've always lived under, even that is now dead. So I think these local elections, from my perspective, is my last opportunity really to stand up, be counted, see if I can win, make a difference, and with a group of other independent candidates to see if we can get in and have a voting bloc in Plymouth because there won't be any more local elections for another two years because of the GE. And if you're a conspiracy theorist like me, you know, these elections could well sort of run down and be a thing of the past as the globalists get their way and remove sovereignty from countries. And the rumour is, after these local elections, because the Tories are going to get absolutely wiped out, I suspect, in these 8,000 seats that are up, there is going to be a GE announced probably straight after the local elections, and this country is going to go into proper crazy town for for a few months and we're going to end up with a Labour government.
So you know it's it's it's, if you're worried about a Labour government then you'll know what I mean when I say it's quite scary the prospect of what can happen to the UK in the next 12 to 18 months.
You know it is and I've also seen those stories of that election general election being called soon after and I think that's how it will go. Let me ask, I'll not jump in on the Richard Bingley because I know Richard from my UKIP days but I scratched my head on that decision so I'll leave it at that but can I ask you about apathy, voter apathy, apathy of individuals. You talk to people and we talk about how people were tribal but also you have the apathy involved and just where there's no desire, no engagement. A lot of that is the fault of the system for not engaging with the voter and expecting them to do their juty and tick that box whenever the alarm bell goes, whenever the bell goes immediately you must jump up and you must respond and then shut up and keep quiet for the next four or five years. How do you kind of combat that?
You obviously have stood, not as a party machine but independent and you talk to people, you engage with individuals about the political system, encouraging them to cast their vote for you.
How is there a way past that apathy?
Sorry for the for the dead air but I mean I'm shrugging my shoulders saying is all I know is that it exists. I don't know how to combat it. It's very difficult as an independent because you're on your own, you don't have a party machine behind you. You know, I've got help, I've had, I've been fortunate that I've had quite a few people volunteer to help me to go, around knocking doors and canvas. Every single person that I have spoken to, they've gone, I've got arm, you're interested in the elections, you can see their face, they're like, don't come near me, you're obviously a politician, I don't want nothing to do with you, look at the state the country and it takes me a little while to go, you know, oh I'm an independent candidate, I'm not, I'm financing myself, I'm not, I'm not part of a political party, but to then go, we need you to get out and vote.
You can see that these people don't want to vote and the turnout typically on a local election by ward roughly is about 40 percent. So that means the people in Plymouth or wherever you might be in the country, 60 percent is a group of people that doesn't have a representative.
They're being ruled over by the 40 percent or the 30 percent and sometimes turn out as low as 20 percent. And so, as I said before, we're ruled over by those that just turn up or those that
Put themselves down as a candidate for Labour or Conservative or whatever. And again, you know, I've got the ballot paper expecting to see quite a few independent candidates this year because people are pissed off. There isn't. Most wards don't even have an independent candidate.
And what I'm getting from social media from around the country is that there aren't that many independent candidates standing. And so again we're just going to end up with red or blue and the same old nonsense going on and that just increases voter apathy, it increases disengagement in the political process and so people don't go out and vote because they think what's the point it's going to end up red or blue anyway. So I don't know what the answer is. I'll tell you what the political establishment don't want, 100% voter turnout. Maybe we could do something like Australia and just say it's mandatory. You must, or on pain of a smallish fine, go out and vote.
And in Australia, I think it's $30 or $60 or whatever, about 30 pounds, if you don't go out and vote. So they have very, very high turnouts. And as long as somebody isn't ballot stuffing or or rigging the election will probably have very, very different results and we may end up with a lot more independent candidates in positions of power representing the people of their community.
I know that voter turnout is going to be particularly low this year. I'm pretty certain.
It'll either be extraordinarily high or extraordinarily low. It depends on how people react to how pissed off they are. In Plymouth, super pissed off. Every single person that I've spoke to.
I think people are blown away when you show them the numbers because you can get in as a local candidate for a thousand votes. It can be less than that depending on the makeup. And people are foolish enough and there are many people who are who think actually I voted Conservative, I'm going to change my vote, I'm going to vote Labour. And I think well voting for Sir Keir Stammer, but what's going to be the massive difference for voting for, Rishi Sunak, someone more wealthy than the Sovereign? It's not. You need to think outside that little box, and yet people are fixated on that. So people who choose to go one or the other.
It's not going to make any difference. They're just going to get the same.
That it's a mono-party. The reds and the blues of the UK, the reds and the blues of USA. I suspect they use red and blue in Canada and Australia. You see there's a common thread here. And one's conservative and one's not so conservative, apparently, which we should say one's a socialist and ones even more socialist. And so, you know, I think, who gives the good
analogy. I can't remember who it was, but it's basically the difference between Coke and Pepsi. That's what you've got to vote for. One's a little bit sweeter than the other, but the reality is you're getting the same drink. And if you vote Conservative or Labour, they're owned by the same people, the same lobbyists are going in and dealing with these politicians, whether at local level or national level, and the same decision making is going to be made. If anyone here who's listening right now thinks that voting for Labour in the local elections or in the general election that's coming up is going to make a sea change to the direction this country is coming in. I've got a bridge that you can buy off me. I've got a couple of bridges and one of them is Tamar Bridge. Good bridge that is. Yeah, you can buy that off me if you think that that's going to happen because it's not. In fact, voting in Labour is probably the worst. I would rather people stick with the Conservatives than vote in Labour because, you know, if you look at what happened during the Covid period, what did Labour want to do? They wanted to lock you down harder, jab you up more, stick you in masks more, shut down the schools more. They wanted all of that and it'll be the same in the future. It won't just be 15-minute cities, they're going to make it 10-minute cities or 5-minute cities. So that's what you get if you vote for Pepsi and, if you vote for Coke, you're just going to get the same. But people don't seem to realise that because they are dyed in the wool, red and blue, they can't think any other way.
And their behaviour when they go to the ballot box is mechanical. And the other thing is, the other argument I get is, don't vote at all. Everybody should not vote and withdraw their power. And I don't know what to do about that argument either, because it's sort of correct in some ways, but they can't see the other side, i.e. if everybody turned out to vote, you might be able to enact some change.
Maybe it's just voting for independent, maybe it's just people going and actually disregarding the other parties and simply saying well I'm just going to put an x beside independent and do something completely different, and see if that changes things.
Uh well it would, wouldn't it? It would. However there's another issue of voting independent, I'm making my candidacy sound weaker and weaker as I go along, is I don't have a powerful machine behind me and so let's just say I did get voted in at Plymouth and I've got 15 Labour councillors and 15 Conservative councillors, a couple of Greens who just got in because of the of the tree huggers and then there's me as an independent candidate. They don't care if I'm there or not, I make no difference and I've got no clout, I've got no financial resources, I've got no political influence or power behind me to make any decisions. If there were 15 independent councillors in Plymouth or you know in any local authority then we can really make a difference because they require our vote and as far as I'm concerned I'm lent a vote in the guise of old Ben. You lend me your vote and I do with that as you wish and if I don't then you take that vote away from me. That sort of aspect of democracy is gone with party politics.
Completely and I think people, I think the Conservatives' tagline should be vote Conservative slightly better than Labour, absolutely just their margins, it's not going to be any massive change. But obviously if you get voted in it is a position, it's possibly less about the absolute power that you will wield but it is about that platform that you are afforded as an elected official and you can use that platform to speak good. So that I think is the benefit of local independent candidates winning the seats and using that position.
Of course it is. I want to be able to speak out. I'm not interested in gaining power.
Like you said, a platform. I want that platform so that I can be heard and so that I can speak out on the issues that affect my city and actually affect us nationally and globally.
When you think about things like 15-minute cities, which are coming down the line, which is actually really interesting Peter, because a lot of people that I've spoken to and a lot of messages that I've received have all been about 15-minute cities. So for those of you that are listening, if you don't want 15-minute cities and you've got two hours left to go out and vote, go vote for your independent councillor, because he's probably standing for that one of those for that particular reason, he's he's not aware of all the other conspiracies, but he is aware of the 15 minute cities. And it's like a gateway conspiracy. 15 minute cities is a way of getting in. And you can work backwards from the 15 minute cities to some of the other stuff that people have dismissed, because the BBC have told them not to listen to it. So I would be using that platform to speak out on those issues and it's why the trees were cut down.
Yeah and and the gap between conspiracy and reality, actually when you look at 15 Minute Cities that is extremely short and that's I think why it's worried people because it is right here at our doorstep in cities all across the UK.
Can I just, the last 10 minutes or so, can I ask you about kind of you getting the, voice out on a range of issues, and obviously one of those is TNT radio, and it intrigues me.
It's something that I hadn't come across until maybe a couple of months ago.
Fantastic range of individuals on so many programs. I mean, tell us about that and how that gets your message out. And why should people tune in and listen to your wisdom on a Sunday?
Oh, definitely. You definitely want to be listening to my wisdom, or should I say my guest's wisdom? I'm not that wise. I just sit there and let them talk and do the heavy lifting.
Yeah, TNT is a very interesting setup. I started working with them as a regular guest, just over 12 months ago, beginning of 2022. By the summer, I was doing bit part work for them By September, I was a full-time employee.
As I said, I come in and do news segments for 10 minutes throughout the day, and then I have my own show at weekends. There are other great shows.
Got Locked and Loaded with Rick Munn, really, really good show.
Patrick Henningsen is on at 5 PM, I believe, weekdays for a couple of hours.
We've got James Freeman.
Katie Hopkins has now joined us, so she's on at nine o'clock every morning.
So we have, it has gradually grown and our only brief really is that we must do everything we can to try and tell nothing but the truth regardless of it's how controversial it is, regardless of how opposed it is to mainstream narratives, to what the BBC is saying, to what Sky is saying, CNN and so on. So that's our only brief and just to get put that into some sort of context, I said, um... I said in one of my news reports, at TNT we try to tell what we believe is the truth.
I got an email for saying that and I got my ass reamed because it's like, nah, you tell the truth, not what you believe to be the truth, not your truth, you tell the truth. And we have tried to do that on a variety of issues ranging from Ukraine war, which I speak about quite regularly, or the Ukraine conflict, COVID, 15-minute cities as we've already brought up, all the conspiracies, all the stuff that you're being told isn't true, pay no attention, look over here at the nice little pink fluffy bunny rabbit, don't look over here at the 15-minute city stuff.
We're trying to get that out and our station is gradually growing. We've had about 4 million, 5 million downloads in the last 12 months, which is pretty good for the first year.
There's quite a lot of money being thrown at the station as well to make it successful.
And I hope it continues in the same vein. And I manage to stay working for them because I'm overjoyed that after literally studying conspiracies for 20 odd years, I now get to talk about them. And they've all come true, Peter, which is the scary part. They've all actually come true. That wasn't meant to happen. It used to be a fantasy world that I lived in.
They do. And I'm glad that we don't have to listen to your truth. I'm glad we can listen to the truth, so which is something more than that could be the same thing. But obviously you don't have the issue, that many of our viewers saw what happened to Mark Steyn on GB News removed because simply he was highlighting those who've been vaccine injured. TNT Radio was different, you have that freedom to talk, is that correct?
Yeah, we're not got any oversight by Ofcom in the UK at the moment. We are internet based. We're broadcast out of Brisbane in Australia. We are global. We are a group of people dotted all over the world. I speak to George Eliasson every night.
He's in every afternoon. He's in the Donbass there. So we've got some people situated everywhere. We've got people in Japan. We've got people in South America, people in Europe, Australia, USA, so on. And we're just a group of people basically in a room like I am, like you can see in my front room, and we are broadcast over the internet. However, that might change with this online harms bill that's being put through, and they want Ofcom to have oversight of internet-based communications. And if so, TNT may fall underneath that. And if that's the case, then obviously you're you're going to have to fear for the UK broadcast of TNT Radio because Ofcom would slash it within 24 hours if they could, I'm sure.
Yeah, well, that is really frightening seeing what's happened in Ireland is also, I think, a precursor to what we are facing. And just to say people can obviously they can call in and they can participate. Is that correct?
Yeah, we have call in shows. So nine o'clock and ten o'clock shows with Katie, Rick and Natalie Chill. You are able to call in every morning, have your say, you can call in and discuss, you know, over what they're talking about, or you'd probably be quite happy just to listen to you come in with a new topic and ask for a discussion on just about anything that's in the current news cycle.
Oh that's well, I think people would enjoy their morning to give a call in and you can give Katie your wisdom, there's no bigger firecracker than Katie Hopkins, we've had on before and I've got to know over the years. Darren, thank you for your time today. It's great to hear about what you're doing, standing in the locals. Again, we'll leave our viewers and listeners with the encouragement that if they haven't voted, as they'll be listening to this on Thursday evening, do get out and get to your local polling booth and cast your vote. And if you're not sure who to vote, then pick an independent.
As Darren said. And thank you, Darren, for sharing what you're doing on TNT Radio. Love listening to it. And what a wide range of individuals that are on there. So thank you.
I have to get you on. I have to get you on my Sunday show, Peter.
So I'm yours whenever.
I will send you a message after that. And we'll book a date.
Sounds good. But to our viewers and our listeners, do make sure and go out and vote. Thank you for tuning in. I will be back with you shortly. So thank you and goodbye.
Cheers.
