Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News Podcast 26th February 2025

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UK Column News Podcast 26th February 2025 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, the twenty sixth of February twenty
0:11
Speaker 1: twenty five, just after one o'clock and welcome to the
0:13
Speaker 1: UK coll Him News. I'm your host, Mike Rumson, and
0:15
Speaker 1: joining me today in the studio is Charles Mallett and
0:18
Speaker 1: by video link we have Sandy Adams and Claire Wills Harrison.
0:21
Speaker 1: We're going to begin with war spending because that was
0:25
Speaker 1: the big news of yesterday, and the great double cross
0:28
Speaker 1: of the British people by its own government continues, and
0:31
Speaker 1: we have the double cross here in this image. So,
0:36
Speaker 1: following a statement to the House of Commons yesterday, Kirs
0:38
Speaker 1: Starmer made a statement of the press to announce new
0:42
Speaker 1: war spending commitments, and he began by setting out a
0:45
Speaker 1: stall about the danger we all faced because of Putin
0:48
Speaker 1: and Russia. So let's just have it if we can
0:50
Speaker 1: bear it. Have a listen to this, and.
0:54
Speaker 2: I believe we must now change our approach to national
0:57
Speaker 2: security so we are ready to meet the challengers of
1:01
Speaker 2: our volatile world. The reason for this is straightforward. Putin's
1:08
Speaker 2: aggression does not stop in Ukraine. Russian spy ships menace
1:13
Speaker 2: our waters, Russian planes enter our airspace, Russian cyber attacks
1:19
Speaker 2: hit r NHS and just seven years ago there was
1:24
Speaker 2: a Russian chemical weapons attack in broad daylight on the
1:28
Speaker 2: streets of Salisbury.
1:32
Speaker 1: So I mean, if we can stop laughing for a second,
1:34
Speaker 1: that is a night right pack of lies, and as usual,
1:38
Speaker 1: mainstream press silent and the lies, spy ships menacing our waters.
1:42
Speaker 1: When have they not done that? So just here's just
1:45
Speaker 1: one example. In twenty twenty one, HMS Defender, a Type
1:48
Speaker 1: forty five destroyer from the Royal Navy went to the
1:52
Speaker 1: Black Sea in what Russian described as well. The Russian
1:56
Speaker 1: described US as a hostile needle steered. So HMS Defender
2:01
Speaker 1: travels six thousand miles to sail through what Russia considered
2:04
Speaker 1: territory waters and what was absolutely in my opinion, designed
2:07
Speaker 1: to be an act of provocation. But this is part
2:10
Speaker 1: of normal life. We do it, the United States does it,
2:13
Speaker 1: Russia does it. There's nothing the same see here, and
2:15
Speaker 1: it's the same for Russian aircraft, which by the way
2:19
Speaker 1: never enter UK airspace. So that was just a downright
2:22
Speaker 1: lie from Starmer. But this kind of thing is absolutely routine.
2:26
Speaker 1: Even the BBC acknowledges that this is absolutely routine. As
2:31
Speaker 1: for the cyber crime allegation. Again Starmer is lying because
2:34
Speaker 1: he implies that Russian cyber attacks are state sanctioned. Well,
2:39
Speaker 1: if they are, then the Russian state is carrying out
2:42
Speaker 1: attacks against itself because Russia experiences huge levels of cybercrime
2:47
Speaker 1: by criminals based in Russia. And the litt Oft stats
2:50
Speaker 1: here from AAG or at least AAG have compiled them,
2:54
Speaker 1: the litt Oft stats from twenty twenty two, for example,
2:56
Speaker 1: and they're saying that in the quarter one of twenty
2:58
Speaker 1: to twenty two Russia, Russians experienced forty two point nine
3:02
Speaker 1: two million data breaches, around two hundred and fifty thousand
3:06
Speaker 1: cases of digital fraud each year in Russia, and in
3:09
Speaker 1: quarter three of twenty twenty two, Russia was the top
3:11
Speaker 1: country in the world for cybersecurity breaches. So Russia does
3:15
Speaker 1: have a cybersecurity problem. But Starmar's implication that the state
3:19
Speaker 1: sanction is state sanction is absolutely unevidenced. And of course
3:25
Speaker 1: that's not to say that there is no state sanctioned
3:28
Speaker 1: cyber operations, but this is known as cyber warfare, and
3:32
Speaker 1: again every country does it. And this is UK Defense
3:36
Speaker 1: Journal just pointing out that Britain is to boost its
3:39
Speaker 1: cyber warfare capabilities. And then finally the biggest lie of all,
3:46
Speaker 1: the Salisbury poisoning. And my question once again is where
3:50
Speaker 1: are the scripballs? Because of course in the recent Don
3:52
Speaker 1: Sturgis and quiry hearings, the scripballs were nowhere to be seen.
3:55
Speaker 1: They've been nowhere to be seen ever since. But if
3:59
Speaker 1: you want to see once again, I'll mention it just
4:03
Speaker 1: how full of holes and narrative is on the Scripile poisonings.
4:07
Speaker 1: Have a read of the Day of the Scrippile on
4:09
Speaker 1: the UK column website, because this story does not stack
4:14
Speaker 1: up from start to finish. Now, coming back then to
4:17
Speaker 1: Starmer's speech, let's listen to what he said when he
4:21
Speaker 1: was announcing the actual spending increase.
4:25
Speaker 2: I know people have felt the impact of this conflict
4:27
Speaker 2: through rising bills and prices, but unless Ukraine is properly
4:33
Speaker 2: protected from Putin, then Europe will only become more unstable,
4:39
Speaker 2: and that will hurt us even more. Further, Moore, the
4:43
Speaker 2: great lesson of our history is that tyrants like Putin
4:48
Speaker 2: only respond to strength. So today I have announced the
4:53
Speaker 2: biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of
4:57
Speaker 2: the Cold.
4:57
Speaker 1: War, so more lies the biggest sustained increase in defense spending.
5:03
Speaker 1: What's he doing. He's taking it up to two and
5:04
Speaker 1: a half percent from two point three percent. He's named
5:08
Speaker 1: an ambition to reach three percent during the next parliament.
5:11
Speaker 1: So that's something a commitment that he never has to
5:13
Speaker 1: meet or possibly never has to meet. So this is
5:17
Speaker 1: really a nothing announcement. And as Starmer heads over to
5:20
Speaker 1: the United States tomorrow, I'm sort of wondering whether this
5:24
Speaker 1: will satisfy Trump, and of course it won't. But as
5:28
Speaker 1: Brian mentioned in Monday, the issue of recruitment, even if
5:32
Speaker 1: they do spend more money, the issue of recruitment is
5:35
Speaker 1: the big issue around this, and the likelyhood of conscription
5:38
Speaker 1: is therefore the bigger issue in my opinion.
5:42
Speaker 3: What are your thoughts, Well, I think that's exactly where
5:45
Speaker 3: we're going with this. I mean, I'll be talking about
5:46
Speaker 3: this a little bit later in the program. You're absolutely right.
5:48
Speaker 3: Not only is there going to be an uplift in
5:50
Speaker 3: the cyber capability, or at least that's what they hope
5:53
Speaker 3: to guarantee by the new recruitment process, which is going
5:56
Speaker 3: to be a sort of one size fit process in
6:00
Speaker 3: that you apply just to the armed forces, and then
6:03
Speaker 3: you get funneled off into whichever direction you're meant to
6:06
Speaker 3: be needed. But the point is the acceleration. This is
6:08
Speaker 3: being sped up by a significant factor so that people
6:11
Speaker 3: can be pushed through the system in a shorter time
6:13
Speaker 3: as forty days, which is a massive reduction. Therefore means
6:17
Speaker 3: just steamer allering it over all the sort of due
6:19
Speaker 3: process that should really be gone through, including a medical
6:22
Speaker 3: that appears to be just a digital affair. So it's
6:26
Speaker 3: absolutely absurd to think that you could put a credible
6:29
Speaker 3: force together by recruiting in such a way. But exactly
6:32
Speaker 3: like you said, I think this looks much more likely
6:33
Speaker 3: to be set up so that it is a mechanism
6:35
Speaker 3: by which people can be conscripted at very short notice.
6:39
Speaker 3: And then you know the way that Starmer speaks about this,
6:42
Speaker 3: very much like John Healy was which were played on
6:44
Speaker 3: the news last week, speaking as though the entire audience
6:48
Speaker 3: was born yesterday, and this concept of defense or national
6:52
Speaker 3: security is entirely novel. And first of all, I think
6:55
Speaker 3: actually for Kirs Starmer that really might be the case.
6:58
Speaker 3: He might genuinely think that that is it because he
7:00
Speaker 3: has not paid attention to it at all, evidenced by
7:05
Speaker 3: the fact that he is suggesting that things that are
7:08
Speaker 3: exactly like Mike describes completely part and parcel of life
7:11
Speaker 3: for any armed force are being conducted. But to what
7:15
Speaker 3: end and to suggest that X means why? It is
7:20
Speaker 3: frankly absurd, particularly given that the limitations on the engagement
7:26
Speaker 3: in Ukraine was set out quite clearly by Putin from
7:29
Speaker 3: the start and have been thereafter. So where is it
7:31
Speaker 3: exactly that he is determining that we are at threat
7:34
Speaker 3: from Russia?
7:36
Speaker 1: Monday was talking On Monday, Brian was talking about the
7:39
Speaker 1: constructive conscription issue and he mentioned in passing General Sheriff,
7:43
Speaker 1: I can't remember. Richard Kemp also weathered into that discussion.
7:48
Speaker 1: He was even suggesting that immigrants should be conscripted into
7:53
Speaker 1: the military. I mean high irrational. Are these people becoming well?
7:58
Speaker 3: I think that there. I mean mainly what underpins this
8:02
Speaker 3: is a sense of desperation and panic. I think for
8:04
Speaker 3: people who like Richard she or Richard Kemp that having
8:09
Speaker 3: had a career in the armed forces, I think their
8:11
Speaker 3: concern is that the organization they once belong to is
8:15
Speaker 3: falling apart, and they want to do something to reverse
8:18
Speaker 3: that trend. I think that is as much of a
8:22
Speaker 3: most facing factor in what they say as their apparent
8:25
Speaker 3: concern for what are being described as threats to national security.
8:28
Speaker 3: So I think that's why that comes out. I think
8:30
Speaker 3: there's a loss of objectivity because of their careers in
8:34
Speaker 3: the armed forces.
8:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Charles. Okay, well look let's move on then,
8:37
Speaker 1: and we're going to do a section on the legislation
8:41
Speaker 1: that's working its way through Parliament at the moment, and
8:43
Speaker 1: we're going to begin with the Crime and Policing Bill.
8:45
Speaker 3: We are and I should say at the outset this
8:48
Speaker 3: is not going to be exhaustive because there is simply
8:50
Speaker 3: too much contained within it. But the Home Office and
8:53
Speaker 3: the Home Secretary have been turning out oblique references to
8:56
Speaker 3: this Crime and Policing Bill, which was laid before Parliament yesterday,
9:00
Speaker 3: without giving any clear idea of what may be lurking within.
9:04
Speaker 3: So we see if at Cooper here and the show
9:07
Speaker 3: notes will contain links to the government's own descriptions of
9:11
Speaker 3: what the bill aims to do and why they consider
9:14
Speaker 3: it necessary. The UK column will aim to point out
9:17
Speaker 3: some of the dangerous infringements upon liberty which appear to
9:20
Speaker 3: be proposed by it. So the Home Office says the
9:22
Speaker 3: bill will give police powers to enable them to reduce
9:24
Speaker 3: the abuse of women and girls and children, especially sexual abuse,
9:29
Speaker 3: and the dangers posed by artificial intelligence, though the government
9:32
Speaker 3: is keen to embrace it, something of a contradiction there now.
9:36
Speaker 3: Central to the provisions in the bill are the conflation
9:40
Speaker 3: of antisocial behavior and terrorism, as though it is but
9:44
Speaker 3: one small leap from one to the other. Like the
9:48
Speaker 3: majority of government legislation in the modern era, the offenses
9:51
Speaker 3: which are being described as being created are to be
9:55
Speaker 3: found in existing legislation, making this an example of the
9:59
Speaker 3: simple justiceification for the extension of police powers and intrusions
10:04
Speaker 3: into our lives. To illustrate this, the definition of antisocial
10:07
Speaker 3: behavior concerns the causing of harassment, alarm and distress, which
10:12
Speaker 3: are the exact terms covered by sections four and five
10:16
Speaker 3: of the Public Order Act nineteen eighty six. So I
10:19
Speaker 3: would put it the reason for this is all. The
10:22
Speaker 3: reason that it's rehashed is to justify a range of orders,
10:25
Speaker 3: one of which was mentioned some weeks ago, and that's
10:27
Speaker 3: the respect order, which may bind the subject to refraining
10:31
Speaker 3: from or committing to certain activities now these are passed
10:36
Speaker 3: down by courts, but they may be applied for by
10:38
Speaker 3: a very wide spectrum of organizations, including, among their number,
10:42
Speaker 3: housing providers, the Environment Agency, Transport for London, and the
10:47
Speaker 3: National Health Service. So for this to be the case,
10:49
Speaker 3: the bar is set extremely low, and an order may
10:52
Speaker 3: be granted if quote the court is satisfied on the
10:55
Speaker 3: balance of probabilities that the respondent has engaged in or
10:59
Speaker 3: threatened to engage in anti social behavior, and the court
11:03
Speaker 3: considers it just and convenient to make the order for
11:08
Speaker 3: the purpose of preventing the respondent from engaging in anti
11:11
Speaker 3: social behavior end quote. So this would be to make
11:15
Speaker 3: it legal to engage in tackling pre crime or indeed
11:20
Speaker 3: thought crime. And it is illustrative that the words just
11:24
Speaker 3: and convenient are used, as such a measure could never
11:27
Speaker 3: really be described as necessary and reasonable, which should be
11:31
Speaker 3: criteria that do of course follow such interventions. To contextualize
11:36
Speaker 3: the suggestion of such powers, it should be pointed out
11:39
Speaker 3: that the Labor MP Mike Ainsbury, who's currently serving a
11:41
Speaker 3: ten week sentence of punching someone in the face, is
11:44
Speaker 3: still on full pay as a member of Parliament and
11:46
Speaker 3: faces no formal sanction against holding that parliamentary appointment. Now,
11:52
Speaker 3: another area of many deserving very close scrutiny are the
11:56
Speaker 3: apparent confusion of powers of entry and powers of seizure
12:00
Speaker 3: upon which the police could have conferred, sorry conferred upon
12:05
Speaker 3: them with a special regard to bladed articles here on screen.
12:10
Speaker 3: As it stands, Section seventeen of the Police and Criminal
12:13
Speaker 3: Evidence Act nineteen eighty four confer powers of entry for police,
12:17
Speaker 3: specifically in pursuit of someone they're trying to arrest, but
12:20
Speaker 3: only if they believe, rather than suspect, that that person
12:24
Speaker 3: is on the premises. This also applies to the preservation
12:27
Speaker 3: of life or limb, but this new bill guarantees or
12:31
Speaker 3: grant warrantless seizure of bladed articles, as seen a moment
12:36
Speaker 3: ago on the screen. Now, this suggests that a constable
12:41
Speaker 3: who is lawfully on any premises finds on the premises
12:44
Speaker 3: an article which has a blade or is sharply pointed
12:48
Speaker 3: a relevant article, and has reasonable grounds for suspecting that
12:52
Speaker 3: the relevant article would be likely to be used in
12:55
Speaker 3: connection with unlawful violence. So subject to an awful lot
13:00
Speaker 3: of decision making by the particular constable who may be
13:04
Speaker 3: on the premises. What muddies the waters here considerably is
13:09
Speaker 3: that it then goes on to say, if there is
13:10
Speaker 3: no person on the premises, they must leave a record
13:13
Speaker 3: of what was seized in a prominent place on the premises.
13:16
Speaker 3: Now this prompts the question what exactly would a constable
13:21
Speaker 3: finding themselves on a premises, How would they be able
13:25
Speaker 3: to justify what can really only be described as a
13:28
Speaker 3: fishing expedition. And given what Idris Albert was saying recently
13:31
Speaker 3: about the banning of all knives, it's not really hard
13:33
Speaker 3: to see how circumstantial evidence could be gathered and indeed
13:39
Speaker 3: by exploiting this provision when attempting to build a case
13:42
Speaker 3: against somebody undesirable if even kitchen knives may be considered
13:48
Speaker 3: as articles to be used in connection with the unlawful
13:51
Speaker 3: violence that's described. So, the present situation is that police
13:55
Speaker 3: are bound to limit any search according to specific criteria,
14:00
Speaker 3: the most important of which is to look only for
14:02
Speaker 3: the object of the search. So this bill would completely
14:06
Speaker 3: change the situation, and it should be expected to be
14:09
Speaker 3: challenged in the strongest possible terms. Other areas of the
14:13
Speaker 3: bill do deal with children specifically, and apparent measures to
14:17
Speaker 3: protect them or so we're told, which will unpack in
14:19
Speaker 3: due course. There's not really time for that today. But
14:21
Speaker 3: what I would like to draw your attention to is
14:24
Speaker 3: the predicted drifting of the definition of terrorism, even concerning
14:29
Speaker 3: people between the ages of twelve and twenty one, and
14:33
Speaker 3: under the heading of youth diversion orders, it's now introduced
14:37
Speaker 3: that serious harm may be taken to constitute terrorism, completing
14:42
Speaker 3: the move away from any sort of ideological basis for
14:45
Speaker 3: the action or the threat of action. Now, this is
14:49
Speaker 3: a direct exploitation of the Rue de Cabana case concerning
14:52
Speaker 3: the stabbing of children in Southport, and it follows the
14:56
Speaker 3: theme of using the tragic circumstances of fam to introduce
15:01
Speaker 3: measures to strip away liberty and reason. Examples just on
15:05
Speaker 3: screen now, Ronan's Law, Martin's Law and Runnin's law are
15:10
Speaker 3: all very much emotionally charged with which to justify powers
15:14
Speaker 3: which had not previously been given serious consideration. So I mean,
15:18
Speaker 3: in summary, there'll be much more to examine in this
15:20
Speaker 3: Bello of the coming weeks, but certainly at this stage,
15:23
Speaker 3: making noise about these issues, and in particular the seeding
15:28
Speaker 3: of liberties against offenses that are already on the Statute
15:32
Speaker 3: Book is critical. So this bill looks very much like
15:36
Speaker 3: it is an exercise in going over offenses that are
15:41
Speaker 3: already written down, purely to allow police to conduct themselves
15:48
Speaker 3: in ways that have hitherto not been possible, and indeed
15:52
Speaker 3: to strip away liberty that really should be preserved.
15:57
Speaker 1: Thanks Charles. So let's move on then to the Public
16:00
Speaker 1: Authorities Brackets, Fraud, Error and Recovery Bill. And this is
16:04
Speaker 1: a bill introduced to the UK Parliament on the twenty
16:06
Speaker 1: second of January twenty twenty five by Liz Kendall, labor
16:10
Speaker 1: of Secretary of State for Working Pensions. And the bill's
16:13
Speaker 1: stated aim is to quote make provision about the prevention
16:17
Speaker 1: of fraud against public authorities and the making of erroneous
16:20
Speaker 1: payments by public authorities, about the recovery of money paid
16:23
Speaker 1: by public authorities as a result of fraud or error,
16:26
Speaker 1: and for connected purposes. But this is yet another piece
16:30
Speaker 1: of legislation designed to enable state bulk data collection surveillance
16:35
Speaker 1: of the general public as far as I can see,
16:37
Speaker 1: And as with the Data Use and Access Bill, which
16:40
Speaker 1: Sandy will be covering a little bit later, it's not
16:43
Speaker 1: to be separated from the recent announcement in my opinion,
16:46
Speaker 1: at least in the UK, of the building of multiple
16:49
Speaker 1: UAI data centers, because it's only with the use of
16:51
Speaker 1: AI that this huge bulk data collection becomes useful. So
16:57
Speaker 1: with us to discuss this legislation is Claire Wilson Harrison
17:01
Speaker 1: from Lawyers of Lights. So Claire, welcome to the program,
17:06
Speaker 1: and let me just begin by asking you what your
17:09
Speaker 1: thoughts are on the for reach. Does this bell of
17:12
Speaker 1: for reach?
17:12
Speaker 4: In fact, absolutely does it overreach.
17:17
Speaker 5: There's an awful lot in this bill that we're not
17:20
Speaker 5: going to be able to cover today. There's expanded powers
17:24
Speaker 5: suggested for the DWP to be able to go in
17:26
Speaker 5: search premises and confiscate items. There's a crossover with what
17:31
Speaker 5: Charles has just been talking about, because there's already powers
17:35
Speaker 5: that exist that make this bill unnecessary and really it's
17:41
Speaker 5: just an enabling tool.
17:42
Speaker 4: As far as I can see, it's bad on the
17:43
Speaker 4: face of it. There's around seven or eight.
17:46
Speaker 5: Henry the eighth clauses in that will allow for extensive
17:49
Speaker 5: amendments further down the line if this bill becomes law.
17:52
Speaker 5: So yeah, I've really been taking a closer look at
17:56
Speaker 5: it for the last few weeks just to give.
18:00
Speaker 4: A little bit of background to viewers.
18:03
Speaker 5: The bill in its current form will give the Secretary
18:06
Speaker 5: of State the power to issue something called eligibility verification
18:10
Speaker 5: notices or ev ends for short to banks and other
18:14
Speaker 5: financial institutions. Now, these notices will allow the authorities to
18:18
Speaker 5: access people's bank account data, but not because there's any
18:23
Speaker 5: suspicion of fraud. It's simply to help identify eligibility and
18:29
Speaker 5: or potential overpayments of benefits. There is absolutely no need
18:33
Speaker 5: for any criminal activity or evidence of wrongdoing before this happens.
18:38
Speaker 4: So the worrying thing about this is that.
18:40
Speaker 5: All welfare claimants and crucially the people connected to them,
18:46
Speaker 5: will have their account scrutinized by the government. Now, of
18:50
Speaker 5: course banks are going to use AI to carry out
18:54
Speaker 5: these mass searches if they receive an ev in, and
18:57
Speaker 5: that means that they effectively have to process the data
19:01
Speaker 5: for every account holder at the bank, not just those
19:06
Speaker 5: receiving benefits. So it's a massive invasion of privacy for
19:09
Speaker 5: all of us, a serious risk for data breaches, and
19:14
Speaker 5: in addition, banks are actually going to charge for this
19:18
Speaker 5: process in Now it's unclear from the bill where these
19:22
Speaker 5: charges will be paid from, but it is clear that
19:25
Speaker 5: taxpayers will foot the bill. Now that's either going to
19:28
Speaker 5: be from recovered funds or from the welfare or the
19:31
Speaker 5: DWP budgets. And I would just like to remind people
19:35
Speaker 5: so that it's very clear that when the government talk
19:38
Speaker 5: about welfare fraud and public money, they are talking about
19:43
Speaker 5: our money, the taxpayers money. It is not their money.
19:46
Speaker 5: Yet we don't get a say in how that's recovered.
19:50
Speaker 5: So interestingly, the bill includes a clause and I think
19:55
Speaker 5: people probably know about this already, but I'll just mention
19:58
Speaker 5: it that it could strip driver of their driving licenses
20:01
Speaker 5: if they are convicted of benefit fraud and unable to
20:05
Speaker 5: repay the money. It's a real step too far, and
20:07
Speaker 5: obviously there's a real danger that people could be convicted
20:11
Speaker 5: due to AI errors and lose their license on fairly,
20:14
Speaker 5: we only have to look back at the Horizon scandal
20:16
Speaker 5: to see how it can all go so horribly wrong
20:20
Speaker 5: with a machine learning and machine scraping and AI. So
20:26
Speaker 5: one I would like people to ask themselves about this
20:28
Speaker 5: bill if they can take a look at it, and
20:30
Speaker 5: there'll be a link in the show notes. Is it
20:33
Speaker 5: in fact really about fraud recovery at all? And if
20:37
Speaker 5: they read about all the issues connected with the bill
20:40
Speaker 5: and they still conclude that they think it's about fraud recovery,
20:43
Speaker 5: at what price is it going to achieve its aims
20:46
Speaker 5: Because in a nutshell, this bill is all about a
20:49
Speaker 5: government having access to the private data contained in everyone's bank.
20:54
Speaker 4: Accounts by way of mass spying. So if that sounds
20:57
Speaker 4: familiar to viewers, it should.
21:00
Speaker 5: You might remember the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill,
21:03
Speaker 5: and that proposed similar banks by empowers and raised widespread
21:07
Speaker 5: alarm about revealing data on people's medical conditions, movements, opinions,
21:13
Speaker 5: charitable donations, political donations. And of course that bill fell
21:17
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty four when Parliament was pro rags, after
21:20
Speaker 5: being heavily criticized by the opposition government at the opposition
21:26
Speaker 5: at the time the Labor Party, who are now in government.
21:29
Speaker 5: But of course these invasive powers that we saw in
21:32
Speaker 5: that bill have now resurfaced in the Fraud Error and
21:36
Speaker 5: Recovery Bill. So at the heart of the bill, it's
21:39
Speaker 5: not fraud recovery. It's a massive data grab and the
21:43
Speaker 5: installation of a surveillance state. It's allowing the government to
21:46
Speaker 5: spy on personal bank information. It's completely disproportionate. It violates
21:51
Speaker 5: the right to privacy under the Human Rights Act. And
21:54
Speaker 5: as I said, the government already have existing powers to
21:58
Speaker 5: investigate welfare fraud social Security in Fraud Act. It makes
22:02
Speaker 5: this bill totally unnecessary. Now viewers can check out an
22:06
Speaker 5: article that I did this week on my subsect for
22:09
Speaker 5: further information about this bill. I highlighted seventeen points that
22:14
Speaker 5: I was concerned about, and I'd also recommend that they
22:17
Speaker 5: do go and visit Big Brother Watch, who campaigned on
22:21
Speaker 5: the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill and then of
22:24
Speaker 5: regrouped campaign now on the flud Era or Recovery Bill,
22:27
Speaker 5: and they've actually got a brief in document that comes
22:30
Speaker 5: up with twenty nine points about which we should all
22:34
Speaker 5: be worried, so you can join their campaign. They do
22:37
Speaker 5: have a petition, they do have a template letter to
22:40
Speaker 5: write to an MP for your MP for what it's worth.
22:43
Speaker 5: All of the links for that will be in the
22:45
Speaker 5: show notes. And obviously we need to stay informed on
22:47
Speaker 5: this particular issue and ensure that our privacy remains protected.
22:53
Speaker 5: There is a short video that I've got to show
22:56
Speaker 5: you all about what some MPs are saying about this
22:59
Speaker 5: particular bill.
23:01
Speaker 4: So take a listen, see what you think.
23:04
Speaker 6: This is mass surveillance.
23:06
Speaker 2: It is far too much of a snoopers charter.
23:08
Speaker 7: These are citizens, not suspects.
23:10
Speaker 6: These powers allow the Department for Working Pensions to seize
23:13
Speaker 6: money directly from bank accounts with our due process, suspend
23:17
Speaker 6: driving licenses, and even search properties and personal devices. These
23:21
Speaker 6: are not the hallmarks of a free and democratic society,
23:24
Speaker 6: but the tools of a Newellian surveillance state.
23:26
Speaker 3: It is far too much of a big Brother bill.
23:29
Speaker 2: It is far too much of a snoopers charter, and
23:31
Speaker 2: I would suggest to the that they withdraw this bill.
23:35
Speaker 7: Thank you. Very concerned about the sweeping powers of this
23:38
Speaker 7: bill to invade their privacy and treat them as suspects
23:42
Speaker 7: not citizens.
23:43
Speaker 4: I'm talking about pensioners.
23:45
Speaker 7: We need pension credit people who are permanently disabled. He's
23:48
Speaker 7: entitled to employment support. Allowance is clear and settled. These
23:52
Speaker 7: are citizens, not suspects. How much testing has been done
23:55
Speaker 7: of the systems they expect to use.
23:58
Speaker 5: The Horizon scandal is a very recent reminder of how
24:01
Speaker 5: computer systems don't always get it right.
24:04
Speaker 8: When more than two hundred thousand people were wrongly accused
24:08
Speaker 8: and investigated for housing benefit fraud, and error last June.
24:12
Speaker 9: We should be concerned about making banks the judge, juries
24:17
Speaker 9: and executioners of social policy, particularly something as important as
24:23
Speaker 9: welfare policy.
24:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, I have to say I agree with everything that
24:32
Speaker 5: was said there. So there are some MPs that are
24:35
Speaker 5: alive to the overreach that is contained in this bill.
24:40
Speaker 5: I am doing a follow up article today with a
24:42
Speaker 5: breakdown of what seems to be the very limited revenue
24:46
Speaker 5: that is likely to be recouped if this bill becomes law.
24:50
Speaker 5: The figures are absolutely staggering, and I will only say
24:54
Speaker 5: you have to read it to believe it.
24:57
Speaker 1: Claire, that is fantastic. Thank you for much for that.
25:01
Speaker 1: The subject is not so fantastic, of course. And you
25:06
Speaker 1: know the comment about the comparison with the RICE and
25:08
Speaker 1: I think.
25:08
Speaker 3: Is absolutely valid.
25:09
Speaker 1: And we're already seeing, you know, as corporations use more
25:15
Speaker 1: AI and more sort of automated systems, we're already seeing
25:20
Speaker 1: decisions being made that make that are very very hard
25:23
Speaker 1: to challenge. I mean, from a legal point of view,
25:26
Speaker 1: do you think that this is going to end up
25:27
Speaker 1: in the courts.
25:30
Speaker 5: I'm hoping that the bill will just not come into legislation.
25:35
Speaker 5: I mean, one of the big areas that there's a
25:37
Speaker 5: massive problem with wherever AI is involved is where is
25:41
Speaker 5: the liability when there is a mistake, Who does it
25:45
Speaker 5: rest with? Is it the person that created the system
25:48
Speaker 5: that's being used, that is using the system to do it?
25:53
Speaker 5: You know who is liable? It's not you know yourself.
25:56
Speaker 5: When there's a person involved that could be liable, then
26:01
Speaker 5: that's okay. But who is it when it's artificial intelligent
26:06
Speaker 5: when it goes wrong?
26:07
Speaker 4: Who do you sue?
26:08
Speaker 5: Where does the money come from if there's damages to These.
26:12
Speaker 1: Are all good questions, so I would say thank you.
26:17
Speaker 3: We will just point out that that link to Claire's
26:20
Speaker 3: project Legislation Watch will go into the show notes so
26:22
Speaker 3: you can read exactly what she's been talking about and
26:24
Speaker 3: what's going to be coming down the line from her
26:27
Speaker 3: legislation Watch.
26:28
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you Claire, and thank you Charles ny. Let's
26:32
Speaker 1: welcome Sandy to the program then. And another piece of
26:35
Speaker 1: legislation that did a use and access bill. We've talked
26:38
Speaker 1: about it many times and Claire was just Sandy talking
26:42
Speaker 1: about its precursor under the Tory government, previous Tory government,
26:46
Speaker 1: and of course, you know, although some of the features
26:50
Speaker 1: of that previous legislation have moved into the legislation that
26:53
Speaker 1: we've just been talking about. They did a Use and
26:56
Speaker 1: Access bill covers a lot of the same ground. So
26:59
Speaker 1: this is not really an example of change of the
27:01
Speaker 1: change the gender as far as I can see, other
27:03
Speaker 1: than we're speeding things up.
27:08
Speaker 4: Yeah.
27:09
Speaker 8: Really in January that we managed to literally kick the can,
27:14
Speaker 8: the Climate and Nature Bill down the.
27:16
Speaker 10: Road a little bit.
27:19
Speaker 8: It's now going to be reviewed in July, I believe,
27:25
Speaker 8: you know, even though it did have the support of
27:26
Speaker 8: about seventeen hundred very powerful supporters, so due to public
27:31
Speaker 8: concern and I think people contacting their members of Parliament
27:34
Speaker 8: who would listen. I mean, there are some good members
27:37
Speaker 8: of Parliament who did oppose this enough for it to
27:40
Speaker 8: be put back to July.
27:42
Speaker 10: But we're constantly playing.
27:44
Speaker 8: This game of whack a mole, you know. And the
27:48
Speaker 8: latest mold that deserves a huge whack is this Data
27:51
Speaker 8: Use and Access Bill, which you know has now gone
27:55
Speaker 8: through several stages. It's and it's now in the House
27:59
Speaker 8: of Commons. I think it's at the committee stage. It's
28:04
Speaker 8: a two hundred and seventy page government bill, which is
28:08
Speaker 8: a lot to read. Actually, it's a massive amount to
28:10
Speaker 8: read and it's been snuck in under the radar and
28:14
Speaker 8: it's a massive power grab of our data. Peter Kyle
28:19
Speaker 8: is the MP that's pushing it. He's a Secretary of
28:22
Speaker 8: State for Science, Innovation Technology and it's a champion sheering
28:26
Speaker 8: on the potential loss of your privacy and freedom. He
28:30
Speaker 8: says that we have an outdated approach to data which
28:33
Speaker 8: is holding Britain's economy back and this bill will take
28:36
Speaker 8: the breaks off, unleashing a new era of Welsh wealth
28:39
Speaker 8: and opportunity for all. Well is it really, I mean,
28:43
Speaker 8: it's completely the opposite, really that because it might benefit
28:48
Speaker 8: the very few at the top who are selling all
28:52
Speaker 8: this data on, but the life for all of us
28:55
Speaker 8: will be pretty much a digital prison where we will
28:58
Speaker 8: be effectively spied on for for eternity. If parties, bill
29:02
Speaker 8: could change all of our lives, the lives of our children,
29:05
Speaker 8: grandchildren forever. I mean, it's quietly slipping effortlessly through our
29:09
Speaker 8: legislative process whilst we're all distracted obviously with the media
29:14
Speaker 8: circus that's going on right before our very eyes. It's
29:19
Speaker 8: huge government over each and you know, taking a deeper
29:23
Speaker 8: look at it, it means implementing legislation that could fundamentally
29:29
Speaker 8: change how data is access, stored, and used without genuine
29:32
Speaker 8: public consultation or awareness. It's ready been through the House
29:38
Speaker 8: of Lords, and it's only just got three stages before
29:42
Speaker 8: it reaches Royal assent, so it's almost there, and it's
29:48
Speaker 8: setting a dangerous precedent for mass surveillance, erosion of privacy,
29:51
Speaker 8: and the automatic assumption that all our digital footprints belong
29:55
Speaker 8: to the government in corporate stakeholders. Basically, so nothing is
29:59
Speaker 8: private anymore. One of the most alarming aspects of this
30:03
Speaker 8: bill is it's retrospective data access provisions. Unlike previous data
30:08
Speaker 8: laws that required a specific justification for data collection, this
30:12
Speaker 8: one grants the government access to historical data that predates
30:16
Speaker 8: the law itself, which is unbelievable. So you know, everything
30:20
Speaker 8: that you've done in the past, every transaction, financial transaction,
30:24
Speaker 8: you've ever made, everything you've ever looked at online, your
30:29
Speaker 8: health data, your financial data, everything can be scrutinized from
30:34
Speaker 8: the past. So you know, if you thought it was
30:37
Speaker 8: private before it existed, this will now be fair game
30:41
Speaker 8: for scrutiny, storage, and monetization. I mean, all of this
30:45
Speaker 8: is clearly it's a new currency. Data is the new
30:48
Speaker 8: gold as we know. This is why these big data
30:51
Speaker 8: centers are popping up all over the place. This is
30:53
Speaker 8: the new currency, the new gold. This level of government
30:57
Speaker 8: over each contradicts basic privacy PINT principles and puts UK
31:01
Speaker 8: people under permanent digital surveillance. And once the data is accessible,
31:07
Speaker 8: there's no real safeguards prevented its preventing any kind of
31:10
Speaker 8: misuse of it. So one of the most deceptive elements
31:15
Speaker 8: I find of this bill is the claim that removing
31:18
Speaker 8: cookie consent pop ups will somehow benefit us by reducing
31:22
Speaker 8: consent fatigue they call it. The government presents this as
31:26
Speaker 8: a benefit or convenience, making it appear as though they're
31:29
Speaker 8: sparing users from the clicking through consent permission requests. However,
31:35
Speaker 8: in reality, it's designed to eliminate the ability for you
31:39
Speaker 8: to refuse the data collection.
31:43
Speaker 10: And they use this term consent fatigue.
31:47
Speaker 8: I mean, that's quite chilling, actually, you know, it's almost
31:50
Speaker 8: as though you're, you know, you're so tired of giving up,
31:53
Speaker 8: you know, giving your consent. You know, just hate my
31:55
Speaker 8: data and do with it what you like. I'm just
31:57
Speaker 8: a you know, a faceless number in your ever growing
32:00
Speaker 8: data set. I mean, it's unbelievable. Under these new roles,
32:05
Speaker 8: websites and third party stakeholders would no longer need explicit
32:09
Speaker 8: consent to track users. Your browsing, habits, preferences, location, financial transactions,
32:14
Speaker 8: and biometric data would become you know, default assets, openly
32:19
Speaker 8: shared across corporate and governmental networks. The idea is that
32:23
Speaker 8: this is a public service, and it's not just misleading,
32:27
Speaker 8: it's it's allwelly in, it's got I mean, there's there's
32:31
Speaker 8: so many abuses. It's you know, it's it's you know,
32:36
Speaker 8: the role in future stakeholder capitalist systems which they're trying
32:40
Speaker 8: to bring in, the CBDC and the digital currency. You know,
32:44
Speaker 8: all of this is there for them to take, you know,
32:48
Speaker 8: and it's a world where you know, our credit score
32:51
Speaker 8: will be coming into play. And as if we needed
32:54
Speaker 8: more evidence that Starmer is coosing up with the EU,
32:57
Speaker 8: it aligns perfectly with EU digital identity laws because when
33:02
Speaker 8: we left the EU, we didn't automatically you know, we're
33:06
Speaker 8: not subjected to their data control laws that they're pushing
33:10
Speaker 8: on all the twenty seven other countries, so we're supposed
33:14
Speaker 8: to be free of all that but instead our own
33:16
Speaker 8: government is aligning with Brussels under this UK branded version
33:19
Speaker 8: of it. So it paves a way for data to
33:25
Speaker 8: be weaponized against the people. Unbelievable. So you know, what
33:30
Speaker 8: can we do? What can we do? Well, I, you know,
33:32
Speaker 8: we can demand transparency. We can appeal to for whatever
33:37
Speaker 8: good it will do, appeal to our MPs. I think
33:40
Speaker 8: we have to also really, you know, in our own
33:43
Speaker 8: sovereign way. You know, are we consenting to this? I
33:46
Speaker 8: don't know how that works.
33:48
Speaker 10: You know.
33:49
Speaker 8: What we've got to do is raise awareness about it
33:52
Speaker 8: and I have created a template which hopefully will be
33:55
Speaker 8: in the show notes, so to send your MPs because
34:01
Speaker 8: it did it did give us by us more time
34:03
Speaker 8: with the can bill.
34:04
Speaker 10: And I believe there are good people in Parliament.
34:07
Speaker 8: If we don't push back now, the UK's data framework
34:10
Speaker 8: could be become one of the most intrusive and authoritarian
34:13
Speaker 8: in the Western world. You know, privacy isn't necessarily about
34:17
Speaker 8: what you have to hide, it's what can they What
34:20
Speaker 8: can they use it against you? You know, can they
34:23
Speaker 8: can they use it against you? And this is what
34:24
Speaker 8: we have to ask ourselves. And yeah, it's a very
34:27
Speaker 8: very pernicious act and Bill.
34:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Sandy. And of course you know I've
34:34
Speaker 1: headed or said the words in the past that we
34:38
Speaker 1: as individuals are being farmed by corporates and increasingly by
34:42
Speaker 1: the state as well. And data is very much, as
34:45
Speaker 1: you say, becoming a currency. This legislation, you know, just
34:49
Speaker 1: enables the free export of whatever they choose to other
34:53
Speaker 1: countries as well. There are massive implications for it, as
34:56
Speaker 1: you say, and we'll be talking much more about that
34:58
Speaker 1: and extra have no diet. But look, let's move on.
35:02
Speaker 1: Thank you very much to everybody that is helping the
35:05
Speaker 1: UK Column keep going. We do need your ongoing support.
35:08
Speaker 1: So if you are able to make a donation or
35:10
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35:15
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35:27
Speaker 1: long as you use that link. But please, if you
35:29
Speaker 1: can't do any of that, please do at least share
35:31
Speaker 1: the material that we provide, because that is how we
35:34
Speaker 1: get around the censorship regime. Now another reminder of a
35:39
Speaker 1: date for your Darry Saturday, the fifth of April twenty
35:41
Speaker 1: twenty five UK column on location in Cheltenham. We do
35:45
Speaker 1: encourage as many people as possible to come to This
35:47
Speaker 1: is going to be a fantastic day, Charles.
35:49
Speaker 3: It is, indeed and in actual fact, but it's very
35:51
Speaker 3: close relation to a lot of what we're discussing today,
35:53
Speaker 3: which on the face of it is parliamentary legislation, but
35:56
Speaker 3: of course it is all influenced from elsewhere and indeed
35:59
Speaker 3: we'll benefit organizations elsewhere. And the theme for our event
36:04
Speaker 3: is going to be the machinations of the deep State,
36:06
Speaker 3: so I really would encourage you to consider that and
36:09
Speaker 3: its significance upon your life and join us for what
36:12
Speaker 3: will be an incredible day. Absolutely, Katherine Gunner. Of course
36:18
Speaker 3: a whistleblower ended up in court, yep. Absolutely, and more
36:23
Speaker 3: speakers to announce, but obviously Alex Thompson and Patrick Henderson
36:26
Speaker 3: henningson there as well.
36:27
Speaker 1: Yes, brilliant, Thank you, Charles. Now let's say yesterday's interview
36:31
Speaker 1: was Brian speaking to Ilanda and so this is the
36:37
Speaker 1: next in the series child Snatching by the State, and
36:40
Speaker 1: he's speaking to Landa. But her experience of having a
36:43
Speaker 1: newborn baby taken from her and the bullying from state
36:46
Speaker 1: sanctioned organizations. If you didn't see that yesterday, please do
36:49
Speaker 1: have a look at it. And tomorrow at one pm
36:53
Speaker 1: we've got an interview with Kathy Mudge. So Diane speaking
36:56
Speaker 1: to Kathy. She is founder a member of Protect Teach
36:59
Speaker 1: Dark COLORGU, and they are talking about the work they
37:02
Speaker 1: are doing with schools and libraries to expose various agendas,
37:07
Speaker 1: including the transagender and making the way into those organizations.
37:11
Speaker 1: And they're also discussing a range of other organizations and
37:14
Speaker 1: how they're working within the school system. So that's one
37:17
Speaker 1: pm tomorrow if you possibly can. Now, let's come back
37:22
Speaker 1: Charles onto sort of war matters and well related matters anyway,
37:26
Speaker 1: because of course the deal has been done in Ukraine
37:29
Speaker 1: to start digging the place up. Another that's been blown up.
37:32
Speaker 1: Maybe that helps with the digging later on. I don't know.
37:35
Speaker 3: It may do if indeed anyone can actually work out
37:38
Speaker 3: what it is they're going to be digging for. We
37:40
Speaker 3: hear that Donald Trump has raised eyebrows and a certain
37:43
Speaker 3: amount of consternation by suggesting that he has struck a
37:45
Speaker 3: deal for rare earth elements with Ukraine. But as asked
37:50
Speaker 3: by Augus the bizarre case of Ukraine's rare earth here
37:56
Speaker 3: in a piece, really good question to be asked is
37:58
Speaker 3: that what he meant was he talking about minerals in general?
38:02
Speaker 3: There's no open source evidence to suggest that there is
38:05
Speaker 3: in fact five hundred billion dollars worth of such elements
38:09
Speaker 3: in Ukraine, which does not say that it's not the case.
38:12
Speaker 3: Something that is worth pointing out those Ukraine is reckoned
38:15
Speaker 3: to have around five hundred thousand tons of lithium to
38:19
Speaker 3: be extracted, and when one considers the influence that Elon Musk,
38:23
Speaker 3: the owner and chief executive of Tesla, has as an
38:28
Speaker 3: interest in the operations of the US government and indeed
38:32
Speaker 3: his company, that may be relevant, but I think more
38:35
Speaker 3: than that it sets context for the United Kingdom's involvement
38:40
Speaker 3: when one thinks that the Moment, despite its critical minerals
38:45
Speaker 3: strategy suggesting that it will, doesn't actually produce any commercial
38:49
Speaker 3: grade lithium, and even when it does, the aim will
38:52
Speaker 3: be for tens of thousands of tons. Certainly nothing of
38:55
Speaker 3: that scale On the rare earth element side of it.
39:00
Speaker 3: It is considered that Ukraine does have a substantial amount
39:03
Speaker 3: of Mosernite, which is a requirement for AI platforms to
39:07
Speaker 3: be able to run. So whether that may have some
39:08
Speaker 3: bearing on it is yet to be determined. But what
39:12
Speaker 3: it does seem to explain has discussed a little bit earlier,
39:15
Speaker 3: but really the rush from Kirstarma to get to Donald
39:20
Speaker 3: Trump's side, and indeed Starmer's and Macron's assertion that they
39:25
Speaker 3: will be putting peacekeepers on the ground in Ukraine, despite
39:30
Speaker 3: the batting to one side of that notion by Sergei Loverrov,
39:35
Speaker 3: but it seems to extra expose the true purpose of
39:38
Speaker 3: the intervention in Ukraine. We've talked a lot about the
39:42
Speaker 3: reconstruction effort and indeed the corporate gains from putting on
39:46
Speaker 3: a proxy war in order that you can hoover up
39:48
Speaker 3: afterwards and go in for the reconstruction effort. But this
39:53
Speaker 3: looks like getting troops on the ground will really be
39:55
Speaker 3: to preserve the interests of the mineral extraction, if such
40:00
Speaker 3: a thing is going to come to pass. Now, what
40:03
Speaker 3: I would like to point out is that it's all
40:05
Speaker 3: very well these discussions going ahead, and indeed they would
40:08
Speaker 3: not be under a UN banner. But that's specifically because
40:12
Speaker 3: as far as the United Nations is concerned. A peacekeeping
40:14
Speaker 3: operation requires the consent of all parties, and as I
40:18
Speaker 3: refer to that, Lavrov is certainly not minded to give
40:21
Speaker 3: such consent. Another thing that I would like to point out,
40:26
Speaker 3: which refers back to Mike's segment earlier in the program,
40:30
Speaker 3: is that the British Army's commitment to what's called Op Interflex.
40:33
Speaker 3: Here an advertisement shown from Soldier magazine in April twenty
40:37
Speaker 3: twenty four, which was drawing and still continues to draw
40:41
Speaker 3: manpower away from the United Kingdom's focus on training and
40:45
Speaker 3: the supposed threat from Russia or Irana wherever it is
40:47
Speaker 3: this week. But it is really worth pointing this out.
40:51
Speaker 3: If we are to consider that we are at threat
40:55
Speaker 3: of being invaded or attacked by means other than simply
40:59
Speaker 3: sign warfare, is that really credible? Now? What seems incredible
41:05
Speaker 3: is the response I got from the Ministry of Defense
41:07
Speaker 3: when I put a freedom of information request in asking
41:11
Speaker 3: about the training of Ukrainian troops under Op Intflex, and
41:17
Speaker 3: specifically I had asked what units the troops had come
41:23
Speaker 3: from and what effectively what audit trail was kept. They
41:28
Speaker 3: have replied saying that with regard to Op Interflex. The
41:30
Speaker 3: data held by OP Interflex headquarters is limited due to
41:34
Speaker 3: the close nature of the questions which asked when Ukrainian
41:37
Speaker 3: troops arrive, and we do not specifically track or ask
41:41
Speaker 3: which units individuals come from. Now, this is quite an
41:45
Speaker 3: extraordinary omission or admission from the Ministry of Defense, particularly
41:50
Speaker 3: given the amount of aid that is being provided to Ukraine,
41:55
Speaker 3: both in terms of lethal and what's called non lethal aid.
42:00
Speaker 3: The sheer bill taxpair is footing is incredible. But the
42:06
Speaker 3: summary really is that we have absolutely no idea what
42:08
Speaker 3: effect this training is having, so we don't know where
42:10
Speaker 3: the money is going. We don't know if there's any
42:13
Speaker 3: success on the battlefield of those that are reckoned to
42:16
Speaker 3: have being trained under Interflex. There's absolutely no accountability. And moreover,
42:21
Speaker 3: we have no idea who these people actually are. So
42:24
Speaker 3: it does of course make it entirely possible that the
42:26
Speaker 3: Neo Nazi membership of the as OF Battalion seen here
42:30
Speaker 3: at the Reform Club with the Destroyer of Peace Boris Johnson,
42:34
Speaker 3: is being trained by the British Army. We don't know,
42:36
Speaker 3: I mean, it cannot certainly be said that that is
42:38
Speaker 3: not the case. It also raises the possibility that members
42:41
Speaker 3: of the Ukraine Foreign Legion may be being trained by
42:44
Speaker 3: the British Army. And this is a still from video
42:47
Speaker 3: taken by the headmaster of a private school from the
42:50
Speaker 3: Ukraine border. It's advertising the Foreign Legion as though some
42:53
Speaker 3: kind of computer game. Free or Fury is the slogan.
42:57
Speaker 3: Now it's attracted a number of of course, some of
43:00
Speaker 3: whom are known to have died, all of whom were
43:03
Speaker 3: encouraged to join up by Liz Truss. Here's the website
43:08
Speaker 3: of the legionnaires.
43:10
Speaker 6: But such.
43:12
Speaker 3: Joining, certainly from a British system, would be an offense
43:15
Speaker 3: under the Foreign Enlistment Act of eighteen seventy, which is
43:17
Speaker 3: just another piece of legislation that the judiciary, executive and
43:20
Speaker 3: legislature of this country continue to ignore. But to follow
43:24
Speaker 3: what Brian was reporting on a Monday, and as referred
43:26
Speaker 3: to earlier, the manpower statistics are not painting and encouraging picture.
43:33
Speaker 3: At first of October twenty twenty four, you can see
43:36
Speaker 3: that a clear trend indicates that recruitment is very much
43:39
Speaker 3: losing the battle against retention, with the army's recorded strength
43:42
Speaker 3: at just seventy four thousand, and I think the question
43:45
Speaker 3: to be put now with or without conscription, is how long?
43:48
Speaker 3: How long would elements of such a force last if
43:51
Speaker 3: on the ground in a direct engagement with Russia or
43:55
Speaker 3: Iran or indeed anybody else.
43:57
Speaker 1: Thank you, Charles. So let's come back to more legislation.
44:00
Speaker 1: And of course we've been reporting on the implications of
44:04
Speaker 1: the Investigatory Par's Amendment Act since well before it gained
44:07
Speaker 1: role ascent last September, but as a reminder, it amended
44:11
Speaker 1: the so called Snoopers Charter to enable even more data
44:13
Speaker 1: collection and surveillance of the general public by our democratic regime.
44:19
Speaker 1: It enables a surveillance free for all by the security services.
44:24
Speaker 1: We can say goodbye to privacy and so on. But
44:28
Speaker 1: it also places huge limitations on the ability of tech
44:31
Speaker 1: companies to provide us with any kind of useful security
44:34
Speaker 1: or control over our own data when we use their devices.
44:38
Speaker 1: And worst of all, it prevents tech companies from disclosing
44:42
Speaker 1: the government has been making any kind of backdoor to
44:45
Speaker 1: use our data, or that they've perceived any kind of
44:48
Speaker 1: request for access the data that's held on their systems. Again,
44:52
Speaker 1: because we live in a democracy, and as we reported
44:55
Speaker 1: last week, the UK regime has taken Apple to court
44:58
Speaker 1: to force them to remove the end to end encryption
45:01
Speaker 1: facility provided by their iCloud data storage platform. Apple has
45:05
Speaker 1: decided to comply with this by removing the facility from
45:09
Speaker 1: UK customers, and they say, we are gravely disappointed that
45:14
Speaker 1: the protection is provided by Advanced Data Protection will not
45:17
Speaker 1: be available to our customers in the UK given the
45:19
Speaker 1: continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy. Now,
45:24
Speaker 1: while this is not surprising, I'm going to say it's
45:27
Speaker 1: pretty pathetic by Apple that they've taken this decision. It
45:30
Speaker 1: could be argued that Apple that had Apple not complied,
45:33
Speaker 1: they would have been required to create a backdoor, not
45:36
Speaker 1: just for users in the UK, but for people around
45:38
Speaker 1: the world, regardless of whether they were UK citizens or not.
45:43
Speaker 1: But the question is the question now for me at least,
45:46
Speaker 1: is what's happened Samsung going to do because they have
45:49
Speaker 1: similar n encryption practices in place, and so we're going
45:55
Speaker 1: to have to wait and see what they do. But
45:58
Speaker 1: that is a perhaps a disappointing decision by Apple to
46:03
Speaker 1: do it this way, and maybe they felt that they
46:06
Speaker 1: had no choice, But we'll talk a bit more about that.
46:08
Speaker 1: An extra as well, Sandy. Let's come back to you
46:11
Speaker 1: then and gun control, because you know the issue of
46:17
Speaker 1: farmers' access the right to use shotguns as something which
46:20
Speaker 1: is coming under increasing pressure once again.
46:24
Speaker 10: Yes, I've been. I had a big, big.
46:27
Speaker 8: Chat with a few farmers down in Devon recently and
46:30
Speaker 8: they had a few very major concerns about all of this. Firstly,
46:36
Speaker 8: you know, just to put you in the picture, the
46:38
Speaker 8: government funding for the Farming Resilience Fund has been cut.
46:43
Speaker 8: It's a fund that supported mental health charities in the
46:47
Speaker 8: agricultural sector. With the inheritance tax changes in the labor budget,
46:52
Speaker 8: many older farmers and now in a position where if
46:55
Speaker 8: they die it's awful. Really, if they die before April
46:59
Speaker 8: twenty twenty six, then whoever they pass their farm onto
47:04
Speaker 8: won't have the estate valued under the new inheritance tax rules.
47:09
Speaker 8: And frankly, I mean this is a very dark thought,
47:12
Speaker 8: but it's putting pressure almost to older farmers to possibly
47:17
Speaker 8: contemplate taking their own lives before Eightril twenty twenty six,
47:21
Speaker 8: which is you know, absolutely horrible.
47:23
Speaker 10: You know, they for fear.
47:26
Speaker 8: Of they've built up their farms over decades, sometimes centuries,
47:30
Speaker 8: and you know they've got the notion of it being
47:33
Speaker 8: portioned off and sold to survive, potentially becoming unviable in
47:38
Speaker 8: that process. So we have to look at the old
47:41
Speaker 8: Hegelian dialect coming into play problem reaction solution. This is
47:45
Speaker 8: where we get onto the current gun laws and restrictions
47:48
Speaker 8: being imposed on farmers, because the scrutiny on their mental
47:51
Speaker 8: health could deter farmers from seeking mental health support for
47:55
Speaker 8: fear of losing their firearms as well. The UK has,
48:00
Speaker 8: you know, has some of the strictest gun laws in
48:02
Speaker 8: the world, and these laws have obviously evolved incrementally over
48:07
Speaker 8: time and significantly significantly impacting British farmers. At the same time,
48:13
Speaker 8: they rely on their firearms, primarily shotguns and rifles for
48:17
Speaker 8: pest control and livestock management, but successive firearm restrictions have
48:23
Speaker 8: made it increasingly difficult for them to own news guns
48:26
Speaker 8: for legitimate agricultural purposes.
48:30
Speaker 10: You know.
48:30
Speaker 8: Really from nineteen twenty when Firearms Act came in and
48:34
Speaker 8: then nineteen sixty eight it was amended and tighter controls
48:38
Speaker 8: on gun licensing, with firearm certificates for rifles and pistols
48:44
Speaker 8: and shotgun certificates for smooth ball shotguns. This Act introduced
48:49
Speaker 8: a good reason requirement for owning a firearm, which meant
48:52
Speaker 8: farmers had to justify why they needed one. However, pest
48:55
Speaker 8: control and agricultural use were still valid reasons then. And
48:59
Speaker 8: then in nineteen eight we had the Firearms Amendment because
49:03
Speaker 8: of the Hungerford massacre when sixteen people sadly were shot
49:09
Speaker 8: by a legally owned firearm, and new new restrictions were
49:13
Speaker 8: introduced and they banned semi automatic rifles and pump action
49:16
Speaker 8: rifles over two point two point t twenty two calibers,
49:22
Speaker 8: so farmers could no longer use semi automatic rifles for
49:26
Speaker 8: pest control, making rabbit and fox control more difficult. And
49:29
Speaker 8: then in nineteen nineteen seven we had the Dunblane massacre
49:33
Speaker 8: where handguns were almost entirely banned in the UK and
49:37
Speaker 8: farmers who previously used handguns for humane animal dispatch had
49:41
Speaker 8: to switch to captive bolt guns or single shop pistols,
49:44
Speaker 8: which require special licensing anyway, and this made humane dispatch
49:48
Speaker 8: more bureaucratic and difficult in emergency situations. So again in
49:55
Speaker 8: twenty sixteen, more amendments imposed because of the attacks in Europe,
50:02
Speaker 8: and then in twenty twenty and to twenty twenty three.
50:06
Speaker 8: Tighter shotgun licensing and police discretion was imposed because of
50:09
Speaker 8: the Plymouth shooting in twenty twenty one. So all of
50:12
Speaker 8: this has just been incremental. It's just kind of made
50:15
Speaker 8: it more and more difficult. So farmers now face strict
50:18
Speaker 8: to scrutiny with greater in emphasis on mental health checks.
50:22
Speaker 8: And the tightening of UK gun laws has generally followed
50:25
Speaker 8: major criminal incidents or public outcry, and some police forces
50:29
Speaker 8: have been arbitrarily revoking shotgun license even for minor concerns,
50:34
Speaker 8: making it hard for farmers to retain their firearms. The
50:37
Speaker 8: latest tightening of shotgun laws is making it harder for
50:40
Speaker 8: farmers to access and retain shotguns, which could have serious
50:44
Speaker 8: consequences for agriculture. You know, there's an increased bureaucracy and
50:50
Speaker 8: costs for them, more paperwork, medical assessments, police oversight means
50:54
Speaker 8: that general costs for farmers or when they're already under
50:58
Speaker 8: financial pressure, you know you've got lambing sometimes they need
51:04
Speaker 8: they need the shotguns for you know, protecting the lambs
51:08
Speaker 8: during lambing from foxes and other predators.
51:12
Speaker 10: So it's difficult.
51:14
Speaker 8: You know, the current trends that farmers could face severe
51:18
Speaker 8: difficulties in obtaining or keeping shotguns, which are essential tools
51:22
Speaker 8: in rural life. And there's a grown concern that bureaucratic
51:26
Speaker 8: over each and arbitrary revocations could harm both individual farmers
51:31
Speaker 8: and the broader agricultural industry. The rural firearms sector is
51:36
Speaker 8: being very, very divided on this, and it's quite clever
51:40
Speaker 8: the way they've done it.
51:41
Speaker 10: The one farmer.
51:42
Speaker 8: Described it to me is first they came for the
51:44
Speaker 8: semi automatic rifles, but the clay pigeon shooters said, I
51:48
Speaker 8: don't shoot clay pid I only shoot clay pigeons and
51:50
Speaker 8: with a shotgun, so I'm not going to worry about it.
51:53
Speaker 8: And then they came for the handguns, but the deer
51:56
Speaker 8: hunters used bolt action rifles so they weren't worried, and
52:00
Speaker 8: they came for the bold action rifles, but the game
52:03
Speaker 8: shooters shoot game birds with shotguns, so they weren't worried.
52:06
Speaker 8: And now they're coming for the shotguns. So they're not
52:09
Speaker 8: going to have nothing and no one to fight this
52:11
Speaker 8: as they're all divided, you know. To be honest, the UK,
52:16
Speaker 8: you know, had a society in which widespread licensed gun
52:19
Speaker 8: ownership was the norm. There's no provable link between the
52:23
Speaker 8: further tightening of gun rules and the reduction in crime
52:26
Speaker 8: quite the opposite. And since these restrictions, you know, gun
52:30
Speaker 8: crime is actually sowed, you know, out of control regardless
52:34
Speaker 8: of you know, criminals will obtain guns regardless of the law.
52:39
Speaker 8: And it's not as th farmers have been irresponsible historically
52:43
Speaker 8: with their guns. The current discussion surrounding further restricting shotgun
52:48
Speaker 8: ownership is further evidence to the thought that farmer, you know,
52:52
Speaker 8: that the farmer represents kind of an uncontrolled power to
52:55
Speaker 8: the you know, in the populace and access to guns,
52:59
Speaker 8: you know, an equalizer. It's something that the government wished
53:02
Speaker 8: to be removed at worst and heavily controlled at best.
53:06
Speaker 8: We have to ask ourselves from the perspective of governments
53:09
Speaker 8: trying to enact a land grab at the moment, is
53:13
Speaker 8: it in their interest to make sure that the current
53:15
Speaker 8: landowner isn't armed? You know, we've got to ask this question, Sandy.
53:22
Speaker 1: I would add, the question is are they worried if
53:27
Speaker 1: they turn up to slaughter your chickens or your cattle
53:31
Speaker 1: under the circumstances if you're armed, And that maybe takes
53:35
Speaker 1: us very neatly onto birdflow.
53:38
Speaker 3: It does unfortunately, so yes, the UK Column has covered
53:42
Speaker 3: in great detail the leading to what is being described
53:45
Speaker 3: as an epidemic of avian influencer across the UK, and
53:49
Speaker 3: the area that I'm going to focus on today is
53:51
Speaker 3: the mass slaughter of poultry in response. But the question
53:55
Speaker 3: which must be asked at the outset is whether this
53:58
Speaker 3: response is proportionate and necessary, even by the government's own
54:01
Speaker 3: metrics and legislation. Now, in response to a freedom of
54:06
Speaker 3: information request and a media inquiry from the Animal and
54:10
Speaker 3: Plant Health Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and
54:14
Speaker 3: Rural Affairs respectively, confirmed that over two million captive birds
54:18
Speaker 3: have now died. The language used is to infer that
54:22
Speaker 3: this is in large part due to illness, but the
54:25
Speaker 3: most recent statistics from the government, updated on Monday, confirm
54:29
Speaker 3: that just forty one cases of avian flu have been recorded.
54:35
Speaker 3: If you recall the mass slaughter of two thousand and
54:37
Speaker 3: one ascribed to the prevention of the spread of foot
54:41
Speaker 3: and mouth, or you've watched the UK Column documentary Slaughtered
54:44
Speaker 3: on Suspicion, you may not be quite a surprise to
54:47
Speaker 3: learn that this means the government is now killing more
54:50
Speaker 3: than forty eight thousand birds each time they confirm a
54:54
Speaker 3: case via pc artest. In the words of its inventor,
54:58
Speaker 3: Carrie Mulis, PCR may not be used as a diagnostic test,
55:02
Speaker 3: posing the very significant question is the government cull lawful
55:06
Speaker 3: or does it constitute malfeasance. The extraordinary powers which enable
55:11
Speaker 3: the government to do this come from Section five of
55:15
Speaker 3: Schedule three to the Animal Health Act nineteen eighty one,
55:18
Speaker 3: which are now run through quote. The Minister may, if
55:21
Speaker 3: he thinks fit, cause to be slaughtered any diseased or
55:25
Speaker 3: suspected poultry, any poultry which are or have been in
55:29
Speaker 3: the same field, pen shed, or other place as or
55:32
Speaker 3: otherwise in contact with diseased poultry, or which appear the
55:36
Speaker 3: Minister to the Minister to have been in any way
55:39
Speaker 3: exposed to the infection of disease, Or any poultry the
55:43
Speaker 3: Secretary of State thinks should be slaughtered with a view
55:46
Speaker 3: to preventing the spread of Avian influenza or Newcastle disease.
55:52
Speaker 3: With regard to the element of risk or threat to
55:55
Speaker 3: public health. The Freedom of Information request or the response
55:58
Speaker 3: to it makes clear that this is not even consideration.
56:01
Speaker 3: Despite holding stocks of five million doses of a human
56:04
Speaker 3: vaccine against bird flu. None has been administered to those
56:08
Speaker 3: employed in the process or destroying or handling these birds,
56:12
Speaker 3: nor has APHA any record at all of anyone expressing
56:15
Speaker 3: any symptoms or the human variant of what they're calling
56:18
Speaker 3: bird flu. So skewed is the process that the government
56:22
Speaker 3: finds what it wants to find, and the Minister may
56:24
Speaker 3: destroy livestock on that basis, And I should reiterate that
56:28
Speaker 3: APHA and Dephra confirm again that no other tests are conducted,
56:33
Speaker 3: which means that there's no investigation into the possibility that
56:37
Speaker 3: a toxicity of some other kind has been introduced into
56:40
Speaker 3: the environment. It's also worth noting that eighty five percent
56:43
Speaker 3: of the birds slaughtered so far have been permanently housed,
56:46
Speaker 3: and as reference previously, this completely negates the bisecurity countermeasure
56:50
Speaker 3: of keeping birds indoors. The video that you've just been
56:53
Speaker 3: watching is from a few years back, and it's essentially
56:55
Speaker 3: a propaganda piece from the BBC on how birds love
56:59
Speaker 3: to be kept indoors. Completely on top of one another,
57:01
Speaker 3: but one hardly needs to contrive the existence of a
57:04
Speaker 3: disease such as bird flu in order to explain why
57:07
Speaker 3: birds like these. You've just seen might not be healthy
57:10
Speaker 3: and if you are buying poultry meat from a supermarket,
57:13
Speaker 3: this is where it comes from. The average lifespan of
57:15
Speaker 3: a bird there being just forty two days due to
57:17
Speaker 3: the use of growth hormones. Now away from poultry sheds,
57:21
Speaker 3: the annual NFU Conference has just taken place, where the
57:25
Speaker 3: focus remains resolutely on the subject of inheritance tax, to
57:28
Speaker 3: the exclusion of a raft of other issues which beset farmers.
57:31
Speaker 3: Steve Read, the Environment Minister, insists he wants farms to
57:34
Speaker 3: be profitable while simultaneously forcing many of them into complete
57:39
Speaker 3: reliance on government handouts and in order to produce anything
57:43
Speaker 3: but food, a farming profitability unit is to be established
57:48
Speaker 3: and as the image, we can just pop that image
57:50
Speaker 3: back on screen. As this image shows, the only pathway
57:53
Speaker 3: towards such profitability is reckoned to be through technology, the
57:57
Speaker 3: inference being that small farms for whom such investment is unrealistic,
58:00
Speaker 3: are not a consideration in the future corporatization of the countryside.
58:06
Speaker 3: And given the bird flu situation and the fact that
58:09
Speaker 3: the Chief Vet's previous role was to unleash the Biosecurity
58:12
Speaker 3: Act in New South Wales, Australia. It is significant that
58:15
Speaker 3: Reed speaks of changes to the APHA operation in Weybridge
58:20
Speaker 3: to bring in a new national biosecurity center. This just
58:24
Speaker 3: looks like a thinly veiled mechanism by which to destroy
58:27
Speaker 3: all small scale livestock operations in order that the supermarket
58:31
Speaker 3: cartels and the fake food manufacturers assume control absolutely everything
58:35
Speaker 3: we eat. But finally, a break in the clouds metaphorically
58:39
Speaker 3: at least with the news and of course accompanying outrage
58:43
Speaker 3: that BP is to row back on its commitment so
58:45
Speaker 3: called renewables in order that it reverts to concentrating on
58:49
Speaker 3: its core business in order and gas. Now, whilst this
58:51
Speaker 3: will be played down, it's a very strong indication of
58:54
Speaker 3: how the net zero scam is underpinned. The only reason
58:59
Speaker 3: that corporate entities have gone along with the net zero
59:01
Speaker 3: narrative is because they could make money out of it.
59:03
Speaker 3: Their responsibility though, is to their shareholders and not to
59:06
Speaker 3: the ever more spurious science laid before us. If you
59:10
Speaker 3: are aware of other organizations reneging on similar pledges, please
59:14
Speaker 3: do get in touch as these are exactly the sorts
59:17
Speaker 3: of development which will help see the scale of the
59:21
Speaker 3: climate sorry help people see the scale of the climate
59:23
Speaker 3: change fraud. Now on the going back to the themeal
59:26
Speaker 3: of birdflu, do stay tuned for extra as I'm going
59:29
Speaker 3: to give an account of an organic poultry farmer in
59:32
Speaker 3: Devon to whom I've spoken just yesterday. Emma Saunders believes
59:36
Speaker 3: that her business will not recover after the destruction of
59:39
Speaker 3: all of her poultry birds. And that was even after
59:42
Speaker 3: the Ministry confirmed that four thousand of them were perfectly healthy,
59:45
Speaker 3: but they were destroyed.
59:45
Speaker 1: Nonetheless fantastic.
59:49
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just.
59:51
Speaker 1: No lessons have been learned from two thousand and one,
59:54
Speaker 1: and it's just incredible how this continues.
59:57
Speaker 3: But well, yeah, I mean on the contract lessons have
1:00:00
Speaker 3: been learned. I think you know something we can go
1:00:03
Speaker 3: into an extra is the compensation scales and the push mean,
1:00:08
Speaker 3: if we'd look at farm holdings. I don't have the
1:00:10
Speaker 3: figures with me. If you look at how many farm
1:00:12
Speaker 3: holdings they were in two thousand and one versus how
1:00:14
Speaker 3: many are there are now and how much land is
1:00:17
Speaker 3: in corporate control, I think they've they've absolutely learned that lesson, right, Okay,
1:00:21
Speaker 3: just the wrong lesson for us.
1:00:23
Speaker 1: Indeed, Okay, we will talk more about that an extra.
1:00:26
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Charles. Thank you to Sandy and
1:00:28
Speaker 1: the Claire Will Harrison for joining us today. We've got
1:00:30
Speaker 1: to finish there. Do join us in a few minutes
1:00:32
Speaker 1: for extra. Otherwise, wa'ts the interview at one pm tomorrow
1:00:37
Speaker 1: and we will see you on the for another news
1:00:40
Speaker 1: program one pm on Friday, as you shall see then,
1:00:42
Speaker 1: by bye bye bye