Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News — 19th August 2026

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UK Column News — 19th August 2026 · UK Column Radio

0:09
Speaker 1: Good afternoon. It's just gone one o'clock on Wednesday, the
0:12
Speaker 1: nineteenth of August twenty twenty six. Welcome to UK column News.
0:16
Speaker 1: I'm your host and I'm joined in the studio by
0:18
Speaker 1: Basil Valentin'm welcome to the program.
0:20
Speaker 2: Basil.
0:20
Speaker 3: Thank you, Charles.
0:21
Speaker 2: Great to be here, what's great to have you here.
0:23
Speaker 1: And we are joined by video link by Vanessa Biley.
0:27
Speaker 1: Now there will be, as always plenty to get through.
0:30
Speaker 4: Today.
0:30
Speaker 1: We're going to be looking at the latest in the
0:32
Speaker 1: United Kingdom space activity, clandestine nuclear sites in Syria, the
0:38
Speaker 1: controversy in the criminal justice system surrounding early release and
0:42
Speaker 1: the so called peace plan in Gaza, as well as
0:46
Speaker 1: the direction that NATO appears to be taking in Ukraine. However,
0:50
Speaker 1: we are going to start with inflation, because just this
0:53
Speaker 1: morning the Office for National Statistics released a tweet which
0:58
Speaker 1: we look at on screen now saying that the consumer
1:00
Speaker 1: Prices index rose by two point nine percent in the
1:03
Speaker 1: twelve months to July twenty twenty six, up two point
1:07
Speaker 1: six percent on the previous twelve months to June twenty
1:10
Speaker 1: twenty six. Now, the cause of this, they say, is
1:14
Speaker 1: a number of factors, but in particular the finger is
1:16
Speaker 1: pointed at the action taken by Israel and the United
1:20
Speaker 1: States in and around Iran, with particular focus on the
1:23
Speaker 1: price of energy, perfectly understandably given that the energy price
1:26
Speaker 1: cap rose in July. Now, the explanation provided by ons
1:31
Speaker 1: is that the price cap rose in part because of
1:33
Speaker 1: higher wholesale energy prices, and the twelve Reek assessment period
1:36
Speaker 1: used by off GEM to calculate this quarter was from
1:39
Speaker 1: the eighteenth of February to the eighteenth of May twenty
1:41
Speaker 1: twenty six, meaning it was the first assessment period where
1:44
Speaker 1: prices had been affected by what they call the outbreak
1:47
Speaker 1: of conflict in the Middle East. Now, what they're ever
1:50
Speaker 1: going to report is the ever increasing cost of the
1:53
Speaker 1: net zero agenda. And I'm going to share a video
1:55
Speaker 1: clip now of the chief executive of Octopus Energy, Greg Jackson,
1:59
Speaker 1: of course a keen advocate for net zero, but nonetheless
2:03
Speaker 1: unable to hide the insanity of it.
2:08
Speaker 5: It's a paradox, doesn't it, That the vast majority of
2:10
Speaker 5: people are paying more for their energy than basically ever before,
2:14
Speaker 5: and then there's a bunch of people are paying so
2:16
Speaker 5: much less, and the people are paying so much less
2:18
Speaker 5: are typically doing it because they're using things like wind
2:21
Speaker 5: and solar and batteries.
2:23
Speaker 2: And electric vehicles.
2:25
Speaker 5: The challenge is that the way that our governments and
2:28
Speaker 5: regulators run the mainstream energy system is so inefficient. Instead
2:33
Speaker 5: of them passing on cheap electricity it's windy and sunny,
2:37
Speaker 5: they kind of try to smear the price and what
2:39
Speaker 5: that means is it's always expensive. No one's getting the benefit. Ultimately,
2:43
Speaker 5: the wholesale electricity market is brutally inefficient. I hinted it earlier,
2:48
Speaker 5: but for example, our biggest wind farm is paid to
2:53
Speaker 5: turn off seventy one percent of the.
2:55
Speaker 2: Time it could be generating, and we all and.
2:59
Speaker 5: This is one hundreds of thousands of pounds is billions
3:01
Speaker 5: effect and across all of them. So the total cost
3:05
Speaker 5: of wasted wind in the UK has reached about a
3:07
Speaker 5: billion pounds so far this year. That's paying wind farms
3:10
Speaker 5: to not generate and then paying a gas plan to
3:13
Speaker 5: fill the gaps. It's set to reach eight billion year
3:16
Speaker 5: by twenty thirty.
3:19
Speaker 1: That was recorded last year and with the Independent, and
3:23
Speaker 1: with that figure in mind, eight billion, it seems worth
3:26
Speaker 1: looking back to the advent of GB energy, which was
3:29
Speaker 1: created just over year ago, supposedly to provide up to
3:32
Speaker 1: five percent of grid energy. So we'll just have a
3:34
Speaker 1: look at this on screen by so called renewable sources
3:37
Speaker 1: with an initial budget of just over eight billion. Of course,
3:40
Speaker 1: that would be wiped away by the figure that Jackson mentions. Now,
3:44
Speaker 1: given the inflationary figures and what we've just heard from
3:47
Speaker 1: Greg Jackson, Baseil, can you make it make sense?
3:50
Speaker 3: No, not really, I don't think anybody can. A conservative leader,
3:53
Speaker 3: Kemmy Baidenock said another three hundred and twenty billion is
3:57
Speaker 3: going to be wasted aiming for the zero between twenty fifty,
4:00
Speaker 3: which is an inordinate suther money. But in terms of
4:03
Speaker 3: the immediate inflation figure, well, the government could do two things.
4:07
Speaker 3: One cut V eight to ten percent that would be
4:11
Speaker 3: in an immediate effect that they can make the money
4:13
Speaker 3: from income tax. And secondly, of course put much much
4:16
Speaker 3: more pressure on the United States and Israeli governments to
4:19
Speaker 3: stop the war. We do absolutely nothing. We're continuing to
4:23
Speaker 3: provide material diplomatic assistance for war efforts, you know, bring
4:27
Speaker 3: the war to an end. Energy prices will come down
4:29
Speaker 3: a simple as that.
4:30
Speaker 1: As we've said a lot, you're in danger of talking
4:31
Speaker 1: sense now on the theme of war. I'm going to
4:34
Speaker 1: hand over to your course for an update of something
4:36
Speaker 1: we have been covering in the last few weeks, which
4:38
Speaker 1: is the Ukrainian drone situation and in particular NATO's activity.
4:43
Speaker 3: Yes, joining me in a moment, we'll be Swedish geopolitical
4:47
Speaker 3: analyst Matt's Nielsen from Stockholm. It seems that NATO is
4:53
Speaker 3: drawing up its own war plans, and this at a
4:56
Speaker 3: time when there's been escalating drone strikes on both sides.
5:03
Speaker 3: Russian attack killed ten in Corgave. As we can see there,
5:06
Speaker 3: Ukraine has launched more than six hundred drones, isself the
5:10
Speaker 3: biggest attack of recent years. Things really do seem to
5:14
Speaker 3: be escalating and going in very much the wrong direction
5:17
Speaker 3: there at the moment. And so this war has now
5:23
Speaker 3: rumbled on since twenty twenty two, with varying degrees of
5:28
Speaker 3: ferocity and characterized by these seemingly endless strikes. Joining me
5:34
Speaker 3: now from Stockholm, Matts Nilsen Matts, what if anything distinguishes
5:38
Speaker 3: these latest exchanges from the events of the last few years.
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Speaker 6: Well, I would say that the core change is basically
5:48
Speaker 6: in kind of a significant tactical escalation on both sides,
5:55
Speaker 6: and by that I mean the systematic targeting of economic
6:00
Speaker 6: and civilian infrastructure on both sides.
6:04
Speaker 7: But there was a new Ukrainian tactic where the Ukrainians
6:11
Speaker 7: basically started hunting, if you will, civilian cargo ships in
6:15
Speaker 7: the Black Sea and then launched a systematic missile and
6:20
Speaker 7: drone strike against Russian civilian logistical infrastructure. Now, this was
6:29
Speaker 7: proven not to be a very wise decision, especially considering
6:33
Speaker 7: that Ukraine has a lack of anti drone missiles and
6:38
Speaker 7: a lack of, for example, patriot missiles. So the retaliation
6:43
Speaker 7: that Russian drones have now begun doing is they have
6:48
Speaker 7: been striking warehouses, They have been striking the infrastructure of
6:54
Speaker 7: the Odessa Harbor and so on, leading to many empty
6:58
Speaker 7: supermarket shelves in Kiev itself. So I would say, given
7:03
Speaker 7: that Selensky has instructed his advisors to prepare for another
7:08
Speaker 7: at least two years of war, I don't think we
7:12
Speaker 7: cannot even hope for a negotiated settlement at this time.
7:18
Speaker 7: So that's the main change during the last couple of weeks.
7:22
Speaker 3: Yes, the targeting of civilian infrastructure is particularly worrisome. The
7:27
Speaker 3: Ukrainians have been aiming at wild berries, warehouses these This
7:33
Speaker 3: is Russia's largest Internet goods distributor. But even more worrying,
7:41
Speaker 3: according to the new German newspaper Build, NATO has developed
7:45
Speaker 3: a strategy for a potential war with Russia. This is
7:49
Speaker 3: a document called the NATO Land War Fighting Concept. This
7:54
Speaker 3: represents a significant escalation in war planning, doesn't it, and
7:58
Speaker 3: seems to be in concert with certainly the British government
8:02
Speaker 3: putting our economy on an ever more war oriented footing.
8:08
Speaker 7: I would say it's not an escalation of war planning.
8:11
Speaker 7: It's more an escalation of war propaganda because these plans
8:15
Speaker 7: have been known to the people who care about it
8:18
Speaker 7: for some time now, so it's not really that much
8:22
Speaker 7: of a significant forward step in war planning on behalf
8:27
Speaker 7: of NATO. It is, however, a significant step in the
8:30
Speaker 7: area of war preparation for the NATO citizens, since NATO
8:36
Speaker 7: is now letting it be known to a wider audience
8:40
Speaker 7: that this is in effect. And when you read this concept,
8:46
Speaker 7: it aims basically not to occupy Russian territory, but it
8:50
Speaker 7: aims to hold any Russian advances into NATO and degrade
8:58
Speaker 7: Russia's military potential. Not to occupy Russia, so they will
9:03
Speaker 7: do it by suppression by buffer zones and by cutting supplies.
9:08
Speaker 8: And the way I see it, Russia may attack scenario,
9:14
Speaker 8: it's just used to lobby for increased military budgets on
9:22
Speaker 8: behalf of the military industrial complex.
9:24
Speaker 7: So this German so called leak in regards is nothing
9:32
Speaker 7: more than a cheap piece of propaganda in order to
9:35
Speaker 7: keep the fear alive in the NATO countries.
9:41
Speaker 3: Donald Trump came to Paers saying he was going to
9:43
Speaker 3: end the war within a matter of weeks, but in
9:46
Speaker 3: reality Russian attacks are continuing to do severe harm to
9:49
Speaker 3: the Ukraine's economy, whilst supermarket shelves in Kieva, as you said,
9:54
Speaker 3: are now empty, and reports too of people in Russia
9:59
Speaker 3: with drawing billions of rubles from the nation's bank. So
10:03
Speaker 3: the fears that the Kremlin coulds a question of the
10:05
Speaker 3: money to finance the war. There really are no winners
10:09
Speaker 3: in this conflict at the moment, Matts, and no sign
10:12
Speaker 3: of peace either.
10:14
Speaker 7: No both, I would say both economies are under strain
10:18
Speaker 7: from the war. But the Ukrainian economy is under immense
10:23
Speaker 7: strain and now the Porto Vedessa is commercially dead, and
10:28
Speaker 7: given the heat wave that has hit Europe, the ability
10:32
Speaker 7: for Ukraine to move goods along the Doornow River and
10:36
Speaker 7: using the river systems to export is also severely damaged.
10:41
Speaker 7: So I would say, of course there is trouble in
10:44
Speaker 7: Russia as well, and there are worrying signs when it
10:47
Speaker 7: comes to the Russian economy, but on the whole, the
10:50
Speaker 7: ability to contain this it's much stronger on the Russian
10:55
Speaker 7: side than on the Ukrainian side, and quite rightly, there
10:59
Speaker 7: are no in wars, the nerve has been so it's
11:06
Speaker 7: been often said, especially by French commentators, that the Ukrainian
11:13
Speaker 7: military are now in a position where they cannot win
11:18
Speaker 7: unless NATO joins Ukraine. So when it comes to not winning,
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Speaker 7: of course you should always listen to the French commentators,
11:27
Speaker 7: especially military commentators, and I take them quite seriously. There
11:31
Speaker 7: is no current scenario where Ukraine can win unless NATO joins.
11:37
Speaker 7: So the question is, and this is a very hypothetical
11:40
Speaker 7: but very dangerous question, is will NATO join, because then
11:45
Speaker 7: we are in territory. We definitely do not want to be.
11:50
Speaker 3: Snielsen from Stockholm, thank you so much for joining us
11:53
Speaker 3: today on UK column News.
11:56
Speaker 2: Charles.
11:56
Speaker 1: I think it makes a very good point by the
11:58
Speaker 1: uplifting propaganda, and I think that that's something we can
12:00
Speaker 1: definitely come back to in extra But for now we're
12:03
Speaker 1: going to go to Vanessa on the very much continuing
12:05
Speaker 1: the theme of conflicts with apparently no end in sight,
12:09
Speaker 1: but Venessa particularly, what is the situation in Gaza as
12:13
Speaker 1: you see it?
12:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just wanted to come back to Gaza because
12:18
Speaker 4: we haven't really covered it in depth in the recent weeks,
12:22
Speaker 4: and of course, with all the other conflicts ongoing in
12:24
Speaker 4: West Asia, it's difficult to keep up with all of them. However,
12:28
Speaker 4: I just wanted to take us back a little bit
12:31
Speaker 4: to twenty twenty four Jared Kushner speaking at Harvard and
12:36
Speaker 4: talking about Gaza's waterfront property, which could of course be
12:41
Speaker 4: very valuable. Palestinians could be moved out while Gaza was
12:45
Speaker 4: cleaned up. So let's just have a quick listen to
12:47
Speaker 4: what he said. This was twenty twenty four.
12:50
Speaker 2: In Gaza's waterfront property.
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Speaker 9: It could be very valuable too if people would focus
12:55
Speaker 9: on kind of building up, you know, livelihood. Do you
12:58
Speaker 9: think of all the money that's gone into this network
13:00
Speaker 9: and to all the munitions, if that would have gone
13:02
Speaker 9: into education or innovation, what could have been done, and
13:05
Speaker 9: so I think that it's a little bit of an
13:08
Speaker 9: unfortunate situation there. But I think from Israel's perspective, I
13:10
Speaker 9: would do my best to move the people out and
13:12
Speaker 9: then clean it up. But I don't think that Israel
13:15
Speaker 9: has stated that they don't want the people to move
13:17
Speaker 9: back there afterwards. Think that that I would try to do.
13:19
Speaker 9: If I was Israel right now, is I would just
13:21
Speaker 9: bulldoze something In the negative, I would try.
13:23
Speaker 10: To move people in there.
13:24
Speaker 9: I know that won't be the popular thing to do,
13:26
Speaker 9: but I think that that's a better option to do,
13:28
Speaker 9: so you can go in and finish the job.
13:32
Speaker 4: So even back in twenty twenty four, we had language
13:35
Speaker 4: like finishing the job. And then I want to go
13:38
Speaker 4: forward a little bit to October twenty twenty five to
13:41
Speaker 4: a sixty minutes interview with Kushnai and Steven Whitgof where
13:46
Speaker 4: they do talk about humanitarian aid, maintaining the c spire,
13:49
Speaker 4: moving into Phase two, demilitarization, etc. But particularly Diona's forces withdrawal.
13:57
Speaker 4: So let's just have a quick listen here to Witkov, But.
14:01
Speaker 11: It's the master plan, and we're working with a group
14:05
Speaker 11: of people who have.
14:07
Speaker 2: Been working on master plans for the last two.
14:09
Speaker 4: Years, so there are plans already.
14:12
Speaker 12: We have plans already.
14:12
Speaker 13: We have a master plan already.
14:14
Speaker 11: And by the way, and Jared's been pushing this and
14:16
Speaker 11: we're working together on.
14:18
Speaker 14: It, and I think if the world saw the progress
14:20
Speaker 14: so far, they'd be pretty impressed.
14:25
Speaker 4: I too have to say. You might notice that that
14:27
Speaker 4: Jared Kushner does look slightly uncomfortable that Wikoff has just
14:30
Speaker 4: mentioned the master plan. But then this is on seventeenth
14:34
Speaker 4: of August twenty twenty six, and this is actually the
14:37
Speaker 4: longest clip, but this is Jared Kushner again giving a
14:40
Speaker 4: very strong indication of what they want to achieve in
14:44
Speaker 4: Gaza at the expense of the Palestinian people.
14:49
Speaker 9: We're very committed to the fact that we have a
14:51
Speaker 9: plan to rebuild Gaza, but we will not allow Gaza
14:54
Speaker 9: to be rebuilt until the demilitarization occurs. Nobody wants to
14:57
Speaker 9: put more money into a place that's gone on for
15:00
Speaker 9: so long until if it's just going to be taken
15:02
Speaker 9: over by terrorists or blown up again. We're also not
15:05
Speaker 9: going to restrict Israel's right to defend itself if there
15:07
Speaker 9: are any imminent threats and so we had to clarify
15:09
Speaker 9: what that means. We could be seeing progress, you know,
15:11
Speaker 9: as much in as little as thirty days, hopefully on
15:14
Speaker 9: you know, starting to take some of the weapons out
15:16
Speaker 9: and hopefully you know, filling in some of the tunnels
15:19
Speaker 9: as well, next sixty to ninety days as well. So
15:21
Speaker 9: progress could come quite soon. But we do need cooperation
15:24
Speaker 9: from both sides and we're going to hopefully get through.
15:27
Speaker 9: But we've made a lot of progress to get here.
15:30
Speaker 9: For Israel, we think this is a win win situation
15:32
Speaker 9: because if Hamas actually gives over the weapons and the tunnels,
15:35
Speaker 9: you know, willingly over the next sixty to ninety days,
15:37
Speaker 9: that obviously would be the elimination of a huge security
15:40
Speaker 9: threat for Israel, almost an unthinkable achievement. And if they
15:44
Speaker 9: don't fall through now in their commitment, everyone will see
15:46
Speaker 9: that they're not genuine about peace, and then Israel will
15:49
Speaker 9: have a lot more support from the US and others
15:51
Speaker 9: to go and finish the job in the appropriate way.
15:56
Speaker 4: So we're back. This is in the last two days
15:58
Speaker 4: to finishing the job. And notice that there is no
16:01
Speaker 4: focus there on the withdrawal of designers forces. And finally
16:06
Speaker 4: I apologize, but we'll just have Trump on the subject
16:10
Speaker 4: of the peace plan.
16:11
Speaker 2: Also, oh, this is a great location.
16:16
Speaker 11: It all begins the I'm a real estate person at heart,
16:19
Speaker 11: and it's all about location. And I said, look at
16:22
Speaker 11: this location on the sea. Look at this beautiful piece
16:25
Speaker 11: of property. What it could be for so many people.
16:27
Speaker 11: It'll be so great. People that are living so poorly
16:31
Speaker 11: are going to be living so well. But it all
16:33
Speaker 11: began with the location. That's the vision. They look out
16:37
Speaker 11: on the waters and very few people are very few places.
16:40
Speaker 10: I like it.
16:44
Speaker 4: I think very clear through those that series of videos
16:48
Speaker 4: exactly what the master plan is. And then of course
16:52
Speaker 4: Israel is effectively continuing the genocide through multiple methods. Yesterday
16:58
Speaker 4: there was a bombing or a massacre at a beach
17:01
Speaker 4: cafe in Gaza City. I didn't show the video because
17:05
Speaker 4: again it's fairly gruesome, but this was just one post
17:09
Speaker 4: on x a masco at a beach cafe in Gaza
17:13
Speaker 4: City killing six people. I think it's narrowsen to seven,
17:16
Speaker 4: including a child, and wounding several others so far. And
17:20
Speaker 4: then I just wanted to show this video for people
17:22
Speaker 4: to get some kind of understanding of how now what
17:27
Speaker 4: is effectively the majority of the population that is crammed
17:31
Speaker 4: into these ten cities effectively on the beach, which is
17:35
Speaker 4: being regularly bombed. As I've just demonstrated, and as the
17:39
Speaker 4: accompanying post said, one of the martyrs was not killed
17:42
Speaker 4: by the missile. He drowned while wounded after falling into
17:46
Speaker 4: the sea during the horrific massacre committed by the forces
17:50
Speaker 4: moments ago when they bombed the tents of displaced people
17:53
Speaker 4: in the port west of Gaza. You can also see
17:57
Speaker 4: from that video the extent to which people are into
18:01
Speaker 4: these tense cities in temperatures around mid thirties to forty degrees,
18:06
Speaker 4: so they are effectively also being suffocated among the other
18:10
Speaker 4: miseries that are being foisted upon them. And then I
18:14
Speaker 4: mentioned the fact that Kushner makes absolutely no reference to
18:18
Speaker 4: the part of the plan where the Israeli forces are
18:21
Speaker 4: supposed to withdraw. The reality is they are now occupying
18:25
Speaker 4: seventy percent of the Garza strip, having pushed the entire
18:28
Speaker 4: population beyond the so called yellow line into the beach area.
18:34
Speaker 4: And this is a recent interview with Israel Katz, and
18:40
Speaker 4: I just wanted to play a section of this from
18:43
Speaker 4: Channel fourteen Hebrew Channel fourteen.
18:53
Speaker 12: Madame alash Maristo.
19:01
Speaker 10: Called Preimi.
19:03
Speaker 15: She by la sim come she shut up, she told, And.
19:17
Speaker 4: If we play the second part of the documentary, it
19:22
Speaker 4: will be very clear that the forces are not intending
19:25
Speaker 4: to withdraw. I was suppose.
19:32
Speaker 15: And Bahamas called the Hamas lo five okay.
19:46
Speaker 4: So even after Hamas's disarmed, they intend to continue occupying
19:52
Speaker 4: Gaza effectively. And this photo just demonstrates. This is taken
19:56
Speaker 4: from an article talking about the medical waste pollution. Medical
20:01
Speaker 4: waste treatment systems have halted and equipment destroyed. But no,
20:05
Speaker 4: not only medical waste of course, also sewage treatment plants,
20:11
Speaker 4: any kind of landfill is unavailable. There are dead bodies
20:16
Speaker 4: still under the rubble. So the spread of disease and
20:23
Speaker 4: just sickness throughout the area that is now occupied by
20:27
Speaker 4: the whole population of Gaza is also part of the
20:30
Speaker 4: continuing genocidal process. Then I wanted to come on to
20:35
Speaker 4: Israeli National security minister. It'sama Ben Gavir, and here he
20:40
Speaker 4: is in an interview with a former IOF soldier. And
20:48
Speaker 4: I'll reiterate what he says because the subtitles are not
20:51
Speaker 4: super clear, but let's just play it anyways.
20:56
Speaker 15: But podcast medi October and.
21:01
Speaker 4: The Lost, So the baim and yes.
21:20
Speaker 10: I live.
21:26
Speaker 4: So what he's basically saying. For those that probably couldn't
21:29
Speaker 4: read those subtitles, he says, I think targeted eliminations should
21:33
Speaker 4: be carried out in gods every night, take out thirty forty.
21:37
Speaker 4: Not only those who are endanger you at that particular moment.
21:40
Speaker 4: There are people there who shouldn't be alive. They shouldn't live.
21:44
Speaker 4: I'm already being generous by calling them people. And then,
21:48
Speaker 4: in the same conversation, which was with Rom Braslavski, very
21:53
Speaker 4: Semitic name there. In fact, he holds dual German nationality
21:58
Speaker 4: and the name originally would have come from either Russia
22:02
Speaker 4: or Poland. But Braslavski basically tells Ben Gavia asking the
22:08
Speaker 4: minister to let him be the one who hangs the
22:11
Speaker 4: Palestinians under the newly introduced death penalty. So let's just
22:15
Speaker 4: play this.
22:38
Speaker 10: Well, right, I mean, he's.
22:44
Speaker 4: So basically Braslovski. If people again couldn't read it, he said,
22:47
Speaker 4: I don't want to wrote with my own hands, I
22:49
Speaker 4: will execute every terrorist in the state of Israel. Van
22:53
Speaker 4: Givier's responses, I promise you, I'll try and turn the
22:56
Speaker 4: world upside down to make this happen. And then finally
23:00
Speaker 4: because again when we see very focused images of the
23:05
Speaker 4: destruction in Gaza, it's difficult to actually understand the extremity
23:11
Speaker 4: of what has gone on inside Gaza. So this is
23:14
Speaker 4: just a very simple before and after video first of all,
23:18
Speaker 4: showing Gaza City as it was, of course before October
23:23
Speaker 4: the seventh. I myself have been there many times. It's
23:28
Speaker 4: a beautiful area, usually absolutely bustling with people and life
23:33
Speaker 4: and markets and humanity. And that is like the rest
23:38
Speaker 4: of Gaza, of course, has been reduced to nothing more
23:41
Speaker 4: than a moonscape of rubble and death and destruction. And
23:47
Speaker 4: the fact that the Zionists are now effectively bulldozing this
23:50
Speaker 4: entire landscape, removing all evidence of the war crimes and
23:54
Speaker 4: the bodies, of course that are still buried under the
23:58
Speaker 4: miles and miles of rubble. That is now what Gaza
24:02
Speaker 4: has become.
24:05
Speaker 1: Fanessa, thank you extremely sobering, and I must say I'm
24:08
Speaker 1: very glad you played quite so many video clips, because
24:10
Speaker 1: I think it would be very easy for critics to say, oh, well,
24:12
Speaker 1: you've cherry picked that, or that's out of context. But
24:14
Speaker 1: I think putting that many of those sorts of statements
24:17
Speaker 1: together just gives the strongest possible reinforcement of the situation
24:22
Speaker 1: and something we will absolutely talk about more in extra now.
24:26
Speaker 1: The UK Column, as you may know, is supported by
24:30
Speaker 1: its members, and we are very grateful to those of
24:33
Speaker 1: you that do support us, but we would like more
24:36
Speaker 1: of you, so please do go to the website and
24:38
Speaker 1: look at ways in which you can support us. They
24:41
Speaker 1: include making a donation, which of course is good for
24:44
Speaker 1: us because the taxman doesn't get the vat, also a
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Speaker 1: monthly membership, an annual membership or indeed a lifetime membership,
24:52
Speaker 1: and other ways of supporting us are indeed there, such
24:55
Speaker 1: as going to the shop and buying one of our
24:58
Speaker 1: excellent quarterly magazine, The Column, the third issue of which
25:02
Speaker 1: is due to be coming out soon ish, which is
25:06
Speaker 1: very exciting, as is the fact that we are putting
25:09
Speaker 1: on our twentieth anniversary celebration in Plymouth next month. And
25:13
Speaker 1: not just that, but we have an excellent array of speakers,
25:17
Speaker 1: all of whom are listed on the website. Suppose do
25:19
Speaker 1: you go to the shop and also Basil, I'm listening.
25:22
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to listening to what you're going to
25:24
Speaker 1: have to say, there, what are you looking forward to?
25:27
Speaker 3: I hope I don't disappoint Charles. The title of my
25:30
Speaker 3: talk is Humanity Versus Insanity twenty twenty six. Humanity Versus
25:35
Speaker 3: Insanity was of course the name of the late great
25:39
Speaker 3: Ian Crane's YouTube channel, and it's never been more appropriate.
25:44
Speaker 3: But I'll be looking at all sorts of social, political
25:47
Speaker 3: and cultural changes over the last twenty years since the
25:50
Speaker 3: founding of UK column and asking whether indeed it is
25:54
Speaker 3: still simply insanity that we're faced with, or perhaps something
25:58
Speaker 3: even darker.
25:59
Speaker 1: Charles, Okay, well, that is set amongst many many other
26:03
Speaker 1: things to look forward to over that we can.
26:04
Speaker 2: As I say, there are a few tickets available.
26:05
Speaker 1: Also, the live stream is on sale on the website
26:08
Speaker 1: as well, so please don't do go and look at
26:11
Speaker 1: a way in which you can join us there.
26:13
Speaker 2: Now.
26:13
Speaker 1: Tonight Germ is speaking to James Walton, the Prepper, James
26:19
Speaker 1: Walton preparing for the worst that goes out at seven
26:21
Speaker 1: o'clock and then following that at nine o'clock, Karl Tzar
26:24
Speaker 1: with his Silk and Steel podcast speaking to Rashid Muhammad
26:28
Speaker 1: and the title there is the US Empire is collapsing China,
26:32
Speaker 1: Iran and bricks are changing the worlds. That should be
26:34
Speaker 1: an interesting discussion between those two. And then tomorrow we
26:38
Speaker 1: have Mark Anderson speaking to James Perloff and they're going
26:42
Speaker 1: to be covering a lot of ground with the subject
26:45
Speaker 1: American history set straight, so a lot to get into there.
26:48
Speaker 2: I'd also like.
26:49
Speaker 3: Just for James Perloff, absolutely terrific guests to have on.
26:53
Speaker 3: I've been the followers of his for years and very erudite,
26:56
Speaker 3: well ed man, fantastic.
26:59
Speaker 2: Good yes, thank you.
27:00
Speaker 1: And two articles which I really would recommend getting into,
27:03
Speaker 1: first of all by Professor David Miller, are there fifty
27:06
Speaker 1: thousand Israeli born individuals living in the UK? Essentially asking
27:09
Speaker 1: questions about the relationship between the IDF and the United Kingdom.
27:16
Speaker 1: And also from Christopher Hell actually related very much to
27:20
Speaker 1: what Vanessa is going to be dealing with. I think
27:22
Speaker 1: later on in the program, how Trump learned to stop
27:24
Speaker 1: worrying and love the bomb. This is talking about the
27:27
Speaker 1: United States depleted munitions, but the increase or at least
27:30
Speaker 1: the uplift in a nuclear supposed the nuclear capability, the
27:34
Speaker 1: return of Doctor Strangelove, so that by Christopher hell both
27:37
Speaker 1: up on the UK column website now and I really
27:39
Speaker 1: would encourage you not just to read them, but to
27:42
Speaker 1: share them please as well. Now we're going to move
27:46
Speaker 1: into the space arena because the United Kingdom has been
27:53
Speaker 1: making various announcements of varying kinds over the last few
27:58
Speaker 1: years and months about space, and the most recent seemingly
28:02
Speaker 1: fairly banal about the increase of Wi Fi capabilities on trains,
28:07
Speaker 1: better WiFi on remote trains, and access to cutting edge
28:10
Speaker 1: tech for British farmers through thirteen million boosts. And if
28:13
Speaker 1: you can see the slide that is actually what it
28:15
Speaker 1: looked like on the government website. The s that's meant
28:18
Speaker 1: to be on the end of communications had somehow fallen
28:21
Speaker 1: off the end and no one thought to correct it,
28:24
Speaker 1: which perhaps is indicative. But this is continuing the theme
28:27
Speaker 1: of suggesting that space tech activity is benign, peaceful and
28:31
Speaker 1: of course beneficial for communities, and this is very much
28:35
Speaker 1: enveloped in the document Spaceflight from the UK, which was
28:38
Speaker 1: put out in twenty twenty. The Space Minister Liz Lloyd
28:43
Speaker 1: has said that this will improve lives and that by
28:46
Speaker 1: backing brilliant British companies we are not only furthering our
28:49
Speaker 1: status as one of the world's leading space powers, but
28:52
Speaker 1: creating high quality jobs and new opportunities across the UK.
28:56
Speaker 1: As you're sorry, my apologies, that was from the previous
28:59
Speaker 1: document about the.
29:01
Speaker 2: Improved Wi Fi.
29:02
Speaker 1: But now we go to where this comes from, which is,
29:04
Speaker 1: as I say, put out by the UK Space Agency
29:07
Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty, at which point they announced the
29:12
Speaker 1: Launch UK project. Now I must say, as an aside,
29:15
Speaker 1: it's no coincident. That's these developments are set against the
29:20
Speaker 1: fanfare surrounding the planned trips to the Moon, and in
29:24
Speaker 1: this document they say the government's vision is for the
29:26
Speaker 1: UK to be at the global forefront of small satellite
29:29
Speaker 1: launch and emerging space transportation markets, providing world leading capability
29:35
Speaker 1: and all the rest of it. So as I say,
29:37
Speaker 1: very much focusing on the civilian application of all of this.
29:40
Speaker 1: Of course, the consultation was conducted during the restriction period
29:44
Speaker 1: of restrictions in twenty twenty to twenty twenty one, and
29:47
Speaker 1: the path really has been paid by the space industry
29:50
Speaker 1: at twenty eighteen, which will come back to as to
29:54
Speaker 1: whether lives have been improved, and the references to British
29:59
Speaker 1: companies we see slightly further down the document that we
30:03
Speaker 1: are working with international partners. We're working with international parts
30:06
Speaker 1: to develop strong global relationships, ensuring we have access to markets,
30:10
Speaker 1: financing and supply chains all around the world. And then
30:13
Speaker 1: they go on to talk about safeguards and international agreements
30:16
Speaker 1: and the rest of it. But I would say this
30:18
Speaker 1: is where it becomes slightly confusing when we take a
30:20
Speaker 1: bit of a zoom in as to what is actually
30:22
Speaker 1: going on. So we start at sax of Spaceport in Shetland,
30:26
Speaker 1: which was earmarked as a site some years ago and
30:29
Speaker 1: a launch was in fact meant to have taken place
30:32
Speaker 1: by now but has been delayed. And it asks questions
30:37
Speaker 1: about what exactly has been set in motion and indeed
30:42
Speaker 1: this idea that this is for the benefit of British businesses,
30:45
Speaker 1: because what is not made very clear is that the
30:48
Speaker 1: first launch from sax of Ord is due to be
30:51
Speaker 1: by Rocket Factory Augsburg, of course a German company, and
30:55
Speaker 1: not just that, but one that has had thirty million
30:59
Speaker 1: euros worth of funding from KKR. Now KKR you may
31:04
Speaker 1: well have heard of involved in a number of controversies,
31:08
Speaker 1: but an investment platform and just to make the sort
31:11
Speaker 1: of connection as to the sort of things that they
31:13
Speaker 1: have been involved in. They're on their own website say
31:15
Speaker 1: they recognize for providing a three hundred million dollar junior
31:19
Speaker 1: financing package to support the acquisition of Ultra Electronics, are
31:23
Speaker 1: leading UK based defense electronics provider and we go to
31:27
Speaker 1: the Campaign against the Arms Trade to see that. Back
31:30
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, Edinburgh University decided to withdraw its investments
31:34
Speaker 1: in Ultra Electronics due to its manufacturing of navigation controls
31:39
Speaker 1: for predator and reaper drones, because the machines were used
31:41
Speaker 1: by the United States in targeted killing missions in Pakistan,
31:45
Speaker 1: Yemen and Somalia. So in effect a direct link to
31:49
Speaker 1: the activity that's proposed or ready supposed to go ahead
31:51
Speaker 1: within the next few weeks in Shetland at Sacks of
31:54
Speaker 1: Ward Spaceport. But of course there is no reference, no
31:57
Speaker 1: allusion to what is actually involved and indeed the slightly
32:02
Speaker 1: holiday statements by supporting British businesses, now this does have
32:05
Speaker 1: a direct fact on British businesses because there is an
32:07
Speaker 1: effective range danger area, and I spoke to a number
32:11
Speaker 1: of fishing charter operators in Shetland particularly who are concerned
32:15
Speaker 1: with the danger area off the island of us and
32:18
Speaker 1: this is what they had to say.
32:21
Speaker 13: We're just unfounded, you know, It's just we can't believe
32:24
Speaker 13: it's actually happening and people can just walk all over
32:28
Speaker 13: you like that.
32:28
Speaker 14: Dam Kevin Tullock, I'm the skipper the Compass Rose and
32:33
Speaker 14: Angling charter Board.
32:34
Speaker 2: Jeffy I asked of Albacore Charters Keny A.
32:37
Speaker 13: Graham of Oberon Charters.
32:39
Speaker 14: Well, essentially what their proposing is three day, three days
32:44
Speaker 14: a week launch window between four and eight pm Monday,
32:47
Speaker 14: Wednesday and Friday, cutting off this huge exclusions owner of
32:51
Speaker 14: sea area where we were not allowed to enter and
32:53
Speaker 14: the gwinn and fish where we're where we're basically livelyho this.
32:58
Speaker 14: So we have we're not allowed to be on this
32:59
Speaker 14: area while they're doing a launch, so we're essentially being
33:03
Speaker 14: pushed aside.
33:03
Speaker 13: We have got people booked up by year eighteen months
33:06
Speaker 13: two years in advance, and we kind of tell them
33:09
Speaker 13: basically or we might meet no fish, or we might
33:12
Speaker 13: need to go elsewhere because we've got an exclusions on
33:16
Speaker 13: which is half the area or more where we fish.
33:19
Speaker 1: The obvious follow up is how much consultation was there
33:22
Speaker 1: with any of you about this partly zero.
33:26
Speaker 16: I didn't even know about it till one of the
33:28
Speaker 16: guys mentioned it too, is that this was actually happening.
33:31
Speaker 16: So we've had no communication from them to us whatsoever
33:36
Speaker 16: until we got in touch with them, which was about
33:38
Speaker 16: three weeks ago.
33:39
Speaker 14: They did all the public consultation during COVID when they
33:42
Speaker 14: knew that nobody could get out to come to public meetings.
33:45
Speaker 14: It was all done on a kept very quiet and
33:48
Speaker 14: not very well publicized, so none of the locals staying
33:51
Speaker 14: announced that were directly affected. They couldn't. They knew a
33:55
Speaker 14: little of it to be able to go on an
33:56
Speaker 14: exercise to their voice.
33:58
Speaker 1: Just to understand correctly, you are being told that you
34:01
Speaker 1: may not conduct your business in a large area of
34:06
Speaker 1: sea off the North coast Advanced whilst somebody else is
34:10
Speaker 1: able to conduct their business.
34:12
Speaker 2: Is that more or less.
34:13
Speaker 14: Yes, absolutely, Yeah, they're they're basically just they've rolled up
34:16
Speaker 14: and basically if the wind is in the wrong direction
34:19
Speaker 14: and they can't fish anywhere else, we'll will not be
34:22
Speaker 14: able to take any customers out, as as simple as that. Yeah,
34:26
Speaker 14: they're just walls. Then tell us you will been around
34:30
Speaker 14: about the way they're telling us.
34:31
Speaker 2: We can't go to work.
34:33
Speaker 13: I believe everything that put everything in the application, the
34:36
Speaker 13: plan and application way back six seven years ago when
34:39
Speaker 13: they applied and told them honestly that they've been dumping
34:42
Speaker 13: rocket boosters nineteen meters long and three four meters wide
34:46
Speaker 13: into the seabed and everything else that they've done up there.
34:49
Speaker 13: They've been there, got the planning permission to start.
34:53
Speaker 1: So another crystical part there about the environmental impact of
34:56
Speaker 1: enormous parts of rockets just being discharged into the SAI. Again,
35:00
Speaker 1: this is all being done by a private company. Now,
35:03
Speaker 1: what is enabled that is the Space Industry Act going
35:05
Speaker 1: back to twenty eighteen, which has meant that the Civil
35:10
Speaker 1: Aviation Authority, once it's granted a license, will enable a
35:14
Speaker 1: private company to set restrictions. And it's not just accordinging
35:18
Speaker 1: off of enormous area of c but also an effective
35:21
Speaker 1: lockdown for the residents of the island of Bunts on
35:24
Speaker 1: any of the days that the spaceport might be active.
35:27
Speaker 1: And of course they are able to do this on
35:29
Speaker 1: three different days of any given week of the year.
35:32
Speaker 1: It's obviously subject to some notice being given. Now, the
35:35
Speaker 1: Civil Aviation Authority, as I say it, has granted sax
35:38
Speaker 1: of Ord the range license and exactly what that entails
35:43
Speaker 1: or may entail, is in effect up to the spaceport itself,
35:48
Speaker 1: which frankly gives them an enormous amount of control over
35:52
Speaker 1: the activities of the people that live and work nearby.
35:56
Speaker 1: And to go back to the point about this apparently
35:58
Speaker 1: supporting British businesses, which is clearly actually it doesn't, and
36:01
Speaker 1: is bringing in investment from overseas, and not just overseas,
36:06
Speaker 1: but investment that is coming from a place that is
36:08
Speaker 1: involved in a number of other controversial activities. This is
36:11
Speaker 1: all looking distinctly different from the way in which it's
36:14
Speaker 1: being sold. And the diagram here showing all the various
36:17
Speaker 1: elements of the control licenses, covering obviously not just what
36:21
Speaker 1: goes on in the sky, but also to sea and
36:23
Speaker 1: the land. Now, the other thing that I was keen
36:25
Speaker 1: to find out was what part, if any, of the
36:28
Speaker 1: Ministry of Defense is playing in any of this, And
36:32
Speaker 1: I had asked questions repeatedly. They assured me that the
36:36
Speaker 1: Ministry of Defense has no current contracts with sacks of
36:39
Speaker 1: Ord Spaceport. Now I've put current contracts in bold because
36:44
Speaker 1: to me that suggests there is absolutely a possibility that
36:46
Speaker 1: there is going to be a direct military application for
36:49
Speaker 1: what is going to go ahead there. They also went
36:51
Speaker 1: on in the statement that they did eventually supply me
36:53
Speaker 1: with to say the government aims to use domestic launch
36:56
Speaker 1: capabilities for defense and civil needs, so straight away the
36:59
Speaker 1: dual use element there. While the UK launch industry is
37:03
Speaker 1: in its early stages, collaboration between government industry with international
37:06
Speaker 1: partners will be a key in building a scalable and
37:08
Speaker 1: sustainable launch capability. And then they go on to mention
37:12
Speaker 1: Starlift and NATO Space Cooperation Program and all the rest
37:16
Speaker 1: of it. Now interesting to note also that sax of
37:18
Speaker 1: Bards Spaceboard itself has not responded to any of my
37:22
Speaker 1: inquiries at all, so I think there's going to be
37:24
Speaker 1: much more to go into on this. But I think
37:26
Speaker 1: the simple fact when what's your take on the ability
37:29
Speaker 1: of a company that is not British with funding from elsewhere,
37:33
Speaker 1: being able to affect the lives of those people that
37:36
Speaker 1: live and work there, well.
37:37
Speaker 3: Cert it's all too typical of a lot of the
37:39
Speaker 3: legislation we've seen past in recent years, so called private
37:43
Speaker 3: public partnerships, all that financing which was been ridiculously expensive
37:48
Speaker 3: and here's another case of the government basically abdicating responsibility
37:53
Speaker 3: to citizens in favor of, in this case a foreign corporation.
37:58
Speaker 3: The environmental damage obviously he hasn't been probably assessed. But
38:01
Speaker 3: above all, why should they be able to come in
38:06
Speaker 3: and ride roughshod over the interests of the local population,
38:10
Speaker 3: particularly in what is still you know it very well
38:14
Speaker 3: relatively pristine area up there in Shetland.
38:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of un answered questions,
38:19
Speaker 1: and I think the vagueness of the information that's come
38:23
Speaker 1: out is frankly scandals and no, what we're going to
38:25
Speaker 1: do is come back to events first south and to
38:28
Speaker 1: reacquaint ourselves with the death of Police Constable Andrew Harper,
38:31
Speaker 1: and in particular what's been happening since then Basel.
38:34
Speaker 3: Of course, Andrew Harper was tragically killed when trying to
38:38
Speaker 3: prevent the theft of a quad bike in Wiltshire some
38:42
Speaker 3: years ago, and the government's early release scheme made it
38:46
Speaker 3: look as if he was about to be released after
38:50
Speaker 3: this killer Sorry, we're about to be released after serving
38:53
Speaker 3: only a few years now. In an attempt to block
38:56
Speaker 3: the early release of BC Harper's killers, ministers are said
38:59
Speaker 3: to be mulling an exemption that would stop those convicted
39:03
Speaker 3: of an unlawful act of manslaughter from being automatically given lead,
39:07
Speaker 3: and other forms of manslaughter, such as gross negligence or
39:10
Speaker 3: voluntary manslaughter, would still be released under these plans. This
39:15
Speaker 3: is a somewhat arbitrary distinction, isn't it, and one that
39:18
Speaker 3: particularly affects the victims of domestic abuse. Now joining me
39:24
Speaker 3: to answer these thorny questions is doctor Stewart wait On,
39:28
Speaker 3: Senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Avata in Dundee.
39:33
Speaker 3: Welcome to the program, Stuart.
39:36
Speaker 10: Thank you.
39:38
Speaker 3: It does seem like the Government of doug themselves a
39:41
Speaker 3: rather big hole here and jumped into it. And we're
39:44
Speaker 3: getting conflicting stories now about who is and who isn't
39:48
Speaker 3: going to be released depending on what type of man's
39:51
Speaker 3: staughter you've committed. But it's all turning into a bit
39:54
Speaker 3: of a mess, isn't it.
39:56
Speaker 10: It is.
39:57
Speaker 17: I mean, one of the problems I have with this.
40:01
Speaker 17: The reaction is these policies should be general, so you know,
40:07
Speaker 17: if the government change their mind on this. It's a
40:12
Speaker 17: kind of knee jerk reaction which I have a problem with.
40:17
Speaker 17: But at the same time, I also have a problem
40:20
Speaker 17: with the fact that the approach that prisons take and
40:26
Speaker 17: the criminal justice takes seems to often be disconnected from
40:31
Speaker 17: the public. So the public have got much more of
40:34
Speaker 17: a sense of the need for punishment than I suspect
40:39
Speaker 17: longer sentences, and the government seems to have a much
40:43
Speaker 17: more empathetic or restorative for reformation type of approach. And
40:53
Speaker 17: I do think that is a big problem that we
40:56
Speaker 17: for many years now, perhaps of those in the case,
41:00
Speaker 17: but noticeable since certainly the sixties, you seem to have
41:04
Speaker 17: this distinction between progressive or liberal criminal justice professionals and
41:11
Speaker 17: the public. So you get all sorts of policies being developed,
41:16
Speaker 17: like the abolition capital punishment so on.
41:21
Speaker 10: That most people disagree with.
41:22
Speaker 17: Now, whatever you think about individual policies in a democracy,
41:30
Speaker 17: fundamental things like systems of punishment reflect what the public think,
41:37
Speaker 17: and I think that is the underlying problem that we're
41:40
Speaker 17: seeing here.
41:42
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly in the case of PC Andrew Harper, two
41:47
Speaker 3: of his killers, Jesse Cole and Albert BoA's, were on
41:52
Speaker 3: course to walk free after serving just six and a
41:55
Speaker 3: half years, so the public will no doubt be asking
41:58
Speaker 3: if there are other lower profile killers are also set
42:02
Speaker 3: to be released that appear to have served remarkably short sentences.
42:07
Speaker 3: As you say, the public and the criminal justice system
42:10
Speaker 3: have got different ideas about the suitable punishment for ending
42:16
Speaker 3: somebody's life.
42:18
Speaker 10: They have.
42:19
Speaker 17: They're also you see, the system that you would ideally want,
42:24
Speaker 17: is you want a system where the public think that
42:26
Speaker 17: level of punishment is legitimate.
42:29
Speaker 10: That makes sense to me.
42:30
Speaker 17: So this situation where you could murder somebody and do
42:35
Speaker 17: fifteen years, I think to most people seems bizarre, right,
42:41
Speaker 17: fifteen years for taking somebody's life. It almost seems worth
42:46
Speaker 17: it in a strict averse kind of way. And that
42:53
Speaker 17: just I think that's a problem. And you look at
42:56
Speaker 17: other places, certainly in American certain states, you know, you
42:59
Speaker 17: talk know, if you kill somebody, that's your entire life, right,
43:02
Speaker 17: So there's this huge disparity, which doesn't mean that I
43:06
Speaker 17: want to necessarily celebrate here, let's just put everyone in
43:10
Speaker 17: prison forever. But nevertheless, I think that is a problem.
43:14
Speaker 17: And then of course when you then put these you know,
43:18
Speaker 17: these sentences in half, whether it's thirteen years down to
43:21
Speaker 17: six and a half, people.
43:23
Speaker 10: Start scratching their heads.
43:25
Speaker 17: But at the same time, I think and I think
43:27
Speaker 17: it actually undermines it. I think we need to have
43:30
Speaker 17: a society that it absolutely says, once you serve your time,
43:36
Speaker 17: you are free. And I think we seem to be
43:38
Speaker 17: moving away from that as well, because I mean, I
43:40
Speaker 17: certainly remember going for jobs and so on, and you
43:43
Speaker 17: would fill out a form and it would always have
43:46
Speaker 17: the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and so on, and it
43:49
Speaker 17: was this idea that actually, society should punish you and
43:54
Speaker 17: once you but once you're out, society should welcome you
43:57
Speaker 17: back into society. And to some extent, I think we've
44:01
Speaker 17: both dimensions of this. I mean, if I could just say,
44:03
Speaker 17: I also think that an underlying problem, this is one
44:07
Speaker 17: of my academic obsessions, is I think we live in
44:11
Speaker 17: an essentially to be called a victim culture, and that
44:15
Speaker 17: has all sorts of repercussions. But one of the repercussions
44:19
Speaker 17: is that once you go to prison, you start to
44:22
Speaker 17: be conceptualized as a victim, right that you're there because
44:26
Speaker 17: of things that happened in your life in society, your
44:30
Speaker 17: p on the kind of the abuse excuse idea. And
44:35
Speaker 17: I would suggest that if you go around and talk
44:37
Speaker 17: to prison governors in this country, almost none of them
44:41
Speaker 17: believe in prisons, right, Almost none of them genuinely think
44:46
Speaker 17: that punishment and prisons are a useful thing for society.
44:52
Speaker 10: Almost none of them.
44:54
Speaker 17: And that's a problem, you know, this, that we seem
44:58
Speaker 17: to have a lack of a sense of the significance
45:01
Speaker 17: of what punishment means and why it is actually necessary
45:05
Speaker 17: and to some extent a good thing. That actually, if
45:08
Speaker 17: you do something wrong, you deserve and should want to
45:11
Speaker 17: be punished, and we seem to really lack that at
45:14
Speaker 17: the minute.
45:16
Speaker 3: Absolutely, but surely the whole early release scheme is indicative
45:20
Speaker 3: of the failure of government not just to build enough
45:23
Speaker 3: prison places for people, but also failing of the police
45:27
Speaker 3: to prevent a crime. You know, how come here in
45:31
Speaker 3: the third decade of the twenty first century we need
45:35
Speaker 3: so many more prison places.
45:38
Speaker 10: Yeah, well, good question.
45:40
Speaker 17: I'm never too keen to jump on the idea that
45:43
Speaker 17: police preventing crime. I've been watching the wire again for
45:49
Speaker 17: the third time, and I feel sorry for the police
45:53
Speaker 17: when they get it in the neck.
45:55
Speaker 10: If there was the police.
45:56
Speaker 17: You know, what's the statistics for the month, and they're
45:58
Speaker 17: all trying to fit middlest statistics and the crime stats
46:05
Speaker 17: ludicrous scenarios. So you know, I'm not convinced that the
46:09
Speaker 17: police can necessarily play that much of a role in
46:12
Speaker 17: the overall trend of crime and how crime is developed,
46:17
Speaker 17: although obviously they can do something. But yeah, I do
46:20
Speaker 17: think that there is a problem with this early release
46:23
Speaker 17: system and the lack of prisons, and of course, build
46:27
Speaker 17: more prisons. It's an obvious thing that is necessary fund
46:30
Speaker 17: the criminal justice system.
46:32
Speaker 10: Build more prisons.
46:33
Speaker 17: But we seem incapable of building almost anything at the minute.
46:37
Speaker 17: I mean, I often joke that I live in Dundee.
46:41
Speaker 17: In this work being done on the bridge, it take
46:43
Speaker 17: sort of eight months, and you think, well, by the
46:46
Speaker 17: time they've managed to do this a little bit of
46:48
Speaker 17: work on the bridge, China's probably built about three cities.
46:53
Speaker 17: And it just seems to be there's an absolutely incompetence
46:56
Speaker 17: and incapacity to just solve problems and get on the things.
47:01
Speaker 10: We clearly need more prisons. Build prisons.
47:04
Speaker 17: Then we wouldn't have to be trying to artificially chase
47:08
Speaker 17: people out of prison who absolutely should be serving their time.
47:14
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, a case in point being the perpetrators of
47:20
Speaker 3: the rapes against or Fiona Goddard, who is aged fourteen,
47:28
Speaker 3: her attackers look like being released very shortly, three of them.
47:34
Speaker 3: Extremely depressing situation.
47:35
Speaker 17: Steward it is, but again, this is part of the
47:41
Speaker 17: victim cultus framework, is that I don't like that individual
47:48
Speaker 17: case has become headline cases, and I don't like that
47:52
Speaker 17: we developed victim laws like Bill Clinton developed Clares law,
47:57
Speaker 17: and he's there. I think it's politicians lack authority and
48:03
Speaker 17: cling onto victims to some sort of legitimacy, and so
48:07
Speaker 17: I don't like that individual cases end up creating law
48:11
Speaker 17: because I think that's reactionary. I think what we need
48:14
Speaker 17: is to have a proper public discussion about what sort
48:17
Speaker 17: of criminal justice system we want, what resources are needed,
48:20
Speaker 17: what sentences we should have, and what the purpose of
48:23
Speaker 17: prisons are, so that we actually have a sense of
48:26
Speaker 17: legitimacy about the system itself and the overall rules, rather
48:31
Speaker 17: than having these one or knee jerk victim empathetic kind
48:37
Speaker 17: of laws being developed on the hoof, which I just
48:41
Speaker 17: think are often reactionary and not really a useful way
48:45
Speaker 17: to develop public policy.
48:49
Speaker 3: Very good point, and thank you so much for joining
48:51
Speaker 3: us today. On you a column news doc to Stuart
48:54
Speaker 3: wait On.
48:56
Speaker 2: Thanks all, thanks very much, sir. That was That was fascinating.
48:59
Speaker 1: Now we're going to go back to Vanessa, and I
49:00
Speaker 1: think this will relate to the subject of the Christopher
49:03
Speaker 1: Hell article that I was talking about, because of course
49:05
Speaker 1: it's talking about the capabilities of nuclear weapons, whether or
49:09
Speaker 1: not they may or may not exist, and specifically with
49:13
Speaker 1: regard to Syria.
49:14
Speaker 2: Vanessa.
49:16
Speaker 4: Yes, people may not be aware, but there is a
49:20
Speaker 4: nuclear issue as far as Israel is concerned in Syria.
49:25
Speaker 4: Sound familiar, but anyway, this was a headlined in Axios,
49:30
Speaker 4: which is very much Israeli mouthpiece fa Melia. This was
49:34
Speaker 4: on August the tenth scoop us Broker's secret deal on
49:37
Speaker 4: clandestine Syrian nuclear site. Now I would argue that it's
49:41
Speaker 4: not clandestine what it says in the article. The Trump
49:44
Speaker 4: administration and IAEA scrambled to reach diplomatic agreement to secure
49:49
Speaker 4: the material and prevent an escalation involving Israel, Syria and
49:54
Speaker 4: possibly even Turkey over the sensitive site. So what are
49:58
Speaker 4: they talking about now? People may not be aware, but
50:01
Speaker 4: back in two thousand and seven there was the Zionist
50:05
Speaker 4: Operation Orchard or also known as Operation Outside the Box.
50:09
Speaker 4: If I can help the slide up it's fine how
50:11
Speaker 4: in Israeli operation derail Syria's nuclear weapons drive and so
50:17
Speaker 4: this is just a reminder Israel's preemptive attack a decade
50:21
Speaker 4: ago on a plutonium reactor, alleged plutonium reactor in the
50:25
Speaker 4: Syrian does it not only derail damascuses drive for nuclear weapons,
50:30
Speaker 4: but spared the world the specter of mass destruction capabilities
50:33
Speaker 4: falling into the hands of the Islamic State Group. Interesting
50:36
Speaker 4: that they knew that the Islamic State Group were to
50:39
Speaker 4: exist in two thousand and seven. That's the message behind
50:43
Speaker 4: Israel's first ever official account of its operation outside the box,
50:47
Speaker 4: the four hour mission that began before midnight on September
50:51
Speaker 4: the fifth, two thousand and seven, to destroy Syria's top
50:54
Speaker 4: secret and nearly operational Al Kebar nuclear facility just weeks
50:59
Speaker 4: before it went hot, allegedly, of course, developed in collaboration
51:03
Speaker 4: with North Korea. Now Raphael Grossi, the head of the
51:09
Speaker 4: Atomic Energy Agency, has been in Damascus alongside former founder
51:16
Speaker 4: of al Qaeda and current foreign Minister of the khistling
51:19
Speaker 4: regime in Syria, a said al Schaibarni. Syria granted access
51:24
Speaker 4: to the Derozor site after more than eighteen years through
51:28
Speaker 4: its own initiative and a sovereign decision, of course forced
51:31
Speaker 4: upon them by the US. Syria firms its sovereign and
51:34
Speaker 4: legal right to the civilian and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
51:39
Speaker 4: Syria are firms that tried to possess a peaceful nuclear
51:42
Speaker 4: program and benefit from its application. Syria hopes that Grossi's
51:47
Speaker 4: report will reflect the progress achieved in nuclear cooperation.
51:51
Speaker 5: Now.
51:52
Speaker 4: An article in the Jerusalem Post, according to the report,
51:57
Speaker 4: Al Schaibarni emphasized that the material discover in Syria's de
52:00
Speaker 4: Resor site will remain in Syrian custody subject to IAA guarantees.
52:07
Speaker 4: I'm quite sure that Israel is not going to be
52:09
Speaker 4: happy with that. He says. We will provide the necessary
52:12
Speaker 4: conditions for handling nuclear materials and storing them safely. And
52:16
Speaker 4: he further noted that Damascus, on its own initiative, permitted
52:21
Speaker 4: the nuclear inspection. Now, what is kind of interesting, at
52:27
Speaker 4: the time that this inspection was ongoing, Israel actually decided
52:31
Speaker 4: to bomb what they described as an advance by Israel
52:36
Speaker 4: into Syrian territory. In fact, at the if I could
52:40
Speaker 4: just have the slide up on screen, thank you. Eight
52:43
Speaker 4: Israeli air strikes hit the Syrian air base at Abdhor.
52:48
Speaker 4: The base itself, if we can have the map, is
52:51
Speaker 4: about seventy kilometers east of the Turkish border. It's been
52:55
Speaker 4: out of service as a dedicated military airfield since twenty thirteen,
53:00
Speaker 4: changed terns multiple times during the regime change war against Syria.
53:04
Speaker 4: Now Israel is claiming, according to a post from the
53:09
Speaker 4: Israeli Prime Minister's office, that Israel and Syria agreed to
53:14
Speaker 4: a status growing security matters which Syria was on the
53:17
Speaker 4: verge of breaching by permitting Turkish troops to deploy it
53:21
Speaker 4: an air base near Aleppo. Israel repeatedly warned Syria that
53:25
Speaker 4: such a deployment would pose a threat to Israel's security.
53:28
Speaker 4: Syria chose to ignore these warnings. Syria, of course, is
53:31
Speaker 4: denying that there were any moves by Turkey to establish bases.
53:35
Speaker 4: Sources on the ground are telling me that in reality,
53:38
Speaker 4: Turkey is establishing military posts and basis, particularly in the
53:43
Speaker 4: coastal area near Latakia. Tom Barrack, the Trump's envoy to
53:49
Speaker 4: the region, has said that effectively, the strikes are bringing
53:53
Speaker 4: Turkey and Israel closer to a conflict than ever before.
53:57
Speaker 4: The chief of staff of the Israe really occupation forces
54:01
Speaker 4: is currently in the south of Syria on a visit
54:04
Speaker 4: to the forces that are occupying Syrian territory. There so
54:07
Speaker 4: fairly a strong message on going at the moment. Whether
54:10
Speaker 4: this is performative or not remains to be seen. But
54:13
Speaker 4: last night Israeli plains war jets were flying over the
54:18
Speaker 4: entire Syrian territory.
54:22
Speaker 1: Fanica, thanks very much, and I think we'd like to
54:23
Speaker 1: come back to the whether or not it is performative
54:26
Speaker 1: an extra but certainly a weighty subject.
54:30
Speaker 2: Of course.
54:31
Speaker 1: Now we're going to come back to the United Kingdom,
54:33
Speaker 1: although not in its entirety, but to deal with something
54:37
Speaker 1: that happened exactly two years ago, which at the point
54:40
Speaker 1: it happened I labeled as being a terrible concidence. And
54:44
Speaker 1: this of course was the death of not just Stephen Chamberlain,
54:49
Speaker 1: but also Mike Lynch, the co founders of what was
54:55
Speaker 1: then Autonomy, which had had the controversial safe to Hewlett Packard,
55:01
Speaker 1: but also at the same time the witness Jonathan Bloomer
55:07
Speaker 1: and indeed their lawyer Chris Morvillo. Now, if this is
55:11
Speaker 1: not a story that rings bell with you, it was
55:15
Speaker 1: most perverse in that Lynch and Chamberlain had sold their business, Autonomy,
55:21
Speaker 1: to Hewlett Packard for eleven billion dollars. Hewlett Packard subsequently
55:25
Speaker 1: decided that they had been defrauded because they believed that
55:28
Speaker 1: the value of the company was well overstated. And the
55:32
Speaker 1: deaths of these men happened immediately after the conclusion of
55:36
Speaker 1: a trial which in fact found that they were not
55:39
Speaker 1: to be found guilty of fraud. And these incidents took
55:43
Speaker 1: place into totally different places, one off the coast of
55:47
Speaker 1: Italy and the other Stephen Chamberlain in Cambridgeshire. Now, the
55:51
Speaker 1: reason this is worth talking about, I think, is because
55:55
Speaker 1: this relates to cybersecurity and what happened after the sale
56:01
Speaker 1: of Autonomy was that it went into the money that
56:03
Speaker 1: the proceeds went to Invoke Capital, which subsequently set up
56:07
Speaker 1: dark Trace. Now, as to any investigation, and this is
56:11
Speaker 1: going back to the UK column News, I reported on
56:14
Speaker 1: this a couple of years ago. Still this is the
56:17
Speaker 1: update from the Marine Accident Investigation Board. There is still
56:20
Speaker 1: only an interim report two years later. But certainly dark Trace,
56:27
Speaker 1: which as I say, was born from the proceeds of
56:30
Speaker 1: the sale to Hewlett Packard, has moved on a pace,
56:33
Speaker 1: and we go back to twenty fifteen to see that
56:35
Speaker 1: the then Chief Executive joined the then Prime Minister Dave
56:39
Speaker 1: Cameron on an official cybersecurity visit to Washington, d C. Surprise, surprise.
56:44
Speaker 1: Just three years later the UK Government Department signed I
56:48
Speaker 1: think this signed a multimillion dollar contract with dark Trace,
56:53
Speaker 1: and then more recently still we had the then Chief Executive,
56:57
Speaker 1: Poppy Gustavson on stage with the director GCHQ and Keith Butler. Now,
57:04
Speaker 1: of course it's worth pointing out that dark Trace makes
57:07
Speaker 1: absolutely no secret of having been founded alongside a lot
57:12
Speaker 1: of security and intelligence personnel. Certainly that they declare obviously
57:17
Speaker 1: who the former people were, not necessarily who the serving
57:22
Speaker 1: ones are. But I think this speaks volumes about the
57:25
Speaker 1: relationship between the cybersecurity industry and the government, but also
57:30
Speaker 1: how this runs alongside the continued uplift in surveillance and
57:36
Speaker 1: the enormous changes that are made to our day to
57:39
Speaker 1: day lives, and of course the suspicion that comes with
57:42
Speaker 1: it and slightly oblique buzzle. But you, on your way
57:46
Speaker 1: down to Plymouth, or at least coming here, have had
57:48
Speaker 1: a sort of a strange personal experience that I suppose
57:52
Speaker 1: is in some ways related to what it is we're
57:55
Speaker 1: talking about.
57:56
Speaker 3: Well, yes, childs, we're a very minor incident compared to
58:00
Speaker 3: on what happened a couple of years ago. But when
58:03
Speaker 3: I went to check into my accommodation here in Plymouth
58:07
Speaker 3: on Monday, I was asked for my passport. Well, it
58:11
Speaker 3: turns out that the book and company had sent an
58:13
Speaker 3: email to a secondary email address I used because obviously
58:16
Speaker 3: won't get so many emails off and their a primary address.
58:19
Speaker 3: I'd missed this email, and it had a stipulation that
58:22
Speaker 3: some form of government issue ID was required in order
58:27
Speaker 3: to complete the so called verification process and rent a
58:32
Speaker 3: cheap room in Plymouth for a few days. Seems extraordinary.
58:36
Speaker 3: Now things were bound to turn ugly. I was about
58:39
Speaker 3: to say, I'm here to work for a media company
58:42
Speaker 3: and I'm going to make sure everybody hears all about this.
58:46
Speaker 3: Fortunately I found the relevant page of my passport in
58:51
Speaker 3: a photograph on my phone, so I was able to
58:55
Speaker 3: show that common sense prevailed and I was able to proceed.
59:00
Speaker 3: But you don't need a passport to preview your identity
59:03
Speaker 3: in the UK for anything, and I don't see why
59:05
Speaker 3: checking into accommodation should be any different from anything else.
59:09
Speaker 3: I actually had a railcard which he's got a photograph
59:11
Speaker 3: of me on it in my name, so this officiousness
59:15
Speaker 3: around proving yourself. Interestingly, the app that I was directed
59:20
Speaker 3: to also gave me the option of uploading details of
59:24
Speaker 3: my national identity ID. Well I didn't know that we
59:27
Speaker 3: had one yet. Yeah, well there we go. I mean,
59:30
Speaker 3: ever encroaching and of course dark Traces.
59:32
Speaker 1: Tagline is that their AI tools learn you. They're all
59:36
Speaker 1: about pattern of life and as I say, the constant
59:38
Speaker 1: sort of tracking, monitoring and surveilling. So I think it's
59:41
Speaker 1: no coincidence that this agenda is pushing ahead and you've
59:44
Speaker 1: experienced exactly what you have. Now we are going to
59:46
Speaker 1: finish off by examining the plight of the poor New
59:51
Speaker 1: Farming Minister Stephen Morgan, who, in the words of the
59:55
Speaker 1: Sun not a great look. New Farming Minister faints at
59:58
Speaker 1: the sight of meat after feeling un well while touring
1:00:01
Speaker 1: cold storage unit. Sadly I don't have a photograph of that,
1:00:04
Speaker 1: but here is upright making friends with a live beast,
1:00:09
Speaker 1: but apparently was unable to tolerate the site of butchered meat.
1:00:14
Speaker 1: So that's the state of things in the United Kingdom,
1:00:17
Speaker 1: or at least most particularly in government in twenty twenty six.
1:00:21
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, indeed for joining us. If you
1:00:23
Speaker 1: are a member, please stay on for extra which will
1:00:26
Speaker 1: start in about ten minutes. And don't forget that Germs
1:00:29
Speaker 1: interview goes out at seven, Carl's at nine, and then
1:00:32
Speaker 1: we've got Mark's interview with James Perloff at one o'clock
1:00:36
Speaker 1: tomorrow afternoon. And as I say that, our tickets available
1:00:40
Speaker 1: for the event coming up next month, Basil will be there.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: It's going to be absolutely terrific. Basil, thank you very
1:00:45
Speaker 1: much for joining me on the program. Pleasure Edessa, thank
1:00:48
Speaker 1: you too, and we will see you again at one
1:00:50
Speaker 1: pm on Friday afternoon.
1:00:52
Speaker 2: Goodbye, good bye,