Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News — 11th February 2026

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UK Column News — 11th February 2026 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Good afternoon. It's Wednesday 11th of February
0:10
2026, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK Column News.
0:13
I'm your host, Mike Robinson. Joining me, joining me in the
0:15
studio today is Brian Garish. Welcome to the programme, Brian.
0:18
Pleasure, Mike. Pleasure in a while it it has,
0:21
yeah. So it's going to be an
0:23
interesting news. Yes, and we're going to be
0:25
joined today by Doctor Liz Evans.
0:27
So later in the programme, Liz is going to be covering the
0:29
latest news on assisted dying. We're going to take a look at
0:34
foreign interference and intelligence vetting.
0:37
But of course, we're going to have to begin today with the
0:39
Epstein situation, Brian. And, well, yesterday,
0:43
Congressman Ro Canna in the United States was joined by
0:46
Thomas Massie in a visit to the US State Department.
0:48
Sorry, U.S. Department of Justice, to try to
0:51
understand why so much of the Epstein files are still
0:54
redacted. On the way, he was questioned by
0:58
journalists, and he made some comments about the British
1:00
monarchy, as we'll hear in a second.
1:02
But he began by addressing the fact that Glenn Maxwell is
1:06
apparently no longer answering questions.
1:08
Let's have a listen to what he said.
1:12
I submitted to Comer a letter with six or seven questions.
1:17
Things like who were the other Co conspirators?
1:21
Who were the other men who raped these underage girls?
1:25
Did she have any conversations about a deal with Donald Trump?
1:29
Now she's taking a blanket 5th Amendment on any question.
1:33
And my view is that a many of my questions don't in any way
1:37
incriminate her. So we'll see what she does.
1:40
But there's seven questions that I have specifically asked.
1:43
And the assumption is she's pleading the 5th to each one of
1:46
those. And the American people will say
1:48
that there's an inconsistency. Why did she not plead the 5th
1:51
when Blanche asked her questions and now she's pleading the 5th
1:55
about things that don't implicate her but may implicate
1:58
many of the other powerful people in the Epstein class that
2:01
committed these crimes. Mandelson may bring down the
2:04
whole government from what I hear, you know, he just engaged
2:08
in terrible behaviour. I mean, the allegations are very
2:11
serious that he was working for Gordon Brown and then feeding
2:14
information about UK, possibly buying EUR and having Epstein
2:20
trade on that. I mean, it is a deeply, deeply
2:22
troubling. And you know, Epstein's, I saw
2:25
this interview with Epstein's former girlfriend talking about
2:28
how someone is a loser if they weren't mentioned in the Epstein
2:31
files. It's a window.
2:33
It's a window into the elite impunity this.
2:37
And by the way, I think this is the the most vulnerable the
2:42
British monarchy has ever been. I mean, I heard they were asking
2:45
the Queen questions about the Epstein class.
2:47
They they ought to ask the King and Queen questions.
2:49
And maybe this will be the end of the monarchy.
2:52
Oh, the King has to answer what he knew, what he knew about
2:55
Andrew. And just stripping Andrew of a
2:58
title is not enough. I mean, Andrew needs to come
3:00
before our committee and start answering questions.
3:03
I mean, look, if you are have allegations of raping a young
3:06
girl, I don't think the the the appropriate punishment is you no
3:11
longer get to be a Prince and there's got to be more than
3:13
that. Well, I think he's probably
3:18
absolutely correct about that. Indeed and and refreshing Mike
3:23
to see somebody questioned, questions, politician, senior
3:27
politician being questioned and being forthright in his comments
3:30
about how he sees things and what he thinks he's looking at.
3:35
Well, King Charles may have said a couple of days ago that the
3:38
royal family would fully cooperate with any British
3:40
police investigation into Andrew, but what about an
3:43
investigation into Charles Brown?
3:45
Because he still hasn't. To my mind, he still hasn't
3:48
addressed questions regarding his relationship with Jimmy
3:51
Savile as we put this on screen. So so you know, there's still
3:56
lots of questions about it that relationship and and what
4:00
exactly how close it was. And in fact, Savile's
4:04
relationship to many others within the British establishment
4:06
as well. And of course, taking the the
4:09
topic slightly broader, Brian, the British establishment still
4:13
tries to downplay the the raids list.
4:16
And so you know, this, this is not something which is just
4:19
limited to Epstein. And I think this is something
4:21
we've got to keep in mind. Absolutely.
4:23
Well, the cynical part of me wanted to say straight away with
4:27
regard to Savile. The thing is, Mike, that nobody
4:30
knew it it it, it was just unfortunate.
4:34
Nobody knew what he was doing. But isn't that the same excuse
4:37
for Epstein as well? Nobody.
4:38
'S point, yeah. Exactly.
4:40
Yeah. So coming back to to Rocana then
4:43
following his Massey's visit to the Department of Justice, he
4:47
had this to say on the floor of the House of Representatives.
4:52
Yesterday, Congressman Massey and I went to the Department of
4:56
Justice to read the unredacted Epstein files.
5:00
We spent about two hours there, and we learned that 70 to 80% of
5:05
the files are still redacted. In fact, there were six wealthy,
5:12
powerful men that the DOJ hid for no apparent reason.
5:17
When Congressman Massey and I pointed this out to the
5:21
Department of Justice, they acknowledge their mistake and
5:24
now they have revealed the identity of these six powerful
5:28
men. These men are Salvatore Navora,
5:33
Zorab Michaladz, Leopig Leonor, Nicola Caputa, Sultan Ahmed bin
5:41
Solyam, CEO of Dubai Ports World and billionaire businessman
5:46
Leslie Wexner who was labelled as a Co conspirator by the FBI.
5:54
Now, one of the other points that he's making is that there
5:56
are a number of other so called Co conspirators that are still
6:01
fairly well hidden and he's demanding that those names are
6:07
released and unredacted. So, you know, I don't know what
6:09
your thoughts are. Well, I'm, I'm going to get into
6:12
it really now my, by having a deeper look into Epstein and,
6:17
and the files and my own thoughts having now done some
6:20
deeper research into it. But we could say it's a mess.
6:24
That's one way of describing it. Or else it's incredibly clever
6:27
obfuscation. But one thing's for sure, they
6:30
don't want the truth to come out.
6:31
He's talking about an extra 6 names, but in fact there's close
6:36
to about 90 names of very, very wealthy, powerful people that
6:41
are not really being picked up in the press at all.
6:44
It's taking ordinary people to do the research and pull this
6:48
material out. So a lot of lot of questions.
6:51
Let's just kick off because it's UK column way with a look at a
6:54
couple of headlines from the BBC.
6:57
And of course this one for me takes the biscuit because it's
7:00
Gordon Brown and he's saying that the Mandelson scandal,
7:05
notice it's not Epstein, it's the Mandelson scandal is serious
7:10
for Starmer. But the Prime Minister is a man
7:13
of integrity. So Brown is saying this.
7:15
Well, we could start by saying is Gordon Brown himself a man of
7:20
integrity? Well, I think a lot of people
7:22
would question that, but what is he doing here?
7:26
He's not pushing for a more depth and proper police
7:29
investigation this side of the Atlantic into the Epstein files.
7:33
He's basically massaging information around Keir Starmer
7:38
in order to protect his leadership.
7:41
But Gordon Brown doing some other interesting things in the
7:44
background, which I'll get back onto in a few moments because
7:48
he's playing around with constitutional issues.
7:52
So let's move on. We bring another one up on
7:55
screen here because Blair, according to the BBC, Blair
7:59
heeds Mandelson from us with a code name.
8:03
Can you imagine the audacity of using a code name to actually
8:08
hide what was going on? And we, the public, are supposed
8:11
to believe that because he used a code name, nobody can actually
8:15
see what he was doing. What was the code name?
8:17
Pizza delivery line or something?
8:19
Well, well, quite possibly again, we'll we'll be talking
8:24
more about this. So the BBC though very soft on
8:28
connections between Epstein and Israel.
8:32
So this was a report going back to the 12th of December 2025.
8:37
I'm not going to go into it in detail but say it was very
8:40
short. And if we compare it to Al
8:43
Jazeera that produced a very well put together documentary on
8:47
sorry article on Israel's ex Prime Minister Barack and
8:53
Epstein saying how close the relationship was and and what
8:57
emails were talking about, we can see a huge difference in the
9:00
reporting. So the BBC essentially going
9:03
light on everything to do with Epstein and the fact that
9:08
clearly he he was incredibly interested in Israel.
9:13
I put it in that in those terms first of all, because apart from
9:16
anything else, the files show that he was using a number of
9:21
very, very expensive media companies to monitor daily feeds
9:27
on what was being said about Israel, what the Israeli
9:30
government was talking about, anything that impacted Israel.
9:35
Epstein was watching in huge detail on a daily basis, aside
9:40
from anything else he he was doing.
9:43
And let's just take ourselves into a little bit of material.
9:47
Some some of this has been covered on the mainstream press,
9:51
but I found it interesting when you start to look at pictures in
9:55
detail and you get a feel for what's going on.
9:59
It's almost like your mind is taken into this horrible world
10:03
of Epstein himself. So we'll start off with this
10:06
one. It's just a series of some of
10:08
the photographs of the New York apartment.
10:13
Very strange style in some ways. I don't think Epstein was into
10:17
sophisticated decor. Rooms can vary from this sort of
10:22
look to almost a colonial look. But nevertheless, it just gives
10:27
you a feel for that, that apartment and and what it looked
10:30
like inside. Pornographic pictures or very
10:35
strange pictures. These were all over the house in
10:40
today's news. I'm not going to be talking
10:42
about his island and what was discovered there.
10:45
So I'm just sticking with some of the the New York pictures and
10:51
the whole house photographed in great detail as we can see here.
10:55
But strange things like this is Bill Clinton in a dress and why
10:59
would you have that in the House?
11:01
But wouldn't Bill Clinton be very upset about such a picture
11:05
if he knew it wasn't in existence?
11:08
So I, I think there's really a lot of questions that the public
11:11
here in UK should be asking themselves about what was
11:15
actually going on inside Epstein's world.
11:20
And just to we're not going to overdo it, but to focus a little
11:24
bit here on the sorts of images on the walls.
11:28
Now, the redaction of this nude in a very strange picture
11:33
because part of it seems to be Rd works, but there's also
11:37
mention of Police Department. So key parts of the anatomy have
11:45
been redacted, presumably by the Department of Justice.
11:49
Now whether this is because it's a painting of a victim, I don't
11:53
know, but this is a classic example when you do not actually
11:58
know who was redacting information and why redaction
12:02
was taking place. Sometimes you can see large
12:06
chunks of court documents redacted and you can accept that
12:09
perhaps that was to protect victims.
12:12
But in other cases you can see a what appears to be a totally
12:17
innocuous email, but the from and to address addresses have
12:22
been redacted. So it's very, very hard to
12:25
understand why. But also, if we're dealing with
12:29
roughly 3,000,000 plus pieces of data, there must have been a
12:36
huge amount of effort put into the redaction of that data.
12:40
So the delays on getting it out clearly relate in my mind about
12:45
excuse me, apart from anything else to the to the amount of
12:49
redaction going on. This is a a bedroom picture, not
12:55
my taste. I'm going to say what I'm not
12:58
showing you is on the wall at the foot of the bed.
13:01
There is another picture with two naked women and also either
13:06
a a young boy or a young man with an erection.
13:10
So this is this is the type of pornographic material which is
13:17
appearing throughout that the house itself.
13:20
And then we come across strange things.
13:23
We could say this is a piece of artwork at one place where we
13:26
have a, a figure sliding down a rope.
13:29
What this is, I don't know, but it's against a backdrop of the
13:34
of the sky. So make of this what what you
13:37
will. Now, if we get onto material
13:40
itself, this is part of the court doc, the sort of release
13:47
that will show us the the court documents themselves.
13:51
So this one is going back to November the 5th, 2020.
13:55
And it's saying that this summer we charged Ghislaine Maxwell
13:59
with conspiring to entice minors to travel for the purpose of
14:03
sexual abuse in connection with helping Jeffrey Epstein to abuse
14:09
his many victims. Now there's there's obviously a
14:12
huge amount of material on this and she's been convicted.
14:16
But nevertheless, it's very interesting to see source
14:19
documentation which is setting out what the Epstein case is all
14:24
about, which is the sustained abuse of young women and girls
14:30
in a setting where many powerful people had been present within
14:36
the house, if not present during the actual act.
14:39
And to my mind, in looking at this documentation, Mike,
14:42
there's no coherent, there doesn't appear to be any
14:46
coherent investigation. Because if there was, my mind
14:52
says there will be a coherent order to the way in which the
14:56
data was catalogued and presented.
15:00
Perhaps we might just bring in Liz here very briefly, because I
15:03
know, Liz, you've been having a little bit of look at Epstein.
15:06
And just on that one subject, what was your impression of the
15:11
released material and the state of it?
15:16
Hi, great to join you both. Yeah, I've been looking into
15:19
this and following it with great interest.
15:21
I think it's really, it's clear to me that this is some sort of,
15:26
it's going to be presented as a, a limited hangout in the sense
15:30
that we've had this vast quantity of documents, which
15:33
actually is only probably around half to 60% of what is is
15:37
actually available. But the way they've been
15:40
released, apparently it's, there's no index.
15:42
It's very hard to, you know, navigate around them.
15:46
They're not, you know, grouped by themes or so it's making it
15:50
extremely hard for independent journalists to actually go in
15:53
and find the key documents because it's like looking for a
15:56
needle in a haystack. And meanwhile, I feel that the
15:59
mainstream media is sort of presenting a very carefully
16:04
curated story, which is which may be missing, you know, some
16:09
really serious, you know, damning information in there
16:13
which they are probably choosing not to report to us should they
16:17
find it. Because we know, you know,
16:19
during COVID that how much that was going on, that wasn't being
16:22
reported, even though the media knew about it.
16:24
So I think we can expect the mainstream to be doing exactly
16:28
the same thing. And, you know, all these sort of
16:30
key figures that are being thrown under the bus at the
16:33
moment. You've got Peter Mandelson,
16:35
you've got Prince Andrew and Bill Gates, but you feel like,
16:40
are these the sort of the figures that are being
16:42
sacrificed because they've outweighed their usefulness?
16:45
But who are the people who we are not hearing about, but who
16:49
are lit, who are somewhere in this vast quantity of files,
16:53
maybe under rejection or maybe haven't even been released yet?
16:56
So I think, you know, we have to kind of be really diligent to
17:01
keep looking and you know, all the people like you doing, doing
17:04
this investigation is really important because we cannot
17:08
expect the mainstream to bring us the really important
17:10
information that's in there. And of course, where where are
17:14
all the trials? Where's the accountability?
17:17
You know, Gillane Maxwell is the only person who's been convicted
17:21
of anything and she was trafficking to who, You know,
17:25
who, who are The, Who are the people who were actually
17:27
receiving and using those victims?
17:32
Ron, we'll, we'll go into this in more detail in UK column
17:35
Extra today. Let's just go through quickly
17:39
some more material which I think is is of interest.
17:42
A lot of reports like this one where a member of the public has
17:46
made contact with the investigation team.
17:50
This is a lady saying that she worked in in Epstein's house,
17:54
and they found pictures and videotapes and audio tapes.
17:59
Some of the tapes concerned child pornography.
18:02
And so you see essentially a member of the public reacting to
18:06
the investigation, making contact with what appears to be
18:10
very important information. But then it goes into no man's
18:13
land. You can't see what happens.
18:15
And this isn't one report like this.
18:17
It's quite a few of them. We've got some interesting
18:19
things here. Now this appears to be Andy
18:22
because he's talking about being up about moral summer camp for
18:26
the royal family. He says there's activities
18:29
taking place all day and he's exhausted and he's appears to be
18:33
emailing Ghislaine Maxwell for any ideas as how he how he gets
18:40
his brain into gear. So interesting person to be
18:44
taking advice from. There's another one.
18:47
Sorry, this this one is a reply. I may have the slightly out of
18:51
sequence here, but this is a reply where a has been asking
18:57
for inappropriate friends and because Len comes back and said,
19:02
well, I can only find appropriate friends for you.
19:05
So that one raises quite a lot of questions.
19:11
This is a talking about the sad death of his valet, and that was
19:17
where he was also talking about getting his mind back on track.
19:20
Now, in many cases, you'll find duplication of these emails even
19:26
in the data release itself. This one is interesting to me
19:30
because this relates to Ghislaine saying that basically
19:35
she can't see the discovered material which she's entitled to
19:41
see and read and respond to. Now people could say, well, does
19:46
this really matter? Well, I think if justice is
19:49
being done, she should be able to see material to which she's
19:52
entitled to see. And if it's being made difficult
19:56
for her, is that a way of putting pressure on her so that
20:00
she's controlled in a later environment?
20:03
None of this mentioned in the mainstream press at all.
20:06
We've got another one here, which is interesting because
20:09
it's the authorities saying that they're finding it difficult to
20:12
talk about the time of death. For Epstein, so we can see
20:17
trouble and strife inside the system.
20:20
We've got the Daily Telegraph muscling in and asking whether
20:23
they can get some information with regard to Prince Andrew and
20:29
Miss Maxwell. And this is a little taste of of
20:35
material between Epstein and Barack, who of course was a
20:40
former general and senior Israeli politician.
20:45
And this is in relation to using, it would appear his
20:48
apartment in Israel, which means that there would have to be
20:52
security information passed. All of this going back and
20:56
forward with Epstein. But as far as it appears as BBC
21:00
is concerned, there's no connection.
21:02
This one was also interesting to me because basically it shows
21:07
that Epstein was researching something to do with the tax
21:11
implications of actually being a a resident of of Israel.
21:16
So did he have a detailed involvement with Israel?
21:21
Yes. And so if we start to say was he
21:24
collecting material for Compromat, we need to know which
21:28
countries he was involved with and why.
21:31
But at the moment it certainly seems there's no investigation
21:35
from UK intelligence services. Now we've got this one here,
21:41
which I, I couldn't really resist.
21:43
This is the massage room. And you'll notice that we've got
21:46
redacted pornographic pictures on the walls of Epstein's
21:52
massage room. Let's bring in UK intelligence
21:57
community. This is all of the UK community.
22:01
There's GCHQ, there's MI 5, there's Special Intelligence
22:06
Service MI 6, There's Defence Intelligence, there's National
22:11
Security Secretariat and there's the Office for Security and
22:15
Counterterrorism, and there's the Joint Intelligence
22:18
Organisation. And essentially, despite all of
22:22
the evidence that we've just put on screen, which of course is
22:26
almost nothing in the the total release, none of these UK based
22:32
intelligence organisations say or appear to have had any idea
22:38
what Epstein was doing or in relation to what compromising
22:42
material was being collected. So that brings you back to Jimmy
22:47
Savile. This is another Jimmy Savile,
22:51
except to stop, in my opinion, the public really getting
22:56
amongst the evidence. They've thrown it out in an ad
22:59
hoc basis. People are picking at it and
23:02
this is creating a chaotic research environment.
23:07
And could they say later, well, nobody can get a free trial
23:11
because all of this is now over the Internet.
23:14
My client can't get a A free trial and it slides into the A.
23:18
Fair trial, yeah, A. Fair trial and it slides into
23:22
the long grass. Yeah, and the news agenda will
23:24
move on. Yeah, move on.
23:26
Absolutely. The disclosures there, it only
23:28
takes, you know, a team of 500 people to work their way through
23:32
it. Yeah.
23:32
And who has that? Lots of interesting stuff and we
23:35
will talk about it more in UK. Call them extra today.
23:39
Let's let's move on then to the assisted dying story.
23:45
Just bring us up to date with what's going on there.
23:49
Yes. So there's various attempts
23:50
going on to legalise assisted suicide across the UK and the
23:54
Crown Dependencies. And the next few weeks see
23:57
critical and final votes on whether to fundamentally change
24:00
the relationship between the state and the individual and
24:03
doctors and patients in this country by making it legal for a
24:06
doctor to help their patient to end their life.
24:10
So there were two cautionary tales which recently hit the
24:12
headlines from Canada, where euthanasia has been
24:16
enthusiastically adopted and enacted since 2016.
24:20
Now these stories show the feared slippery slope in action,
24:23
which should be a warning shot across the bowels of UK
24:26
legislators as they debate the Assisted Dying Bill in the House
24:30
of Lords and the MacArthur Bill in Holy Rood.
24:33
So the first story reported in the Mirror concerns an elderly
24:37
Canadian woman who was euthanized against her will when
24:40
her husband could no longer cope with caring for her 80 year old.
24:45
Mrs. B was being cared for at home by her elderly husband and
24:49
he struggled to look after her, even with the help of the
24:52
palliative care team. Mrs. B then expressed an
24:55
interest in medical assistance in dying, known as MAID, so her
24:59
husband contacted the referral service.
25:01
The very next day, a MAID assessor visited and deemed her
25:05
eligible, but Mrs. B immediately changed her mind.
25:09
The following day, she was readmitted to hospital but was
25:11
denied inpatient palliative care or Hospice care.
25:15
So her husband then requested a second urgent maid assessment,
25:19
which deemed her eligible. Now remember the first assessor
25:24
who'd who'd sort of spoken with her?
25:26
He actually objected and requested a meeting.
25:29
But that meeting never happened because Missus B was euthanized
25:33
the same evening. So she went from eligibility to
25:37
death within hours, and I think it's not hard to imagine a
25:40
similar situation occurring in the NHS once we become
25:44
desensitised to the deliberate ending of lives when we cross
25:48
the ethical Rubicon and allow doctors to kill patients,
25:52
removing the sanctity of life. Because death becomes accepted
25:56
as a legitimate treatment for suffering, and the system
25:59
becomes ideologically aligned with death rather than life.
26:04
And then later that week, another tragic case from Canada
26:07
hit the news, and this time it was the euthanasia of a
26:11
depressed 26 year old man with type 1 diabetes and blindness.
26:16
I think we can get that headline on the screen.
26:18
His request for made was granted despite strong opposition from
26:23
his mother. She she claimed he wasn't of
26:25
sound mind because he was depressed, but he was killed
26:28
without her knowledge or consent and she only found out four days
26:33
after his death. Now with the UK Assisted Dying
26:36
Bill, as it stands, the same scenario could happen here
26:40
because it contains no obligation to inform the family
26:43
and no safeguards to protect those with mental illness from
26:47
choosing assisted suicide. So on to the House of Lords,
26:51
where things are hotting up as they continue to debate Kim
26:54
Ledbetter's Assisted Dying Bill, which was voted through, if you
26:58
remember, by only 23 votes in Parliament last June and key
27:02
figures such as the Health Secretary was streeting voting
27:05
against. So the Lords are frustrating
27:09
their supporters of the bill by giving it the detailed scrutiny
27:12
that Parliament failed to do. To the annoyance of Kim
27:16
Ledbetter, peers have tabled over 1000 amendments to be
27:20
debated. I think we've got a little slide
27:22
on that. And then Lord Faulkner, the
27:26
bill's sponsor in the House of Lords, accused peers of
27:30
filibustering. He fears the bill will run out
27:33
of time to complete before the end of this parliamentary
27:36
session in May, meaning it would fall.
27:39
However, a Constitutional committee report confirmed that
27:43
the Lords has every right to scrutinise, amend or reject the
27:47
bill, and as a private Members Bill it is not subject to the
27:51
Salisbury Convention, which protects government bills
27:55
promised in their manifesto from being blocked by the Lords.
27:59
So as Kim Ledbetter's frustration mounts, Sakir
28:03
Starmer is under pressure to do something to force the bill
28:07
through. She's urged the government to
28:09
help pass her bill, claiming it is their duty as they must
28:13
respect the will of democratically elected members
28:16
of Parliament. But Sakir has insisted the
28:19
Government will remain neutral on assisted dying.
28:22
Now the government could make more time for the current bill
28:25
to be debated either this session or in the next session
28:29
if it is reintroduced into Parliament.
28:32
But Lord Kennedy, who's the Chief Whip in the Lords, ruled
28:35
out reintroducing the legislation as a government
28:38
Bill, saying on the 30th of January.
28:41
I'm having enough problems getting the government's
28:44
programme through at the moment, let alone trying to deal with
28:47
this Bill. So I promise noble Lords that it
28:50
will not come back as a government Bill.
28:52
So that's reassuring. So then the nuclear option would
28:57
be for the government to use the 1911 Parliament Act to overrule
29:03
the House of Lords. This was argued by Lord Faulkner
29:07
on BB CS Today programme on the 29th of July and we've got a
29:11
little video of him. Why do you believe this requires
29:16
an unprecedented use of the Parliament Act?
29:17
Because what's happening is the Commons, after detailed
29:21
scrutiny, have decided there should be this major change.
29:25
The Lord's, because of these minority filibustering, will not
29:29
engage in detail. We haven't even got to the bit
29:31
where we vote changes yet because we haven't even got past
29:34
Section 1 yet. The constitution says if the
29:37
Commons passes something and the Lords block it, which is what's
29:42
happening, then the way the Commons who are elected get
29:46
their way is if they pass it again second time in the same
29:50
form, then it gets through without the Lords.
29:53
Don't do that. I'm saying to the Lords.
29:58
Yes. So as he explained, the
29:59
Parliament Act would allow the House of Commons to reintroduce
30:03
a bill at the next session to force legislation through if the
30:06
laws block it. This must be the same version of
30:09
the bill as passed by the Commons in the previous session.
30:12
And it's worth noting that this Act has only been used a handful
30:15
of times since 1949 to push through government bills against
30:19
the will of the Lords, for example, the fox hunting ban.
30:23
So we've seen this growing tension between the supporters
30:26
and opponents of the bill, who are both accusing each other of
30:29
acting undemocratically. And here's Kim Ledbetter on ITV
30:33
talking about this on the 5th of February.
30:37
Him. You, of course, were
30:38
instrumental in all of this. How concerned are you that this
30:42
bill will now not pass? Well, I'm really, really worried
30:45
that what we're seeing in the House of Lords is a very
30:48
undemocratic thing happening in that we've got a very small
30:51
number of peers who are fundamentally opposed to a
30:54
change in the law, a view of which I've always been very
30:56
respectful, but are very clearly trying to talk the bill out.
31:00
So stop it going through all its stages that it needs to do to
31:03
receive Royal assent and to change the law, which when we
31:06
have MPs who took this decision really seriously when they voted
31:11
for the bill in the Commons. I'm deeply disturbed about the
31:14
undemocratic nature of what's happening.
31:16
I was always very clear and I have a huge amount of respect
31:19
for the House of Lords. That scrutiny is great and
31:22
refining the bill where it needs to be refined is fine.
31:24
But 1200 amendments, people making multiple repeat speeches
31:28
is not a good look for the House of Lords.
31:30
And I really worry about what the public perception is, many
31:34
of whom think that the bill has already passed and come up to me
31:36
on a very regular basis and say thank you for getting this
31:39
really important change through. So it's clear that invoking the
31:45
Parliament Act will spark fury amongst opponents of the bill
31:48
who argue that the Lords are simply doing their job and that
31:51
the Assisted dying Bill is fundamentally flawed.
31:54
The supporters of the bill are reported to be in a blind fury.
31:59
They're warning Keir Starmer that if he allows the bill to
32:02
fall, he faces a huge public public backlash and would look
32:05
impotent in the face of the action of unelected peers.
32:10
So moving on to Scotland, Liam MacArthur's assisted dying Bill
32:14
is facing an imminent vote as early as March now.
32:17
Last May, MSPs voted narrowly to proceed with the bill by 70
32:21
votes to 56. In the committee stage, several
32:25
changes were made, including raising the eligibility age from
32:28
16 to 18 and ensuring there's no duty on doctors to participate.
32:32
But many other safeguarding amendments didn't pass.
32:36
The bill is now on a knife edge, requiring only 7 MSPs to change
32:40
their position for the bill to be defeated. 7 Several MSPs who
32:45
previously voted yes are now wavering, citing concerns about
32:49
inadequate safeguarding against coercion, inadequate protection
32:52
for healthcare professionals and the lack of clarity over the
32:55
actual practicalities of the assisted dying process and care
33:00
not killing Scotland. We've got a slide are urging
33:03
Scottish voters to contact their MSP urgently in the next two
33:07
weeks to ask them to vote no, which could be critical.
33:10
This is time critical and then on to Wales.
33:14
People may not know this. On the 24th of February, the
33:17
Senate will debate and vote on a legislative consent motion on
33:22
whether NHS Wales should implement the Assisted Dying
33:26
Bill should it become law now. If Senate votes no, then
33:30
although the assisted dying would be elite would be legal in
33:34
Wales, it would only be available through private
33:36
providers or by travelling to England to get it on the NHS.
33:41
And more than 250 doctors and health professionals, including
33:45
a former wealth Welsh Chief Medical Officer Dame Deirdre
33:49
Hein, signed an open letter to Welsh politicians last month
33:52
urging them to reject the deeply flawed bill, citing unacceptable
33:57
risk to patient safety and concerns it that it would
33:59
undermine Welsh autonomy over its healthcare system.
34:04
And again we have. Welsh voters are urged to
34:07
contact their Senate members before the decisive vote on the
34:10
24th of February. So not long, which you can do
34:13
easily with this care not killing email tool.
34:16
And finally, a word about our Crown dependencies.
34:20
In January, Jersey's state members voted overwhelmingly to
34:24
approve a draught Assisted dying law in principle.
34:28
And this law's final stage will take place on the 24th of
34:31
February, again same day as Wales, when the state members
34:36
will debate and vote on their amendments.
34:40
And then finally, in March 2025, the Isle of Man was the first
34:44
part of the UK to legalise Dr Assisted dying when Alex
34:48
Allinson's Private Members Bill was passed in the Manx
34:51
Parliament. However, much to the annoyance
34:54
of Allinson, the bill has not been given Royal Assent yet,
34:58
despite the approval process normally only taking three to
35:01
six months. So he has written to David Lammy
35:03
to query the delay, believing it's related to the opposition
35:06
that the Leadbeater Bill is having in the House of Lords.
35:10
If Royal Assent is granted, it will take 18 months to two years
35:13
of work before the law becomes reality.
35:16
But the current Manx Parliament ends in September with
35:19
elections, so Allenson needs to get the Royal assent before
35:21
them. Thanks for that, Liz.
35:25
I mean a host of questions over this.
35:28
I mean, are you optimistic or that that actually the Lords
35:32
will succeed in blocking this? Yeah, I think, I think there's a
35:37
really, really strong chance that they will manage to run out
35:40
of time. And I, I and, you know, the
35:42
level of opposition in the press, actually the Times has
35:46
come out against this bill and I think the mainstream media is
35:50
now starting to move against the bill suggests that maybe it
35:54
would not be politically a good idea for the it's for the
35:58
government to invoke the Parliament Act, which really
36:00
would be a nuclear option. And of course, we could end up
36:03
having a general election before then anyway.
36:06
That's a key point, isn't it? It is that Stormer is so
36:09
vulnerable at the moment. If he if he was to start
36:13
throwing stones into the pond on this, I can imagine he he
36:18
doesn't want to do anything at the moment that could promote A
36:21
backlash. And the other thing we ought to
36:22
be saying is that in the background, Brown has been
36:25
working with the Commission on the UK's future and this is
36:29
complete reconstruction of our constitution, including getting
36:33
rid of the Lords. Why do you think that Mr. Brown
36:36
would want to get rid of the Lords, I wonder?
36:39
Well indeed, and of course that was why the Parliament Act was
36:42
brought in in the 1st place, because the Lords has been a
36:45
thorn in the side of the Commons many, many times in the past.
36:49
So thank you for that Liz. OK, let's move on then.
36:51
So if you like what we do here at the UK column, we do need
36:54
your ongoing support. If you have a look on the front
36:57
page of the website, you'll see a link which will take you to a
37:00
page that explains how you can help us.
37:03
If you're not able to help us financially, then please do
37:05
share material that from that we released because that helps us
37:09
defeat the censorship regime. But as I say, we do need your
37:14
ongoing support. So we want to say thank you very
37:16
much once again to everybody that continues to to give that
37:20
now tomorrow at 1 PMI am speaking to Matt Erett.
37:24
We're calling this Canada's carnage.
37:26
You'll understand why, but this is we're, we're, we're, this was
37:30
recorded just before I went to China.
37:32
And so it's covering Mark Carney's speech in the World
37:37
Economic Forum, but also looking at the implications of AI and
37:42
universal basic income and technocracy and how Canada is
37:47
helping to drive that forward. So join us at 1:00 PM for that
37:50
tomorrow. And I'm going to apologise to
37:52
Jerem because I've forgotten to put the the graphic in for, for
37:56
his interview at 7:00 PM tonight.
37:57
But Jerem will have a a programme at 7:00 PM as usual
38:00
this evening. Carl is getting back into the
38:04
way of silken steel and that he that will be returning on
38:07
Monday. So that's that for the ads, if
38:11
you got anything to add. I'll just add a huge thank you
38:14
to all of the UK column audience that emailed me or sent me
38:18
messages about my interview with Erin, the American lady from Far
38:23
From Eden talking about feminism.
38:26
Some fairly challenging things being discussed, but I've had
38:31
some really positive feedback. So as promised, I'll see whether
38:35
we can do a Part 2 on that. So thank you for watching and
38:38
thank you for engaging. And if you haven't seen the
38:40
interview, it's on the front page of the UK column website.
38:45
Now, of course, everybody knows that Last week Charles and I and
38:49
a couple of others were in China for a week.
38:53
Brian showed a little bit of footage St footage from from.
38:56
Fascinating, absolutely fascinating, Mike.
38:59
It was very interesting that when we got that footage.
39:02
It was, it was a fascinating week.
39:04
Now we were in Chongqing, which is, which was the capital of
39:08
China during the Second World War.
39:09
And of course for China, the Second World War lasted from
39:13
1937 until 1945. So they had a couple of extra
39:18
years of it because of Japan, but the it's and as a result, it
39:24
has a huge number of cavernous spaces where the, the there were
39:29
bomb shelters for the city at the time and those have now been
39:34
converted into, into interesting places.
39:37
We'll, we'll show a bit more of that in the coming days, but
39:41
just to, to give you a little bit of an idea of, of what we
39:44
were seeing at the time. I have to say, you know, Brian,
39:49
China, the Chinese people that we met very optimistic about
39:54
life in stark contrast to European countries in many ways.
39:59
Maybe that's a function of of the fact that they're that
40:03
they're in a. A growing position that, you
40:07
know, they're, they're coming out of the past in, in a
40:11
particular way. And so they don't have potholes
40:15
in the roads and their streets are clean and they still take
40:18
some pride in the, in, in the state of their, their roads and
40:22
so on. But it was a fascinating,
40:24
fascinating week. As you can see on screen now,
40:26
this is a city of, of 10 million people or so, maybe a little bit
40:32
more at this stage. But the, the actual broader area
40:36
of Chongqing is I think something like 24 million
40:39
people. So a huge number of people in,
40:41
in, in this area. It's on the Yangtze River.
40:45
In fact, it's on the confluence of two rivers.
40:48
And well, it's only in the last decade, 15 years that they've
40:52
had sufficient bridges to, to cross that river.
40:56
And so in the past they have they, they have relied on a
41:00
cable car which which we took. So, but, you know, hugely
41:04
interesting. The city obviously lights up at
41:06
night as you just saw there and yeah, quite, quite an amazing
41:11
place. Yeah.
41:11
Particularly vibrant at night. Well, Mike, I'm going to say
41:15
very fascinating for me because of course I was part of the team
41:19
back here at UK column base as it were.
41:22
And so it was interesting not only to see those clips, but
41:25
subsequently to be talking to you about how how you found it.
41:31
And one of the things which caught my attention, you could
41:34
see it briefly in the in, in one of those little video clips was
41:38
that you've got cities which have been greatly developed.
41:42
So you've got very high skyscrapers.
41:44
A lot of those are dwellings for people.
41:47
You've got malls equivalent to sort of western malls, but you
41:52
have a huge number of small traders, including the people
41:56
who are trading in the streets St markets that still seem to be
42:00
able to run. This was one of the points that
42:02
Chris made to me is how interesting when we look at Auk
42:07
City now increasingly with boarded up shops, all the little
42:11
shops have gone. There may be a mall, but
42:14
essentially local traders can't afford the rents.
42:18
They can't afford to just run their little corner shop, if I
42:22
call it that. But in in China, this was
42:26
possible. And that says to me that the
42:28
small businessman woman has access to cheaper goods within
42:34
the supply market. So how is it the Chinese are
42:37
able to do that? But we can't do that here in UK,
42:40
do you think? Well, that's a very good
42:41
question. But the thing I would comment on
42:44
the UK is that you go to any town or city in the UK and it's
42:48
the same, it's the same shop hoardings, it's the same names
42:53
in every in every town. So we've effectively become, you
42:55
know, it doesn't matter where you live anymore.
42:57
You don't. And there's very little that's
42:59
unique to the, to the individual place unless you go to, you
43:02
know, somewhere like Totnes, which you have to admit is some
43:05
sort of character. Yes, but that was, that was very
43:08
striking. Now I'm going to say I wouldn't
43:11
want to live in a city like Chongqing.
43:15
It has its, IT has its, IT clearly has its appeals for, for
43:18
people because it, it's, it's a modern city and it's, it's lit
43:23
up at night and it's got a vibrant nightlife and it's safe
43:26
to be on the streets at night. But, uh, you know, that, that's
43:30
more a statement of, of my, uh, reluctance to be in any city
43:35
really. I'd prefer to be in the
43:36
countryside, but, but you know, but at the same time, the fact
43:39
that, that, that every street has its own markets, its own
43:43
restaurants, its own places is, is just something you don't see
43:47
in the West anymore. Yes.
43:48
And I've said this the week that you're actually away, Mike, but
43:52
the fact that this trip has happened and this has allowed
43:56
the UK column team to get into China to see and experience some
44:01
of the things for ourselves as opposed to just taking the
44:05
rhetoric that comes out of the UK state at the moment.
44:09
This has been very, really interesting experience.
44:12
And this has only come about because of the excellent support
44:16
that UK column members have given us.
44:18
So I stressed, and I think this is still really important, that
44:24
members of the UK column team have been reporting from
44:27
overseas, whether it's been Vanessa out in Syria and the
44:30
Middle East or Patrick Henningson has been in Russia
44:35
and he's been into the Donbass area.
44:37
We've now been able to take a look for ourselves into China.
44:41
This is a really major step forward in the capability of the
44:46
UK column. How's this come about, Mike?
44:49
It's come about because of the tremendous support everybody's
44:52
given us over 20 years and the fact that we've now got the
44:58
capability to start to get news from overseas ourselves.
45:03
So I know that there were quite a lot of people seemed to be
45:07
surprised that UK column would want to do this.
45:10
But for me this makes absolute sense.
45:13
How can you talk accurately about a country if if you
45:16
haven't experienced some of some of it yourself?
45:19
Yes, yeah. But I would agree with that.
45:21
I mean, what I would absolutely say about that though, Brian, is
45:24
you cannot get, you know, you've got to live somewhere.
45:27
Actually, I think to, to get a real impression, yes, but but it
45:31
does give a flavour of, of, of it.
45:33
And, and so, you know, I'm not going to sit and pretend that I
45:38
know really anything, anything about China as such.
45:42
I I I get an impression from being there But but it's just an
45:46
impression. Yeah.
45:47
And and as you've just said, there's some aspects of it that
45:50
seem really good and there's other aspects where you say
45:53
wouldn't want that type of system operating in UK.
45:57
But now we've got the experience, I think.
46:00
We're getting it whether we want it or not.
46:01
That's the thing. Well, the other thing which has
46:04
greatly amused me is that is the fact that UK column has taken
46:07
the initiative to actually go to China as opposed to Russia or
46:11
Syria or the Middle East. IS, is we've, we've, we've now
46:15
had people believing we're being funded by China, which is
46:19
completely untrue and ridiculous.
46:22
But this is what part of the hype that's built up around
46:26
China is bad, UK is good, America is good and, and people
46:31
get on board with this narrative and then they're they're coming
46:35
up with ideas which are completely, well, I cannot
46:41
comprehend how this can happen, but there we are.
46:43
So will UK column being do? Will UK column be having more
46:47
visits overseas? I certainly hope so.
46:51
And I certainly hope the UK column reporters, whoever they
46:54
are, are going to be able to report from more places where we
46:58
have little knowledge apart from what we can, what we can
47:03
ascertain over the Internet and we get through the controlled
47:07
mainstream media here in UK. So I'm going to say well done to
47:11
the team. I'm a little bit jealous, but
47:13
somebody had to stay with UK column Plymouth to keep it
47:16
operating. Yes, indeed.
47:18
Well, yes, join us for the banter session on Friday for a
47:23
little bit more on this and so on.
47:25
But but sticking with China in a sense because of course, as you
47:29
say, British government absolutely making sure that that
47:34
we are that we're going to believe that China is the enemy
47:37
that we've got to fight. The UK intelligence agencies
47:40
have given what they described as a high level security
47:44
briefing to university leaders and political parties.
47:48
And this is because of the expressions of concern about
47:51
foreign interference and academic research and democratic
47:54
processes. Now this was led by the MI 5 and
47:57
the National Cyber Security Centre and it's part of what
48:02
they call a wider government effort to reinforce.
48:06
Well, it's OK, this is my worst. It's, it's the idea that, that
48:12
there is more hostile state influence now than there has
48:16
been in the past. Or I mean, but this is silly
48:19
because we've always influenced each other's countries.
48:23
Every, every country has soft power networks, every country
48:26
has spying. So, but you know, the, the idea
48:29
is that we've got to be scared of certain countries.
48:32
So anyway, more than 70 vice chancellors and senior
48:36
university leaders attended the briefing, and it was given by
48:40
Security Minister Dan Jarvis and Skills Minister Jackie Smith.
48:44
I'm not sure what skills she has.
48:45
But anyway, they they outlined how foreign states might attempt
48:51
to shape or censor research and teaching and how academic
48:55
institutions can resist and report that type of
48:58
interference. And then a separate briefing was
49:01
given to officials from all the major political parties in the
49:06
UK and, and so on. So the government then announced
49:10
a £3,000,000 package of measures to counter this academic
49:14
interference, including a new academic interference reporting
49:19
route. This is what is this prevent for
49:24
Prevent for China or something, I don't know.
49:25
But anyway, this allows them to report their concerns directly
49:31
to security services and to government departments, and
49:34
they're also going to give additional advice and training
49:37
and so on. Now Dan Jarvis said that the
49:40
government was taking what he called tough action to make the
49:43
UK a harder target for foreign interference.
49:45
And he said we have to be clear eyed that our world class
49:49
universities and democratic processes are being targeted by
49:52
states who want to undermine our way of life.
49:55
I'd like to know what evidence he has for that.
49:58
So anyway, you know, in the meantime, of course, everybody's
50:03
looking at Russia and at China, but nobody's looking at Israel.
50:08
And here we have the House of Lords and we've got to remind
50:10
ourselves the House of Lords worried about anti semitism on
50:15
university campuses. But you know, none of this
50:20
briefing for academics and for politicians went into the
50:26
conservative fronts of Israel by calm all the other Israeli
50:30
influence operations which are absolutely operational within
50:34
the UK, just as one example, because those are the right
50:37
influence operations as far as the intelligence agencies are
50:41
concerned apparently. And we don't have anything to be
50:43
concerned about there. So, you know, every country does
50:47
this and it's ridiculous, in my opinion, to be only focusing on,
50:52
you know, one or two. Yeah, but if it fits the fear
50:56
narrative, doesn't it, Mike? In helping ramp up fear in the
51:00
population, what I want to come back on the subject of vetting.
51:05
This is the means by which the government looks at an
51:08
individual to decide what type of material they can handle.
51:15
Just restricted, relatively low key or confidential, a bit more
51:20
serious or secret, which obviously has a direct impact on
51:24
people's safety or the safety of the nation.
51:27
And top secret when we will be into such things as nuclear
51:31
deterrent, for example. People who are going to handle
51:35
material at those levels or get involved in projects at those
51:39
levels get vetted. Now, my point is that a couple
51:42
of days ago I pointed out that even the Institute for
51:47
Government was actually saying there was something going on
51:50
inside our security vetting system.
51:54
It wasn't working properly. People have been talking about
51:57
it collapsing. Well, if you can't vet people
52:00
for their reliability and loyalty to the country in
52:04
government jobs or military jobs, you cannot defend the
52:08
country. So this wasn't just a breakdown
52:11
in organisational structures inside government.
52:14
This is actually a complete breakdown in the ability of the
52:18
state to protect its secrets and military secrets and therefore
52:24
protect the population. So this was a very serious
52:28
event, never made mainstream reporting.
52:32
Credit to the Institute of Government for reporting on it.
52:36
If we just put that slide back up on screen and we can bring in
52:41
a little bit here. This is one of the things that I
52:44
highlighted, that all of a sudden the vetting organisation
52:49
was getting very interested in diversity and they were very,
52:53
very concerned, underlined that there was still white male and
52:58
middle aged men involved in vetting others.
53:02
And the problem with those white male middle aged men was that
53:06
they had a particular approach to their country and loyalty
53:11
formed by their own personal experiences and background, both
53:15
personal and professional. And the warning was not what's
53:21
happening with people who are not loyal or people who can't be
53:25
trusted know the danger was white middle aged males.
53:29
And the truth is that within the vetting system defence of the
53:35
nation state, it would have been white middle aged males with
53:39
huge experience of their countries, whether it was Russia
53:43
or the Eastern European countries.
53:47
They would have been the people who were leading the evaluation
53:52
of other people as to whether they were reliable and safe in
53:55
handling classified information and nation secrets.
54:00
Now again, credit the Institute of Government because they
54:03
linked through to this particular document, it's
54:07
Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.
54:10
But what is the whole report about?
54:13
It's not about protecting the nation and improving direct
54:19
performance to vets. And we've got Mandelson as a
54:23
classic example. Apparently Mikey used a code
54:26
word and people can work out what he was talking about.
54:29
So let's pop this report back on screen, please.
54:33
And we're just adding here the contents.
54:35
So the intelligence community, diversity in the intelligence
54:40
community. And then we've got the business
54:43
case for diversity. So now we're not into a
54:47
government structure, we're actually into running this
54:51
organisation as a business. And this is Chapter 3, the
54:56
business case here. And it says that while the
54:58
private sector may have recognised the business case for
55:02
diversity, many organisations still have some way to go to
55:06
achieve diverse and inclusive workforces.
55:09
And then it says in November 2016, the government
55:11
commissioned a report into the ethnic diversity of UK boards,
55:16
led by Sir John Parker, chair of Anglo American.
55:20
And this is Mike absolutely Ben's point, that we now see
55:24
that we don't know whether we're dealing with government or we're
55:27
dealing with big corporations. And if we're dealing with big
55:31
corporations, clearly they're not keeping UK safe because the
55:35
vetting systems no longer working.
55:39
If I put this one on screen, I've just taken some quotes out
55:43
of this particular document. So we've got Andrew Parker,
55:47
Director General, MI 5, Jeremy Fleming, Government
55:51
Communications Headquarters. There's quite a few of them
55:55
there, but Mark said, well there.
55:58
We are committed to ensuring that the most talented people
56:02
join the National Security Secretariat and we will support
56:06
them to develop the most robust policy advice for the National
56:09
Security Council. Our ways of working must embed
56:13
creativity and challenge. Well, they've challenged
56:17
themselves so much that the system doesn't work.
56:21
But with regard to diversity, they want more and more
56:24
diversity, which effectively bring means bringing in more and
56:28
more people who for whom they cannot properly check their
56:33
backgrounds. And we, we've even see this now
56:36
with the new head of MI 6, where they say casually.
56:40
Well, of course she wasn't. I've forgotten the lady's name,
56:44
but you'll help me out says, well, she wasn't too sure of her
56:49
family's background in Ukraine and with with really terrible
56:54
things going on. And now apparently she is
56:58
trustworthy enough by the same faulty vetting system to be
57:04
running a key Security Service. Now let's come back to said,
57:09
well, Mike, and back in 2020, you had something to say.
57:14
Let's have a look at this clip. Well, look, Pierce, you
57:19
mentioned Mark said, well, so let's, let's bring him on screen
57:22
Now we've shown variations of this already, but I just want to
57:26
remind everybody once again how powerful this man actually is.
57:30
So he is National Security Advisor, therefore head of the
57:33
National Security Council and therefore has control of
57:38
effective control of the intelligence services, GCHQS
57:42
Security Service, Secret Intelligence Service and the new
57:45
Joint Bio Security Centre. They'll be talking a little bit
57:48
more about shortly. But the first hint of the
57:53
counter disinformation programme internationally came with Andy
57:58
Price's Counter Disinformation and Media Development programme
58:02
within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which
58:04
ultimately comes under the remit of Mark Saidwell as well,
58:07
because he's the head of the civil service.
58:09
And it was that programme which was funding the Integrity
58:12
Initiative and similar programmes.
58:15
And then of course Mark said, well, he's also head of the
58:19
Cabinet Office. And so he therefore has
58:21
responsibility for this rapid response unit, for the National
58:25
Security Communications team, ultimately for 77 Brigade and 13
58:29
Signals as well, which, and this is I'm saying this forms
58:33
effectively the UK government's propaganda network both
58:37
domestically and internationally.
58:40
Now of course, said Wells gone and they've reorganised things
58:43
somewhat. But actually that that graphic
58:45
isn't so dissimilar these days. It's just got two people at the
58:49
top instead of 1. Yeah, so.
58:51
So you've got a highly pyramid soil organisation controlling
58:56
misinformation and propaganda. You don't want a properly
59:00
functioning Security Service because if the security services
59:04
were doing their job, they would have been rooting out the likes
59:08
of Jimmy Savile and Epstein and all the people connected to that
59:13
in order to protect the nation state.
59:16
So I'll just end with the last comment on this intelligence
59:20
committee document. If we pop that one up on screen.
59:23
And the comment here is that the UK intelligence community should
59:29
reflect the society it protects. And I'm, I'm going to say, well,
59:33
I, I think it does because at the moment we've got UK society
59:38
being ripped apart from the inside, treason in my opinion.
59:44
And essentially we shouldn't expect any protection from the
59:47
intelligence services because clearly they're either turning a
59:51
blind eye or they are complicit in the hollowing out of this
59:55
country. So the idea that they didn't
59:59
know what Epstein was doing and they didn't know who was
1:00:03
involved, to me is just it's no, no rational person in this
1:00:10
country should believe that. You've got one on Idi.
1:00:14
Think might. Oh, well, yeah, we'll just,
1:00:16
we'll just finish off for this one.
1:00:18
It is worth mentioning. And just just to finish off,
1:00:21
HMRC is now introducing one login for its customers.
1:00:25
Very pleased about that because in the past you've had to have a
1:00:28
12 digit number that you've got to have to type in and all this
1:00:31
kind of stuff. But now it's all nice and
1:00:33
convenient for you, Brian, because you can sign up to the
1:00:35
UK Government's one login if you're a new customer, if you're
1:00:39
talking about business and government departments.
1:00:41
And HMRC has customers of course.
1:00:44
And if you're a new customer, you can now sign up using one
1:00:47
login and and have your identity validated that way.
1:00:51
But of course, you've got to get the app on your phone in order
1:00:54
for your phone to talk with their online platform, and it's
1:01:01
clear that the whole thing is sucking up more and more
1:01:04
personal data on each individual.
1:01:07
Absolutely. But that's it's got to be one
1:01:09
login for every government agency and every government
1:01:12
service that you're interfacing with at HMRC, probably the the
1:01:17
most hungry of the lot of them. But anyway, we'll talk more
1:01:21
about that in extra in a couple of minutes.
1:01:24
Thank you very much, Liz and Brian for joining today and
1:01:27
everybody that's watched. If your UK column members stay
1:01:30
on the live stream, we will have extra in a few minutes time.
1:01:33
Otherwise, don't forget Germ tonight and my interview with
1:01:37
Matt Era tomorrow. And we'll be back at 1:00 PM for
1:01:40
another UK column News on Friday.
1:01:42
See you then. Bye bye.