Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News — 31st August 2026

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UK Column News — 31st August 2026 · UK Column Radio

0:07
Speaker 1: That's it. Good afternoon. It's Monday, 31st of August, 2026,
0:12
Speaker 1: just after one o'clock. You're watching UK Column News. I'm
0:15
Speaker 1: your host, Ben Rubin. I'm delighted to be joined in
0:18
Speaker 1: the studio today by Mr. Brian Gerrish. Hi, Brian. How
0:20
Speaker 1: are you?
0:21
Speaker 2: A pleasure after a really wonderful weekend.
0:24
Speaker 1: Fantastic.
0:25
Speaker 2: And we had rain, of course.
0:26
Speaker 1: We do.
0:27
Speaker 2: So, death by sunshine fading into the distance.
0:31
Speaker 1: Indeed it is, yes, but I'm sure they'll find some
0:33
Speaker 1: way to turn that into a bad news story, no doubt.
0:36
Speaker 1: And we're also delighted to be joined by video link
0:39
Speaker 1: by Madeleine Hunt from the Heritage Party, who'll be joining
0:44
Speaker 1: us on the show a little bit later and also
0:46
Speaker 1: for extra, I'm very happy to say. Now, there's a
0:49
Speaker 1: lot going on in the country, as I'm sure you've noticed.
0:52
Speaker 1: We're going to be talking today about forced adoption in Scotland,
0:55
Speaker 1: just another black mark against the care system in Scotland
0:58
Speaker 1: and elsewhere across the UK. We're going to be looking
1:01
Speaker 1: at some shameless anti-Russian propaganda that's been put out recently
1:06
Speaker 1: by the BBC, sharing some great news from Iceland as
1:11
Speaker 1: the results of the EU referendum came in over the weekend.
1:16
Speaker 1: looking at the efforts to push back against local councils,
1:20
Speaker 1: which seems to, I've been talking about that quite a
1:22
Speaker 1: lot recently myself, and people are very interested in this.
1:26
Speaker 1: Madeleine's going to be talking about the great work that
1:27
Speaker 1: she's been doing to achieve the same goals. But before
1:33
Speaker 1: we get into all of that, We're going to be
1:35
Speaker 1: looking at the term of the past few months anyway.
1:39
Speaker 1: It's this one. It's Manchesterism. Parliament is in recess. All
1:45
Speaker 1: of the MPs are on holiday or, you know, doing
1:48
Speaker 1: whatever it is that they do at this time of year.
1:51
Speaker 1: But the agenda has already been set. They're going ahead
1:55
Speaker 1: with it. And there's no discussion about this. And what
2:00
Speaker 1: we want to understand is what is Manchesterism? Where does
2:03
Speaker 1: it come from? And who's it going to benefit?
2:07
Speaker 2: Behind the secret doors of number 10 of the North.
2:09
Speaker 1: Yes. Exactly. So this is obviously the new governing philosophy
2:16
Speaker 1: of our brand spanking new selected Prime Minister, Andy Burnham.
2:21
Speaker 1: It's been presented as some kind of economic miracle as
2:24
Speaker 1: an organic experiment by the good and hardworking people of
2:28
Speaker 1: Manchester who've just come up with a magic formula that's
2:30
Speaker 1: going to fix the country. But actually, when we dig
2:33
Speaker 1: into it, it appears to have been designed by unelected
2:37
Speaker 1: state operatives and highly remunerated consultants working for international capital companies.
2:43
Speaker 1: And what I tend to think of as the global
2:45
Speaker 1: predator class. Now the story we're being sold is largely economic, actually.
2:51
Speaker 1: It's all about growth. I showed this chart a few
2:54
Speaker 1: weeks ago when Burnham was first installed. And essentially what
2:57
Speaker 1: they're saying is economic growth in Manchester is outstripped all
3:00
Speaker 1: the other city regions. Therefore they must be doing something right.
3:03
Speaker 1: And we should follow along with whatever they say, essentially.
3:07
Speaker 1: But what does that actually delivered in Manchester? So a
3:10
Speaker 1: total transformation of the skyline. So we can see here
3:13
Speaker 1: from 2010 to 2025, an enormous number of very ugly, tall, boxy,
3:20
Speaker 1: horrible modern buildings going up crinkly crinkly tin sheds crinkly
3:26
Speaker 1: tin sheds yes exactly um many of which people can't
3:30
Speaker 1: even afford to live in right so you've got um
3:32
Speaker 1: a bunch of these flats appearing that are more than
3:36
Speaker 1: the average person can afford to pay to live in
3:40
Speaker 1: yeah And at the same time, they've destroyed the fabric
3:45
Speaker 1: of the city, the traditional fabric of the city. They've
3:48
Speaker 1: bulldozed away the industrial capacity, which is what actually made
3:52
Speaker 1: Manchester wealthy in the first place. And this is all
3:56
Speaker 1: done using a model which effectively nationalizes risk while privatizing profits.
4:02
Speaker 1: There's a lot of property developers who've made a lot
4:04
Speaker 1: of money. There's a lot of government departments that have
4:07
Speaker 1: funded their own operations and but actually what we've been
4:10
Speaker 1: left with is a destroyed cityscape and a bunch of
4:13
Speaker 1: buildings that no one can afford to live in. Doesn't
4:16
Speaker 1: really feel like that this is going to work for
4:18
Speaker 1: the country, but they are pressing ahead with it. And
4:20
Speaker 1: we want to understand where this has come from. So
4:22
Speaker 1: I've been digging into this since Burnham was installed in
4:26
Speaker 1: number 10. And I'm going to take you through this
4:29
Speaker 1: little diagram I've put together, my labor of love of
4:32
Speaker 1: the past few days, which is as simple as possible,
4:35
Speaker 1: but no simpler, I think. It doesn't include all the detail,
4:39
Speaker 1: but it does have some of the central figures and
4:42
Speaker 1: organizations and policies that have driven this whole thing forward
4:46
Speaker 1: over the past 30 years. And it is a 30-year journey.
4:49
Speaker 1: So actually, the regeneration of Manchester, which kind of kicked
4:52
Speaker 1: this whole thing off, was a direct consequence of the
4:57
Speaker 1: Manchester bombing in June 1996, where a £ 3, 300 bomb was
5:00
Speaker 1: set off, apparently by the IRA, Although there's never actually
5:07
Speaker 1: been any kind of resolution to this. So we don't
5:10
Speaker 1: know if it was actually the IRA. This is what
5:14
Speaker 1: we're told. This is the official story. There were no fatalities,
5:18
Speaker 1: but 212 people were injured. So a tragedy, but also
5:23
Speaker 1: something that completely kickstarted the regeneration of the city. And
5:27
Speaker 1: this moved towards a post-industrial Manchester. So beforehand, it was
5:32
Speaker 1: very much an industrial city. really the world's first industrial city.
5:36
Speaker 1: But the decision was made probably sometime in the last century,
5:40
Speaker 1: certainly after the Second World War, that that would no
5:42
Speaker 1: longer be the case. And it just so happens that
5:46
Speaker 1: this bomb that went off in 1996 unlocked the opportunity
5:49
Speaker 1: to transform the city. An absolutely central player in this
5:53
Speaker 1: is Howard Bernstein, or was Howard Bernstein, the late Howard Bernstein,
5:58
Speaker 1: who became the chief executive of Manchester City Council in
6:03
Speaker 1: In 1998, it's an unelected council position, very, very central
6:09
Speaker 1: and important, essentially dictating the whole strategic direction of the city.
6:16
Speaker 1: He was a lifer, really, at the council. He may
6:19
Speaker 1: have had other jobs, but he was there for 46 years,
6:21
Speaker 1: extremely influential person. And Andy Burnham credits him with the
6:26
Speaker 1: development of this policy. So Manchesterism is not Burnham's idea.
6:30
Speaker 1: It very much comes from Howard Bernstein and the work
6:33
Speaker 1: that he was doing back in the mid-90s onwards. Now,
6:36
Speaker 1: there were two things that really drove this forward. The
6:38
Speaker 1: first one was the 2002 Commonwealth Games. And the Games
6:45
Speaker 1: catalyzed a massive regeneration in East Manchester and transforming the
6:51
Speaker 1: industrial areas of Beswick, Ankerts and New Islington into what
6:55
Speaker 1: is now effectively a kind of sporting facility. So the
6:59
Speaker 1: stadium that you can see there, that was the Commonwealth Stadium,
7:02
Speaker 1: that's now become the Etihad Stadium, it's the home of
7:04
Speaker 1: Manchester City. And that is what we are now given
7:08
Speaker 1: as economic development and prosperity in Manchester is now about sport.
7:15
Speaker 2: Reddened circuses.
7:16
Speaker 1: Reddened circuses, yes. Exactly. So that was the first thing
7:20
Speaker 1: that really kick-started this, was the Commonwealth Games. And then
7:24
Speaker 1: the second thing was the negotiation of the devolution process.
7:27
Speaker 1: So actually Manchester's become effectively a city-state. And Howard Bernstein
7:34
Speaker 1: was absolutely at the centre of this over a period
7:39
Speaker 1: of about eight years. So they had these seven devolution deals.
7:44
Speaker 1: First one, was called Deal Zero. So this was agreed
7:48
Speaker 1: in December 2009. And this is the introduction of what's
7:52
Speaker 1: called a statutory city region pilot. This is the first
7:55
Speaker 1: beginning to explore the potential of this. And that covers transport,
7:59
Speaker 1: public services, employment programs, housing and planning, inward investment and innovation.
8:05
Speaker 1: So there's new powers that are being accrued to the
8:07
Speaker 1: city as opposed to being managed centrally at Westminster. You
8:11
Speaker 1: then got Deal One, which was November 2014. And that's
8:15
Speaker 1: where they agreed to have an elected mayor who will
8:18
Speaker 1: fulfil the role of police and crime commissioner. So that
8:20
Speaker 1: is the first step towards actually having the current devolved
8:24
Speaker 1: system that we're being migrated towards now. It's what Andy
8:27
Speaker 1: Burnham was when he became mayor of Manchester. It's the
8:31
Speaker 1: model that is the one that is absolutely at the forefront.
8:37
Speaker 1: This is the direction of travel. First agreed in Manchester
8:40
Speaker 1: in 2014, and that was the first city region in
8:43
Speaker 1: the UK that kind of led the way on this
8:44
Speaker 1: whole thing. Second deal, deal number two, was agreed in
8:49
Speaker 1: February 2015, and that was about health and social care.
8:53
Speaker 1: and basically getting hold of £ 6. 5 billion worth of budgets
8:58
Speaker 1: to control and transform the health system. The deal number
9:03
Speaker 1: three agreed in July 2015. This was about reviewing services
9:07
Speaker 1: for children, the creation of the Greater Manchester Land Commission,
9:11
Speaker 1: so the mechanism through which all of this property development
9:14
Speaker 1: has happened. That came in 2015. Taking ownership of fire
9:18
Speaker 1: and rescue responsibilities for the mayor. Then in November 2015, transport,
9:24
Speaker 1: social housing, control over EU funding, interestingly, because we know
9:30
Speaker 1: that EU funding has been at the centre of a
9:34
Speaker 1: lot of what's been going on in the country. Let's
9:36
Speaker 1: just put it like that over the past few decades.
9:39
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say.
9:40
Speaker 2: A key driver in creating a control structure on the
9:45
Speaker 2: back of the money. Take the money and a control
9:49
Speaker 2: structure comes with it.
9:51
Speaker 1: It certainly does. Deal five, this was March 2016, which
9:55
Speaker 1: was about criminal justice. Then the final one, deal six,
9:58
Speaker 1: agreed in November 2017, which was about local industry transforming
10:03
Speaker 1: cities and then building mayoral capacity, essentially. You've got this
10:07
Speaker 1: sequence of deals that were negotiated by Howard Bernstein and
10:11
Speaker 1: the team surrounding him, at which point he left. So
10:15
Speaker 1: he resigned in March 2017, and then Burnham was elected
10:19
Speaker 1: mayor of Greater Manchester a couple of months later in
10:22
Speaker 1: May 2017. So he's effectively picked up that torch and
10:25
Speaker 1: is running with it.
10:27
Speaker 2: Picked up or set up to move into that position.
10:30
Speaker 1: I think it's probably fair to say that they were
10:32
Speaker 1: speaking to each other as this whole process went along.
10:35
Speaker 1: But before I talk more about Burnham, let's just have
10:37
Speaker 1: a little listen to this one clip that I found
10:40
Speaker 1: of Howard Bernstein talking about the role of the state
10:43
Speaker 1: in society and what he thinks it should be.
10:47
Speaker 3: Doing that, the issue is what do we want the
10:50
Speaker 3: state to do? What do we want the state to be?
10:54
Speaker 3: Do we want the state to be in control of everything?
11:00
Speaker 3: If so, it needs to dramatically change its competence levels,
11:05
Speaker 3: in my view. Or do we want the state to
11:10
Speaker 3: be doing those things only the state can do, but
11:14
Speaker 3: at the same time be empowering, supporting, creating the evidence
11:20
Speaker 3: base for intelligent interventions, intelligent policy choices, and for incentivising
11:29
Speaker 3: new local leadership structures to make the right decisions to
11:34
Speaker 3: support a national planning framework.
11:41
Speaker 2: Fascinating clip, Ben. Basically, it sounds good, doesn't it? It's
11:46
Speaker 2: all honey. It flows off the tongue. And leave it
11:50
Speaker 2: to us, the new leadership power structure, because we're intelligent.
11:55
Speaker 4: Yes.
11:56
Speaker 1: Well, he set out two options there. So the first
11:58
Speaker 1: one was, did we want the state to be in
12:00
Speaker 1: control of everything? Which I think he actually quite liked
12:02
Speaker 1: the idea of. He sort of went, well, yeah, actually,
12:04
Speaker 1: we could do that. We'd have to increase our intelligence
12:07
Speaker 1: and our capacity. Or we could have a situation where
12:10
Speaker 1: the state just guides everyone else into doing what the
12:13
Speaker 1: state wants it to do, which is essentially the same thing,
12:17
Speaker 1: if you think about it. It's just one's a bit
12:20
Speaker 1: more direct than the other and a bit easier to
12:23
Speaker 1: sell to people the electorate, I guess. So they've gone
12:28
Speaker 1: with the second model. That's essentially what Manchesterism is. It's
12:31
Speaker 1: state control. And he's very much a fan of it.
12:36
Speaker 1: He's also a fan of public ownership of companies, which
12:38
Speaker 1: is something he was promoting coming out of the pandemic.
12:40
Speaker 1: And also the idea that a city is really there
12:43
Speaker 1: just to compete in a global marketplace, to make itself
12:45
Speaker 1: as attractive as possible to international capital, so that international
12:49
Speaker 1: capital can make as much money as easily as possible
12:52
Speaker 1: in that city. And everything else is secondary to that.
12:55
Speaker 1: And that seems to me to be what Manchesterism actually is.
13:00
Speaker 1: And that is what Call Me Andy has brought into
13:04
Speaker 1: Downing Street. So, you know, one of the things that
13:07
Speaker 1: he has taken responsibility for while he was mayor, he's
13:10
Speaker 1: shouting about it, is this development of the Stockport Interchange.
13:13
Speaker 1: So this is a transport depot in Stockport, which.
13:18
Speaker 1: He's a hub for the buses, which he's always talking
13:21
Speaker 1: about the buses in Manchester and how fantastic that was,
13:24
Speaker 1: even though actually they've been delivered by private companies for profits,
13:27
Speaker 1: not actually state delivered at all. But also this interchange,
13:31
Speaker 1: it's got a 15-story residential development with 196 flats in
13:36
Speaker 1: it that are built to rent. You can't even buy them.
13:41
Speaker 1: This is the you'll own nothing and be happy model
13:44
Speaker 1: for the economic systems. This is what Burnham is doing.
13:47
Speaker 1: He's shouting about it. Apparently, this is a fantastic thing.
13:49
Speaker 1: And obviously, he's then taken that directly into Downing Street
13:52
Speaker 1: when he was appointed as prime minister in July there.
13:56
Speaker 1: I think it was actually June this year. So apologies
13:58
Speaker 1: for the mistake on the slide there. Now, this hasn't
14:03
Speaker 1: come out of nowhere. As I said, we talked about
14:05
Speaker 1: Howard Bernstein, but I'm going to have a quick run
14:07
Speaker 1: through some of the political and economic forces driving this
14:11
Speaker 1: whole agenda forward over the past several decades. Core cities.
14:19
Speaker 1: This is a network that was set up in 1995.
14:22
Speaker 1: So it was just before Bernstein arrived into office. It
14:27
Speaker 1: was an alliance of 12 major regional city councils outside
14:31
Speaker 1: of London that are basically working together to boost economic growth,
14:35
Speaker 1: promote this idea of devolution. This is very similar to
14:38
Speaker 1: the Key Cities Network that I talked about on Friday,
14:41
Speaker 1: which Tudor Evans in Plymouth is part of. They're essentially
14:44
Speaker 1: doing the same thing, just different groups of cities. Also,
14:47
Speaker 1: C40 Cities, I've spoken about them a lot recently as well. And,
14:53
Speaker 1: you know, Manchester is a founding member of Core Cities.
14:57
Speaker 1: You've also then got people like Lord Sainsbury sniffing around.
15:00
Speaker 1: So he set up this thing called the Centre for Cities,
15:04
Speaker 1: which was set up in 2005. And that was about
15:06
Speaker 1: producing research and policy to apparently drive economic growth. It's
15:12
Speaker 1: always positioned as economic growth, but alongside that, you have
15:15
Speaker 1: this total centralization of power into this new supposedly devolved system,
15:20
Speaker 1: but it's actually a series of interconnected city-states that are
15:23
Speaker 1: running on the same operational and technological platform, essentially, that
15:28
Speaker 1: has been specified and controlled by the people that we're
15:30
Speaker 1: talking about here. This was tested democratically This whole thing
15:37
Speaker 1: in 2004, you see the bottom right hand side of
15:40
Speaker 1: the screen there that we actually did have a vote
15:44
Speaker 1: on this in northeast region, as I've spoken about recently.
15:48
Speaker 1: And it was soundly rejected by 78 percent, 22 percent.
15:53
Speaker 1: So this is very much something that the establishment want
15:57
Speaker 1: and not the electorate. despite the fact that the people
16:00
Speaker 1: pushing this forward always talk a very good game about
16:03
Speaker 1: democratic process and how important it is to listen to
16:06
Speaker 1: the people of the country. On the back of that
16:10
Speaker 1: failure to sell the policy, we then saw a number
16:13
Speaker 1: of things come out of Downing Street. So Alistair Darling,
16:17
Speaker 1: who was then the Chancellor, commissioned the Manchester Independent Economic Review,
16:21
Speaker 1: which was published by Jim O'Neill, who was at the
16:24
Speaker 1: time the Chair of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. alongside Jonathan Kestenbaum,
16:29
Speaker 1: who was the chief executive of Nesta. We talk about
16:32
Speaker 1: a lot who now own the behavioral insights team. And again,
16:35
Speaker 1: that was about promoting greater devolution, greater inward investment, which
16:39
Speaker 1: means international capital coming in and buying up assets and
16:42
Speaker 1: doing things that make it a lot of money. That
16:46
Speaker 1: landed in 2009, five years down the track under a
16:49
Speaker 1: different type of government. So Labour government for the first report,
16:54
Speaker 1: Tory government for the second report, the City Growth Commission, again,
17:00
Speaker 1: led by Jim O'Neill, operating under the auspices of the RSA,
17:04
Speaker 1: the Royal Society of Arts, delivered another report saying that
17:08
Speaker 1: we've got to unleash metro growth, we need further devolution,
17:11
Speaker 1: we need to introduce new powers around borrowing, taxation, deregulation,
17:17
Speaker 1: consistent all the way through, saying essentially the same thing.
17:20
Speaker 1: That landed in 2014. And then that sparked a series
17:24
Speaker 1: of things I think are quite important, because out of that,
17:27
Speaker 1: you then have the development of what is essentially a
17:30
Speaker 1: public-private marketplace, all the component parts very clearly coming together.
17:34
Speaker 1: The first of those was this consulting firm called Metro Dynamics,
17:39
Speaker 1: founded in 2015, advising councils and cities about economic policy
17:45
Speaker 1: and devolution policy and how to bring this whole thing
17:48
Speaker 1: to fruition. That was founded, Metro Dynamics, by Mike Emmerich,
17:53
Speaker 1: who was the former CEO of New Economy Manchester. So
17:55
Speaker 1: he was working directly with Howard Bernstein. And also a
18:00
Speaker 1: chap called Ben Lucas, who was the head of the
18:03
Speaker 1: RSA City Growth Commission. So you've got a report delivered
18:06
Speaker 1: by the RSA City Growth Commission that was overseen by
18:10
Speaker 1: this guy, Ben Lucas, who then on the back of
18:12
Speaker 1: the recommendations from that goes to set up a private
18:14
Speaker 1: consulting firm, Metro Dynamics. Do you see how the whole
18:17
Speaker 1: thing kind of fits together? So you establish the groundwork
18:20
Speaker 1: for the marketplace that you then go and trade in yourself.
18:23
Speaker 1: This is a consistent thing that you see absolutely everywhere.
18:26
Speaker 1: You then saw in 2023 something called the Future Governance Forum.
18:30
Speaker 1: You can see in the top right-hand side there, that's
18:32
Speaker 1: Lord Sainsbury and others, but certainly Lord Sainsbury is central
18:36
Speaker 1: to this, established a new think tank whose core mission
18:40
Speaker 1: was to reform the state by shifting the focus from
18:43
Speaker 1: not just designing policy, but actually making sure that it's
18:46
Speaker 1: implemented properly. And there are a whole bunch of backers
18:51
Speaker 1: to this, people like Gary Lubner, a lot of the
18:54
Speaker 1: foundations that we talk about on a regular basis. And
18:56
Speaker 1: then Metro Dynamics and Future Governance Forum in 2025 established
19:01
Speaker 1: this thing called the Growth and Reform Network, which you
19:03
Speaker 1: can see on the bottom right-hand side. which is essentially
19:06
Speaker 1: the vehicle for manufacturing the public-private marketplace. And this is
19:10
Speaker 1: where they've been the commercial and the political operators together.
19:13
Speaker 1: But also really importantly, breaking down the silos between national
19:17
Speaker 1: and local governance. So they're bringing central government people in
19:20
Speaker 1: with local government people, getting them talking to each other,
19:24
Speaker 1: sharing ideas, sharing policies, and essentially manufacturing this new system
19:30
Speaker 1: in the background. you know, without any kind of public scrutiny, really.
19:34
Speaker 1: I mean, because these are private organizations and this whole
19:36
Speaker 1: thing is being done without any kind of oversight from
19:41
Speaker 1: inside government, certainly not in civil service, although there probably
19:44
Speaker 1: are civil servants involved there. It's not officially a civil
19:46
Speaker 1: service entity, I should say. And I pretty much guarantee
19:50
Speaker 1: the man on the cloth on the bus knows absolutely
19:55
Speaker 1: nothing about any of this.
19:57
Speaker 2: And the same with most of the MPs, in my view.
20:01
Speaker 1: No, certainly not. No idea. Because this is.
20:04
Speaker 2: Not discussed in the House, and most MPs are completely
20:08
Speaker 2: ignorant of what's in. But what you've just described, Ben,
20:13
Speaker 2: excellent research. What this is describing is what politics actually
20:17
Speaker 2: is in 2026. If you think it's your local MP
20:22
Speaker 2: debating policies in Westminster in order to create, that's all gone.
20:27
Speaker 2: What you're looking at, what Ben has just taken you
20:29
Speaker 2: through in that excellent analysis, is what new politics is.
20:34
Speaker 2: And unless people understand this chain of politics, you will
20:38
Speaker 2: not understand why there are all these major and often
20:44
Speaker 2: negative policy changes happening around us. This is the new
20:49
Speaker 2: system of Manchurian policies.
20:53
Speaker 1: Manchesterian. Are you just calling a new term?
20:56
Speaker 4: Well.
20:58
Speaker 2: If you look at it, this is a mind control
21:00
Speaker 2: exercise because the ultimate game here is to make sure
21:03
Speaker 2: the public simply do not understand what's happened.
21:07
Speaker 1: No, absolutely no.
21:09
Speaker 2: Manchurian candidates, I think, comes into it.
21:12
Speaker 1: I think it certainly does. Also, some of our old friends.
21:15
Speaker 1: So you can see here that Unbound Philanthropy is a
21:18
Speaker 1: partner of Future Governance Forum and they work with Common Purpose.
21:21
Speaker 1: So Common Purpose are absolutely in this mix. And in fact,
21:24
Speaker 1: what I've just described is With the growth and reform
21:30
Speaker 1: network breaking down silos between national and local government, that's
21:34
Speaker 1: absolutely common purpose methodology. That's exactly how they work.
21:39
Speaker 2: And we shouldn't be surprised because your Manchester Zero initiative
21:45
Speaker 2: was back in 2009. And we're back in the time
21:48
Speaker 2: when common purpose was installing itself like a virus in
21:53
Speaker 2: every city. across UK. So what was their agenda? To
21:58
Speaker 2: break down silos, break down the existing system of government
22:04
Speaker 2: and replace it with something else. So Common Purpose was
22:07
Speaker 2: damaged as a result of exposure in the wider media
22:11
Speaker 2: in UK, but they kept going. And now, of course,
22:15
Speaker 2: we can see them still at work.
22:17
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
22:17
Speaker 2: Putting their new system in place, whether local people want
22:21
Speaker 2: it or not.
22:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly what's happening, Brian. And then just finally
22:25
Speaker 1: to wrap this up, I just want to refocus on
22:28
Speaker 1: two of the key individuals. So Jim O'Neill, who wrote
22:31
Speaker 1: both of those reports, very, very influential economist over the
22:34
Speaker 1: past 20, 30 years, actually coined the term BRICS. We
22:37
Speaker 1: should hear BRICS. That came from Jim O'Neill. He was
22:40
Speaker 1: appointed economic advisor to Andy Burnham just a few days
22:43
Speaker 1: after he was installed. So his job in that capacity
22:46
Speaker 1: is to continue to progress this whole agenda, I would imagine.
22:49
Speaker 1: And Jonathan Kestenbaum, who he wrote the report, who O'Neill
22:52
Speaker 1: wrote the report with back in 2009, then went on
22:55
Speaker 1: to become the COO of Five Arrows, which is the
22:57
Speaker 1: Rothschild family's personal investment fund. And he also sits on
23:01
Speaker 1: the board of the Rothschild Foundation in Israel, which might
23:04
Speaker 1: give us some further clues as to who's pulling the
23:07
Speaker 1: strings here. behind this whole program, at which point it
23:12
Speaker 1: might be a good idea for us to welcome Madeleine
23:19
Speaker 1: to the show and see if you have any immediate
23:22
Speaker 1: thoughts on what we just talked through. Madeleine, does any
23:24
Speaker 1: of that feel familiar or resonate with you?
23:27
Speaker 6: Hello and thank you very much for inviting me to
23:32
Speaker 6: your program.
23:33
Speaker 7: It's absolutely familiar.
23:34
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, it's painfully familiar because I don't know, many viewers
23:39
Speaker 6: probably know already, I spoke about this before with Brian.
23:43
Speaker 6: I came from the same system. I left the same
23:46
Speaker 6: system behind me because I used.
23:48
Speaker 7: To live in Poland.
23:49
Speaker 6: I grew up in Poland and I've been part of
23:52
Speaker 6: the Solidarity Movement, then which became the political party practically
23:56
Speaker 6: running the system. We've struggled with the same system, the
24:01
Speaker 6: same structure, the same changes, the same mayors.
24:05
Speaker 7: We call them wojewodas in Poland.
24:07
Speaker 6: And every single step, what we're seeing now, what Berner
24:10
Speaker 6: is doing and Burnham, sorry, whatever his name is, is doing.
24:15
Speaker 7: We actually went through this. We really did.
24:17
Speaker 6: And I try to warn people, whoever I know, six
24:21
Speaker 6: years ago, five years ago, four years ago, to this day,
24:25
Speaker 6: and I was just saying, we can stop this. We
24:27
Speaker 6: can really stop this if we just don't allow this
24:29
Speaker 6: anymore to happen, because we do have some remains of
24:33
Speaker 6: the democracy here.
24:34
Speaker 7: We can use it. We can stop these people.
24:37
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, this is a very alien kind of topic for majority.
24:43
Speaker 6: And as Brian said, People are focusing on something that
24:47
Speaker 6: the mainstream media are bringing and completely brainwashing all nations,
24:52
Speaker 6: trying to get their focus on something else, not on
24:54
Speaker 6: the important things.
24:55
Speaker 7: So as you said, the average person, if you.
24:58
Speaker 6: Mentioned devolution or you mentioned LGR, they really don't know
25:02
Speaker 6: what we're talking about at all. And this is unfortunately
25:05
Speaker 6: extremely familiar for me.
25:07
Speaker 1: Yeah.
25:08
Speaker 2: Madeleine, thank you very much for that. And it's really
25:11
Speaker 2: lovely to have you here with us for UK Column News.
25:14
Speaker 2: I think the last time I spoke to you was
25:16
Speaker 2: back in 2024, but I'd spoken to you well before that,
25:22
Speaker 2: and I was always fascinated, and I'm going to say delighted,
25:25
Speaker 2: that you appeared, you're Polish, you've been living here in
25:30
Speaker 2: UK for a long time, and for you it is
25:33
Speaker 2: so obvious what is actually happening in this change to
25:38
Speaker 2: our democratic system. I found this very, very interesting that
25:43
Speaker 2: your experience of living in Poland then allowed you to
25:48
Speaker 2: come into this country and very quickly start to say
25:51
Speaker 2: there's something wrong. This is a good starting point because
25:56
Speaker 2: for people to stop what's happening, it does seem to
26:00
Speaker 2: me they need to understand what is being done. And
26:03
Speaker 2: that presumably is part of the work that you've been
26:06
Speaker 2: doing with the Heritage Party to talk to local councillors.
26:14
Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely.
26:16
Speaker 6: You know, I live here for 40 years now, nearly
26:18
Speaker 6: 40 years, I think.
26:20
Speaker 7: And my husband is British.
26:22
Speaker 6: He knows a little bit about Polish history from what
26:25
Speaker 6: he learned here.
26:26
Speaker 7: Then he went to Poland. He learned a little bit
26:29
Speaker 7: more about this.
26:29
Speaker 6: But he's still having me as a wife, talking constantly
26:33
Speaker 6: about what's going on. He's still in the position when
26:36
Speaker 6: he couldn't fully understand the picture. So for an average person,
26:40
Speaker 6: it's even more difficult when they never experienced anything like
26:43
Speaker 6: that before. When I came here, I would never expect
26:47
Speaker 6: I would go through this nightmare again. And the moment
26:51
Speaker 6: when Blair got in power and he introduced the reform devolution,
26:57
Speaker 6: there we go. That's when things actually started going this direction.
27:01
Speaker 6: And he was very clear with his plans and which
27:04
Speaker 6: completely matched our playbook, which we have in Poland, which
27:09
Speaker 6: we fight with. So I've been trying to educate some
27:14
Speaker 6: close circles.
27:15
Speaker 4: But as I said, that was the subject which was.
27:18
Speaker 6: Unfortunately too difficult to understand for people because people here
27:22
Speaker 6: and in other countries in the West, they wasn't really
27:25
Speaker 6: familiar what really was going on behind the curtains.
27:28
Speaker 7: Behind the Iron Curtain.
27:29
Speaker 6: So they only have a brief idea that we just
27:32
Speaker 6: changed the system, that people are living in communism. So
27:36
Speaker 6: the important thing that I have to bring up again,
27:38
Speaker 6: and I'm repeating this all the time, Poland didn't have
27:41
Speaker 6: a communist system. Poland had a socialist system. They call
27:44
Speaker 6: it socialism, which in fact was a communist. Polish nation
27:50
Speaker 6: resist the communists in the 50s. So they have to
27:52
Speaker 6: change this to the socialists. So that means we still
27:55
Speaker 6: have this private sector. And because of that, the private sector,
28:02
Speaker 6: of course, couldn't stay in the private individual hands. So
28:06
Speaker 6: the private sector was a big misleading thing and was gradually,
28:10
Speaker 6: by policies and regulations, was taken away from people and
28:15
Speaker 6: the private sector was owned by the state. So even so,
28:19
Speaker 6: we call this private sector that was owned by the state.
28:22
Speaker 6: So that's the first similarity, if you can spot, that
28:26
Speaker 6: gradually we have the, private sector being owned by the
28:33
Speaker 6: bigger investors all the time. And the bigger investors are
28:37
Speaker 6: directly connected to the authorities which run everything. So that
28:41
Speaker 6: was exactly the same in Poland. This is the kind
28:45
Speaker 6: of first connection. And then all this kind of emergencies,
28:50
Speaker 6: we always have a housing emergency in Poland, always.
28:54
Speaker 7: And if anyone.
28:57
Speaker 6: was trying to oppose to this was the same kind
29:00
Speaker 6: of propaganda that we are selfish. You know, if we
29:05
Speaker 6: don't like what the government is telling us, that means
29:07
Speaker 6: we are selfish. We don't feel sorry for people who
29:09
Speaker 6: already need that. Then the farming, the agriculture that was
29:14
Speaker 6: taken away completely from farmers in the same way like
29:18
Speaker 6: it's taking this now. We have the climate which they're
29:22
Speaker 6: using to take the farmland from people. In Poland, actually,
29:27
Speaker 6: they've done it differently. Slightly differently, because they were still
29:32
Speaker 6: promising the farmers prosperity and help from the investors, money.
29:39
Speaker 6: and high education for their children. So instead of staying
29:44
Speaker 6: in some poor farm, they could go to the university
29:48
Speaker 6: with the priority points because they come from the minority background.
29:53
Speaker 6: So gradually they took the land completely away from the
29:57
Speaker 6: private farmers. The same happened to hospitality, the same happened
30:01
Speaker 6: to every single private business. So the private sector became
30:05
Speaker 6: the state-owned sector and became owned by the investors. In fact,
30:11
Speaker 6: the same global investors which are involved now, exactly the same.
30:15
Speaker 6: So the Polish politicians have the funds going through Switzerland,
30:20
Speaker 6: through the bank accounts. So, you know, this is a
30:24
Speaker 6: long story, this is a full history. It's very difficult
30:26
Speaker 6: to just summarize, but Trust me, it is exactly the same.
30:32
Speaker 2: Madeleine, thank you very much. And that last point about
30:34
Speaker 2: the investors, Ben, this is one of the key points
30:36
Speaker 2: that you've been making, that you are seeing emerging the
30:40
Speaker 2: public-private partnership, where you're not sure whether you're looking at
30:43
Speaker 2: government or you're actually looking at the private sector.
30:47
Speaker 1: Well, no, you're looking at a merger between the two.
30:51
Speaker 1: It's not one or the other. They become one integrated entity.
30:54
Speaker 1: This is the thing. And ultimately, and this is what people,
30:58
Speaker 1: particularly idealistic, young socialist types in this country can never
31:03
Speaker 1: seem to get their head around, is that actually socialism, communism,
31:08
Speaker 1: you know, without wanting to get into some ideological debate
31:12
Speaker 1: about the differences between those two systems, essentially merge towards
31:16
Speaker 1: a monopoly, which is beneficial to capital. Capital wants monopoly.
31:21
Speaker 1: Capitalism wants monopoly. And actually, it works very comfortably with
31:26
Speaker 1: authoritarian governments because it's a way of bringing wealth and
31:34
Speaker 1: power together into a single structure like we've just talked about.
31:39
Speaker 1: One question for you, Madeline. You talked about, well, I've
31:42
Speaker 1: got more than one question, but one I'll just focus
31:44
Speaker 1: on to begin with. The amount of time that it took,
31:48
Speaker 1: you just described the process that happened in Poland. How
31:51
Speaker 1: many years did that take to actually play out?
31:58
Speaker 6: It took 40 years for a Polish nation to actually
32:01
Speaker 6: try to resist that. But they've done it very quickly.
32:06
Speaker 6: That was different circumstances. They create similar circumstances by creating
32:12
Speaker 6: pandemic because they just stop everything, every single country from
32:17
Speaker 6: any kind of development.
32:18
Speaker 7: And they said, we're starting this again. And they call
32:20
Speaker 7: it reset as well, did they?
32:23
Speaker 6: So, you know, but in Poland, because that was after war,
32:26
Speaker 6: they've done the kind of introduced the system straight away
32:31
Speaker 6: after war. That's like now we have a communist, we're
32:33
Speaker 6: taking everything because we are in the horrible situation and
32:36
Speaker 6: we need to rebuild the country. So again, that was
32:38
Speaker 6: like a build back better, same story. But actually, as
32:44
Speaker 6: I said, they failed in the 50s. They couldn't push
32:47
Speaker 6: the agenda to the state what they want. So they
32:50
Speaker 6: have to change the program completely and they start again
32:55
Speaker 6: as a socialist. And then when this, to develop this, honestly,
32:59
Speaker 6: it took them a very short time because the nation
33:03
Speaker 6: couldn't really, at this point, they couldn't, create the resistance.
33:08
Speaker 6: They was very much like British nations now. They was
33:11
Speaker 6: trying to find the solution, how to resist, how to
33:13
Speaker 6: stop them. But because they wasn't really aware fully what
33:17
Speaker 6: was going on, it's happened so quick. That was so
33:21
Speaker 6: many battles and people were so divided by the religion,
33:26
Speaker 6: by the different kinds of propaganda and et cetera. As
33:33
Speaker 6: I said, it took 40 years for the nation to
33:35
Speaker 6: finally get together and see the full picture and manage
33:40
Speaker 6: to find the solution how to dismantle the system.
33:45
Speaker 2: Madeline, a question here. Poland in the European Union. I
33:50
Speaker 2: think you know I've never been a fan of the
33:52
Speaker 2: European Union. Very, in my opinion, very dangerous state system.
34:00
Speaker 2: But You've been in Poland, you're now in UK, seeing
34:05
Speaker 2: this change happening here. Is this the same system throughout
34:10
Speaker 2: the EU?
34:13
Speaker 6: This is absolutely the same system. And I will go
34:16
Speaker 6: back because I just forgot about, mentioned why I joined
34:20
Speaker 6: the Heritage Party. So this is the point that I
34:22
Speaker 6: want to mention that, you know, after seeing what is
34:25
Speaker 6: happening in UK and after talking to so many people
34:29
Speaker 6: and listened to many different politicians, I found just one
34:33
Speaker 6: politician who really was fully aware of the system. And
34:36
Speaker 6: this is David Carton. That's why I joined the heritage party.
34:40
Speaker 6: And David is very aware of the structure of the system.
34:44
Speaker 6: And exactly as you mentioned, Brian, is the EU system.
34:50
Speaker 7: Basically the EU, it's.
34:53
Speaker 6: The local government organization, but in the bigger scale. When
34:58
Speaker 6: Poland finally dismantled the system, the devolution, local organizations, socialists,
35:05
Speaker 6: whatever they call this, they start to rebuild the economy
35:09
Speaker 6: very fast because we finally have the opportunity for individuals
35:12
Speaker 6: to open some private businesses, try to do something like
35:16
Speaker 6: they should do for so many years.
35:19
Speaker 7: So the economy.
35:20
Speaker 6: Just really went fast up and this system couldn't have that.
35:25
Speaker 6: So Poland was pulled back to the EU and the
35:30
Speaker 6: nation didn't really want to join the EU at all.
35:32
Speaker 6: And that's something that nobody knew here in UK and
35:34
Speaker 6: everywhere else. But, you know, majority of the nation, they didn't.
35:38
Speaker 6: They felt they are happy as they are. But they
35:42
Speaker 6: use some particular kind of brainwashing methods to make sure
35:46
Speaker 6: that the nation finally will see.
35:48
Speaker 4: How wonderful it would be for Poland to join again.
35:51
Speaker 6: So, yeah, this is exactly the same system. The local
35:54
Speaker 6: government or organizations, exactly the same structure. It's exactly the
35:58
Speaker 6: same structure that all countries EU based on. So it's
36:02
Speaker 6: the false kind of severity that, you know, the countries
36:06
Speaker 6: still think that they are independent, but they are not.
36:09
Speaker 6: They are only independent in the name, nothing else. They
36:12
Speaker 6: are completely dependent of the European Parliament. So that's what
36:15
Speaker 6: they're doing here. They're centralising every single country now. And
36:19
Speaker 6: we're going to have a little EU in the UK.
36:23
Speaker 6: That's the same structure.
36:29
Speaker 2: Colin for many years has talked about Brexit without the exit.
36:34
Speaker 2: We said that UK would never actually fully leave the
36:37
Speaker 2: European Union. And I think that's absolutely true. So this
36:42
Speaker 2: makes even more sense of what Andy Burnham and his
36:45
Speaker 2: wider team is up to. Just lastly, Madeleine, you are
36:50
Speaker 2: going to be joining us for UK Column Extra today.
36:52
Speaker 2: So we're going to have plenty more time to talk.
36:55
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. Just one last question. When you
36:59
Speaker 2: get the opportunity to talk to local councillors, are they
37:04
Speaker 2: receptive to the message that you're putting across? If you're
37:08
Speaker 2: saying to them, if you don't really understand what's happening
37:12
Speaker 2: in your local council, this is what you're looking at.
37:17
Speaker 2: Do people respond when you start to point them in
37:21
Speaker 2: the right direction?
37:23
Speaker 6: I think this is the subject to have a proper
37:27
Speaker 6: discussion about because, you know, the councilor's history with us,
37:31
Speaker 6: it started from massive, massive deflection. And of course, the
37:35
Speaker 6: kind of resistance, they don't want to have anything to
37:38
Speaker 6: do with us. But that was taking for so long.
37:40
Speaker 6: We were so persistent. So now, now they do.
37:44
Speaker 4: They're starting to understand just since 2025.
37:47
Speaker 7: But I will explain this.
37:48
Speaker 4: Later because that's how I'm about this.
37:52
Speaker 7: To say, really.
37:53
Speaker 2: No, that's fine. A little teaser for the audience. If
37:56
Speaker 2: you're a member of UK column, you can join us
37:58
Speaker 2: for extra time after the news. And we'll get into
38:02
Speaker 2: this a lot deeper, as you say. Fascinating to watch this.
38:05
Speaker 1: Unfold, Ben. It absolutely is, yes. Now, if you want
38:09
Speaker 1: to join us for Extra Arthur News, then you need
38:12
Speaker 1: to be a member of UK Column. That's a beautiful segue, Brian,
38:15
Speaker 1: thank you. And you can do that by heading to
38:17
Speaker 1: our website, finding this panel on the right-hand side, which
38:21
Speaker 1: will take you to this page, where you can make
38:23
Speaker 1: a donation of any amount. or you can take out
38:26
Speaker 1: a monthly, annual or lifetime membership. We get access to
38:32
Speaker 1: the comments section on our website, the world-famous chat box
38:35
Speaker 1: that sits in front of us in the studio as
38:38
Speaker 1: we're delivering the news, as well as UK column extra.
38:42
Speaker 1: You can also head to the shop and grab yourself
38:45
Speaker 1: a copy of the column, issues one or two. They're
38:48
Speaker 1: going like hotcakes. Absolutely fantastic. Also, if you haven't read
38:52
Speaker 1: Your Life in Their Hands, make sure you read it
38:54
Speaker 1: because it will tell you all about common purpose, amongst
38:56
Speaker 1: other things. This is essentially the groundwork for everything that
38:59
Speaker 1: I've just taken you through relating to Manchesterism that was
39:03
Speaker 1: written back in 2012, 13, 14, I think it was.
39:07
Speaker 1: So we've been absolutely at the forefront of this for
39:09
Speaker 1: the past 15 plus years. And we're going to be
39:12
Speaker 1: getting together to celebrate that fact, actually, in a couple
39:15
Speaker 1: of weeks, three weeks, two weeks on Friday, I think
39:17
Speaker 1: it is.
39:18
Speaker 2: Time going very, very quickly. And we just point people
39:22
Speaker 2: at the website because there's a lot of information about
39:26
Speaker 2: our 20th event on there, which probably a lot of
39:29
Speaker 2: people haven't seen. So I've just taken a little bit
39:32
Speaker 2: of a video screenshot here. So as it's saying, three
39:37
Speaker 2: days of conversation, celebration, friendship, get together, spectacular food. And
39:44
Speaker 2: of course, we've got a program which is Absolutely packed
39:48
Speaker 2: from the Friday there at 1400 when the doors open.
39:52
Speaker 2: We got a welcome personal introduction from myself and we've
39:58
Speaker 2: got a speaker that evening. So everybody is going to
40:00
Speaker 2: be fired up on the Friday and then Saturday and Sunday,
40:05
Speaker 2: an absolute full day of not only speakers, but ample
40:10
Speaker 2: time to be socializing with the rest of the people there.
40:14
Speaker 2: We know this is the key thing. for people to
40:17
Speaker 2: be together, be discussing serious subjects and talking about lighter things, families,
40:25
Speaker 2: ordinary life, which keeps us all human. All of this
40:29
Speaker 2: packed into a weekend event. And I'm going to say
40:34
Speaker 2: once again, looking at the audience via our camera, that
40:38
Speaker 2: you asked for this and the UK column has responded.
40:42
Speaker 2: A lot of great work, the UK column team. And
40:45
Speaker 2: Gemma Cooper in particular, in putting this together, it is
40:49
Speaker 2: going to be fantastic. We have arranged the weather. So
40:53
Speaker 2: I can say with certainty today, it will either be
40:56
Speaker 2: sunny or raining. And either way, we're still going to
41:00
Speaker 2: have fun. And we'll be ending up having a picture
41:05
Speaker 2: taken of the assembled company by that famous red and
41:09
Speaker 2: white striped lighthouse. So utterly tremendous. weekend if you haven't
41:15
Speaker 2: got a ticket get onto the uk column website treat
41:18
Speaker 2: yourself you won't regret.
41:20
Speaker 1: It fantastic can't wait Now, just a couple more things. Tonight,
41:29
Speaker 1: Mike's back, and the whole crew are encouraging us to
41:33
Speaker 1: have more kids. That'll be from 7 p.m., which will
41:35
Speaker 1: be interesting. And then 9 p.m., Silk and Steel, China
41:39
Speaker 1: has changed the game, according to Carl Zar. Tune in
41:44
Speaker 1: if you want to hear about that. And on that note,
41:49
Speaker 1: over to you, Brian. What have you got? Indeed.
41:51
Speaker 2: Well, I have to report today. on the reports about
41:57
Speaker 2: forced adoption, which have come out of Scotland and documentary.
42:03
Speaker 2: Lots to talk about it, not enough time in the news,
42:06
Speaker 2: but this is really such a critical issue because UK
42:10
Speaker 2: column for 20 years has been warning about the state
42:13
Speaker 2: in the United Kingdom stealing people's children. So this is
42:17
Speaker 2: the BBC report on what's happened up in Scotland. headline here,
42:22
Speaker 2: I was told I was unworthy to be a mother,
42:25
Speaker 2: then they stole my baby. But when we get into
42:28
Speaker 2: the BBC's story on this, this is the way they
42:34
Speaker 2: spin it. So you get down through the story and
42:36
Speaker 2: there's a warning that this story about having your child
42:40
Speaker 2: taken under forced adoption contains racist language and descriptions of
42:47
Speaker 2: sexual abuse and and violence. To me, this is a
42:50
Speaker 2: minor part of the state actually stealing your child, with
42:54
Speaker 2: the BBC keeping its agenda going to spin the story.
42:59
Speaker 2: And the key statistic here is that between 1949 and 1976,
43:03
Speaker 2: some 250,000 women were forced to hand over their newborn
43:06
Speaker 2: babies for adoption. That's over 9,000 a year. But I'm
43:17
Speaker 2: really going to ask the question, is this top BBC
43:20
Speaker 2: journalism or is it disinformation as the BBC encourages the
43:25
Speaker 2: audience to believe that forced adoption is a thing of
43:29
Speaker 2: the past? And of course, the BBC in its reports
43:33
Speaker 2: didn't make any warning. that people really need to get
43:38
Speaker 2: their wits about them to understand that it is the
43:41
Speaker 2: state itself stealing your children. Let's just have a look
43:45
Speaker 2: at the BBC's embedded video clip where one of the
43:49
Speaker 2: mothers is talking. Very tragic, very emotional. And the report
43:54
Speaker 2: I'm making is to emphasise that the horrors of this
43:58
Speaker 2: report are still going on today.
44:00
Speaker 8: It was euphoria, love.
44:04
Speaker 2: Joy, everything. He was just a wee darling.
44:08
Speaker 5: He was beautiful.
44:10
Speaker 2: Well, that morning that they took him away, that's all
44:12
Speaker 2: I can remember. The last thing was picking up the shoes.
44:16
Speaker 2: I think I can remember physically collapsing.
44:20
Speaker 5: I don't know.
44:21
Speaker 2: It must have been hours later. I come and see him.
44:24
Speaker 2: He said, here's a cup of tea, girl.
44:25
Speaker 3: I said, I want my baby and I want a
44:27
Speaker 3: cup of tea.
44:30
Speaker 5: I think we were so demeaned and we were so.
44:35
Speaker 1: What's the word?
44:36
Speaker 2: You felt the shame.
44:39
Speaker 5: You really felt it.
44:43
Speaker 2: So the BBC absolutely picked up on the horror and
44:46
Speaker 2: the negative emotion for these women who've had their babies
44:51
Speaker 2: and children taken away. But what the BBC has absolutely
44:54
Speaker 2: not done is taken the lid off how this system
44:58
Speaker 2: works and the fact that it is still operating today. Now,
45:01
Speaker 2: the lead journalist in this article, at least, is Nicola Rutherford,
45:05
Speaker 2: we just put her up on screen, Assistant News Editor
45:07
Speaker 2: at BBC Scotland News. And if we have a look
45:10
Speaker 2: at what she says about herself, she says, Assistant News
45:14
Speaker 2: Editor with the BBC News site. I source, write, produce
45:18
Speaker 2: and edit a wide range of stories from across Scotland.
45:22
Speaker 2: And she says that she has a particular interest in
45:26
Speaker 2: boosting readership through our coverage of local news. So I'm
45:30
Speaker 2: going to ask a key question. Is the forced adoption
45:33
Speaker 2: story here really just good for boosting the BBC's readership
45:38
Speaker 2: through local news? Because the BBC has not written an
45:42
Speaker 2: article or done an investigation where it's showing real power
45:47
Speaker 2: in taking the lid off What is causing this stealing
45:50
Speaker 2: of children, the forced adoption, and getting it stopped? So
45:54
Speaker 2: my view is that the BBC is really happy to
45:58
Speaker 2: have these tragic stories on screen because all they're interested
46:04
Speaker 2: in is trying to boost their flagging of viewer figures. Now,
46:08
Speaker 2: if that's not bad enough, we get a clue for
46:11
Speaker 2: what's going on here in a wider sense from gov.uk.
46:15
Speaker 2: And here's a statement from a couple of weeks ago.
46:19
Speaker 2: Prime Minister's statement in the House on historic forced adoption.
46:24
Speaker 2: And this is the key thing. This is all historic.
46:28
Speaker 2: According to the government, it's no longer happening. So don't worry,
46:32
Speaker 2: mums and dads, forced adoption is just a thing of
46:35
Speaker 2: the past. Nothing to see move on. This is the
46:40
Speaker 2: absolute lie because the horrors of this system have continued
46:45
Speaker 2: on from 1976 into 2020. 2026. Now, of course, Keir Starmer,
46:51
Speaker 2: as prime minister a little while ago, couldn't resist the
46:55
Speaker 2: opportunity for making an apology, a formal state apology. He
47:01
Speaker 2: can't apologize about failing to catch child abusers. But of course,
47:05
Speaker 2: this one, which doesn't really connect his name, he was
47:09
Speaker 2: very big on giving an apology. So let's have a
47:13
Speaker 2: look at what he had to say.
47:16
Speaker 8: The shame is not yours. The shame was never yours.
47:24
Speaker 8: The shame is ours. And I say that on behalf
47:29
Speaker 8: of the whole country. I say it to every single
47:33
Speaker 8: person impacted. We are deeply and profoundly sorry. These harms
47:39
Speaker 8: were compounded by the actions and failures of the state.
47:44
Speaker 8: Governments funded, enabled and relied on systems that were not
47:48
Speaker 8: consistently or effectively overseen. The state did not prevent harm
47:53
Speaker 8: from continuing. The state bears responsibility for the systems it
47:58
Speaker 8: funded and legitimized, which enabled these practices to occur. The
48:03
Speaker 8: state did not do enough to protect mothers, children and
48:07
Speaker 8: families from harm. And for this systemic failure, I am
48:12
Speaker 8: truly sorry.
48:15
Speaker 2: Well, of course, he's truly sorry because his name doesn't
48:18
Speaker 2: actually get caught up in this one. But is he
48:20
Speaker 2: really sorry? Are any of the MPs sitting on those
48:24
Speaker 2: benches sorry? Well, apparently not, because all the mothers that
48:28
Speaker 2: come to the UK column today talking about their children
48:31
Speaker 2: being forcibly taken by the state invariably report that no
48:36
Speaker 2: single MP will support them in getting the lid off
48:39
Speaker 2: what's happening. So utterly sickening to see that man talking
48:43
Speaker 2: like this. But if we just pull apart some of
48:45
Speaker 2: his statements, he said that these harms were compounded by
48:50
Speaker 2: the actions and failures of the state. But of course,
48:53
Speaker 2: there's no mention of the orchestrated cover-ups that allowed this
48:56
Speaker 2: to happen and indeed allowed the gang rapes to happen,
49:00
Speaker 2: and of course, the wider abuse of children in the system.
49:05
Speaker 2: He went on to say governments enabled, funded, and relied
49:08
Speaker 2: on systems that were not consistently or effectively overseen. You
49:13
Speaker 2: reacted to that, Ben.
49:14
Speaker 1: Not people, Brian. It was the system that did it.
49:17
Speaker 1: No people.
49:17
Speaker 4: Yes.
49:20
Speaker 2: Not our fault. It was just the system. No mention
49:23
Speaker 2: of the cover-ups again. And he went on to say
49:26
Speaker 2: that the state did not prevent harm from continuing. And
49:32
Speaker 2: I comment here, the state facilitated this abuse by orchestrating
49:37
Speaker 2: the cover-ups. And another comment he made, the state bears
49:41
Speaker 2: responsibility for the systems it funded and legitimized, which enabled
49:46
Speaker 2: these practices to occur. And we're going to give him
49:49
Speaker 2: a tick for that because that's true. But your point
49:53
Speaker 2: is systems have to be operated by people. And ultimately,
49:57
Speaker 2: we should be looking for which named people were responsible
50:01
Speaker 2: for allowing these abuses to continue over such a protracted time.
50:07
Speaker 2: and indeed until the present date. He said the state
50:11
Speaker 2: did not do enough to prevent mothers and children of
50:14
Speaker 2: families from harm. Well, no, because the state was orchestrating this.
50:20
Speaker 2: And to emphasize the point that this is not historic,
50:24
Speaker 2: if viewers go to the UK column website and just
50:28
Speaker 2: put in child stealing by the state, you will see
50:32
Speaker 2: interview after interview in current years where mothers are coming
50:37
Speaker 2: forward talking about their children being taken unlawfully by the
50:42
Speaker 2: British state. And why is this happening? Well, the simple
50:46
Speaker 2: answer is because children are worth huge sums of money,
50:50
Speaker 2: not only within a care system where the care providers
50:53
Speaker 2: get paid, but of course, drug manufacturers are also on
50:58
Speaker 2: board with medication for children with special needs. And then
51:01
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, we've got the predatory
51:04
Speaker 2: system which is making money off the sexual exploitation of
51:08
Speaker 2: the children. All of this is worth billions. And this
51:12
Speaker 2: is why the government does not want it to stop.
51:15
Speaker 2: But we can discuss this more in extra.
51:19
Speaker 1: It's just hideous when you say it like that, Brian. Awful.
51:23
Speaker 2: Well, it is hideous. And if you can't protect your
51:26
Speaker 2: children in this country, it really doesn't matter what system
51:29
Speaker 2: you're going to live in. the existing system or what
51:34
Speaker 2: Andy Burnham would like to have the full spectrum of.
51:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, couldn't agree more. We'll be talking about that in extra,
51:41
Speaker 1: no doubt. Now, some good news on the European front.
51:45
Speaker 1: Jubilant scenes from Reykjavik as voters in Ireland have rejected
51:50
Speaker 1: restarting European Union membership talks in a referendum over the weekend.
51:54
Speaker 1: The final results confirmed a narrow victory for the no camp,
51:58
Speaker 1: which secured 52.8% of the vote against 47.2% for the
52:03
Speaker 1: yes campaign. The urban area of Reykjavik was the only
52:08
Speaker 1: part of the country that voted yes. while the rural
52:12
Speaker 1: and coastal constituencies voted heavily for no. They want to
52:15
Speaker 1: protect fishing and sovereignty. And it's a similar story across
52:20
Speaker 1: all European nations, isn't it? It's the metropolitan centres that
52:24
Speaker 1: like big government and it's the regions that don't want it.
52:29
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And we can say in respect of Iceland that,
52:32
Speaker 2: of course, if Britain hadn't been pulled towards the European
52:36
Speaker 2: Union and the common fisheries policy, we would not have
52:39
Speaker 2: had a cod war. with Iceland and both countries would
52:44
Speaker 2: have been much, much better off for their fishing industry
52:47
Speaker 2: and all the prosperity off the back of that. But
52:50
Speaker 2: Britain shamefully put the European Union over its agreements with
52:57
Speaker 2: Iceland and utter disaster as our fisheries were slaughtered by
53:03
Speaker 2: countries from the European Union.
53:05
Speaker 1: Indeed, yes. Now, this is extremely good news, I must say,
53:08
Speaker 1: in terms of the kind of zeitgeist and the direction
53:11
Speaker 1: of travel, particularly with young people across Europe. Because if
53:15
Speaker 1: the EU falls apart, then the whole global governance project
53:18
Speaker 1: falls apart, as we were very eloquently told by French
53:24
Speaker 1: academic Jacques Attali back in 2010, I think this video
53:28
Speaker 1: is from. Let's just watch this short clip.
53:32
Speaker 9: History teaches us that if Europe doesn't get its act
53:34
Speaker 9: together in the next few years with a proper European government,
53:38
Speaker 9: the whole European project will collapse. Because if we don't
53:42
Speaker 9: move forward, we'll fall back. And if we don't have
53:46
Speaker 9: one finance minister, one budget, one economic policy, one social policy,
53:51
Speaker 9: the euro itself will have no meaning. Because the euro
53:54
Speaker 9: cannot exist without a single-minded European discipline.
53:58
Speaker 10: So the EU of tomorrow must be completely integrated politically,
54:02
Speaker 10: or will cease to exist.
54:04
Speaker 1: Exactly.
54:05
Speaker 9: Or each nation will revert to protectionism, and that is
54:08
Speaker 9: a threat to world growth. Either we're heading towards a
54:11
Speaker 9: world government, or we're going to put national issues first.
54:16
Speaker 10: This idea of a world government will frighten many people.
54:22
Speaker 1: Indeed.
54:23
Speaker 9: That's only to be expected, because it seems like a fantasy.
54:26
Speaker 9: But there is already global authority in many areas, in
54:30
Speaker 9: airline security, in football, in banking. And even if it's
54:34
Speaker 9: hard to think of a European government at the moment,
54:37
Speaker 9: which is there but very weak, Europe can at least
54:40
Speaker 9: pass on its experience to the world. If we're not
54:45
Speaker 9: capable of creating an economic framework alongside a political framework
54:49
Speaker 9: in Europe, then we're never going to do it on
54:51
Speaker 9: a global scale.
54:54
Speaker 1: So FIFA and the banks as the model for governance.
54:58
Speaker 1: What do you reckon, Brian?
55:00
Speaker 2: Well, it's all emerging, isn't it? It's hidden in plain sight,
55:06
Speaker 2: but we're now able to see it. And if we
55:09
Speaker 2: listen properly to what they talk about, even if sometimes
55:12
Speaker 2: the newspeak can be difficult to decipher, they are telling
55:16
Speaker 2: us what the objective is, and that is this one
55:19
Speaker 2: world government, which is not going to be a benign
55:22
Speaker 2: government in any sense.
55:24
Speaker 1: Certainly not. Okay.
55:26
Speaker 2: Well, I'm just going to move on to the subject
55:28
Speaker 2: of propaganda. That automatically means that we've got to give
55:31
Speaker 2: the BBC a mention. And there's a clip here of
55:36
Speaker 2: BBC's Russian journalist, Steve Rosenberg, getting very, very upset because
55:45
Speaker 2: the Russians are doing some things concerning schools and schoolchildren.
55:50
Speaker 2: Let's watch the video.
55:52
Speaker 5: On to notable visitors, and in the last few days
55:56
Speaker 5: we've talked a lot about the CIA director John Ratcliffe
56:00
Speaker 5: and his surprise trip to Moscow. But here too was
56:04
Speaker 5: Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican's foreign minister. After talks with
56:08
Speaker 5: Sergei Lavrov, the Archbishop said this about.
56:12
Speaker 1: The war in Ukraine.
56:13
Speaker 5: Let us be clear, this war must end. But the
56:17
Speaker 5: word war didn't make it into the Russian government paper.
56:21
Speaker 5: Reshishke Gezheta quoted him saying, the conflict must end. And
56:25
Speaker 5: with the new academic year in Russia starting September the 1st,
56:29
Speaker 5: Komsomolskaya Pravda informs us about some changes to the school curriculum.
56:34
Speaker 5: The spiritual and moral culture of Russia is a new
56:37
Speaker 5: subject that will be studied in grades five to seven.
56:40
Speaker 5: There will be a discussion with children about traditional values
56:44
Speaker 5: of Russia. There will be less foreign language study. In
56:48
Speaker 5: grades five to seven, Class hours for this will be
56:50
Speaker 5: cut by around a third. This abbreviation stands for Fundamentals
56:55
Speaker 5: of Security and Defence of the Motherland. This lesson has
56:59
Speaker 5: been split in two, Life Safety and Basic Military Training.
57:04
Speaker 5: And there are new standardised textbooks for social studies for
57:08
Speaker 5: grades 9 to 11. The books have been edited by
57:11
Speaker 5: former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, known for his anti-Western rhetoric.
57:17
Speaker 5: Here is one of the new social studies textbooks for
57:20
Speaker 5: grade 10. What do we find here? Well, there are
57:23
Speaker 5: quotes from Vladimir Putin. Russian 10th graders will be taught
57:27
Speaker 5: that over many centuries, our country has developed a unique
57:31
Speaker 5: system of traditional spiritual.
57:33
Speaker 1: And moral values.
57:34
Speaker 5: They will be told that in Ukraine, several generations have
57:38
Speaker 5: been brought up to hate Russia and raised on neo-Nazi ideas.
57:43
Speaker 5: That's what they're going to be told. And they will
57:45
Speaker 5: be taught that Russia has not an official ideology, but
57:49
Speaker 5: a national idea. And that idea is based on patriotism,
57:54
Speaker 5: conscious love for the motherland, for your people and its traditions.
58:00
Speaker 2: Well, I can't see the expression on the faces of
58:04
Speaker 2: our audience, but for me, I just found myself laughing
58:07
Speaker 2: that Rosenberg would get so upset at a set of values,
58:11
Speaker 2: which I think a lot of people in the United
58:14
Speaker 2: Kingdom would love to see come back into schools instead
58:17
Speaker 2: of perverse sexual agendas for young children and the woke agenda.
58:22
Speaker 2: But we're teaching children about moral values and spirituality, to
58:28
Speaker 2: love their country, to be prepared to defend it. And
58:31
Speaker 2: we're going to cut down on other languages so that
58:35
Speaker 2: we can, in this case, they can focus on the
58:38
Speaker 2: Russian language. So it seems to me that we've got
58:42
Speaker 2: set out here a set of goals, which on the
58:45
Speaker 2: surface at least appear quite laudable. And Rosenberg, of course,
58:50
Speaker 2: is the BBC man attempting to rip the Russians apart. Meanwhile,
58:55
Speaker 2: in UK, everything to do with the spiritual guidance and
58:59
Speaker 2: morality of children is being ripped apart, not least by
59:03
Speaker 2: the BBC. More for extra time as well.
59:06
Speaker 1: Oh, certainly.
59:07
Speaker 10: Yeah.
59:07
Speaker 1: I mean, the pearl clutching going on there was quite extraordinary.
59:11
Speaker 1: My goodness.
59:12
Speaker 2: We'll save the rest of the analysis for UK column Extra. Now,
59:16
Speaker 2: let's just end with a couple of finales. I thought
59:19
Speaker 2: the audience might enjoy this one, but some time ago
59:23
Speaker 2: with a gentleman, Mike from Slough, We had to talk
59:26
Speaker 2: about health and foods and why sardines were such a
59:29
Speaker 2: good health food. But ultimately, Mike was talking about a
59:34
Speaker 2: sardine saga because something funny, fishy even, had been going
59:40
Speaker 2: on with the price. Now, I was contacted by another
59:45
Speaker 2: gentleman over the weekend. And we've got here somebody that's
59:50
Speaker 2: taken waitrose and partners to task. Because this particular customer
59:56
Speaker 2: has noted that the price of a tin of sardines
1:00:00
Speaker 2: has gone up from 65p to £ 1. I can now
1:00:03
Speaker 2: tell you it's even worse than that. But in the response,
1:00:09
Speaker 2: Waitrose got a little bit hot under the collar because
1:00:12
Speaker 2: they said, we aim to offer the best value, but
1:00:15
Speaker 2: we're unable to give more details on the specific cost
1:00:18
Speaker 2: breakdown of sardines as its business sensitive information. So we
1:00:27
Speaker 2: can't ask why there's been such a huge increase in
1:00:30
Speaker 2: the price of sardines because it's secret business information. So
1:00:35
Speaker 2: UK column is going to say, if there's anybody out
1:00:38
Speaker 2: there who can tell us what's actually going on here,
1:00:41
Speaker 2: is this waitrose trying to block people from buying a
1:00:44
Speaker 2: very nutritious food and what's caused the fishy increase in
1:00:49
Speaker 2: the sardine prices? We'd like to know. But just so
1:00:54
Speaker 2: that you can see here that we're on the case,
1:00:58
Speaker 2: another viewer sent us in this photograph taken in the
1:01:01
Speaker 2: store of essential sardines in spring water, now at 150.
1:01:06
Speaker 2: So it seems to me that there's a surge in
1:01:10
Speaker 2: sardine prices. Is this better than gold, Ben, do you think?
1:01:14
Speaker 1: It might be, year on year, yeah. Yeah, OK. Sardine futures.
1:01:18
Speaker 2: We'll see what comes out of that. And we're going
1:01:21
Speaker 2: to end on this, sent through a Telegraph article. This
1:01:25
Speaker 2: is Justice Minister Jake Richards, who disappeared across to the States,
1:01:32
Speaker 2: Missouri and Illinois. And he got rid of a mere £ 34, 000
1:01:36
Speaker 2: of taxpayers' money. I have to reach for my notes here.
1:01:43
Speaker 2: So the cost breakdown for the trip, first published by
1:01:47
Speaker 2: Guido Fawkes, included around £ 24, 000 for flights, including internal, £ 4, 000
1:01:53
Speaker 2: for ground transport, £ 3, 000 for accommodation, £ 2, 500 for subsistence and hospitality,
1:02:02
Speaker 2: and that came to around about £ 34, 000. He visited various places,
1:02:08
Speaker 2: Missouri in particular, but also the Barack Obama Presidential Centre,
1:02:14
Speaker 2: And this was all apparently to learn about the world
1:02:17
Speaker 2: leading justice system in America. However, the reality is he
1:02:24
Speaker 2: found time to take a lot of selfie pictures while
1:02:27
Speaker 2: the football was going on. And the viewer said simply
1:02:32
Speaker 2: to me that these people are laughing at us. And
1:02:36
Speaker 2: I think this is absolutely true. And I think it's
1:02:39
Speaker 2: the reason why the wider UK column audience, but also
1:02:44
Speaker 2: general public in the United Kingdom needs to wise up
1:02:48
Speaker 2: and toughen up because these people are laughing at us
1:02:51
Speaker 2: whilst they destroy us and our families and the country.
1:02:56
Speaker 2: But more on that breakdown of how they're doing it
1:03:00
Speaker 2: in extra time in a few minutes.
1:03:04
Speaker 1: Indeed. Yes, right. We're out of time. It's been an
1:03:07
Speaker 1: absolute pleasure and a delight to spend this bank holiday
1:03:10
Speaker 1: afternoon with you all. And don't forget, tonight at 7pm
1:03:16
Speaker 1: and 9pm, we've got Jerm and then Carl Czar. We'll
1:03:21
Speaker 1: see all the regulars in a few minutes in extra. Otherwise,
1:03:24
Speaker 1: we'll be back for the news at 1pm on Wednesday.
1:03:28
Speaker 1: Until then, thank you so much for watching. Take care. Goodbye.
1:03:32
Speaker 2: Bye-bye.