Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News Podcast 12th February 2025

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UK Column News Podcast 12th February 2025 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon.
0:09
Speaker 2: It's Wednesday, the twelfth of February twenty twenty five, just
0:11
Speaker 2: after Welcome one o'clock. Welcome to the UK Column News.
0:14
Speaker 2: I'm your host Mike Romson. Joining me in the studio
0:16
Speaker 2: today Charles Mallard and by video link we have Vanessa
0:19
Speaker 2: Billy and Sandy Adams.
0:21
Speaker 1: Welcome to program. Charles, thank you very much, Mike. Welcome all.
0:24
Speaker 1: We are going to begin with you and lethalarity.
0:28
Speaker 3: We are yes, lethality, the new buzzword deployed now at
0:32
Speaker 3: every opportunity buy the Ministry of Defense and those in
0:35
Speaker 3: the senior command positions at the head of the army.
0:39
Speaker 3: This is not just being pumped out at the highest levels,
0:41
Speaker 3: but it is also now being sown in the minds
0:44
Speaker 3: of all ranks, most obviously in the most recent edition
0:48
Speaker 3: of the British Army Soldier magazine, a lengthy piece here
0:52
Speaker 3: details the five things every soldier must do now to
0:57
Speaker 3: be ready for war. This is not a subtle message
1:00
Speaker 3: and it ties into the wider narrative about force development
1:03
Speaker 3: and how the scaled back Army will be able to
1:06
Speaker 3: do more with less as it leverages technology and enhanced
1:10
Speaker 3: maneuver capability, or so the Chief of the General Staff
1:13
Speaker 3: says this would appear to be a rehash of the
1:17
Speaker 3: message put out by the last incumbent, Patrick Sanders, who
1:20
Speaker 3: spoke of the need to be ready for war with Russia,
1:22
Speaker 3: with the concurrent admission that we were in no way
1:24
Speaker 3: prepared for it, hence the need for what he was
1:27
Speaker 3: calling Op Mobilize. Now, General Sir Roley Walker is repackaging
1:31
Speaker 3: the same message, most recently to the International Armored Vehicles
1:35
Speaker 3: Conference last month, which was really an extension of his
1:38
Speaker 3: message to the Land Warfare Conference in twenty twenty four,
1:42
Speaker 3: and then he was saying that the army must be
1:45
Speaker 3: able to destroy an opposing force of at least three
1:48
Speaker 3: times so in size, and that the pamphlets on tactics
1:51
Speaker 3: to achieve that are being rewritten to reflect the new
1:55
Speaker 3: capabilities on the battlefield. But the problem with what Walker's
1:58
Speaker 3: saying is that barely any of the technology of which
2:01
Speaker 3: he speaks is actually ready, and he's had to fall
2:04
Speaker 3: back on the advantages of what's called hybridization, citing the
2:08
Speaker 3: effectiveness of the Ukrainians doing just this a questionable position
2:13
Speaker 3: to take. I was looking at a recently published regimental
2:16
Speaker 3: journal which contains several articles about the support of Op Interflex,
2:20
Speaker 3: which has seen over fifty thousand Ukrainians trained by British troops,
2:25
Speaker 3: and one such described the utter chaos during the instruction
2:29
Speaker 3: of basic platoon attacks and the questionable interpretation of battlefield
2:34
Speaker 3: discipline and basic soldiering using the muzzle of their rifle
2:38
Speaker 3: as a chin strap on a live range being a
2:40
Speaker 3: particular favorite. So the propagandizing of the activities of the
2:44
Speaker 3: Ukrainian Armed Forces is being conducted at every level.
2:49
Speaker 4: Now.
2:50
Speaker 3: Alongside the armed forces message of readiness for war is
2:54
Speaker 3: the cry for help from the defence industry, said to
2:57
Speaker 3: be on the brink of failure, with headlines such as
2:59
Speaker 3: this from Politics Home.
3:01
Speaker 4: Now.
3:01
Speaker 3: The Strategic Defense Review announced in the autumn is due
3:05
Speaker 3: to be published this spring. It will have taken more
3:08
Speaker 3: than seven months, and the most likely outcome is that
3:10
Speaker 3: it will articulate the strategy by which the defense industry
3:13
Speaker 3: lines its own pockets as the government makes the case
3:16
Speaker 3: for an enhanced readiness for war, or even for war
3:20
Speaker 3: itself as an aside. A recent Substack article contained an
3:24
Speaker 3: AI response to the request to produce a version of
3:29
Speaker 3: Strategic Defense Review, which took just five minutes, so it
3:32
Speaker 3: will be interesting to see how much this diverges from
3:35
Speaker 3: the government's own offering, and the link to Keith Dear's
3:37
Speaker 3: piece will be in the show notes. Now, whilst the
3:40
Speaker 3: focus has on readiness has been more or less exclusively
3:44
Speaker 3: confined to relations with NATO and the situation in Ukraine,
3:48
Speaker 3: the suggestion of any kind of threat has meant increasingly
3:52
Speaker 3: looking toward Iran. As reported at the time, both Mark
3:56
Speaker 3: Rowley and Ken McCallum, respective heads of the met Police five,
4:01
Speaker 3: made completely unsubstantiated remarks about the state threat posed by
4:06
Speaker 3: Iran last year. This has been stepped up and not recently,
4:10
Speaker 3: with the very close parallels to the fabrication of the
4:13
Speaker 3: war narrative by the Blair government in two thousand and
4:15
Speaker 3: two and two thousand and three. Hamish Faulkner, Minister for
4:20
Speaker 3: the Middle East and North Africa, responded to questions put
4:24
Speaker 3: to him on Iran on the fourteenth of January of
4:26
Speaker 3: this year, saying we are working urgently on measures to
4:31
Speaker 3: take the necessary action to deter the Iranian state from
4:34
Speaker 3: posing a threat to this country and the region. He
4:38
Speaker 3: goes on to say it is regrettably true that Iran's
4:42
Speaker 3: nuclear program has never been more advanced, and it threatens
4:47
Speaker 3: international peace and security. So he has effectively said that
4:55
Speaker 3: he believes there to be an imminent threat from Iran,
4:59
Speaker 3: specific with regard to their nuclear capability. Now, at this
5:03
Speaker 3: point it is worth noticing that he is the son
5:05
Speaker 3: of Lord Faulkner, who, by being part of Tony Blair's
5:08
Speaker 3: inner circle, was of course implicated in the fabrication of
5:11
Speaker 3: the case for war in two thousand and three, especially
5:14
Speaker 3: with regard to the advice that the Attorney General took
5:17
Speaker 3: and his change on such advice on the legality of
5:22
Speaker 3: that war. Now it seems more than ironic now, of course,
5:26
Speaker 3: that the Lord Faulkner himself should be leading the assisted
5:31
Speaker 3: dying bill. Nonetheless, Hamish Faulkner's statement is an outright corruption
5:36
Speaker 3: of the truth, and he has no evidence or intelligence
5:38
Speaker 3: to be able to back it up with. Firstly, the
5:41
Speaker 3: Congressional Research Service in the United States reported this in
5:45
Speaker 3: December of last year. According to US intelligence assessments, Tehran
5:50
Speaker 3: has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons at some point,
5:55
Speaker 3: but has halted its nuclear weapons program and has not
5:58
Speaker 3: mastered all of the necessary technologies for building such weapons.
6:03
Speaker 3: On this side, of the Atlantic. The Commons briefing paper
6:05
Speaker 3: on the subject makes constant references to the belief that
6:09
Speaker 3: there is no credible civilian justification for the alleged quantities
6:13
Speaker 3: of enriched uranium, but it goes no further than saying
6:16
Speaker 3: that this amount would theoretically be enough for four nuclear
6:20
Speaker 3: explosive devices. So for context, in May of last year,
6:25
Speaker 3: the government committed one hundred and ninety six million pounds
6:28
Speaker 3: to Urenko to quote produce advanced nuclear fuel, a market
6:33
Speaker 3: currently dominated by Russia, to help fuel nuclear power plants
6:36
Speaker 3: at home and abroad. This is part of the government
6:39
Speaker 3: plan to push putin out of the global energy market
6:42
Speaker 3: and drive down energy bills. And of course, back in
6:45
Speaker 3: twenty twelve, Gordon Brown offered atomic expertise for countries not
6:49
Speaker 3: developing nuclear weapons capabilities with the creation of what was
6:52
Speaker 3: called a Uranium Bank for the development of civil power programs,
6:57
Speaker 3: and this did include Iran. So whilst the intelligence hasn't,
7:00
Speaker 3: the message certainly has and this concerns in some way
7:03
Speaker 3: the failure of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action jcpoa
7:07
Speaker 3: call the Iran Nuclear Deal from twenty fifteen between Iran,
7:11
Speaker 3: the UK, China France, Germany, Russia and the US, and
7:15
Speaker 3: its intent was to limit the Iranian nuclear program in
7:18
Speaker 3: exchange for sanctions relief. So from that it seems that
7:23
Speaker 3: we are able, or rather we are meant to believe
7:25
Speaker 3: that the only reason Iran might now not satisfy the
7:28
Speaker 3: conditions of this agreement is because it must be engaged
7:31
Speaker 3: in the development of a nuclear arsenal. Now, if this
7:35
Speaker 3: is sounding familiar, that's because it is only this time
7:37
Speaker 3: it's Iran and not Iraq coincident. We'll all of this
7:43
Speaker 3: with these developments is the startling, the inaccurate portrayal of
7:47
Speaker 3: the threat assessment, and that's been the announcement of the
7:50
Speaker 3: sentencing of Daniel Khalif on the third of February. He
7:54
Speaker 3: was sentenced to over fourteen years for offenses under the
7:57
Speaker 3: Official Secrets Act nineteen eleven and the Terrorist MAC two thousand,
8:00
Speaker 3: as well as a prison escape during the time he
8:02
Speaker 3: was held on remand, and the counter terrorism account of
8:05
Speaker 3: the case sounds very much less than robust, using phrases
8:09
Speaker 3: such as the finding of a potential improvised explosive device,
8:13
Speaker 3: which could have been just about anything. The circumstances around
8:16
Speaker 3: the case are flimsy at best. Caliph As, a twenty
8:20
Speaker 3: two year old lance corporal with the Royal Signals, was
8:22
Speaker 3: said to have passed highly sensitive information to the Iranians
8:26
Speaker 3: after first appealing to the security services to operate as
8:29
Speaker 3: a double agent. But it turned out the messages supposedly
8:32
Speaker 3: from Iran had been created by him, making the entire
8:35
Speaker 3: episode look rather more like a fantasy than a reality. Nonetheless,
8:38
Speaker 3: the narrative point about this story is that it concerns
8:41
Speaker 3: an apparent subversion by Iran of a member of the
8:44
Speaker 3: armed forces. And of course we've seen the Trump administration
8:47
Speaker 3: making its intentions very clear towards Iran, the onbing to
8:50
Speaker 3: seriously compromise their economy and indeed, from the American point
8:54
Speaker 3: of view, to align with the strategy of the State
8:57
Speaker 3: of Israel. The UK's status on trade show significant drop
9:02
Speaker 3: in import and export with Iran during the last twelve months. So,
9:06
Speaker 3: going back to the military side of it, Raally Walker's
9:09
Speaker 3: insistence that we're getting set for doing more with less.
9:13
Speaker 3: I think the question remains, which is who would fight
9:15
Speaker 3: such a war? And that takes us to conscription and
9:18
Speaker 3: national service, both of which were aired in the public
9:21
Speaker 3: Forum during twenty twenty four, and it's gone quiet, at
9:24
Speaker 3: least for now. But in March of that year, Lord
9:27
Speaker 3: Minto said, my lords, the government have no plans to
9:31
Speaker 3: reintroduce national service or any form of conscription in answer
9:34
Speaker 3: to a question on that subject. But there seems a
9:37
Speaker 3: little doubt that this narrative will be given more and
9:39
Speaker 3: more oxygen as twenty twenty five unfolds, and the UK
9:43
Speaker 3: column will of course be keeping a very close eye
9:45
Speaker 3: on it.
9:46
Speaker 2: Thank you, Charles. Okay, and let's move to finesse and
9:49
Speaker 2: welcome use of the program. Vanessa and Trump has already
9:52
Speaker 2: been mentioned, So let's talk about Trump and Gaza.
9:57
Speaker 5: Yes, Trump continues his a disgusting dismissal of the gods
10:02
Speaker 5: and people and his latest meeting with King Abdullah the
10:08
Speaker 5: Second in Jordan, Trump plunges to take not buy Gaza.
10:13
Speaker 5: I'm not sure whether that's worse or better in meeting
10:18
Speaker 5: with the Jordanian king. And let's just play the video
10:21
Speaker 5: of what Trump actually.
10:22
Speaker 1: Said, would buy Gaza.
10:26
Speaker 5: And today you just said we're not going to buy.
10:28
Speaker 1: God, we're not going to have to buy.
10:30
Speaker 6: We're going to have guys, would not to buy. There's
10:32
Speaker 6: nothing to buy. We will have what is that no
10:36
Speaker 6: reason to buy, there is nothing to buy. It's Gaza,
10:40
Speaker 6: it said, it's a war torn area. We're going to
10:43
Speaker 6: take it. We're going to hold it, We're going to
10:45
Speaker 6: cherish it. We're going to get it going eventually where
10:50
Speaker 6: a lot of jobs are going to be created for
10:52
Speaker 6: the people in the Middle East. It's going to be
10:54
Speaker 6: for the people in the Middle East. But I think
10:56
Speaker 6: it could be a diamond. It can be an absolute
10:59
Speaker 6: tremendousness for the Middle East.
11:01
Speaker 1: And you're gonna have peace. It's going to bring peace
11:03
Speaker 1: in the Middle East.
11:04
Speaker 6: Gaza the way it is right now, every ten years, you're.
11:07
Speaker 1: Gonna have the same thing happening. I've watched it. So
11:09
Speaker 1: of all the death and destruction of Gaza.
11:17
Speaker 5: I mean, you know again, I don't think I really
11:19
Speaker 5: have to add to my previous commentary about Trump's statements
11:24
Speaker 5: on Gaza, which are clearly aligned, of course, with the
11:27
Speaker 5: security of Israel. Now, initially, King Abdullah the Second did
11:32
Speaker 5: seem to bend the knee and was talking about bringing
11:36
Speaker 5: two thousand injured Palestinian children to Jordan. The statement that
11:42
Speaker 5: he late later put out he reiterated Jordan's steadfast position
11:47
Speaker 5: against the displacement of Palestinians, and effectively what he did
11:53
Speaker 5: actually was to pass the problem over to Egypt. He
11:57
Speaker 5: basically said, look, you know, he's effectively against the displacement
12:02
Speaker 5: of Palestinians. He'll do what's best for the Jordanian people.
12:05
Speaker 5: Of course, more than two million Palestinians in Jordan from
12:08
Speaker 5: the original Nakabar back in nineteen forty eight. But he's
12:13
Speaker 5: passing the problem over to Egypt and saying that he'll
12:17
Speaker 5: wait for Egypt's statement and for the meeting or the
12:20
Speaker 5: summit on the twenty seventh, and that of course Egypt
12:25
Speaker 5: to host emergency are a summit to discuss the serious
12:28
Speaker 5: Palestinian development. Trump is doing the strong arm tactics of
12:35
Speaker 5: pushing Jordan and Egypt to take displaced Palestinians based on
12:39
Speaker 5: the fact that both countries of course are completely in
12:43
Speaker 5: debt to the United States and to the Gulf States,
12:46
Speaker 5: and in Egypt's case certainly and in Jordan's to Israel itself.
12:51
Speaker 5: Hamas delays the next prisoner release, which is supposed to
12:54
Speaker 5: be on Saturday at midday, over Israeli violations as mediators
12:58
Speaker 5: worn the ceasefire collapse is imminent. Israel has still been
13:02
Speaker 5: bombing areas of Plaza and preventing the return of Palestinians
13:06
Speaker 5: to their homes in the north. So let's have a
13:09
Speaker 5: look at how Trump and Natano's Netanya, whose messaging is completely,
13:14
Speaker 5: of course, in lockstep, over what will happen if at
13:18
Speaker 5: twelve o'clock on Saturday the hostages are not released?
13:21
Speaker 7: So far Trump, well, I would say this, and I'm
13:25
Speaker 7: going to let that because it's Israel's decision. But as
13:29
Speaker 7: far as I'm concerned, if all of the hostages aren't
13:32
Speaker 7: returned by Saturday at twelve o'clock, I think it's an
13:35
Speaker 7: appropriate time. I would say, cancel it, and all bets
13:40
Speaker 7: are off and let hell break out. I'd say they
13:44
Speaker 7: are to be returned by twelve o'clock on Saturday. And
13:47
Speaker 7: if they're not returned, all of them, not in drips
13:50
Speaker 7: and drabs, not.
13:51
Speaker 4: Two and one and three and four and two Saturday
13:57
Speaker 4: at twelve o'clock. After that, I would say, all hell
14:04
Speaker 4: is going to break out.
14:05
Speaker 1: And I don't think they're going to do it. I
14:07
Speaker 1: think a lot of them are dead.
14:09
Speaker 7: I think a lot of the hostages are dead.
14:11
Speaker 4: I think it's a great it's a great human tragedy.
14:17
Speaker 7: What's happened?
14:18
Speaker 1: How people can be that mean to do? I'm speaking
14:22
Speaker 1: for myself.
14:23
Speaker 4: Israel can override it, but from myself, Saturday at twelve
14:28
Speaker 4: o'clock and if they're not, if they're not here, all
14:31
Speaker 4: hell is going to break out.
14:37
Speaker 5: And of course Trump has taken off all the freezeres
14:40
Speaker 5: on supply of weapons and heavy duty munitions, including bunker
14:44
Speaker 5: buster bombs to Israel potentially in preparation for this. And
14:49
Speaker 5: of course Natanya who say it's pretty much the same thing.
14:52
Speaker 5: The sea spy will end if Hamas does not return
14:55
Speaker 5: hostages by Saturday at noon, and he is threatening already
15:00
Speaker 5: to return the troops to the north of Gaza and
15:03
Speaker 5: to resume war with even greater alacrity than before. So this,
15:10
Speaker 5: combined with what else is going on in the region,
15:12
Speaker 5: which I'll come onto into in my next section, does
15:17
Speaker 5: suggest that there is going to be an escalation.
15:21
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, thank you, Vanessa, thank you. We'll talk more
15:24
Speaker 2: about that an extra ablue diet. But let's come back
15:26
Speaker 2: to the UK.
15:27
Speaker 5: Now.
15:27
Speaker 2: Plymouth City Council is currently discussing the possibility of a
15:33
Speaker 2: mayor unitary authority and a Mayor Sandy. How is this
15:38
Speaker 2: developing countrywide?
15:41
Speaker 8: Well, it's interesting. The government has actually canceled some local
15:46
Speaker 8: elections in nine areas, affecting approximately six million voters who
15:51
Speaker 8: will no longer be able to vote in the may elections.
15:54
Speaker 8: And this is part of a bigger plan. I mean
15:56
Speaker 8: those affected areas are East Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey,
16:02
Speaker 8: Thurrock and West Sussex. This is a decision as a
16:07
Speaker 8: part of a broader plan really to create these combined
16:10
Speaker 8: authorities and appoint mayors. They call them the Metro mares
16:15
Speaker 8: or the Mayors for Global Climate and Energy. It's a
16:21
Speaker 8: global initiative really from the it's called the Covenant of
16:25
Speaker 8: Smart City Mayors or Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy.
16:28
Speaker 8: They call them all sorts of things. But they want
16:30
Speaker 8: to install these mayors by twenty twenty six, this is
16:34
Speaker 8: next year, so that they become a force really for
16:40
Speaker 8: climate change and they're being given extreme powers. And if
16:44
Speaker 8: you look at the document which is the Covenant of
16:48
Speaker 8: Global Mayors for Climate and Energy, a google it, you'll
16:52
Speaker 8: find that this document document is partnered with ILEY, which
16:55
Speaker 8: is the International Committee for Local and environmental initiatives, which
16:59
Speaker 8: way back in in twenty sorry in nineteen ninety two
17:02
Speaker 8: at the Earth Summit, was tasked with the idea of
17:05
Speaker 8: bringing Agenda twenty one from global to local. It's also
17:10
Speaker 8: partnered with the c forty cities and with the Bloomberg
17:14
Speaker 8: Philanthropy and the EU, so it's a big initiative really
17:18
Speaker 8: partnered by a lot of these big organizations. There was
17:24
Speaker 8: no consultation on this and obviously it was you know
17:28
Speaker 8: that nobody knew it was coming to actually stop these elections.
17:33
Speaker 8: This move is also backed by the Cities and Local
17:37
Speaker 8: Government Devolution Act of twenty sixteen, which I think we've
17:41
Speaker 8: got a slide of, I don't know, for the introduction
17:45
Speaker 8: of these directly elected mayors. The devolution of their key
17:49
Speaker 8: powers really is to take the power from Westminster and
17:53
Speaker 8: give it to these mayors for basically for climate change,
17:58
Speaker 8: and those powers are planning and housing, transport and also policing.
18:05
Speaker 8: So they're shifting the power from Westminster to these mayors completely.
18:10
Speaker 8: And the provisions for this Act are, you know, to
18:13
Speaker 8: introduce the directly elected mayors to oversee combined authorities and
18:18
Speaker 8: it grants them unlimited control over planning, housing, and allows
18:22
Speaker 8: mayors to actually replace police and crime commissioners, which was
18:25
Speaker 8: a bit of a shock to me, to be honest,
18:27
Speaker 8: and it reduces Westminster's statutory limitations on local authorities. They
18:33
Speaker 8: will have significant power by passing Westminster to implement net
18:37
Speaker 8: zero policies by twenty thirty to twenty fifty, and that's
18:40
Speaker 8: their sole aim. They don't really have any if you
18:43
Speaker 8: look at all the documentation, that's all they talk about
18:46
Speaker 8: is net zero by twenty thirty onwards. And these plans
18:52
Speaker 8: align with also the Government Government's Devolution White Paper of
18:56
Speaker 8: twenty twenty.
18:56
Speaker 5: Four, which.
19:00
Speaker 8: Really it goes through this whole thing and it's shifting
19:03
Speaker 8: this power and giving all the power to these directly
19:08
Speaker 8: elected mayors. Now, what could be the potential impacts of this,
19:12
Speaker 8: You know, to almost have a whatever's happened in London
19:15
Speaker 8: with said you can't have that happening in these larger
19:18
Speaker 8: devolved areas. So we're looking at what's happened in London.
19:21
Speaker 8: Really will have increased urban development because they'll be can't
19:24
Speaker 8: blanche on housing and development, expansion of ultra low emission
19:28
Speaker 8: zones ulas, low traffic neighborhoods LTNs, fifteen minute cities, twenty
19:34
Speaker 8: mile an hour zones, increase surveillance in AI, Internet of Things,
19:37
Speaker 8: Internet of bodies coming in, higher carbon taxation, enforced retrofitting
19:43
Speaker 8: of homes to meet new energy efficiency standards, and possible
19:46
Speaker 8: enforcement of climate lockdowns if need be, and geo fencing.
19:49
Speaker 8: And that is a concern because they'll just have they'll
19:52
Speaker 8: have can't blanche to do whatever they like to reach
19:54
Speaker 8: these targets. So you know this is you know, it's
20:00
Speaker 8: sold as empowerment to the local councils, you know, to
20:03
Speaker 8: the local, to the locality, to you know, we're taking
20:06
Speaker 8: it all away from Westminster because they're not they're not
20:08
Speaker 8: good Westminster. You know, give it to us. We'll will
20:10
Speaker 8: sort it out. And it's bringing all of this into
20:13
Speaker 8: a local environment. But will the people have any say?
20:17
Speaker 8: And I don't think so, because these regional mayors have
20:21
Speaker 8: all the all the all the power and it centralizes
20:26
Speaker 8: the power within with these mayors under strict next zero
20:29
Speaker 8: targets that people may or may not want, and you know,
20:33
Speaker 8: when they see what's happening, I don't think they will
20:35
Speaker 8: want it. You see, the present unitary councils are to
20:39
Speaker 8: be amalgamated. So at the moment, our small councilors all
20:42
Speaker 8: got lumped together. I mean certainly in my area that
20:45
Speaker 8: they got lumped together. I think it was three or
20:47
Speaker 8: four councils got lump together, and so they become unitary.
20:51
Speaker 8: And then what they want to do is then expand
20:53
Speaker 8: that to make these bigger. So you end up with
20:55
Speaker 8: about seven, just seven regions instead of three hundred or
21:00
Speaker 8: councils that we have normally, they're going to be seven
21:02
Speaker 8: regions and these will all have these mayors in place,
21:07
Speaker 8: and this is being implemented. This is very clever the
21:10
Speaker 8: way they're doing it, because this was actually rejected, you know,
21:13
Speaker 8: from two thousand and four when Tony Blair tried to
21:16
Speaker 8: do this. It was rejected by a lot of the councils.
21:19
Speaker 8: And we see they're the devolution the devoluted areas, and
21:23
Speaker 8: there's also a map that shows you what they've planned
21:29
Speaker 8: in twenty fifteen and what's happening now, and it's actually happening,
21:32
Speaker 8: you know, these larger, devoluted seven large areas, and so
21:37
Speaker 8: what they're doing is they're keeping this plan going and
21:44
Speaker 8: what they've done, and it's very clever it's like a
21:46
Speaker 8: trojan horse. They've bankrupted the unitary councils. So when our
21:52
Speaker 8: councils went unitary, and you'll probably find it if yours
21:54
Speaker 8: does in your area, suddenly all these are councilors that aremalgamated,
21:58
Speaker 8: that did have money when they went unitary, Suddenly they
22:01
Speaker 8: were bankrupt. Where did the money go. It's all a
22:03
Speaker 8: bit of a mystery. But what happened, and this is
22:06
Speaker 8: very clever, is that they took funding away from the
22:10
Speaker 8: unitary councils and they gave it to the smaller town
22:14
Speaker 8: and parish councils and they upped their precepts, trebled them
22:19
Speaker 8: in some areas, trebled the precepts of the smaller councils.
22:23
Speaker 8: And the money from the precepts comes from central government,
22:25
Speaker 8: so you're paying for it anyway in your taxation. So
22:27
Speaker 8: what they did is they they took the they outsourced
22:32
Speaker 8: all the services from your unitary council that you get
22:35
Speaker 8: on your council tax bill, and they outsourced it to
22:39
Speaker 8: the smaller parish and town councils that have got more money.
22:43
Speaker 8: And these are things like glass cutting, waste disposal, public toilets,
22:47
Speaker 8: public space maintenance, and all of these have been funded
22:51
Speaker 8: by the Better Better Fund, you know, funded parish and
22:54
Speaker 8: town councils and taken away from the unitary because let's
22:57
Speaker 8: face it, they're bankrupt. They haven't got the money to
22:59
Speaker 8: do it. But it ends up with you paying for
23:01
Speaker 8: these services twice. But worse than that, what are you
23:06
Speaker 8: paying for because your council tax is going up? My
23:09
Speaker 8: council tax is now going up by seven point five
23:13
Speaker 8: percent this year, and yet we're getting less for our services.
23:17
Speaker 8: And it's a way they have to bankrupt these guys,
23:20
Speaker 8: these these areas, these combined authorities in order for them
23:25
Speaker 8: to force the accept the devolution plans. It's a trojan
23:30
Speaker 8: horse to bring this climate stuff into local authorities with
23:35
Speaker 8: these mayors that have carte blanche to spend money on
23:37
Speaker 8: whatever they like. And that that is very concerning. You know,
23:42
Speaker 8: they're saying all that, you know, the green, green energy
23:45
Speaker 8: jobs will be created, but we know that green energy
23:47
Speaker 8: energy jobs are subsidized at very high costs, averaging about
23:51
Speaker 8: two hundred and fifty thousand pounds per job per year.
23:56
Speaker 8: You know, the national grid expansion to meet renewable energy
23:58
Speaker 8: demands will cost and twelve billion by twenty thirty five,
24:03
Speaker 8: which will increase our energy bills. Ed Milliband's Clean Power
24:07
Speaker 8: Plan aims to spend two hundred and sixty to two
24:09
Speaker 8: hundred and ninety by billion by twenty thirty which is
24:13
Speaker 8: only saving seven billion annually off the money we spend
24:18
Speaker 8: normally on gas, gas firepower. So the whole thing doesn't
24:21
Speaker 8: make sense. It doesn't make economic sense. And we know
24:25
Speaker 8: that it's not about it's not about environmentalism, it's about control.
24:29
Speaker 8: And you know the thing is that it's being brought in,
24:33
Speaker 8: you know, really as as a as a trojan horse
24:36
Speaker 8: to roll out the smart city agenda and we don't
24:40
Speaker 8: have any say. And my thoughts are, you know, it
24:44
Speaker 8: could lead to increase poverty and greater government control. And
24:49
Speaker 8: whilst it's presented as a positive shift towards sustainability in democracy,
24:53
Speaker 8: it does neither absolutely neither. It carries economic risks, a
24:59
Speaker 8: reduction in democrat process. You know, it's you know, will
25:03
Speaker 8: these policies truly benefit our local communities or will they
25:06
Speaker 8: impose top down control. We need to share this information.
25:11
Speaker 8: We don't need to sleep walk into devolution. And so
25:14
Speaker 8: many people don't know this is happening. That's the problem.
25:17
Speaker 8: Nobody knows it's actually happening, and we've got to really
25:20
Speaker 8: be aware of this because you know, we could find
25:25
Speaker 8: ourselves in a situation we can't get out of. Once
25:28
Speaker 8: it's in its motion, we won't be able to stop it.
25:31
Speaker 2: Sandy, thank you very very much for that, And just
25:34
Speaker 2: to follow on from that, then, yesterday, because this is related,
25:37
Speaker 2: yesterday the British I'm going to call them the British
25:40
Speaker 2: regime announced ITDY two zero point six million pounds for
25:44
Speaker 2: new flexible forms of research funding as they describe it,
25:47
Speaker 2: plus a new commitment to give UK researchers access to
25:50
Speaker 2: cutting edge computing resources as part of the plan to
25:53
Speaker 2: unlock the power of AI. So two of the three
25:56
Speaker 2: projects benefiting from this support, which is helping what they
26:01
Speaker 2: describe as pioneer new ways of conducting research, will harness
26:04
Speaker 2: the power of AI to develop treatments for diagnostics for
26:07
Speaker 2: diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's. And this is this sort
26:09
Speaker 2: of carrot that's being put out there that you're going
26:12
Speaker 2: to get a cure for cancer. In the meantime, the
26:15
Speaker 2: AI agenda, which is related to what Sandy's just been
26:18
Speaker 2: talking about, rolls on so They made this announcement as
26:22
Speaker 2: Day two of the AI Action Summit was getting underway
26:25
Speaker 2: in Paris yesterday, where quotes world leaders and AI companies
26:30
Speaker 2: have been holding a series of talks focused on the
26:33
Speaker 2: opportunities the technology can deliver for communities across the globe.
26:37
Speaker 2: It's all really positive stuff. The opportunities of AI are
26:41
Speaker 2: an area of the UK government has placed heavy focus
26:43
Speaker 2: on the Kickstart twenty twenty five, they say, unveiling a
26:47
Speaker 2: new blueprint with fifty proposals in January which will spark
26:50
Speaker 2: a decade of national renewal.
26:51
Speaker 1: That must make you feel really great.
26:53
Speaker 2: Charles will talk about that in a second, but so
26:56
Speaker 2: at the summit anyway, the UK joined the United States
26:59
Speaker 2: and refusing to sign a declaration on what was called
27:04
Speaker 2: Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence. So this is what the
27:09
Speaker 2: community said, that ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe,
27:15
Speaker 2: secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all
27:19
Speaker 2: making AI sustainable for people and the planet. The UK
27:24
Speaker 2: Regimes spokesperson said this. Then we felt the declaration didn't
27:29
Speaker 2: provide enough practical clarity on global governance, nor sufficiently address
27:34
Speaker 2: harder questions around national security and the challenges AI poses
27:38
Speaker 2: to it, so that was their rejection of that alongside
27:42
Speaker 2: the United States. But in the meantime, the Labor government
27:46
Speaker 2: claims that thousands of new jobs are said to be
27:49
Speaker 2: created as the government opens bidding for its AI growth zones,
27:53
Speaker 2: and they are saying that local and regional authorities across
27:56
Speaker 2: the UK are being encouraged to put their communities forward
27:59
Speaker 2: to become dedicated hotbeds for AI infrastructure development and attracting
28:04
Speaker 2: millions in private investment. They're going to speed up planning
28:08
Speaker 2: permission to rapidly build AI infrastructure, including data centers, and
28:12
Speaker 2: give them energy connections needed to power AI innovations and
28:16
Speaker 2: in areas like healthcare. And as part of this, the
28:19
Speaker 2: government will work with network operators to rapidly scale each
28:22
Speaker 2: zone to five hundred megawats plus, which is roughly enough
28:26
Speaker 2: to par two million homes, except they won't be paring
28:30
Speaker 2: homes because they're going to be paring data centers instead.
28:34
Speaker 2: So they say that the ideal ingredients and the key
28:37
Speaker 2: criteria for communities looking to host AI growth zones include
28:42
Speaker 2: sites with large existing par connections as I say, five
28:45
Speaker 2: hundred megawats plus or a clear version vision sorry of
28:48
Speaker 2: how energy capacity can be increased. They're looking for the
28:52
Speaker 2: industrialized areas with land infrastructure standing ready for redevelopment, and
28:57
Speaker 2: they're looking for locations close to suitable sites for major
29:00
Speaker 2: energy infrastructures such as nuclear reactors, solar stations and wind
29:04
Speaker 2: farms or battery storage. Well good luck with the solar
29:08
Speaker 2: in particular, because that's not going to run a data
29:11
Speaker 2: center for long.
29:12
Speaker 1: Particularly in the winter.
29:13
Speaker 2: But anyway, and yet another announcement this same regime said
29:18
Speaker 2: that AI and sate images are being used to predict
29:22
Speaker 2: how natural habitats are changing across the country, so more
29:25
Speaker 2: current data can be used to accelerate planning proposals and
29:29
Speaker 2: stop nimbiism getting in the way of everything that we've
29:32
Speaker 2: just discussed. So satellite images and machine learning are being
29:37
Speaker 2: used by Natural England. Just put that back on for
29:39
Speaker 2: second Stephanie, thank you. And this is showing the current
29:43
Speaker 2: extent they're calling it Living England. So this is the
29:46
Speaker 2: latest report Living England twenty two to twenty three and
29:49
Speaker 2: that's going to be updated with this new data from
29:51
Speaker 2: satellites and AI rather than the manual surveys of the past.
29:56
Speaker 2: They say, changing English habitats will now be tracked more
29:58
Speaker 2: efficiently across the country, speeding up decisions around planning and
30:02
Speaker 2: land use while better protecting nature. So details of this
30:08
Speaker 2: project have been released today and that's alongside thirteen other
30:12
Speaker 2: examples of AI and algorithmic tools are being used to
30:16
Speaker 2: speed up decision making and improve public services. And they've
30:20
Speaker 2: published this new AI playbook which gives public sector technical
30:24
Speaker 2: experts top tips and guiding principles and how to replicate
30:28
Speaker 2: this work and build AI to help their organizations fix
30:32
Speaker 2: services for citizens. Ultimately delivered delivering this is their words.
30:37
Speaker 2: It does find it hard not to laugh at this,
30:41
Speaker 2: ultimately delivering the government's ambition to transfer public tree to
30:44
Speaker 2: transform public services with AI. So my question is, did
30:48
Speaker 2: anyone ask us what's being built here? It seems to me,
30:52
Speaker 2: on one hand as a surveillance state as we've just discussed,
30:57
Speaker 2: unlike anything we've seen, and it's being done partnership with
31:00
Speaker 2: corporate interests, and it's the exact mirror as we've mentioned
31:05
Speaker 2: before the Stargate project in the United States. But another
31:08
Speaker 2: part of this is that is that AI as was
31:13
Speaker 2: represented at the AI conference. The fact checkers were there.
31:17
Speaker 2: Fact checkers like full fact and of course full fact
31:19
Speaker 2: has an entire well I think it's one person, but
31:22
Speaker 2: nonetheless an AI department. Because AI is to be the
31:25
Speaker 2: future of the truth. AI is going to be much
31:28
Speaker 2: more likely to flood the Internet with misinformation than, as
31:33
Speaker 2: we're going to hear about later on so called right
31:35
Speaker 2: wing political parties who are being accused of flooding the
31:40
Speaker 2: Internet with misinformation at the moment. So it can't be
31:43
Speaker 2: a coincidence that AI and US are both refused. Sorry
31:48
Speaker 2: that the UK and the United States both refused to
31:51
Speaker 2: sign the Paris Declaration at the AI summit yesterday on
31:56
Speaker 2: the same day. That can't be a coincidence, particularly when
31:58
Speaker 2: we see that they're the are basically the same in
32:01
Speaker 2: both cases. It is a very interesting area and it
32:06
Speaker 2: fits very much with what Sandy was just talking about.
32:09
Speaker 2: So let's leave that for now and move on to
32:13
Speaker 2: say if you would like to support the UK column,
32:15
Speaker 2: we do need your ongoing support. That'd be very much appreciated.
32:18
Speaker 2: Thank you very much everybody that does support dot UK column.
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32:46
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Speaker 2: share everything that we have on the UK Column website
32:52
Speaker 2: to get around the censorship regime that we continue to experience.
32:57
Speaker 2: And well, another reminder of a day Darry which is
33:00
Speaker 2: Saturday in the fifth of April at twenty twenty five.
33:03
Speaker 2: The first two speakers that we're going to announce for
33:05
Speaker 2: this are Catherine Gunn and Alex Thompson. And since we're
33:09
Speaker 2: so close to GCHQ, that seems absolutely appropriate and so
33:13
Speaker 2: hopefully you will join us for that. The tickets are
33:16
Speaker 2: on sale, Please grab yours now while you can, and
33:20
Speaker 2: hopefully we'll see you there. Tomorrow we have an interview
33:25
Speaker 2: with Victoria Rixen. Debbie and Cheryl are speaking to Victoria
33:29
Speaker 2: rixon The Honest Midwife. That's at one pm tomorrow. To
33:33
Speaker 2: join us for that and also the interview that went
33:37
Speaker 2: out yesterday Dear Farmers nine nine to nine point Part three.
33:42
Speaker 2: Debbie and Sandy and Roger may Cock discussing that the
33:45
Speaker 2: future of food that is up on the website. Now
33:49
Speaker 2: another reminder of the public Child Protection Will's conference happening
33:53
Speaker 2: on the twenty second of February Chemish would absolutely deserve
33:57
Speaker 2: us as much support for this as possible. If you
33:58
Speaker 2: are in the area, please go along to that. There's
34:01
Speaker 2: going to be some fantastic speakers for that. Details on
34:04
Speaker 2: screen and the details to be in the show notes
34:06
Speaker 2: again as well, and also the Scottish People's COVID nineteen
34:11
Speaker 2: in Quarry which Dan McCatty is involved with.
34:14
Speaker 1: That is also if.
34:15
Speaker 2: You're in that part of the world in Edinburgh on
34:18
Speaker 2: the twenty second of February, get to that as well
34:21
Speaker 2: if you possibly can. Okay, let's come back to Vanessa then,
34:26
Speaker 2: and Vanessa, what is going on in the wider region
34:30
Speaker 2: of the Middle East at the moment.
34:33
Speaker 5: Well, I did include a link to my substact because
34:36
Speaker 5: actually when I was looking this morning for reports on
34:40
Speaker 5: what I'm going to talk about, I found absolutely nothing,
34:44
Speaker 5: of course, not in the BBC and not at CNN,
34:47
Speaker 5: and not in the Guardian at all. Why because what
34:51
Speaker 5: has been going on since the seventh of February, So
34:53
Speaker 5: for about the last five days is that if we
34:58
Speaker 5: can just have a look at the map, HTS terrorist
35:02
Speaker 5: forces have been leading attacks against Lebanese territory on the border,
35:07
Speaker 5: very close to areas like Corsair and Hons that were
35:11
Speaker 5: traditionally let's say, resistant strongholds and areas where weapons could
35:16
Speaker 5: be smuggled into both Lebanese and Palestinian resistance. Now effectively,
35:25
Speaker 5: if we look at the photo, we can see that
35:27
Speaker 5: it was actually who was leading the attack or what
35:29
Speaker 5: are known as Jolani's Red Band Brigade as Cybe Alhamra,
35:34
Speaker 5: which is his elite forces special forces, led the attacks
35:40
Speaker 5: on the borders, targeting farmland villages under the pretext of
35:44
Speaker 5: preventing smuggling, which of course had when I'm talking about smuggling,
35:49
Speaker 5: we're talking about drugs and food staff and so on.
35:53
Speaker 5: But of course it will become very apparent that in
35:56
Speaker 5: reality HDS, as it always has done, is working hand
36:01
Speaker 5: in glove with Israel. We talked about the Gaza situation
36:05
Speaker 5: and the Palestinian situation in general. The border between Syria
36:11
Speaker 5: and Lubanon is three hundred and ninety four kilometers two
36:14
Speaker 5: hundred and forty five miles hds have effectively attempted to
36:20
Speaker 5: breach that border in the north, causing civilian casualties. But
36:25
Speaker 5: the interesting thing is the elite forces suffered enormous casualties
36:30
Speaker 5: at the hands of the tribal of factions. Jaffar, Sorry,
36:34
Speaker 5: the dog has made an appearance more al Makdad and
36:38
Speaker 5: al Zeita tribes, which from the fifth century to the
36:41
Speaker 5: eighteenth resided in Tripoli and in Beirut and then moved
36:46
Speaker 5: to the Becar region, which is that northeastern region on
36:49
Speaker 5: the border. So the tribes by themselves defeated what are
36:53
Speaker 5: effectively Jolani's elite forces to the point where Jorlani was
36:57
Speaker 5: calling for reinforcements from Idleben from other areas of Syria
37:04
Speaker 5: and also calling for a ceasefire. The Lebanese army in
37:08
Speaker 5: the last two days has stepped in and taken control
37:10
Speaker 5: of the border and sort of pushed the tribesmen back
37:15
Speaker 5: into territory further inside Lebanon. And I will remind you
37:22
Speaker 5: because we're talking about israel maneuvers. Also last week we
37:26
Speaker 5: spoke about the five high points in the south of
37:29
Speaker 5: Lebanon that Israel is trying to maintain control of There
37:33
Speaker 5: have been one three hundred and fifty violations of the
37:36
Speaker 5: ceasefire by Israel since December, and we have looming, of course,
37:46
Speaker 5: the date for the full withdrawal. Israel has been pushing
37:49
Speaker 5: the US to extend the withdrawal yet again, which is
37:53
Speaker 5: very typical of their tactics, but so far the Lebanese
37:57
Speaker 5: government is insisting on full withdrawal by Israel on the
38:02
Speaker 5: eighteenth of February. Sorry, I'm losing track of months. At
38:07
Speaker 5: the same time, so at the same time as these
38:10
Speaker 5: border attacks were ongoing, this is in Damascus. In the
38:13
Speaker 5: southern countryside, Israel has been bombing what it claimed were
38:17
Speaker 5: Palestinian resistance weapons warehouses, which were in fact described by
38:23
Speaker 5: Syrian sources as being a building that was used as
38:26
Speaker 5: a clinic by the military housing complex that was in
38:29
Speaker 5: this area. And they've also been extending their military occupation
38:35
Speaker 5: into southern towns like Cornature and Dada, and sending reinforcement
38:42
Speaker 5: to the Mount Hermon area, which is the highest advantage
38:47
Speaker 5: point on the border between Syria and Lebanon. They've established
38:52
Speaker 5: basically nine new bases in the south. They've been sending
38:56
Speaker 5: the Golani brigades and various other specialist forces to the
39:00
Speaker 5: Mount Hermon area in collaboration, of course with what HDS
39:05
Speaker 5: is doing, and gradually HDS is extending the length of
39:10
Speaker 5: their operations along the border. And again if we just
39:14
Speaker 5: have a look at this map, so here HDS now
39:19
Speaker 5: has sent in the last twenty four hour seven hundred
39:23
Speaker 5: Turkmenistani brigades and some Syrian extremist forces also to this area.
39:31
Speaker 5: They're laying minds order in this area to prevent any
39:35
Speaker 5: incursions into Syrian territory. But as I said, they're also
39:40
Speaker 5: extending further down the length of the border. So combined
39:47
Speaker 5: with Gaza here in Lebanon, we are expecting a serious escalation.
39:53
Speaker 5: Wanted to point out that all of this, of course,
39:55
Speaker 5: was going on during the formation of the Lebanese government
39:59
Speaker 5: under the newly elected President Joseph un and the US
40:06
Speaker 5: Envoy for Peace in the Middle East Morgan or Tigers sorry,
40:11
Speaker 5: deputy Envoy came to Beirut and went to the Babbda
40:18
Speaker 5: Palace and informed the President that they were very glad
40:23
Speaker 5: that Hosbalara had been defeated and that they would not
40:28
Speaker 5: like to see Hasbala representatives in the government. This, of
40:32
Speaker 5: course despite the fact that Hasbala actually had the highest
40:35
Speaker 5: vote in proceeding to parliamentary elections, and ultimately I'm very
40:41
Speaker 5: pleased to announce that the US again pressure on Lubanon
40:45
Speaker 5: failed and five MP's were approved by Hesbalara and the
40:49
Speaker 5: Prime Minister, so has Balara and a male movement between them,
40:56
Speaker 5: both Shia are approved as Health Minister, Labor Minister, Environment, Finance,
41:03
Speaker 5: and Administration Administrative Development. So we're sitting on a powder
41:10
Speaker 5: keg at the moment.
41:10
Speaker 9: There's an awful lot of that is going on, and
41:12
Speaker 9: as I said, they're being completely ignored in Western media,
41:16
Speaker 9: perhaps while Alistair campbell Is and Rory Stewart are interviewing
41:23
Speaker 9: Joe Lannie or as he likes to call himself off,
41:27
Speaker 9: the self proclaimed president in Syria.
41:31
Speaker 2: Thank you for Vanessa, And I mean, just before we
41:34
Speaker 2: move on, do you have any thoughts on what Charles
41:37
Speaker 2: was talking about at the beginning of the program with Iran?
41:44
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's inevitable that
41:47
Speaker 5: we're ratcheting up at least aggressive rhetoric against Iran. Is
41:53
Speaker 5: that actually going to lead to some kind of escalation
41:58
Speaker 5: of military I don't know. Is it to put pressure
42:02
Speaker 5: on Iran and the reformist government to come to the
42:06
Speaker 5: table with the United States over the nuclear deal, Like
42:12
Speaker 5: what is the UK going to do against Iran? I mean,
42:14
Speaker 5: let's the number one question that I have to ask.
42:18
Speaker 5: So for me, it seems to be pressure rhetoric. But yeah,
42:24
Speaker 5: I mean all bets are off at the moment.
42:27
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, thank you very much for that. Now, following
42:33
Speaker 2: on from thetist farming protester Charles, let's come back to
42:36
Speaker 2: the UK and the liddest land grabs.
42:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, also it would appear and exactly what I like says,
42:42
Speaker 3: I'm in the eyes of the wider farming community have
42:44
Speaker 3: been drawn back towards London on Monday this week as
42:48
Speaker 3: another well publicized protest was planned to coincide with the
42:51
Speaker 3: parliamentary debate on the agricultural property Relief on Inheritance tax,
42:56
Speaker 3: which is through very controversial of course, The debate prompted
42:59
Speaker 3: by more than one hundred and fifty thousand signatures on
43:02
Speaker 3: a petition to scrap the plan to reintroduce the tax
43:05
Speaker 3: for farmers and small businesses. This tax has been suspended
43:09
Speaker 3: since nineteen ninety two and it's one that the Labor
43:12
Speaker 3: government planning to reintroduce in April next year, giving people
43:15
Speaker 3: very little time to react to that or plan around it.
43:19
Speaker 3: The government has said that the proposed change is not
43:22
Speaker 3: intended to take land away from small farms or to
43:25
Speaker 3: put people out of business, and yet its catchual design
43:28
Speaker 3: will have that specific consequence, at least for those that
43:31
Speaker 3: have not been able to plan around it. As I've
43:34
Speaker 3: said before on UK column, the real purpose of this
43:37
Speaker 3: measure appears to be to distract from the many other
43:41
Speaker 3: ways in which farmers are having their land controlled or
43:43
Speaker 3: taken from their possession. Daniel Zeichner, the Minister for Food,
43:48
Speaker 3: Farming and Fisheries, has attempted to make the case for
43:50
Speaker 3: upholding the tax reform by saying that it will make
43:53
Speaker 3: a vital contribution to the running of the NHS and
43:55
Speaker 3: the education system, but he seems to undermine his own
43:58
Speaker 3: point entirely by saying that it should recoup five hundred
44:02
Speaker 3: million pounds per annum, which is about equivalent to running
44:06
Speaker 3: the health service for just one day. The protests themselves
44:11
Speaker 3: have proved a handy bandwagon for social media influences to
44:14
Speaker 3: leap on, as well as political parties both diluting the
44:18
Speaker 3: message and ensuring that the focus is on the protest
44:21
Speaker 3: itself rather than on the articulation or attainment of any
44:25
Speaker 3: particular goals. The slide just showing some of the contributors
44:30
Speaker 3: to the promotion of all of this, but without a
44:33
Speaker 3: sort of coherent banner to stand underneath, all appearing to
44:37
Speaker 3: score capital from what's been going on in Westminster this week. Now.
44:43
Speaker 3: Underpinning the other mechanisms by which farmers will be removed
44:46
Speaker 3: from the land and the rural economy is destroyed is
44:50
Speaker 3: the fictitious narrative surrounding the climate emergency. The system of subsidy, which,
44:55
Speaker 3: alongside the conduct of the food cartels, controls the operations
44:58
Speaker 3: of landowners and farmers, is increasingly predicated on threat posed
45:03
Speaker 3: by what is described as climate change. For as long
45:07
Speaker 3: as farmers fail to challenge this premise, they render themselves
45:10
Speaker 3: powerless to combat any of the measures taken by the government.
45:14
Speaker 3: And just to illustrate this and indeed how straightforward it
45:17
Speaker 3: is for the government to control the farming sector, this
45:20
Speaker 3: map shows the areas of Devon and Cornwall, which are
45:23
Speaker 3: to the west and the north of Plymouth from where
45:25
Speaker 3: UK column broadcasts all the parcels bordered in red are
45:29
Speaker 3: in receipt of countryside Stewardship subsidy. And of course this
45:32
Speaker 3: map doesn't actually even show the more recently introduced sustainable
45:36
Speaker 3: farming incentive. This is from the DEFRA Magic Mapping platform,
45:40
Speaker 3: a link to which will be provided in the show notes. Now,
45:44
Speaker 3: legislation grants extraordinary powers to Natural England, which we've already
45:48
Speaker 3: heard referred to by Mike, and in particular this shows
45:52
Speaker 3: to some of the ways in which they can be wielded.
45:54
Speaker 3: First by areas of outstanding natural beauty shown here on
45:59
Speaker 3: this slide dotted the country. Then we look at national
46:02
Speaker 3: parks and following that special areas of conservation, and then finally,
46:09
Speaker 3: and the most contentious of all, the sites of special
46:13
Speaker 3: scientific interest. And obviously the size of these green dots
46:16
Speaker 3: is unrepresentative to the area of land that they would
46:21
Speaker 3: take up. Nonetheless, the point is made, and via each
46:24
Speaker 3: of these mechanisms, Natural England is able to either prohibit
46:28
Speaker 3: or mandate certain activities which could well and often do
46:32
Speaker 3: render a farm business unviable so as far as the
46:35
Speaker 3: industry is concerned. On the other hand, the Grocer magazine
46:38
Speaker 3: has recently reported that the groceries Code Adudicator, which is
46:42
Speaker 3: a one man band charged with policing fairness in dealings
46:46
Speaker 3: between supermarkets and farmers, is reported to be considering investigating
46:50
Speaker 3: Amazon Food, which entered the arena recently and has been
46:54
Speaker 3: performing even more and scrupulously than its competitors. But with
46:59
Speaker 3: Amazon's glow will turnover for twenty twenty four standing at
47:02
Speaker 3: five hundred and fifteen billion pounds, making it only seven
47:05
Speaker 3: and a half times less than the whole GDP of
47:09
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom, it looks rather like a foregone conclusion
47:14
Speaker 3: as to which way it might go. And to set
47:15
Speaker 3: that in context, Tesco's turnover for that year was just
47:19
Speaker 3: sixty eight billion pounds, So, as I say, you might
47:22
Speaker 3: guess which way such an investigation of Amazon would go,
47:26
Speaker 3: also bearing in mind that they control, or at least
47:29
Speaker 3: virtually control all the government communications platforms and the holding
47:32
Speaker 3: of their data of our Amazon Web services. Now, at
47:36
Speaker 3: the end of January, the government launched the rather ominously
47:39
Speaker 3: titled National Conversation on Land Use. The priorities appear clear.
47:45
Speaker 3: This is described in the document as being part of
47:47
Speaker 3: Labour's plan for Change, and that it will concern supporting
47:51
Speaker 3: economic growth through building one and a half million homes,
47:54
Speaker 3: delivering critical infrastructure, securing clean power, protecting farmland and storing
48:00
Speaker 3: the natural world, but no explicit references to food security.
48:05
Speaker 3: As well as this, they've announced a new land use
48:09
Speaker 3: framework which refers back to Mike's segment in relation to
48:13
Speaker 3: sort of natural England and how all these things are
48:15
Speaker 3: accounted for. This was announced on the same day and
48:18
Speaker 3: the Environment Sectuary Steve Reid said this government has a
48:21
Speaker 3: cast iron commitment to maintain long term food security, but
48:25
Speaker 3: he didn't qualify it by suggesting to what extent food
48:29
Speaker 3: security would be guaranteed, or indeed what sort of food
48:32
Speaker 3: would be produced in order to say that it had
48:35
Speaker 3: been achieved. Now, this situation has prompted the National Preparedness
48:41
Speaker 3: Commission to produce a report which is called just in Case,
48:46
Speaker 3: So they're attempting to shift the focus from the just
48:50
Speaker 3: in time method by which many businesses, particularly in the
48:53
Speaker 3: food industry, have operated. And this followed the rather bizarre
48:56
Speaker 3: assumptions made during something called Exercise Mighty in twenty twenty three,
49:02
Speaker 3: which was prefixed on a national energy outage. During that exercise,
49:09
Speaker 3: it was believed or assumed that people would effectively do nothing.
49:12
Speaker 3: There would be no unrest, and therefore it can be
49:18
Speaker 3: considered perhaps that they were looking back to the lack
49:20
Speaker 3: of response or apparent lack of response to the draconian
49:23
Speaker 3: measures introduced by the government from twenty twenty, and therefore
49:26
Speaker 3: it's reasonable to see how they might have arrived at
49:29
Speaker 3: such an assumption. Anyway, that this report pushes centrally for
49:33
Speaker 3: what they're describing as a Food Security and Resilient Act,
49:38
Speaker 3: and the background being that they do rightly point out
49:41
Speaker 3: that the current system of food distribution is hopelessly vulnerable
49:45
Speaker 3: to technological failure and cyber sabotage, as well as widespread
49:49
Speaker 3: and of course increasingly likely power outages, as well as
49:53
Speaker 3: catastrophic human decisions like COVID restrictions. The proposed solutions to
49:58
Speaker 3: match this somewhat inever miss the point. This refers back
50:02
Speaker 3: now to what Sandy's been talking about, because it calls
50:05
Speaker 3: for a devolved system of regional responsibility in their suggesting
50:10
Speaker 3: mechanisms such as stockpiling and the compulsory use of green
50:13
Speaker 3: belt land for food production in times of emergency, But
50:17
Speaker 3: who decides what the emergency is and when it should
50:20
Speaker 3: be declared? But at no point does the report suggest
50:22
Speaker 3: that there should be a direct relationship between farmers and
50:25
Speaker 3: their customers and therefore that could be something that could
50:28
Speaker 3: create greater business resilience, but they don't touch it or
50:32
Speaker 3: indeed less vulnerability to the factors described earlier. But with
50:36
Speaker 3: all these recommendations of devolution, there are really only suggestions
50:40
Speaker 3: that control and decision making remain the preserve of the
50:43
Speaker 3: bureaucratic and technocratic view. So really going back to exactly
50:47
Speaker 3: what Sandy's been articulating in her first segment today, so
50:53
Speaker 3: the government in effect being the problem and not the solution,
50:56
Speaker 3: and this would absolutely be the case for landowners and farmers.
51:00
Speaker 3: And just to articulate the point and to round off,
51:05
Speaker 3: we look at the attack on the poultry industry and
51:08
Speaker 3: the propaganda campaign which runs it. And here's a piece
51:12
Speaker 3: by the BBC in which farmers are said to be
51:14
Speaker 3: clamoring for vaccines for poultry, which is currently prohibited in
51:18
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom. And this mirror is almost exactly the
51:21
Speaker 3: condition surrounding the destruction of more than eleven million head
51:24
Speaker 3: of livestock in two thousand and one during what was
51:27
Speaker 3: seatfully described as a foot and mouth epidemic. The details
51:30
Speaker 3: which I really would encourage you to watch on the
51:32
Speaker 3: excellent UK Column documentary Slaughtered on Suspicion. For more on
51:37
Speaker 3: all of this, please do go to the UK Column
51:39
Speaker 3: website to look at the farming section, where you'll find
51:42
Speaker 3: a compilation of all the material that we've dealt with
51:45
Speaker 3: on this particular critical top topic, including a range of
51:48
Speaker 3: a broad range of interviews with those that provide credible
51:51
Speaker 3: alternative by virtue of their own experiences.
51:55
Speaker 1: Charles Psyche.
51:56
Speaker 2: Now let's move on to the issue of fake news,
51:59
Speaker 2: and The Guardian published an article yesterday entitled far right
52:03
Speaker 2: populists much more likely than the left to spread fake
52:07
Speaker 2: news study. So this is an uncritical puff piece for
52:13
Speaker 2: this paper published in Sage Journals entitled When to Parties Lie?
52:18
Speaker 2: Misinformation and radical right populism across twenty six countries. So
52:24
Speaker 2: Peter Tornberg of the University of Amsterdam, one of the authors,
52:30
Speaker 2: said that radical right populists are using misinformation as a
52:34
Speaker 2: tool to de stabilize democracies and gain political advantage, and
52:38
Speaker 2: he went on to say that the findings from the
52:40
Speaker 2: paper underscore the urgent need for policy makers, researchers and
52:44
Speaker 2: the public to understand and address the intertwined dynamics of misinformation,
52:48
Speaker 2: radical right populism. They say they've examined which parties are
52:53
Speaker 2: more likely to spread information by drawing on a comprehensive
52:56
Speaker 2: database of thirty two million tweets from parliaments in twenty
53:00
Speaker 2: six countries and that spanned six years from twenty seventeen
53:04
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty two and several election periods. The twenty
53:08
Speaker 2: six countries included seventeen EU member states. Austria, France, Germany,
53:12
Speaker 2: the Netherlands and Sweden were amongst those, as well as
53:15
Speaker 2: the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. But basically
53:18
Speaker 2: at the bottom line here it was they had hovered
53:21
Speaker 2: up millions, as I say, of tweets. They then compared
53:26
Speaker 2: those tweets that data with what they described as international
53:29
Speaker 2: political science databases holding a detailed information about political parties
53:35
Speaker 2: and cabinets, for example, their position on the left right
53:38
Speaker 2: spectrum and their degree of populism. But here's the kicker.
53:43
Speaker 2: To identify cases of misinformation, we examined the URLs that
53:47
Speaker 2: the politicians share and then use the Media Bias fact
53:51
Speaker 2: Check Database and the Wikipedia Fake News List identified politicians
53:55
Speaker 2: sharing misinformation in tweets that is totally reliable, isn't it so?
54:02
Speaker 2: That they go on to say, to ensure the robustness
54:05
Speaker 2: of our methods, the factual the factuality measure was manually
54:10
Speaker 2: validated to ensure that the articles shared in fact contained misinformation.
54:15
Speaker 2: And they say that we should look at the supplementary
54:17
Speaker 2: information file.
54:18
Speaker 1: It goes with this paper. They say that we.
54:22
Speaker 2: Selected a stratified random sample of fifty articles from each
54:25
Speaker 2: of the five pre defined factuality levels, totally two hundred
54:31
Speaker 2: and fifty articles. These were manually analyzed. The reports. Sorry,
54:36
Speaker 2: the results are reported in supplementals tables six, S six
54:39
Speaker 2: and S seven. So when you go to the tables
54:43
Speaker 2: you find that, in fact, there's no such proper validation.
54:46
Speaker 2: It wasn't manual validation, as they said. But that might
54:50
Speaker 2: be summarized as the sources we chose are accurate because
54:54
Speaker 2: we say they're accurate, And that's basically it. But it
54:57
Speaker 2: gets even better. They admit that in many cases the
55:02
Speaker 2: sources that they put in a low factuality group do
55:06
Speaker 2: report accurate news. But for example, let's take an example.
55:11
Speaker 2: They say about our t that quotes although each individual
55:14
Speaker 2: article may be factually correct in its reporting on individual battles.
55:19
Speaker 2: The overall story is thus a false narrative of highly
55:21
Speaker 2: successful special military operation. This underscores the limitations of assessing
55:27
Speaker 2: factuality solely based on the accuracy of individual articles, offering
55:32
Speaker 2: further support for the validity of relying on media outlet
55:36
Speaker 2: level analysis right. In other words, if you report accurate stories,
55:41
Speaker 2: we're going to say that you're inaccurate anyway because you
55:44
Speaker 2: don't report the things we say you should report. So
55:47
Speaker 2: this I think is a work of art, not a
55:49
Speaker 2: work of science. The Guardian is a disgrace for not
55:53
Speaker 2: holding the authors to account. But perhaps there are no
55:55
Speaker 2: surprises there. I don't know what your thoughts are on that.
55:58
Speaker 3: Well, it's all mass though this has been handed to
56:01
Speaker 3: some climate scientists with a bit of time on their hands.
56:04
Speaker 3: This is amazing parallels between what's extrapolated and what's actually there.
56:09
Speaker 1: Extraordinary.
56:10
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, Well let's move on to this image because
56:16
Speaker 2: you know Elon Musk was in the White House yesterday
56:19
Speaker 2: and well, I don't know what your thoughts were on
56:22
Speaker 2: the whole thing.
56:25
Speaker 3: It's frightfully awkward, I would say. I mean, I'm not
56:29
Speaker 3: quite sure why he is sort of wheeled in. It's
56:34
Speaker 3: hard to see whether he makes Trump look better or worse,
56:38
Speaker 3: And that's sort of saying something. The whole thing is
56:40
Speaker 3: just a very bizarre episode, and he does have a
56:44
Speaker 3: tendency to ramble, much like the man sitting in the chair.
56:50
Speaker 3: I suppose, so an issue of a kindability. He didn't
56:54
Speaker 3: really have an answer, did he. No, he didn't know,
56:56
Speaker 3: actually that and that was it. He was asked two
56:59
Speaker 3: questions about whether or not he would be in effect
57:03
Speaker 3: declaring interest not that he necessarily needs to claru because
57:05
Speaker 3: I think they're quite well known, but the suggestion that
57:08
Speaker 3: his operations on behalf of the office of the President
57:13
Speaker 3: of the United States wouldn't have any overlap with his many,
57:16
Speaker 3: many business interests is totally absurd, and of course probably
57:22
Speaker 3: the least suitable candidate for conducting reform in any sort
57:25
Speaker 3: of transparent sense, which I suppose for this administration might
57:29
Speaker 3: make him perfect.
57:29
Speaker 2: And for some reason he decided to bring his son,
57:32
Speaker 2: who was utterly bored and behaving appropriately.
57:35
Speaker 3: I thought, yeah, well, you know, I think the son
57:38
Speaker 3: sort have held it together.
57:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, but anyway, sorry, Stephanie, let's just put that back
57:42
Speaker 2: up a second, because I just wanted to point one
57:44
Speaker 2: thing I'd hear because and let's just label that as
57:47
Speaker 2: saying enough said, there's nothing else really required. The hand
57:50
Speaker 2: gesture is clear. We've seen it from so many others.
57:53
Speaker 2: I would like to get a definitive response from some
57:57
Speaker 2: of these people, from Musco or from here Starmer, all
58:01
Speaker 2: the other people that use this particular hand gesture to
58:04
Speaker 2: explain what it is, because they all use it.
58:08
Speaker 1: Why why I don't know.
58:10
Speaker 3: Ess it's a control mechanism from preventing you from doing
58:13
Speaker 3: a Hitler salutem.
58:14
Speaker 2: Quite sure it is okay, But anyway, we do have
58:19
Speaker 2: a final video.
58:20
Speaker 3: We do know for many, many months we've been talking
58:23
Speaker 3: about all the various challenges faced by farmers and indeed
58:27
Speaker 3: the activities that the government wants to stop farmers from
58:30
Speaker 3: doing and us enjoying. And whilst I wouldn't necessarily be
58:33
Speaker 3: advocating the number of pharmaceutical products that are referred to
58:38
Speaker 3: in this video, I thought we'd ender on slightly lighten
58:40
Speaker 3: note with what's happening in the farming community at this
58:43
Speaker 3: time of the year.
58:46
Speaker 10: We've got some blue ghost sacram some metadam long bet
58:51
Speaker 10: Ayodina's dummat you blues pray, lots of hay and Calsie
58:55
Speaker 10: to say the day already, for the.
58:56
Speaker 3: Day when the sheep have got to bull.
59:01
Speaker 10: Gone from.
59:06
Speaker 4: Music, I'll be there to lend your.
59:15
Speaker 1: God Lani.
59:19
Speaker 7: Birth, Lanning Love.
59:23
Speaker 10: Plannage, go again for Luneage, again for Lannis.
59:32
Speaker 8: Lunnage, Lanning.
59:38
Speaker 2: Lamnage.
59:42
Speaker 1: Are you expecting this year?
59:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, not as many as that, but absolutely yes. So
59:47
Speaker 3: there we go. That's diversification as he forges his new
59:50
Speaker 3: path in the music industry.
59:52
Speaker 2: Good man, indeed, well, thank you Charles, thank you the
59:54
Speaker 2: Vanessa and Sandy for joining us today. We've got to
59:57
Speaker 2: end there fornight. We will be back in a few minutes.
59:59
Speaker 2: If UK Coled member for some UK Colon news extra,
1:00:03
Speaker 2: join us for that. If you can otherwise, join the
1:00:06
Speaker 2: interview tomorrow at one pm and we'll see you at
1:00:08
Speaker 2: one pm as usual on Friday. See then, bye bye,
1:00:11
Speaker 2: bye bye