Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News — 26th October 2026

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UK Column News — 26th October 2026 · UK Column Radio

0:16
Speaker 1: Good afternoon.
0:16
Speaker 2: It's Monday, the 26th of October, 2026, just after one o'clock.
0:20
Speaker 2: Welcome to UK Cold News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson.
0:22
Speaker 2: And joining me by video link today, we have Charles
0:24
Speaker 2: Mallett and Ben Timberley. Later in the program, we'll be
0:27
Speaker 2: reporting on the 1000 days to prepare for war.
0:31
Speaker 1: Narrative.
0:32
Speaker 2: We'll have more on the idea that we need to
0:34
Speaker 2: prepare for emergencies aside from the thousand days. And we'll
0:39
Speaker 2: be reporting on UK efforts to clean up space. But
0:41
Speaker 2: we'll begin today with health, in inverted commas, and the
0:45
Speaker 2: moves to shorten clinical trials even further. Charles, welcome to
0:48
Speaker 2: the program.
0:51
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, Mike, and good afternoon all. Yes, well,
0:54
Speaker 3: I'm glad you made that comment about health because, yes,
0:57
Speaker 3: we are going to start with an announcement from this
1:01
Speaker 3: morning that, well, sorry, I picked it up this morning.
1:04
Speaker 3: It's actually a couple of days old from the Department
1:06
Speaker 3: of Health and Social Care. inevitably put out on Twitter.
1:10
Speaker 3: And you can see their fancy graphic on the right saying,
1:13
Speaker 3: target hit. Now, what does this relate to? They say,
1:16
Speaker 3: we've smashed our target for commercial clinical trials to be
1:21
Speaker 3: set up in under 150 days from submission for approval
1:26
Speaker 3: to the first patient. So I should clarify here, first
1:30
Speaker 3: of all, this is actually a joint announcement. It's come
1:32
Speaker 3: from not just the Department of Health and Social Care,
1:35
Speaker 3: but also the Office for life sciences so one might
1:38
Speaker 3: say two departments that are named perhaps slightly confusingly But
1:43
Speaker 3: the emphasis, of course, as you gather from that tweet,
1:47
Speaker 3: is on speed, the smashing of a target, and, critically,
1:51
Speaker 3: the commercial nature of the proposed trials. There doesn't seem
1:55
Speaker 3: to be any reference at this point of patient safety
1:59
Speaker 3: or of the expected quality of the drugs which are
2:02
Speaker 3: to be trialled. There is, of course, a longer-form press release,
2:07
Speaker 3: and they're effectively putting out the same message with slightly
2:11
Speaker 3: more clarity. detail brought into it and they're saying that
2:14
Speaker 3: UK life sciences sector is boosted by faster, more competitive
2:19
Speaker 3: clinical trials which close the gap between research and treatment.
2:25
Speaker 3: Now the point to make clear here is that this
2:29
Speaker 3: is the shortening of the period of time between deciding
2:32
Speaker 3: that there should be a clinical trial and actually running
2:35
Speaker 3: that clinical trial. It's not necessarily to guarantee or to
2:38
Speaker 3: suggest that a drug would get to a patient any faster,
2:43
Speaker 3: although that is quite clearly the inference. From the press release,
2:48
Speaker 3: trials for conditions ranging from cancer to heart disease were
2:52
Speaker 3: set up quicker, meaning patients could receive treatments sooner. easing
2:57
Speaker 3: pressure on the NHS and marking a boost for the
3:00
Speaker 3: UK's life sciences sector. So there we get a couple
3:03
Speaker 3: of references to this boost to the life sciences sector. Now,
3:08
Speaker 3: I think it would be fair to say that since
3:10
Speaker 3: its inception, the National Health Service has apparently been under pressure.
3:14
Speaker 3: But is it reasonable to ask whether this pressure has
3:17
Speaker 3: increased for any particular reason in the last few years?
3:21
Speaker 3: I think to answer that, I mean, Mike, this is
3:24
Speaker 3: obviously something that has been covered on UK Column News
3:28
Speaker 3: a lot over the last few years, particularly since 2020.
3:30
Speaker 3: To what extent do you think that what happened in
3:33
Speaker 3: 2020 and subsequently has any bearing on this?
3:38
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, they did declare as a result
3:43
Speaker 2: of 2020 that they would aim to get not only
3:47
Speaker 2: clinical trials started quicker, but they would aim to get
3:50
Speaker 2: the clinical trial process completed quicker. And of course, they
3:56
Speaker 2: have continued to try to remove any kind of regulatory
4:00
Speaker 2: hurdle to prevent any of that from happening. But I'll
4:06
Speaker 2: come on to a bit more of how they're going
4:08
Speaker 2: to achieve that after you've finished your segment, Charles.
4:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you're absolutely right there. And that is, in fact,
4:16
Speaker 3: where I'll get to. Just to quote again on this
4:19
Speaker 3: idea of what it brings to the industry, the progress
4:22
Speaker 3: is yet another milestone in the UK's life sciences growth,
4:25
Speaker 3: with more than three billion in new public-private investment attracted
4:29
Speaker 3: through the first year of the plan. Now, on screen,
4:32
Speaker 3: you'll see the UK's modern industrial strategy. And it's here
4:35
Speaker 3: that we look to find the ideological basis for what
4:40
Speaker 3: it is that's being proposed. And I'm just going to
4:43
Speaker 3: quote because I think it illustrates quite clearly how people
4:48
Speaker 3: in this area are regarded by the government. So What
4:52
Speaker 3: they plan to deliver is that from sickness to prevention
4:55
Speaker 3: by using genomics, early detection and personalised medicine, they're going
5:00
Speaker 3: to keep people healthier for longer. Of course, what's not
5:05
Speaker 3: specified is that the only way in which any of
5:08
Speaker 3: those things can be achieved specifically, which is why they've
5:12
Speaker 3: been put in bold, genomics, early detection and personalised medicine.
5:17
Speaker 3: That's only possible in an extremely intrusive regime, which, of course,
5:21
Speaker 3: is exactly where all of this is pointing. And again,
5:25
Speaker 3: just to reinforce the point that it's described as being
5:29
Speaker 3: a new model of partnership between science and society, between
5:33
Speaker 3: government and industry and between economic and health issues. Now,
5:38
Speaker 3: it doesn't seem entirely clear what society gets out of it,
5:42
Speaker 3: but it is rather more obvious what it is that
5:45
Speaker 3: science gets out of it. So we look at the
5:47
Speaker 3: statistics provided by government for the bioscience and health technology sector,
5:53
Speaker 3: 24 to 25, published just last month. Companies in the
5:57
Speaker 3: UK life sciences sector generated £ 125 billion of turnover. And
6:03
Speaker 3: I think, you know, with regard to what I was
6:05
Speaker 3: suggesting about 2020 having made a significant difference to this,
6:08
Speaker 3: of course, in 2019, that figure was, I'm not going
6:13
Speaker 3: to use the word appropriately, but just £ 80. 7 billion. So
6:18
Speaker 3: that's a terrific leap in the intervening six years and
6:23
Speaker 3: is it really conceivable that this could have happened without
6:26
Speaker 3: what was dressed up very theatrically as the presentation of
6:29
Speaker 3: an existential threat via the form of a pandemic? Now
6:34
Speaker 3: what Mike was alluding to earlier is where this points
6:37
Speaker 3: to because of course clinical trials are part of it
6:40
Speaker 3: and the next step is the authorisation and that is
6:43
Speaker 3: the preserve of the medicines and healthcare products regulatory agency.
6:49
Speaker 3: And this is just a blog post from their website
6:53
Speaker 3: earlier in the year, in which they make it absolutely
6:56
Speaker 3: clear that by saying there is a tendency to frame
7:00
Speaker 3: regulation as a break on innovation, that here it is
7:03
Speaker 3: doing exactly what UK Column has charted over the course
7:07
Speaker 3: of the years, which is to effectively put to one
7:10
Speaker 3: side the stringent policy of patient safety and objective regulation
7:16
Speaker 3: and instead to consider themselves as an enabler.
7:20
Speaker 4: Now, therefore, the.
7:23
Speaker 3: Compression of time and indeed the amount of money at
7:27
Speaker 3: play suggests this is very much going in one direction.
7:31
Speaker 3: If we have time for comment from Ben on any
7:34
Speaker 3: of what's been said particularly and where you think this
7:37
Speaker 3: might be leading, that would be terrific.
7:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's some real concerning elements to this. One,
7:45
Speaker 1: I would very much give a body part to know
7:49
Speaker 1: whether the indemnities that apply during the COVID pandemic for
7:53
Speaker 1: the developers of the various treatments, pharmacologies and others, whether
8:00
Speaker 1: they actually have those indemnities still in play as part
8:03
Speaker 1: of this new strategy. Because if you're going to be
8:05
Speaker 1: rapidly bringing new drugs and new treatments to market, you're
8:09
Speaker 1: going to need a level of insurance. And what's the word?
8:12
Speaker 1: Cover to make that happen. And I worry that by
8:16
Speaker 1: shortening the process by this amount, that those indemnities must
8:19
Speaker 1: still be in play in some way. in order for
8:22
Speaker 1: them to be able to streamline them and bring them
8:24
Speaker 1: to market. And I think the final point that's shown
8:27
Speaker 1: on screen here about the tendency to frame regulation as
8:30
Speaker 1: a break on innovation, that is a very classic industry
8:33
Speaker 1: line to try and remove that regulation so that they
8:36
Speaker 1: can bring products to market quicker because it's simply more
8:39
Speaker 1: profitable to do so. And I think it's unfortunate that
8:42
Speaker 1: the government is essentially parroting industry lines there and essentially
8:48
Speaker 1: in an effort to please their profit margins. So I
8:50
Speaker 1: think there is a real problem here in that we're
8:52
Speaker 1: seeing regulators essentially being captured by private sector rhetoric and
8:57
Speaker 1: not doing their job.
8:59
Speaker 2: Well, of course, the reason for that, or a big
9:01
Speaker 2: part of the reason for that, is that, as the
9:03
Speaker 2: MHRA has not been in any way shy about saying,
9:07
Speaker 2: they are enablers as well as regulators. And so they are,
9:11
Speaker 2: and of course, when you pack the organisation full of
9:15
Speaker 2: industry people, this is going to be the inevitable consequence.
9:19
Speaker 2: But look, the question is personalized medicine, for example, how
9:25
Speaker 2: is that going to be done? And over the last
9:27
Speaker 2: couple of years in particular, the use of AI has
9:30
Speaker 2: been a very key part of that. And so John Healy,
9:34
Speaker 2: the chancellor of the Exchequer, has over the weekend unveiled
9:38
Speaker 2: an artificial intelligence spending package of around 600 million pounds,
9:42
Speaker 2: more than 600 million pounds, which will make an appearance
9:47
Speaker 2: as part of Wednesday's budget, Wednesday this week, promising what
9:51
Speaker 2: he describes as a distinctively British approach to AI. And
9:54
Speaker 2: I wonder, does that mean half-baked? But anyway, he said
9:59
Speaker 2: that this approach to AI won't leave workers behind. Now,
10:03
Speaker 2: the measures were announced on Saturday, and they're being framed
10:08
Speaker 2: using terminology like security. The centerpiece is £ 165 million AI investment.
10:16
Speaker 2: national AI biosecurity initiative, including a hundred million pounds for
10:20
Speaker 2: the AI biosecurity lab, which the cabinet office describes as
10:24
Speaker 2: the world's first dedicated AI biosecurity organization. Now they say
10:30
Speaker 2: it's going to use frontier AI to detect biological threats
10:33
Speaker 2: earlier and speed up the development of vaccines and treatments.
10:36
Speaker 2: So this is very much in line with what Charles
10:39
Speaker 2: has just been reporting. And they say that they're going
10:41
Speaker 2: to work with the, it's going to work with the
10:43
Speaker 2: UK health security agency. the Animal and Plant Health Agency
10:46
Speaker 2: and the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down.
10:51
Speaker 2: So the lab is going to operate as an independent nonprofit,
10:55
Speaker 2: they say, backed by up to 200 million pounds in
10:58
Speaker 2: support from OpenAI and Anthropic with Google DeepMind and London-based
11:03
Speaker 2: Basecamp Research as research partners. It should be noted that
11:08
Speaker 2: OpenAI and Anthropic are not giving this money in the
11:12
Speaker 2: form of cash. is being given in the form of
11:16
Speaker 2: AI credits. But we'll come on to that in a second. Now,
11:19
Speaker 2: elsewhere then, the AI Security Institute has received 120 million
11:23
Speaker 2: pounds more. 130 million pounds goes to the AI-driven cyber defense,
11:32
Speaker 2: and the Sovereign AI Fund gets another 60 million pounds.
11:36
Speaker 2: And 18 million pounds goes to the Chip Design Academy
11:40
Speaker 2: plan for Edinburgh. and a further 10 million pounds a
11:43
Speaker 2: year is gonna fund research into AI's effects on jobs.
11:47
Speaker 2: So the AI minister said that Britain cannot afford to
11:51
Speaker 2: rely entirely on technology built overseas, but as we just noticed,
11:56
Speaker 2: they are absolutely relying on technology built overseas because they're
12:00
Speaker 2: relying on open AI and anthropic mainly for their bio lab.
12:06
Speaker 2: Industry body TechUK was describing this as a strong package.
12:11
Speaker 2: but other people have been criticizing it on exactly that point,
12:15
Speaker 2: the fact that OpenAI and Anthropic are giving credits rather
12:19
Speaker 2: than cash. And the Tech Times observed that if the
12:23
Speaker 2: lab can't use its full allocation of credits, then the
12:28
Speaker 2: outlier from OpenAI and Anthropic is not going to be
12:31
Speaker 2: anywhere near the headline figures. So the question is, what
12:34
Speaker 2: is actually being supplied there? And of course, this is
12:37
Speaker 2: all pretty awkward with respect to the AI sovereignty rhetoric
12:45
Speaker 2: that we get from the government, because days before the announcement,
12:48
Speaker 2: the government published advice from its Council for Science and Technology,
12:53
Speaker 2: warning that without urgent action, Britain risks becoming a high-value
12:57
Speaker 2: AI customer instead of shaping the technology itself. And so
13:03
Speaker 2: that's the threat. But of course, the other issue was jobs.
13:07
Speaker 2: And Over the weekend, just before the weekend, we also
13:10
Speaker 2: had the news, of course, that Barclays, for example, is
13:13
Speaker 2: laying off 5,000 people and replacing their work with AI.
13:19
Speaker 2: And this is being described as an AI-driven efficiency drive. So, Charles,
13:24
Speaker 2: I don't know what your thoughts are on this, but
13:26
Speaker 2: obviously the personalized medicine thing has always been framed in
13:30
Speaker 2: terms of being an AI-driven initiative. And now we're starting
13:35
Speaker 2: to see taxpayer money heading in that direction.
13:41
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Of course we are, I would say.
13:43
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think this comes as a surprise
13:45
Speaker 3: to anybody who's been following UK column news for the
13:47
Speaker 3: last few years. And also, I think just on the
13:50
Speaker 3: health side of it, isn't it remarkable how all of
13:53
Speaker 3: these initiatives simply highlight the number of new health issues
13:57
Speaker 3: there are, rather than actually resolving any of them? That
14:00
Speaker 3: seems to be a common trend, just to set up
14:04
Speaker 3: some sort of new way, apparently, of detecting something. Only
14:08
Speaker 3: to raise the problem rather than create a solution. I
14:10
Speaker 3: think just as a question, listening to you read out
14:13
Speaker 3: the AI minister, how long before the AI minister is
14:15
Speaker 3: actually AI?
14:18
Speaker 2: Well, some would say she already is. But anyway, Ben,
14:21
Speaker 2: let's come over to you now. And of course, the
14:24
Speaker 2: other announcement over the weekend was a thousand days to
14:28
Speaker 2: prepare for war now.
14:31
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So West Streeting over the weekend was was feted
14:34
Speaker 1: by the British mainstream media at length, as we'll see
14:39
Speaker 1: in terms of the independent newspaper article. If we can
14:44
Speaker 1: get onto that slide, we'll be able to see that.
14:46
Speaker 1: There we are. So Britain must be ready for war
14:48
Speaker 1: in 1000 days, West Streeting warns. Now, in short, this
14:52
Speaker 1: is by itself a relatively anodyne piece of agit proper,
14:57
Speaker 1: as I think most people will be able to tell. Unfortunately,
15:00
Speaker 1: I think there is another story behind this, which is
15:02
Speaker 1: what this article from Reuters sets out, which it says
15:05
Speaker 1: UK has set out to pass NATO target in Wednesday's budget,
15:09
Speaker 1: PM says. So Andy Burnham is obviously banging the drum.
15:12
Speaker 1: You know, Wes Streeting is banging the drum as well.
15:14
Speaker 1: And it's very clear, as we'll find out later on
15:16
Speaker 1: in the show today, that there is a major NATO
15:20
Speaker 1: budgeting exercise going on. Now, what's interesting is the way
15:23
Speaker 1: that they're going about this. As you can see, they're
15:26
Speaker 1: targeting the planning for NATO's budget. They want to get
15:30
Speaker 1: this sorted out by 2030. And there is a major
15:33
Speaker 1: milestone happening in December, I believe, in terms of getting
15:37
Speaker 1: that budget secured and approved by all parties. In order
15:42
Speaker 1: to sell this to the British public, they're banging the
15:45
Speaker 1: drum and they're saying that we need to absolutely have
15:49
Speaker 1: urgent exercises in terms of prepping, in terms of making
15:52
Speaker 1: sure that you have all of your affairs in order.
15:55
Speaker 1: And they're even going to the point of telling service people,
15:58
Speaker 1: as we've heard previously and will again soon, that they
16:01
Speaker 1: need to make themselves ready to reenlist, as well as
16:04
Speaker 1: encouraging rich people to have their wealth audited by the
16:08
Speaker 1: state so that their assets can be called in. As
16:10
Speaker 1: you can see on the slide here, the timeline for
16:13
Speaker 1: this is civil resilience this year, which is essentially a
16:17
Speaker 1: fusion doctrine reference saying that we need to have all
16:20
Speaker 1: areas of society resilience, which basically means making sure everybody
16:24
Speaker 1: is prepared to go to war and to die for
16:26
Speaker 1: the nation state, which I think is a deeply cynical
16:30
Speaker 1: and problematic view of people's rights and what we're actually
16:34
Speaker 1: here for on planet Earth. In 27, as you can see, 2.5%
16:38
Speaker 1: GDP defence spending and 18, sorry, 1 billion unified software web. Now,
16:44
Speaker 1: what this essentially refers to is building a unified defence
16:50
Speaker 1: matrix so that all areas of the armed forces can
16:52
Speaker 1: work together using digital tools to coordinate. And obviously, that's
16:56
Speaker 1: going to include AI, which brings in the previous discussion
17:00
Speaker 1: that we've just had. In 2028, they're talking about getting
17:04
Speaker 1: the stockpile scaled. So this is essentially producing ammunition and
17:09
Speaker 1: other war materials needed to actually go on to a
17:12
Speaker 1: hot war. I think it was around two or three
17:14
Speaker 1: years ago now, there was a news report that came
17:16
Speaker 1: out that said the UK probably had, at best, two
17:19
Speaker 1: days' worth of ammunition available for any kind of hot war,
17:24
Speaker 1: which means that Britain, as a war-fighting nation, doesn't exist.
17:28
Speaker 1: So from a planning perspective, yes, it is necessary. But also,
17:31
Speaker 1: I think in terms of the timing of this, it's
17:33
Speaker 1: deeply cynical. And it shows that they're trying to actually
17:37
Speaker 1: bring us up to a war footing in the face
17:39
Speaker 1: of absolutely no risk. The idea that Russia or anyone
17:43
Speaker 1: else is going to attack us is a nonsense unless
17:46
Speaker 1: we provoke them into it, which we seem to be
17:48
Speaker 1: doing a pretty good job of. And as you can
17:50
Speaker 1: see there, the AUKUS submarine output is aimed at having,
17:54
Speaker 1: I believe it's a submarine available and built every 18
17:58
Speaker 1: months is the figure that they've quoted. So they want
18:00
Speaker 1: a full combat posture by 2030, which again shows that
18:04
Speaker 1: they're not interested in actually sort of training Britain to
18:08
Speaker 1: be a war ready nation. They're aiming at provoking the threat.
18:13
Speaker 1: And as you can see, the main beneficiaries here are
18:16
Speaker 1: the military industrial complex, so BAE Systems. which is going
18:20
Speaker 1: to receive a nice £ 6 billion windfall in terms of
18:23
Speaker 1: their trading. Thales and Babcock, they're all about the Navy. Quinetic,
18:28
Speaker 1: which is essentially Britain's answer to the DARPA. That's where
18:32
Speaker 1: our private sector and government get together to develop new
18:35
Speaker 1: weapons and techniques. And the Cameron Group, which is all
18:38
Speaker 1: about essentially munitions and high explosives. So these are some
18:41
Speaker 1: of the primary military industrial contractors that stand to benefit
18:45
Speaker 1: from this. And as you can probably expect, they have
18:47
Speaker 1: an army of lobbyists floating around the government to make
18:50
Speaker 1: this work. Now, as you can also see here, bypassing
18:53
Speaker 1: legacy bureaucracy is key. Like we saw with the health
18:56
Speaker 1: care that we were discussing previously and the AI legislation,
19:00
Speaker 1: they don't want to have 10 year tender quotes. They've
19:04
Speaker 1: had so many bad examples in the past recently of
19:08
Speaker 1: procurement quotations and processes tenders that have gone badly wrong.
19:12
Speaker 1: just like they have in the NHS and elsewhere. In defence,
19:14
Speaker 1: it is an absolute white elephant, and they know that
19:17
Speaker 1: these processes need to be streamlined and improved in order
19:21
Speaker 1: to actually make it work better. Now, on the face
19:23
Speaker 1: of it, that's a good thing. We don't want public
19:25
Speaker 1: money being wasted. But at the same time, when they're
19:28
Speaker 1: being put in place simply to aid other nation states,
19:31
Speaker 1: like Israel, for example, we have a really big problem
19:35
Speaker 1: on our hands in terms of where this money is
19:37
Speaker 1: going and why it's being spent in the first place.
19:39
Speaker 1: And as you'll see there, the second point, always on
19:41
Speaker 1: ammunition lines. I personally have seen the actual call outs
19:46
Speaker 1: happening for this in terms of building ammunition plants and
19:49
Speaker 1: building the onshore capability to produce more ammunition and munitions
19:54
Speaker 1: to supply our armed forces, which, again, from a planning perspective,
19:57
Speaker 1: seems normal. But the timing of this is deeply suspect,
20:00
Speaker 1: given that the budgets need to be secured by the
20:03
Speaker 1: end of the year. Now, as you can see as well,
20:06
Speaker 1: Palantir are deeply woven into all of this. West Streeting
20:10
Speaker 1: has actually had donations Palantir associated organizations and people. So
20:16
Speaker 1: there is a strong lobbying effort being put underway here
20:21
Speaker 1: to make sure that Palantir keeps its hooks into the
20:23
Speaker 1: British state. But as you quite rightly identified earlier, Mike,
20:26
Speaker 1: there is a war going on between Palantir and Anthropic
20:29
Speaker 1: at the moment with various different factions of the AI
20:32
Speaker 1: world trying to make sure that they have their hooks
20:35
Speaker 1: kept in. It's a war for market share. It's not
20:37
Speaker 1: about what's right. It's not about what's in the good
20:41
Speaker 1: of the British people. It's about who gets to play
20:43
Speaker 1: at the table. So the next part of this, the
20:48
Speaker 1: civil society and think tank network, as you can probably understand,
20:51
Speaker 1: all of this needs selling. We need to make sure that,
20:54
Speaker 1: or rather they need to make sure the British public
20:57
Speaker 1: accepts what they are told. So the Royal United Services
21:00
Speaker 1: Institute and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, these are
21:04
Speaker 1: essentially pro-military, pro-military industrial complex think tanks. they are absolutely
21:09
Speaker 1: advocating for this spending review and for putting all of
21:12
Speaker 1: this money back into defence. Now, Mr Healey, as we know,
21:15
Speaker 1: he resigned at the end of this Starmer government because
21:18
Speaker 1: he was stating that we weren't spending the money we
21:21
Speaker 1: needed to. Much of that rhetoric was coming from think
21:24
Speaker 1: tanks like these organisations. Policy Exchange, again, another very well-known
21:29
Speaker 1: think tank advocating for whole of society resilience, which again
21:33
Speaker 1: is the key message of the fusion doctrine, which is
21:36
Speaker 1: the doctrine that the British government has adopted but came
21:39
Speaker 1: out of the intelligence industry. They're basically saying that the
21:42
Speaker 1: military spend, the energy spend and the national infrastructure spend
21:46
Speaker 1: are all national security issues and should be dealt with
21:49
Speaker 1: as national security issues, which changes the decision making matrix
21:53
Speaker 1: which is applied to them. It essentially comes from the
21:56
Speaker 1: perspective of we're going to have a war and we're
21:58
Speaker 1: going to get whatever we want to make that war happen. Finally,
22:02
Speaker 1: and I think this is one of the most interesting
22:04
Speaker 1: parts here, Labour for the Long Term was an advocacy
22:07
Speaker 1: group built within the Labour Party, which received money from
22:11
Speaker 1: Sam Bankman-Fried, that well-known name, who was recently, I believe,
22:16
Speaker 1: convicted for various noughties in the US. And he was
22:21
Speaker 1: part of a key network called the Effective Altruism Network. which, unsurprisingly,
22:26
Speaker 1: is another NGO organisation designed to push a very set,
22:30
Speaker 1: a very key and very restricted set of messages around
22:34
Speaker 1: essentially democratic oversight and military spending, which seems a very
22:38
Speaker 1: strange partnership to have in place. As you can see,
22:41
Speaker 1: registered funding and donor associations for West Streeting and other
22:44
Speaker 1: people around him has had over £ 175, 000 from private health
22:49
Speaker 1: and equity organisations, John Armitage, MPM, etc., He's had £ 37, 500
22:53
Speaker 1: from Labour from long term, which I believe is now
22:56
Speaker 1: a defunct organisation. They had to scrub themselves from the
22:59
Speaker 1: internet because of what happened with Sam Hung and Freed.
23:03
Speaker 1: And then he's had a lot more money. I know
23:05
Speaker 1: it's well over £ 30, 000 from Trevor Chin and Labour Friends
23:09
Speaker 1: of Israel and other organisations adjacent to them. So the
23:12
Speaker 1: amount of private lobbying money going into this affair is huge. So,
23:19
Speaker 1: and again, I mentioned earlier, in terms of the lobbying
23:22
Speaker 1: direction where this is coming from, a lot of these industries,
23:25
Speaker 1: organizations are associated with Israel and with the military industrial
23:29
Speaker 1: complex and the information warfare complex, which is hosted by
23:33
Speaker 1: Israel on shore there. Now, they obviously have strong ties
23:37
Speaker 1: into the UK military industrial complex as well as the US.
23:40
Speaker 1: And Labour Friends of Israel haven't been shy about pushing
23:43
Speaker 1: this agenda. And certainly West Streeting is known to be
23:45
Speaker 1: a key adjunct for them within the Labour government. The
23:49
Speaker 1: policy and legal stance is interesting here in terms of
23:53
Speaker 1: the genocide allegations towards Israel at the moment. Obviously, the
23:58
Speaker 1: arming of British forces is key because if they do that,
24:02
Speaker 1: they can arm Israel at the same time. And that's
24:04
Speaker 1: where a lot of our weapons and munitions have been going.
24:07
Speaker 1: So you can bet your bottom dollar or bet your
24:09
Speaker 1: bottom pound in this case that spending any money on
24:12
Speaker 1: British armed forces, any money on British munitions is going
24:15
Speaker 1: to benefit the genocide and the genocidal activities currently undertaken
24:19
Speaker 1: by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people. Finally, as
24:25
Speaker 1: we all know, British tanks are in short supply. That's
24:27
Speaker 1: why the Germans have given most of theirs to Ukraine.
24:31
Speaker 1: We have a very small armoured fighting force. So the
24:35
Speaker 1: various armour producers based within and around the UK are
24:39
Speaker 1: going to be rubbing their hands together in glee with
24:41
Speaker 1: the idea that they are going to have bumper order
24:43
Speaker 1: books built by the end of this budget period. There
24:46
Speaker 1: is also a very strong case to suggest that the
24:50
Speaker 1: British military are going to be investing heavily in both
24:53
Speaker 1: drone warfare and air warfare and cyber warfare. Given what
24:58
Speaker 1: we've seen happening in Ukraine and Russia, there is a
25:00
Speaker 1: strong agenda to suggest that armor warfare is essentially a
25:04
Speaker 1: thing of the past because drones can take them out
25:06
Speaker 1: so easily. So it's very clear that the government's adopting
25:09
Speaker 1: a policy of credible deterrence. What they see is basically saying,
25:12
Speaker 1: we have a bigger stick than you, so we can
25:14
Speaker 1: shake it at you and beat you with it, should
25:15
Speaker 1: we so wish. They want the public to be ready
25:18
Speaker 1: in the case of a hot war. So again, they're
25:20
Speaker 1: trying to make sure that we're OK with going to
25:23
Speaker 1: fight and die. And this is known in the trade
25:25
Speaker 1: as the will to fight, TWTF. If you see that
25:27
Speaker 1: referenced anywhere, you now know what it means. And they're
25:31
Speaker 1: trying to take as much propaganda action as they can
25:34
Speaker 1: to make sure that we're all ready to go and
25:36
Speaker 1: fight and die. And, of course, they're using alarmist rhetoric
25:40
Speaker 1: to do this, which is essentially saying, oh, we're going
25:42
Speaker 1: to have a war in three years. In 1,000 days,
25:45
Speaker 1: you're all going to be fighting. It's going to be
25:47
Speaker 1: the Blitz all over again. This is a complete nonsense,
25:50
Speaker 1: but it doesn't matter, apparently, to where it's treated. So
25:53
Speaker 1: it's a very concerning set of messages they're putting out there.
25:56
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, most of this is about putting money in
26:00
Speaker 1: the pockets of the military-industrial complex.
26:04
Speaker 2: Ben, thank you very much for that. Plenty to talk
26:08
Speaker 2: about and extra already appearing. But let's move on then.
26:12
Speaker 2: And if you do like what we do here at
26:14
Speaker 2: The Column, we do need your ongoing support. Have a
26:16
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26:19
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26:22
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26:28
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26:37
Speaker 2: to get four copies of the magazine over the course
26:40
Speaker 2: of a year, the annual subscriptions are available on the
26:43
Speaker 2: shop as well. And I'm delighted to say that Germ
26:46
Speaker 2: Warfare and Silk and Steel are back tonight. So we're
26:52
Speaker 2: a weekly banter, Charles. Wind turbines in the sea should
26:56
Speaker 2: be destroyed, is how Germ has put it. I'm not
26:59
Speaker 2: sure we quite said it in quite those terms, although
27:02
Speaker 2: we might feel that way.
27:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, we might.
27:06
Speaker 3: Incitement, I don't think, was actually part of that broadcast.
27:09
Speaker 3: But anyway, still worth tuning in because I think there
27:11
Speaker 3: were some really valid points brought out about the great deception,
27:15
Speaker 3: but also the just extraordinary invasion into the natural environment
27:20
Speaker 3: and in a way that is just completely unbecoming.
27:23
Speaker 4: And for what?
27:25
Speaker 1: Indeed.
27:25
Speaker 2: So join us at seven tonight for that. Then at nine,
27:31
Speaker 2: Carl is talking about America's global strategy. collapsing i think
27:35
Speaker 2: that may well be correct uh tomorrow at 1 p.m
27:38
Speaker 2: we'll be talking about chemtrails with len duggan uh join
27:42
Speaker 2: us for that at one uh and uh i'll just
27:45
Speaker 2: mention uh lots of interest in brian's visit to the
27:49
Speaker 2: netherlands last week uh because uh uh obviously that has
27:54
Speaker 2: been getting quite a bit of coverage and we will
27:56
Speaker 2: have uh some uh a short report from brian on
28:00
Speaker 2: wednesday's program and then he will be doing much more
28:02
Speaker 2: uh later on but uh Join us on Wednesdays, UK
28:06
Speaker 2: Call News, for an update from the Netherlands. Now, let's
28:10
Speaker 2: come on to the issue of defense spending, because Ben
28:16
Speaker 2: absolutely talking about this to some degree, but I was
28:19
Speaker 2: talking earlier this year about the DSRB, the Defense Security
28:22
Speaker 2: and Resilience Bank, otherwise known as the Global Defense Bank.
28:26
Speaker 2: This was, if you remember, the idea of Rob Murray,
28:29
Speaker 2: NATO's inaugural and current head of innovation, But the fight
28:33
Speaker 2: over whether the UK should be part of it absolutely
28:36
Speaker 2: contributed to John Healey's resignation as Secretary of State for War.
28:42
Speaker 2: And that in turn played a large part in Starmer's
28:45
Speaker 2: eventual demise. Well, of course, John Healey is now the
28:50
Speaker 2: Chancellor of the Exchequer and he is in control of
28:53
Speaker 2: where the money comes from and where it goes to.
28:55
Speaker 2: And it has been decided that he will not, that
28:59
Speaker 2: Britain will not join the DSRB despite Healey's ongoing support
29:04
Speaker 2: for it. And the reason is that Britain is involved
29:08
Speaker 2: in a similar competing effort called the Multilateral Defense Mechanism,
29:14
Speaker 2: or MDM. Now, the MDM was launched by the UK,
29:17
Speaker 2: the Netherlands, and Finland in March, and Poland joined in July.
29:21
Speaker 2: It's designed to pull government orders and hold weapons stockpiles
29:26
Speaker 2: on members' behalves. And members would pay for the stocks
29:29
Speaker 2: over time, the stocks of weapons, that is, instead of
29:32
Speaker 2: buying them upfront. So it's basically a wartime higher purchase agreement,
29:36
Speaker 2: by the look of things. Now, the decision by the
29:39
Speaker 2: UK to walk away from the DSRB came after talks
29:42
Speaker 2: to merge it with the MDM collapsed over the last
29:46
Speaker 2: few days. And this was all about where the joint
29:49
Speaker 2: body that was being proposed would be based and who
29:51
Speaker 2: would be allowed to join. The decision for the UK
29:55
Speaker 2: to walk away from the DSRB was made by John Healey, ironically.
30:00
Speaker 2: But according to people briefed on the talks, the UK
30:03
Speaker 2: wanted to fold the DSRB into the MDM because these
30:07
Speaker 2: are effectively the same types of organizations, just one based
30:10
Speaker 2: in Canada, one based in the EU. But negotiations broke
30:15
Speaker 2: down because Canada, who's hosting the DSRB, decided that it
30:20
Speaker 2: was determined that any joint headquarters would be in Canada
30:24
Speaker 2: and that it would also want to focus on lending
30:28
Speaker 2: money to smaller countries. But anyway, they've decided to go
30:32
Speaker 2: their separate ways. There was a joint statement issued, and
30:37
Speaker 2: they said that they would build two distinct but complementary institutions. Now,
30:44
Speaker 2: the two bodies are built slightly differently, but nonetheless, if
30:46
Speaker 2: you remember, the DSRB follows the World Bank template. It
30:51
Speaker 2: was founded on the basis of 20 billion euros of
30:56
Speaker 2: paid-in capital and another 80 billion euros of what's called
30:59
Speaker 2: callable capital. So in other words, money that doesn't exist yet.
31:04
Speaker 2: And this would be used to create bonds given a
31:08
Speaker 2: AAA rating. And it would then lend to governments and
31:12
Speaker 2: guarantee loans to defense manufacturers, particularly smaller defense manufacturers and
31:17
Speaker 2: members would record their contributions as assets. And these would
31:20
Speaker 2: count towards NATO spending targets. But of course, as we
31:25
Speaker 2: mentioned before, This meant that when these AAA sovereign equivalent
31:31
Speaker 2: bonds are issued, that this would be held off the
31:34
Speaker 2: balance sheet. And in fact, it looks like this new
31:39
Speaker 2: organization that the UK wants to be part of, or
31:42
Speaker 2: is part of, or is driving at least, is going
31:44
Speaker 2: to pretty much be exactly the same thing. Charles, I
31:47
Speaker 2: don't know what your thoughts are on this, but they
31:50
Speaker 2: clearly are desperate to try to find some mechanism for
31:55
Speaker 2: funding this rearmament process. They don't have the money for
32:00
Speaker 2: it themselves. So they're going to try and issue bonds
32:03
Speaker 2: in some form, no matter which organization that does it,
32:06
Speaker 2: in order to raise the money. But they want to
32:10
Speaker 2: try and hide this from the taxpayer. It needs to
32:14
Speaker 2: be getting much more coverage. And I'm not really seeing
32:18
Speaker 2: very much coverage of this in the mainstream press at all.
32:23
Speaker 4: Very, very little coverage.
32:24
Speaker 3: And I think that's no great surprise because what it's
32:28
Speaker 3: proposing is to, exactly like you say, create money from
32:32
Speaker 3: nowhere for a war that isn't necessary. And that's a
32:36
Speaker 3: bit of a tricky sell to the public, I would say,
32:39
Speaker 3: even if it's set alongside what Ben's been reporting with
32:41
Speaker 3: the continual scaremongering, exactly like we have described. I think
32:46
Speaker 3: it is interesting to note and to just get a
32:48
Speaker 3: bit of an insight into the way in which greed,
32:52
Speaker 3: corruption and all those sorts of elements will in fact
32:55
Speaker 3: provoke a sort of competition that will actually stymie progress
33:00
Speaker 3: on this front. I mean, I think one wonders really
33:02
Speaker 3: whether this really is final for the United Kingdom or not.
33:06
Speaker 3: I think just as a closing note, I was also
33:08
Speaker 3: intrigued with reference to the MHRA to see Rob Murray
33:13
Speaker 3: as head of innovation, pushing something that in effect has
33:16
Speaker 3: no regulation.
33:18
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
33:18
Speaker 2: Now, just to finish off, Hayley's budget on Wednesday is
33:22
Speaker 2: expected to include up to 20 billion pounds for the
33:25
Speaker 2: British Business Bank and the National Wealth Fund. And both
33:28
Speaker 2: those organizations have remits that also cover defense industry finance.
33:33
Speaker 2: So that therefore becomes three potential channels through which this
33:39
Speaker 2: type of funding can be generated. And well, we'll see
33:45
Speaker 2: whether they get away with trying to keep this money
33:48
Speaker 2: that they generate off the UK's books. because that is
33:55
Speaker 2: the limit as far as I'm concerned. But Charles, let's
33:58
Speaker 2: move on then to mine games, military mine games.
34:04
Speaker 3: Yes, described at least as such by Soldier Magazine, the
34:09
Speaker 3: October issue. Now, Soldier Magazine, if you're not familiar with it,
34:12
Speaker 3: is the sort of in-house publication from the British Army.
34:15
Speaker 3: And I think it would be reasonable to describe it
34:18
Speaker 3: as a propaganda organ in that it's very much selling
34:22
Speaker 3: all the potential and existing conflicts that the British Army
34:25
Speaker 3: might be involved in. It also advertises weapon systems, certainly
34:29
Speaker 3: until recently, those produced by Elbit Systems. So not sort
34:33
Speaker 3: of exactly straying too far away from controversy. But the
34:38
Speaker 3: point is that this month holds a long feature on
34:42
Speaker 3: what Mike correctly describes as mind games and subtitled the
34:46
Speaker 3: British troops on the front line of the information war.
34:50
Speaker 3: So this absolutely pertains to what Ben has just been
34:53
Speaker 3: talking about and indeed Mike. And I think just By
34:56
Speaker 3: way of following on from UK column news, this harks
35:01
Speaker 3: very much to what was quoted, or at least what
35:04
Speaker 3: Kirill Dmitriev was quoted as saying on the Friday news
35:09
Speaker 3: programme about preparations for a war that would be completely
35:13
Speaker 3: and utterly pointless, at least if it were with Russia,
35:16
Speaker 3: because of the length of time it would last. So
35:20
Speaker 3: I think that's something to hold in mind. But what
35:24
Speaker 3: was said was based on the experiences of a senior
35:26
Speaker 3: non-commissioned officer and his career path into what was then
35:30
Speaker 3: 77 Brigade. And I've just got a couple of quotes
35:34
Speaker 3: from the article. So he was saying, as a member
35:36
Speaker 3: of the Land Special Operations Force, the senior non-commissioned officer
35:41
Speaker 3: works at the sharp end of a very modern war,
35:44
Speaker 3: one fought not with bombs and bullets, but with disinformation,
35:48
Speaker 3: memes and bot accounts. So further to that quote is
35:55
Speaker 3: that he had been on courses covering the likes of
35:58
Speaker 3: open source intelligence, basic behavioural science and military deception to
36:03
Speaker 3: qualify them as information activities operators. Well, taken at face value,
36:09
Speaker 3: if there were a legitimate enemy, perhaps some of those
36:14
Speaker 3: courses and indeed purposes could be justified. But I think
36:18
Speaker 3: exactly what it is that we're looking at needs to
36:20
Speaker 3: be scrutinised quite closely, particularly because of what it is
36:25
Speaker 3: that 77th grade has been associated with in the past
36:28
Speaker 3: and the certain knowledge that they have been directed to
36:33
Speaker 3: work against British citizens. And this is brought out, or
36:37
Speaker 3: at least was brought out very clearly by Big Brother
36:40
Speaker 3: Watch back in 2020, which wrote a document entitled Ministry
36:44
Speaker 3: of Truth. And this was based on the account of
36:45
Speaker 3: a whistleblower from 77 Brigade and what the disinformation operation
36:51
Speaker 3: during the COVID-19 years was really like. So just before
36:57
Speaker 3: we look into that, I would just say that back
37:00
Speaker 3: in the Soldier magazine article, there was also just a
37:04
Speaker 3: throwaway remark saying, for example, Russian backed accounts have been
37:07
Speaker 3: linked to inflammatory posts around immigration and race demonstrations in
37:12
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom. So, of course, with that in mind,
37:15
Speaker 3: I'd just like to go into what the whistleblower said.
37:19
Speaker 3: In March 2020, I was serving in the British Army
37:21
Speaker 3: when COVID-19 became a focus for the UK government. I
37:24
Speaker 3: was seconded to 77th Brigade on the basis that I
37:29
Speaker 3: would be helping to find foreign state misinformation on social media.
37:33
Speaker 3: So just hold in mind what I've quoted from Soldier
37:36
Speaker 3: Magazine about the Russians apparently being involved in stoking race demonstrations.
37:42
Speaker 3: He goes on to say that we would send screenshots
37:45
Speaker 3: of tweets from people who appeared to be British expressing
37:49
Speaker 3: dissatisfaction with the UK government's action against COVID. And finally,
37:57
Speaker 3: to skirt the clear legal issues with a military unit
38:01
Speaker 3: monitoring domestic dissent, the leading view was that unless a
38:05
Speaker 3: profile explicitly stated their real name and nationality, which is,
38:09
Speaker 3: of course, vanishingly rare, They could be a foreign agent
38:14
Speaker 3: and were fair game to flag up. Now, I've particularly
38:19
Speaker 3: chosen those quotes because I think they illustrate very, very
38:23
Speaker 3: clearly what was even then the direction of travel and
38:28
Speaker 3: what has unfolded since, which, of course, has been through
38:31
Speaker 3: the National Security Acts of 2023 and 2026. For example,
38:36
Speaker 3: the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, and the idea that there
38:40
Speaker 3: is a hidden foreign hand behind almost anything that besets
38:45
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom. And therefore this does call into question
38:47
Speaker 3: exactly what it is that people who are working for
38:51
Speaker 3: the cognitive warfare group might actually be tasked to do
38:57
Speaker 3: in future. I think also, with regard to some of
39:01
Speaker 3: what Mike has been reporting on in terms of technical capabilities,
39:06
Speaker 3: especially with AI becoming the more dominant force. He did
39:10
Speaker 3: also say, the whistleblower said, he found it remarkable that
39:13
Speaker 3: this team existed, first of all, to be dealing with
39:16
Speaker 3: the sorts of things that I've just described. As I thought,
39:19
Speaker 3: I was well informed about our intelligence activities, but I
39:22
Speaker 3: also found it astonishing how little experience they had in cyber,
39:26
Speaker 3: being a team sourced from across all areas of defence.
39:30
Speaker 3: And I think this is, again, with the sort of
39:32
Speaker 3: thousand day claim in mind, it is quite insightful. to
39:36
Speaker 3: have somebody say that in effect, he considered that the
39:40
Speaker 3: standard really was woefully low. So with regard to foreign
39:43
Speaker 3: interference or whatever one might decide to call it, this
39:47
Speaker 3: course is entirely subjective because it's the state that gets
39:50
Speaker 3: to decide whether or not they believe that there was
39:54
Speaker 3: a foreign threat activity at play, RAF Fairford being the
39:59
Speaker 3: best example that's in the news cycle.
40:02
Speaker 4: At the moment.
40:03
Speaker 3: Now, with regard to the Cognitive Warfare Group, 77 Brigade,
40:07
Speaker 3: they are still very much recruiting and their website says
40:10
Speaker 3: that they're recruiting civilians and reservists to combat new forms
40:14
Speaker 3: of warfare in the information environment and that the land
40:18
Speaker 3: special operations force uses bold, innovative and divergent thinking to
40:23
Speaker 3: support UK operations around the world. And apparently they contribute
40:28
Speaker 3: to stabilisation and reconstruction projects and champion the understanding and
40:33
Speaker 3: consideration of human security in military operations. Now, The question
40:39
Speaker 3: to be asked and indeed to pursue the line about
40:43
Speaker 3: the context is what does this fit into in the
40:47
Speaker 3: sense of the wider picture? And I think there's no
40:49
Speaker 3: better place to look than Joint Service Publication 900, which
40:53
Speaker 3: is very much hidden from public view. This is a
40:55
Speaker 3: redacted copy from 2015, part one of two, the directive.
41:00
Speaker 3: And I'd just like to quote from it, from the
41:04
Speaker 3: introduction of direction on policy and processes as to exactly
41:07
Speaker 3: what a target is, because this all concerns targeting and
41:11
Speaker 3: the targets as far as JSP 900 is concerned is
41:14
Speaker 3: any area, structure, object, person, organisation, mindset, thought process, attitude,
41:22
Speaker 3: or behaviour, which can be influenced And with what we've
41:28
Speaker 3: been looking at so far, I think this is very
41:31
Speaker 3: much something that bears further scrutiny as to exactly how
41:35
Speaker 3: it is that the armed forces are being deployed or
41:38
Speaker 3: could be deployed, apparently under the banner of there being
41:43
Speaker 3: a foreign threat. I'd just like to go to Ben briefly,
41:46
Speaker 3: because when you were last on the news programme, you
41:48
Speaker 3: were speaking in Extra about the way in which local
41:51
Speaker 3: authorities have in effect adopted a similar approach to the
41:55
Speaker 3: way in which they view people. So if you just
41:57
Speaker 3: give a sort of quick comment on the parallels between
41:59
Speaker 3: what we're seeing in the military environment and the civilian one.
42:04
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Charles. So I think it's very clear here that
42:07
Speaker 1: there has been a deployment of military-grade practice, technology and
42:12
Speaker 1: capability into the civil circuit, and they're using military techniques
42:17
Speaker 1: against the British population. The concern here, and this goes
42:22
Speaker 1: back to some of the conversation that Mike had earlier
42:25
Speaker 1: regarding Tech UK. Tech UK is essentially the bridge organisation
42:30
Speaker 1: between the British government the private sector and the military,
42:34
Speaker 1: they mix it all up in there. And that is
42:36
Speaker 1: the channel through which various techniques for this kind of
42:40
Speaker 1: cognitive warfare have been put through to allow the British
42:43
Speaker 1: military access to the various bits of technology required in
42:47
Speaker 1: the private sector to actually deploy these techniques. So in TechUK,
42:52
Speaker 1: there are actually people featured on their websites who are
42:55
Speaker 1: part of this process and have actually helped develop it. So,
42:59
Speaker 1: for example, one of the techniques used is known as
43:01
Speaker 1: the Disarm Framework, which is actually created and administered by
43:05
Speaker 1: the Disarm Foundation. That process is being taught to local councils,
43:10
Speaker 1: local organisations, NHS managers, private organisations, political parties all over
43:17
Speaker 1: the UK. It is a weaponised military information warfare kill chain.
43:22
Speaker 1: And it is something that I think is completely unregulated.
43:25
Speaker 1: There is very little scrutiny on it at all. And
43:28
Speaker 1: it's interesting that your targeting document from 2015, Charles, shows
43:32
Speaker 1: that it is essentially allowed to be deployed anywhere, any
43:35
Speaker 1: part of society that is considered influenceable or changeable by
43:40
Speaker 1: a foreign state actor. Now, we have to remember the
43:42
Speaker 1: fusion doctrine is a doctrine that has been adopted by
43:45
Speaker 1: UK government, by the government, by the cabinet office. So
43:48
Speaker 1: it is a political directive. And what we're seeing here
43:51
Speaker 1: is that political directive has been in play for at
43:54
Speaker 1: least a decade now since the fusion doctrine was actually adopted.
43:58
Speaker 1: And it has been filtering through to lower levels of
44:02
Speaker 1: government and, of course, the UK military at all levels.
44:05
Speaker 1: It's become pervasive. It is paranoid, absolutely paranoid about it.
44:10
Speaker 1: any part of society being entered by a foreign state actor,
44:14
Speaker 1: when in reality, as I think we all know, the
44:16
Speaker 1: key threat comes from those within, domestic actors who are
44:20
Speaker 1: essentially using this for political and private benefit purposes, which
44:24
Speaker 1: has absolutely nothing to do with defending the British state
44:27
Speaker 1: against foreign actors. I find this all very, very daunting.
44:34
Speaker 4: Ben, excellent. Thank you very much indeed.
44:36
Speaker 3: And just to round off then, to go back to
44:38
Speaker 3: JSP 900, we'll just have a look. I would like
44:41
Speaker 3: you to consider Ben's words as I read this. Many
44:44
Speaker 3: activities will be carried out by non-military actors in support
44:48
Speaker 3: of wider national objectives. This is essentially qualifying what exactly
44:52
Speaker 3: full spectrum targeting is. And then it goes on to say,
44:55
Speaker 3: given the increasingly complex information domain and the new opportunities
44:59
Speaker 3: presented by the rapid development of cyber technologies, and communication media.
45:05
Speaker 3: So an awful lot to think about there. And all
45:07
Speaker 3: I would do is finish off by saying that if
45:08
Speaker 3: you haven't yet read issue two of the column magazine,
45:11
Speaker 3: which is in fact sort of themed, you are the target,
45:15
Speaker 3: then I really would recommend that you get into that,
45:18
Speaker 3: which is obviously an excellent publication.
45:21
Speaker 4: It is indeed.
45:22
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Charles. Let's move on to the
45:26
Speaker 2: issue of prepping, because as everybody knows, last week, Wes
45:30
Speaker 2: Strading told us all we need to be prepared This
45:32
Speaker 2: absolutely follows on from what we've just been talking about. Now,
45:35
Speaker 2: he wasn't prepared to tell us what we need to
45:37
Speaker 2: be prepared for, just that we have to be prepared.
45:41
Speaker 2: But interestingly, at about the same time, the National Grid
45:44
Speaker 2: was sending out emails to everyone telling them that they
45:47
Speaker 2: were prepared for Storm Austin, even though they weren't. Lots
45:52
Speaker 2: of people in Devon Cornwall lost power during what was
45:55
Speaker 2: no more than a normal autumn Atlantic low pressure system,
45:58
Speaker 2: identifying as a scary event because the Met Office gave
46:01
Speaker 2: it a name and the BBC amplified that as much
46:03
Speaker 2: as they possibly could. But anyway, getting back to the topic, Gov.uk,
46:07
Speaker 2: as we mentioned on Friday, launched its Be Ready website.
46:11
Speaker 2: And I wonder whether this was just a British, or
46:14
Speaker 2: I wondered at the time whether this was just a
46:16
Speaker 2: British thing or not, because streaming had said that this
46:20
Speaker 2: is simply bringing us into line with.
46:22
Speaker 1: The rest of Europe.
46:23
Speaker 2: So I thought we'd just take a quick tour of
46:26
Speaker 2: Europe and see where they're at with all these things.
46:28
Speaker 2: And in fact, it does turn out that European countries
46:31
Speaker 2: generally seem to be ahead of us on the prepping side.
46:34
Speaker 2: So let's start off with the Netherlands. Here, theirs is
46:37
Speaker 2: called Think Ahead in Dutch, of course. And they had
46:40
Speaker 2: their mass media launch on the 1st of November last year.
46:43
Speaker 2: And then they had a second bite at the cherry
46:46
Speaker 2: on the 12th of this month. And now this is
46:48
Speaker 2: a multi-year campaign coordinated by the National Coordinator for Security
46:52
Speaker 2: and Counterterrorism. They published a booklet on surviving the first
46:56
Speaker 2: 72 hours without power, water, or internet. And that was
46:59
Speaker 2: posted at 8.5 million households between November last year and
47:03
Speaker 2: January this year. Then we got France, Everybody Responsible in French,
47:10
Speaker 2: published on the 20th of November last year. This is
47:13
Speaker 2: a 27-page government survival guide covering conflict, natural disasters, terrorism,
47:19
Speaker 2: and cyberattacks. And it also, just like Streeting, was talking
47:23
Speaker 2: about a 72-hour window here, six liters of water per person.
47:27
Speaker 2: I think if I write Streeting said three liters of
47:30
Speaker 2: water per person. But anyway, they also were talking about
47:34
Speaker 2: non-perishable food, battery radios, torches, medicines, document copies, and so on.
47:41
Speaker 2: In the event they didn't publish it as a physical product,
47:45
Speaker 2: the planned paper distribution didn't happen, so it's online only.
47:49
Speaker 2: Then we got Denmark. So national home preparedness campaign that
47:53
Speaker 2: was launched in November last year. And the slogan was,
47:56
Speaker 2: when you can take care of yourself, you can help
47:58
Speaker 2: those who can't. And so that was something that built
48:03
Speaker 2: on the previous crisis management leaflet, which was distributed in 2024.
48:08
Speaker 2: So they're well ahead. Then we have Poland here. Safety guide.
48:13
Speaker 2: This received household distribution at the end of last year
48:16
Speaker 2: and the beginning of this. It was published online, in fact,
48:19
Speaker 2: six months prior. by the defense and interior ministries and
48:24
Speaker 2: the government security center. And as I say, hard copies
48:27
Speaker 2: were posted to all 17 million households and the areas
48:32
Speaker 2: along the Eastern border of Poland got them first. And
48:36
Speaker 2: they're also talking about 72 hours worth of supplies. They
48:40
Speaker 2: are withstrating three liters of water per person per day,
48:43
Speaker 2: but they also talk about evacuation backpacks, air attacks and
48:47
Speaker 2: CBRN threats in Germany. They revised their guide, which is
48:51
Speaker 2: called Pact for Civil Protection between March and June this year.
48:56
Speaker 2: And this comes from the Federal Office for Civil Protection.
49:01
Speaker 2: They are pretty much covering exactly the same kinds of things.
49:06
Speaker 2: They're talking about three days minimum, but they're saying ideally
49:08
Speaker 2: 10 days of supply. So they are going a bit
49:11
Speaker 2: further than streeting was. And this is all part of
49:16
Speaker 2: the German government's 10 billion Euro Pact for Civil Protection
49:19
Speaker 2: which runs up until 2029. So that's quite impressive. Then
49:25
Speaker 2: we've got Belgium here, prepared together. That was launched in
49:28
Speaker 2: April this year by the National Crisis Center. And it's
49:32
Speaker 2: a four-year campaign. Households are urged to cope alone for
49:36
Speaker 2: 72 hours. It's quite incredible that largely the narrative is
49:39
Speaker 2: the same Across all countries, phase one centers on signing
49:43
Speaker 2: up to BE Alert, which I guess is a mobile
49:46
Speaker 2: alert system. Later phases are going to cover nuclear risk, apparently.
49:51
Speaker 2: So they're certainly heading in the direction of nuclear warfare preparation.
49:55
Speaker 2: Then Ireland, we've got BE Emergency Ready. That was launched
49:59
Speaker 2: in August this year, launched by the defense minister and
50:04
Speaker 2: run by the Department of Defense's Office of Emergency Planning.
50:08
Speaker 2: posted out a 17-page booklet to 2.2 million households over
50:13
Speaker 2: the weeks from 21st of September, 2026. And it was
50:18
Speaker 2: structured as, be aware, make a plan, stay connected. So
50:23
Speaker 2: that's exciting as well. And then finally, on this roundup,
50:26
Speaker 2: we got the European Commission, which reviewed also the 72
50:30
Speaker 2: hours and also a citizen's panel on preparedness. And so
50:36
Speaker 2: this is not a new campaign though, because the 72-hour
50:39
Speaker 2: target date begins with the preparedness union strategy of 26th
50:45
Speaker 2: of March, 2025. So Charles, thoughts, and maybe you get
50:50
Speaker 2: some thoughts from Ben on this as well, but largely
50:53
Speaker 2: the narrative across all these countries is the same with
50:56
Speaker 2: a couple of outliers. And so you wonder whether there
51:00
Speaker 2: is the European Commission the source of this, but certainly
51:02
Speaker 2: there seems to be a source of that everybody else
51:05
Speaker 2: is jumping on.
51:08
Speaker 3: Well, I think that's been a feature of international communications
51:11
Speaker 3: or at least the media cycle for an awfully long time.
51:16
Speaker 3: It became particularly evident in 2020 that the corporate structures
51:19
Speaker 3: in place meant that the same message could be parroted
51:22
Speaker 3: across multiple channels at exactly the same time, word for word.
51:25
Speaker 3: And this, in a way, is, I would say, sort
51:27
Speaker 3: of from the same stable as to where exactly the
51:31
Speaker 3: source is. Very hard to determine. Maybe we'll never find out.
51:34
Speaker 3: What I would say, though, on the messaging front, is
51:37
Speaker 3: that it's a fine line. And I would contend that
51:42
Speaker 3: what is being put out in the way in which
51:44
Speaker 3: it's being put out constitutes the commissioning of an offence
51:48
Speaker 3: under Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000, because subsection B,
51:52
Speaker 3: or rather, first of all, Section 1, the use or
51:56
Speaker 3: threat of action where the use or threat is designed
51:59
Speaker 3: to intimidate the public or a section of the public.
52:01
Speaker 4: I think that is absolutely being done.
52:03
Speaker 3: And the use of that threat is made for the
52:05
Speaker 3: purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause. So
52:09
Speaker 3: it's not the first time we've mentioned terrorism and government.
52:13
Speaker 3: And of course, terrorism was originally the preserved government anyway.
52:16
Speaker 3: But I think that this is something that, of course,
52:18
Speaker 3: because it's apparently in the public's benefit, quite clearly isn't.
52:22
Speaker 3: It's the idea that it could be a criminal offence
52:25
Speaker 3: is overlooked.
52:27
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
52:28
Speaker 2: Ben, any thoughts briefly?
52:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm old enough to remember the film Threads that
52:36
Speaker 1: was produced in the 80s, all about nuclear war. and
52:39
Speaker 1: trying to demonstrate the realities of what would happen in
52:42
Speaker 1: a nuclear strike on the UK. And it featured films
52:46
Speaker 1: and video footage from British high streets and neighbourhoods around
52:50
Speaker 1: the UK and what they would look like and what
52:53
Speaker 1: people would be experiencing in the event of a nuclear strike.
52:56
Speaker 1: It absolutely terrified the British public into completely being against
53:01
Speaker 1: any kind of nuclear war at all. It was a
53:03
Speaker 1: great deterrent. and did far more than just educating people
53:07
Speaker 1: about the dangers of a nuclear strike. I think most
53:11
Speaker 1: of the information that's being presented now is actually about
53:14
Speaker 1: something else entirely. If you look at the iconography and
53:16
Speaker 1: the actual messages being conveyed across all of the platforms
53:19
Speaker 1: that you listed, they're more about societal collapse rather than
53:23
Speaker 1: an actual war, because it's about basic foodstuffs, access to water, healthcare, electricity,
53:29
Speaker 1: basic survival products and services that won't be available if
53:34
Speaker 1: there is some kind of societal collapse. So I think
53:37
Speaker 1: if anything, they're pitching more a loss of energy resource
53:41
Speaker 1: in terms of oil, gas, that sort of thing, which
53:44
Speaker 1: current global events may be able to contribute to. I
53:47
Speaker 1: think the idea that this is somehow preparation for a war,
53:52
Speaker 1: that remains to be seen. And I think there is
53:53
Speaker 1: a real slight of hand going on here by the
53:58
Speaker 1: relevant governments and authorities putting this message out there.
54:02
Speaker 2: But the bottom line is that they are determined to
54:05
Speaker 2: make sure that people are living in a state of
54:07
Speaker 2: absolute terror if they possibly can. And of course, as
54:11
Speaker 2: we exposed in 2020, Spy B and Sage was an
54:17
Speaker 2: absolute part of that. It was the same rhetoric, the
54:20
Speaker 2: same narrative, the same effort to get people destabilized in
54:24
Speaker 2: this way. Charles, let's finish off today with space and
54:29
Speaker 2: the potential for cleaning it up.
54:32
Speaker 4: Or not?
54:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we have to think very carefully about
54:36
Speaker 3: what potential might actually mean. I'm going to show you
54:41
Speaker 3: an announcement from the UK Space Agency, which has been
54:43
Speaker 3: put out recently. saying that there's going to be a
54:47
Speaker 3: world first mission to put UK expertise to work to
54:51
Speaker 3: help clean up space. And I hope you're sitting down
54:55
Speaker 3: because here it is. Government backs new spacecraft with more
54:59
Speaker 3: than 60 million pounds to remove two defunct satellites from orbit.
55:05
Speaker 3: by 2032. I must admit that I thought that was
55:09
Speaker 3: a typo, but it really is the case that they're
55:12
Speaker 3: proposing to spend £ 60 million removing two satellites from space.
55:19
Speaker 3: I will come to qualify that, but just to point
55:22
Speaker 3: out that this obviously has a name. It's called the
55:25
Speaker 3: Active Debris Removal System. And the main point to draw
55:30
Speaker 3: out of this announcement is that it is predicted to
55:32
Speaker 3: grow into a billion-dollar industry within the next decade. Clearly,
55:38
Speaker 3: The line being argued here is one of environmental benefit
55:41
Speaker 3: and the dangers, which absolutely are in existence, the dangers
55:47
Speaker 3: of the amount of satellite content in low Earth orbit.
55:51
Speaker 3: The other thing I would like to point toward, and
55:54
Speaker 3: if I am able to inspire the great British public,
55:57
Speaker 3: to do what they do best, then it is noteworthy
56:00
Speaker 3: that a competition will also begin today to name the
56:03
Speaker 3: UK ADR spacecraft, welcoming submissions from the public. So if
56:09
Speaker 3: you remember Boaty McBoatface, then get your submission in. Now,
56:14
Speaker 3: with regard to the numbers themselves, we'll go to Orbital Radar,
56:18
Speaker 3: which keeps a pretty good eye on these things. They
56:21
Speaker 3: are tracking 31,000 860 objects. Now, if that number remains static,
56:26
Speaker 3: that will obviously be 31,858 objects if this does achieve
56:31
Speaker 3: success by the year 2032. However, unlikely that no more satellites.
56:35
Speaker 4: Will be launched.
56:36
Speaker 3: We're also told that this is going to come from
56:38
Speaker 3: the Saxavore spaceport in the very north of the British
56:42
Speaker 3: Isles on the island of Unst. And I have been
56:46
Speaker 3: up there relatively recently. And I just think it's worth
56:48
Speaker 3: pointing out that this is the natural environment that is
56:51
Speaker 3: going to be partially destroyed by the Saxa board site,
56:56
Speaker 3: which is in the middle of your picture now obscured
56:58
Speaker 3: somewhat by mist, I'm afraid. But that was the that
57:00
Speaker 3: was the weather I got that day. And they are
57:04
Speaker 3: going to be discharging exactly like all other space projects,
57:07
Speaker 3: discharging enormous volumes. parts of the rocket into that water.
57:13
Speaker 3: They're also preventing local businesses from being able to operate.
57:16
Speaker 3: They're locking down residents of Unst when indeed they need
57:20
Speaker 3: to launch of course nothing is actually happening yet and
57:26
Speaker 3: this perhaps gives an indication as to why sorry that
57:28
Speaker 3: I appear in the picture but this is a still
57:30
Speaker 3: from a video where I recorded up this is the
57:32
Speaker 3: operations center and I have to say there is very
57:36
Speaker 3: very little going on there at the moment it's it's
57:39
Speaker 3: a disused former RAF site and as you might be
57:42
Speaker 3: able to make out on the notice there it is
57:44
Speaker 3: a a construction site, and there is in actual fact
57:47
Speaker 3: very little in the way of construction going on. But
57:51
Speaker 3: I think what this does do is it obscures very
57:54
Speaker 3: much how critical the space domain is to all the
57:57
Speaker 3: various types of warfare that it is we're talking about,
58:00
Speaker 3: either kinetic or indeed the information war. And I will
58:04
Speaker 3: just go to Ukrainska Pravda, which has reported on the
58:10
Speaker 3: the sort of slanging match that's gone on with Elon
58:13
Speaker 3: Musk saying that he had actually throttled back the use
58:17
Speaker 3: of Starlink in Ukraine. I just think there's a couple
58:19
Speaker 3: of interesting quotes to highlight the incredible inconsistency or hypocrisy there.
58:24
Speaker 3: Musk is quoted in this article as saying, Using Starlink,
58:27
Speaker 3: a civilian commercial service for offensive drone strikes to kill people,
58:31
Speaker 3: has never been allowed, nor should it be. Ukraine military
58:35
Speaker 3: violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive
58:39
Speaker 3: drone strikes to kill people. Now, as Mike pointed out
58:41
Speaker 3: on the news program very recently, the SpaceX capability, of course,
58:46
Speaker 3: hosts not just Starlink, but also Starshield, which is in
58:49
Speaker 3: effect a more or less carbon copy that's used by
58:52
Speaker 3: the United States government. And what Musk went on to
58:55
Speaker 3: say was that Starshield is a separate system controlled by
59:00
Speaker 3: the US government. What they decide to do is up
59:02
Speaker 3: to them. So not exactly not in favour of killing,
59:07
Speaker 3: but just wants to make sure that it's being done
59:10
Speaker 3: in the right way.
59:12
Speaker 4: Well, so it seems.
59:13
Speaker 3: Now, for more information on this, because I have dug
59:17
Speaker 3: into it to a reasonable extent, there are a couple
59:20
Speaker 3: of articles up on the UK column website, both entitled
59:23
Speaker 3: Space Wars. The first is Overboard on the Sea of Peace,
59:26
Speaker 3: which is how Kennedy described the situation back in 1962
59:31
Speaker 3: and uh more recently satellites genocide and.
59:34
Speaker 4: Oxfordshire but that there is a heck of a lot there.
59:37
Speaker 3: Particularly pertaining to what is going to happen with this
59:42
Speaker 3: apparent thousand day period after which we are all going
59:47
Speaker 3: to enjoin in some form of warfare apparently but space
59:51
Speaker 3: will be a critical part of that.
59:53
Speaker 2: Indeed uh thank you charles for that thank you ben
59:56
Speaker 2: as well um We are out of time, so we're
59:58
Speaker 2: going to have to leave it there. If you are
59:59
Speaker 2: a UK Call member, stay on the stream for UK
1:00:02
Speaker 2: Call News Extra in a few minutes. If you're not
1:00:04
Speaker 2: a member yet, please consider joining and you can join
1:00:07
Speaker 2: us for Extra as well. But we've got to leave
1:00:10
Speaker 2: it there for now. So thanks for joining us. Don't
1:00:12
Speaker 2: forget our interview tomorrow at 1pm. German Carl tonight. And
1:00:17
Speaker 2: we'll see you for another news programme at 1pm on
1:00:19
Speaker 2: Wednesday as usual.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: See you then.
1:00:20
Speaker 3: Bye-bye.