Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News — 7th October 2026

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UK Column News — 7th October 2026 · UK Column Radio

0:16
Speaker 1: Good afternoon.
0:17
Speaker 2: It's Wednesday, the 7th of October, 2026, just after one o'clock.
0:20
Speaker 2: Welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson.
0:22
Speaker 2: Joining me by video link today are Charles Mallett and
0:25
Speaker 2: Vanessa Bealey. Later in the programme, we're going to be
0:27
Speaker 2: reporting on the new head of BBC News, the new
0:30
Speaker 2: chief scientific and medical officers for the UK Health Security Agency,
0:34
Speaker 2: The Mecca Pact as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey prepare
0:37
Speaker 2: for troop deployments. And we're going to be discussing the
0:40
Speaker 2: proportionality in war. But we're going to begin today with
0:43
Speaker 2: digital ID because the rollout of the so-called contactless e-gates
0:48
Speaker 2: at airports gives us a real insight into just how
0:51
Speaker 2: far digital technocracy has already come. And I'm mentioning this
0:55
Speaker 2: today because the UK has announced that passengers arriving in
0:58
Speaker 2: the UK will soon pass through airport e-gates securely without
1:01
Speaker 2: showing their passports or And this is being described by
1:06
Speaker 2: the Burnham regime as a cutting edge contactless system that
1:10
Speaker 2: they're rolling out. So as of yesterday, e-gates at UK
1:12
Speaker 2: airports will gradually switch to the new contactless technology with
1:16
Speaker 2: every e-gate set to be upgraded by early 2027. They
1:21
Speaker 2: say it works this way. Passengers will approach the e-gate
1:24
Speaker 2: and have their photo taken. The system checks this live
1:27
Speaker 2: image against verified immigration, travel and passport information. and the
1:31
Speaker 2: eGate opens automatically once these checks are complete. And they
1:35
Speaker 2: say the system uses state-of-the-art facial technology to verify a
1:38
Speaker 2: passenger's identity before the UK's robust border security checks are
1:43
Speaker 2: carried out in full. And they say legitimate travelers can
1:47
Speaker 2: then simply walk through without needing to place their passport
1:50
Speaker 2: on the eGate reader. It's all very convenient. The phased
1:55
Speaker 2: rollout begins at East Midlands Airport, and it's initially for
1:59
Speaker 2: British citizens only, and then it will expand to other
2:02
Speaker 2: airports and other nationalities, those that are at least eligible
2:07
Speaker 2: for e-gates over the coming months. And it's this last
2:11
Speaker 2: part that has me most interested, because I can understand
2:15
Speaker 2: that this is possible for UK nationals, where the passport
2:18
Speaker 2: office already handles biometric data for every passport holder, but
2:22
Speaker 2: what about other nationalities? Looking around the world, we already
2:26
Speaker 2: know from Patrick that the United States uses this technology.
2:30
Speaker 2: And unsurprisingly, perhaps China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau all
2:35
Speaker 2: have it to some extent. But it's Dubai that you
2:37
Speaker 2: can see on screen here at the moment, which is
2:39
Speaker 2: leading the way on this because their smart gates already
2:43
Speaker 2: accept facial recognition for 50 nationalities. So we can see
2:47
Speaker 2: the direction of travel here, aside from the globalized nature
2:50
Speaker 2: of data collection and processing. This provides an ever greater
2:54
Speaker 2: attack surface for data breaches, which are ever increasing in scale.
2:59
Speaker 2: And just the latest example, a hack on a company
3:02
Speaker 2: which has access to Denmark's central person register has resulted
3:06
Speaker 2: in the theft of personal information of 8.8 million people.
3:10
Speaker 2: This is the central person register. It's Denmark's national population register.
3:15
Speaker 2: And it was set up in 1968. It holds core
3:17
Speaker 2: data on everyone who lives or has lived in Denmark,
3:20
Speaker 2: including name, address, date of birth, citizenship, marital status, family relationships,
3:26
Speaker 2: dates of moves, immigration or death. But don't worry, according
3:29
Speaker 2: to their press release, a review of the hack shows
3:32
Speaker 2: that unauthorized access does not include the names and addresses
3:35
Speaker 2: of persons who've chosen to register with name and address protection.
3:40
Speaker 2: But even if people are unconcerned about the technocratic nature
3:45
Speaker 2: of this, the potential for state control of our lives.
3:48
Speaker 2: I think we should be concerned about national government's capability
3:51
Speaker 2: to keep data safe and protect people from criminal scams
3:55
Speaker 2: and identity theft. Charles, let me welcome you to the
3:59
Speaker 2: program and just ask what your thoughts are on this,
4:02
Speaker 2: because this is being rolled out with increasing speed and
4:09
Speaker 2: too fast, in fact, for most people to keep up
4:11
Speaker 2: with the implications.
4:15
Speaker 3: Good afternoon, Mike.
4:16
Speaker 4: Good afternoon, all. Yes, I think you're absolutely right. Exactly
4:19
Speaker 4: as you say, this is further state intrusion, but state
4:22
Speaker 4: intrusion into the lives of people who, frankly, don't merit
4:26
Speaker 4: that type of intrusion. And of course, this jars very
4:28
Speaker 4: strongly with so many events, one of the most recent
4:31
Speaker 4: ones being in Gosport on Sunday, where it's been admitted
4:36
Speaker 4: by the Police and Crime Commissioner that the policing operation
4:39
Speaker 4: on the influx of migrants then costs £ 200, 000 just for
4:42
Speaker 4: that single day. So the idea that this is bolstering
4:46
Speaker 4: the integrity of the United Kingdom's borders is a complete farce.
4:50
Speaker 4: It's sort of very much adding insult to injury, I
4:52
Speaker 4: would say.
4:54
Speaker 5: Yes.
4:54
Speaker 2: Well, in related news then, Britain's SPY coin infrastructure has
5:00
Speaker 2: taken another step forward with the announcement that the Treasury
5:04
Speaker 2: has appointed six banks to run Britain's first blockchain-based digital
5:08
Speaker 2: government bond. They're calling it Digit. This is the digital
5:12
Speaker 2: guilt instrument. And Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Morgan Stanley, NatWest, and
5:19
Speaker 2: RBC Capital Markets will act as joint lead managers. These
5:23
Speaker 2: banks will underwrite and distribute the bonds when they're issued.
5:27
Speaker 2: And this is expected to go live by the first
5:29
Speaker 2: quarter of 2027. Economic Secretary Lucy Rigby was speaking at
5:34
Speaker 2: the UK Digital Assets Week in London yesterday, and she
5:38
Speaker 2: told delegates.
5:39
Speaker 1: delegates that Britain.
5:40
Speaker 2: Was more than ambitious enough to lead the world in
5:44
Speaker 2: digital assets. HSBC was chosen in February as the pilot's
5:48
Speaker 2: technology supplier, and the bond will be issued on its
5:51
Speaker 2: Orion platform. And HSBC was the first firm approved to
5:55
Speaker 2: run a live depository in the so-called digital security sandbox.
6:00
Speaker 2: HSBC is also a lead manager, as we've mentioned. The
6:04
Speaker 2: pilot for all this was first announced by Rachel Reeves
6:07
Speaker 2: in November 2024. And at the time, the government's debt
6:10
Speaker 2: management office argued against it because of what they described
6:13
Speaker 2: as technical and legal hurdles. So Reeves simply moved the
6:17
Speaker 2: pilot outside their control. And in a February 2025 letter
6:21
Speaker 2: to the Treasury Committee, the Treasury conceded that it could
6:25
Speaker 2: not yet say what Digit would cost compared with conventional
6:29
Speaker 2: government bonds, conventional gilts. The question is, what does this
6:35
Speaker 2: have to do with programmable money? Well, I began by
6:38
Speaker 2: calling it a step forward in spy coin technology. This
6:43
Speaker 2: is because there's a recognition that government bonds represent a debt,
6:47
Speaker 2: and the debts have to be settled. And since this
6:50
Speaker 2: is a blockchain-based infrastructure, on-chain settlement is going to need
6:54
Speaker 2: a regulated digital pound. And while Trump has been very
6:57
Speaker 2: vocal about stablecoins in the United States, here in the UK,
7:00
Speaker 2: we don't hear the term used. as much, but the
7:04
Speaker 2: UK is playing in this pond. And if we just
7:06
Speaker 2: bring that Bank of England release back on screen, it's
7:10
Speaker 2: still small scale. The largest sterling stablecoin is only worth around.
7:14
Speaker 1: $ 34 million.
7:15
Speaker 2: And the UK cryptocurrency regime doesn't really take effect until
7:21
Speaker 2: October 2027. But stablecoin rules remain a point of contention
7:27
Speaker 2: between Parliament and the Bank of England. The House of
7:30
Speaker 2: Lords Committee warned in June that the UK lags behind
7:33
Speaker 2: the US and EU, and they've attacked the Bank of
7:36
Speaker 2: England's proposals for holding capitalizing market caps of £ 20, 000 for
7:42
Speaker 2: individuals and £ 10 million for businesses. It's a requirement that
7:47
Speaker 2: 40% of reserves sit with the Bank of England as
7:50
Speaker 2: bank deposits. The Bank of England knows apparently caving under
7:56
Speaker 2: the pressure because they are saying that they are likely
7:58
Speaker 2: to soften both these limitations. But again, we have now
8:03
Speaker 2: programmable money, something that's been talked about, Charles, for the
8:08
Speaker 2: last number of years, gaining increasing momentum. And although the
8:13
Speaker 2: Bank of England is sort of publicly being soft on this,
8:17
Speaker 2: they're clearly working very hard to implement it. And now
8:20
Speaker 2: we've got this digital guilt, which is going to require
8:23
Speaker 2: some kind of digital money for settlement.
8:28
Speaker 4: I think it's just yet another example of a sort
8:32
Speaker 4: of system being presented in front of people, or at
8:34
Speaker 4: least in concept, which whilst there's always a reluctance to
8:38
Speaker 4: say is going to be mandatory, will in fact become mandatory.
8:43
Speaker 3: And although.
8:44
Speaker 4: sort of in the news for, in effect, the wrong reasons. Recently,
8:47
Speaker 4: we think back to the comments that Danny Kruger made
8:49
Speaker 4: at the committee hearing, I think last year or the
8:52
Speaker 4: year before, describing this entire initiative as a solution looking
8:57
Speaker 4: for a problem. And I think that's still exactly where
9:00
Speaker 4: we are. There's no clear articulation of why there's a
9:04
Speaker 4: necessity for it or indeed how it makes sense that
9:07
Speaker 4: it is workable on a sort of technical level.
9:12
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. Vanessa, let me welcome you to
9:15
Speaker 2: the program. And well, tell us about the Al-Turba liberation.
9:22
Speaker 6: Yes.
9:22
Speaker 7: So basically we're covering Yemen or I'm covering Yemen in
9:26
Speaker 7: both my sections today. Very important topic at the moment
9:29
Speaker 7: with the increase in the Saudi Zionist Anglo-American movement. sphere
9:35
Speaker 7: with the Mecca Pact, of course, incoming Turkey, Pakistan, sending
9:39
Speaker 7: support to Saudi Arabia to effectively try and overthrow the
9:44
Speaker 7: resistance movement in Yemen. And Ansarullah, the resistance movement itself,
9:49
Speaker 7: often described as the Houthis in Western media, trying to
9:53
Speaker 7: reduce it down to one tribal faction rather than an
9:57
Speaker 7: entire movement has swept through to liberate many of the
10:01
Speaker 7: areas that had previously been occupied by various proxies of
10:06
Speaker 7: the countries arraigned against Yemen. And so I just wanted
10:09
Speaker 7: to show, before I introduce our very special guest, this
10:13
Speaker 7: video taken by Al-Masira TV in Al-Turba, which is a
10:18
Speaker 7: town near the coast of the Red Sea in the
10:20
Speaker 7: Thais governorate that was just liberated by Ansarullah. And this
10:25
Speaker 7: is the reaction of the people there.
10:27
Speaker 8: To the two leaders of Al-Ma'afir and Al-Shimayat, the south
10:32
Speaker 8: and west of Taiz, we cut the cuts. We celebrate
10:36
Speaker 8: the great joy here by cleaning the land of Saudi
10:38
Speaker 8: incitements and returning life to its nature. This is our goal.
10:49
Speaker 9: These are our.
10:50
Speaker 8: Yemeni brothers above our heads. These people will protect the
10:53
Speaker 8: whole of Yemen.
10:53
Speaker 6: They will protect all of Yemen.
11:14
Speaker 7: So a rather different reaction to the one that, of course,
11:16
Speaker 7: is being conveyed by the BBC and CNN, etc.
11:20
Speaker 6: I'm really pleased.
11:22
Speaker 7: To be able to welcome to the news Issa Blumi,
11:26
Speaker 7: is a professor at Stockholm University within the Department of
11:29
Speaker 7: Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and author of Destroying Yemen,
11:34
Speaker 7: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us About the World, which
11:37
Speaker 7: I highly recommend. There will be a link to the
11:39
Speaker 7: book in the show notes. Issa, welcome.
11:44
Speaker 10: It's great to be here.
11:45
Speaker 1: Thank you for the opportunity.
11:48
Speaker 7: Issa, I think there's been a lot of chatter on
11:51
Speaker 7: social media that you've probably picked up on.
11:53
Speaker 6: And I think the first question I'd like.
11:55
Speaker 7: To ask you, why, particularly in Western media, but also
11:59
Speaker 7: in academia, is this conflict described as being reduced down
12:06
Speaker 7: to one group, which is the Houthis? And why is
12:10
Speaker 7: it being described as very much an Iranian proxy war?
12:15
Speaker 7: How is this reducing down what is actually happening in Yemen?
12:19
Speaker 7: And can you kind of disentangle that a little bit.
12:22
Speaker 1: For the audience?
12:25
Speaker 10: Well, the attempt at tying this conflict entirely into an
12:29
Speaker 10: Iranian set of machinations, the result of Iranian influence, of course...
12:37
Speaker 10: provides the necessary cover for primarily the United States, to
12:42
Speaker 10: a lesser extent, the UK, Israel, and its own proxies
12:47
Speaker 10: that it has been utilizing in the region to destabilize
12:51
Speaker 10: resilient governments, as well as movements such as Ansar Allah,
12:57
Speaker 10: which are broad coalitions of disgruntled peoples facing increasing austerity
13:04
Speaker 10: over the decades. and overt attempts to render them into
13:10
Speaker 10: basically colonies for extracting raw materials, exploiting the population as
13:16
Speaker 10: cheap labor, and basically pursuing campaigns of ruining the Middle
13:22
Speaker 10: East to service a reconstruction of the region to satisfy
13:29
Speaker 10: transforming global economic concerns and interests. And so the Middle
13:36
Speaker 10: East is in the process of being transformed. Its relationship
13:40
Speaker 10: to the larger world itself is being transformed. And hence,
13:44
Speaker 10: those actors who are directly threatened by that, including states
13:49
Speaker 10: that are involved in this war on Yemen, the Gulf countries,
13:52
Speaker 10: are eagerly trying to secure a little part of the
14:00
Speaker 10: extractive dynamics that come to play in these wars that
14:04
Speaker 10: have ruined Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, as well as Yemen.
14:10
Speaker 10: And in the meantime, the failure to realize their ambitions
14:16
Speaker 10: has left them into even greater economic disparity.
14:21
Speaker 1: And they're teetering on now collapse, as.
14:25
Speaker 10: We're seeing across the board in the so-called GCC. And
14:30
Speaker 10: this is precisely what is happening now, the ratcheting up
14:33
Speaker 10: of a campaign to stymie the inevitability of these transformations
14:40
Speaker 10: that are going to leave probably Saudi Arabia, maybe the UAE,
14:44
Speaker 10: on the edge of disintegration.
14:49
Speaker 8: Right.
14:49
Speaker 7: And I know that you and I have spoken on
14:52
Speaker 7: a number of occasions, and I would like you to
14:56
Speaker 7: go into a little bit more depth about why this
15:00
Speaker 7: resistance movement in Yemen, how it has historically stood against
15:05
Speaker 7: any kind of colonialism, occupation, exploitation, disenfranchisement. How is this
15:12
Speaker 7: movement important to the West? Because at UK Column in particular,
15:17
Speaker 7: we're always trying to make that connection between what's been
15:20
Speaker 7: happening in Palestine, in this region, and what is incoming
15:24
Speaker 7: to populations in the West.
15:27
Speaker 6: But I know that you have very.
15:28
Speaker 7: Strong feelings about what Yemen represents, particularly to potential resistance
15:34
Speaker 7: movements in the West.
15:36
Speaker 10: Well, it's a very explicit local expression of what should
15:40
Speaker 10: have been a universally pursued campaign to not only speak
15:47
Speaker 10: aggressively against genocide in Gaza, but to actually fulfill their
15:53
Speaker 10: international legal goals. responsibilities, which is to intervene and stop it. Now, again,
16:00
Speaker 10: while they're in the over now 10, 11 years under
16:05
Speaker 10: siege from this American built coalition to subdue Yemen and
16:11
Speaker 10: to steer it towards that function that I mentioned before,
16:15
Speaker 10: its economic role is to be to service now a
16:18
Speaker 10: transition in the global economy. The very fact that Ansar Allah,
16:22
Speaker 10: this coalition is able to mobilize its limited resources to
16:26
Speaker 10: actually put an end to trade to Israeli ports in
16:30
Speaker 10: the Red Sea. And in the meantime, face off efforts
16:35
Speaker 10: to undermine that, first by the United States and Israel
16:39
Speaker 10: directly attacking northern Yemen over the last couple of years,
16:45
Speaker 10: which has resulted in horrible human suffering that is not
16:48
Speaker 10: registered anywhere. That to me is one of the big
16:52
Speaker 10: tragedies that demands more attention from the rest of the
16:57
Speaker 10: world that Yemenis in the form of Ansar Allah's very
17:01
Speaker 10: principled attempts to deal with crimes against humanity in Gaza
17:07
Speaker 10: and the very explicit refusal of regimes in the region
17:15
Speaker 10: and in the larger world, great powers like China, Turkey
17:18
Speaker 10: and others to actually put an end to this operations
17:22
Speaker 10: until conditions on the ground demanded Israel put a halt
17:27
Speaker 10: to it, just signals to the rest of the world
17:29
Speaker 10: that we can't rely on outsiders, on bigger powers to
17:33
Speaker 10: do the work of what should be done on the
17:35
Speaker 10: ground in the UK, in the United States. And if
17:39
Speaker 10: anybody has concerns about digital police techniques and worried about
17:46
Speaker 10: their jobs, well, just consider what kind of sacrifices the
17:49
Speaker 10: people of Yemen have had to live through and nevertheless
17:53
Speaker 10: still mobilize and are able to put up this resilient,
17:58
Speaker 10: not only articulation of defiance to whatever the global leaders
18:04
Speaker 10: expect it to, what roles it expects the Yemenis to play,
18:10
Speaker 10: but they also take on armed resistance to that process.
18:13
Speaker 10: And this is not advocating armed resistance, but at least
18:18
Speaker 10: to mobilize and show solidarity to the peoples of, Yemen
18:22
Speaker 10: in their own quest to right the wrongs of the region.
18:27
Speaker 10: And in the meantime, perhaps get some inspiration to mobilize
18:30
Speaker 10: in a similar ways to at least attend to the
18:35
Speaker 10: economic dynamics of this enterprise. Israel and the other entities
18:41
Speaker 10: that support this whole imperial a mechanism is vulnerable if
18:46
Speaker 10: collective action is taken. It doesn't have to be violent.
18:49
Speaker 10: It could be just simply deciding in meaningful ways, take
18:55
Speaker 10: economic decisions that does not facilitate and subsidize these regimes.
19:01
Speaker 10: So that's something that I think that people in the
19:03
Speaker 10: West have to actually start paying attention to, is that
19:07
Speaker 10: resilience in the global South is one thing. Cheering it
19:11
Speaker 10: is also something that's certainly appreciate it, but Yemenis cannot
19:16
Speaker 10: be expected to take on the burden of ending this
19:19
Speaker 10: imperialist project. It actually is something that has to be
19:24
Speaker 10: tended to by the peoples in the core of empire
19:26
Speaker 10: as much as in the killing fields of South Lebanon
19:30
Speaker 10: or of Yemen right now.
19:34
Speaker 7: Mike, did you have anything you wanted to ask Isa?
19:36
Speaker 7: I know we've only got sort of a minute and
19:38
Speaker 7: a half left.
19:40
Speaker 2: No, I do actually. Isa, thanks for that. What I'd
19:46
Speaker 2: like to get a little bit of understanding from you
19:49
Speaker 2: just very briefly is, you know, Vanessa started by saying
19:52
Speaker 2: that Antrolla is not just the Houthis. And of course,
19:57
Speaker 2: when you have coalitions of disparate groups, there's the potential
20:01
Speaker 2: for infighting, but they seem to be actually holding it
20:05
Speaker 2: together and keeping on point. So how are they managing.
20:08
Speaker 1: To do that?
20:10
Speaker 10: Well, again, collectively, the options for people to remove themselves
20:16
Speaker 10: from living under Ansar Allah's administration are not very.
20:21
Speaker 3: Attractive.
20:22
Speaker 10: Again, you don't see wide-scale migration towards Saudi or Emirati,
20:27
Speaker 10: Qatari-administered zones in the south of Yemen. So that suggests
20:32
Speaker 10: that living conditions elsewhere is horrific, despite the fact that um,
20:38
Speaker 10: the 20, 23 million people live under siege for the
20:41
Speaker 10: last 12 years. So Ansar Allah is actually demonstrating that
20:44
Speaker 10: it actually provides not only a moral backbone to, uh,
20:48
Speaker 10: what is constitutes a collective Yemeni esprit regarding the rest
20:53
Speaker 10: of the world, but it also is providing some kind
20:56
Speaker 10: of basic needs. It's now feeding its own population and
20:59
Speaker 10: it's defending it from Saudi incursion.
21:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:03
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for that. Uh, Charles, uh, Let's
21:06
Speaker 2: welcome you to the programme again. And of course, as
21:09
Speaker 2: you mentioned, we mentioned at the beginning, it is the
21:13
Speaker 2: anniversary of the 7th of October incident. And so proportionality
21:19
Speaker 2: is something we should be thinking about.
21:21
Speaker 9: I think so.
21:25
Speaker 4: And not just with regard to considering that it is,
21:28
Speaker 4: of course, the third anniversary of the 7th of October 2023.
21:32
Speaker 4: But I mean, Issa has just mentioned moral backbone and
21:36
Speaker 4: proportionality is one of the very many issues that we
21:39
Speaker 4: could concentrate on. And it is one that I'm going
21:41
Speaker 4: to pick today for reasons that will become clear as
21:45
Speaker 4: we go on. But of course, the point is that
21:48
Speaker 4: it brings to the fore the discussion of the subject
21:51
Speaker 4: of international humanitarian law or the law of armed conflict,
21:54
Speaker 4: however you prefer to describe it and the actions, and
21:57
Speaker 4: most importantly, the justification of the actions of the State
22:01
Speaker 4: of Israel since October the 7th, 2023. Now, the BBC
22:05
Speaker 4: World Service reported on the date in question this morning,
22:10
Speaker 4: and this is how they put it.
22:14
Speaker 11: A minute's silence has been held across Israel to mark
22:16
Speaker 11: the third anniversary of the October the 7th attack, when
22:20
Speaker 11: more than 1,100 people were killed in a Hamas-led offensive
22:23
Speaker 11: launched from Gaza. In its retaliatory military action, Israel has
22:27
Speaker 11: killed more than 74,000 people in Gaza.
22:33
Speaker 4: So even the BBC there are unable to avoid having
22:37
Speaker 4: to mention in some way the entirely disproportionate nature of
22:42
Speaker 4: what has happened in the intervening three years. But what
22:44
Speaker 4: I'd like to do is just go to Vanessa for
22:46
Speaker 4: comment on, first of all, the fact that the BBC
22:49
Speaker 4: said that at all, but also on the specific figures
22:51
Speaker 4: that they chose to put forward.
22:55
Speaker 6: Well, they put forward, of course, the lowest possible figure.
22:59
Speaker 7: We know from outlets like The Lancet that the figures
23:03
Speaker 7: are far more likely to be around 500,000 plus, and
23:07
Speaker 7: that's without all of the bodies that are currently being
23:10
Speaker 7: disappeared by the Zionists from the rubble in Gaza. The 10,000
23:15
Speaker 7: that are in captivity from Gaza and the occupied territories,
23:21
Speaker 7: and a figure of 500,000 of course, is 25% of
23:26
Speaker 7: the population as opposed to 1.5%, which equates to the 74,000
23:32
Speaker 7: that the BBC is bandying around. So, of course, what
23:36
Speaker 7: they're doing, while they can't avoid it, they are still downplaying,
23:41
Speaker 7: as they always do, the disproportionate force used not only
23:45
Speaker 7: by Israel, but the entire Zionist alliance against the oppressed
23:49
Speaker 7: peoples of this region, but also now further afield, of course.
23:56
Speaker 4: Exactly so. And that's a point well worth making. This
23:58
Speaker 4: is not isolated, but I think it is important, given
24:00
Speaker 4: that it is the 7th of October, that we do
24:02
Speaker 4: concentrate specifically on this. And just to clarify the matter,
24:05
Speaker 4: we'll go to the ICRC, who are, of course, one
24:07
Speaker 4: of the custodians for international humanitarian law and the subject
24:11
Speaker 4: of security. proportionality and that being one of the governing principles. Now, specifically,
24:16
Speaker 4: what is said is that the principle of proportionality must
24:19
Speaker 4: be respected by the parties to an armed conflict in
24:22
Speaker 4: all circumstances. And that is what I would like you
24:25
Speaker 4: to consider. As we go on, there are no exceptions
24:28
Speaker 4: to this. And that's made very clear by the further
24:31
Speaker 4: text on the customary international humanitarian law where they go
24:34
Speaker 4: into proportionality in the attack rule 14. And launching an
24:38
Speaker 4: attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of
24:41
Speaker 4: civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects or
24:44
Speaker 4: a combination thereof is prohibited. It could not be more explicit.
24:49
Speaker 4: It could not be more clear. Now, I'm going to
24:52
Speaker 4: change tracks slightly because it happens that this is coincident
24:56
Speaker 4: with Jacob Rees-Mogg becoming a prominent voice in the we're
25:00
Speaker 4: going to prepare for war in order to avoid it,
25:03
Speaker 4: whilst apparently at the same time sort of wanting it.
25:06
Speaker 4: And he's spoken to Tucker Carlson recently, but it is
25:09
Speaker 4: the issue of proportionality. He's being asked about the atomic
25:12
Speaker 4: bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August, 1945, and the
25:17
Speaker 4: proportionality element to that. So this is what Rees-Mogg had
25:21
Speaker 4: to say.
25:21
Speaker 3: So it's justified to kill people who did nothing wrong?
25:27
Speaker 9: Well, we're not talking about people who did nothing wrong.
25:29
Speaker 3: The Japanese were- are not responsible for the war, women
25:35
Speaker 3: and children get incinerated.
25:36
Speaker 9: We were in a state of total war.
25:39
Speaker 3: Okay, well, we were not in a state of total war, actually.
25:42
Speaker 3: There were no Japanese troops on American soil. We were
25:45
Speaker 3: not in a state of total war. That's not even
25:46
Speaker 3: close to a state of total war. They had attacked
25:49
Speaker 3: American soil. Four years before, and then they were losing,
25:51
Speaker 3: but we were not in a state of total war.
25:53
Speaker 3: But I'm asking you a theological question, which is, is
25:56
Speaker 3: it ever allowed to... under the precepts of, say, Christianity,
26:00
Speaker 3: to kill people who did nothing wrong, to kill women
26:02
Speaker 3: and children.
26:02
Speaker 9: Does it meet Aquinas' test of a just war? It
26:05
Speaker 9: does not. I think it does.
26:07
Speaker 2: How?
26:08
Speaker 9: Well, are you a legitimate authority? Yes, you are. Is
26:11
Speaker 9: it an important cause? Yes, because you have been attacked
26:14
Speaker 9: and you're defending yourself. And is it proportionate? Yes, because
26:17
Speaker 9: it actually shortens the duration of the war.
26:19
Speaker 3: That's not the definition of proportionate. Proportionate means that you're
26:23
Speaker 3: responding in a way that is not grandly larger than
26:27
Speaker 3: the initial attack. In other words, if you punch me
26:31
Speaker 3: in the face, I can't shoot you.
26:34
Speaker 9: Yes, but this is a different means of killing people.
26:39
Speaker 3: But I'm zeroing in on.
26:39
Speaker 9: You're not talking about a punch in the face, you're
26:41
Speaker 9: talking about is it legitimate that I.
26:42
Speaker 3: You're talking about killing people's kids. Nothing to do with it.
26:45
Speaker 3: That's okay because why?
26:46
Speaker 9: We went to war with the whole country. We went
26:48
Speaker 9: to war with the kids? And it ended the war. Yes,
26:50
Speaker 9: the Japan was at war with the United States and
26:53
Speaker 9: the United Kingdom.
26:54
Speaker 3: So if another nation says they're at war with us,
26:56
Speaker 3: it's okay to kill our kids?
26:58
Speaker 9: Well, we don't want to be at war with other nations.
27:01
Speaker 3: No, I'm asking an abstract question. You're clearly fluent. It's
27:04
Speaker 3: not a ridiculous question. Japan had attacked the United States.
27:09
Speaker 3: I don't think its kids attacked the United States.
27:10
Speaker 9: Had started a war.
27:11
Speaker 3: Why not kill the people who started the war?
27:15
Speaker 9: Well, we did in the end. We.
27:18
Speaker 9: The Japanese prime minister tried to commit suicide, and we
27:20
Speaker 9: spent ages getting him back to good health.
27:22
Speaker 3: We also killed tens of thousands of children in Hiroshima
27:25
Speaker 3: and Nagasaki, and you're saying that's okay.
27:27
Speaker 9: To end the war. Well, I think it was justified.
27:28
Speaker 9: I think the use of nuclear weapons at the end
27:31
Speaker 9: of the Second.
27:32
Speaker 3: World War was justified. So what you're saying as a
27:33
Speaker 3: Christian is, yes, it is okay to kill children who
27:36
Speaker 3: did nothing wrong.
27:37
Speaker 9: It was a proportionate response.
27:38
Speaker 3: Do you feel that that is a Christian position?
27:40
Speaker 9: Yes. I think it meets Aquinas' conditions of a just war.
27:47
Speaker 4: Now, I know we're pushed for time and you will
27:49
Speaker 4: have made your mind up about what Rees-Mogg said, but
27:51
Speaker 4: since we have Issa with us, Issa, I would like
27:53
Speaker 4: to go to you very briefly for comment on Rees-Mogg's
27:56
Speaker 4: apparent ability to justify something that is disproportionate on religious
28:02
Speaker 4: or other grounds. What do you think about what he's
28:04
Speaker 4: just said?
28:06
Speaker 10: Well, these gangsters are regularly using this kind of justifications
28:11
Speaker 10: for acquiring and pursuing the victories of criminals. the spoils
28:17
Speaker 10: of destroying other societies. And places like Palestine and Yemen
28:22
Speaker 10: have been facing this now since the end of the
28:25
Speaker 10: Ottoman Empire. And it's no surprise that we regularly have
28:32
Speaker 10: to hear this kind of rationalization of mass murder. It
28:36
Speaker 10: was certainly used in Gaza and it's been used on
28:39
Speaker 10: Yemen now for the last 12 years and continues to be.
28:44
Speaker 9: So, unfortunately.
28:49
Speaker 4: Thank you very much indeed. And just to close quickly
28:51
Speaker 4: with a notice of a petition, which was started by
28:54
Speaker 4: UK column supporter Anthony Webber, came out just yesterday. No
28:57
Speaker 4: direct or indirect military action on behalf of Ukraine without referendum.
29:01
Speaker 4: Of course, this is what Rees-Mogg was actually talking about,
29:03
Speaker 4: was apparently trying to avoid war with Russia. But please
29:06
Speaker 4: do go and look at that petition, because, of course,
29:09
Speaker 4: it is a demonstration of what people are thinking about
29:12
Speaker 4: the government's agenda. And that is the heart of what
29:15
Speaker 4: we're discussing here. So more on that in Extra.
29:18
Speaker 2: Thank you, Charles.
29:19
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Isa, for joining us today.
29:21
Speaker 2: And hopefully we'll have you on again very soon.
29:24
Speaker 1: Now, let's move on.
29:26
Speaker 2: If you like what the UK column does, we do
29:28
Speaker 2: need your ongoing financial support. If you have a look
29:31
Speaker 2: at the website, there are details of how you can
29:33
Speaker 2: support us. You make a donation, which is VAT free
29:35
Speaker 2: for us, which is fantastic. Or you can join as
29:37
Speaker 2: a member monthly, annually or lifetime. But do pick up
29:42
Speaker 2: a copy of issue three of the column, our quarterly magazine.
29:47
Speaker 2: If you haven't got one yet, that's available on the shop.
29:50
Speaker 2: And just very briefly, Carl tonight is saying that or
29:55
Speaker 2: asking the question about whether Trump needs China. That's on
29:58
Speaker 2: at nine tonight. Now, let's move on to the BBC
30:03
Speaker 2: because they have announced that they have appointed Rachel Jupp
30:06
Speaker 2: to be the new director of BBC News nearly a
30:08
Speaker 2: year after the previous CEO resigned. Now, Jupp is a
30:12
Speaker 2: former deputy editor of BBC Two's Newsnight. Now, that was
30:16
Speaker 2: the original image that they posted yesterday. Today, they had
30:19
Speaker 2: changed it to this one. So former deputy editor of
30:22
Speaker 2: BBC Two's Newsnight, also served as Panorama's director. But she
30:26
Speaker 2: left apparently several years before the controversial Trump episode aired
30:31
Speaker 2: that resulted in the resignation of the previous CEO. And
30:36
Speaker 2: so they were very careful to mention that. The BBC
30:39
Speaker 2: said that Jupp would be paid a salary of £ 400, 000
30:42
Speaker 2: a year.
30:44
Speaker 1: Yes, let's probably leave that there.
30:47
Speaker 2: According to Jupp's LinkedIn page, she holds a bachelor's degree
30:51
Speaker 2: in social and political science from Cambridge. and a master's
30:54
Speaker 2: degree in public administration from Columbia University. And she completed
30:58
Speaker 2: that in 2004. But her professional experience, according to her
31:02
Speaker 2: LinkedIn profile, begins in 2007 with her role at Channel
31:06
Speaker 2: 4 News as head of home news. So there are
31:09
Speaker 2: a couple of gaps in the history here. Now, as
31:12
Speaker 2: far as I can track down, she began her role
31:14
Speaker 2: with Channel 4 News in 2005. So that explains the
31:16
Speaker 2: gap between her master's and her professional career. But the
31:19
Speaker 2: question is, what was she doing between her bachelor's and
31:22
Speaker 2: her master's? Well, in fact, she worked for Demos, the
31:26
Speaker 2: think tank, where she was a researcher and a project manager.
31:29
Speaker 2: And she wrote papers such as this, which is called
31:32
Speaker 2: Getting Down to Business, an agenda for corporate social innovation.
31:36
Speaker 2: And if you want to know why it's not such
31:38
Speaker 2: a great idea that someone like this is running the
31:40
Speaker 2: BBC propaganda machine, I strongly urge you to pick up
31:43
Speaker 2: a copy of Ben Rubin's report, Crown and Corporation, which
31:47
Speaker 2: is on the shop, which contains at least eight major
31:50
Speaker 2: sections which cover the agenda that Jeff was pushing in
31:53
Speaker 2: that Demos report that you see on screen, including public-private partnerships,
31:57
Speaker 2: corporate virtues, camouflage, the idea of global level control down
32:02
Speaker 2: to the local high street, which has absolute parallels to
32:05
Speaker 2: Burnham's devolution regime. So Charles, fascinating that this particular woman
32:13
Speaker 2: with this particular background has been chosen to lead the
32:16
Speaker 2: BBC News agenda.
32:21
Speaker 4: Fascinating it is, and it certainly wouldn't do to be
32:24
Speaker 4: overly cynical. But I think we live in an age
32:26
Speaker 4: where we would actually express great surprise if we didn't
32:30
Speaker 4: unearth either that connection to demos or something very similar.
32:33
Speaker 4: I mean, that is absolutely beyond doubt the way in
32:35
Speaker 4: which it's going. And quite rightly, you point out that
32:38
Speaker 4: Ben's report, Crown Incorporation, goes into exactly this. So it
32:42
Speaker 4: is a massive recommendation to read that. And I think,
32:46
Speaker 4: I mean, you glossed over it very quickly, but simply
32:49
Speaker 4: the way in which her profile photograph was dealt with
32:53
Speaker 4: is just indication enough of the sort of chicanery that
32:57
Speaker 4: we've become so used to over the years.
32:59
Speaker 3: Yes.
32:59
Speaker 1: Thanks for that comment.
33:00
Speaker 2: Now, let's come back onto the topic of RAF Fairford,
33:04
Speaker 2: which has dominated this news program actually for since it happened,
33:08
Speaker 2: but nonetheless, it continues to get even more silly.
33:13
Speaker 4: Yes, it really does. The show goes on, one might say,
33:17
Speaker 4: but with increasing numbers of glitches, and despite the insistence
33:22
Speaker 4: from Andy Burnham and the United States administration that the
33:26
Speaker 4: activity at or near RAF Fairford has definitely increased, had
33:30
Speaker 4: the influence of a foreign hand. In actual fact, the
33:34
Speaker 4: latest is that a British man has been arrested. So
33:37
Speaker 4: this is a statement from counter-terrorism policing just yesterday, Tuesday
33:41
Speaker 4: the 6th. A 22-year-old man, a British national, was arrested
33:44
Speaker 4: in the borough of Westminster on suspicion of preparation of
33:49
Speaker 4: terrorist activity. Now, the next part of the statement from
33:52
Speaker 4: CTP is a little bit more revealing because it does
33:56
Speaker 4: show a certain amount of stumbling around in the dark.
33:58
Speaker 4: We're acutely aware of the public interest in this investigation
34:01
Speaker 4: and we are working around the clock and at pace
34:04
Speaker 4: to identify the motivation behind events in Gloucestershire. We remain
34:09
Speaker 4: committed to investigating all possible angles. So one might say
34:13
Speaker 4: with regard to investigating, or sorry, identifying the motivation, it
34:18
Speaker 4: is worth pointing out that the current government and indeed
34:21
Speaker 4: the previous government have been pushing for the removal of,
34:27
Speaker 4: or rather, sorry, the inclusion of what might be described
34:30
Speaker 4: as non-ideologically motivated violent extremism. Of course, they're constrained at
34:34
Speaker 4: the moment because for an act to be adjudicated terrorist,
34:38
Speaker 4: there must be some sort of reason for it meeting
34:41
Speaker 4: that particular threshold. But it is a timely reminder that
34:44
Speaker 4: the government are seeking to do away with that in
34:46
Speaker 4: order that more and more people or more and more
34:48
Speaker 4: actions can be described as either extremist or terrorist. With
34:54
Speaker 4: regard to the comment about all possible angles, that does
34:56
Speaker 4: look very much like there is significant political pressure being
35:00
Speaker 4: applied from some direction or other. And indeed, that the
35:03
Speaker 4: operational independence of the police is being pushed to the
35:05
Speaker 4: very limit Now, in terms of who might know what
35:10
Speaker 4: has been going on, specifically with regard to the connection
35:14
Speaker 4: to the departure of the B-1B Lancer bombers that we
35:19
Speaker 4: reported on on Monday, the Commander-in-Chief himself, President Donald Trump,
35:23
Speaker 4: might know the answer. So we just look at what
35:25
Speaker 4: the BBC put out yesterday. Trump says threat led US
35:30
Speaker 4: to pull bombers from RAF Fairford. Well, let's listen to
35:34
Speaker 4: the words from the horse's mouth. This is what Trump
35:36
Speaker 4: himself had to say. The audio is a little bit patchy,
35:39
Speaker 4: but stick with it.
35:41
Speaker 2: What was the threat of talking to remove those planes
35:44
Speaker 2: out of New York?
35:45
Speaker 4: We had an idea that there might be a threat.
35:48
Speaker 1: And why would I leave them there?
35:49
Speaker 10: It costs very little money to move them, you know,
35:52
Speaker 10: relatively closely.
35:53
Speaker 9: But we had a threat.
35:56
Speaker 10: And if we're going to be threatened, we'll just move them.
35:58
Speaker 4: And that sort of alleviates that.
36:00
Speaker 9: And we actually know the people that made the threat.
36:03
Speaker 1: And they've got themselves in a big problem.
36:04
Speaker 9: They would be linked to Iraq.
36:14
Speaker 4: So, as is very often the case, he does know
36:17
Speaker 4: more about it than everybody else put together. But his
36:20
Speaker 4: view is, in fact, challenged by his own Secretary of State,
36:22
Speaker 4: Marco Rubio, who we see on Sky News, saying that
36:27
Speaker 4: the removal of the bombers is not tied to the arrest. So, again,
36:30
Speaker 4: we'll just listen to Rubio talking to Channel 4 News
36:34
Speaker 4: and giving his view of events.
36:37
Speaker 12: The Department of War is constantly reallocating resources where they
36:40
Speaker 12: need to be. There's regular rotations that happen as well, so...
36:43
Speaker 12: I think you guys are just... Well, I mean, we've
36:45
Speaker 12: documented what happened last week. I wouldn't directly tie that
36:48
Speaker 12: to the move that was made. The only reason why
36:50
Speaker 12: you guys are focused on how many planes are at
36:52
Speaker 12: Fairfield is because of the threat that happened last week.
36:54
Speaker 12: But it's not unusual to see rotations happen and movement
36:58
Speaker 12: of assets to different parts of the world based on exercises, redeployments,
37:04
Speaker 12: people changing out and new people coming in, new planes coming.
37:07
Speaker 1: In, old planes going out.
37:08
Speaker 10: So.
37:09
Speaker 12: The crews are changing all the time. You guys are
37:10
Speaker 12: just really focused on that now because of the threat
37:12
Speaker 12: last week.
37:12
Speaker 3: So you still have confidence in British security at the
37:16
Speaker 3: base in general?
37:17
Speaker 12: Oh, we have confidence in the security of all of
37:19
Speaker 12: our bases because all of our bases theoretically can be
37:21
Speaker 12: threatened at any moment, and that's why there's so much
37:24
Speaker 12: security built around them. And with the Brits, we've worked
37:26
Speaker 12: very closely for a very long time, including on this investigation,
37:30
Speaker 12: and they couldn't be more cooperative.
37:34
Speaker 4: Not a terrific advertisement for joined up government. But worth
37:39
Speaker 4: pointing out that, of course, the B-1B Lancers are owned,
37:42
Speaker 4: in effect, by the US European command. So I thought
37:46
Speaker 4: it would be appropriate to ask them what the situation was.
37:50
Speaker 4: So I've asked with regard to the conflicting statements given
37:52
Speaker 4: by Trump and Rubio, I should like clarification on the redeployment. Please,
37:58
Speaker 4: of course, I received no comment. So I went to
38:01
Speaker 4: the Ministry of Defence because I thought, well, there is
38:03
Speaker 4: one other possibility, of course, and that is that the
38:06
Speaker 4: permission granted to the United States Visiting Forces to use
38:10
Speaker 4: RAF Fairford for, I quote, specific and limited defensive purposes,
38:15
Speaker 4: whether or not that had been rescinded. Now, I had
38:17
Speaker 4: actually prepared this slide with a no comment banner across it,
38:21
Speaker 4: but absolutely at the 11th hour, I got a reply
38:25
Speaker 4: from the MOD saying that no, that permission has not
38:27
Speaker 4: been rescinded, but it is dealt with on a case-by-case basis,
38:32
Speaker 4: whatever exactly that is meant to mean. But I think
38:35
Speaker 4: what this suggests, apart from the fact that the White House,
38:37
Speaker 4: Downing Street, European Command counter-terrorism policing, Gloucestershire Constabulary and the
38:42
Speaker 4: MOD police need to sit at a table with MI5
38:45
Speaker 4: in order to get their story straight. It does point
38:48
Speaker 4: back to the intense pressure on the national security legislation
38:51
Speaker 4: that was being pushed through in the summer. And we
38:54
Speaker 4: go back to the new act, the 2026 National Security
38:57
Speaker 4: State Threats Act fact sheet, in order to see how
39:01
Speaker 4: the dots are joined. And as it stated there, this
39:04
Speaker 4: creates a new power for the Home Secretary to designate
39:08
Speaker 4: bodies engaged in state threat activity. So we think of
39:12
Speaker 4: Rubio's early comments on his absolute determination that there was
39:15
Speaker 4: a foreign actor at work and indeed how the security
39:19
Speaker 4: and intelligence services fit in with this, because in 2025,
39:22
Speaker 4: the director general, Ken McCallum, said that the UK had
39:25
Speaker 4: seen a 35 increase in state threat activity, and that
39:29
Speaker 4: over the same period, MI5 had tracked more than 20
39:32
Speaker 4: potentially lethal Iran-backed plots. Now, I don't want to spoil it,
39:36
Speaker 4: but he does say almost exactly the same thing every year.
39:39
Speaker 4: And of course, the great positive of describing this as
39:43
Speaker 4: a national security concern is that neither the public nor
39:46
Speaker 4: the press ever has justification for seeing the workings of
39:50
Speaker 4: MI5 in order to justify such a position. Now, we
39:53
Speaker 4: go back to McCullum and what he said back in
39:56
Speaker 4: July when the State Threats Act was passed. And he
39:59
Speaker 4: said that it introduces new measures which will help us
40:03
Speaker 4: tackle the growing threat. Of from proxy organisations which are
40:09
Speaker 4: being increasingly used by states attempting to deniably target the UK. Well,
40:15
Speaker 4: which states in particular? And we think back to what's
40:18
Speaker 4: been going on at RAFF and, of course, in the
40:21
Speaker 4: same fact sheets, top of the list of designated bodies is,
40:24
Speaker 4: of course, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC. designated
40:28
Speaker 4: in July 2026. So this is how it's all made
40:33
Speaker 4: to add up. I'm just going to show a video
40:36
Speaker 4: clip because what I don't want to do is give
40:38
Speaker 4: the impression that this is somehow an isolated incident and
40:42
Speaker 4: they're capitalising on what happened at RAF Fairford in with
40:45
Speaker 4: a limited set of objectives. I think the objectives are
40:48
Speaker 4: much wider. And we go back to the House of
40:51
Speaker 4: Lords just before the Act received Royal Assent. And this
40:55
Speaker 4: was the exchange between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord
40:59
Speaker 4: Cameron of Loch Eel.
41:03
Speaker 5: And on Royal Assent, I give the assurance to the
41:06
Speaker 5: House that the Secretary of State, the Home Secretary, will
41:08
Speaker 5: take urgent action examining the state threats and, if necessary...
41:14
Speaker 5: bring forward appropriate measures as soon as possible.
41:16
Speaker 13: There are some unfinished areas that the Minister alluded to
41:22
Speaker 13: that we hope we will return to in due course
41:27
Speaker 13: when a new bill, a more wider national security bill
41:32
Speaker 13: comes before Parliament.
41:37
Speaker 4: So there we have it. There is something in the pipeline.
41:39
Speaker 4: And with the time that we have left, I'd just
41:42
Speaker 4: like to ask Mike, in the first instance, where you're
41:45
Speaker 4: putting your money in so far as the further exploitation
41:48
Speaker 4: of this, whatever exactly has occurred near Fairford, how that's
41:52
Speaker 4: going to be dealt with in terms of anything that
41:54
Speaker 4: might be coming on the national security front?
41:58
Speaker 2: Well, obviously, they are trying to build a narrative that
42:00
Speaker 2: we are under threat from Iran, specifically at the moment.
42:04
Speaker 2: And I think I mentioned this on Monday, but was
42:08
Speaker 2: it just before the weekend or over the weekend? There
42:11
Speaker 2: was the claimed so-called terrorist attack, which was foiled on
42:17
Speaker 2: a synagogue in, I think, Glasgow, where they arrested two
42:23
Speaker 2: guys that they claimed were Iranian. But they then further
42:27
Speaker 2: claimed that those two Iranians had arrived in the UK
42:31
Speaker 2: on small boats and So now they're trying to draw the,
42:34
Speaker 2: the small boat narrative together with the Iran, Iranian proxy, uh, narrative, um,
42:40
Speaker 2: to convince us that, uh, Iran is a major threat.
42:43
Speaker 2: So whether that is going to lead to, um, an
42:47
Speaker 2: attempt to openly, overtly support future action from the United States,
42:53
Speaker 2: from RAF Fairford. And of course we shouldn't forget RAF
42:55
Speaker 2: Lake and Heath either in this. Um, but, uh, I
43:00
Speaker 2: suspect that we're going to see a major ramping up
43:04
Speaker 2: of the rhetoric against Iran with a view to further
43:07
Speaker 2: action in that region in the not too distant future.
43:10
Speaker 4: I think you're absolutely right. Vanessa, I think we've just
43:15
Speaker 4: got a little bit of time. You and I have
43:17
Speaker 4: sort of discussed this a little bit in the course
43:19
Speaker 4: of this week. Obviously, there does seem to be a
43:22
Speaker 4: little bit of a mystery around the use of Fairford.
43:25
Speaker 4: But I mean, what's your take on it at the
43:27
Speaker 4: moment in terms of the confection of a storyline? Do
43:30
Speaker 4: you think we're going to see further activity back at Fairford?
43:33
Speaker 4: What will happen next, in your view?
43:36
Speaker 7: Well, I actually wonder if it's directed towards Yemen, because
43:39
Speaker 7: we've seen Burnham already offering, I think, refueling capability to
43:44
Speaker 7: Saudi Arabia, although one wonders why. as Saudi Arabia is
43:48
Speaker 7: on the border of the country they're trying to colonise.
43:53
Speaker 7: And I wonder whether, as Antrolla very much described as
43:58
Speaker 7: an Iranian proxy, whether it is going to be used
44:01
Speaker 7: to basically direct action from the UK towards Yemen.
44:08
Speaker 6: Just a thought.
44:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think very interesting thought. I hope we'll have
44:13
Speaker 4: time to talk about that more in extra. Anyway, Mike,
44:15
Speaker 4: back to you.
44:16
Speaker 1: Thank you.
44:17
Speaker 2: Well, Vanessa, back to you, because tell us about the
44:20
Speaker 2: Mecca Pact.
44:22
Speaker 7: Yes, the Mecca Pact that many people were trying to
44:25
Speaker 7: describe as a security umbrella for the region in opposition
44:30
Speaker 7: to Israel and the United States. Of course, it was
44:33
Speaker 7: never intended to be so. Trump's immediate enthusiasm for the
44:37
Speaker 7: pact should have directed people's opinions in the direction of
44:41
Speaker 7: it being something that was intended to target Iran and
44:46
Speaker 7: the entire resistance axis. And in fact, on Monday this week,
44:50
Speaker 7: the Mecca Pact was activated with Pakistan and Turkey agreeing
44:55
Speaker 7: to accelerate preparations, if we can just have the next
44:58
Speaker 7: part of the slide, for deploying troops and military capabilities
45:03
Speaker 7: to Saudi Arabia under their new mutual defence alliance. Of course,
45:07
Speaker 7: it's an aggression alliance. The decision following an emergency meeting
45:11
Speaker 7: of the Strategic Political and Defense Committee of the Alliance
45:15
Speaker 7: for Defense in Riyadh on the 5th of October amid
45:18
Speaker 7: ongoing attacks against Saudi Arabia by Ansarullah. Even this framing,
45:22
Speaker 7: because in fact Ansarullah is responding to Saudi Arabia continuing
45:26
Speaker 7: the blockade and actually increasing its aggression after the Beijing
45:31
Speaker 7: Agreement of 2023 happened. Now, who is sending forces to
45:37
Speaker 7: Saudi Arabia to combat the resistance movement in Yemen? Well,
45:40
Speaker 7: of course, Turkey is to deploy troops and air defense
45:44
Speaker 7: systems to Saudi Arabia. At the same time, Turkey is
45:47
Speaker 7: reported to be funneling foreign Takfiri elements from Syria, including ISIS,
45:53
Speaker 7: to Saudi Arabia to fight against Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar, And Syria,
45:59
Speaker 7: as I mentioned, in fact, Ahmed al-Shara in his recent
46:02
Speaker 7: meeting in Saudi Arabia, apparently did discuss the use of
46:07
Speaker 7: Syrian force against Yemen. And Egypt is reported to have
46:13
Speaker 7: elements on the ground also. However, Anshula is responding very strongly.
46:19
Speaker 7: This is a picture of the airport in Aden, and
46:22
Speaker 7: this is from Hussein al-Bukhaiti, Several Saudis and also Pakistanis
46:27
Speaker 7: were killed. The Yemen army in Sana'a targeted with ballistic
46:30
Speaker 7: missiles and drones. The Saudi 22nd Force stationed at Aden
46:35
Speaker 7: Airport and a joint Saudi-Pakistani force near the Badr camp
46:39
Speaker 7: within Aden Airport. It's been reported that several Saudi and
46:44
Speaker 7: Pakistani officers and soldiers were killed. The missile strike that
46:47
Speaker 7: targeted the airport after a cargo plane loaded with weapons
46:51
Speaker 7: and equipment landed. Now, I just wanted to quickly show
46:55
Speaker 7: a map of Yemen to basically show people there in
47:00
Speaker 7: the green. And unfortunately, they have called them the Houthi forces.
47:04
Speaker 7: But that, of course, is Anshrullah, the territory that they
47:08
Speaker 7: have taken, including the coastal area on the Red Sea
47:12
Speaker 7: islands within the Red Sea itself, which, of course, severely affected.
47:18
Speaker 7: reduces U.S. and Israeli efficacy as regards intelligence and surveillance.
47:24
Speaker 7: They have also taken the very high ground, the mountainous
47:28
Speaker 7: ground south of Taiz, overlooking Aden. I'm told that they
47:34
Speaker 7: will head eastwards towards Marib, which, of course, are the
47:37
Speaker 7: main oil and gas resources that Saudi Arabia has. to
47:42
Speaker 7: some degree has control of, but that area has been
47:45
Speaker 7: contested now for some time. But this just gives an
47:49
Speaker 7: indication of the advance of Anshula now. And then I
47:54
Speaker 7: wanted to come on because UAE is largely absent from
47:58
Speaker 7: the forces on the ground at the moment. And UAE
48:01
Speaker 7: was very much the Israeli agent in the destabilization of
48:07
Speaker 7: Yemen and Of course, between UAE and Saudi Arabia, there
48:10
Speaker 7: is also ongoing conflict. But I just wanted to demonstrate,
48:14
Speaker 7: besides Turkey, of course, that has strong relations with Israel,
48:19
Speaker 7: despite some of the rhetoric from the Turkish regime, I
48:23
Speaker 7: wanted to demonstrate that Israel still has its hand very
48:27
Speaker 7: much in this conflict through Pakistan. So this was a
48:30
Speaker 7: couple of weeks ago. There was a report in Reuters, U.S.
48:34
Speaker 7: drone maker Pararas, described as a U.S. drone firm, has
48:41
Speaker 7: signed a memorandum of understanding with the Pakistani army that
48:44
Speaker 7: includes an initial drone-related order. Co-founder Brett Velikovich told Reuters
48:51
Speaker 7: on Wednesday. Now, I first of all looked at who
48:55
Speaker 7: Brett Velikovich is, and this is from the website for
48:59
Speaker 7: the Humanitarian Aid and Rescue Project. He's a world-renowned drone expert, U.S.
49:05
Speaker 7: Army veteran, humanitarian, and media personality with focus on national security.
49:11
Speaker 7: He comes from an intelligence background and targeting specialist in U.S.
49:15
Speaker 7: Army Special Ops Community, deployed six times to Combat Zone. U.S.
49:21
Speaker 7: regime counterterrorism operations, and he also runs humanitarian operations in Somalia, Kenya,
49:27
Speaker 7: and Ukraine, which we all know to be covert military operations. However,
49:33
Speaker 7: what the Reuters report doesn't mention, of course, is the
49:36
Speaker 7: other co-founder of Paras, which happens to be Ziv Maram,
49:41
Speaker 7: who's the co-founder. So let's have a look at who
49:44
Speaker 7: he is. He's the founder and CEO of Kaizen Aerospace,
49:49
Speaker 7: next generation heavy lift drones, building 100 million pipeline with U.S.
49:54
Speaker 7: federal agencies, defense and enterprise partners, dual use drones, military.
49:59
Speaker 6: And government sectors.
50:00
Speaker 7: So very much involved in operations by ICE and the
50:04
Speaker 7: deportation agencies in.
50:06
Speaker 6: The U.S., But guess what?
50:08
Speaker 7: He served in the IOF intelligence, most likely Unit 8200, although,
50:14
Speaker 7: of course, that hasn't actually been mentioned. And there are
50:16
Speaker 7: multiple branches of military intelligence. But also, and Mike, I'd
50:21
Speaker 7: quite like your comment on this. According to Reuters article, Paras,
50:25
Speaker 7: which offers aerial and maritime drawings for military and industrial use,
50:29
Speaker 7: is due to merge with a publicly traded company backed
50:33
Speaker 7: by two of U.S. President Donald Trump's sons. which are
50:37
Speaker 7: basically Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. Now, Orius Greenway Holdings,
50:43
Speaker 7: which basically appear to have two golf courses under their portfolio,
50:48
Speaker 7: but however, both companies have said they expect the merger
50:51
Speaker 7: to complete in early October. Is this some kind of
50:55
Speaker 7: laundering of the military-industrial complex through Trump's family connections to
51:02
Speaker 7: ensure that it remains under the Trump empire banner?
51:06
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I don't know the answer to that question,
51:08
Speaker 2: but I think it sounds very like... Look, if anybody
51:12
Speaker 2: wants to get an idea of the kind of scale
51:16
Speaker 2: of Trump's interests in various companies, including defense companies, military,
51:22
Speaker 2: industrial complex companies, intelligence companies, he does... There is a
51:30
Speaker 2: declaration of interest published recently And I'll see if I
51:34
Speaker 2: can dig out the link to it and put it
51:35
Speaker 2: in the show notes, because it is worth looking at,
51:38
Speaker 2: even though that isn't sort of the topic of this conversation.
51:42
Speaker 2: Because if I remember rightly, it was something around 90
51:45
Speaker 2: or 100 pages of a PDF just full of, it's
51:49
Speaker 2: just staggering reading. And I absolutely recommend that everybody reads
51:53
Speaker 2: it just to get an idea of what he is into.
51:59
Speaker 6: Thanks, Mike.
52:00
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's come back to the UK then for
52:03
Speaker 2: a moment. And well, the UK Health Security Agency, formerly
52:07
Speaker 2: known as Public Health England, has made two new appointments.
52:10
Speaker 2: On the left of the screen there, we have Professor
52:12
Speaker 2: Robin May, who has been appointed as Chief Scientific Officer.
52:15
Speaker 2: On the right, we have Dr. Gail Carson, who becomes
52:19
Speaker 2: this new Chief Medical Advisor. Now, Professor May has been
52:24
Speaker 2: the interim CSO at the UK Health Security Agency since
52:27
Speaker 2: September 2025. He's also professor of infectious disease at the
52:32
Speaker 2: University of Birmingham and was previously chief scientific advisor at
52:35
Speaker 2: the Food Standards Agency. And his research expertise includes microbiology
52:41
Speaker 2: and infection with broader experience in scientific risk management and
52:45
Speaker 2: evidence-based policy development. He's billed, by the way, as a
52:51
Speaker 2: speaker at the World Vaccine Congress Europe 2026, which which
52:55
Speaker 2: is an industry conference. And the panel that he's speaking
52:58
Speaker 2: on is about using One Health surveillance to guide vaccine prioritization.
53:04
Speaker 2: But perhaps of more interest, if we just put them
53:06
Speaker 2: back on screen for a second, is Dr. Gail Carson here.
53:09
Speaker 2: Because the press release says that she has had a
53:11
Speaker 2: distinguished and wide-ranging career working with World Health Organization on
53:16
Speaker 2: diseases including Ebola, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, H1N1, SARS, and H5N1.
53:24
Speaker 2: She is currently Director of Network Development for the International
53:27
Speaker 2: Severe Acute Respiratory and Emergency Infection Consortium, ISARIC, and that's
53:34
Speaker 2: at the University of Oxford, which she helped establish in 2011.
53:38
Speaker 2: That consortium is a global federation of investigator-led clinical research networks,
53:43
Speaker 2: that's how they describe it, with sites in over 130 countries,
53:47
Speaker 2: which is set up to ensure that clinical research can
53:50
Speaker 2: help inform patient care and policy, early on in public
53:54
Speaker 2: health emergencies. She's also a past chair of Global Outbreak
53:58
Speaker 2: and Response Network, a World Health Organization network of partners,
54:03
Speaker 2: and she's going to take up this job in January.
54:06
Speaker 2: But what the press release doesn't say is that the
54:10
Speaker 2: International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium, which, as
54:14
Speaker 2: we said, she helped establish, is funded by the Wellcome Trust,
54:18
Speaker 2: the UK Department for International Development, not so much anymore,
54:21
Speaker 2: but certainly FCDO, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
54:25
Speaker 2: It doesn't say that she helped set up the consortium
54:28
Speaker 2: after leaving Public Health England's Port and Down site in 2012.
54:32
Speaker 2: And it doesn't say that the consortium's data and samples
54:35
Speaker 2: supported the AstraZeneca vaccine development and the recovery trial that
54:40
Speaker 2: went with that. And it also doesn't say that she
54:42
Speaker 2: sat on NerveTag, which was the new and emerging respiratory
54:46
Speaker 2: virus threats advisory group from 2014 to 2023, and on
54:48
Speaker 2: SAGE for COVID-19. from 2020 to 2022. And it also
54:55
Speaker 2: doesn't mention that between March and May 2020, she supported
54:58
Speaker 2: Public Health Scotland's enhanced surveillance cell in COVID response. Charles,
55:04
Speaker 2: I can't imagine why they didn't mention these things when
55:06
Speaker 2: they were very proudly mentioning that she'd be given this job.
55:10
Speaker 2: But maybe you've got some thoughts.
55:17
Speaker 4: Well, I think I've got some thoughts as to which
55:20
Speaker 4: direction the health security agency is going to go in
55:23
Speaker 4: now that she has been appointed. I think that seems
55:26
Speaker 4: overwhelmingly clear. And just listening to what you're saying about
55:29
Speaker 4: the idea of there being such a thing as a
55:32
Speaker 4: public health emergency, I think it's just a very timely
55:34
Speaker 4: reminder that that only happens when such a body says
55:39
Speaker 4: that there's a public health emergency and that in actual fact,
55:43
Speaker 4: the evidence, in effect, that is observable by people who
55:47
Speaker 4: simply look to their left and right to see what's
55:49
Speaker 4: going on is never, ever taken into account. So it
55:53
Speaker 4: does look very much like we're going to be seeing
55:55
Speaker 4: more of the same. And of course, with the timing
55:57
Speaker 4: of the apparent scare that there is a plague of
56:00
Speaker 4: some sort in, of all places, Russia, I wonder how
56:05
Speaker 4: soon that will find itself at the top of her agenda.
56:08
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
56:09
Speaker 2: But speaking of public health, let's just end by having
56:12
Speaker 2: a quick discussion about folic acid.
56:17
Speaker 9: Yes, absolutely.
56:18
Speaker 4: I mean, in effect, this is just a brief canter
56:20
Speaker 4: through a couple of points in order to make way
56:22
Speaker 4: for greater detail in future.
56:24
Speaker 9: And I'll explain why.
56:25
Speaker 4: But as you may be aware from previous reports from
56:28
Speaker 4: UK column, the Food Standards Agency has put out guidance
56:32
Speaker 4: on the introduction of folic acid to non-wholemeal wheat flour products.
56:38
Speaker 4: And so the idea is, or at least the regulation is,
56:42
Speaker 4: because it will become law, that from December 2026, all
56:47
Speaker 4: non-wholemeal wheat flour will have to be fortified with folic acid. Now,
56:53
Speaker 4: What I thought was of immediate significance was that in
56:58
Speaker 4: none of the documentation is it mentioned who actually produces
57:02
Speaker 4: this synthetic product. Where does the folic acid come from?
57:06
Speaker 4: Who creates it? Who has to purchase it? And who
57:10
Speaker 4: regulates it? I got in touch with the Food Standards Agency,
57:13
Speaker 4: and it turns out they have absolutely no idea. They
57:15
Speaker 4: do not know where the folic acid itself comes from,
57:19
Speaker 4: which I thought was rather telling. So I've been passed
57:20
Speaker 4: on to another couple of government departments. Now, why, you
57:24
Speaker 4: might be asking, are they saying that this needs to
57:27
Speaker 4: happen and this goes back some time? But the press
57:30
Speaker 4: release put out was because birth defects are apparently prevented
57:33
Speaker 4: by fortifying flour with folic acid. So we just see,
57:38
Speaker 4: bearing in mind we've been talking about proportionality earlier in
57:41
Speaker 4: the programme, they say that around 200 cases of debilitating
57:45
Speaker 4: brain and spine defects in babies every year will be
57:47
Speaker 4: prevented by fortifying non-wholemeal wheat flour. with folic acid. So
57:52
Speaker 4: that is the apparent justification for introducing this synthesized product
57:59
Speaker 4: into this flour for the entire population. Now, There is
58:04
Speaker 4: a lot more to talk about on this particular subject,
58:06
Speaker 4: and I'm pleased to say that we will have Liz Evans,
58:08
Speaker 4: a frequent contributor to UK Column News, to come on
58:11
Speaker 4: the programme and talk in much greater detail about this.
58:14
Speaker 4: This is really just a foretaste, but I would recommend
58:16
Speaker 4: that you go to look at Liz's recent Substack post
58:19
Speaker 4: under UK Medical Freedom Alliance, the ethically bankrupt public health
58:23
Speaker 4: justification for folic acid fortification. We also have Richard Ennos
58:28
Speaker 4: of Common Knowledge Edinburgh writing for us at the moment
58:31
Speaker 4: about this very subject, and that will be So there's
58:35
Speaker 4: a lot out there to get hold of. And the
58:38
Speaker 4: only other thing to point you towards is a petition
58:42
Speaker 4: which has been published by Claire Craig, has been out
58:46
Speaker 4: there for some time and has over 80,000 signatures already. Now,
58:51
Speaker 4: in typical fashion, the government has actually already responded, despite
58:55
Speaker 4: the fact the petition is open today.
58:57
Speaker 9: For another few months.
58:58
Speaker 4: And they have, as they do to so many petitions
59:01
Speaker 4: of this nature, in effect said, we're going to do
59:03
Speaker 4: it anyway. But what is interesting is that they have
59:05
Speaker 4: tried to justify it on this basis. They say folic
59:08
Speaker 4: acid fortification is an ever public health measure, not a
59:13
Speaker 4: medical intervention. Now, that is an interesting distinction to try
59:16
Speaker 4: to make. And they then try to further justify it
59:19
Speaker 4: by saying, well, there's already other stuff there anyway, so
59:21
Speaker 4: what's the problem? And what they specifically say is the
59:24
Speaker 4: policy applies to non-wholemeal flour, reflecting the flour type already
59:29
Speaker 4: subject to fortification. And they're talking about calcium and niacin
59:33
Speaker 4: and other things that are already there But of course,
59:37
Speaker 4: if you're following the way this is going, perhaps shouldn't be. Now,
59:41
Speaker 4: there's going to be a lot more to come on this.
59:42
Speaker 4: So it's really just to put that out that we
59:44
Speaker 4: are on top of this and we will have Liz
59:46
Speaker 4: Evans on the program soon to talk further about it.
59:50
Speaker 1: Thank you, Charles.
59:50
Speaker 2: But of course, none of this precludes the possibility that
59:54
Speaker 2: we shouldn't be eating flour based products anyway.
1:00:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, this is clearly a matter for the individual.
1:00:04
Speaker 4: I think there's a discussion to be had in extra
1:00:07
Speaker 4: because exactly as you say, the point here is it
1:00:10
Speaker 4: applies to non-wholemeal flour in the first place, but also
1:00:13
Speaker 4: non-wholemeal wheat flour. So clearly a matter for the individual,
1:00:18
Speaker 4: but it's certainly absolutely a discussion point. that the condition
1:00:24
Speaker 4: that that flour is in already due to the way
1:00:26
Speaker 4: in which it's produced from an agricultural point of view,
1:00:29
Speaker 4: or at least a chemically induced point of view, is
1:00:33
Speaker 4: absolutely part and parcel of this. But I think the
1:00:36
Speaker 4: issue really is more one of government control and liberty
1:00:41
Speaker 4: and proportionality.
1:00:43
Speaker 13: Yes.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. Thank you, Charles. Thank you, Vanessa.
1:00:46
Speaker 2: Thanks also to Issa Blumey for joining us today. And
1:00:48
Speaker 2: thank you all for watching. We have to leave it
1:00:51
Speaker 2: there for now. If you're a UK column member, stay
1:00:53
Speaker 2: on the stream and we'll be back for some news
1:00:55
Speaker 2: extra in a moment or two. Otherwise, we will see
1:00:59
Speaker 2: you again 1pm as usual on Friday and we'll see
1:01:02
Speaker 2: you then.
1:01:03
Speaker 9: Bye-bye.