Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News Podcast 8th March 2024

Transcript

UK Column News Podcast 8th March 2024 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Good afternoon. It's Friday, the eighth of March twenty twenty four, just
0:11
after one o'clock. Welcome to the UK Column News. I'm your host Mike
0:14
Robinson joining me today by video link. We have Ben Rubin and Debbie Evans.
0:18
We're going to get started today with war and defense and the fallout from
0:24
the Jeremy Hunt exercise on Wednesday. With respect to defense, because some people
0:32
upset about the lack of rise in defense spending. So let's just remind ourselves
0:38
what our friendly Defense secretary otherwise known as the Secretary Stip for War Grant Shop
0:44
said just a few weeks ago. We're moving from a post ward war,
0:48
post war world into a pre war world because they are creating the circumstances for
0:56
war as we speak. But of course he was claiming that defense spending was
1:00
going up. Mark francois, on the other hand, from the Defense select
1:03
that he's saying actually not really, he said, nobody seems to have told
1:07
eahm Treasury does Russia have to get to warsaw before we start spending what we
1:11
need for defense. So Mark francois still very keen to push scenariolive that Russia
1:18
is the big problem. But don't worry. Shapps went off to Ukraine yesterday
1:25
and met with Zelenski because they are of course about to spend even more money
1:30
over there, so they decided that they wanted to sorry, let's just go
1:34
back. They decided they want this is going to do this again, isn't
1:37
it. Let's play the video. They said they're going to step up support
1:42
for Ukraine with a package of three hundred and twenty five million pounds for cutting
1:46
edge drones to help fight Putin's illegal invasion. And we're going to talk a
1:51
little bit more about drones towards the end of this segment. But ten thousand
1:55
drones are saying researched and developed in the UK. This is all about delivering
2:00
material to the front. So the investment is going to deliver more than ten
2:04
thousand drones for the armed forces of Ukraine to harness. This is their words.
2:07
The UK's world leading defense industries to deliver advanced new drone capabilities to Ukraine
2:13
throughout twenty twenty four. And this is a significant boost to the two hundred
2:17
million pound drone package announced by Sunak in January. It's now three hundred and
2:23
twenty five million pounds overall funding. And it's as they said many times now
2:28
ten thousand drones, including one thousand one way attack drones, suicide drones.
2:35
But in the meantime, of course, NATO in the headlines, you've got
2:37
a bit of a preview for this. But everybody is getting extremely concerned that
2:40
Donald Trump is likely to be the next president of the United States, and
2:46
of course, as we were pointing out a week or two ago, he
2:47
is very keen to that European countries start spending some money, and he is
2:54
saying that if the European countries don't start spending some money, then he is
2:59
going to withdraw the United States from NATO. So the Russie article here is
3:04
called two percent won't cut it. And well, Urschela vonder Lean, of
3:10
course, is up for reelection at the moment as the European Commissioner. She's
3:15
been put forward by her party to stand again, and so it's very very
3:21
likely that she's going to end up in a second term in that role.
3:23
But in the meantime she's becoming more hitler like on a daily business. So
3:28
let's just have a listen to what she had to say about defense spending in
3:31
Europe. Security in Europe also means doing more in our own defense. Our
3:38
common goal should be very clear. We need to turbo charge our defense industrial
3:44
capacity in the next five years. And at the heart of this must be
3:50
one simple principle. Europe must spend more, Europe must spend better, and
3:55
Europe must spend European and this will help us fill the urgent need to rebuild,
4:02
replenish and modernize member states armed forces and to keep supporting Ukraine. And
4:10
in doing so, Europe should strive to develop and manufacture the next generation of
4:15
battle winning operational capabilities. And my friends, the EPP is the party that
4:24
has championed a Europe that can defend itself, and we will be the party
4:30
that delivers on a defense union. And this topic needs undivided attention and therefore
4:36
we need a designated Defense Commissioner for the next mandate. This is one of
4:43
our EPP's deliverables. My friends, Throughout our history, Europe has never had
4:55
security or prosperity. Well indeed they haven't. Sorry, I just left that
5:03
a little bit at the end there, a bit of a running joke.
5:06
But defense union absolutely back on the table once again. European Union being pushing
5:13
extremely hard for this for so many many years. The question is what will
5:16
the UK's involvement be in that, but Donald Trump being used as the excuse
5:21
to reinvigorate the drive forward. In the meantime, of course, NATO continues
5:28
to expand. Sweden has given up its sovereignty yesterday, and here is the
5:32
Swedish Prime Minister handing over the various documentation to blink in. So sorry Sweden
5:43
officially joining NATO yesterday because, of course, as we've mentioned many times,
5:47
no such thing as NATO expansionism. Lots of people very excited about it.
5:53
Various tweets going out, including from the Ministry of Defense. And I'm going
5:58
to apologize now because I appreciate that it is lunchtime and many people would be
6:02
having something to eat right now, but we do have to have a look
6:06
at what Rishie Sunac had to say about this. We should be proud that
6:11
NATO is the most successful defensive alliance in history. It has kept us all
6:15
safe for three quarters of a century and it has never been more important than
6:20
it is today. The accession of Sweden into NATO following Finland just a few
6:25
months ago is a historic moment for the whole Alliance. Like Finland, Sweden
6:30
shares our values and principles, and they share our unwavering commitment to international security
6:35
in the face of Russia's threats and their barbaric war in Ukraine. Sweden and
6:40
Finland's membership will make NATO stronger and the whole euro Atlantic more secure. So
6:50
hopefully you've managed to keep your lunchtime as you were watching that. But in
6:54
the meantime, in Germany, the whole tourist missile scandal the Lakes continues to
7:00
rumble on and Britain absolutely getting the blame for this in many ways. But
7:05
here is Colonel Ralph Thiel. He is a military expert in Germany, and
7:13
he's saying that Germany shouldn't be driven into the war by the British. He
7:17
said, the British are the drivers of a belligerent solution to the problem by
7:23
to bring the Russians to their knees through war. We should not allow ourselves
7:26
to be driven by the British. So that's in this interview with NTV.
7:30
He was then interviewed by Focus Online where he said, basically there are two
7:35
suspects who could have intercepted and the conversation this is the leaked conversation over Taurus
7:43
and circulated it. One is the Western States. They could have an interest
7:47
in undermining Chancellor shut cautious approach since hybrid warfare, in which the British,
7:54
for example, are also masters, is preferably conducted via third parties. Nothing
7:59
is as it seems at first, so the Germans starting to look in our
8:03
direction for what's going on with them. But let's come back to the issue
8:07
of drones. Because a number of years ago, Squadron twenty three Squadron was
8:13
sorry two one six Squadron was set up as or restood up as an experimental
8:18
squadron looking forward to our swarming drones capability within the RAF and at the time
8:26
or a couple of years later, Sir Mike Wigston, the chief of the
8:30
Airstaff, said our drone test Squadron two to one six Squadron has proved beyond
8:35
doubt the disruptive and innovative utility of swarming drones under our Alvina program. He
8:41
went on to say, working with our defense science laboratory and specialist industry partners,
8:48
I can say that we've exercised swarms of over twenty ultralow cost drones operating
8:52
together against threat systems to brilliant effects. So this was his claim in twenty
8:56
twenty one. Unfortunately, parliamentary question was asked by Stuart MacDonald from the Scottish
9:03
Nationalist Party a few days ago, and the Administrati Defense made this response.
9:09
Since the formation of two one six Squadron in twenty twenty, there have been
9:11
no completed tests or trials conducted, either in house or with industry. No
9:16
UAVs have been recommended by two to one six Squadron for acquisition into service.
9:22
So I'm not quite sure who was telling fibbs between the two of them,
9:28
but somebody is. I suspect Jim's cartilage here is a bit more correct,
9:35
and well, I suspect that our capability isn't quite what the Chief of the
9:41
Air Staff would like it to be. But Debbie, let's welcome you to
9:45
the program and talk about drones on a more commercial basis. Yes, well,
9:52
we've covered them before, and as you very kindly covered military, let's
9:56
look at commercial drones and we're talking drones for like Amazon, the Post Office,
10:01
the NHS. So if we go to the government's website, we can
10:05
see they've got an advancing airborne autonomy commercial drones saving money and saving lives in
10:11
the UK. But looking further into the report, what we can see actually
10:15
is that price Waterhouse Cooper estimate by two thousand and thirty. Now wait for
10:20
this. These are pretty sort of like gobsmacking statistics. I think nine hundred
10:26
thousand drones will be in the UK skys. Now this is commercial drones.
10:31
This is nearly one million drones, and that drones will contribute to forty five
10:35
billion of the UK economy and will create six hundred thousand jobs, and of
10:39
course it's all to save money. The diagram that's next coming up will show
10:45
you where drones will be used. So you're going to be looking at drones
10:48
for surveys and inspections, so to look at infrastructure and bridges and towers,
10:54
and delivery drones which will be your medicine's NHS blood samples, etc. And
11:01
then your emergency responses. So those are the kind of the three uses for
11:07
drones. But let's take you to Altitude Angel because Altitude Angel are launching and
11:13
we'll go into it a bit more in a minute. But if you're living
11:16
in the reading Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry or Rugby areas.
11:22
You'll want to take the specific note of this because you're going to have a
11:26
super highway right over your heads at one hundred and sixty five miles of it.
11:31
This has been launched by the bt BT British Telecom Project Skyway. They
11:37
wrote the white paper the Future of Flight Drone Technology. And if we look
11:41
at an into about the report and about the authors, we can see that
11:45
it was led by the BET lead consortium with Project Accelerate. So what actually
11:52
is Project to Accelerate. So Projects Accelerate basically is a clinical trial for drones.
12:00
If you just think about a medical clinical trial, this is exactly what
12:03
BT have been doing. They've been project lead leading this whole agenda. But
12:09
did you know that these are a few interesting statistics. Did you know that
12:13
only eleven percent actually of the population know a lot about drones. The rest
12:18
of us know very little or actually not a lot. And did you know
12:24
that seventy four percent of the public think that drones are for photographs and videos
12:30
and sixty five percent of the public think that drones are toys, So it's
12:33
just over half. Really of us that are aware that they're used for military.
12:37
But the knowledge on drones drops significantly as you go further down. But
12:43
also the concerns, the concerns that the public have over drones, And you
12:50
can see that most of the concerns are over privacy and entering private property.
12:54
Forty eight percent on privacy and only eighteen percent. I was surprised to hear
13:01
on noise, and we'll come to noise in a minute. And with regard
13:03
to public acceptance, it seems that the public will accept that we can use
13:07
drones for missing persons, firefighting, crime scenes, and inspecting infrastructure, but
13:15
actually we don't want to use them for deliveries and the NHS and the Royal
13:20
mail and all of these other things that they want to roll in. We
13:24
don't actually want it. But I just want you to listen. I only
13:28
took ten seconds of this video because quite honestly, ten seconds is enough.
13:33
But this is just the sound of one drone. Have a listen to this.
13:50
Just imagine. I'm sure there won't be nine hundred thousand in the sky
13:52
all at once, but there will be quite a few. When you look
13:56
up, it will be a completely different landscape. So Altitude Angel brought out
14:00
a little video just to give you a taster of what life is set to
14:03
be like. In the eighteen hundreds, the rail network expansion fueleds significant industrial
14:09
growth, connecting towns and naval ports together brought revolutionary efficiencies to the movement of
14:16
goods and people, spawning entirely new industries and businesses. Today we begin the
14:24
next industrial and commercial revolution automated flight. The Skyway system establishes a network of
14:31
super highways up to ten kilometers wide, with the first main route spanning two
14:37
hundred and sixty five kilometers between reading and Coventry. Soon, time sensitive transportation
14:43
of medical items and organs, fire, medical and police scenarios, as well
14:48
as the delivery of high value, low volume goods can start to be moved
14:52
by automated drone, unlocking the vast potential of drones to transform lives and revolutionize
14:58
business. Skyway has safety and privacy at its core. Powerful sensors on the
15:05
ground looking up, detect crude and uncrude aviation traffic, and create a real
15:11
time moving map of the sky above, which is relayed to the Skyway controller
15:16
and the cloud, where it is used to provide automated air traffic control for
15:20
drones flying on the super Highway, preventing collisions. Drones can enter or exit
15:28
the Skyway anywhere along the route, bringing access to millions of businesses and citizens.
15:35
Automated flight anywhere and for everyone. Just imagine coming to a town or
15:46
city close to you very soon. Indeed, thank you, Debbie, thank
15:50
you very much. And well Ben, let's say hello to you. And
15:56
where do we move on to from there? Well, if you want a
16:02
drone network, you need the telecommunications infrastructure to run it on. So let's
16:08
find out about GSMA. It all started with a voice. Hello, Hello,
16:22
sungary, but one voice has been there since the very beginning. We
16:26
are the GSMA. Together with our members, we may connectivity work for all,
16:33
uniting over one thousand, one hundred operators and companies to drive innovation,
16:38
policy and standards in mobile connectivity. Whether it's our global working groups who accelerate
16:48
growth in future networks and enhance security in our digital lives, or our world
16:53
class events connecting policy makers and change makers. And we are super excited to
17:00
power progress in digital transformation. We've been transforming the world for thirty years,
17:10
but we've only just started. We are the GSMA. That reminds me a
17:22
little bit of the Huawei video we were showing on Wednesday. It's of the
17:27
same provenance and the same worldview. Yes, and Huawei are part of GSMA.
17:33
It actually stands for the Global System for Mobile Communications Association, the global
17:38
industry body for the mobile telecommunications industry basically and everything that goes with it.
17:44
And last week they had the huge annual event in Barcelona. It's the Mobile
17:51
World Congress MWC experienced the Power of Connection. It looks like this is a
17:57
huge global tree show. It's actually difficult to describe it. I've been to
18:02
it three or four times in the past. It's absolutely enormous. Everything is
18:07
there, from the global behemos like Samsung that you can see in that image
18:11
there, all the way through to the people making you know, the little
18:15
throwaway peripherules that you put onto your phone, and everything in between, right
18:19
the full industry. I first went there in two thousand and six when Nokia
18:25
was king of the world. Facebook didn't even exist. There was no such
18:29
thing as an iPhone. And since then we've seen two or three major technological
18:33
paradigm shifts, and the most recent one the one that everyone's very excited about
18:38
is AI and the AI economy. You can see here this is a value
18:45
chain to use some management consultant speak. You can see all of the different
18:51
components of the new AI economy, from the microchips to the data centers,
18:56
the data lakes, the foundation model that are used to analyze all of that
19:02
data, which is basically you and me are interactions with the network. By
19:06
the way they say data, but it basically means human behavior. The tooling
19:10
that is used to manage those foundation models, the applications that run on top
19:14
of all of that data analysis, the app store distribution system, so Apple,
19:18
Google and some of the other app stoms that are appearing, and then
19:22
also the developers, and finally the end users that people who actually use all
19:25
of this stuff. That is the new economy end to end, and that
19:29
sits on top of the old economy. Right. So if you could just
19:33
flick back to that last slide, you can see it underneath at the bottom
19:37
there it says electrical power and connectivity. And connectivity is what MWC and GSMA
19:47
used to be about exclusively. So that's network infrastructure, the mask, the
19:49
switches, the billing systems, customer service to handset manufacturers, all of that
19:55
kind of stuff all in one place, right. This is really the hub
19:56
of everything, and they're building this future platform. They're going to connect up
20:02
not just people, but also industries now. So actually consumers have been very
20:07
effectively wired up to the grid over the past fifteen years. You know,
20:11
we've got well over one hundred percent smartphone penetration in Western Europe, and they're
20:15
now coming for industries, including heavy industries like advanced manufacturing. They're all going
20:19
to be wired up across this five G and now coming next obviously six G
20:26
telecommunications network. There's a little still here from the video that might just refer
20:33
to a minute ago that he showed on Wednesday from Huawei where they talk about
20:37
the fusion of physical, biological, and cyber worlds as a consequence of the
20:44
rollout of the network. Huawei is a really interesting organization. They're the dominant
20:48
player now in the global mobile network infrastructure space. They also make handsets as
20:55
well, but they've made their reputation and most of their money and their market
21:00
position on the back of network infrastructure. And Huawei was actually founded by a
21:06
former CCP major, so he was in the Chinese military then founded Huawei.
21:12
It's gone deep links into the CCP. There's been a lot of controversy about
21:15
that business as it's grown over the years as a national security issue ultimately,
21:21
like why would you allow a totalitarian dictatorship to build your core infrastructure? That's
21:26
a really good question. Running on top of that that network is are the
21:33
network operators. So they buy from people like Huawei to build the network infrastructure
21:37
and then they run on top of it. And the NWC saw the first
21:44
meeting, the inaugural meeting of the Global TELCOAI Alliance. This is a strategic
21:49
partnership between four of the largest telco groups. This was signed last year to
21:56
great fanfare by the chief executives of Deutsche Telecom and which is also now known
22:06
as was formerly known as Etisalat, Sintel, and sk Telecom, who between
22:11
them have covered the thick end of about one point five billion customers across all
22:17
major regions. This is a huge alliance. Let's have a little look at
22:22
what some of those organizations are up to. So Deutsche Telecom is also working
22:26
with the World Health Organization to build a digital health app. Right, So
22:29
let's get that straight upfront. Sintel, which is based in Singapore and has
22:33
nearly seven hundred million mobile subscribers across the Asia Pacific region. Singapore is really
22:40
interesting. They've gone hard on investment in AI. Singpo is essentially a fascist
22:45
state, right, it's a city state. It's probably a model that's being
22:48
looked at by people like the World Economic Forum or the future of how humanity
22:52
is going to live on Earth. They've been investing a huge amount of money
22:56
into artificial intelligence. People like Google a very excited about this. You can
23:00
see here Caroline Yapp, who's the MD of the Global AI business at Google,
23:06
basically saying that in order for AI to deliver its potential, you've got
23:10
to have really good public private partnerships, which, as we all know,
23:11
is fascism. So in order for AI to deliver it's all potential, which
23:15
is what everyone wants. Of course, we've got to have a global fascist
23:18
superstate and then it will work really well. All of this is being enabled,
23:22
as you would expect, by WEF partners such as Eccentia. We can
23:26
see here Julie Sweet, who's the global CEO of Excentsia, meeting with the
23:32
chief executive of I and who's one of the members of the AI Alliance,
23:36
Judie Sweet is also a trustee of the World Economic Forum. So we can
23:40
essentially see the totalitarian global superstate building the infrastructure that's going to use to run
23:47
it's international empire right in front of us issuing press releases. Isn't it fantastic
23:52
seeing this all play out now? There's also a really fascinating, slightly bizarre
23:56
ideological dynamic to all of this. As I can say on International Women's Day,
24:00
little quote here from Julie Tiegland I've spoken about before. She is unofficially
24:07
the overgroup and feury for Europe of Ernst and young e Y. She talks
24:11
about AI being a force for good and not being a force for good if
24:15
it exacerbates existing inequalities in the workforce and frankly in society more broadly. So
24:19
there is an a priori assumption amongst the people building these technologies that our societies
24:26
have been somehow biased against minorities and women in particular. This was focused at
24:33
NWC around the Equality Lounge, which was sponsored by aws PwC Verizon. There
24:41
was a whole bunch of discussion going on and going on around the need to
24:45
elevate women into positions of power and authority inside the global corporate system. I
24:52
don't know about you, but I don't really care whether the fascist system is
24:56
built and run by men or women. I'd prefer that it didn't exist.
25:00
And actually, ladies, if you're watching this, you are unfortunately leading us
25:03
into some extremely dark and dangerous territory. I shared this quote a couple of
25:08
weeks ago. It is from Frank Herbert, the author of June. Once
25:12
men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them
25:15
free, but that only permitted other men within machines to enslave them. And
25:19
I think that's what we're looking at here. Let's just hear very quickly from
25:23
Jensen Huang, who's the chief executive of Nvidio, a specialist AI micro chip
25:29
manufacturer. I want to say something that it's going to sound completely opposite of
25:34
what people feel over the course of the last ten years. For ten years,
25:37
almost everybody who sits on the stage like this would tell you it is
25:41
vital that your children learn computer science. Everybody should learn how to program.
25:47
And in fact it's almost exactly the opposite. It is our job to create
25:51
computing technology such that nobody has the program and that the programming language is human.
25:57
Everybody in the world is now a programmer. This is the miracle of
26:02
artificial intelligence. The country is the people that understand how to solve the domain
26:07
problem in digital biology, or in education of young people, or in manufacturing
26:12
or in farming. Those people who understand domain expertise now can utilize technology that
26:19
is really available to you. You now have a computer that will do what
26:22
you tell it to do. It is vital that we upskill everyone. And
26:26
the upskilling process, I believe will be delightful surprising. So they talked about
26:33
up skinning. It's not up skinning, it's the skinning. They do not
26:37
want us to be able to build the systems that they are building in order
26:41
to subjugate us, right, that is what's happening here. You can look
26:45
at this quote just pulled from that video. It is our job to create
26:48
computing technology such that nobody has to program and that the programming language is human.
26:53
If you can't build the technology, then you can't break away from the
26:57
system that they are in the process of building. And thank you very much
27:03
for that. Okay, let's move on and if you like what the UK
27:07
Column does. If you'd like to support us, and we very much need
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share the thing you find on the various platforms, especially the UK coolun dot
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org and UK column Extracts dot co dot uk. Now just a couple more
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days to take advantage of the early bird pricing for the Climate Science masterclass with
27:33
David Siegel. Details on that or Climatecourse dot UK column dot org. We've
27:40
had a good response, so it's going to be a fun twelve weeks of
27:45
ninety minute sessions. So well, we will look forward to that starting very
27:48
soon. My interview that went at one o'clock yesterday with Jose Vega is on
27:53
the UK Column website. It's called Gorilla Warfare for Truth in the Bronx.
27:59
That got a very good response in the chat box yes release, so please
28:03
do go and have a look at that if you haven't seen it so far.
28:06
And Debbie very briefly You're no smoke without Far with Brian is up on
28:10
the website now. And you were looking at the Green King, Charles.
28:15
We are indeed, and this is just part one. There's a couple more
28:19
parts to come, so I think you'll find it very interesting. And also
28:23
your blog is up. It is indeed facial recognition, no the Chinese.
28:30
I've got gate recognition now. And if you like and enjoy a tipple no
28:34
longer. Can you just pick up your bottle of booze from the supermarket you
28:37
might have to buzz for booze and plenty more in there this week and quickly
28:42
You're dying of thirst article which followed on from the Midaslam symposium. Yes it
28:51
did, and I think nobody should be dying of thirst in twenty twenty four,
28:53
least of all our elderly and vulnerable and disabled. And this is really
28:57
an information are to call, how to spot the signs of dehydration, what
29:03
to do, and just some of the things to look for and to do
29:07
if you've got an elderly person in a care home, ask questions. Thank
29:11
you, Debbie. Now, quick reminder, second episode of Walking the Dog
29:15
Brian will be premiering on his YouTube channel eleven am and Sunday morning. Get
29:19
along and listen to that. If you can. An evening with Richard Vogues,
29:25
Sandy Adams, Clive de Carl taking place on the thirtieth of March seven
29:27
to ten pm in Glastonbury. Get along to that if you can. And
29:32
the av guys have asked us to remind everybody that they're holding an event awesome
29:36
Glassbray on Sunday, the twenty fourth of March. Gary Front will be the
29:41
main speaker there and they have sent us a promotional code if you want ten
29:45
percent off the ticket price for that, which is the UKC ten, So
29:49
to get along to that if you can as well. And finally a reminder
29:53
of solidarity rally for Farmers taking place on the sixteenth of March twelve thirty pm
30:00
in Truro Drive between Archild and Trafalgar Roundabout, so that will be taking place
30:07
on the sixteenth nice. Staying with the farming issue, we need to move
30:11
on to the Czech Republic first of all, and as you can see here,
30:15
they have been taking some lessons from the French farmers and they've been dumping
30:21
manure outside the government, outside government offices in Prague. They've been blocking Prague
30:26
streets, tractors and so on. So the protests in Europe continue to expand.
30:30
This's the Czech Republic now, but in Poland itself things have been coming
30:36
to a head with the protests in Warsaw. The police being deployed over the
30:41
last couple of days, and they were deployed with their batons, but also
30:47
with pepper spray. As you will see in the second they're not just using
30:51
I mean they're pretty large canisters of pepper spray, and they've been pretty indiscriminate
30:56
about how it was being sprayed around. So let's have a look at it
30:59
a little bit more footage on this so quite unpleasant for many people. I
31:04
believe there was one politician at these protests from Confederatia, and the lovely Herschel
31:12
of vonder Lyon had something to say. But Confederatia and other similar parties,
31:18
let's just have a listen to this, are peaceful and united. Europe is
31:26
being challenged like never before by populists, by nationalists, by demagogues. Whether
31:33
it's the far right or it's the far left, whether it is the ivd
31:40
Orcional, the Confederacia of Asraje Den the names may be different, but the
31:48
goal is the same. They want to trample on our values and they want
31:55
to destroy our Europe and we the EPP will never let that happen. H
32:04
But they want to destroy our Europe. Who's us? Who's r in our
32:07
Europe? And you know these are these are parties of the Confederacy is a
32:12
confederation of a group of political organizations in Poland which might be described as libertarian
32:17
but far The labeling of people as far right is nuts, yeah, isn't
32:29
it? Just? I I struggle to find words to describe this woman.
32:35
Actually, I mean, who on earth does she think that she is?
32:37
She should be listening to the people of Europe, not demonizing them. And
32:44
there is a video from the World Economic Forum which came back to me as
32:46
she was speaking just then, where she talks about her mandate. What mandate
32:51
does she have to be making pronouncements on anything at all? Right? It's
32:54
it's it's absolutely disgraceful, uh, one hundred percent. And of course you're
33:00
absolutely right there, because she has not taken her position on the basis of
33:05
a popular vote. Quite the opposite. So anyway, let's move on to
33:10
back to the UK and Debbie. The National Health Service, the National Health
33:15
Service. Look, I really want to ask people to go and watch the
33:21
board meetings like I do. And here's just a screenshot of where you can
33:23
find it on YouTube. The NHS Board meeting first of February twenty twenty four.
33:29
This one was particularly full of diamonds. And I have to say for
33:34
people watching, if you rely on the NHS, if you still want to
33:38
go to the NHS, I have to tell you the NHS is going,
33:44
and it's literally going, but I want you to hear it from the horses
33:49
map. So this is Professor Joe Harrison, who is National Director of Digital
33:53
Channels. He's also the CEO of Milton Keynes University NHS Trust. See how
34:00
excited he gets by the app. I'll start by saying that this board is
34:05
presiding over what is I believe the biggest change in how the NHS engages with
34:13
its citizens that we have seen for many, many decades. We're in a
34:17
place now whereby we have got more than three quarters of our adults who have
34:24
downloaded the app. We've got ninety seven percent of our practices able to communicate
34:30
with those patients, and the numbers just keep growing exponentially. And I've just
34:39
there are lots of numbers that you've heard today, but over four million people
34:44
a day access their medical records last week. This is an appetite that we
34:51
are fulfilling through the NHS APP that people didn't necessarily know existed, but is
34:57
changing the way that our citizens engage with us. And we've only just started.
35:01
So the last twelve months we've presided in Helen and the team have delivered
35:06
against all of the priorities that were set and have delivered early on a couple
35:09
of them. Now as not often you can say that about really big tech
35:14
programs in the NHS. So it is to celebrate and one should as as
35:19
a member of this board, you should be celebrating this hugely. But it's
35:23
so much more than that from a productivity perspective, from an engagement perspective,
35:30
and from the way that we can and will change the way that we deliver
35:32
care across our NHS. It is. It is staggering. And let me
35:37
just talk about a few of the things that we're doing. We've started over
35:39
the last twelve months of putting basic functionality into the app, stuff that people
35:45
want to be able to look at their appointments, their letters, to engage
35:51
at a time of their choosing with our NHS. Our citizens absolutely love it.
35:57
Have we got countrywide coverage yet? Not quite yet? No we haven't.
36:00
Is there more to do? Of course there is. It was it
36:04
was brilliant hearing about pharmacy first and one one one. It's even better sitting
36:08
here knowing that we've already integrated one one one onto the front page of the
36:14
app that has already got integrated in it the pharmacy first pathway. And so
36:19
when we talk about have people picked up the phone to one one one,
36:22
I sort of hope they don't, because we know that those that are using
36:27
one one one on the app have got better completion rates than those that are
36:31
using it through the web, and we know that we can move more and
36:37
more people to managing their own care through the app. Right, hold on
36:42
a second, They can look at their appointments. What appointments? Good question,
36:47
A good question. But what's even scarier really is that you think that
36:51
four million people are accessing their medical records every single day. That means that
36:55
are we looking at a population of the worried. Well, we're all so
36:59
looking at ninety seven percent of practices and they've only just begun. But that
37:04
is literally just the beginning. Let's listen to a bit more of what Professor
37:07
Harrison says, because it gets worse At the moment, the app's focused on
37:14
people that need the NHS to support their illness. We've got a full program
37:20
coming up over the next twelve months to move the vaccination screening programs onto the
37:24
app because we know that patients who book their own appointments are more likely to
37:29
turn up for them. And the more patients we can get screened vaccinated,
37:34
the better we're putting the digital health check onto the NHS APP. I have
37:39
to say to start with, it's not going to be amazing, but and
37:45
the I shouldn't say, but I should say, and and we have to
37:49
start somewhere, which is allow the patient to order their home testing kit and
37:52
send it back because we know over the next year, two years, five
37:57
years, that home testing kit will be available on their phone. It will
38:01
be available electronically. And if you don't believe me, I looked yesterday at
38:07
the camera that sits by the bedside, that takes all of the vital signs
38:13
of the patient in front of them without touching the patient. And when you
38:16
then think about what that might do to the new hospital program and how that
38:21
tech can evolve. And we talked about virtual wards earlier on how do we
38:24
connect the virtual ward technology into the NHS app so that citizens can use that
38:31
and monitor their health data. Most of us have wearables on us. The
38:37
future of how we use our NHS app and giving our citizens their digital account
38:43
to manage their own healthcare is stunning. And for those that don't believe,
38:50
and there are some, we are saying, I think very conservatively that we
38:54
want to move a third of all of our health interactions to being still first
39:00
over the next five years. Do you want to be moved over to digital
39:06
first? Because this is going to be hospitals without staff, this is going
39:09
to be no GPS, there's no pharmacies, and every single person that's downloading
39:15
the app and using the app is essentially helping to disable the NHS WI.
39:22
Correct me if I'm wrong, But the majority of people that need the NHS
39:25
are the elderly, and so these are the people that are the least equipped
39:30
to go digital as he wants to do. Yeah, so if they're in
39:36
a care home, I'm sure that the staff will all have their digital records
39:40
on hand. So they won't even be aware of it. They can access
39:45
them whenever they want. Okay, So keeping on health, let's look at
39:52
the MHRA and I did mention last week there have been a few instants.
39:58
So if we go to the MHRA and your report and accounts, we can
40:01
go further into the report to see about health and safety and look at South
40:06
Mims in particular. This is biological containment and you can see that the recent
40:10
inspections have resulted in a few actions to strengthen procedures and they're working towards the
40:16
renewal of a SAPO license. Now this is to do with animal pathogens,
40:22
but there have been accidents. There have been three incidents at South Mims and
40:28
these have had to do with autoclaves. Now autoclaves are sterilization facilities basically,
40:36
but they've also had to make improvements to their emergency procedures. Those are the
40:42
accidents. These are the accidents and incidents. So three incidents reported under the
40:45
reporting of injuries and there you've got also they've made significant improvements in their emergency
40:52
procedures. What aren't we relieved to know that? However, there have been
40:55
near misses, but apparently because they're being reported. We don't have to worry
41:00
as long as they're being reported. So that's the MHRA are having a few
41:06
incidents with their laboratories, but also the uk HSA. And if we go
41:10
and look at a Telegraph article that triggered me to go and look at more,
41:15
we can see that we've got a story here. Britain's outdated pandemic labs
41:19
need urgent investments, Spending Watchdog warns. So I went to the National Audit
41:25
Office to look at the report into the investigation into the uk HSA, and
41:30
this is into their health security campus. We've got the Have you got the
41:37
first page of the slide there? Yeah, sorry, we don't. We
41:40
don't know that one. I can see it on screen. Yeah, perfect,
41:45
thank you. This is the report that you can go to if you
41:49
want. Now, if we go to the next one, we can see
41:52
the facts because the facts are ridiculous. Now Port and Down has been out
41:57
of date for a very long time. So they bought brought a laboratory in
42:00
Harlow in Essex. It was an old GSK facility. They spent four hundred
42:07
million pounds on this and the total cost was meant to be five hundred and
42:12
thirty million pounds, but was revised to eight hundred and eighty eight million pounds
42:15
to update it to a satisfactory standard, although now they say it's going to
42:21
cost three point two billion because why they haven't done anything with it. This
42:27
has been sitting here, this site in Harlow has been sitting there completely empty,
42:32
despite the fact that Port and Down amongst other laboratories, and we're talking
42:38
about a level four containment which is high containment laboratory. We're talking that they
42:45
were needed. Port and Down was needed to be replaced as early as two
42:50
thousand and six. I mean, this is how far it goes back.
42:54
And we're talking about you know, dangerous pathogens like ebola and lasophy and the
43:00
facilities are Pot and Down are fifty five years old. But despite buying this
43:06
facility at Harlow, the UKHSA has suspended all of its main construction at Harlow.
43:14
So the whole project has finished and stopped, whilst we've got Port and
43:19
Down still functioning but way below standards. So if you just skip to the
43:23
next slide, we can see that they've actually stopped everything. Now the estimate
43:30
they're saying was completely wrong. They're replacing the facilities. They're saying is unnecessary.
43:36
It's crucial, It's absolutely crucial. But even if they started work now
43:40
and updated this Harlow lab that they've had empty for so long, it's not
43:45
going to be operational till twenty thirty six. And we've got a lot of
43:50
laboratories in this country, and a lot of high containment laboratories. So what
43:55
is just around the corner from your housing estate or your village or your town
44:00
and how safe is it? Obviously not safe, But the mainstream media aren't
44:05
reporting about this, are they. Okay, thank you, Debbie. No,
44:09
let's move on, Ben And well, we've been talking about the citities
44:14
over the last lot of weeks, but have we been looking about the cities
44:17
of tomorrow? Absolutely, the cities of tomorrow, and a lot of this
44:25
policy around the future cities, the connected cities that we're all going to live
44:30
in in the not too distant future. According to the NHS Board meeting,
44:35
it's right around the corner. A lot of the policy and a lot of
44:37
the structure, a lot of the technologies are being developed in this country,
44:40
it turns out, and I think that UK people really need to wake up
44:44
to this fact. Actually, that NHS board meeting was absolutely staggering. I
44:49
need to go and watch that. Thank you for sharing that, Debbie.
44:52
So I came across this report earlier this week. I thought it was brand
44:54
new actually, but it turns out it came out in June last year,
44:57
so it's about six seven eight months old now, are still hyper relevant and
45:01
it's a world economic form report. You can see it's called Data for the
45:06
City of Tomorrow. This is about building the interconnected network of city states that
45:12
are going to run across the mobile telecommunications grid that we talked about a little
45:16
bit earlier in the show. And this is a comprehensive manual potentially for municipal
45:22
governments and their partners to address what they call vexing and seemingly intractable problems of
45:28
urban governments. So to make better decisions, set targets, benchmark progress,
45:32
respond to crises in streamline processes, safe costs, access assessed policy impacts,
45:38
Communicate with cities and departners, improved services and infrastructure, Attract investment and talent.
45:44
This is a blueprint for connected cities. There's a whole bunch of policy
45:49
information in here which basically sets out a top down, step by step guide
45:53
to implementing a data enabled urban control system, a bit like what we just
45:59
heard about from the NHS board meeting, which would run on top of the
46:02
advanced telecommunications infrastructure being built by people like Huawei. Absolutely fascinating to see how
46:10
they've done this. Essentially, this is a handbook of playbook, like you
46:15
could pick this up anywhere in the world and as someone running a city and
46:21
use it as a way to roll out its digital control grid. It's being
46:24
developed, as I said, by the World Economic Forum, but also these
46:28
two organizations, and this is where it comes back to the UK. Right,
46:31
So you've got the Business of Cities and the Connected Places Catapult. I'll
46:37
go through each of these a little bit just to explain what they are.
46:40
So the Business of Cities where you can kind of get the get it from
46:45
the name, right, so like how do you create a commercial market out
46:47
of city states? They call themselves an urban Intelligence firm for global business.
46:53
They focus on urban investment, global bench marketing, leadership, strategy, entity
47:00
and narrative, whole place innovation. Where can just skip on, just run
47:05
through this one already. I'm not going to read all of these out you
47:07
can freeze that and have a look at it. Essentially, what they're doing
47:10
is working with politicians and businesses to build the infrastructure for connected cities. They've
47:17
been working internationally for fifteen years now. They work with more than two hundred
47:22
cities in fifty countries around the world from their home base in the city of
47:27
London. So what I mean when I say that this is being coordinated centrally
47:30
from the UK. The second organization is the Connected Place's Catapult is to a
47:37
very closely linked to each other. This is a UK government organization funded by
47:42
UK Government. They get nearly a billion pounds a year to run their operations.
47:46
This is part of what is called the Catapult Network. They provide what
47:50
they call impartial innovation as a service for public bodies, businesses and infrastructure providers
47:55
to catalyze step change improvements in the way people live, work and travel.
48:00
Doesn't that all sound very inoffensive but until you actually get into the detail of
48:07
it. So what is a connected place? Well, it's a smart city
48:14
essentially. So they talk about this relating to the application of today's emerging technologies
48:19
to the places we live, work and play. The integration of social physical
48:22
and digital worlds a bit like Huawei talked about in that six G film we
48:27
referenced earlier, and then building services government services essentially that operate on top of
48:31
that technology. So this is public private partnership. This is a blueprint for
48:37
rolling out global fascism. So why is that all interesting? Well, there's
48:40
a common denominator between those two organizations. It's this gentleman, Great Clark CB,
48:46
who is on the advisory board of the Connected Cities Catapult and he's a
48:51
co founder of the Business of Cities, who partnered with the World Economic Forum
48:54
on this report. He thinks that by twenty one hundred or twenty one hundred,
48:59
and actually know how to say that, actually, we'll have ten billion
49:02
people living in ten thousand cities. So that's the vision for the future of
49:07
humanity. We're going to be urban. It's going to be about ten billion
49:10
people internationally. And I don't know if that number is over egg slightly,
49:14
given that there is apparently a concerted effort towards depopulation. But he's saying here
49:19
that we're going to have ten billion people living in ten thousand cities, and
49:22
essentially that will be it will be hooked up to this grid. Now.
49:24
Greg Clark is an interesting character and I think we're going to be talking about
49:29
him quite a lot because he's also the chair of the advisory board of three
49:31
CI, which I talked about a few weeks ago, and their activities around
49:36
the UK with local authorities. I specifically referenced his involvement with Yorkshire and Humberside
49:44
where we've got two of the regional mayors here at an event with Greg Klark.
49:52
They're talking about local private collaboration, which is essentially bascism. If we
50:00
just click on we can see it's about bringing private sector money into local government
50:05
in order to build the new energy infrastructure and association technologies. So, as
50:10
I say he's on the advisory board for three CI, we're going to be
50:14
keeping a very close eye on this organization, and he sits on there with
50:17
a couple of other people. Of No, I won't go into all of
50:21
it because there's quite a lot to get into here, but the first one
50:23
that jumps out of me was Sidik Khan. Obviously he's involved with this and
50:29
the fact that it references Sidik Khan has not just been the Mayor of London
50:32
or the President of the co president of C forty Cities but also a representative
50:37
of something called M ten. Now M ten you cannot find any reference to
50:44
that online at all, apart from in a couple of places, so it
50:47
seems to be an informal collaboration and it's actually spoken about in an interview.
50:53
This is where I got the most information about it was this interview car out
51:00
with Andy Street CB, who's the mayor of the West Midlands. He essentially
51:07
talked about this is a joint interview with seleek Kahn. He talked about a
51:10
loose collaboration called the M ten that comes together about once a month, So
51:15
there's some informal collaboration there. We call it conspiring going on between the regional
51:24
mayors and the mayors are the big metro centers across the UK. That sounds
51:28
extremely unaccountable. What are these people doing when they get together at M ten
51:32
to talk about their plans for the future. I think there needs to be
51:37
investigated further and we'll come back to you on that point. And then the
51:39
final person I wanted to just reference because she seems to be popping up a
51:44
lot, is this woman Lucy Yu. We spoke about her a few weeks
51:47
back in relation to London Climate Action Week, you remember that, which is
51:52
coming up in June. And she is on the board or actively involved in
51:57
an extraordinary number of organizations relating to or working around this climate issue. So
52:05
she's involved with London Climate Action Week, She's on the advisory board of E
52:08
three G. She's working with Freud Communications. She is the chief executive of
52:16
the Center for Net Zero Policy, which is part of Octopus Group. And
52:21
we're going to talk about Octopus Group in a couple of weeks because they are
52:23
absolutely everywhere. And she is also an advisor to the Tony Blair Institute for
52:30
Global Chains, of course she is. So she and Cahn and Greg Clark
52:36
sit right at the nexus of a bunch of organizations who are very clearly collaborating,
52:42
conspiring with each other to implement a global digital control system running almost entirely
52:50
out of central London. I think UK people in particular is on us to
52:54
clean up this mess. Yes, So let's have a quick look at another
53:00
similar organization, or at least another similar collaboration, because they're hosting a conference
53:06
at the moment. This is Restitch. This is a conference that's being put
53:09
Together by a combination of three so called think tanks, Labor Together, Create
53:16
Streets and Onward. So Labor Together, we'll start with Create Streets, actually
53:22
because I think they were the founders of this. They say that they exist
53:25
to help solve the housing crisis and help neighborhoods, communities, landowners, councils
53:30
and developers create and stuart beautiful and popular, gentle density places where residents and
53:37
neighbors can love for generations. Our goal is to make it easier to coordinate
53:42
beautiful, sustainable, prosperous, economically and socially successful places for people, prosperity
53:49
and the planet. And of course climate is right at the heart of all
53:52
this. Onward, which is another one of the founding the two founders of
53:54
this, is a modernizing think tank, they say, whose mission is to
54:00
develop bold and practical ideas to boost economic opportunity and strengthen communities in all parts
54:06
of the United Kingdom. They say they're not affiliated to any party, but
54:09
believe in mainstream conservatism. And then, of course the new partner in this
54:14
is Labor Together, built by a group of MPs Rachel Reeves, Webs Streeting,
54:20
Steve Reid, Bridget Phillipson, Lucy Paul, Lisa Nandy and John Cruis
54:25
who fought to make labor electable again. And so they're saying that the old
54:30
certainties are gone these days. China has created a new center of gravity,
54:35
war has returned to Europe, the cost of globalized economy of sharpened in too
54:38
many places. Democracy is in retreat in this disordered world. Britain is a
54:44
drift and so they're going to come in and sort the problem out. So
54:49
let's have a look at the partners that are involved in this. We've got
54:52
Grovenor Lloyd's Barkley Group BT Debi's already mentioned Save our Wild Isles is there,
55:00
and in fact, if we look at a bit closer than who's behind them,
55:02
we've got the World Wildlife Fund for example. Now speaking at this event
55:07
is Tom Tugginhat, and of course we've seen him on this program because he
55:13
has been talking about the danger that MP's face and the democracy faces at the
55:16
moment from extremism. We've got to deal with it. And so the purpose
55:22
of this meeting apparently is because UK politics needs to learn how to disagree well,
55:28
or it risks descending into what they describe as toxic US style culture wars,
55:35
And so they issued a statement that says that is particularly true in an
55:39
election year. How do we restitch communities empowering local groups and councils and ensuring
55:45
that we're listening to those with direct experience of our crumining, crumbling towns and
55:50
villages. How do we restitch politics disagreeing well as a society and avoiding the
55:57
terrifying, the toxic mutual mistrust now one in America? How do we restitch
56:01
neighborhoods physically reweaving places scarred by urban Joe carriageways, or in human design and
56:08
humane design? And so what they're talking about is really this is about narrative
56:15
control and trying to bring people back together because the society that they have decided
56:21
divided, sorry, through the rhetoric that we've heard from the likes of Tom
56:24
Tuk and had in his colleagues over the last number of years. That needs
56:28
to be dealt with because it's resulted in distrust of politicians and a toxic discussion.
56:36
Who else is involved with this, well, Steve Reid, We've mentioned
56:39
him. He's shadows Secondary Estate for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and he's
56:43
saying that nature is in crisis. While we talk readily about the climate crisis
56:47
and the need for global action to tackle it, there's far less focus on
56:51
the nature crisis. That's the other side of the same coin. Other speakers
56:55
include Carlos Moreno, who's of course the urbanist and an initiator of the fifteen
57:00
minute city concept, Ben Page from IPSOS, Marina Mirza from Civic Future,
57:07
Oliver Cobard, Mayor of South Yorkshire, Lord Finkelstein who's calmnist in the Times,
57:14
Richel Wolf from Public First, and Chris Boardman, the former cyclist who
57:19
is a commissioner of Active Travel England. Now we were talking about this last
57:23
night, Ben, and you had a few comments to me in private about
57:28
some of these people. But I'll just be interested in your thoughts of this
57:31
type of initiative because it seems to be pretty much in the same mold as
57:36
what as you've been just describing. Yeah, this is it's all. It's
57:42
all interconnected, isn't it right. I mean, it's it's a uniparty basically.
57:46
You know, we have these TV programs, scripted TV programs where you
57:52
know, soon that comes out and makes a big speech in a big statement
57:55
and then starm that says something, and they have a bit of a go
57:58
at each other, and they has Parliament. But none of that actually means
58:01
anything. It doesn't matter who you vote for, because they're all in the
58:05
back room having a stitch up, a restitch up conversation with Carlos Marino,
58:09
who's literally the guy who invented the concept of the fifteen minutes city. It
58:15
doesn't matter what happens in mainstream politics. It doesn't matter what we see on
58:19
newsnight or on the nine o'clock news, if people even actually watch that stuff
58:22
anymore. These people are conspiring with each other. Yes, this is a
58:25
conspiracy to implement whatever it is that they want to happen next. As we've
58:31
just been talking about, it is absolutely grotesque. There are things that I
58:37
want to say about these people that I cannot say. I can't say them.
58:42
I get in trouble, and Colum, we get in trouble, got
58:45
it. I have to hold my tongue. This is utterly disgraceful. Yes,
58:49
so of course it makes a mockery of democracy, if we want to
58:55
use that word next to mockery of the election process. But these are the
58:59
type the questions we should be asking our MPs, and we shouldn't be forgetting
59:02
that they are MPs involved in this. So they are absolutely on board with
59:06
this conspiracy with absolutely without question. Yes, Yeah, I think you know,
59:14
there's there's been a lot of debate, not least on the column forums
59:17
actually about whether there's any point in getting in touch with your MPs or in
59:22
voting or anything like that. But I think that there is. I think
59:24
that these people need to feel the pressure actually, and you know, just
59:29
look through look through today's show. They're at least three or four things here,
59:35
the NHS board meeting, the stuff that I was talking about, Restitch.
59:38
None of that is acceptable, Not a single piece of it is acceptable.
59:43
And I think that we've got to let these people know that we won't
59:45
stand for anymore. It's it's you know, otherwise we'll just we'll get whether
59:50
we'll get what's coming to us. That is absolutely correct. Now, you
59:54
mentioned earlier in passing that this is World Women's Day. I think we've got
1:00:00
something to end on here on that topic. Yeah, International Women's Day IWD
1:00:08
oh, ladies, you fantastic. You need your own special day. I
1:00:12
can see Debbie screwing her face up over there. I think we're going to
1:00:15
get an air for on extra. But obviously because it's International Women's Day and
1:00:21
because it's twenty twenty four and nothing makes sense anymore, we're going to We're
1:00:24
going to want they call it again. We're going to celebrate Pips bunts MX.
1:00:32
I think I don't know say that miss Mix Pips Bunce she her they
1:00:37
who has been appointed as one of the UK's representatives to the UN Women Summit.
1:00:47
And Pips is if it wasn't already clear from the MX and the day
1:00:53
and the fact that it looks like a fella in a wig, is that's
1:00:58
what it is? That is in actually a woman. And I probably just
1:01:02
got myself in a bunch of trouble for saying that. Evan't I so goodness
1:01:06
me? What a world we live in? Anyway, Oh, you will
1:01:07
be getting into any trouble from anyone here, I don't think. Well,
1:01:12
that is indeed great example of the world that we live in. So on
1:01:15
that note, we will leave it for today. We will be back in
1:01:19
a few minutes if your a UK call number for some extra where undoubtedly will
1:01:22
be discussing this in a bit more detail. If you're not a uk CAL
1:01:27
member, please consider joining and join us for extra on a regular business but
1:01:31
otherwise, have a great weekend. We will see you on Monday. See
1:01:36
you then, Bye bye