Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News Podcast 13th September 2024

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UK Column News Podcast 13th September 2024 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon. It's Friday, the thirteenth of September twenty twenty four,
0:12
Speaker 1: just after one o'clock. Welcome to uk Call Them News.
0:14
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Mike Robinson joining me by video link.
0:17
Speaker 1: We have Mark Anderson from the United States and Debbie
0:19
Speaker 1: Evans from Cornwall and welcome both. Now we're going to
0:22
Speaker 1: get kicked off with events from Wednesday, with well the
0:27
Speaker 1: fantastic David Lammy and Lincoln heading off to Ukraine. So
0:32
Speaker 1: David Lammy and Blincoln demonstrating Western support, they say, for
0:37
Speaker 1: Ukraine's fight against Russian aggression. This shouldn't be making fun
0:41
Speaker 1: of it because it's actually quite serious. So these are
0:44
Speaker 1: apparently the first two international leaders in inverted commas to
0:49
Speaker 1: go and visit the new ministers following Zelenski's reshuffle. And
0:54
Speaker 1: part of this was Lammy announcing two hundred and forty
0:57
Speaker 1: two million pounds in funding to support Ukraine as they
1:00
Speaker 1: describe it, in the face of relentless Russian attacks and
1:04
Speaker 1: the deployment of four hundred and sixty four million dollars
1:07
Speaker 1: worth of fiscal support and military equipment deliveries. The big question, though,
1:12
Speaker 1: is why they would be announcing whether or not they
1:16
Speaker 1: would be announcing the approval of the use of long
1:20
Speaker 1: range weapons against the Russian state of the Russian territory,
1:24
Speaker 1: and now they didn't announce that at the time.
1:27
Speaker 2: But b.
1:28
Speaker 1: Lincoln was saying that the US had from day one
1:32
Speaker 1: been willing to change his policy as the situation on
1:36
Speaker 1: the battlefield changed, and saying that he's going to continue
1:40
Speaker 1: to do this. This is what David Lami had to say,
1:44
Speaker 1: very exciting stuff. The special relationship has been cherished on
1:47
Speaker 1: both sides of the Atlantic for more than eighty years.
1:49
Speaker 1: But together we are committed to super charging our alliance
1:52
Speaker 1: to bring security and growth. So they're going to bring
1:55
Speaker 1: security and growth by blowing up Europe, Eastern Europe. He said.
2:00
Speaker 1: The escalator here is Putin has escalated with the shipment
2:04
Speaker 1: of missiles from Iran. We see a new axis of Russia, Iran,
2:08
Speaker 1: and North Korea. So he's basically saying that because Iran
2:13
Speaker 1: has sent missiles to Russia, that therefore the UK and
2:18
Speaker 1: the US are likely to approve the use of long
2:21
Speaker 1: range missiles in order to attack Russian territory itself, not
2:25
Speaker 1: just for use in Ukraine as as they have been
2:27
Speaker 1: being used, but to attack Russian territory. He went on
2:31
Speaker 1: to say, China should not throw in its lot with
2:34
Speaker 1: this group of renegades. So these group of three countries
2:40
Speaker 1: is a group of renegades. Apparently well, China seems to
2:43
Speaker 1: have already thrown It's a lot. Thanks to Debbie for
2:46
Speaker 1: reminding me about this. This is the latest. This is
2:50
Speaker 1: the Ocean twenty twenty four exercise is taking place at
2:53
Speaker 1: the moment, It's taking place until the sixteenth of September,
2:57
Speaker 1: and Russia and China's navy war meeting in Peter the
3:02
Speaker 1: Great Bay to participate in this exercise. More than four
3:05
Speaker 1: hundred warships, submarines, support vessels, one hundred and twenty naval aircraft,
3:10
Speaker 1: seven thousand units of weaponry, military and special hardware. More
3:13
Speaker 1: than ninety thousand personnel participating in these drills. As I say,
3:19
Speaker 1: they're taking place in the Pacific, the Arctic, Mediterranean, Caspian
3:23
Speaker 1: and Baltic seas, and so China already involved in this.
3:28
Speaker 1: But coming back then to the events in Kiev, the
3:31
Speaker 1: response and the potential for sending long range weapons to
3:38
Speaker 1: Ukraine for use in Russian territory. Putin gave a statement
3:42
Speaker 1: about this yesterday saying we're not talking about authorizing or
3:46
Speaker 1: prohibiting the Kiev regime from striking Russian territory. It already
3:49
Speaker 1: does so with the help of drones and other means.
3:52
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the use of Western mid
3:53
Speaker 1: long range precision weapons, that's a completely different story. If
3:57
Speaker 1: this decision is made, it will mean nothing but the
4:00
Speaker 1: direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, European countries
4:04
Speaker 1: in the war in Ukraine. This is their direct participation,
4:07
Speaker 1: and this of course significantly changes the very essence, the
4:10
Speaker 1: very nature of the conflict. It will mean that NATO countries,
4:14
Speaker 1: the United States, and European countries are at war with Russia.
4:17
Speaker 1: And in this case, then bearing in mind the change
4:20
Speaker 1: in the very essence of this conflict, we will make
4:24
Speaker 1: appropriate decisions based on the threats that are opposed to.
4:27
Speaker 1: So there's no amb ambiguity about this. He's absolutely clear
4:32
Speaker 1: about what the potentials are here. But in the meantime,
4:36
Speaker 1: what's the Western media pumping out put In threatens war
4:39
Speaker 1: as Western allies near dial on missile strikes in Russia,
4:42
Speaker 1: So we are threat His key point here. Puttin's key
4:46
Speaker 1: point is that these weapons cannot be used except with
4:51
Speaker 1: the use of Western personnel, and it's Western personnel that
4:54
Speaker 1: we've been programming the weapons, and therefore it's direct intervention,
5:00
Speaker 1: very significant development. And Blincoln then tweeting this side during
5:05
Speaker 1: my meetings with President Dudah, President Prime Minister Tusk, and
5:09
Speaker 1: Foreign Minister Sikorsky, we again made clear that the US
5:12
Speaker 1: and Poland stand united as NATO allies in support of
5:15
Speaker 1: Ukraine in the face of Russia's aggression. Our relationship with
5:19
Speaker 1: Poland has never been stronger. So Blincoln had, after visiting Kiev,
5:23
Speaker 1: headed off to Poland.
5:25
Speaker 3: Well.
5:25
Speaker 1: This garnered a response from one Polish member of the
5:29
Speaker 1: European Parliament.
5:32
Speaker 4: Blincoln, go home, Go home as soon as possible, get lost,
5:38
Speaker 4: get lost. We don't want you here. We don't want.
5:46
Speaker 5: We don't want Polish.
5:49
Speaker 2: People paying in dying for your words. Thank you very much.
5:58
Speaker 1: That's a pretty clear message. The question then, is is
6:01
Speaker 1: there any opposition to what's going on in the UK,
6:05
Speaker 1: And of course the answer is no. So this is
6:08
Speaker 1: the former Defense Secretary Grant Shaps tweeting out, when the
6:13
Speaker 1: President of the United States and kir Stormer meet today,
6:16
Speaker 1: they must give Ukraine the green light use storm Shadow missiles.
6:19
Speaker 1: Inside Russia. As I argued in the Times, it's hypocritical
6:23
Speaker 1: to support Ukraine but restricted self defense. We must back
6:27
Speaker 1: Ukraine fully and they're fight for freedom. No time to hesitate.
6:31
Speaker 1: So this was the article in the Times from last Sunday.
6:33
Speaker 1: Let Ukraine strike Russia with our storm Shadow missiles. So
6:36
Speaker 1: just to reinforce this again, Ukraine cannot strike Russia with
6:41
Speaker 1: our storm Shadow missile missiles. Western personnel would need to
6:45
Speaker 1: be handling this not only in terms of providing the
6:48
Speaker 1: targeting and the intelligence for it, but the programming of
6:51
Speaker 1: the tracks themselves, so this would be direct intervention. Then
6:57
Speaker 1: in the meantime, Sikorski, who we've just mentioned, who's the
7:01
Speaker 1: foreign minister in Warsaw, published this or at least was
7:05
Speaker 1: reported in the Telegram in an interview with the Financial Times,
7:08
Speaker 1: saying Poland has a duty to shoot down Russian missiles
7:11
Speaker 1: over Ukraine. Now, this is the situation that Poland has
7:15
Speaker 1: been discussing over the last few weeks, whether it would
7:18
Speaker 1: whether or not it would fire anti missile missiles from
7:24
Speaker 1: the Polish side of the border into Ukrainian airspace in
7:26
Speaker 1: order to shoot down Russian missiles. But unfortunately mister Sikorski
7:32
Speaker 1: was caught out as many other Western leaders have been,
7:35
Speaker 1: by Volva and Lexus a couple of days ago, and
7:40
Speaker 1: he said this about the question of whether missiles should
7:44
Speaker 1: be shot from the Polish side of the border. If
7:49
Speaker 1: we will lose some control, could you help us?
7:52
Speaker 3: And as I know Macron, if Macron.
7:55
Speaker 6: Agreed, if the UK agreed, could you join the team.
8:02
Speaker 4: My Prime minister would be very reluctant to do it.
8:05
Speaker 4: You know, we are discussing at the moment the shooting
8:10
Speaker 4: down of Russian cruise missiles over your air space from
8:17
Speaker 4: our airspace, you know, without entering into your territory, and
8:24
Speaker 4: even that at this stage is very, very controversial, and
8:28
Speaker 4: there is no agreement for that because it would be
8:31
Speaker 4: joining the war.
8:36
Speaker 1: So, first of all, an acknowledgment that Prutin is right,
8:39
Speaker 1: that would be joining the war. And that's not even
8:42
Speaker 1: talking about long range weapons. But the other point is
8:45
Speaker 1: here there seems to be a bit of a difference
8:47
Speaker 1: in the narrative being presented by this man whenever he's
8:50
Speaker 1: speaking to Western media and whenever he thinks he's speaking
8:54
Speaker 1: to somebody who's within the Ukrainian regime. It's unfortunately get
9:00
Speaker 1: caught out there and then just finally on this sense.
9:03
Speaker 1: Of course, one of the big discussion points is election
9:09
Speaker 1: interferenced by Russia. The Russian and foreign intelligence agencies are
9:16
Speaker 1: claiming that the West and particularly the United States are
9:21
Speaker 1: going to be interfering in the upcoming Georgian elections that
9:25
Speaker 1: are taking place at the end of October, and they're
9:29
Speaker 1: basically suggesting that there's going to be quite a lot
9:32
Speaker 1: of attempt to bring people out onto the streets to
9:36
Speaker 1: overthrow the current Georgian government, which of course takes a
9:40
Speaker 1: relatively pro Russian position. So that's the situation at the moment.
9:45
Speaker 1: It's very dangerous, particularly if we're looking at ramping up
9:49
Speaker 1: the situation with long range weapons into Russian territory itself.
9:54
Speaker 1: But Mark, let me welcome you to the program and
9:57
Speaker 1: bring us up to date with what's been going on
9:59
Speaker 1: with the election campaigning on the recent debates.
10:06
Speaker 7: Mike, I'll say at the onset here that what's going
10:08
Speaker 7: on in Georgia is strikingly reminiscent of what happened in
10:12
Speaker 7: Ukraine ten years ago when the US interfered and overthrew
10:17
Speaker 7: a pro Russian leader in Ukraine itself. Something we can
10:20
Speaker 7: maybe expand on an extra anyway. September tenth, at the
10:24
Speaker 7: National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ABC News slash Public
10:29
Speaker 7: Television Trump Harris debate took place. This is a picture
10:34
Speaker 7: kind of reminiscent and emblematic of how Harris responded to
10:39
Speaker 7: Trump's very straightforward, somewhat more simplistic style of speaking. She
10:45
Speaker 7: winced and smiled and smirked at him many many times.
10:49
Speaker 7: It was kind of entertaining in his own way. But
10:51
Speaker 7: moving on from there, these are some of the key
10:53
Speaker 7: talking points, though not all of them. Free wheeling Trump,
10:57
Speaker 7: who's used to wide open rallies and less regular that
11:00
Speaker 7: the venues, was not really in his element at this thing.
11:03
Speaker 7: It had tight speaking timeframes, no audience. He loves an audience,
11:08
Speaker 7: and facing inherent media bias. Former Senator Kamala Harris, of course,
11:13
Speaker 7: she's used to speaking in regimented ways on the Senate floor,
11:17
Speaker 7: and as a former age of California, she explained her
11:21
Speaker 7: views somewhat more clearly than Trump. She managed to get
11:24
Speaker 7: under his skin put him on the defensive. Therefore, he
11:27
Speaker 7: went off into tangents and got a little overly repetitive
11:31
Speaker 7: while commenting on certain topics he perhaps should have avoided.
11:35
Speaker 7: Trump strongly stressed Kamala's position on immigration carrying over as
11:40
Speaker 7: Biden's carrying over as Biden's vice president, and saying that
11:45
Speaker 7: that would open up the US to dangerous criminal elements
11:47
Speaker 7: that apparently are gaining strength. So he's saying a Kamala
11:51
Speaker 7: Harris presidency would be Biden on steroids in terms of
11:54
Speaker 7: an open border. And he also warned if I didn't
11:57
Speaker 7: happen to put this in the talking points, he warned
12:01
Speaker 7: that under Kamala Harris Mike, that the war in Ukraine
12:06
Speaker 7: would not be diffused, that it would get worse, and
12:10
Speaker 7: that the situation with the Israelis and Gaza would get worse.
12:14
Speaker 7: And he said a Trump presidency would have a lot
12:16
Speaker 7: of diplomacy to notch down those conflicts and actually end
12:22
Speaker 7: the conflicts, he claimed. So some interesting things there, and
12:26
Speaker 7: we'll move on. An American Free Press headline your town next,
12:30
Speaker 7: What would you do if twenty thousand poverty stricken immigrants
12:33
Speaker 7: were dumped in your backyard? Don't laugh? That maybe on
12:36
Speaker 7: the way. So this editorial is saying that under a
12:39
Speaker 7: Harris presidency we would have even more federal resettlement programs
12:45
Speaker 7: and a couple of talking points. DC insiders, including ultraliberal
12:50
Speaker 7: dem politicians, Allied media, etc. Have been making a mockery
12:54
Speaker 7: of genuine considering genuine citizen concerns about mass illegal immigration,
12:59
Speaker 7: free trade season, etc. In addition, towns like Springfield, Ohio,
13:04
Speaker 7: already decimated by trade deals like NAFTA, whose citizens are
13:08
Speaker 7: the new migrants, very ironic, are then burdened with federal
13:13
Speaker 7: resettlement programs of foreigners. In this case, twenty thousand Haitians
13:17
Speaker 7: have been resettled in and around the former industrial powerhouse
13:21
Speaker 7: of Springfield, Ohio, and very interesting there. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris
13:27
Speaker 7: of course really attacked Trump, saying he's an insurrectionist, he's
13:31
Speaker 7: a felon, and that he tried to overturn the election. Ironically,
13:37
Speaker 7: we're talking about Georgia elections overseas and Georgia elections in
13:40
Speaker 7: the United States. In the swing state of Georgia, one
13:43
Speaker 7: day before the debate, the irrepressible Garland Favrido of Voterga
13:49
Speaker 7: voterga dot org he gave a press conference the truth
13:52
Speaker 7: about Georgia's state election board. The powers that be in
13:56
Speaker 7: the state of Georgia are trying to prevent voter goa
13:59
Speaker 7: from ex composing the fact that the twenty twenty election
14:02
Speaker 7: in that swing state was indeed stolen and that Trump
14:06
Speaker 7: really did win that state, And so kind of ironic
14:11
Speaker 7: juxtaposition there where these programs are being suppressed by the media,
14:16
Speaker 7: and yet if they were more widely known, like we're
14:19
Speaker 7: trying to do right now, then it would be very
14:21
Speaker 7: obvious that Kamala Harris was making very empty allegations about Trump,
14:26
Speaker 7: saying that he's an election thief and things like that.
14:30
Speaker 7: So much more could be talked about, But the debate,
14:36
Speaker 7: I think showed that Trump, while he had a more
14:40
Speaker 7: forceful way of speaking, tended to be again more repetitive.
14:43
Speaker 7: He tended to be a little more simplistic. He got
14:46
Speaker 7: off on these tangents. Some people believe that it weakened
14:50
Speaker 7: his position for the election, and that he may have
14:53
Speaker 7: lost swing voters, undecided voters, and that after all, Mike
14:57
Speaker 7: was supposed to be the target audience, the Trump faithful,
15:01
Speaker 7: but the undecided voters and a lot of Republicans, and
15:05
Speaker 7: even including RFK Junior, who's a new Trump ally, you
15:09
Speaker 7: might say, all of them kind of believe more or
15:13
Speaker 7: less that Trump lost the debate and failed to address
15:16
Speaker 7: those swing voters, those undecided voters. But the Trump campaign
15:21
Speaker 7: is bouncing back. They're doing lots of new rallies, things
15:24
Speaker 7: of that nature, Mike, and so it's going to be
15:26
Speaker 7: an interesting race. Although it's rather regrettable, and I went
15:30
Speaker 7: to that conference a little over a year ago for
15:33
Speaker 7: UKC in Austin, Texas. It's rather regrettable that we still
15:37
Speaker 7: have this duopoly system and that all we have to
15:40
Speaker 7: choose from is President Trump and Kamala Harris. It's ballot
15:46
Speaker 7: access laws keep alternative candidates off the ballot. You have
15:50
Speaker 7: both parties that keep alternative candidates out of the debates,
15:53
Speaker 7: including RFK Junior. Even a Kennedy couldn't qualify to be
15:56
Speaker 7: on the debates. So it's a really rigged system here, Mike.
16:00
Speaker 7: But nevertheless, that's what went down. Those are the main
16:04
Speaker 7: talking points, and perhaps next week there'll be a little
16:07
Speaker 7: more of the aftermath of that debate.
16:09
Speaker 1: So back to you, I do apologize I've muted there.
16:16
Speaker 1: It's the same here, exactly the same situation with you know,
16:21
Speaker 1: people being limited from taking part in hustings and getting
16:25
Speaker 1: time on TV and so on. Basically the BBC's policy is,
16:30
Speaker 1: for example, that the amount of time that you get,
16:34
Speaker 1: the amount of airtime that you get as a candidate,
16:36
Speaker 1: is directly proportional to the popularity of the party that
16:39
Speaker 1: you are a part of. So if you're an Independent,
16:41
Speaker 1: you get almost zero. By almost zero, I mean a
16:44
Speaker 1: matter of a few seconds. But if you're a Tory
16:48
Speaker 1: or a Liver Party candidate, then of course you're getting
16:51
Speaker 1: all the time. So there is no prospect of any
16:55
Speaker 1: kind of you know, serious opportunity to overturn the in
17:01
Speaker 1: the country. So thanks for that, Mark. Now, Debbie, let's
17:05
Speaker 1: come over to you then and bring us up. Well,
17:09
Speaker 1: we're introducing the youngest peer, the youngest member of the
17:13
Speaker 1: House of Lords. Who is she?
17:17
Speaker 5: Well, yes, good afternoon everybody, And that's a very good question.
17:20
Speaker 5: And this was a rabbit hole that took me to
17:22
Speaker 5: a warren actually, So let's look at the London Economic
17:26
Speaker 5: which announced that Boris Johnson is going into business with
17:30
Speaker 5: Steve Bannon, Charlotte Owen and a Uranian entrepreneur. This came
17:34
Speaker 5: from an original report from I do apologize if I
17:37
Speaker 5: don't pronounce her name correctly. Carol Cadwaladra, who's a journalist
17:42
Speaker 5: for the Observer who noticed this, and the article goes
17:45
Speaker 5: on to say that the right Honorable Alexander Boris Dafuffel
17:51
Speaker 5: Johnson was added as a director and co chairman of
17:54
Speaker 5: the energy transition company Better Earth, which we'll work with
17:58
Speaker 5: national government and it's based in Seven Oaks. Now this
18:01
Speaker 5: is interesting because this was added to company's house on
18:05
Speaker 5: the first of May twenty twenty four, so just keep
18:08
Speaker 5: that date in mind. I'm not going to go into
18:11
Speaker 5: detail on Better Earth. I'm just going to show you
18:13
Speaker 5: their website. They're very much into Sola energy. I'm sure
18:17
Speaker 5: we'll be doing more news is on this in the future.
18:20
Speaker 5: But this isn't the first time that Boris has been
18:23
Speaker 5: interested in Better Earth. And I just want to take
18:25
Speaker 5: you back to an advice letter of a business appointment
18:28
Speaker 5: that was announced UK Gov which said that Boris should
18:33
Speaker 5: not be involved in anything to do with Better Earth
18:37
Speaker 5: for two years after his term as Prime Minister or
18:41
Speaker 5: as a minister, and he shouldn't give advice on matters
18:44
Speaker 5: that don't conflict. Well, according to my records company's house,
18:48
Speaker 5: that was the first of May. He was appointed. He
18:50
Speaker 5: didn't resign till as Prime Minister and till June. I
18:55
Speaker 5: think it was twenty twenty two, so it's not quite
18:57
Speaker 5: two years there, so a little bit of a discrepancy.
19:00
Speaker 5: But anyway, who's Charlotte Owen, You might ask yourselves. Well,
19:04
Speaker 5: Charlotte Owen is indeed now a peer. She's the youngest
19:08
Speaker 5: life peer that Boris has recommended. She was a senior
19:13
Speaker 5: parliamentary assistant, a spad in the censure. She's only been
19:17
Speaker 5: in Parliament five years and eight months, I think it is,
19:20
Speaker 5: And people are absolutely staggered at the way that this
19:24
Speaker 5: young lady has been elevated. Her mum lives in Orderly
19:27
Speaker 5: Edge in Cheshire, which is a very expensive part of Cheshire,
19:31
Speaker 5: I believe, and her dad sadly died two years ago,
19:34
Speaker 5: age ninety one. The Spectator perhaps is speculating with this
19:40
Speaker 5: title Boris's babes to join the lords, because there is
19:43
Speaker 5: and has been a lot of talk about the remarkable
19:47
Speaker 5: resemblance between our newest baroness and the Prime Minister. So
19:53
Speaker 5: let's go to the lords themselves and we'll look at
19:55
Speaker 5: Baroness Owen of Alderly Edge and what is she interested
20:00
Speaker 5: and who is she? So not much information, but she's
20:03
Speaker 5: a conservative she's a member of the pre Term Committee.
20:07
Speaker 5: Her policy interests her energy and environment. Well, that will
20:10
Speaker 5: come in handy since she's also now on the board
20:13
Speaker 5: of Better Earth. She's interested in online harms. I'm sure
20:16
Speaker 5: Mike's ears will prick up on that tech developmental AI,
20:22
Speaker 5: women's health, young people. She's concerned about the northwest of
20:25
Speaker 5: the UK, perhaps because her mum lives there, and globally
20:28
Speaker 5: like me, she's concerned about India and the USA. But
20:33
Speaker 5: what experience does she have? Well, according to the Lords, none,
20:38
Speaker 5: so you can see why so many have been surprised
20:41
Speaker 5: at her sudden elevation. But hey, you know what, don't
20:44
Speaker 5: take my word for it. Let's have a listen to
20:47
Speaker 5: Baroness Charlotte being interviewed by Channel four.
20:52
Speaker 8: I mean, why do you think that Boris Johnson appointed
20:55
Speaker 8: you to the Lords? What were you told at the time?
20:58
Speaker 6: You simply get an email through with your nomination form.
21:04
Speaker 8: So were you surprised when you got it through?
21:05
Speaker 3: Then?
21:06
Speaker 6: I think everybody's surprised, aren't they.
21:08
Speaker 8: But it was as much a surprise to you as
21:10
Speaker 8: to everybody else.
21:12
Speaker 6: Of course, nobody really expects such a thing. It's an honor.
21:18
Speaker 8: I mean, there was an array of lurid claims about
21:22
Speaker 8: you online, and a lot of people believed at least
21:25
Speaker 8: some of it. We've been talking about digital fabrication of
21:28
Speaker 8: women's images against their will. I mean just as damaging,
21:33
Speaker 8: clearly is the online fabrication of facts, you know, misinformation
21:37
Speaker 8: as we might call it. Do you worry that people
21:40
Speaker 8: don't know what to believe about you? For example?
21:43
Speaker 6: Falsehoods and the creation of falsehoods online is always wrong.
21:48
Speaker 6: And that's why I want to be an advocate. I
21:50
Speaker 6: want to help Pat push this law through to prevent
21:54
Speaker 6: more women becoming victims of this technology. And I believe
21:58
Speaker 6: that misinformation and disinformation and deep fakes as a part
22:03
Speaker 6: of this will form a huge topic of conversation for
22:08
Speaker 6: the next decade.
22:12
Speaker 5: So there you have our youngest life peer. She was
22:17
Speaker 5: twenty nine when she was when she gained her seat
22:21
Speaker 5: in the Lord. She's thirty one now. But she's got
22:25
Speaker 5: some areas of interest actually that I share too. So
22:28
Speaker 5: when I went to look at what debates she'd taken
22:30
Speaker 5: part in, here we've got one on the NHS app
22:34
Speaker 5: medical records. And this is the rabbit hole that I
22:37
Speaker 5: was explaining that led me to a Rabbit Warren and
22:41
Speaker 5: second in our second segment you'll see why. And she's
22:44
Speaker 5: also been talking about tackling spiking, and I just want
22:47
Speaker 5: to remind everybody that these are two areas that I've
22:50
Speaker 5: been looking at intently. And on the UK Column website
22:54
Speaker 5: you will see my hypothesis on the word spiked because
22:58
Speaker 5: it's also coming up for more legislation. It was talked
23:02
Speaker 5: about in the king speech. And also, as you know,
23:05
Speaker 5: we've been talking a lot about the NHS app. But
23:09
Speaker 5: you know what this one is, especially for Ben my
23:12
Speaker 5: next slide, because if you want to know more about
23:15
Speaker 5: our newest life peer, go no further than Tortoise Media,
23:19
Speaker 5: who of course, as you know Ben has been talking about,
23:23
Speaker 5: I mean in huge details, so perhaps more to look
23:27
Speaker 5: out for with the Baroness Owen of Alderly Edge.
23:33
Speaker 1: Thank you, Debbie. Well, we'll have more on this immediately
23:37
Speaker 1: after the ad breaks. So let's just do that now
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Speaker 1: there's quite a bit of material there to have a
24:17
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24:21
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24:23
Speaker 1: around the place, please do. Debbie, very briefly, your blog.
24:29
Speaker 5: Yes, my blog. Well, actually, thank you to all of
24:32
Speaker 5: our wonderful members, because a lot of my blook this
24:34
Speaker 5: week is your comments and your views. But we're also
24:38
Speaker 5: going to be looking at the autumn budget and the DAZI.
24:42
Speaker 1: Report plus Okay, okay, thank you Debbie. A reminder of
24:47
Speaker 1: the UK Column on location at Bristol nineteenth of October
24:50
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Lots of great speakers there. All the
24:54
Speaker 1: UK Column people will be there as well. Bob Moran
24:58
Speaker 1: will be there and a whole bunch of other people,
25:00
Speaker 1: so please do join us for that if you possibly can.
25:02
Speaker 1: Take it to available at the UK Column Shop, and
25:06
Speaker 1: Brian and I will be speaking at the Heritage Party
25:08
Speaker 1: conference on the twentieth of September. Details at Heritageparty dot org.
25:14
Speaker 1: And final reminder of rally for Peace at Glasgow if
25:17
Speaker 1: you're in the Glasgow Edinburgh area head along to that
25:20
Speaker 1: tomorrow that is one pm in the Commonwealth Monument in
25:24
Speaker 1: Glasgow Green a bunch of great speakers at that as well.
25:27
Speaker 1: If you can possibly support them, that would be fantastic. So, Debbie,
25:32
Speaker 1: a second ago you mentioned the Darzi Report. What have
25:36
Speaker 1: you got?
25:38
Speaker 5: I did, indeed, and this is where things that everything
25:42
Speaker 5: joins up, doesn't it. So let's look at the Independent
25:45
Speaker 5: who ran this article about Tory austerity and shakeups have
25:49
Speaker 5: left NHS in critical condition. Well, the Darzi Report Lord Darcy,
25:53
Speaker 5: of course, who is a labor a labor minister under
25:56
Speaker 5: Gordon Brown. He's Independent now he's a this report that
26:01
Speaker 5: he was commissioned to do. So what does it say, Well,
26:04
Speaker 5: we've had no progress in early cancer diagnosis. In fact,
26:07
Speaker 5: our cancer survival rates are the lowest in Europe. Can
26:11
Speaker 5: I just also highlight that this is an NHS review,
26:14
Speaker 5: not a social care review, and that's very very different,
26:18
Speaker 5: and really all of things that he said, that hospitals
26:21
Speaker 5: are getting too much money, the community's not getting enough.
26:24
Speaker 5: It's all the tories for Basically, I believe this report,
26:28
Speaker 5: which has been compiled in eight weeks, believe it or
26:32
Speaker 5: not eight weeks, is basically a green light to Kiir
26:35
Speaker 5: Starmer to digitize and change and rebuild the whole of
26:40
Speaker 5: the NHS. So Digital Health actually did report that they
26:45
Speaker 5: it seems to me as though they've given the green
26:47
Speaker 5: light to Kiir Starmer because according to the Lord Darzi report,
26:51
Speaker 5: this has given him every reason to digitize the NHS
26:56
Speaker 5: a digital NHS. Well, you can find the independent report
27:00
Speaker 5: on the website, but I would like to say that
27:04
Speaker 5: the independent report of the front page, which you'll see
27:07
Speaker 5: on the next slide, is over six hundred pages long.
27:12
Speaker 5: So I will be reporting more on this in the future.
27:15
Speaker 5: But they're talking about turbocharging the timeframe for digitization. They
27:21
Speaker 5: say the NHS is in serious trouble and we can't
27:23
Speaker 5: rely on it. Well, we knew that already, didn't we
27:26
Speaker 5: The conclusion basically was that the NHS's health has deteriorated,
27:32
Speaker 5: the nation's help has deteriorated. Well, I wonder why the
27:35
Speaker 5: nation's health has deteriorated. I can point them in a
27:38
Speaker 5: few directions. But despite the challenges, the NHS's vital signs
27:44
Speaker 5: remained strong. Well, I see that as a contradiction in
27:47
Speaker 5: terms personally, and we know that Tony Blair has been
27:51
Speaker 5: very keen on preparing the NHS for an AI era.
27:54
Speaker 5: We've done a lot of work on this before. If
27:57
Speaker 5: you want to go back and have a look at
27:58
Speaker 5: the news on the twenty third of aug twenty twenty four,
28:01
Speaker 5: we were talking about it, and thanks to Baronessa Charlotte Owen,
28:06
Speaker 5: I found this debate that took place on December nineteenth,
28:10
Speaker 5: twenty twenty three, where Lord Allan Hallam was asking the
28:15
Speaker 5: government what measures were really being put into place to
28:18
Speaker 5: mitigate the risk of people sharing their medical data to
28:24
Speaker 5: third parties through the NHS app. Now, this is a
28:28
Speaker 5: very interesting discussion. On the next slide, you'll see that
28:32
Speaker 5: Lord Markham and I just want to tell you that
28:33
Speaker 5: Lord Markham he was made a Life Peer in twenty
28:37
Speaker 5: twenty two. He's the Parliamentary Undersecretary for Social Care. He
28:41
Speaker 5: was formerly an unpaid government junior. He set up the
28:45
Speaker 5: charity project little Boat and delivered ppe and other essential
28:48
Speaker 5: equipment no revolving doors there. And he also co founded
28:53
Speaker 5: Signpost which is spelled CIGN by the way, Cignpost Diagnostics,
28:59
Speaker 5: and he works with the elite in express PCR testing,
29:02
Speaker 5: So big revolving door then, but he is trying to
29:06
Speaker 5: reassure everyone that not to worry because we have to
29:09
Speaker 5: use a log in detail and everything's really secure. So
29:14
Speaker 5: let's jump on then to the next slide from Lord
29:17
Speaker 5: Turnberg who highlights the need to use data for medical
29:20
Speaker 5: research or yes, how important it is to use a
29:24
Speaker 5: medical research data and Lord Turnberg, who report who's replying
29:27
Speaker 5: for the government, says, yes, we must need we must
29:30
Speaker 5: have balance. But then Baroness Brinton, she said, well what
29:35
Speaker 5: about what about happens when such as in financial data
29:39
Speaker 5: when it was sold to subsidiaries and contractors and third parties.
29:43
Speaker 5: Is this going to be the same as our health data?
29:47
Speaker 5: And she's also got concerns regarding India and the USA,
29:52
Speaker 5: but Lord Markham again reassured her that don't worry because
29:55
Speaker 5: the GPS and HS and hospital they're the data controllers
29:59
Speaker 5: and it will remain with them. Well, my argument is
30:01
Speaker 5: is that we know that the NHS is basically a
30:04
Speaker 5: public private partnership, so your data is going to who
30:07
Speaker 5: to which companies? I don't know. So then further on,
30:11
Speaker 5: Baroness Macintosh was asking, well, what are we doing about
30:15
Speaker 5: sharing data for clinical trials with Europe? And Lord Markham
30:19
Speaker 5: was very clean and keen to remind her that this
30:21
Speaker 5: was very important for the life sciences agenda and the
30:25
Speaker 5: UK data is the envy of the world. I bet
30:28
Speaker 5: it is, and that ninety percent of UK data is
30:31
Speaker 5: being digitized, whereas only in Germany one percent. And then
30:34
Speaker 5: the debate goes on to Baroness Meren who was talking
30:38
Speaker 5: at last about safety, and she was talking about domestic
30:42
Speaker 5: abuse and what happens if this sensitive information that's sitting
30:46
Speaker 5: on your phone or your device could be accessed by
30:49
Speaker 5: partners or spouses or anybody in association with family courts
30:53
Speaker 5: for example. And Lord Markham came up with very strange
30:56
Speaker 5: response and said, well, don't worry, it's all very safe
31:00
Speaker 5: because even if you hold somebody else's head into it,
31:03
Speaker 5: or if somebody's eyes are closed, or if someone's asleep,
31:06
Speaker 5: you can't get in to the app. But he went
31:10
Speaker 5: on to say that safeguards are in place and they
31:13
Speaker 5: were looking at it. But then I went to look
31:15
Speaker 5: at refuge because I just took a little break in
31:18
Speaker 5: the debate because refuge To Charity have issued a letter
31:22
Speaker 5: to the government urging survivors of domestic abuse to contact
31:26
Speaker 5: their GP services immediately to request that their online medical
31:31
Speaker 5: sharing be switched off. They have deep concerns that perpetrators abuse,
31:36
Speaker 5: perpetrators will abuse and utilize the records for abuse purposes.
31:42
Speaker 5: They also urged that they should delete the NHS app
31:45
Speaker 5: until there's better safeguarding. And we would say, I would
31:49
Speaker 5: say to all members actually, if you're a member, tuning
31:53
Speaker 5: for extra because we'll be talking a bit more about this,
31:55
Speaker 5: because it seems that Hertfordshire Partnership don't appear to have
31:59
Speaker 5: received the memo because they've actually launched their own app
32:03
Speaker 5: called we Protect for Victims of Domestic Abuse. But quite
32:06
Speaker 5: clearly this opens up a huge debate on how sensitive
32:11
Speaker 5: is your data and if you're elderly for example and carers,
32:15
Speaker 5: who gets access to your medical records? So back to
32:18
Speaker 5: the Lords and we'll go and see Baroness Bullos time,
32:21
Speaker 5: who's making the point of if you have private medicine,
32:25
Speaker 5: do your private medical records get integrated into this whole
32:30
Speaker 5: digitization of medical records? Because what if you need a
32:33
Speaker 5: and e care. What if you've been abroad for surgery perhaps,
32:38
Speaker 5: What if you've had private medical care and that's not
32:41
Speaker 5: in your records? How does that equate if you need
32:43
Speaker 5: accident in emergency which is an NHS service. And Lord
32:47
Speaker 5: Markham replied to reassure her that the federated, the NHS
32:51
Speaker 5: federated data platform has got loads of data from loads
32:54
Speaker 5: of places and don't worry. Basically nothing to see here.
32:58
Speaker 5: But he also said that but you know you own
33:01
Speaker 5: your data, you own your paperwork. Well I don't think
33:03
Speaker 5: you do actually, because you can get copies of your
33:05
Speaker 5: medical records. But ultimately the original stay with the NHS.
33:10
Speaker 5: And finally coming full circle two back to baroness Owen
33:15
Speaker 5: of Olderly Edge, which is where all of this started
33:17
Speaker 5: in the first place, and she asked in tech of
33:21
Speaker 5: the future, because she's very interested in the future and
33:23
Speaker 5: she's very into technology. Well, she didn't have long to
33:28
Speaker 5: wait to have an answer to her question because the
33:31
Speaker 5: UK authority have just announced that the NHS app will
33:36
Speaker 5: include a digital health check. So here we go. This
33:40
Speaker 5: is the first stage. This is the key to the door.
33:42
Speaker 5: The NHS app is not convenience, it is control and
33:47
Speaker 5: that they say that one point two million have been
33:51
Speaker 5: accessing their medical records every day. And just to finish
33:55
Speaker 5: this segment, I want to thank mixed Master Mirage yet
33:59
Speaker 5: again who brought up this wonderful graphic. Delete the NHS app.
34:03
Speaker 5: It's your choice. If you don't trust the NHS app,
34:07
Speaker 5: if you feel that your data is being shared with
34:09
Speaker 5: people that you don't know, you might choose to delete it. However,
34:12
Speaker 5: when I went to show a little bit of video
34:15
Speaker 5: that Sam kindly did for UK column on how to
34:18
Speaker 5: delete the video, it's only eighteen seconds long. Apparently it
34:22
Speaker 5: was warned on X for adult content. So I'll leave
34:26
Speaker 5: that with you. So scrap the app app trap. It's
34:30
Speaker 5: your choice, your decision.
34:33
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, Debbie, thank you very much for that.
34:35
Speaker 1: And of course we do need to make the point
34:37
Speaker 1: that this issue of sharing data with international partners and
34:41
Speaker 1: in vert commas was something that was going to be
34:44
Speaker 1: particularly enabled by legislation that the Tory Party was pushing
34:48
Speaker 1: through that they failed to get through before the general
34:50
Speaker 1: election was.
34:53
Speaker 5: Called.
34:54
Speaker 1: But don't worry, because the Starmar regime is busy bringing
34:59
Speaker 1: that legislation forward again. It's got a new title not
35:03
Speaker 1: so different from the last one, but it's basically going
35:05
Speaker 1: to have the same content, possibly even more enabling than
35:10
Speaker 1: the Tories had intended. That seems to be the way
35:12
Speaker 1: that the Starmer regime is going. Okay, let's move on
35:16
Speaker 1: then to the media and particularly digital news, and this
35:22
Speaker 1: is the new Routerers Institute Digital News Report.
35:25
Speaker 7: Now.
35:25
Speaker 1: This has been created by the Royers Institute in collaboration
35:29
Speaker 1: with the University of Oxford, and I just want to
35:33
Speaker 1: go through some of the points that they make here,
35:35
Speaker 1: because most of it is a bit sort of whiny.
35:38
Speaker 1: But let's start off here. In these troubled times, a
35:40
Speaker 1: supply of accurate, independent journalism remains more important than ever.
35:44
Speaker 1: And yet many of the countries covered in our survey
35:47
Speaker 1: we find the news media increasingly challenged by rising miss
35:51
Speaker 1: and disinformation, low trust, attacks by politicians, and an uncertain
35:56
Speaker 1: business environment. So some of this is good news because
35:59
Speaker 1: the core media finding things extremely difficult in many many
36:03
Speaker 1: countries around the world. And of course whenever they talk
36:06
Speaker 1: about the rise of missing disinformation, they what they mean
36:10
Speaker 1: by that is the challenge of the rise of the truth.
36:13
Speaker 1: But anyway, we move on. They say, the country pages,
36:17
Speaker 1: our country pages this year are filled with examples of layoffs, closures,
36:21
Speaker 1: and other cuts judo combination of rising costs, falling advertising revenues,
36:26
Speaker 1: and sharp declines in traffic from social media. Mark, I'm
36:30
Speaker 1: going to just ask you for comment here because I'm
36:33
Speaker 1: interested to know what the situation in the United States
36:36
Speaker 1: is with respect to closures and layoffs and whatnot. But
36:40
Speaker 1: I'm also fascinated that what this report is clearly stating
36:45
Speaker 1: is the mainstream corporate media is starting to see the
36:48
Speaker 1: same type of restriction on reach that perhaps alternative media
36:55
Speaker 1: has been experienced experiencing over the last few years for
36:59
Speaker 1: various reasons. Come onto, but what's the situation in the
37:02
Speaker 1: States with respected layoffs enclosures.
37:07
Speaker 7: It might not be quite as dire of a situation,
37:10
Speaker 7: but it's happening in Canada too. There's all these claims
37:14
Speaker 7: that smaller newspapers, smaller TV outlets, radio are experiencing a
37:20
Speaker 7: news desert. A news desert is resulting because so many
37:24
Speaker 7: of these things are either hanging by a thread or
37:26
Speaker 7: these entities are going out of business. Therefore, to fill
37:30
Speaker 7: the void, we need more of the legacy media's content.
37:33
Speaker 7: We need more of the mass media cartel's style of
37:37
Speaker 7: news and nothing could be further from the truth. What
37:40
Speaker 7: you said is spot on, Mike, that truthful alternative media
37:45
Speaker 7: like ourselves, I don't you know, we don't have to
37:48
Speaker 7: hesitate in saying that are gaining ground, maybe not always
37:51
Speaker 7: as fast as we'd like, but they're beginning to feel
37:54
Speaker 7: the pinch, so they have to label it miss and
37:57
Speaker 7: disinformation so they can kind of divert people attention from
38:00
Speaker 7: what's really happening. And it's just a question of whether
38:05
Speaker 7: Congress in the US and the Canadian government will act
38:08
Speaker 7: to bail out or save these entities, and there has
38:12
Speaker 7: been legislation in the States, and the Canadian government has
38:15
Speaker 7: acted to try and salvage at least some of these
38:19
Speaker 7: smaller legacy media outlets, so they end up getting direct
38:23
Speaker 7: government money in the process, and therefore there'll be even
38:27
Speaker 7: more of a controlled narrative in return. So it's largely
38:32
Speaker 7: good news, really almost completely good news that this is happening,
38:35
Speaker 7: and they're just trying to mislabel it so people don't
38:38
Speaker 7: realize that the real reason they're going out of business.
38:41
Speaker 7: Yes there's layoffs, yes there's increased costs, but the real
38:45
Speaker 7: reason at the core is because people don't believe the
38:48
Speaker 7: media anymore, and that is growing, and that is great news.
38:52
Speaker 7: That's the bottom.
38:53
Speaker 1: Line, absolutely, Mark, thank you for that. So let's go
38:56
Speaker 1: on with this. Then they go on to say there's
38:59
Speaker 1: no single cause for this crisis. It's been building for
39:01
Speaker 1: some time. But many of the immediate challenges are compounded
39:04
Speaker 1: by the power and changing strategies of rival big tech companies,
39:08
Speaker 1: including social media, search engines, and video platforms. Some are
39:12
Speaker 1: now explicitly dep prioritizing news and political content, while others
39:17
Speaker 1: have switched focus from publishers to creators and pushing more
39:21
Speaker 1: fun and engaging formats, including video, to keep more attention
39:24
Speaker 1: within their own platforms. Concern about what is real and
39:28
Speaker 1: what is fake on the Internet when it comes to
39:30
Speaker 1: online news has risen by three percentage points in the
39:32
Speaker 1: last year, they said, with around six to ten six
39:36
Speaker 1: ten fifty nine percent saying that they're concerned. The figure
39:40
Speaker 1: is considerably higher in South Africa and the United States,
39:43
Speaker 1: both countries that have been holding elections this year. Well,
39:45
Speaker 1: I mean that's nonsense in a sense because most of
39:48
Speaker 1: the planet has been holding elections this year, so many
39:51
Speaker 1: many countries holding elections, and to focus on those two
39:54
Speaker 1: in the course of that point is a bit daft,
39:58
Speaker 1: but they go on to say this as published as
40:00
Speaker 1: brace the use of AI, we find widespread suspicion, but
40:03
Speaker 1: how it might be used, especially for hard news stories
40:06
Speaker 1: such as politics of war, there's more comfort with the
40:10
Speaker 1: use of AI and behind the scenes tasks such as
40:12
Speaker 1: transcription and translation in supporting rather than replacing journalists. So
40:17
Speaker 1: they produced a graph which I thought would show and
40:20
Speaker 1: this is showing the proportion of people that are uncomfortable
40:24
Speaker 1: with using news on the following topics which has been
40:27
Speaker 1: produced mostly by AI. And there are a number of
40:30
Speaker 1: countries in the small print at the bottom there, including
40:33
Speaker 1: Africa and factor continent there, but including Bulgaria, Chile, Columbia, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, Romedia, Singapore, Slovakia, Taiwan, Thailand,
40:43
Speaker 1: and Turkey that they say have not been included in
40:46
Speaker 1: this survey for this particular set of statistics. But I
40:51
Speaker 1: find it quite disturbing that they're saying that forty six
40:54
Speaker 1: percent are uncomfortable about AI being used to generate political news,
41:00
Speaker 1: because that implies that there is a majority of people
41:06
Speaker 1: that are prepared that actually enjoy the fact that AI
41:10
Speaker 1: is producing political news and I think this is a
41:12
Speaker 1: pretty dangerous direction to be heading in. And then finally
41:16
Speaker 1: on this, I just want to show the proportion because
41:19
Speaker 1: Mark was talking there about trust, the proportion that trust
41:24
Speaker 1: most sorry news most of the time, and just looking
41:27
Speaker 1: at one particular region, which is Northern Europe, and we
41:30
Speaker 1: find the UK at the bottom of the list with
41:31
Speaker 1: only thirty six percent of the population trusting most news
41:36
Speaker 1: most of the time. And I think that is an
41:38
Speaker 1: encouraging statistic. That particular one is an encouraging statistic because
41:42
Speaker 1: it demonstrates just how appallingly people view the news that's
41:48
Speaker 1: coming out of the United Kingdom, mainstream news, because they're
41:52
Speaker 1: not talking about alternative news in these statistics. But Mark,
41:57
Speaker 1: let's head back to the United States. The Chicago Consul
42:01
Speaker 1: of Foreign Affair on Global Affairs, Sorry.
42:06
Speaker 7: Yes, September twelve. I was able to cover this virtually
42:10
Speaker 7: and took some original photos and notes. Trade War two
42:14
Speaker 7: point zero question Mark, the twenty twenty four election in
42:17
Speaker 7: the Global economy was the program a couple of speakers
42:20
Speaker 7: and a moderator. There wasn't as much mention of the
42:24
Speaker 7: election and the two major presidential candidates, as the billing
42:29
Speaker 7: of this indicated, but there was some general connections made quickly.
42:35
Speaker 7: This is Carl Friedoff. He's the Marshall Bouton Fellow for
42:38
Speaker 7: Asia Studies. He was the moderator. One of the two
42:41
Speaker 7: speakers Heidi Krebo Reddicker. She is Council on Foreign Relations
42:45
Speaker 7: as well as Trilateral Commission, a Senior Fellow in fact
42:49
Speaker 7: in the Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the CFR, and
42:53
Speaker 7: she served in the Obama administration as the State Department's
42:56
Speaker 7: first chief economist. So she's pretty confident in her predictions,
43:01
Speaker 7: but as I will indicate, her accuracy is seriously up
43:06
Speaker 7: to question. There was one other speaker, Diane Swank, a
43:10
Speaker 7: chief economist for KPMG US, which is a major consulting firm.
43:14
Speaker 7: Three decades of experience in the field. She's an expert
43:17
Speaker 7: in labor markets and monetary policy, and she regularly briefs
43:21
Speaker 7: the Freader Reserve in its regional banks. She noted immigration
43:25
Speaker 7: reductions and imposing current and especially more tariffs are always
43:29
Speaker 7: going to be inflationary, she warned, breathlessly, warning US even
43:33
Speaker 7: while charging import tariffs takes the US on a dangerous
43:37
Speaker 7: path and I'll be talking more about her views and
43:41
Speaker 7: rebutting her a little bit later here. Some of the
43:43
Speaker 7: key talking points might However, the current US tariffs on
43:48
Speaker 7: Chinese imports the Trump enacted are still being applied by Biden,
43:53
Speaker 7: these presenters said, which is a bit of a surprise
43:56
Speaker 7: when you consider that Biden tore down a lot of
43:59
Speaker 7: Trump's border wall and didn't allow other parts of it
44:02
Speaker 7: to be erected. Moving on, the November elections are highly
44:06
Speaker 7: consequential regarding spending, tax policy, including tariffs, and whether immigration
44:12
Speaker 7: will be curbed a lot like Trump would do or
44:15
Speaker 7: not like Harris would do, and the rolling over of
44:19
Speaker 7: certain Trump tax cuts into the next presidential term could
44:23
Speaker 7: boost the budget deficit. The claim in the debate with
44:27
Speaker 7: Harris was that Trump's tax cuts benefited only the wealthy anyway,
44:31
Speaker 7: regardless of which candidate is elected president, these think tank
44:36
Speaker 7: wonks were saying, supply chain diversification must be dealt with,
44:40
Speaker 7: the US must reduce its foreign especially Chinese dependency on
44:45
Speaker 7: sensitive things like semiconductor production, and partisan political infighting will
44:52
Speaker 7: put the US credit at risk. But the Chicago Council,
44:56
Speaker 7: the CFI, the Trilateral Commission, despite their not partisan claims
45:01
Speaker 7: are partisan in a different sense. And that's always worth
45:04
Speaker 7: mentioning that these think tanks always say they're nonpartisan, but
45:08
Speaker 7: the real divide isn't Democrat republican. The real thing to
45:11
Speaker 7: look at is nationally oriented versus internationally in other words,
45:17
Speaker 7: your home country and sovereignty versus globalism. That's the real
45:21
Speaker 7: partisanship to look for. Therefore, these think tanks are highly
45:24
Speaker 7: partisan anyway. Some more talking points, sticking to the key
45:28
Speaker 7: ones of Swank mentioned that US must never and never
45:33
Speaker 7: ever default on its debt, hence the need to bolster
45:37
Speaker 7: the credit rating of the US plus anti corporate sentiment,
45:41
Speaker 7: and this is good news in a sense. Anti corporate
45:43
Speaker 7: sentiment is at a record high in both parties, part
45:47
Speaker 7: of a larger trend of the distrust of institutions, which
45:51
Speaker 7: includes the news institutions. So that shows the unity of
45:56
Speaker 7: the people is growing across the so called party partisan divide,
46:00
Speaker 7: which is something the globalists don't really like to see, Mike.
46:03
Speaker 7: They don't like to see people on both sides of
46:06
Speaker 7: the so called aisle beginning to find more common ground.
46:09
Speaker 7: And I saw this admission last week when I talked
46:12
Speaker 7: about Russell Mead addressing the American Enterprise Institute. Anyway, China's
46:16
Speaker 7: looking at smaller kit manufacturing hubs in Mexico to try
46:21
Speaker 7: and get around US tariffs applied to imports directly from China,
46:26
Speaker 7: and this was talked about at some length. China would
46:30
Speaker 7: therefore put a hub or smaller factory in Mexico and
46:35
Speaker 7: manufacture certain things that would go across the Mexican border
46:38
Speaker 7: into the US, and presumably they would escape the tariffs
46:43
Speaker 7: that would normally be applied to Chinese goods coming directly
46:46
Speaker 7: from China. And Miss Swank went out to say that
46:49
Speaker 7: jobs for immigrants may displace US based jobs, but she
46:53
Speaker 7: claimed that hiring foreign born workers in the US would
46:56
Speaker 7: somehow spur more native born US people to apply for
47:00
Speaker 7: such jobs. And she mentioned that twenty five percent of
47:03
Speaker 7: all US construction workers are for and born. And US
47:08
Speaker 7: tariffs on imports, these two think tankers said, will spark
47:12
Speaker 7: a massive trade war. They warned this over and over
47:15
Speaker 7: again and said they're super deflationary, excuse me, super inflationary
47:20
Speaker 7: to sustain and increase US tariffs. But I always note,
47:24
Speaker 7: and i'll talk a little bit more about this after
47:27
Speaker 7: a video that we're going to show various domestic taxes
47:31
Speaker 7: could also be defined as tariffs on the domestic economy,
47:36
Speaker 7: and all taxes, one way or another, one degree or another,
47:40
Speaker 7: always end up in the final price tax. These people
47:43
Speaker 7: speak as if only tariffs will end up in the
47:45
Speaker 7: final price tax, but all taxes, all kinds of taxes,
47:49
Speaker 7: property taxes, inventory taxes, income taxes, one way or another,
47:54
Speaker 7: one degree or another, will end up making products and
47:58
Speaker 7: services cost more. This is part of the deception that
48:01
Speaker 7: these globalists always sew. Anyway, I was able to ask
48:05
Speaker 7: a question Mike virtually naturally, I couldn't be there to
48:09
Speaker 7: this event, and my question was the only one chosen
48:13
Speaker 7: from the field of online questions. And I asked this,
48:16
Speaker 7: and we'll look at the video that we'll accent this
48:19
Speaker 7: even more. I asked, our tariffs really so bad? Doesn't
48:23
Speaker 7: a degree of protection grow our industrial base and generate
48:27
Speaker 7: needed revenue to rebuild US infrastructure and boost, for example,
48:32
Speaker 7: semiconductor production domestically. And if you're ready, we can show
48:37
Speaker 7: a video where the moderator asked my question and then
48:41
Speaker 7: we hear this rather windy, succurduous answer from miss Swank
48:45
Speaker 7: on this, so we can fire that up if you're ready.
48:49
Speaker 2: Well, let's take a question from online. I think this
48:52
Speaker 2: is one that we've been talking a lot about industrial
48:55
Speaker 2: policy tariffs, and there's a question here. In general, we've
48:58
Speaker 2: seen said that they're inflationarya that they could spark a
49:01
Speaker 2: trade war if they're they're done at high levels. This
49:03
Speaker 2: question from from online, are tail terraff's really so bad?
49:08
Speaker 7: Uh?
49:08
Speaker 2: You know, doesn't a degree of protection grow our industrial
49:10
Speaker 2: base and generate needed revenue to rebuild US infrastructure and
49:14
Speaker 2: boost semiconductor production domestically? How would Diane? How would you respond?
49:19
Speaker 3: So tariffs are not the most efficient way to do that.
49:24
Speaker 3: I do think I understand the there's a there's a
49:27
Speaker 3: gap between what's economically efficient and what is best in
49:31
Speaker 3: terms of optimal for security issues. That said, the way
49:36
Speaker 3: tariffs work is that we pay them. And you know,
49:39
Speaker 3: we know when we tariffed you know, was it washing machines?
49:44
Speaker 3: They went up in price, but so did dryers and
49:47
Speaker 3: they weren't tarraffed because they're sold together and consumers paid
49:51
Speaker 3: all of that. Now, some of the more recent research
49:54
Speaker 3: shows that also producers paid a lot of it in
49:57
Speaker 3: the United States, but instead of expanding the economy, that is,
50:02
Speaker 3: it's a tax, and you know, it's sort of you know,
50:06
Speaker 3: this idea that the other country pays for it is
50:09
Speaker 3: not the case.
50:09
Speaker 6: Now.
50:10
Speaker 3: It's a tax designed to change our behaviors so that
50:14
Speaker 3: we don't buy certain items. And so that is certainly important.
50:19
Speaker 3: That said, when you're talking about taxing like the sixty
50:22
Speaker 3: percent terraff, the kind of spread of items that it's
50:26
Speaker 3: going to cover is very detrimental to the United States,
50:31
Speaker 3: to the US consumer and to demand and to production
50:35
Speaker 3: in the United States. And so you know, you really
50:37
Speaker 3: can get very rapidly go down a rabbit hole, especially
50:40
Speaker 3: of tip for tet trade wars, because people respond to
50:43
Speaker 3: these things. That gets you into a situation that is
50:47
Speaker 3: a smaller economy. And that's why I said it's actually
50:50
Speaker 3: stay inflationary to both curb immigration raised tariffs at the
50:54
Speaker 3: same time. And it's why many of the people who
50:57
Speaker 3: are assessing these things, and we've run our own simulation
51:00
Speaker 3: when you look at the extremes of some of the
51:02
Speaker 3: policy proposals, you get not only a recession, but stagflation erupting,
51:07
Speaker 3: which is a very very difficult situation. So you know,
51:10
Speaker 3: it's a very dangerous path to go down or already
51:13
Speaker 3: down it. There are reasons for it on a security basis,
51:16
Speaker 3: but we have to be very judicial.
51:22
Speaker 7: And a brief rebuttal to this, Mike, The way tariffs
51:27
Speaker 7: actually work actually the nation paying the tariff to enter
51:31
Speaker 7: things into our market. They pay money into the US treasury,
51:35
Speaker 7: which reduces US deficits, spending and therefore the debt. Her
51:40
Speaker 7: claim that only consumers will ultimately pay that tax is
51:44
Speaker 7: way off base. The manufacturers in the US when they
51:48
Speaker 7: offshore manufacturing, one of the things they look at is
51:52
Speaker 7: if there's no tariffs, if there's no real premium to
51:54
Speaker 7: pay to come back into the US market, they'll offshore
51:58
Speaker 7: the manufacturing and have foreigners make goods and import them
52:01
Speaker 7: into the United States. But if you have a tariff
52:04
Speaker 7: there of a sufficient amount it doesn't have to be punitive,
52:08
Speaker 7: then that manufacturer who's thinking about offshoing US manufacturing will
52:13
Speaker 7: think twice. He'll think, wait a minute, I'm going to
52:16
Speaker 7: have to pay a premium to sell the stuff back
52:18
Speaker 7: in the US. Maybe I'll keep the jobs here. And
52:21
Speaker 7: when that happens, that keeps the tax base in the
52:24
Speaker 7: US intact, the local property tax base to pay for schools,
52:29
Speaker 7: to pay for bridges, to pay for highways, to pay
52:31
Speaker 7: for police, you name it. And so whenever jobs are
52:36
Speaker 7: sent overseas, which is incentivized by low tariffs, that is
52:40
Speaker 7: a forfeiture of US wealth, a forfeiture of growing wealth.
52:45
Speaker 7: And this is the These are the aspects of this,
52:48
Speaker 7: and I could go on that are never discussed by
52:51
Speaker 7: these globalists. And again the other point is they always
52:54
Speaker 7: act as if tariffs are unique in making things cost more,
52:57
Speaker 7: when all taxes will ultimately make things costs more, products
53:01
Speaker 7: and services, And it's just something where you never get
53:05
Speaker 7: the full story. But it's very important to outline what
53:09
Speaker 7: these people are saying so you can rebut them and
53:12
Speaker 7: get the full story out there. But at least they
53:14
Speaker 7: allowed the question to be asked so we could elaborate
53:18
Speaker 7: a little more on UK column today. So back to you, Mike.
53:21
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, Mark. I'm sure we'll talk a little
53:23
Speaker 1: bit more about that an extra now. Yesterday the Office
53:27
Speaker 1: for Publish Budget Responsibility published a reportant titled Fiscal Risks
53:32
Speaker 1: and Sustainability, and this was all about government spending over
53:35
Speaker 1: the next few decades and what they had to say
53:39
Speaker 1: was very interesting in a certain sense. So let's bring onograph.
53:44
Speaker 1: They're talking about projected total government revenue and spending, and
53:48
Speaker 1: as you can see, they are projecting that government spending
53:51
Speaker 1: is going to go through the roof over the next
53:54
Speaker 1: few decades. And there are a number of reasons for that.
53:57
Speaker 1: One of them, by the way, the headline, is that
54:01
Speaker 1: the debt, the government debt is going to increase from
54:04
Speaker 1: currently about one hundred percent of GDP to something in
54:07
Speaker 1: the region of three hundred and seventy or sorry, two
54:10
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy percent of GDP about twenty seventy. So
54:14
Speaker 1: the main reason, or one of the main reasons, is
54:17
Speaker 1: because of the cost of climate change mitigation. So if
54:20
Speaker 1: you're worried about government debt going through the roof, perhaps
54:24
Speaker 1: you might want to look at NED zero policy and
54:26
Speaker 1: look at what we are spending money on with respect
54:30
Speaker 1: to that. But the other issue that they were particularly
54:33
Speaker 1: concerned about was population age structure and the costs of
54:38
Speaker 1: looking after the increasing aged population in the country over
54:42
Speaker 1: the next few decades, the cost of the NHS, the
54:46
Speaker 1: costs of social care, infrastructure, and so on. And I
54:50
Speaker 1: just thought that was very also pension costs as well,
54:53
Speaker 1: they were talking about that, So I just wanted to
54:55
Speaker 1: take this opportunity to remind ourselves of the position of
54:59
Speaker 1: Matthew power Us here, who is a voice that is
55:03
Speaker 1: echoed by many others. But this was perhaps the most
55:06
Speaker 1: egregious example of it in the Times a few months ago.
55:10
Speaker 1: This was in March twenty twenty four. Just remind everybody
55:13
Speaker 1: what he said. I can't dispute the objector's belief that
55:17
Speaker 1: once assisted dying becomes normalized, we will become more apt
55:21
Speaker 1: to ask yourselves for how much longer we can justify
55:25
Speaker 1: the struggle. And of course a lot of the pressure
55:28
Speaker 1: that's coming on people to end their lives earlier is economic,
55:33
Speaker 1: So perhaps this is relevant. If assistant dying becomes common
55:39
Speaker 1: and widely accepted, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions will consider
55:42
Speaker 1: choosing this road when the time comes, and in some
55:45
Speaker 1: cases even ask themselves whether it would be selfish not to. Well,
55:49
Speaker 1: of course, if government debt and the tax burden is
55:52
Speaker 1: going through the roof, and basically the tax paying the
55:56
Speaker 1: portion of the population which is paying taxes is shrinking,
56:00
Speaker 1: but then perhaps it would be selfish to continue living,
56:02
Speaker 1: wouldn't it. He goes on. Within a decade or more,
56:05
Speaker 1: assistant suicide will be seen as a normal road for
56:08
Speaker 1: many to take and be considered socially responsible, even finally
56:12
Speaker 1: urged upon people. And he had said, we may not
56:15
Speaker 1: be aware that our moral attitudes are being driven by
56:18
Speaker 1: the Darwinian struggle for survival, but in part they will be.
56:22
Speaker 1: They will be. And when we covered this first, I
56:24
Speaker 1: just wanted to remind everybody that this attitude is absolutely Fabian,
56:29
Speaker 1: so H. G. Wells one of the finders of the
56:31
Speaker 1: Fabian society, and this is something Ben's been talking about,
56:34
Speaker 1: at least Fabianism as something Ben's been talking about in
56:36
Speaker 1: the last week or two. Just remind everybody of his
56:40
Speaker 1: attitude to this that the method that must, in some
56:44
Speaker 1: cases still be called in is death, the merciful obliteration
56:47
Speaker 1: of weak and silly and pointless things. Future humans will
56:51
Speaker 1: naturally regard the modest suicide of the incurably melancholy or
56:54
Speaker 1: diseased or helpless persons as a high and courageous act
56:58
Speaker 1: of duty rather than a crime. And I just see
57:01
Speaker 1: that again. You know, looking at the direction of travel here,
57:05
Speaker 1: Debbie'll be interested in your thoughts on this, but looking
57:08
Speaker 1: at the direction of travel, it's very very clear that
57:11
Speaker 1: as the country gets into a more tricky situation with
57:14
Speaker 1: respect to the way that the edge breakdown of the
57:19
Speaker 1: population develops and the debt burden that that place is
57:23
Speaker 1: on the country as a whole, the pressure to perhaps
57:26
Speaker 1: end our lives a little bit early is only going
57:28
Speaker 1: to increase.
57:30
Speaker 5: Yeah, indeed, And to be honest, so I was very
57:32
Speaker 5: interested in your HG. Wells reference because one HG. Wells
57:37
Speaker 5: reference that I hadn't heard of was humans in the
57:40
Speaker 5: year million. And if anybody hasn't seen it, perhaps we'll
57:43
Speaker 5: bring on a trailer maybe on another news but assisted dying,
57:47
Speaker 5: so medicalizing death, bullet points, medicalizing death. We're looking at
57:51
Speaker 5: made in Canada, so we're probably going to be following
57:54
Speaker 5: on from Canada citizens jury have just pushed it forward.
57:58
Speaker 5: Who's on the citizen's jury? Forty mayors? What are we
58:02
Speaker 5: looking at? Also? Clinical frailty scores? So when's going to
58:05
Speaker 5: be our expiry date as deemed by our doctors? Or
58:09
Speaker 5: perhaps artificial intelligence? Are we going to be coerced into death?
58:13
Speaker 5: And are we going to be seeing not science fiction
58:15
Speaker 5: but science fact? Logan's run I.
58:18
Speaker 1: Don't know, yes, indeed, Well, Debbie, just finish off take
58:22
Speaker 1: us through a little bit of NHS and MHR own news.
58:26
Speaker 5: Right, so very quickly, So who have we got hiring
58:29
Speaker 5: our new Health and Social Care Committee? Well who better
58:32
Speaker 5: than Leila Moran? And you ask yourself, well, what's her
58:35
Speaker 5: experience where she's a maths and physics teacher, which doesn't
58:39
Speaker 5: seem very relevant. Her mum's a Christian Palaestican from Jerusalem.
58:42
Speaker 5: Her dad was a diplomat and economist and a you
58:45
Speaker 5: and a u E a EU ambassador to Egypt. She
58:49
Speaker 5: has got experience in health. She gets she was getting
58:52
Speaker 5: very depressed and apparently she puts it down to obesity,
58:55
Speaker 5: so she had a stomach stapling operation, so she knows
58:58
Speaker 5: about that. Few other little facts about her. She was
59:02
Speaker 5: arrested for slapping her boyfriend during a Libdem conference. She
59:05
Speaker 5: was charged with domestic violence, but the charges were dropped
59:08
Speaker 5: and since then she now identifies as pan sexual and
59:11
Speaker 5: is in a relationship with Rosie Cobb, who's the Libdem
59:16
Speaker 5: Press officer. So that's who's the chair of our Health
59:18
Speaker 5: and Safety, Health and Social Care Committee. But you know what,
59:22
Speaker 5: if you need a blood pressure check, why don't you
59:25
Speaker 5: if you can get an appointment at your dentist, or
59:28
Speaker 5: you're going to have your eyes tested, you can have
59:30
Speaker 5: a blood pressure check done there. Because people don't seem
59:33
Speaker 5: to be engaging with the NHS at the moment, I'm
59:35
Speaker 5: not sure why. So they're going to try and catch
59:37
Speaker 5: you if you can catch an appointment at the dentist.
59:39
Speaker 5: But don't worry. If you can't get to the dentist
59:42
Speaker 5: or you can't find a dentist and you're not having
59:44
Speaker 5: your eyes tested, your employer might do it. So ask
59:48
Speaker 5: your employer. The Standard brought out this story. If you're
59:52
Speaker 5: in the building, trade, hospitality, transport, social care sectors, they're
59:56
Speaker 5: all going to record information about each of your risks
59:59
Speaker 5: as to heart attack or cardiovascular So maybe we'll be
1:00:03
Speaker 5: coming to you, Mike for my health check. Who knows?
1:00:06
Speaker 5: And the MHRA have been getting giddy on giving back
1:00:10
Speaker 5: to school advice, and who better than to trust than
1:00:13
Speaker 5: Alison Cave, who's still refusing to talk about vaccine serious
1:00:17
Speaker 5: adverse reactions, but still very keen to tell parents to
1:00:20
Speaker 5: go and get their children jab because it is to
1:00:23
Speaker 5: make sure they are as safe as possible. I say
1:00:25
Speaker 5: that with tongue in cheek, saying with the MHRA, we
1:00:28
Speaker 5: did report on this way before the MHR did, but
1:00:32
Speaker 5: men taking sodium valporate do increase the risk of neurodevelopmental
1:00:37
Speaker 5: conditions in their children. Now we reported on this. Even
1:00:42
Speaker 5: though this was published on the fifth September. We were
1:00:44
Speaker 5: reporting on this from the board meeting back on the
1:00:47
Speaker 5: twenty third of January twenty four in my blog and
1:00:51
Speaker 5: on the nineteenth of January in the news, so you
1:00:53
Speaker 5: can always catch things on UK column news first and
1:00:56
Speaker 5: a quick to finally stop press. I hope you're coming
1:00:59
Speaker 5: to the MHR a board meeting with me next week
1:01:02
Speaker 5: some tea that September, but time's been changed. Don't know why.
1:01:06
Speaker 5: Maybe it's day June's last, but nine o'clock till eleven
1:01:09
Speaker 5: thirty New time. Will there be a special announcement. We'll
1:01:13
Speaker 5: have to wait and see.
1:01:15
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, okay, thank you very much, Debbie. We will
1:01:18
Speaker 1: need to leave it there for today. Thanks to everybody
1:01:20
Speaker 1: that's joined us, and thanks to Debbie and Mark for
1:01:22
Speaker 1: taking part. If you're a UK call a member stick around.
1:01:25
Speaker 1: We'll be here for extra in a few minutes time. Otherwise,
1:01:28
Speaker 1: have a great weekend and we'll see you on Monday.
1:01:31
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Bye bye.