Latest / UK Column Radio / Military Matters: Episode 10

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Military Matters: Episode 10 · UK Column Radio

0:00
Speaker 1: Thank you.
0:25
Speaker 2: Good morning, Charles.
0:26
Speaker 3: Here we are in Studio 2 for Edition 10 of
0:29
Speaker 3: Military Matters. As always, it's incredible that we've got through
0:34
Speaker 3: this many. I'm not quite sure where the time's gone.
0:37
Speaker 3: But one thing is for certain, and that is that
0:41
Speaker 3: military matters are coming to the fore in a way
0:44
Speaker 3: I don't think I remember almost in my lifetime, OK,
0:49
Speaker 3: specific events, the Falklands War. But it seems in the
0:52
Speaker 3: West at the moment, everything is a focus on military,
0:58
Speaker 3: whether it's in Ukraine or Iran or the Russians in
1:02
Speaker 3: general or the Chinese and what might happen with Taiwan.
1:07
Speaker 3: We seem to be pulled into a military environment.
1:12
Speaker 4: We do.
1:13
Speaker 5: In every respect, I would totally agree. And, well, I
1:16
Speaker 5: think two things. I think, first of all, it's good
1:19
Speaker 5: to see you again and have the opportunity to talk
1:21
Speaker 5: about this. I think also, yeah, it is astounding that
1:25
Speaker 5: we are now in our 10th episode, although in some
1:28
Speaker 5: respects we could have recorded twice that number and still
1:31
Speaker 5: not have covered half the ground that's sort of out there.
1:35
Speaker 5: I think the really significant thing is that you and
1:39
Speaker 5: I obviously have been looking at this partly because that
1:43
Speaker 5: is a large part of what we do at UK
1:46
Speaker 5: Column in terms of scrutinising world events, home affairs and whatnot,
1:49
Speaker 5: and that's where this has pointed for us.
1:52
Speaker 4: But also because we have a, albeit.
1:54
Speaker 5: Different, but shared military heritage and background, it's very, you know,
2:00
Speaker 5: I think interesting personally and professionally for both of us
2:02
Speaker 5: to be looking at exactly this and where it's come from,
2:05
Speaker 5: where we.
2:06
Speaker 4: Think it's going.
2:07
Speaker 5: But the bit I would add in now, and here
2:09
Speaker 5: we are recording sort of now just into the second
2:13
Speaker 5: half of 2026, It seems to me that there has
2:19
Speaker 5: been a sea change in that the general public are
2:24
Speaker 5: now beginning to see some of what we're talking about.
2:28
Speaker 4: And I.
2:30
Speaker 5: Was at a gathering recently of people from lots of
2:34
Speaker 5: different backgrounds, certainly not, I would say at all, a
2:38
Speaker 5: sort of a typical person. segment necessarily of an audience
2:42
Speaker 5: that would be described as a UK column audience or
2:45
Speaker 5: rather a part of society that might naturally be a
2:48
Speaker 5: UK column audience and yet several people completely unprompted and
2:53
Speaker 5: in fact not knowing of my involvement with UK columns
2:56
Speaker 5: certainly not knowing about military matters started talking about the
3:01
Speaker 5: apparent looming prospect of war. It's fascinating and I think
3:07
Speaker 5: it is now out there so What we've been talking about,
3:12
Speaker 5: I think, is completely validated by that. I think for us,
3:19
Speaker 5: what's most important or most significant is that we are,
3:26
Speaker 5: in putting out this series, we are very much hoping
3:29
Speaker 5: that our message is understood and that the narrative that
3:35
Speaker 5: the public are supposed to digest is actually a great
3:38
Speaker 5: corruption of what if not what has been happening but
3:42
Speaker 5: certainly why and I think that's the bit that we
3:46
Speaker 5: sort of aim to get to and I think we
3:48
Speaker 5: have done that I mean I hope we've done that
3:50
Speaker 5: pretty successfully of the previous nine episodes but just that
3:54
Speaker 5: rate of change and I think this is what we
3:56
Speaker 5: exactly what you opened up with what we've been talking
3:58
Speaker 5: about all the time is how incredibly quickly things are
4:02
Speaker 5: being progressed but now it seems that there is an
4:07
Speaker 5: awareness of this in a way that I think two
4:09
Speaker 5: or three months ago, we weren't seeing.
4:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's true.
4:14
Speaker 3: I look at things at the moment and I just
4:17
Speaker 3: see wall-to-wall media, whether it's the United Kingdom or the
4:21
Speaker 3: West or the US, which is bellicose. It's driving for war.
4:29
Speaker 3: Everything is about ramping up. It is not about when
4:34
Speaker 3: did we last see politicians in Westminster actually standing up
4:38
Speaker 3: in the House and saying, Maybe they should be asking
4:42
Speaker 3: a question, do we think it's a time for reflection
4:46
Speaker 3: on what's happening? Should we be looking more about can
4:49
Speaker 3: we de-escalate the situation? Can we stop the war in Ukraine?
4:55
Speaker 3: Can we open proper diplomatic relations with Iran?
5:00
Speaker 2: There is none of this.
5:02
Speaker 3: All there is is a constant stream of.
5:06
Speaker 3: Propaganda, I think that word is the right word to use,
5:10
Speaker 3: which is saying to the UK public in particular, we
5:16
Speaker 3: are supporting the war, we're putting in the ammunition and
5:20
Speaker 3: the munitions, we are giving Ukraine the ability to attack
5:26
Speaker 3: deep into Russia, we are ramping up the war and you,
5:31
Speaker 3: the general public, should be braced and ready to for
5:36
Speaker 3: the coming war. It's incredible, Charles.
5:41
Speaker 2: When you analyse it.
5:42
Speaker 4: It's completely incredible. And I think it falls into the.
5:48
Speaker 5: Way in which, or the method that government has employed
5:50
Speaker 5: with so many things, British government has employed with so
5:54
Speaker 5: many things over the last few years. And I said
5:56
Speaker 5: this in the previous episode, but with specific regard to war,
5:59
Speaker 5: which is as though this is the.
6:02
Speaker 4: Path we're on. We know it's going to happen.
6:05
Speaker 5: And there's nothing we can do about it yeah and
6:08
Speaker 5: it's the same thing and the way it's the way
6:11
Speaker 5: that is manufactured is as i say by obscuring the
6:15
Speaker 5: real reasons for anything becoming um a progression but we
6:21
Speaker 5: see the same thing with the say the climate agenda
6:23
Speaker 5: the net zero agenda the the sort of hand-wringing done
6:27
Speaker 5: by government about why you know it's just these energy prices,
6:30
Speaker 5: you know, it's really tricky. And we can point at
6:34
Speaker 5: all these various factors, like the Office for National Statistics recently,
6:38
Speaker 5: saying that the first set of inflation figures that take
6:42
Speaker 5: into account the changes in Iran, particularly the movement of oil,
6:47
Speaker 5: you know, that's that.
6:48
Speaker 4: We've first seen the effect of it.
6:50
Speaker 5: And immediately, you whitewash absolutely over the idea that we
6:54
Speaker 5: are undergoing some sort of meaningful energy transition when in
6:57
Speaker 5: actual fact what they're talking about is spending billions of
7:00
Speaker 5: our money on something that doesn't make sense, for which
7:03
Speaker 5: there's no practical benefit to be derived, but certainly not
7:09
Speaker 5: an economic one. And we're seeing exactly the same thing
7:12
Speaker 5: with war. You know, what can we do about it? Well,
7:15
Speaker 5: I mean, I can think of a number of things
7:17
Speaker 5: that can be done about it, which is to stop
7:19
Speaker 5: pursuing war. And I think the other thing, which, just
7:22
Speaker 5: on a, human level is disgraceful is the way in
7:26
Speaker 5: which this is being dressed up as a good news
7:29
Speaker 5: story for the british public defense jobs you know a
7:32
Speaker 5: boost to the defense.
7:33
Speaker 3: And drawing in young people and as if the these
7:38
Speaker 3: are great jobs for youngsters to gain their first employment.
7:43
Speaker 5: Yeah and i think there are two two issues i
7:45
Speaker 5: mean first of all the very obvious one which is
7:47
Speaker 5: that the the results of these labours or this employment
7:51
Speaker 5: is death or intended death for other people elsewhere in
7:54
Speaker 5: the world. And if you follow the narrative, I mean,
7:58
Speaker 5: quite possibly here, I mean, this is escalation. So we
8:02
Speaker 5: really meant to imagine this is going to happen in isolation,
8:05
Speaker 5: if we believe what the government's saying, because that's one
8:08
Speaker 5: part of it.
8:08
Speaker 4: Then the other part on the economic front is.
8:12
Speaker 5: Yes, well, OK, you might be increasing the numbers of jobs,
8:14
Speaker 5: you might be boosting the economy in a limited sense,
8:16
Speaker 5: but only ever in a limited sense, because people are
8:19
Speaker 5: not going to be able to go out and engage
8:23
Speaker 5: with that particular marketplace. You know, the civilian population is
8:27
Speaker 5: completely removed from anything that the so-called defence industry is producing.
8:32
Speaker 5: So these products are going either elsewhere to other countries
8:35
Speaker 5: or they are simply being bought by government departments. So
8:38
Speaker 5: there's a sort of closed loop. Where, you know, apart
8:43
Speaker 5: from being able to say that we have increased the
8:45
Speaker 5: number of jobs supposedly in the defence sector, how does
8:48
Speaker 5: the public actually benefit from that? I don't see that
8:51
Speaker 5: they do. And again, that's just being completely obscured. We
8:54
Speaker 5: don't get that version of the truth. So there's, you know,
8:59
Speaker 5: there is so much going on. And in a way,
9:03
Speaker 5: you have to say it is masterful to a certain
9:05
Speaker 5: extent in the way that the messaging is conducted. And
9:09
Speaker 5: it does, in a lot of cases, prevent people from
9:14
Speaker 5: seeing the sorts of things that we discuss.
9:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
9:18
Speaker 3: For me, since the start of the war in Ukraine,
9:23
Speaker 3: I've been fascinated in a dark way by Defence HQ,
9:31
Speaker 3: the Ministry of Defence's Twitter, now ex-account, because... having followed
9:38
Speaker 3: the output on that channel pretty closely since the start
9:41
Speaker 3: of the Ukraine war. Every time I look at it,
9:45
Speaker 3: I am looking at propaganda. There is spin on everything
9:52
Speaker 3: that's posted. There is a constant, what's the word? There's
10:00
Speaker 3: constant upbeat reporting for war and more war, and isn't
10:06
Speaker 3: the war going well? And there is absolutely nothing which
10:11
Speaker 3: suggests that a job of an effective military is actually
10:15
Speaker 3: to ensure peace.
10:18
Speaker 6: So....
10:20
Speaker 3: I look at this channel, I think to myself, well,
10:24
Speaker 3: who is actually running it and what was the remit
10:27
Speaker 3: given to them? And then the next question you say
10:30
Speaker 3: to yourself is, is the British government using applied behavioural
10:37
Speaker 3: techniques on that Defence HQ channel to get its bellicose
10:43
Speaker 3: message across? And I think there is no doubt that
10:46
Speaker 3: they are, without any question. The aim of that channel
10:52
Speaker 3: is to put across a positive line on why there
10:56
Speaker 3: should be war in Ukraine and why there needs to
10:59
Speaker 3: be more war in Ukraine. The only mistake they've made
11:03
Speaker 3: is that I think they've underestimated the speed at which
11:08
Speaker 3: people see through some of this messaging. But there are
11:12
Speaker 3: still tens, hundreds, thousands of people in the UK that
11:17
Speaker 3: don't see through it. But it's pure propaganda with this
11:21
Speaker 3: behavioural insights nudging spin on it.
11:26
Speaker 2: Yes.
11:26
Speaker 5: Now, this is going to be very difficult for anyone
11:29
Speaker 5: listening or watching to swallow, but I'm going to, at
11:32
Speaker 5: this point, play a short video clip which I have
11:35
Speaker 5: not warned you about because I wanted to get your
11:39
Speaker 5: reaction cold. I was so astounded in watching this that
11:43
Speaker 5: I thought I should surprise you with this, and I
11:45
Speaker 5: think it will surprise anyone listening or watching. So we're
11:47
Speaker 5: going to watch it with exactly what you said in
11:50
Speaker 5: mind with this idea that this has become, well, a
11:54
Speaker 5: propaganda exercise very obviously, but I think we'll just have
11:57
Speaker 5: a look and then we'll go on to talk about
11:59
Speaker 5: exactly what we think it means afterwards.
12:02
Speaker 2: Okay.
12:04
Speaker 7: The blue and yellow flag flourishes above us like the
12:09
Speaker 7: blue sky in a field above the rye.
12:14
Speaker 3: The blue yellow flag in the sunlight a symbol of
12:18
Speaker 3: happiness and fate, the wings of Ukraine.
12:22
Speaker 6: From the freedom of the Cossacks, our flag was born.
12:25
Speaker 6: From the spirit of Ukraine, it unfolded in the heavens.
12:30
Speaker 7: We do not want to shed drops of blood. Arise, Ukraine,
12:36
Speaker 7: from kindness and love.
12:39
Speaker 2: Ukraine arises from sincerity and conscience. Her path is lit
12:45
Speaker 2: by divine providence.
12:47
Speaker 6: The blue-yellow flag flashes above us, like the blue sky
12:52
Speaker 6: in a field above the way.
13:01
Speaker 3: Well, my pause there, Charles, really says it all. What
13:07
Speaker 3: do I think of that video? I think the first
13:10
Speaker 3: word that came into my mind was obscene. It's obscene propaganda.
13:17
Speaker 3: but it has a particularly interesting spin on it because
13:21
Speaker 3: it's glorifying Ukraine and it's glorifying the present mission of Ukraine,
13:30
Speaker 3: which is to kill Russians. And I use that phrase
13:34
Speaker 3: because there have been a number of politicians across the EU,
13:42
Speaker 3: even UK and the US, that have actually been talking
13:45
Speaker 3: in terms of What can we do via the conflict
13:51
Speaker 3: in Ukraine to kill more Russians?
13:56
Speaker 2: Quite incredible.
13:57
Speaker 3: But for our military to be standing up in front
14:02
Speaker 3: of a camera in their uniform serving the United Kingdom
14:07
Speaker 3: to come out with that, I could say drivel, but
14:10
Speaker 3: actually it's very dangerous what it is, is outrageous.
14:15
Speaker 4: Yeah.
14:16
Speaker 3: And I would like to meet the person in the
14:19
Speaker 3: team that conceived it. Is there a behavioural insights component
14:24
Speaker 3: to it? I think so, because the poetic delivery, the
14:33
Speaker 3: very emotional, colourful images, when we are describing in reality
14:40
Speaker 3: a battlefield where, short of the First World War, there
14:45
Speaker 3: is the most horrific slaughter going on. And as we've
14:50
Speaker 3: discussed with the use of drones and drone operators, not
14:55
Speaker 3: only hunting individual soldiers across the battlefield, but targeting and
15:00
Speaker 3: killing wounded who are lying on the battlefield. And that
15:05
Speaker 3: is translated now into some sort of poetic message. Where
15:11
Speaker 3: did you find this gem, Charles?
15:12
Speaker 5: That was on the Ministry of Defence, you know, the
15:15
Speaker 5: Defence HQ Twitter feed. But amazingly, there was no comment
15:19
Speaker 5: with it, so it doesn't explain any of the things
15:22
Speaker 5: that you're talking about. So I'm assuming, because we had
15:25
Speaker 5: the Ukrainian servicewoman at the end speaking in Ukrainian, I
15:29
Speaker 5: am assuming that the text of that is a translation
15:32
Speaker 5: from Ukrainian and that somebody has composed that, and forgive
15:35
Speaker 5: my ignorance if it's a sort of unhistoric piece. But nonetheless,
15:41
Speaker 5: why have we got British service personnel talking about the
15:44
Speaker 5: flag that flourishes above us?
15:47
Speaker 4: I mean, that is a... Well, in every respect, I
15:50
Speaker 4: think this is a new departure.
15:51
Speaker 5: We've seen the armed forces get caught up in some
15:56
Speaker 5: pretty dubious enterprises over the last few years, pushing various
16:01
Speaker 5: agendas that, frankly, they have no business being involved in
16:03
Speaker 5: at all. But this strikes me as something... something different altogether.
16:08
Speaker 5: I mean, it's amazing. I don't know how much exposure
16:11
Speaker 5: that will really have, but I could not believe what
16:13
Speaker 5: I was seeing.
16:13
Speaker 7: Yeah.
16:14
Speaker 3: Well, another reaction I have is that that clip should
16:19
Speaker 3: be juxtaposed with a clip showing the real slaughter on
16:24
Speaker 3: the battlefield. And then people can make their own judgment
16:29
Speaker 3: as to what reality is. But the fact that we
16:33
Speaker 3: now live in a country where still you can look up,
16:38
Speaker 3: you can look at public buildings and they're flying the
16:41
Speaker 3: Ukrainian flag. We've got British military. It's now becoming difficult
16:47
Speaker 3: to tell whether they're, you know, acting in a role
16:50
Speaker 3: in the military on behalf of the United Kingdom or
16:54
Speaker 3: they've become on the spot mercenary for the war in Ukraine.
17:01
Speaker 3: And this is being ramped up, Charles. It isn't being
17:05
Speaker 3: We're not withdrawing from this nonsense. This is some of
17:09
Speaker 3: the most vicious propaganda that I think this country has
17:13
Speaker 3: ever seen. And I've read a lot of material about
17:20
Speaker 3: propaganda in the Second World War and in particular, of course,
17:23
Speaker 3: what Germany was putting out at the time. But this
17:27
Speaker 3: is equally as vicious and dangerous propaganda It is. Because
17:33
Speaker 3: it's being put across not only... It's being put across
17:36
Speaker 3: in a softer style, which is disarming for some people
17:40
Speaker 3: because it's the music and the images and everything is
17:44
Speaker 3: all rather nice, as opposed to that brash propaganda that
17:48
Speaker 3: we might see from Nazi Germany at its height. But
17:52
Speaker 3: the effect is just the same. You're drawing people into
17:55
Speaker 3: the idea that they're going to go and.
17:58
Speaker 2: Fight for the motherland, Ukraine... And.
18:02
Speaker 3: If you're a British serving British military personnel, you should
18:07
Speaker 3: accept this.
18:08
Speaker 2: Yes.
18:08
Speaker 4: It's... Yeah.
18:12
Speaker 5: I think your suggestion of that juxtaposition of imagery of
18:17
Speaker 5: what we've just watched there against the reality of what's
18:20
Speaker 5: happening would, first of all, be an entirely valid thing
18:24
Speaker 5: to do. But that should be a very easy thing
18:26
Speaker 5: to do because the remarkable thing for anyone who has
18:28
Speaker 5: followed the Ukraine Ministry of Defence Twitter account over the
18:32
Speaker 5: last few years will have seen that that is exactly
18:34
Speaker 5: what they've been doing. It is in effect a sort
18:38
Speaker 5: of glorified snuff movie site. They intersperse these absolutely ridiculously
18:47
Speaker 5: sort of choreographed or cheerful or beautiful scenes of, you know,
18:55
Speaker 5: kind of beautified personnel, often women, the whole thing looks
19:00
Speaker 5: totally unrealistic. And then between those images, there'll be videos
19:04
Speaker 5: of the Ukraine defence website, Twitter feed, taking great delight
19:11
Speaker 5: in the slaughter of more and more Russians. I mean,
19:14
Speaker 5: it's absolutely extraordinary. The other thing I think that has
19:17
Speaker 5: to be said about that is, I mean, it is
19:21
Speaker 5: incredible how far people have been pushed. When you think
19:25
Speaker 5: back to those early days in the beginning of 2022...
19:29
Speaker 5: I would say that I could count the number of
19:32
Speaker 5: people I knew that would be able to identify Ukraine
19:36
Speaker 5: on the map, probably on.
19:37
Speaker 4: The fingers of one hand.
19:39
Speaker 5: No one had any idea where Ukraine was, what Ukraine
19:44
Speaker 5: was or is, anything to do with Ukraine's history. I mean,
19:48
Speaker 5: that persists to this day. The fact that even the recent,
19:52
Speaker 5: the last couple of decades, people have no idea about.
19:56
Speaker 5: And yet, within days, I think, the lines from the
20:01
Speaker 5: BBC were being parroted back in 2022, which was, well.
20:05
Speaker 5: It's so close, Ukraine's so close to here. Well, not really,
20:10
Speaker 5: if you look at the map, it's actually quite a
20:12
Speaker 5: significant distance in between. And then they're so like us, meaning,
20:18
Speaker 5: by and large, they're white people, so therefore they must
20:22
Speaker 5: be the same. And then the other line being, well,
20:24
Speaker 5: I mean, Putin's not going to stop there, is he?
20:26
Speaker 5: It'll be us next. And here we are four and
20:29
Speaker 5: a half years later, and to a certain extent, those
20:33
Speaker 5: are still... the lines that are being pushed. Of course,
20:36
Speaker 5: now everybody thinks that they have absolutely the inside track
20:41
Speaker 5: on what Ukraine is all about, where it is, and this, that,
20:44
Speaker 5: and the other.
20:44
Speaker 4: Whereas the reality, I would say, is totally different. They don't.
20:46
Speaker 5: People still don't really know anything about Ukraine because prior
20:50
Speaker 5: to that date, no one had ever been there.
20:52
Speaker 3: They only know what they've been told.
20:54
Speaker 4: Indeed, they do.
20:55
Speaker 3: And what they're being told is a very carefully crafted,
21:02
Speaker 3: choreographed lie about what the situation is what one of
21:06
Speaker 3: the the basic starting points of course when we started
21:10
Speaker 3: to see the mass migration of ukrainians into the united
21:13
Speaker 3: kingdom was that all these people all these ukrainians were
21:19
Speaker 3: nice innocent people who were who were moving out of
21:23
Speaker 3: ukraine in order to escape the fighting but that that
21:26
Speaker 3: was never true because amongst okay let's let's sort of
21:32
Speaker 3: play it down the line. Most of those people, I suspect,
21:37
Speaker 3: were decent people who were desperate to get out of
21:41
Speaker 3: the country and away from what they could probably see
21:44
Speaker 3: was the coming war or the intensification of the war.
21:49
Speaker 3: But amongst them were very, very nasty people who'd been
21:53
Speaker 3: involved in all sorts of political activities we could say shenanigans,
21:59
Speaker 3: but also brutality in the Donbass. And these people have
22:04
Speaker 3: migrated now into Europe and the United Kingdom. And we
22:09
Speaker 3: have no idea what the real allegiances of these people
22:14
Speaker 3: are and what they're capable of. And the other thing
22:18
Speaker 3: that we've seen the BBC do in particular is go
22:22
Speaker 3: from reporting in BBC documentaries the danger of, of an
22:27
Speaker 3: extreme far right, a far right in Ukraine capable of maiming,
22:35
Speaker 3: harming and killing people. The BBC were warning about that
22:39
Speaker 3: in their own documentary.
22:41
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
22:41
Speaker 3: And now the BBC is trying to tell us that
22:43
Speaker 3: anybody that appears from Ukraine is a lovely person we
22:47
Speaker 3: should instantly trust.
22:49
Speaker 6: Yes.
22:49
Speaker 3: So this is another layer of propaganda on it. But
22:54
Speaker 3: At the same time, we've now got the equally vicious
22:57
Speaker 3: situation where people, primarily we're going to say men, who've
23:01
Speaker 3: been given sanctuary in the West, they've migrated out of
23:06
Speaker 3: Ukraine to come into the UK or the European Union
23:10
Speaker 3: to escape the war and being recruited into the Ukrainian military.
23:17
Speaker 3: We are now, particularly the Europeans, withdrawing protections for those men,
23:24
Speaker 3: Ukrainian men who are now in Europe, to ensure that
23:28
Speaker 3: unless they've got a certificate saying they're immune from being recruited,
23:33
Speaker 3: they are going to be sent back into the combat
23:37
Speaker 3: where they are going to die. Because this is the
23:42
Speaker 3: other story that is not being talked about, is what
23:45
Speaker 3: the sheer scale of the casualties in Ukraine is. And
23:49
Speaker 3: the latest figures that I'm now seeing circulate amongst the
23:54
Speaker 3: established media for Ukraine is one and a half million
24:00
Speaker 3: and dead we don't know but let's let's stick at
24:05
Speaker 3: a figure around a million and then they're boasting that
24:08
Speaker 3: the Russian casualties are twice that which I personally do
24:11
Speaker 3: not believe I think parity increasingly parity but even so
24:19
Speaker 3: these are huge casualties yes and that's not being reflected
24:23
Speaker 3: in that obscene little video of sunlight and rye fields
24:29
Speaker 3: that we've just watched.
24:30
Speaker 4: No, it's not.
24:31
Speaker 5: And in fact, just to go back to your initial point,
24:33
Speaker 5: which I think is very, very well made, is the
24:36
Speaker 5: fundamental difference between the way in which British society works
24:39
Speaker 5: and Ukrainian society works. I would, from the perspective of
24:45
Speaker 5: a UK column researcher and presenter, consider that the United Kingdom,
24:50
Speaker 5: although in a different way, is extremely corrupt, not actually
24:54
Speaker 5: reflected in any of the corruption indexes necessarily. But whether
25:00
Speaker 5: or not I'm right, what does seem to be universally acknowledged,
25:04
Speaker 5: less so these days, of course, is that Ukraine has
25:08
Speaker 5: an endemic and very serious problem with corruption. Now, that
25:13
Speaker 5: was well known and well discussed, certainly by anybody who
25:17
Speaker 5: did know anything about Ukraine prior to 2022. And yet again,
25:21
Speaker 5: that is completely glossed over. So this idea that we
25:24
Speaker 5: are now throwing everything that we have in with Ukraine
25:30
Speaker 5: is a completely extraordinary thing to be doing. And I
25:32
Speaker 5: think the other point, just to relate that to what
25:35
Speaker 5: I just said about the lines being parroted of, well,
25:38
Speaker 5: you know, they're just like us. No, they're not. And
25:42
Speaker 5: I don't mean that in a derogatory or defamatory way.
25:45
Speaker 5: They just have a different code of conduct. And I
25:47
Speaker 5: can say that with first-hand experience, because I did live
25:50
Speaker 5: and work there for a period of time, okay, a
25:53
Speaker 5: couple of decades ago, but nonetheless, there won't have been
25:57
Speaker 5: changes so fundamental as to make that wrong.
26:00
Speaker 4: But, you know, it was.
26:01
Speaker 5: Absolutely a sort of routine joke that if anything went
26:05
Speaker 5: wrong or you upset the wrong person, you know, you
26:08
Speaker 5: would end up in the woods, most likely decapitated. That
26:11
Speaker 5: was a sort of stock-in-trade joke, but that joke is
26:14
Speaker 5: not based on nothing. That joke is based on the
26:16
Speaker 5: way in which summary justice was was meted out uh
26:21
Speaker 5: sort of across the piece in numerous instances of this
26:24
Speaker 5: now that sort of thing doesn't tend to happen in
26:29
Speaker 5: the united kingdom i'm not saying that makes us better
26:31
Speaker 5: all i'm saying is that there absolutely is a difference
26:34
Speaker 5: and and you're quite right to say of those enormous
26:37
Speaker 5: numbers of people that came over the first sort of
26:39
Speaker 5: tranche of 600.
26:40
Speaker 3: 000 for for one year figure that's in my head.
26:46
Speaker 5: Uh i think that yes the one i have was
26:49
Speaker 5: 179 000 in one thing but but anyway whatever the
26:54
Speaker 5: true number in terms of the overall migration statistics that
26:59
Speaker 5: that was an absolutely gigantic spike and again you know
27:04
Speaker 5: migration apparently the hot topic no one ever talks about
27:08
Speaker 5: that and and when you link up those two things
27:11
Speaker 5: which is that ukrainian society and as I say, sort
27:14
Speaker 5: of code of conduct where behaving is very different from ours.
27:18
Speaker 5: And it is absolutely beyond doubt. I'm not saying that
27:23
Speaker 5: people should not be able to remove themselves from such
27:29
Speaker 5: a conflict. I mean, you know, we're not trying to
27:31
Speaker 5: introduce any sort of inhumanity into this.
27:34
Speaker 4: It's understandable.
27:35
Speaker 5: But to say that everybody that has come is salt
27:39
Speaker 5: of the earth and going to be completely invested in
27:42
Speaker 5: doing the best for the united kingdom is completely misguided
27:45
Speaker 5: yeah so so there's a lot of things that just
27:47
Speaker 5: don't really stack up and yet the result of it
27:50
Speaker 5: is a video like that wouldn't i mean yeah well
27:53
Speaker 5: we think that the united kingdom would be saying that
27:54
Speaker 5: at all is remarkable but the fact that it's coming
27:57
Speaker 5: from serving personnel is just another disgraceful.
28:01
Speaker 3: Child they should be ashamed of themselves i'm quite happy
28:04
Speaker 3: to say that to camera They should be utterly ashamed
28:07
Speaker 3: of themselves.
28:08
Speaker 4: Well, I think they should.
28:08
Speaker 5: And I think they should also be ashamed of their
28:10
Speaker 5: incredible naivety at being used as pawns in this propaganda
28:15
Speaker 5: campaign and the machine. And I would also ask the question,
28:18
Speaker 5: who on earth, through which channels was that set up?
28:23
Speaker 5: Why were those individuals in particular targeted? Where did the
28:28
Speaker 5: kernel of that idea come from? Who set that in motion?
28:32
Speaker 4: Well, it was.
28:33
Speaker 3: Inevitably, it would have come through the media organisation alongside
28:37
Speaker 3: the Ministry of Defence. And from everything I've seen, Defence
28:43
Speaker 3: HQ is clearly one of the leads in this because
28:48
Speaker 3: every clip of the Defence Minister on board an aircraft carrier,
28:53
Speaker 3: whatever the thing is, those clips or reels are appearing everywhere.
28:58
Speaker 3: on at Defence HQ on X.
29:02
Speaker 4: Yes.
29:02
Speaker 3: So they are clearly well into the mix. But also
29:06
Speaker 3: the other change that we've seen now over quite a
29:10
Speaker 3: few years is Forces TV, Forces News. Now, originally, going
29:17
Speaker 3: back a long time, you had paper newspapers within the military.
29:21
Speaker 3: So for the Navy, it was Navy News. And what
29:24
Speaker 3: was that full of? It was full of stories about
29:28
Speaker 3: the ships. There would be some on equipment. There would
29:31
Speaker 3: be a lot of human interest of where ships had
29:34
Speaker 3: been and how people had reacted to it. But quite
29:37
Speaker 3: a balanced overview of life in the military in peacetime.
29:44
Speaker 3: But everything that I've watched on Forces News, which is
29:47
Speaker 3: a TV channel being beamed into every military establishment, is
29:53
Speaker 3: that it's got this same veneer of propaganda with it.
29:56
Speaker 3: And personally, I think this is very dangerous because particularly
30:03
Speaker 3: for young, very young service men and women, they're very
30:07
Speaker 3: vulnerable to what's coming through this official media channel. Before
30:13
Speaker 3: it goes under my head, Charles, I just wanted to
30:14
Speaker 3: come back to the Ukraine and corruption. I found it
30:18
Speaker 3: very interesting to watch the trail of the European Union
30:25
Speaker 3: refusing Ukraine access to the Union. And one of the
30:29
Speaker 3: key things which the EU is constantly saying is that
30:36
Speaker 3: Ukraine is not ready. And then it's jammed tomorrow. It'll
30:40
Speaker 3: be next year, the year after, 10 years. But when
30:43
Speaker 3: you come down to why the EU is saying it's
30:47
Speaker 3: not going to allow Ukraine in, it's actually corruption. And
30:52
Speaker 3: much as I dislike the European Union and everything it
30:55
Speaker 3: stands for, I find it very interesting that to my mind,
31:00
Speaker 3: the EU is saying we're not going to take Ukraine
31:04
Speaker 3: into the EU because we don't want to have to
31:08
Speaker 3: cope with the criminality, the corruption and the criminality that
31:16
Speaker 3: Ukraine membership is going to bring. And it's only the
31:20
Speaker 3: eastern states, Hungary, and even now to some extent Poland,
31:26
Speaker 3: which is starting to talk about the fact that actually
31:29
Speaker 3: they don't want to be that close to Ukraine because
31:33
Speaker 3: they don't trust them.
31:35
Speaker 4: Yes.
31:36
Speaker 5: I think that's a very good point. And one may
31:38
Speaker 5: say the same for slightly different reasons with NATO. And
31:42
Speaker 5: one has to feel sorry for Ukraine as a country
31:46
Speaker 5: and the Ukrainian people in particular because of the way
31:49
Speaker 5: in which they are being pushed and pulled and exploited
31:52
Speaker 5: by absolutely everyone and everything. And there is no good
31:57
Speaker 5: outcome for them. But the rhetoric around NATO membership is
32:04
Speaker 5: in a way the same, because just like membership of
32:08
Speaker 5: the EU would trigger a certain cascade of events, so
32:12
Speaker 5: would membership into NATO. And these are enormously problematic. So
32:18
Speaker 5: keeping Ukraine, ironically, at arm's length whilst appearing to embrace
32:24
Speaker 5: her is very cynical, but is absolutely the way in
32:28
Speaker 5: which any country or corporation gets gets what they want
32:32
Speaker 5: yeah and i think that's what we're seeing but also
32:34
Speaker 5: i think the other thing on the on the propaganda
32:35
Speaker 5: thing i think is where we need to progress onto
32:38
Speaker 5: our next sort of topic area is that this is
32:41
Speaker 5: this is also obscuring what it is that we've talked
32:43
Speaker 5: about absolutely consistently throughout the past nine episodes which is
32:48
Speaker 5: the completely failing capabilities of i mean we've talked a
32:51
Speaker 5: lot about the armed forces the united kingdom but i
32:54
Speaker 5: think in actual fact a lot of the so-called Western
32:58
Speaker 5: powers were seeing the same kind of thing. And what
33:02
Speaker 5: I'd like to introduce is the story around the big carrier,
33:07
Speaker 5: the USS Abraham Lincoln, because in a similar way to
33:11
Speaker 5: the way in which we were describing the British carrier,
33:14
Speaker 5: the Prince of Wales, this absurd sort of go up
33:18
Speaker 5: to the Arctic and put on a bit of a show,
33:21
Speaker 5: which wasn't a show at all because there was nothing
33:23
Speaker 5: to see because there were no aircraft and there was
33:25
Speaker 5: no no group with.
33:27
Speaker 4: It uh.
33:29
Speaker 5: And then lincoln taken away from the indo-pacific which of
33:33
Speaker 5: course is strategically enormously important um in fact sorry no
33:38
Speaker 5: hang on that's in effect because the george washington i
33:41
Speaker 5: think has come from that region but but the point
33:44
Speaker 5: is that what it's actually exposing is that the americans
33:48
Speaker 5: for all their hype are not in a position of
33:53
Speaker 5: global military dominance because otherwise why have we ended up
33:57
Speaker 5: in this situation where we've had a what 270 day
34:00
Speaker 5: plus deployment which has been fraught with enormous numbers of
34:05
Speaker 5: problems that that to me does not look like a
34:07
Speaker 5: military that knows what it's doing and is able to
34:10
Speaker 5: do what it wants.
34:13
Speaker 3: That's a really good point charles and lots of little
34:17
Speaker 3: cogs going around in my head there because i think
34:19
Speaker 3: there are a number of factors at work If we
34:23
Speaker 3: do the Royal Navy, and I'm going to say to
34:26
Speaker 3: the camera, this is absolutely no disrespect for serving personnel
34:30
Speaker 3: because they were caught up in this, but you've just
34:33
Speaker 3: seen the continual decline of the Royal Navy. The carriers,
34:40
Speaker 3: we got rid of the old Invincible class, then there
34:42
Speaker 3: was a delay. Some people were sent to spend time
34:47
Speaker 3: on board the French aircraft carrier Clemenceau. in order to
34:53
Speaker 3: keep up experience and training. But of course, that cross-pollination,
34:58
Speaker 3: as they call it, would have been almost negligible. So
35:00
Speaker 3: there was a big gap between our invincible carriers going,
35:05
Speaker 3: scrapped under David Cameron, and then the new Elizabeth-class carriers
35:10
Speaker 3: coming in. And then even when those carriers were at sea,
35:13
Speaker 3: there was a huge delay before the air wings appeared
35:16
Speaker 3: with the F-35s. And in all that time, experience was
35:23
Speaker 3: just decaying away. So when they finally got Air Wing
35:27
Speaker 3: on board, in my opinion, the overall operational experience and
35:32
Speaker 3: capability would have been minimal on board those carriers. But
35:39
Speaker 3: the big difference between the Royal Navy carriers and the
35:42
Speaker 3: Americans is that the Americans have always operated their carriers
35:47
Speaker 3: on more or less a continual war footing. So very
35:53
Speaker 3: rare for an American carrier to be at sea without
35:55
Speaker 3: aircraft in the air. Whereas we would have a carrier
36:00
Speaker 3: maybe transiting from one exercise to another in quite a
36:05
Speaker 3: relaxed state. So for the Americans, a lot of operational
36:10
Speaker 3: pressure compounding other things happening in the military. Now what's
36:17
Speaker 3: common to both military is all sorts of agendas which
36:21
Speaker 3: have affected the manning of those ships and the effectiveness
36:30
Speaker 3: of those mannings. And I've talked about this quite a
36:34
Speaker 3: bit in front of the camera, and I always think
36:37
Speaker 3: to myself, I'm sure this is going to cause problems.
36:39
Speaker 3: But if you look at the difference between serving military
36:43
Speaker 3: in the it's not only the Navy, it's the Air
36:47
Speaker 3: Force and the Army as well, but I'll stick on
36:49
Speaker 3: the Navy. The first major change is when women went
36:53
Speaker 3: to sea. And the reason that this was such a
36:57
Speaker 3: major event is because you take a steel box full
37:02
Speaker 3: of young men and you introduce females and a certain
37:07
Speaker 3: dynamic immediately starts. And that dynamic, which is of interest
37:14
Speaker 3: in the other sex, immediately starts to cut through a
37:18
Speaker 3: discipline structure. And with it comes some very poisonous attributes.
37:24
Speaker 3: So relationships, jealousy, preoccupation with the other sex instead of
37:32
Speaker 3: a mind on the job. And I experienced that. quite
37:37
Speaker 3: a lot of this because at one stage I was
37:39
Speaker 3: working for flag officer sea training this was at the
37:43
Speaker 3: time that the the girls came to see in the
37:46
Speaker 3: Royal Navy and I was going on board to train
37:50
Speaker 3: ships with a team you could you could see the
37:54
Speaker 3: change instantly and one of one of my biggest memories
37:58
Speaker 3: was stepping on board a warship and you open the
38:02
Speaker 3: the external door to get into the into the ship
38:05
Speaker 3: to go where you've got to go. And as you
38:07
Speaker 3: open that external door, it smelled of perfume instead of
38:11
Speaker 3: the normal smell of a warship. Now, people might say, well,
38:15
Speaker 3: what does that matter? Well, you could then say, well,
38:18
Speaker 3: who's wearing the perfume and why? But these were some
38:22
Speaker 3: of the things, but a very powerful sexual dynamic. And
38:27
Speaker 3: those sexual relationships then started to destroy the command structure
38:34
Speaker 3: where The girls in particular were very keen on people
38:39
Speaker 3: more senior to them. And this created all sorts of problems.
38:45
Speaker 3: So the girls at sea, we then had a change
38:48
Speaker 3: in the rules on gays at sea. And that meant
38:52
Speaker 3: instantly that whilst gay people had clearly been in the
38:56
Speaker 3: military for a great many years because they had to
38:59
Speaker 3: be careful about because if they were discovered as an
39:03
Speaker 3: active gay, they would be dismissed from the military. Now
39:07
Speaker 3: we were going to say, well, those rules have been relaxed,
39:13
Speaker 3: but what happened at the same time was that the
39:16
Speaker 3: free sexual relationships that came in with the females, with
39:21
Speaker 3: the women, then started to come in through the gay.
39:26
Speaker 3: So now we've gone from, if you go back to
39:29
Speaker 3: looking for example, at the American military in the Second
39:32
Speaker 3: World War, and you looked at what a crew looked like,
39:38
Speaker 3: and now you look at the general appearance, and we
39:43
Speaker 3: can add a picture into this discussion, for the American
39:47
Speaker 3: Navy now, just a huge difference in how people look,
39:52
Speaker 3: how they're dressed, whether they look on a war footing
39:56
Speaker 3: but still smart, and whether they look.
40:01
Speaker 2: Different.
40:02
Speaker 3: So those things took place. And so then we end
40:07
Speaker 3: up with, we stick to the Abraham Lincoln. She's out
40:10
Speaker 3: in the Gulf, huge pressure because the deployment keeps being extended.
40:15
Speaker 2: And then.
40:16
Speaker 3: That carrier is in an active war, whether we like
40:21
Speaker 3: it or not. The figure I've seen is that the
40:23
Speaker 3: carrier conducted 10,000 air missions in the time that it
40:30
Speaker 3: was involved in the active combat. Now, that means crew
40:35
Speaker 3: working 24 hours a day, incredibly long hours, and a
40:41
Speaker 3: factor which is not usually talked about, is the big
40:44
Speaker 3: problem on American aircraft carriers is the noise. Because the
40:49
Speaker 3: moment you've got full flight deck operations, although you've got
40:53
Speaker 3: the hangars for the aircraft, the maintenance areas under the
40:57
Speaker 3: flight deck, you've still got accommodation on that first deck.
41:03
Speaker 3: And even as you go down to the next deck,
41:06
Speaker 3: the noise of the flight deck actually permeates the whole ship.
41:10
Speaker 3: And this means that for a lot of people, they
41:13
Speaker 3: don't get proper rest because of the noise on the carrier.
41:18
Speaker 3: So we've got a big change in the style of
41:23
Speaker 3: the crews. You've got them under intense pressure because they're
41:26
Speaker 3: in a war footing. And then the carrier's time on
41:30
Speaker 3: station is just being extended and extended. And then we
41:34
Speaker 3: end up with reports. There's problems with mental health. There's clearly...
41:40
Speaker 3: What's the word? Proven cases of people not only jumping
41:47
Speaker 3: overboard but talking about committing suicide to their families. So
41:53
Speaker 3: this is a really poisonous mix. And it's come about,
41:57
Speaker 3: in my opinion, because of the military's adaptation of the
42:02
Speaker 3: woke agenda.
42:04
Speaker 2: And this has been.
42:10
Speaker 2: For the Americans, the.
42:11
Speaker 3: Pressure of their normal operations on board a camera carrier
42:15
Speaker 3: is now being undermined by their own adaption of what
42:19
Speaker 3: is the woke agenda. Yeah, I think that's... It's probably
42:24
Speaker 3: a bit of a long answer, but... No, no, well,
42:26
Speaker 3: I think a lot of very good points there, and particularly.
42:32
Speaker 4: On the introduction of a....
42:37
Speaker 5: So whether it's women or whether it's the relaxation of
42:40
Speaker 5: policy on sort of homosexuality or whatever it is, alongside
42:46
Speaker 5: or rather as sort of demonstration of that, you can
42:50
Speaker 5: actually look at. I mean, the one thing I was
42:52
Speaker 5: going to point out, which you absolutely see in the army,
42:55
Speaker 5: is that when there are men and women mixing and
42:59
Speaker 5: usually it's certainly in my experience in a sort.
43:01
Speaker 4: Of teeth arms context.
43:03
Speaker 5: Women were, if they were there, were only in very
43:06
Speaker 5: small numbers, so usually sort of admin clerical roles. But
43:13
Speaker 5: the number of discipline or welfare instances that involved any
43:18
Speaker 5: of those women were, of course, completely disproportionate to the
43:22
Speaker 5: number of women that were actually there. So in terms
43:25
Speaker 5: of operational effectiveness, there was just a total failure of
43:30
Speaker 5: the service test because their presence meant and this is
43:34
Speaker 5: not to blame the individuals of course but their presence
43:37
Speaker 5: caused disruption on a scale that was absolutely not appropriate
43:40
Speaker 5: for the number of them that were there so you
43:42
Speaker 5: know that's another sort of point to make in terms
43:44
Speaker 5: of the system being clogged.
43:45
Speaker 3: Up I'll just add Charles and I think it's an
43:50
Speaker 3: important thing in saying what I'm saying I would also
43:53
Speaker 3: add that in my opinion the women have been used
43:59
Speaker 3: and this is something So in making these statements, and
44:02
Speaker 3: I can imagine there might be women serving at the
44:04
Speaker 3: moment in the armed forces that will think, well, I mean,
44:08
Speaker 3: this is an outrageous attack on women. In fact, what
44:12
Speaker 3: I'm saying is that what has been done has actually
44:16
Speaker 3: been an attack on the women themselves because in wartime,
44:23
Speaker 3: it's been shown that women can operate in the military,
44:27
Speaker 3: in specific jobs, where they do an extremely good job.
44:31
Speaker 3: In fact, many people would say in some areas they
44:34
Speaker 3: do a better job than their male equivalent because of
44:38
Speaker 3: their diligence to particular tasks. So if I think back to,
44:46
Speaker 3: you can see this in films on the RAF in
44:48
Speaker 3: the Second World War, that a lot of the staff
44:52
Speaker 3: who were back in the bases building the picture to
44:57
Speaker 3: allow the air battle to be fought properly were women
45:00
Speaker 3: and they were very good at their job. We also
45:03
Speaker 3: have Wrens who were incredibly effective in helping to improve
45:09
Speaker 3: the Royal Navy's anti-submarine warfare training. In fact there's a
45:13
Speaker 3: very interesting story about one particular Wren who realised in
45:18
Speaker 3: the war games that were being played the Royal Navy
45:22
Speaker 3: officers kept doing the wrong things which allowed the U-boat
45:26
Speaker 3: pack to win and actually it was an initiative from
45:29
Speaker 3: a Wren officer which changed a huge part of the
45:35
Speaker 3: Atlantic War so I encourage people to go and look
45:38
Speaker 3: for that and we'll add a bit in the show
45:41
Speaker 3: notes but this is a very important thing but sticking
45:45
Speaker 3: on the Abraham Lincoln the first thing we started to
45:48
Speaker 3: hear about was basic problems with living on board the
45:51
Speaker 3: carrier so we started to hear about the fact there
45:55
Speaker 3: had been food shortages and that they were going on
45:58
Speaker 3: to more wartime rations instead of the very good food
46:03
Speaker 3: with fresh fruit and vegetables and things which the American
46:07
Speaker 3: carriers would normally have so that was a big shock
46:10
Speaker 3: I can imagine for many of the younger people when
46:13
Speaker 3: their diet went from being a wholesome diet to austere
46:18
Speaker 3: military rations and that was partly that partly came about
46:22
Speaker 3: as a result of of the time that they were
46:25
Speaker 3: on station, and also the fact that they couldn't replenish
46:28
Speaker 3: in a normal way because of the risks from the
46:32
Speaker 3: Iranian missile and drone systems. So we had the declining
46:38
Speaker 3: quality of food. Then they're talking about the fact they
46:41
Speaker 3: were not getting mail. And people might be surprised at
46:45
Speaker 3: this because even on board Abraham Lincoln, crew members are
46:51
Speaker 3: still able to have a phone and in some circumstances,
46:55
Speaker 3: use the phone. So you say, why is mail so important?
46:59
Speaker 3: Mail is so important because nothing beats the arrival of
47:03
Speaker 3: a letter from a family member when you're isolated and
47:08
Speaker 3: you've been at sea. And this has gone on for centuries,
47:11
Speaker 3: excitement over the arrival of a personal mail from your
47:17
Speaker 3: wife or partner or husband, whatever it is.
47:21
Speaker 2: So that was a big problem.
47:22
Speaker 3: And then, of course, we started to hear the stories
47:25
Speaker 3: about the state of the shower facilities when they were
47:31
Speaker 3: talking about filthy showers and mold. And they were also
47:35
Speaker 3: talking about toilet systems getting blocked. Now, this is the
47:40
Speaker 3: blocking of toilet systems is something that happens on board warships,
47:45
Speaker 3: happens on cruise liners, actually. And normally these problems can
47:50
Speaker 3: be fixed quite quickly. But you can imagine that in
47:54
Speaker 3: a carrier the size of Abraham Lincoln, over 5,000 people
48:00
Speaker 3: in a war situation, they haven't necessarily got the teams
48:05
Speaker 3: to take systems apart. And there's also the possibility they
48:09
Speaker 3: couldn't take systems apart because to do so, they'd be
48:13
Speaker 3: taking down other systems, freshwater generation or something. So it's
48:19
Speaker 3: a complex situation. But you've got the pressure of the operations,
48:24
Speaker 3: the noise, the time on station now being compounded by food,
48:31
Speaker 3: hygiene problems. And the other thing which caught my attention
48:35
Speaker 3: was there was a lot of talk. There was no
48:37
Speaker 3: soap or deodorants. And I'm thinking to myself, well, what
48:42
Speaker 3: team of blokes are really going to get too excited
48:45
Speaker 3: that they haven't got deodorant? And I'm sorry, but I'm
48:48
Speaker 3: going to point the finger at the females on board.
48:51
Speaker 3: because they would have been the ones that would have
48:54
Speaker 3: been desperate, no soap and no deodorants. So there's this
48:58
Speaker 3: sort of vortex going around the ship. Now, I've got
49:00
Speaker 3: a little film clip for you, which I found, and
49:04
Speaker 3: let's just play this, because we have a member of
49:10
Speaker 3: Abraham Lincoln's crew showing a video of the state of
49:14
Speaker 3: some of these uh toilet facilities let's see.
49:18
Speaker 1: All right y'all so a couple y'all wanted to see
49:20
Speaker 1: how the ship look or the head look aka the
49:22
Speaker 1: bathroom this is showers right here you feel me this
49:25
Speaker 1: is what we go through on a carrier in the
49:28
Speaker 1: navy they say join the navy right join the navy
49:32
Speaker 1: yeah look at this y'all this is crazy this ain't
49:34
Speaker 1: even the worst part man sinks atrocious Wait till y'all
49:38
Speaker 1: see the toilets, man.
49:39
Speaker 2: Look at the toilets.
49:40
Speaker 1: Y'all expect me to take a doo-doo.
49:41
Speaker 3: In this, y'all?
49:43
Speaker 7: Nah.
49:44
Speaker 1: Y'all crazy.
49:44
Speaker 2: Look at this.
49:46
Speaker 1: Come on now. Join the Navy, though, right? Join the Navy. Yeah,
49:50
Speaker 1: all right, bro.
49:55
Speaker 3: So, Charles, that's a TikTok reel of a man filming
49:59
Speaker 3: the heads, as we would call them, from at sea,
50:02
Speaker 3: the toilets and the bathrooms. showing the mould in the
50:06
Speaker 3: cubicles and showing up utterly disgusting toilets.
50:11
Speaker 4: It looks very bad.
50:12
Speaker 5: And it looks as though it tells something of a
50:15
Speaker 5: story and you'd be obviously far better placed to pass comment.
50:20
Speaker 5: But I mean, from an army point of view, one
50:24
Speaker 5: would say that would never be allowed to happen when
50:27
Speaker 5: there's a, in effect, a permanent population because that would
50:32
Speaker 5: be absolutely covered by a daily routine, a daily detail.
50:36
Speaker 5: This would be somebody's responsibility to ensure that that was
50:41
Speaker 5: not just clean, but also maintained.
50:43
Speaker 4: So that problem would never arise.
50:44
Speaker 5: The only thing I would say to sort of benchmark
50:49
Speaker 5: that is that with the army, something that I always
50:52
Speaker 5: found sort of fascinating and shocking at the same time
50:55
Speaker 5: is that anywhere that doesn't fall into that category in
50:58
Speaker 5: that it's regarded as transit accommodation falls into the most
51:02
Speaker 5: horrific condition because nobody is ever there for long enough
51:05
Speaker 5: to be doing that sort of thing. And I must
51:08
Speaker 5: say that, you know, in terms of sort of myth-busting
51:11
Speaker 5: and some things... In fact, one of the places that
51:14
Speaker 5: I think people might be surprised to hear that about
51:16
Speaker 5: were the guardrooms at the royal palaces, Buckingham Palace in particular,
51:23
Speaker 5: going to Buckingham Palace on public duties and seeing, because
51:26
Speaker 5: it was transit accommodation, seeing what the blokes had to
51:29
Speaker 5: endure there. bathrooms and whatnot was dreadful. And yet there
51:33
Speaker 5: we are, thousands of tourists flocking to see this grand spectacle.
51:38
Speaker 5: And then the moment they go off, they're going back
51:40
Speaker 5: into those sorts of conditions.
51:41
Speaker 4: It was terrible.
51:42
Speaker 5: But no, I mean, it just, yeah, it tells a
51:44
Speaker 5: story that that is, you know, grip has just been lost.
51:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, something is wrong. There's no question of this.
51:52
Speaker 3: And the other thing to think about is that if
51:54
Speaker 3: you've got mould and extremely dirty toilets, the thing that
51:59
Speaker 3: everybody is, should be worried about on a ship is
52:02
Speaker 3: you don't want food poisoning and you don't want people
52:05
Speaker 3: sick because that can spread extremely quickly. So there's some
52:10
Speaker 3: really serious practical reasons why these areas need to be
52:15
Speaker 3: kept as clean as they possibly can. It is good
52:19
Speaker 3: for morale. Nobody wants to go.
52:21
Speaker 5: That was the word I wanted to introduce because it
52:23
Speaker 5: is just so straightforward, you know, allowing that to happen. Well,
52:26
Speaker 5: you heard it in the tone of his voice. I mean,
52:28
Speaker 5: that is morale through the floor. And that is an
52:31
Speaker 5: absolutely disastrous position to put your crew in.
52:34
Speaker 3: We get another little bit of information from the reports
52:37
Speaker 3: about Abraham Lincoln. And that is that crew members were
52:43
Speaker 3: queuing in the mess halls for an hour to be fed. Now,
52:49
Speaker 3: on one hand, you can say, well, OK, they had
52:51
Speaker 3: to stand in line for a long time. But actually
52:54
Speaker 3: what you've really got to think about is their time
52:56
Speaker 3: on watch versus the time off watch. And so if
53:01
Speaker 3: they're taking three meals a day and they're queuing for
53:04
Speaker 3: three hours, well, they're not going to be queuing for
53:07
Speaker 3: three hours because they want to get in their rack,
53:11
Speaker 3: they want to be in their bed and they want
53:12
Speaker 3: to be asleep. So what they will then do is
53:15
Speaker 3: start to forgo meals. And there's some very credible reports,
53:20
Speaker 3: I'm going to say from CNN on this subject, where
53:25
Speaker 3: they're actually saying, well, a lot of the crew lost weight.
53:29
Speaker 3: And this makes sense to me because they won't endure
53:31
Speaker 3: queuing for a meal for an hour because they've got
53:34
Speaker 3: other things they need to do to look after themselves.
53:37
Speaker 3: So clearly things bad on board this carrier. And if
53:42
Speaker 3: it's bad on the carrier, it's going to be bad
53:44
Speaker 3: on other ships as well. But I've got another clip here,
53:48
Speaker 3: which has come out of the CNN report. where a
53:54
Speaker 3: lady reporter goes to see on the carrier, on Abraham Lincoln. Now,
53:59
Speaker 3: this is 10th of July. But nevertheless, I think it's
54:04
Speaker 3: a really balanced report. And she says, well, the thing is,
54:08
Speaker 3: it's complicated because you can see tremendous professionalism and people
54:14
Speaker 3: working very hard and doing their job. That's happening. But
54:18
Speaker 3: at the same time, there are problems.
54:21
Speaker 2: So.
54:22
Speaker 3: even though I'm going to say she's not used to
54:25
Speaker 3: the environment she's in, she's picking up that actually it's
54:29
Speaker 3: not straightforward. It's not the whole ship has gone into decay.
54:35
Speaker 3: It's operating, but there are problems under the surface. But
54:39
Speaker 3: how deep do those problems go? This is a little
54:42
Speaker 3: video clip where she talks to a commanding officer. Now,
54:46
Speaker 3: I don't think this is the commanding officer of the carrier.
54:49
Speaker 3: I think it's the commanding officer of one of the.
54:54
Speaker 3: Destroyers in the battle group, but have a listen to
54:57
Speaker 3: what this captain says.
54:59
Speaker 4: Okay, will do. The biggest challenge is the people.
55:02
Speaker 6: The sailors who haven't been home for a while.
55:05
Speaker 1: We've been out here in a very stressful situation, always.
55:07
Speaker 4: Ready to go, always ready to take action.
55:10
Speaker 1: And that's wearing on a person.
55:11
Speaker 4: It's a very honest assessment of it.
55:14
Speaker 3: And we try to really have ways to vent that.
55:17
Speaker 6: We have various behavior therapy groups.
55:21
Speaker 4: We have a full sessions. People can come in and say,
55:23
Speaker 4: this is how I feel.
55:25
Speaker 7: And we just try to really give everybody.
55:26
Speaker 4: A chance to vent that feeling and have a chance
55:28
Speaker 4: to say, hey.
55:29
Speaker 1: You know what?
55:29
Speaker 2: This is a tough situation.
55:30
Speaker 4: It's stressful.
55:31
Speaker 1: And I need ways to relieve that stress.
55:33
Speaker 4: We try to do that in very healthy ways.
55:34
Speaker 6: We have the meme wall down below where sailors can
55:37
Speaker 6: put up all the different memes of how they feel.
55:40
Speaker 4: We do things where we'll have ice cream socials.
55:42
Speaker 6: We'll have various chances on the mess decks to.
55:45
Speaker 7: Do games and those kind of things.
55:46
Speaker 4: But really, there's anything we can do to alleviate that stress.
55:49
Speaker 4: It's probably the biggest thing I worry about on a
55:51
Speaker 4: daily basis.
55:52
Speaker 3: Charles, this is another revealed video. What's your response to that?
55:57
Speaker 5: I think it is very revealing. I think it reinforces,
56:01
Speaker 5: to me, it reinforces the idea that there is a
56:04
Speaker 5: complete command and control failure.
56:07
Speaker 4: Because whilst I can't.
56:10
Speaker 5: Dismiss what he's saying as being ridiculous or any of
56:15
Speaker 5: that kind of thing, because I understand that there does
56:19
Speaker 5: appear to be some sort of an effort to deal
56:22
Speaker 5: with the a very important issue of morale and people's
56:27
Speaker 5: sort of sense of mental strength, mental resilience. But the
56:32
Speaker 5: fact of it is, my view would be that that
56:35
Speaker 5: would not be necessary if people were being managed properly
56:39
Speaker 5: in the first instance. So that situation wouldn't even arise.
56:43
Speaker 5: But that it has, that he... is in a way
56:48
Speaker 5: so glib about it and as though, well, you know,
56:52
Speaker 5: we do that, so therefore everything's OK. I mean, the
56:54
Speaker 5: question to ask on a more serious level is, well,
56:57
Speaker 5: who is actually managing those things? Who is conducting any
56:59
Speaker 5: of the activities he's talking about? Are they trained to
57:02
Speaker 5: do so? What do they do with the results? What
57:03
Speaker 5: if somebody does actually present as being in a seriously
57:06
Speaker 5: mentally vulnerable way? What are they actually able to do
57:11
Speaker 5: about it? And I saw this 20-odd years ago when
57:14
Speaker 5: the army... took a leaf out of, sort of came
57:17
Speaker 5: from the Royal Marines, trim, trauma and risk management. And
57:21
Speaker 5: this was, it sounds a little bit like it, but
57:23
Speaker 5: it was a specific effort to be able to decompress
57:27
Speaker 5: after an incident. So it was kind of, it was
57:30
Speaker 5: awkward because it was hybridised. It had come from sort
57:35
Speaker 5: of military philosophy superimposed onto civilian incidents. You know, a
57:40
Speaker 5: bit like the, have you been involved in an accident
57:42
Speaker 5: at work type thing? And it's hard to make it fit.
57:45
Speaker 5: But nonetheless, it sort of, it came from the right place.
57:48
Speaker 5: The big question was always, first of all, have you
57:50
Speaker 5: got people who are trained and actually know what they're doing?
57:52
Speaker 5: And secondly, are they going to do it? Because it's
57:54
Speaker 5: all very well him saying that, but do people respond
57:57
Speaker 5: to it? He's got a wall of memes.
57:59
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, yeah, great. Okay. Are you really solving
58:03
Speaker 4: the problem?
58:04
Speaker 5: And I think from what we've talked about, It looks
58:08
Speaker 5: like there are failings across the board which are, to me,
58:14
Speaker 5: underpinned or reinforced by the idea that you had the
58:17
Speaker 5: same carrier fraught with all these problems stuck in the
58:20
Speaker 5: same place for 270 days and nothing was done. That
58:25
Speaker 5: is not, and like I said earlier on, that does
58:28
Speaker 5: not speak of a United States Navy or a Department
58:33
Speaker 5: of War that has the first idea what it's doing
58:35
Speaker 5: or is able... to respond when things don't go according
58:39
Speaker 5: to plan.
58:40
Speaker 2: Well, I agree with that, Charles.
58:44
Speaker 3: And I look at this, the moment you have a
58:47
Speaker 3: commanding officer talking with such animation about mental health problems
58:53
Speaker 3: on board his warship, he's got major problems because he's
58:59
Speaker 3: not going to fight that ship, he's not going to
59:00
Speaker 3: be acting... with a focused operational sense if he's worried
59:05
Speaker 3: about how many crew members he's got with mental health problems.
59:09
Speaker 3: The other thing I sense from what he talks about,
59:12
Speaker 3: some of the stuff that he mentions is common for
59:16
Speaker 3: seafarers and navies, and that is you do try in
59:20
Speaker 3: long periods at sea to lift the mood, so you'll
59:23
Speaker 3: have competitions, you might have.
59:27
Speaker 3: Amusing plays put on you try and recreation a lot
59:31
Speaker 3: of sport is good for relieving stress so all these
59:35
Speaker 3: things happen normally and would have happened through the second
59:39
Speaker 3: world war as well but he's now talking about techniques
59:46
Speaker 3: and i'm thinking so you're allowing people who are not
59:51
Speaker 3: happy and depressed to post pictures on the walls which
59:55
Speaker 3: is exacerbating it yes Absolutely. And he doesn't seem to understand.
59:59
Speaker 3: So one of those black and white images, it happens
1:00:03
Speaker 3: to be a woman.
1:00:04
Speaker 4: Yes.
1:00:05
Speaker 3: But she's glaring at the camera. Why do you want
1:00:08
Speaker 3: this on a bulkhead?
1:00:10
Speaker 2: I absolutely agree.
1:00:10
Speaker 5: And when I use the word glib, it is almost
1:00:13
Speaker 5: as though he's celebrating it.
1:00:14
Speaker 2: Yes.
1:00:14
Speaker 4: Because it's completely perverse.
1:00:16
Speaker 3: And he's scruffy as well, in my opinion.
1:00:18
Speaker 4: I would agree.
1:00:19
Speaker 3: Even though he's dressed in operational sea dress. For a
1:00:25
Speaker 3: commanding officer, he looks scruffy.
1:00:27
Speaker 5: Yes, and just the point, when I mention command and control,
1:00:30
Speaker 5: what I mean by that is that this is a
1:00:32
Speaker 5: complete inversion of the situation. Anyone who, in my view,
1:00:36
Speaker 5: anyone in command of the men and women or a
1:00:39
Speaker 5: particular subset of the men and women on that ship
1:00:41
Speaker 5: has a responsibility to be managing every aspect of their
1:00:45
Speaker 5: life during that deployment. That means speaking to them on
1:00:47
Speaker 5: a very regular basis and therefore identifying things before they
1:00:51
Speaker 5: become a problem. Now, this is an inversion of that situation.
1:00:53
Speaker 5: where they're allowing the problems to occur, to manifest and
1:00:57
Speaker 5: to develop, and then saying to the individual, right now
1:00:59
Speaker 5: it's on you to come forward and deal with it.
1:01:01
Speaker 5: That is the wrong way around in my book.
1:01:04
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
1:01:05
Speaker 3: And let's just reinforce the fact that you can go
1:01:10
Speaker 3: and look at the reports that are coming out through
1:01:13
Speaker 3: American military channels and through veterans organisations talking about these problems.
1:01:19
Speaker 3: So there's no question these problems are real.
1:01:22
Speaker 4: Indeed.
1:01:22
Speaker 3: And they're very significant. And family members, military families, have
1:01:29
Speaker 3: been very concerned about reports that they've been getting back
1:01:33
Speaker 3: from their family members serving. So this is really serious stuff.
1:01:39
Speaker 2: But I wonder, Charles, if.
1:01:40
Speaker 3: I could just manoeuvre in a last thing that comes
1:01:43
Speaker 3: into my head, is that whilst we see the problems
1:01:46
Speaker 3: on board the carrier.
1:01:47
Speaker 2: Of the operations.
1:01:50
Speaker 3: And things made worse by connectivity between crew and the
1:01:55
Speaker 3: real world via their phones. They would have been watching
1:01:59
Speaker 3: the constant reports from Trump that.
1:02:04
Speaker 2: The war's won, the war's not won.
1:02:06
Speaker 3: We're going to pull back, we're going to have an
1:02:08
Speaker 3: economic sanction. So in the crew's mind, they don't even
1:02:12
Speaker 3: know what they're fighting for. And that aspect was referred
1:02:17
Speaker 3: to by American families of serving military people. But we've
1:02:24
Speaker 3: got the situation of Ukraine. What is the war in
1:02:29
Speaker 3: Ukraine about? Because if we are describing the decline, the
1:02:35
Speaker 3: rapid decline of the United Kingdom's military capability for the
1:02:40
Speaker 3: Air Force Army and the Royal Navy, we are seeing
1:02:44
Speaker 3: a decline in Americans. military power, particularly for the carriers,
1:02:49
Speaker 3: there's no question. And yet we're ramping up the war
1:02:53
Speaker 3: in Ukraine. What's this war designed to do, do you think?
1:02:56
Speaker 5: Well, I think this is going to have to be
1:02:58
Speaker 5: a bit of a cliffhanger question, because this is a big,
1:03:01
Speaker 5: big topic. But I think it's a fascinating one. And
1:03:03
Speaker 5: in a very small nutshell, I think it looks to
1:03:08
Speaker 5: me increasingly like this is simply a push by, in particular,
1:03:12
Speaker 5: the United Kingdom, a desperate push to colonize for want
1:03:17
Speaker 5: of a better word to colonize Ukraine and therefore draw
1:03:20
Speaker 5: from it the resources that we perceive that it has
1:03:23
Speaker 5: now specifically in a military context it has experienced that
1:03:27
Speaker 5: we have absolutely lost over the last decade of really
1:03:31
Speaker 5: no significant sort of operational activity and I think that
1:03:35
Speaker 5: is why we are throwing our lot in with ukraine
1:03:39
Speaker 5: but i think there's there's a huge amount of detail
1:03:40
Speaker 5: to that and that is why we have to propagandize
1:03:44
Speaker 5: to the extent that we are because i think the
1:03:46
Speaker 5: truth is it's too uncomfortable it's too awkward it's too
1:03:49
Speaker 5: brutal and it's too inhuman but but that is what
1:03:52
Speaker 5: i think we're doing i think we are pillaging ukraine
1:03:54
Speaker 5: for absolutely everything that we possibly can in order that
1:03:58
Speaker 5: we don't expose the truth of the matter which is
1:04:00
Speaker 5: that we cannot enter into any sort of uh significant
1:04:05
Speaker 5: um engagement with Russia so we have to do it
1:04:08
Speaker 5: through Ukraine and we hope to extract back from that
1:04:11
Speaker 5: the maximum amount of capital that we can.
1:04:13
Speaker 3: Yeah well we will focus in on that again but
1:04:17
Speaker 3: this is the terrible reality of what this war is
1:04:21
Speaker 3: and the fact that Andy Burnham is now taken you
1:04:27
Speaker 3: know taken over as Prime Minister and he's he's drawing
1:04:31
Speaker 3: us even further into this cesspit is utterly disgraceful it.
1:04:36
Speaker 5: Is disgraceful and i think i think we'll end there
1:04:38
Speaker 5: because by the time we reconvene for the next episode
1:04:41
Speaker 5: i think we can guarantee that a lot will have
1:04:43
Speaker 5: changed a huge amount to talk about but i think
1:04:45
Speaker 5: that that should be our subject for the next one it.
1:04:47
Speaker 3: Is i have an end finally if i may yes
1:04:51
Speaker 3: i discovered on one of one of the ships they
1:04:53
Speaker 3: have a therapy dog and the aim of this dog
1:04:57
Speaker 3: is clearly to help boost morale and maybe even of
1:05:01
Speaker 3: um direct individual benefit somebody who's got some mental health
1:05:05
Speaker 3: problems but i couldn't help looking at the picture of
1:05:08
Speaker 3: the dog and thinking that the therapy dog looked very sad.
1:05:13
Speaker 5: Doesn't look the happiest does it no yeah captain fathom.
1:05:19
Speaker 2: So i i just.
1:05:20
Speaker 3: Felt that uh the dog's uh The dog's image really
1:05:25
Speaker 3: reflects how bad this situation is with the carnage in Ukraine.
1:05:30
Speaker 3: And that is affecting, of course, Ukrainians and the Russians.
1:05:34
Speaker 2: Yes. And then what we see happening.
1:05:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is a rather sombre, sombre picture, a doleful look,
1:05:40
Speaker 4: isn't it?
1:05:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:05:41
Speaker 6: Right.
1:05:42
Speaker 4: Well, Brian, till the next time. Thank you very much.
1:05:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, pleasure.