Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News — 8th April 2026

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UK Column News — 8th April 2026 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon.
0:09
Speaker 2: It's Wednesday eighth a Verbril, twenty twenty six, just after
0:12
Speaker 2: one o'clock. Welcome to the UK Call Him News. I'm
0:14
Speaker 2: your host Mike Robinson joining me in the studio today
0:16
Speaker 2: Charles Mullett. Welcome to the program, Charles, Mike, and by
0:19
Speaker 2: video link from Lebanon, is Fanessa Billy No letter in
0:22
Speaker 2: the program. Vanessa's going to be reporting on the BBC.
0:25
Speaker 2: Charles been covering food security here in the UK as
0:28
Speaker 2: well as fuel prices, and I'll update on the online
0:31
Speaker 2: safety regime, including the ongoing attack on end to end encryption.
0:35
Speaker 2: But we're going to of course begin with Iran, because
0:37
Speaker 2: as everybody will know by now, Trump has agreed to
0:40
Speaker 2: cease far with Iran if we just bring him on screen,
0:43
Speaker 2: giving him a potential way out of the mess he's
0:46
Speaker 2: got himself into, at least with respect to Iran.
0:50
Speaker 1: But of course, the last.
0:51
Speaker 2: Time some kind of ceasefire deal was on the table
0:54
Speaker 2: on that occasion it was Ukraine. Of course it was
0:56
Speaker 2: Britain that stepped in to make sure that it didn't happen.
0:58
Speaker 2: So the question is is it going to be Vanessa's
1:02
Speaker 2: going to be covering what's going on in Lebanon in
1:04
Speaker 2: just a second. So I think when we ask how
1:06
Speaker 2: long is the cease for far going to last? In
1:08
Speaker 2: fact not even for a couple of hours. But anyway,
1:13
Speaker 2: bringing him back on screen again, no sooner was the
1:15
Speaker 2: cease far an instant Starmer decides to head off to
1:19
Speaker 2: the Gulf to meet with heads of state there to what,
1:21
Speaker 2: as they describe, its support and uphold the cease far
1:24
Speaker 2: in order to bring about a lasting resolution to the
1:26
Speaker 2: conflict and protect the UK and global economy from further threats. Well,
1:31
Speaker 2: my question would be, how's he going to do that now?
1:33
Speaker 2: The number ten statement talks about his government's commitment to
1:36
Speaker 2: de escalation and talks on practical efforts to restore freedom
1:40
Speaker 2: of navigation to the Strait of Hormuz, And I just
1:44
Speaker 2: wonder would it be unfair to simply reverse the meaning
1:46
Speaker 2: of these statements, because past experience suggests that it might
1:49
Speaker 2: be a reasonable thing to do. But anyway, in an
1:52
Speaker 2: effort to maintain influencing the region, Britain has been continued
1:55
Speaker 2: to lead the international effort, at least that's how they
1:58
Speaker 2: present it, convening lies from across the world to ensure
2:01
Speaker 2: the Strait of Homos is reopened. Starmer said, I welcome
2:06
Speaker 2: the ceasefire agreement reached overnight, which will bring a moment,
2:09
Speaker 2: a moment of relief to the region and the world. Together,
2:13
Speaker 2: together with our partners, we must do all we can
2:15
Speaker 2: to support and sustain this cease far turning into turning
2:19
Speaker 2: into a lasting agreement and reopen the strait of Homos.
2:23
Speaker 2: So Vanessa, let me welcome you to the program for
2:27
Speaker 2: some more details on this. But clearly the pressure may
2:31
Speaker 2: be off Iran for a short period of time. We'll
2:33
Speaker 2: see how long that lasts, but it's not over as
2:36
Speaker 2: far as the region is concerned.
2:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, the pressure isn't exactly even off Iran. There have
2:43
Speaker 3: been strikes against I think energy facilities and Levan Island
2:48
Speaker 3: this morning, and there are also counter explosions coming in
2:52
Speaker 3: the UAE and various US bass across the Gulf state.
2:58
Speaker 3: But I have to say that in the last ten
3:01
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes there have been more than one hundred strikes
3:05
Speaker 3: across Lebanon and that is continuing. I'm hearing reports of
3:10
Speaker 3: massacres in the Bay Route suburbs, which of course is
3:14
Speaker 3: not far from any of us here in Beirut, but
3:18
Speaker 3: across all of the south, including tires ce Dot, and
3:23
Speaker 3: it's ongoing. We've just had the jets over here again,
3:26
Speaker 3: which means another wave of bombing, So more than one
3:30
Speaker 3: hundred strikes here in Lebanon, and I'm hearing massacres of
3:35
Speaker 3: civilians everywhere and receiving messages from friends that their friends
3:39
Speaker 3: and family have been killed, are injured, their rushing to hospitals.
3:45
Speaker 3: There is really mass panic, particularly here in the suburbs,
3:49
Speaker 3: where there are not only civilians, but also people that
3:55
Speaker 3: were displaced from other areas of the south of Lebanon
3:58
Speaker 3: who came to the suburbs into more central Beirute for
4:03
Speaker 3: safety and who are now facing bombardment. So what I'll
4:09
Speaker 3: do is I'll go back to the beginning of the
4:14
Speaker 3: process of arriving at what is supposed to be a ceasefire.
4:19
Speaker 3: And this was the statement by Donald Trump, I think
4:22
Speaker 3: the day before yesterday or the other night, when he
4:26
Speaker 3: said a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be
4:29
Speaker 3: brought back again. I don't want this to happen, but
4:32
Speaker 3: it probably will. However, now that we have complete and
4:35
Speaker 3: total regime change, where different, smarter and less radicalized minds
4:39
Speaker 3: prevail maybe something revolutionary, wonderful can happen. Who knows, We'll
4:44
Speaker 3: find out tonight. One of the most important moments in
4:47
Speaker 3: the long and complex history of the world, forty seven
4:51
Speaker 3: years of extortion, corruption and death will finally and God
4:55
Speaker 3: bless the great people of Iran. How he dares to
4:58
Speaker 3: come out with a statement like that. But of course
5:00
Speaker 3: this is also reiterating the statement by JD Vance on
5:04
Speaker 3: the seventh of April in Hungary where he talked about
5:08
Speaker 3: using tools and our toolkit that we so far haven't
5:11
Speaker 3: decided to use. So of course the natural presumption was
5:15
Speaker 3: that Trump was intending to use tactical nukes at least,
5:19
Speaker 3: if not nuclear weapons against Iran, which then instigated probably
5:26
Speaker 3: talks between China and Pakistan, and Pakistan leading the ceasefire effort.
5:34
Speaker 3: And in response to Trump's tweet, I just want to
5:38
Speaker 3: show this video from inside Iran where millions of Iranians
5:43
Speaker 3: went to form human chains, human shields against whatever Trump
5:49
Speaker 3: was about to throw at them.
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Speaker 1: So let's just play.
5:52
Speaker 3: This so extraordinary defense of their country by ninety million Uranians.
6:37
Speaker 3: And then, of course that was followed by the China
6:40
Speaker 3: and Russia veto of the UN Resolution on protecting Homer's shipping,
6:44
Speaker 3: which had the potential to include selling, sending, sorry foreign
6:51
Speaker 3: naval protection for shipping going through the channel. So it
6:54
Speaker 3: makes sense for me that Russia, Russia and China would
6:57
Speaker 3: want to prevent that happening. China, of course, is continuing
7:00
Speaker 3: to receive oil from Iran, and Russia is benefiting effectively
7:06
Speaker 3: from the closure of the Hormu Strait by being able
7:10
Speaker 3: to sell the oil that the US has lifted sanctions on,
7:15
Speaker 3: particularly to India, but also potentially into Europe. And then
7:20
Speaker 3: this was the BBC reporting on how Pakistan helped secure
7:24
Speaker 3: a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran. As I said,
7:28
Speaker 3: there are reports that China was very much involved in
7:32
Speaker 3: pushing forward the ceasefire because I believe there was a
7:36
Speaker 3: potential for the use of nuclear weapons which would immediately
7:39
Speaker 3: impact on both Pakistan and China. But also, of course
7:42
Speaker 3: Pakistan has Pakistan has a mutual defense packed ongoing with
7:48
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia was being hit very intensively
7:54
Speaker 3: by Iran. And this was the post that Shaba's Sharif,
8:00
Speaker 3: the Pakistani president put out on acts with the greatest
8:05
Speaker 3: humility and please to announce the Islamic Republic of Iran
8:09
Speaker 3: and the United States of America, along with their allies,
8:11
Speaker 3: have agreed to an immediate cease fire everywhere, and he
8:15
Speaker 3: says including Lebanon and elsewhere, effective immediately. He goes on
8:19
Speaker 3: to say that talks will take place in Islamabad on Friday,
8:24
Speaker 3: the tenth of April. But the reality is, of course
8:29
Speaker 3: that as we can now see, it is not including Lebanon.
8:33
Speaker 3: And I'll come on very shortly to the statements by
8:35
Speaker 3: various Israeli officials, including Natanyahu. But let's have a look
8:41
Speaker 3: at the ten points that Iran has put on the
8:44
Speaker 3: negotiation table for Trump to consider. This is their ceasefire plan,
8:50
Speaker 3: US commitment to no further acts of aggression against Iran.
8:53
Speaker 3: Of course, that means long term continued Iranian control over
8:58
Speaker 3: the Strait of Hormuz with regular passage coordinated by Iran's
9:02
Speaker 3: armed forces, recognition of Iran's right to uranium enrichment for
9:08
Speaker 3: civilian use, of course, lifting of all primary and secondary
9:13
Speaker 3: sanctions and then going on, termination of UN Security Council
9:19
Speaker 3: and ia EA sanctions, payment of war damages, reparation to Iran,
9:26
Speaker 3: withdrawal of US combat forces, from throughout the Middle East,
9:31
Speaker 3: cessation of hostilities on all fronts including Lubanon, Iraq, and Yemen,
9:38
Speaker 3: and two Israeli strikes against Iranian allies such as has Bulah.
9:44
Speaker 3: And then finally the establishment of safe passage protocols through
9:48
Speaker 3: the Strait of Hormus, which may include a two million
9:52
Speaker 3: fee per vessel, with revenue shared with Oman and used
9:56
Speaker 3: for the reconstruction in Iran. So while we, of course
10:01
Speaker 3: may perceive these to be extremely reasonable points for negotiation,
10:07
Speaker 3: Natanyahu has already shown some pushback against it, and in
10:13
Speaker 3: my opinion, we're very unlikely to see these conditions being met.
10:18
Speaker 3: And as I've said today, we haven't seen any sign
10:21
Speaker 3: of an actual ceasefire. But how did Donald Trump go
10:25
Speaker 3: on to celebrate what he considers to be a big
10:28
Speaker 3: day for world peace. Iran wants it to happen. They've
10:31
Speaker 3: had enough. Likewise, so as everyone else. The United States
10:35
Speaker 3: of America will be helping with the traffic build up
10:38
Speaker 3: in the strait and four Moose. There will be lots
10:40
Speaker 3: of positive action, big money will be made. There's one
10:44
Speaker 3: of the clues Iran can start the reconstruction process. We'll
10:48
Speaker 3: be loading up with supplies of all kinds and just
10:50
Speaker 3: hanging around in order to make sure that everything goes well.
10:54
Speaker 3: I feel confident that it will just like we are
10:57
Speaker 3: experiencing in the US. This could be the golden age
11:00
Speaker 3: of the Middle East. Well, that remains to be seen,
11:06
Speaker 3: but I guess he has to have his three hundred
11:08
Speaker 3: and thirteenth war that he's ended anyway. This was the
11:12
Speaker 3: statement from opposition leader ye L'apede. There has never been
11:18
Speaker 3: such a political disaster in all of our history. Israel
11:21
Speaker 3: wasn't even at the table when decisions were made concerning
11:24
Speaker 3: the core of our national security. The military carried out
11:27
Speaker 3: everything that was asked of it, the public demonstrated amazing resilience.
11:31
Speaker 3: But Natajao who failed politically, failed strategically and didn't meet
11:36
Speaker 3: a single one of the goals that he himself set.
11:39
Speaker 3: It will take us years to repair the political and
11:41
Speaker 3: strategic damage that Natajao who wrought due to arrogance, negligence,
11:46
Speaker 3: and a lack of strategic planning. And he goes on
11:48
Speaker 3: to say more details later today, Nettagnaho, who's come out
11:53
Speaker 3: himself very strongly, particularly on acts, saying that he doesn't
11:56
Speaker 3: accept a cease fire in Lebanon, and the honestly deranged
12:01
Speaker 3: spokesperson for these rarely armed forces, Avace Adre, has also
12:09
Speaker 3: reiterated that point. He says basically that there is an
12:13
Speaker 3: urgent warning for all civilians to head to the north
12:17
Speaker 3: from the south, to the north of the Zahrani River,
12:20
Speaker 3: which is higher up than the Latani River. So he's
12:23
Speaker 3: from this morning pushing civilians further to the north from
12:27
Speaker 3: the south. And of course now we have the mass
12:30
Speaker 3: bombing campaign that is ongoing. I'm getting a feed through
12:34
Speaker 3: the whole time of photos and images of the ongoing massacres,
12:38
Speaker 3: and he says that the battle continues. The ceasefire does
12:42
Speaker 3: not include Lebanon, and he's talking about mass evacuation.
12:48
Speaker 4: Now.
12:48
Speaker 3: There have been reports that the Iranian National Security Council
12:52
Speaker 3: has said that if there is not a full ceasefire
12:55
Speaker 3: in Lebanon, they will renew their aggression, particularly against Tel Aviv.
13:01
Speaker 3: And there are a number of other statements also saying
13:05
Speaker 3: something similar in Iranian media even this morning, and this
13:10
Speaker 3: was what I was going to report on, but actually
13:13
Speaker 3: the recent attacks in the last hour by Israel have
13:16
Speaker 3: superseded these attacks. But this morning the Zionis attacked or
13:22
Speaker 3: struck an ambulance, killing four paramedics. They also targeted a
13:29
Speaker 3: cafe where there were twelve individuals from the Chibo farm
13:33
Speaker 3: areas that had not taken any part in the military
13:36
Speaker 3: action by the resistance in Lubanon. This is a report
13:41
Speaker 3: from a telegram channel of an Iranian analyst who's currently
13:47
Speaker 3: in the city of Well, maybe I shouldn't say, but
13:51
Speaker 3: he's in Iran, and he says, basically, so far, the
13:55
Speaker 3: general opinion of people in Iran six hours since the
13:58
Speaker 3: announcement of East Fire talks. People congratulate each other for
14:03
Speaker 3: the cessation of fire. Most people believe the ceasefire will
14:06
Speaker 3: not last for long. Well, that's already proven. Most people
14:09
Speaker 3: did not mind the war lasting longer and wanted more
14:13
Speaker 3: attacks against Israel, US and the two phase Arab regimes,
14:17
Speaker 3: which of course are the Zionist Arab regimes on the
14:22
Speaker 3: Persian Gulf. And finally, I just wanted to remind people
14:25
Speaker 3: that when we talk about negotiation, this is who Iron
14:30
Speaker 3: is negotiating with. This is a comment from President Trump
14:35
Speaker 3: about the situation in Iran.
14:40
Speaker 5: Mister President, how.
14:41
Speaker 6: Would it not be a work runs bring Iran's bridges
14:43
Speaker 6: and power plants because they killed forty five thousand people, and.
14:47
Speaker 1: Who last money more than that? Goodness much for sixty
14:51
Speaker 1: they killed protesters.
14:52
Speaker 2: They're animals and we have to stop them, and we
14:56
Speaker 2: can't let them have a nuclear weapon.
14:57
Speaker 1: Very simple. They want a nuclear weapon.
15:00
Speaker 7: I've been trying for a long time.
15:01
Speaker 2: I stopped them with the Obama with a horrible random review.
15:05
Speaker 1: I stopped him in a lot of different ways.
15:11
Speaker 3: His opinion of Iranians is that they are animals, and
15:15
Speaker 3: yet these are the people that Iran is forced.
15:18
Speaker 1: To negotiate with.
15:20
Speaker 2: Indeed, Vanessa, just a couple of seconds here, I just
15:24
Speaker 2: wanted to ask one thing. The Western media, of course,
15:27
Speaker 2: is presenting the ringing of the energy installations by people
15:32
Speaker 2: in Iran as being something that they were forced to do,
15:36
Speaker 2: and it's being called a war crime by some in
15:39
Speaker 2: the West.
15:40
Speaker 1: Just give us your thoughts on that.
15:44
Speaker 3: I don't already have any thoughts. I mean, honestly, they
15:48
Speaker 3: are the epitome of just moral decreptitude in the worst,
15:55
Speaker 3: both in the media and in the regimes.
15:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, thank you for that, Charles. Let's move on
16:02
Speaker 2: then to the special relationship.
16:04
Speaker 5: Yes not perhaps a phrase that's going to stand up
16:08
Speaker 5: for an awful lot longer. The last few weeks, one
16:10
Speaker 5: might say, have been characterized by Britain's ungainly attempts to
16:13
Speaker 5: walk the line with regard to the so called special relationship,
16:17
Speaker 5: on the one hand, apparently unwilling to become involved in
16:20
Speaker 5: the conflicts, at the same time as actively taking measures
16:23
Speaker 5: to become involved, but of course to very limited effect,
16:26
Speaker 5: which exposes both deficiencies in the armed forces capabilities and
16:32
Speaker 5: the charade that is the bond between the two countries.
16:36
Speaker 5: In so far as what if anything has been achieved
16:40
Speaker 5: by the Americans and the Israelis. This is what Rick Santorum,
16:44
Speaker 5: the former Republican senator, said to the BBC World Service
16:47
Speaker 5: this morning when he was sent into bat for his country.
16:52
Speaker 8: Isn't what we've learned so far that the Iranian regime
16:55
Speaker 8: is much stronger than any one thought, because the whole
16:57
Speaker 8: that the idea at the start of the conflict now well,
17:00
Speaker 8: the idea at the start of the conflict was the
17:02
Speaker 8: whole regime would collapse. It hasn't been. It survived. Head
17:06
Speaker 8: of state.
17:06
Speaker 6: That's not that's certainly not true. I mean, Donald Trump
17:10
Speaker 6: has never said regime change, nor nor have any Republican.
17:13
Speaker 8: He talks about the Iranian people rising up at the
17:15
Speaker 8: very beginning of the con course.
17:17
Speaker 6: Well, we don't know if that's going to happen or not.
17:19
Speaker 3: I just said that's this is.
17:21
Speaker 6: The little opportunity for a window to see what actually happens,
17:24
Speaker 6: and the reading piece of rising up may not be
17:26
Speaker 6: a popular revolt, which it might be, but it may
17:29
Speaker 6: not be. It may be you know, members of the
17:31
Speaker 6: military saying, you know, we've had enough of this theocracy.
17:33
Speaker 6: We don't really, that's not you know, we're part of
17:36
Speaker 6: it and we have been, but you know it's leading
17:38
Speaker 6: us to a data and it's leading us to complete destruction.
17:41
Speaker 6: I don't know how you say a country that's lost
17:44
Speaker 6: its lost its air force, lost its navy, lost its
17:47
Speaker 6: potentially all of it's nuclear capability, all of its missile capability,
17:51
Speaker 6: it's it's manufacturing capability. It's still I mean, how they
17:55
Speaker 6: come out and say we won just because they're holding
17:59
Speaker 6: on by a by a thread of power right now?
18:02
Speaker 6: Is is a very very odd view, particularly from Brits,
18:07
Speaker 6: as to what success is.
18:08
Speaker 8: Haven't they shown that they can hold the whole global
18:11
Speaker 8: economy hostage, but to a greater extent than anyone expected.
18:14
Speaker 6: I don't think anybody didn't expect it a narrow straight
18:16
Speaker 6: if moves could be you know, subject to at least
18:20
Speaker 6: everybody I talked to within the administration. You know, I
18:23
Speaker 6: anticipated this is happening. They knew that's there there, But
18:26
Speaker 6: this is the But don't you see, this is the
18:28
Speaker 6: very reason why they cannot have a nuclear weapon and
18:31
Speaker 6: that they cannot remain in power because they can hold
18:34
Speaker 6: the world hostage, and they would hold the world hostage
18:38
Speaker 6: if they had the protection and shield of a nuclear weapon.
18:42
Speaker 6: This is what I understand about our European partners.
18:44
Speaker 1: This just shows you exactly.
18:46
Speaker 6: Who they are and what they will do if, in fact,
18:49
Speaker 6: they become bulletproof.
18:53
Speaker 5: No, I'm not suggesting that he had a front row
18:55
Speaker 5: seat in the planning process, but he does seem to
18:57
Speaker 5: articulate well the fact that there was absolutely no con
19:00
Speaker 5: iteration given to the what next, and that reflects not
19:04
Speaker 5: only poorly on the American administration, but makes the British
19:06
Speaker 5: position look somewhat ridiculous.
19:09
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on what he just said. I
19:12
Speaker 1: think we'll keep that for extra.
19:16
Speaker 5: Fair enough, but with specific regard to what he said
19:20
Speaker 5: about regime change, or at least where he was challenged
19:23
Speaker 5: before he tried to sort of stick the knife into
19:25
Speaker 5: the Brits. Of course, in just June last year, Donald
19:29
Speaker 5: Trump put this out on his truth social account. It's
19:33
Speaker 5: not politically correct to use the term regime change, but
19:36
Speaker 5: if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran
19:39
Speaker 5: great again, why wouldn't there be a resume change. So
19:43
Speaker 5: there are absolutely discordant notes within the confines of what
19:47
Speaker 5: is still being described as the Special relationship, and as
19:51
Speaker 5: to the British sort of end of things with regard
19:55
Speaker 5: to an attempt to look like they are maintaining defensive
20:00
Speaker 5: posture and indeed a credible fighting force. We've got the
20:03
Speaker 5: Ministry of Defense here showing off an operational Merlin helicopter,
20:08
Speaker 5: or at least operational for the time being. And in
20:10
Speaker 5: this tweet they say that today the UK is hosting
20:15
Speaker 5: a multinational military Planning Conference at the Permanent Joint Headquarters
20:19
Speaker 5: to discuss the strait of Homers. The planning sorry the
20:23
Speaker 5: Virtual Planning Conference will explore appropriate measures for an international
20:26
Speaker 5: coalition when hostilities have seized. Now a number of questions
20:30
Speaker 5: that fall out of that. The first of all the
20:33
Speaker 5: involvement of the United States, or how exactly that will
20:36
Speaker 5: relate to the actions of the United States. Also who
20:40
Speaker 5: determines exactly when hostilities have ceased and indeed for how long.
20:45
Speaker 5: But I think the point is that it's certainly not
20:47
Speaker 5: going to be the United Kingdom, and so putting on
20:49
Speaker 5: a conference like this looks really more like a pr
20:52
Speaker 5: exercise rather than anything else. And as if to illustrate
20:56
Speaker 5: how far off the ball that I might be, they're
21:00
Speaker 5: boasting about the eventual appointment of a so called Champion
21:03
Speaker 5: for the Armed Forces, the new Armed Forces Commissioner, who
21:09
Speaker 5: is referred to as having unprecedented powers to investigate welfare
21:12
Speaker 5: issues and raise concerns that impact service life, including equipment,
21:17
Speaker 5: housing and unacceptable behaviors. One might imagine she is being
21:22
Speaker 5: set up for a fall. She has very very limited powers,
21:26
Speaker 5: and indeed they do go on to say that Commissioner
21:28
Speaker 5: Miller Perkins will be able to visit UK defense sites
21:31
Speaker 5: unannounced commission reports and will report directly to Parliament to
21:36
Speaker 5: hold the government to account. Quite how that will manifest
21:41
Speaker 5: remains to be seen, but the fact that this is
21:44
Speaker 5: being set against the very very obvious shortcomings of the
21:48
Speaker 5: armed forces across the board strikes a strange tone, one
21:53
Speaker 5: might say. And again, to encapsulate that exactly, we look
21:58
Speaker 5: to the Daily Mail, who reported on HMS Dragon, or
22:03
Speaker 5: as we've been calling her for the last few weeks,
22:05
Speaker 5: HMS drag On, because of course that's what the conflict
22:08
Speaker 5: will do. She's been forced to dock in the Mediterranean
22:10
Speaker 5: amid technical issues with its water system in the latest
22:14
Speaker 5: embarrassment for the Royal Navy. Now, the reason for citing
22:17
Speaker 5: the Daily Mail here is because the Royal Navy have
22:22
Speaker 5: not put out any information at all about the predicament
22:26
Speaker 5: of Dragon. But just as a reminder, she was one
22:29
Speaker 5: of the destroyers alongside Duncan HMS Duncan that was touted
22:34
Speaker 5: for a deployment to the Middle East, which took considerably
22:37
Speaker 5: longer than had been expected, despite the fact that they
22:39
Speaker 5: said that she was actually ready to go, and then
22:42
Speaker 5: eventually did deploy into the Middle East, but with a
22:45
Speaker 5: very uncertain role, and of course now finds herself alongside
22:49
Speaker 5: yet again with Duncan. HMS Duncan her sister ship a
22:54
Speaker 5: destroyer sitting in Portsmouth. So all in all a great confusion.
22:58
Speaker 5: But back to where we start, with regard to the
23:01
Speaker 5: special relationship. Certainly the activities that are being conducted, either
23:05
Speaker 5: politically or militarily don't look at all like they're falling
23:09
Speaker 5: in line with the American attempts to well continue to
23:14
Speaker 5: cause turmoil in the Middle East.
23:17
Speaker 1: But we do have to wait and see what.
23:18
Speaker 2: The result of negotiations now that Cure Starmer's on the grind.
23:22
Speaker 2: Well this is and see exactly what happens from there, exactly. No, Well,
23:26
Speaker 2: this is what I wanted to ask you about. Then,
23:28
Speaker 2: how you think that relates to the very media performance
23:32
Speaker 2: that's been put on by the deployment of the armed
23:34
Speaker 2: forces so far. This is what we're seeing from the
23:39
Speaker 2: British armed Forces is a reflection of the state of
23:41
Speaker 2: the British armed Forces.
23:42
Speaker 1: If the British Armed Forces.
23:43
Speaker 2: Had been in a better state, I believe they would
23:45
Speaker 2: have been more involved, or at least Britain would have
23:48
Speaker 2: been more willing to get directly involved. But we've also
23:51
Speaker 2: got the political machinations around encouraging the Europeans to get
23:56
Speaker 2: more involved as well. That makexed this picture that bit
24:00
Speaker 2: more complex.
24:01
Speaker 1: It absolutely does.
24:02
Speaker 5: I mean, obviously we'll follow what if anything comes out
24:04
Speaker 5: from PGHQ at the conference that's been happening in Northward
24:08
Speaker 5: with regard to the Strait, but it's hard to see
24:10
Speaker 5: how that will come out with any sort of meaningful
24:14
Speaker 5: maybe not language but actions.
24:15
Speaker 1: So yes, we'll look into that. Okay, thank you for that.
24:19
Speaker 1: Let's move on. Then if you like what we do
24:21
Speaker 1: here at the UK column, we do need your ongoing support.
24:24
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24:24
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25:03
Speaker 1: We'll be talking a little bit more about that later
25:05
Speaker 1: on in the program.
25:06
Speaker 2: Another reminder that tickets are now on sale for the
25:09
Speaker 2: twentieth on Location twentieth Anniversary on Location event. It's going
25:13
Speaker 2: to be held in Plymouth eighteenth, the twentieth September. Third
25:18
Speaker 2: of the tickets, more or less are already gone, so
25:21
Speaker 2: if you are thinking of going, you might want to
25:22
Speaker 2: consider it very very soon.
25:24
Speaker 5: And you'll certainly want to take advantage of the early
25:26
Speaker 5: bird discount, which finishes this Sunday night at twenty three
25:29
Speaker 5: fifty nine.
25:30
Speaker 1: Thank you, Charles.
25:32
Speaker 2: Night tonight at seven pm. Then Jeram is speaking to
25:35
Speaker 2: Matt Eric on the Greater Israel Project, and that's at
25:39
Speaker 2: seven and then Carl is the title of this one
25:43
Speaker 2: is China Pakistan Peace Planned, the five Points it could
25:46
Speaker 2: end the Iran War. That's at nine pm tonight. So
25:50
Speaker 2: join us for those programs this evening. Okay, let's move
25:54
Speaker 2: on then, because of course the question of food and
25:58
Speaker 2: food security is still right the heart of this ceasefire,
26:01
Speaker 2: or no significant damage has been done to supply chains,
26:04
Speaker 2: the price of fertilizer through the roof and so on.
26:08
Speaker 1: What's the impact.
26:10
Speaker 5: Well as always rather hard to determine because it does
26:12
Speaker 5: depend where you look. But this is exactly the sort
26:16
Speaker 5: of situation that has been long predicted, and this is
26:19
Speaker 5: the sort of classic shock to the food system or
26:23
Speaker 5: the food chain, not so much necessarily the food itself,
26:25
Speaker 5: but the various inputs that are required to produce food
26:28
Speaker 5: in the modern industrialized sense. So we look to the
26:32
Speaker 5: grosser here, who are reporting that the farmers are now facing.
26:35
Speaker 5: This is specifically to the United Kingdom. The farmers are
26:37
Speaker 5: facing a bill of at least three hundred and forty
26:39
Speaker 5: million a year if our prices remain high. Now, I
26:43
Speaker 5: think it's important to set context for that, because, of
26:45
Speaker 5: course the National Health Service consumes over five hundred million
26:50
Speaker 5: pounds every single day, so that I think provides an
26:54
Speaker 5: insight into the waiting between farming and food and what
26:59
Speaker 5: we call, at least what we're told is a health system.
27:02
Speaker 5: But with regard to the cost of fertilizer and indeed
27:06
Speaker 5: the prohibitive cost, we look to a graph here from
27:09
Speaker 5: the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, and I think what's
27:13
Speaker 5: worth noting, which is indicated by the horizontal sorry verse
27:17
Speaker 5: called red line, is that the prices of fertilizer of
27:21
Speaker 5: almost all nature started to go up from the beginning
27:23
Speaker 5: of this year, and not just from the end of February,
27:26
Speaker 5: so there is absolutely an effect that is measured beyond
27:31
Speaker 5: the confines of the current conflict. Of course, as far
27:35
Speaker 5: as the fortunes of farmers are concerned. This is combined
27:38
Speaker 5: with a drop in the price of wheat futures shown
27:42
Speaker 5: here from Trading Economics. Now, context is always very important,
27:47
Speaker 5: so we look back now over the five year picture
27:49
Speaker 5: and we can see that tremendous spike in wheat prices
27:52
Speaker 5: going back to twenty twenty two, with specific regard to
27:56
Speaker 5: Russia and Ukraine. The outlook, of course for farm any
28:00
Speaker 5: which way you cut it is not good, and certainly
28:03
Speaker 5: not for those consuming supermarket fair because of course this
28:06
Speaker 5: is in the main what we're talking about the inputs
28:08
Speaker 5: required to produce food that in many cases is then
28:11
Speaker 5: ultroprocessed and ends up in supermarkets and indeed contributes to
28:16
Speaker 5: the customer base of the National Health Service. Now, the
28:18
Speaker 5: other thing, of course, that is essentially the base of
28:22
Speaker 5: this fear or concern is the price of crude on
28:27
Speaker 5: I'm just showing the chart from this morning again from
28:29
Speaker 5: Trading Economics, the red column in the middle showing the
28:33
Speaker 5: considerable drops in the price of crude oil from this morning.
28:36
Speaker 5: But then again, as I say, context is absolutely everything.
28:40
Speaker 5: So I'm showing now the six month price of crude oil,
28:43
Speaker 5: which does show steep decline in the past couple of days,
28:47
Speaker 5: but over five years we can see that in actual
28:50
Speaker 5: fact the price is still lower than it spike in
28:54
Speaker 5: twenty twenty two. Now, as far as not just farmers
28:58
Speaker 5: but also the British public is concerned and fuel prices
29:01
Speaker 5: patrol pumps have been a considerable concern, we've got fuel
29:04
Speaker 5: Finder here showing what really can only be described as profiteering.
29:09
Speaker 5: So we've got today the spread on the price of
29:12
Speaker 5: a liter of unneaded petrol ranges between one two four
29:15
Speaker 5: point nine and one nine eight, So it's the spread
29:18
Speaker 5: of seventy four pence, and that absolutely cannot be put
29:22
Speaker 5: down to perceive scarcity of either petrol or diesel. Diesel
29:27
Speaker 5: is similarly spread seventy five pence between one three four
29:30
Speaker 5: point nine and two zero nine point nine. So there
29:33
Speaker 5: aren't many factors at play, and absolutely hay is being
29:36
Speaker 5: made if f you'l pardon the unfortunate pun with regard
29:40
Speaker 5: to making the best of in terms of profiteering. The
29:43
Speaker 5: situation as it is being presented. But Mike, you've got
29:46
Speaker 5: a bit more on specifically this with regard to Ireland.
29:48
Speaker 2: Well, yes, because in Ireland at the moment, truck drivers,
29:51
Speaker 2: farmers and others have been blockheading roads in the last
29:55
Speaker 2: day or two over rising costs of fuel. Now the
29:58
Speaker 2: protesters are calling on the area government to cap the
30:01
Speaker 2: cost and to remove the carbon tax. Farmers involved with
30:05
Speaker 2: the protests warning of rising food prices and the protests
30:08
Speaker 2: are continuing. So on the EMMET close in temporary with
30:12
Speaker 2: traffic disruption also in Galway and Limerick, in macrom and
30:17
Speaker 2: Port Lisia.
30:17
Speaker 1: In Dublin.
30:19
Speaker 2: There's major transport disruption this morning as protesters extend the
30:22
Speaker 2: blockade at Dublin Airport is warned that getting to the
30:26
Speaker 2: airport could be challenging. Irish government officials from the National
30:31
Speaker 2: Oil Reserves Agency reported as saying that they have reserves
30:34
Speaker 2: of petrol for ninety nine days theseel threely five days
30:37
Speaker 2: in kerosene for seventy days, which may well be moot
30:41
Speaker 2: because access to fuel terminals and points in Galway has
30:43
Speaker 2: also been blocked and that's stopping delivery to filling stations.
30:47
Speaker 2: So the Irish government has rejected the demands of the
30:49
Speaker 2: protesters and the TA Shock and the Tanista will meet
30:55
Speaker 2: senior ministers and officials today for emergency discussions, but it's
30:59
Speaker 2: not expected that they're going to make any change to
31:02
Speaker 2: current support levels for at least another two weeks and
31:06
Speaker 2: probably not at all. But in the meantime, the Transport
31:09
Speaker 2: Infrastructure of Ireland has published a map of disruptions to
31:12
Speaker 2: help anyone who's wanting to move around the country. But
31:17
Speaker 2: you know, we're not seeing this in the UK as yet,
31:19
Speaker 2: but certainly in Ireland they're getting out on the street.
31:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:23
Speaker 5: I mean, I think one considers that it should be
31:27
Speaker 5: a matter of time whether it actually will be in
31:29
Speaker 5: the way that people are so very distracted by all
31:31
Speaker 5: the other things that they think are going on in
31:33
Speaker 5: their lives. It does remain to be seen, but I
31:35
Speaker 5: think the sooner people realize that an actual fact of
31:39
Speaker 5: reason for any of this happening is not perhaps as
31:42
Speaker 5: it's being portrayed. And obviously I just referenced profiteering. Now
31:47
Speaker 5: that's in effect form of opportunism, and I think I'm
31:51
Speaker 5: not suggesting there's necessarily malice involved in this, but we're
31:54
Speaker 5: going to take a look at a few excerpts from
31:57
Speaker 5: a podcast from the New Scientists which is called The World,
32:00
Speaker 5: the Universe and Us, And this particular episode very recently
32:03
Speaker 5: features Professor Paul Berens of Oxford University and Michael the Page,
32:07
Speaker 5: who's an author with New Scientists. So they start the
32:11
Speaker 5: three way discussion, and they start with the effect, or
32:16
Speaker 5: at least the perceived effect of the Middle East conflict
32:19
Speaker 5: on farming inputs. The Gulf States were so central to
32:25
Speaker 5: this fertilizer trade. That's I mean, that's been something I've
32:29
Speaker 5: only just noticed.
32:29
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean it's partly due to the sheer energy
32:32
Speaker 10: inputs that are needed for the fertilizer as well, I
32:34
Speaker 10: mean the natural gas as Michael is just saying, and
32:37
Speaker 10: all the other inputs. And so you know, we use
32:39
Speaker 10: about one to two percent of the total global energy
32:41
Speaker 10: supply to make fertilizer alone. And then obviously we've got
32:45
Speaker 10: all of these other inputs, this diesel that's going into
32:48
Speaker 10: transporting food, We've got the packaging that's coming from fossil
32:52
Speaker 10: fuels as well. So you know, when we look across
32:55
Speaker 10: the food system, an awful lot of those inputs are
32:57
Speaker 10: coming in one way or another. From this industry, your
33:00
Speaker 10: byproducts from this industry, and often in the same places.
33:03
Speaker 7: Pesticides, you know, hugely important today, and I mean they
33:06
Speaker 7: can become more important as the world gets warmer and
33:08
Speaker 7: pests spread around. So you know, we're talking about supply chain.
33:13
Speaker 7: So pesticides are made from phosip fuels, but they depend
33:16
Speaker 7: particularly on a fossil fuel derivative called naphtha. Now naptha,
33:20
Speaker 7: a lot of that comes from the Gulf. Two of
33:22
Speaker 7: the big ports have just been attacked, so it's not
33:26
Speaker 7: clear what's happened. But then the other thing, there's another
33:28
Speaker 7: big source of naphtha is Russia and it's exported through
33:32
Speaker 7: the oost Luga port, which I think as we speak
33:35
Speaker 7: is still burning because it's been just been retacked repeatedly
33:38
Speaker 7: by Ukraine. So now for pesticides, we I mean, there's
33:41
Speaker 7: definitely going to be a price impact.
33:45
Speaker 5: There's an interesting contradiction there which wasn't picked up on
33:48
Speaker 5: by the host because the essentially the predication of those
33:52
Speaker 5: speaking was that fossil fuels are bad for the climate
33:56
Speaker 5: because they perpetuate what's described as global warming, or at
33:59
Speaker 5: least what was the sky as global warming, and yet
34:01
Speaker 5: on the one hand, the initial description by Barrens of
34:05
Speaker 5: the inputs that require fossil fuels therefore being a bad
34:09
Speaker 5: thing and looking for a way to change it, but
34:12
Speaker 5: at the same time positing that crops are the answer,
34:16
Speaker 5: and yet pesticides due to climate change will of course
34:20
Speaker 5: require greater fossil fuel inputs. There was that contradiction. But
34:22
Speaker 5: also I think it's worth pointing out that whilst in
34:25
Speaker 5: many ways the points they're making are entirely logical, they're
34:28
Speaker 5: completely based on industrialized and chemical intensive farming rather than
34:34
Speaker 5: considering any other methods. But the other thing that will
34:38
Speaker 5: go on to have a look at now is how
34:40
Speaker 5: the idea that food and national security are inextricably linked.
34:44
Speaker 5: So we'll just hear what they said about that.
34:47
Speaker 10: You know, our national sort of buffer of food is
34:50
Speaker 10: somewhere between sort of eleven days and three weeks, I mean,
34:54
Speaker 10: maybe even lower than that for fresh food. You know,
34:57
Speaker 10: but if you look at other countries like China, which
34:59
Speaker 10: is how these sort of famines within sort of living
35:02
Speaker 10: memory of some generations, you know, they've got something like
35:05
Speaker 10: nine to twelve months. It's hard we don't quite know exactly. Wow,
35:08
Speaker 10: And actually that storage of that major cereal crop is
35:11
Speaker 10: actually what's sort of pressing the prices to where they
35:14
Speaker 10: could be because people are saying, well, maybe there won't
35:17
Speaker 10: be this massive demand from China because they do have
35:19
Speaker 10: these stocks. A little bit like what's happening in the
35:22
Speaker 10: sort of petrol and diesel system as well, is that
35:25
Speaker 10: you know, you've got the IEA that are releasing some
35:27
Speaker 10: of these strategic reserves, You've got other countries releasing some
35:29
Speaker 10: of these strategic serves. So it suppresses it a little
35:31
Speaker 10: bit for a short amount of time, but it really
35:33
Speaker 10: depends how long it goes on for how bad it gets.
35:36
Speaker 10: In Europe, for example, anywhere between forty and sixty percent
35:39
Speaker 10: of our grains are going towards animal livestock, and that
35:43
Speaker 10: tends to destroy between sort of eighty and ninety seven
35:47
Speaker 10: percent of the calories that you're actually feeding, So it's
35:50
Speaker 10: incredibly inefficient and we could be eating those plants directly,
35:54
Speaker 10: of course. So it's not only that, it's also the
35:58
Speaker 10: fact that it's taking up an allf lot of land.
36:00
Speaker 10: So about eighty percent of agricultural land, around thirty five
36:04
Speaker 10: percent of total habitable land around the planet is being
36:07
Speaker 10: basically used for animal livestock, and we simply don't have
36:11
Speaker 10: the land anymore. And so some of that land can
36:14
Speaker 10: be used for growing other crops, it can be used
36:17
Speaker 10: for nature, it can be used for climate resilience.
36:22
Speaker 5: No, my apologies, that's entirely my fault. That was not
36:24
Speaker 5: about national security. But the next one will be. But
36:26
Speaker 5: before we get there, we will just talk about that,
36:28
Speaker 5: because obviously what he's putting forward there is in effect
36:31
Speaker 5: an alternative to the system that he sees before him,
36:33
Speaker 5: but only in a limited context. And I think this
36:35
Speaker 5: is something that we want to talk about because this
36:37
Speaker 5: is really the making of the case for livestock being
36:42
Speaker 5: done away with and for the human diet to be
36:44
Speaker 5: changed radically. And the prefix for that is that there
36:49
Speaker 5: is an emergency to the supply, in particular of fossil fuels,
36:53
Speaker 5: which a in their words in their argument, are damaging
36:57
Speaker 5: the environment, damaging the climate, so are being made scaress
37:01
Speaker 5: and expensive by the types of conflicts have gone on now.
37:04
Speaker 5: So therefore the answer is no more meat, no more animals.
37:07
Speaker 5: It's not really that simple, though, is it.
37:09
Speaker 2: Well, correct me if I'm wrong, But fertilizer used to
37:12
Speaker 2: come from animals, and instead we've industrialized them turned it
37:15
Speaker 2: into chemical process, which requires fossil fuels, which is worse
37:19
Speaker 2: having the animals required to produce the fertilizer, or the
37:24
Speaker 2: use of fossil so called fossil fuels to to to
37:27
Speaker 2: produce the fertilizer. Which which is the Which is the
37:30
Speaker 2: better outcome? It seems to me that eating meat is
37:33
Speaker 2: a significant part of our diet. If we take that away,
37:37
Speaker 2: then we're more and more reliant on the industrialized production
37:41
Speaker 2: of so called food. And this is seems contrary or
37:46
Speaker 2: at least contradictory to the the climate change narrative.
37:50
Speaker 1: I think so.
37:50
Speaker 5: I think I think it does, and I think it's
37:52
Speaker 5: to their detriment really, because obviously you know that they're intelligent,
37:55
Speaker 5: articulate people, and they're considering many of the factors, but
37:58
Speaker 5: not all. I think the other thing that they absolutely
38:00
Speaker 5: overlook completely and utterly is what's being described, or at
38:04
Speaker 5: least should be described as regenerative farming. Now that's a
38:07
Speaker 5: thorny one because in a way that term has already
38:09
Speaker 5: been subverted and seized upon by large corporations. The entire
38:13
Speaker 5: point of it is that the inputs are either nil
38:16
Speaker 5: or minimal, because it does do exactly what you're describing,
38:19
Speaker 5: which is to improve the quality of soil by sensible use,
38:24
Speaker 5: responsible use of livestock, which in turn reward you by
38:28
Speaker 5: providing you with nutrient dense food, and in a sense
38:32
Speaker 5: everybody wins, especially on a business level. But that's something
38:36
Speaker 5: that's not been considered here. And the reason for sharing
38:39
Speaker 5: this video is that, of course this is an organization
38:43
Speaker 5: or publication rather than New Scientists, which is influential. Oxford
38:46
Speaker 5: University obviously has considerable clout with regard to the shaping
38:50
Speaker 5: of government policy, and the danger is that views expressed
38:55
Speaker 5: in this sort of forum do have the potential to
38:58
Speaker 5: actually influence policy, and we'll go on see exactly how
39:01
Speaker 5: that might manifest. But we will now look at the
39:03
Speaker 5: clip that does refer to food as national security.
39:08
Speaker 10: I mean, people don't think about eating more plants as
39:10
Speaker 10: a national security issue, but it really is when you
39:13
Speaker 10: look at what's happening to the world and how much
39:16
Speaker 10: resources we put into animal agriculture. In the case particularly exposed,
39:21
Speaker 10: we import between sort of forty to fifty percent of
39:25
Speaker 10: our food, depending on the year and how you calculate it.
39:27
Speaker 10: What that means is that we are sort of beholden
39:30
Speaker 10: to these just insided supply chains that we've been talking about. Now,
39:34
Speaker 10: if you look at what we're able to do in
39:36
Speaker 10: the future, really it comes down to how we use
39:39
Speaker 10: our lands, as we've been discussing, and so in the UK,
39:41
Speaker 10: if we eat that diet that I mentioned earlier, we'd
39:43
Speaker 10: save an area almost the size of Scotland. Now some
39:46
Speaker 10: of that can go towards growing more crops in reserve.
39:49
Speaker 10: You know, we can actually have more crops growing on
39:52
Speaker 10: the arable land that's currently growing that feed and having
39:55
Speaker 10: those crops directly for us can be plant based proteins
39:57
Speaker 10: for example.
40:00
Speaker 5: I think we can talk about this in extra quite
40:03
Speaker 5: a bit more. But suddenly the idea that just changing
40:07
Speaker 5: the system in order to grow more crops that animals
40:09
Speaker 5: don't eat, I would say, is possibly a very very
40:12
Speaker 5: straightforward and indeed an argument that this is the point
40:16
Speaker 5: because it still requires all the chemical inputs that he's
40:18
Speaker 5: saying we shouldn't have in the first place. So there
40:20
Speaker 5: are issues with this, but none I think it is
40:22
Speaker 5: interesting to listen to, and the link to the full
40:25
Speaker 5: debate is in the show notes. But finally, going back
40:28
Speaker 5: to what I said at the start, about this being
40:30
Speaker 5: used as an opportunity, or rather the conflict being used
40:33
Speaker 5: as an opportunity. We'll just listen to how Paul Barns
40:35
Speaker 5: closed out his argument.
40:39
Speaker 10: Well, I think, as you say, you know, this does
40:42
Speaker 10: give us the push that we need to do the
40:46
Speaker 10: things that we've been looking at for a very long time.
40:48
Speaker 10: And when you think about the food system, it's often overlooked. Actually,
40:53
Speaker 10: and now is the time. I'm afraid that, you know,
40:57
Speaker 10: things are really going to get quite difficult, and not
41:00
Speaker 10: just with this crisis in Iran, but also with the
41:03
Speaker 10: climate crisis, the nature crisis, and we're just going to
41:06
Speaker 10: have to move on these things. And that I mean optimistically.
41:10
Speaker 10: We know that if we do these things, the world
41:13
Speaker 10: could be so much better for it. And so when
41:15
Speaker 10: we look across all of the winds that we're discussing,
41:18
Speaker 10: more green space, cleaner air, cleaner water, more nature. I mean,
41:21
Speaker 10: in our research we even find that all other things
41:24
Speaker 10: being equal, farmers could make more in this country from
41:27
Speaker 10: this shift. We'd be healthy, save billions for the NHS,
41:31
Speaker 10: for example. I mean, the list goes on and on
41:33
Speaker 10: and on.
41:36
Speaker 5: I don't think very many people would fall out with
41:37
Speaker 5: the outcomes that he's pursuing, but not necessarily the method
41:40
Speaker 5: by which he wants to get there. And I think
41:42
Speaker 5: the question is where does the government stand on this
41:44
Speaker 5: and how likely are we to get to any of
41:46
Speaker 5: those points. Well, we'll take a look at the latest
41:48
Speaker 5: food statistics in your pocket, and in particular the at
41:52
Speaker 5: least at face value, the absolutely crazy policy with regard
41:56
Speaker 5: to production, import and export. And if you can't see
41:59
Speaker 5: the screen, couple of charts showing by food category how
42:03
Speaker 5: much is imported or exported, and what you will notice
42:06
Speaker 5: immediately is that almost everything which we have a net
42:10
Speaker 5: deficit of we are also exporting, which would seem to
42:14
Speaker 5: make absolutely no sense. Of course, the standout example there
42:18
Speaker 5: is beverages, which is largely Scotch whiskey, which we export
42:21
Speaker 5: more of than we import, but still the values both
42:23
Speaker 5: are extremely high. Obviously, clearly I should clarify that I
42:26
Speaker 5: can't import Scotch whiskey, but that's part of it. And again,
42:30
Speaker 5: just to reinforce the point of how crazy this can be,
42:33
Speaker 5: the government or via Dephyra, have announced a deal just
42:37
Speaker 5: made with Japanese or the organic market. They're the second
42:41
Speaker 5: biggest in Asia to the value of one point four billion,
42:46
Speaker 5: and they say that the government has identified the removal
42:49
Speaker 5: of this trade barrier as one of its market access priorities,
42:51
Speaker 5: with the potential to boost British export sales and generate
42:54
Speaker 5: millions in additional trade each year.
42:58
Speaker 1: Well, that may be the case.
42:59
Speaker 5: But since we are listening to people like Paul Bearns
43:03
Speaker 5: talking about running out of food and indeed trying to
43:06
Speaker 5: think of a different way of doing it that does
43:08
Speaker 5: benefit the environment, would one really be sensible to look
43:11
Speaker 5: any further than the production of organic food for the
43:16
Speaker 5: home market.
43:18
Speaker 1: Good question. We'll discuss that more or later as well.
43:21
Speaker 2: But let's move on then to online safety because the
43:25
Speaker 2: starmar regimes attack on end encrypted chat applications like whatsappen
43:30
Speaker 2: Signal is close to reaching its goal. Now on screen
43:33
Speaker 2: is the Open Rights Group campaign on the issue now.
43:37
Speaker 2: Under Section one twenty one of the Online Safety Act
43:40
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, OFFCOM was tasked with investigating technical mechanisms
43:45
Speaker 2: for accessing content in and encrypted services, effectively of investigating
43:51
Speaker 2: encryption backdoors. Lord Hanson of Flint has confirmed in the
43:54
Speaker 2: House of Lords in the last ay or two that
43:56
Speaker 2: ofcom's report is due eminently in the next to a
44:00
Speaker 2: couple of weeks and that the government would act extremely
44:03
Speaker 2: speedily once it received it. Ofcome has not yet designated
44:07
Speaker 2: any accredited technologies under the Act and final guidance is
44:11
Speaker 2: expected later this month or next month. The Act gives
44:16
Speaker 2: Offcome the part of compel platforms to scan for of
44:19
Speaker 2: course children become the poster child. Excuse the pun for
44:23
Speaker 2: this again for child sex abuse material encrypted environments. There's
44:27
Speaker 2: no such requirement as yet being activated now. The big
44:30
Speaker 2: target for this in recent months and years has been
44:33
Speaker 2: Apple's iCloud encryption and although Apple won the first round
44:37
Speaker 2: of that fight, the fight continues with Privacy International and
44:40
Speaker 2: Liberty challenging the lawfulness of the Home Office using a
44:44
Speaker 2: technical capability noticed to require Apple to disclose the encrypted
44:49
Speaker 2: data of its users of its Advanced Data Protection service,
44:52
Speaker 2: and of course that would be a global requirement. Now
44:55
Speaker 2: this case is also due to be heard very soon now.
44:59
Speaker 2: The conversation, though, was been going on for years and
45:01
Speaker 2: I just want to remind everybody of this little bit
45:04
Speaker 2: of video of Damian Collins, the former chair of the
45:07
Speaker 2: Digital Media and Sports Select Committee, and also Meredith Whittaker
45:10
Speaker 2: from Signal discussing the issues. This was on Channel four
45:13
Speaker 2: News just before the Online Safety Actress passed.
45:18
Speaker 4: Agree with Meredith on that point, I mean there aren't.
45:20
Speaker 4: I didn't think it would be safe to have us
45:22
Speaker 4: to say there's a safe backdoor, because once you create it,
45:24
Speaker 4: other people will will find it as well. That's what
45:26
Speaker 4: We're not going to ask companies to break encryption. What
45:29
Speaker 4: the regulator would would do. I would imagine with a
45:31
Speaker 4: company like Signal is when the regulator OFCOM is creating
45:35
Speaker 4: the code of practice, they might say the Signal, well,
45:37
Speaker 4: what sort of data do you gather? And if Signal
45:39
Speaker 4: says well, we don't gather data about people's messages, we
45:41
Speaker 4: can't possibly look at this. The regulator won't say you
45:44
Speaker 4: need to break encryption. It'll say that's fine, But you
45:46
Speaker 4: do have policies, let's say, on legal and appropriate use.
45:50
Speaker 1: How do you enforce those? What do you use? Right?
45:52
Speaker 11: Dam None of that is specified in the bill. And
45:54
Speaker 11: this is our concern because we hear, you know, we
45:56
Speaker 11: hear things that are sensible like that from people like you,
45:59
Speaker 11: and then we love get the bill and what is
46:01
Speaker 11: specified is a regime that would give Offcom the power
46:04
Speaker 11: to demand that everyone in the UK downloads spyware that
46:07
Speaker 11: checks their messages before they're sent against the database of
46:10
Speaker 11: what is permissible to say and send and what is
46:12
Speaker 11: not permissible. And that is a precedent that authoritarian regimes
46:16
Speaker 11: are looking to the UK to point to a liberal
46:19
Speaker 11: democracy that was the first to expand surveillance. In the
46:22
Speaker 11: terms of the UN Human Rights Commissioner, this is unprecedented
46:26
Speaker 11: paradigm shifting surveillance and paradigm shifting not in the good way.
46:31
Speaker 2: Now, of course, Meredith Whitaker, they're a little bit off
46:33
Speaker 2: ahead and suggesting that Britain is a liberal democracy. But anyway,
46:36
Speaker 2: we can discuss that an extra too. But look at
46:39
Speaker 2: the online safety regime continues to rumble on and I'm
46:41
Speaker 2: not saying too much public pushback from the public, and
46:44
Speaker 2: I admit to finding that lack of energy from people
46:48
Speaker 2: somewhat frustrating. There are so many policy targets which should
46:52
Speaker 2: be heavily resisted, including the war target of course, the
46:55
Speaker 2: war policy, and yet people are mostly silent.
46:58
Speaker 1: So perhaps the crisis is doing his job. We'll talk
47:01
Speaker 1: about that later as well. Vanessa. Let's come back to
47:05
Speaker 1: you then. And the BBC.
47:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is actually BBC Persia, which of course,
47:13
Speaker 3: is the flagship of the massive propaganda complex media complex
47:18
Speaker 3: that leads the campaign against Ieron and has done for decades.
47:23
Speaker 3: So this was a headline in BBC pressure We're sinking deeper,
47:27
Speaker 3: Iranians brace for infrastructure strikes as Trump deadline nars and
47:33
Speaker 3: it was written by a journalist gonche Her bbs Ad.
47:38
Speaker 3: I'm not going to repeat that name again because it's
47:40
Speaker 3: quite difficult to say. And in the first edition of
47:45
Speaker 3: the article this is what she claimed was said by Again,
47:49
Speaker 3: all of the sources are, of course just a single name,
47:53
Speaker 3: not really any background to them, which is typical BBC strategy,
47:58
Speaker 3: but basically read also in his twenties and living in Tehran,
48:02
Speaker 3: says about them hitting energy infrastructure, using an atomic bomb
48:08
Speaker 3: or leveling Iran. My honest reaction is that I'm okay
48:13
Speaker 3: with all of these or anything else they might have
48:16
Speaker 3: in mind. If attacking targets in the country brings down
48:19
Speaker 3: the Islamic Republic, I'm fine with that. So the initial
48:22
Speaker 3: BBC Persion report basically advocates for using nuclear weapons. Then,
48:28
Speaker 3: oddly enough, the second edition of the article, without any
48:33
Speaker 3: apology from the BBC is published, in which it simply
48:37
Speaker 3: says Radin, also in his twenties and living in Tehran, said,
48:41
Speaker 3: if attacking targets in the country brings down the Islamic Republic,
48:44
Speaker 3: I'm fine with that because if the Islamic Republic survives
48:47
Speaker 3: this war, it will stay forever. So the BBC doing,
48:50
Speaker 3: of course what it's best, that supporting opposition to legitimate
48:56
Speaker 3: governments in sovereign countries. This is an article that's just
49:00
Speaker 3: been published by the Gray Zone where they go into
49:02
Speaker 3: a lot more depth as to the background of this reporter,
49:06
Speaker 3: senior BBC ORR reporter exposed as an opposition activists and
49:12
Speaker 3: as it says in the article itself, at the ripe
49:16
Speaker 3: old age of twenty seven, gonche Habibizad has already achieved
49:20
Speaker 3: more than most British journalists will in their lifetime. After
49:24
Speaker 3: just four years in the field, she's already risen to
49:26
Speaker 3: the position of senior reporter at BBC Persian, a prestigious
49:30
Speaker 3: and influential role which requires a minimum of eight to
49:33
Speaker 3: ten years experience in journalism according to a BBC job listing.
49:39
Speaker 3: And there's very good reason, of course, why she's risen
49:42
Speaker 3: to these giddy heights so quickly. This was back from
49:46
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three by a commentator on X. The co
49:51
Speaker 3: author I think that's meant to say of the above
49:54
Speaker 3: report is gonche Harbibizad. She's employed by Marja and TV network.
49:58
Speaker 1: This is the parent come.
50:00
Speaker 3: Company of Monoto TV, a pro monarchy network with the
50:05
Speaker 3: mission of glorifying the Parlavi dynasty, one of the worst
50:08
Speaker 3: dictatorships of the twentieth century. So again, what is the
50:13
Speaker 3: bbcing being proven to do effectively to support another regime
50:20
Speaker 3: change in another sovereign country under aggression from the US
50:24
Speaker 3: and Israel.
50:26
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you Vanessa for that. Now let's move on
50:30
Speaker 2: to Israel then, and at Middle East. I reported yesterday
50:34
Speaker 2: that Ben gaverer dded the moskue. This is their language
50:38
Speaker 2: readed the mosque under heavy police protection. This is alaximsk.
50:42
Speaker 2: Of course, the mask remains closed to Muslim worshipers, following
50:46
Speaker 2: the closure by Israeli authorities at the end of February
50:49
Speaker 2: when the Iran conflict began. At the same time, Israeli
50:53
Speaker 2: police have a plan still to be approved by the
50:55
Speaker 2: High Court to expand and regularize incursions into the mosque
51:00
Speaker 2: settlers while limiting access by Muslim worshippers. Al Kud's internationals
51:05
Speaker 2: quoted in the article as saying that the plan deepens
51:08
Speaker 2: the division of Alaxa Mosque between Muslims and Jews.
51:13
Speaker 1: It uses the war to.
51:14
Speaker 2: Transform Alaxa into a shared Jewish Islamic holy site as
51:18
Speaker 2: a prelude to its complete judy asiation, the foundation said,
51:22
Speaker 2: and that was last week. Now the addition that sorry
51:26
Speaker 2: it had added that the move would place ben Gavier
51:29
Speaker 2: in effective control of the mosque's affairs and that the
51:35
Speaker 2: current organization that manages the mosque its currently is recognized
51:40
Speaker 2: as having exclusive administrative authority, including control over access. And
51:46
Speaker 2: the report says this represents a Zionist insult to Arab
51:49
Speaker 2: and Muslim kings, presidents and prime ministers and foreign ministers,
51:53
Speaker 2: who have limited themselves to verbal appeals, reducing them to
51:56
Speaker 2: mere onlookers awaiting Ben Gavier's discretion over one of their
51:59
Speaker 2: whole sites. This is a deeply shameful and unacceptable stance
52:04
Speaker 2: that the Muslim nation must not accept. And then in
52:07
Speaker 2: the meantime, the juicelym post here is reporting that they
52:12
Speaker 2: have obtained a document which apparently keeps track of the
52:16
Speaker 2: terrorist activities that settlers are carrying out in the West
52:20
Speaker 2: Bank against Palestinians. The document, they say, is entitled Summary
52:24
Speaker 2: of the Month in the struggle against the Arab enemy
52:27
Speaker 2: in the Holy Land during the month of Adar and
52:32
Speaker 2: this authored by what's described as far right activists who
52:36
Speaker 2: organize and deploy hilltop youth and so once. The document
52:41
Speaker 2: lists the number of Arab injured, mosques set on fire,
52:47
Speaker 2: windows shattered, how many olive trees were cut down, how
52:50
Speaker 2: many tiers were punctured, among other types of attacks. It
52:53
Speaker 2: also lists which villages were attacked throughout the month, along
52:57
Speaker 2: with account indicating how many times the group launched an
53:01
Speaker 2: attack here, an attack there. And the Jurisdalm Post quotes
53:05
Speaker 2: an IDF sources saying that the settlers have gone into
53:08
Speaker 2: major escalation of their so called Holy war. They think
53:13
Speaker 2: this is the time to start the Battle of Gog
53:16
Speaker 2: and Magog. We see many attempts to reach Area A
53:20
Speaker 2: and create friction with the local population. They're exploiting the
53:23
Speaker 2: level of security we've established on the ground to challenge
53:27
Speaker 2: the forces entry into Area A. And we're not talking
53:30
Speaker 2: about small incidence, but groups that intentionally go into restricted
53:34
Speaker 2: areas to create friction or try to build illegal outposts.
53:38
Speaker 2: I wanted to get your thoughts on this Vanessa and
53:41
Speaker 2: the Alaxa thing, because you know, this is I guess
53:46
Speaker 2: you know, a similar strand of continuing this operation similar
53:51
Speaker 2: to what's going on in Lebanon. A second, because at
53:53
Speaker 2: the moment, because they're clearly attempting to present the same
53:58
Speaker 2: kind of rhetoric to the the Jews in Israel as
54:02
Speaker 2: the US forces have received through the Christian Zionist angle,
54:07
Speaker 2: that they're creating some kind of final battle here.
54:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it certainly seems that they're accelerating what
54:17
Speaker 3: they perceive to be the Armageddon, which is going to
54:19
Speaker 3: herald the second coming of their Messiah, and that includes
54:25
Speaker 3: of course the destruction of the alak Samosque, the building
54:28
Speaker 3: of the Temple mount, the full and final solution or
54:32
Speaker 3: eradication of Palestinians from their land. And we know that
54:38
Speaker 3: the Zonus government has been increasing the annexation of Area
54:44
Speaker 3: C in the West Bank since the Trump Pea scam
54:48
Speaker 3: came into effect. And now we see the settlers, that
54:51
Speaker 3: isis settlers as I call them, being deployed to effectively
54:55
Speaker 3: also drive out Palestinians from the few areas of the
55:00
Speaker 3: West Bank. They remain, and so yeah, we seem to
55:03
Speaker 3: be suddenly entering an acceleration phase of Israeli plans for
55:08
Speaker 3: both expansion and for the religious fanatical aims.
55:15
Speaker 5: Yes, let's move on then, and Charles, we will to
55:21
Speaker 5: the subject of war crimes and we go to Australia
55:24
Speaker 5: where we view the arrest of Robert Smith, who holds
55:29
Speaker 5: the Victoria Cross following his service in the Special Air
55:32
Speaker 5: Service Regiment Australia, where he was serving for a long
55:37
Speaker 5: period of time, and this in particular concerns actions in
55:42
Speaker 5: Afghanistan a couple of well not quite a couple of
55:46
Speaker 5: decades ago. We're going to listen to the statement from
55:50
Speaker 5: the Australian Police as to what exactly has happened.
55:54
Speaker 9: A former Australian Defense Force member has today been arrested
55:58
Speaker 9: and will be charged five counts of war crime murder
56:02
Speaker 9: after a joint investigation between the Office of the Special
56:05
Speaker 9: Investigator and the AFP. It will be alleged the man
56:09
Speaker 9: was a member of the ADF when he was involved
56:12
Speaker 9: in the death of Afghan nationals between two thousand and
56:14
Speaker 9: nine and twenty twelve in circumstances that constitute war crimes
56:20
Speaker 9: under the Commonwealth Criminal Code. It will be alleged the
56:23
Speaker 9: victims were detained, unarmed and were under the control of
56:27
Speaker 9: EIGHTYF members when they were killed. It will be alleged
56:32
Speaker 9: the victims were shot by the accused or shot by
56:36
Speaker 9: subordinate members of the ADF in the presence of and
56:39
Speaker 9: acting on the orders of the accused. Robert Smith was
56:43
Speaker 9: once held as a national hero and awarded the Victoria
56:47
Speaker 9: Cross for his actions during six tours of Afghanistan.
56:50
Speaker 2: He has consistently denied wrongdoing.
56:53
Speaker 9: The alleged conduct related to these charges is confined to
56:57
Speaker 9: a very small section of our t trusted and respected
57:01
Speaker 9: alf which helps keep this country safe.
57:07
Speaker 5: It's been a long time coming, and the investigation itself
57:10
Speaker 5: so far has taken a considerable period of time. But
57:12
Speaker 5: it's set against the backdrop of a story that I
57:14
Speaker 5: have reported intermittently on UK column, which concerns, among others,
57:18
Speaker 5: the journalist Nick Mackenzie, who has written here for the
57:21
Speaker 5: Age and the headline there and Robert Smith arrested over
57:25
Speaker 5: multiple war crimes. Now one of the things he said,
57:28
Speaker 5: which is while only a jury can decide Robert Smith's guilt,
57:31
Speaker 5: prosecution would mark a spectacular fall from grace of a
57:34
Speaker 5: one time war hero, fiercely backed by politicians including former
57:38
Speaker 5: Defense Minister and Australian War Memorial German Brendan Nelson and
57:42
Speaker 5: One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, as well as billionaire Kerry Stokes.
57:46
Speaker 5: So this has been a very big story in Australia
57:49
Speaker 5: and the significant part of that, concerning at least Nick mackenzie,
57:52
Speaker 5: is that Robert Smith sued for defamation because McKenzie was
57:58
Speaker 5: in effect putting forward that war crimes had been committed,
58:00
Speaker 5: and there was the rather bizarre situation of the civil
58:04
Speaker 5: court reaching the conclusion on the balance probability that indeed
58:08
Speaker 5: war crimes were committed and that Robert Smith had killed
58:12
Speaker 5: the Afghans in the manner that mackenzie was suggesting. Of course,
58:16
Speaker 5: at the time that seemed somewhat absurd because there was
58:18
Speaker 5: no criminal investigation, or at least not one that was
58:21
Speaker 5: publicly known about. This ends that period in so far
58:25
Speaker 5: as the charges have now been brought.
58:28
Speaker 9: Now.
58:28
Speaker 5: The reason for mentioning this not only does it make
58:30
Speaker 5: history in so far as Australian on forces and society concerned,
58:34
Speaker 5: but also, of course the ramifications will be felt over
58:36
Speaker 5: here because this coincides with the Independent inquiry relating to Afghanistan,
58:42
Speaker 5: and in particular, or at least recent in recent times,
58:45
Speaker 5: the evidence as reported by Alan Pughsley, the former Chief
58:50
Speaker 5: Constable of Kent Police. Now among the many comments that
58:54
Speaker 5: Pewsley made in his assessment of what was described as
58:57
Speaker 5: Operation Northmore, which is in effect an investigation into exactly
59:01
Speaker 5: the same conduct that Robert Smith stands accused of, some
59:04
Speaker 5: of his some of his statements are and d damning.
59:08
Speaker 5: He overall that Northmore was poorly led, inadequately resourced, and
59:12
Speaker 5: it failed to meet the standards of a major investigation.
59:15
Speaker 5: And to pick from his report, he said that the
59:17
Speaker 5: goal command during this period, Colonel John McAllister, declined to
59:21
Speaker 5: keep any meaningful records. He went on to say that
59:23
Speaker 5: there were very few key witness statements taken and little
59:27
Speaker 5: progress was made in relation to obtaining data or digital exhibits.
59:32
Speaker 5: And then at the time of the decision to close
59:34
Speaker 5: Operation Northmore, there was still an investigative team in Afghanistan
59:38
Speaker 5: conducting interviews with Afghan witnesses. And then he goes on
59:42
Speaker 5: to say that there is no justification provided in any
59:45
Speaker 5: of these documents for not continuing these lines of inquiry.
59:49
Speaker 5: By contrast, the similar but shorter and narrower in scope
59:54
Speaker 5: investigation that happened afterwards. Op Kestro was written up well
59:58
Speaker 5: by Pewsley concludes by saying that the investigative strategies were
1:00:02
Speaker 5: hampered by both indecision and or apathy within the chain
1:00:06
Speaker 5: of command, and by a lack of assistance from UK
1:00:08
Speaker 5: Special Forces. Now that last point is very significant because
1:00:12
Speaker 5: the Director Special Forces at that time, this is going back,
1:00:16
Speaker 5: as I say, to the early twenty tens, was or
1:00:20
Speaker 5: is now the first Sea Lord General Seguinn Jenkins, and
1:00:23
Speaker 5: indeed it has been stated many times that he was
1:00:25
Speaker 5: well aware of the allegations which prompted Operation Northmore in
1:00:28
Speaker 5: the first place, but did absolutely nothing to support an investigation.
1:00:32
Speaker 5: So quite what happens with Robert Smith obviously remains to
1:00:35
Speaker 5: be seen, as do the ripple effects for the Afghan
1:00:39
Speaker 5: inquiry in this country.
1:00:41
Speaker 2: Thank you, Charles loves to talk about in Extra to day.
1:00:45
Speaker 2: If you're a UK COLE member, stay with us on
1:00:47
Speaker 2: the live stream for extra. Thank you to Vanessa as
1:00:50
Speaker 2: well and everybody watching. We'll see there in a few minutes.
1:00:55
Speaker 2: Have a great rest of the day, don't Forget Jerham
1:00:58
Speaker 2: and Carl tonight, We'll see if one pm as usual
1:01:01
Speaker 2: on Friday. For another UK column news see then Bye
1:01:04
Speaker 2: bye bye
1:01:07
Speaker 9: H