Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News - 16th June 2025
Transcript
- 0:08Good afternoon. Today is Monday, the 16th of
- 0:11June 2025, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News.
- 0:16I'm your host, Brian Gerrish, delighted to have Mike Robinson
- 0:19with me in the studio. And we'll also be joined by
- 0:22Diane, Rasmus and Mccuddy using video link.
- 0:26And Diane is in the North East of England.
- 0:30Well, for viewers that know UK column and how we tackle the
- 0:34news, we often come in at a different direction.
- 0:36So whilst at the moment the world is looking at war and more
- 0:40war and carnage, of course, whether it's in Ukraine or it's
- 0:45in the Middle East, Israel, Gaza and now of course with Iran,
- 0:50we're going to focus on something happening in UK.
- 0:53We think this is extremely important, it's to do with the
- 0:56grooming gangs. But before we get on to that,
- 0:59just a little bit of a summary of what we're going to cover
- 1:01over all overall, because we've got the grooming gangs and
- 1:05grooming as a whole. We're going to be having a look
- 1:08at what's been happening in Canada with Mark Carney.
- 1:12We're going to be taking a little look at Israel and UK
- 1:16Israel relationships and we're also going to be looking at the
- 1:21new head of MI 6 and a bit on censorship.
- 1:24So a packed news today. Let's get started with grooming
- 1:30gangs, and what better place to start than Rachel Reeves talking
- 1:34about the issue? All right.
- 1:38Last night Prime Minister said that there would be a national
- 1:40enquiry into the grooming gang scandal.
- 1:43It's going to focus on the race of perpetrators.
- 1:46When do you expect that to start?
- 1:48There will be the publication of the KC review this week and as
- 1:52the Prime Minister said yesterday, we want to get going
- 1:55with that as quickly as possible.
- 1:57Now, in the last year since we came to office, when we came to
- 2:01office, there were over 200 outstanding recommendations from
- 2:06the J Review, which was a national inquiry which took
- 2:09seven years. The previous government had not
- 2:12been implementing those. We've been cracking on and
- 2:14implementing those. Yeah, convictions are now at a,
- 2:17a record high and the Prime Minister asked Louise Casey to
- 2:21do a, a, a rapid review to see what else we could do, as she
- 2:25has said, to make sure that these local inquiries that are
- 2:27up and running work properly, that we have a national inquiry
- 2:32alongside that. And we are accepting all of
- 2:34Louise Casey's recommendations, including that one.
- 2:37Prime Minister says he's read Louise's report from cover to
- 2:41cover, read every word of it, and that has apparently changed
- 2:46his mind. What is in her report that we
- 2:49did not know before that justifies a change of heart?
- 2:52Well, we'll see the report this week.
- 2:55I haven't yet had a, a copy of the report.
- 2:58Well, look, we'll see the report this week.
- 3:00But the Prime Minister is saying even ahead of that, that he will
- 3:03accept all of her recommendations, including the
- 3:06need for a for a national inquiry to sit alongside those
- 3:09local inquiries that are already ready.
- 3:11But let let me just say this, Trevor, because with local
- 3:13inquiries they they don't have the statutory powers and we need
- 3:18to make sure that people are compelled to give evidence.
- 3:20And that's one of the reasons, because people are not coming
- 3:23forward to give that evidence. So a bit of stuttering and some
- 3:29butts, but relax because we've had seven years worth of
- 3:32enquiry. We're going to do more
- 3:34enquiries. Those enquiries are going to
- 3:36produce what? Not a lot probably, but we've
- 3:40got it all under hand. All in hand as a government and
- 3:44you can relax, people aren't coming forward.
- 3:47Well, they're not coming forward because they've no confidence in
- 3:50the state, they've no confidence in the police, they've no
- 3:53confidence in social services. But apparently Rachel Reeves
- 3:57doesn't really get what's happening in the country.
- 4:00Let's just change the focus from those grooming gangs to other
- 4:04abuse that's going on in Uki happened to pick this article
- 4:08from the BBC particularly offensive and this is about a 15
- 4:13year old girl child. Q strip search at her school by
- 4:18officers in Hackney after a teacher's wrongly suspected her
- 4:22of carrying cannabis. This is the actual main part of
- 4:27the report. So she was basically stripped,
- 4:30including her underwear, had to bend over and expose intimate
- 4:34parts of her body while she was menstruating, the the panel has
- 4:38heard. But apparently the police
- 4:40officers that conducted this disgraceful event didn't really
- 4:44understand that they were dealing with a child and it
- 4:47didn't matter to them that there wasn't an adult to support that
- 4:51girl when this disgraceful strip search was taking place.
- 4:56Meanwhile we've got the BBC that's suddenly become active on
- 5:00the subject of grooming gang survivors.
- 5:03So while the BBC largely silent about Jimmy Savile, certainly on
- 5:08the Holly Gregg case and hundreds of child stealing by
- 5:11the state, suddenly now we've got grooming gangs.
- 5:15The survivors are going to be interviewed by the BBC.
- 5:19We'll talk in a bit about why we're interested in this change
- 5:23of heart for the BBC. Here's the BBC also spinning a
- 5:27story which was about Operation Midland.
- 5:30So we've got Liam Britton's widow here saying that she's got
- 5:34no closure after false abuse claims were made in that case by
- 5:41Carl Beach. But when we get into the
- 5:44article, something that's really interesting because misconduct
- 5:48proceedings against the Met Police investing investigating
- 5:52Officer Steve Rodhouse, who was the lead for Operation Midland,
- 5:56have been quietly dropped. So you're led to believe that
- 6:00basically this is really bad because the police have dropped
- 6:06an investigation into their own man.
- 6:09You get a bit more when you go into the story.
- 6:13In a surprise announcement last week, the Independent Office for
- 6:16Police Conduct said it was stopping the proceedings after a
- 6:20large volume of relevant material was recently disclosed
- 6:23to it by was recently disclosed to it by the Met Police.
- 6:28Now I'm just going to say here that the BBC is failing to
- 6:31investigate and reveal to the public just what that relevant
- 6:35material was. We need to know because sources
- 6:38that have been informing the UK column assure us this is more
- 6:42detailed information of of abuse of children within that overall
- 6:48remit of Operation Midland. The BBC so far not asking to see
- 6:53that material. To understand why the
- 6:57investigation against that officer was dropped, let's have
- 7:01a listen to Dominic Cummings talking recently on the subject
- 7:04of grooming, gangs and child abuse.
- 7:09So obviously all over Whitehall there was mass cover ups of the
- 7:11whole thing for the same reason that we've already alluded to
- 7:13fear, fear of the political consequences of facing reality.
- 7:19What I saw in 2011, I mean a lot of different things normally
- 7:22Whitehall, the the store, the the cliche that it's a crock up
- 7:27model conspiracy is generally true.
- 7:28The one, the one big exception I would say is regarding child
- 7:33abuse where there are actually multiple conspiracies constantly
- 7:36and largely successful. I watched this happening
- 7:40repeatedly in the Department of Education because the issue was
- 7:43parked there by Gordon Brown and at balls.
- 7:45So I had to deal with it when I was there, I would watch the
- 7:49redacted documents and the actual unredacted documents
- 7:52about lots of these cases and you could see that the redacted
- 7:55documents are redacted entirely to hide the incompetence of the
- 7:59of the system. Now what happened on the gangs
- 8:01is that when Andrew Norfolk at the time started to try to
- 8:05report the issue, the council went to officials in the
- 8:10southern Department of Education and said we want to bring a
- 8:13judicial review to have the courts suppress the times it's
- 8:17reporting and not allow it to happen.
- 8:21Some of the officials inside the DfE who routinely organised
- 8:24cover ups on such issues were of of course very in favour of it.
- 8:28But there were another set of officials inside DfE who agreed
- 8:31with me that this was absolutely appalling and in fact we should
- 8:34do the opposite. So what we ended up doing was
- 8:36saying to Michael Gove, you should write to the council and
- 8:38say that if you bring this judicial review, we will
- 8:42actually appear in court on behalf of the Times, not on
- 8:47behalf of you. That obviously blew up the
- 8:50judicial review attempt by the council to keep it secret.
- 8:53And then Norfolk could publish his piece in the Times.
- 8:55Unfortunately, I think Norfolk died recently without even
- 8:57knowing that this ever even happened.
- 8:59But that's just one small example of of of something which
- 9:03happened many, many times on the subject of a few decades in
- 9:08Whitehall. Which is of course why the
- 9:10system is absolutely desperate not to have an enquiry.
- 9:13It's only bizarre if you believe the old ideas about how the
- 9:17system works. It's not bizarre once you
- 9:19realise that the people there are not operating on the
- 9:23incentives or with the values that you think they are.
- 9:27It's actually completely standard and completely normal
- 9:29and completely unsurprising. So Mike, we had a bit of
- 9:34discussion about this prior to the news.
- 9:37I said I think what we're watching is a diversion.
- 9:40This has been blown up to keep public attention in UK on the
- 9:44grooming gangs and divert attention away from the Middle
- 9:48East. You thought something more
- 9:49serious was happening. I think this is a deliberate
- 9:52attempt to incite feeling within the country and to effectively
- 9:57bring people out onto the streets.
- 9:58Destabilisation. Destabilisation, yes,
- 10:01absolutely. I'm not talking.
- 10:02I'm talking about the timing of it more than anything else.
- 10:05Indeed so a lot to be discussed on this.
- 10:08But is Cummings, does he really believe that it was all just
- 10:11cock up in Parliament? I don't think he's not that
- 10:15naive. Let's have a look at this very
- 10:17short clip, which we've shown many times before, and see what
- 10:21it says about the political system as a whole.
- 10:25Anyone with any sense who was in trouble would come to the
- 10:27witness and and tell them the truth and say now this, I'm in a
- 10:31jam, can you help? It might be debt, it might be
- 10:38scandal involving small boys or any kind of scandal which a
- 10:45member seemed likely to be mixed up in.
- 10:50They'd come and ask if we could help, and if we could, we did.
- 10:54And we would do everything we can because we would store up
- 10:57brownie points. If, I mean, that sounds a
- 11:03pretty, pretty nasty reason, but it's one of the reasons is if we
- 11:07can get a chap out of trouble, then he'll he'll do as we ask
- 11:10forever more. So here's the reality,
- 11:14blackmailing MPs, covering up the abuse of children so they
- 11:19would do as the politicians wanted evermore.
- 11:22This is the reality. Grooming gangs is a minor
- 11:25subset. But I totally agree Mike.
- 11:28This is about destabilising the country.
- 11:31So strife overseas, strife in UK.
- 11:34And just to just to clarify that that's we need to very strongly
- 11:37make the point that when Brian says this is a minor subset he's
- 11:41talking about in terms of the scale of the event.
- 11:43Obviously for the people involved in the grooming gangs
- 11:46issue itself, it is absolutely a major and we we're not
- 11:50attempting to downplay that in any way.
- 11:52It is. We're talking about it within
- 11:54the context of the overall abuse system, and it's been going on
- 11:58for generations. Yeah, thank you for that
- 12:01clarification. My absolutely right, Diane.
- 12:03Let's bring you in because of course, while child abuse is
- 12:07covered up here in England, South of the border, north of
- 12:10the border, we have fanethi case that UK column has been
- 12:14reporting hundreds, thousands possibly of women abused over a
- 12:18great many years. And what can you tell us about
- 12:22reactions by the Scottish Parliament?
- 12:25Well, yeah, thanks Brian, and hello Mike.
- 12:27It's it's great to be here today.
- 12:28I just wanted to basically cover the story today in particular
- 12:32because it goes along with this overall story that we're
- 12:34covering around inquiries and child abuse and cover ups.
- 12:38And it just so happens that last Thursday, this debate for what
- 12:42was in the finally on the the floor of Scottish Parliament,
- 12:45which was a very long time coming after three years of the
- 12:48petition for the Finetti Residential School abuse
- 12:51survivors fighting for justice and inclusion in the Scottish
- 12:55Abuse Inquiry redress scheme. So since 2022 we've been
- 12:59fighting this UK column has been covering this for a number of
- 13:02years. They've been denied justice
- 13:05according to the redress scheme because they don't meet the
- 13:07criteria, because they weren't abused for long enough, meaning
- 13:10that they were only abused for six weeks, six weeks at a time
- 13:14or that possibly because they were calling it a holiday camp
- 13:17or a convalescent camp or something like that.
- 13:19And none of that was true. So let's start by watching a few
- 13:23video clips here. Colin Smith was the person in
- 13:26Parliament who raised this, but for his constituents, and he
- 13:30called this justice for the Nazi survivors.
- 13:32So here's a clip from his opening remarks.
- 13:36There's another one before the committee petition, P1979, but
- 13:41once again the government dismissed it.
- 13:44This message call for an independent national whistle
- 13:46blowing. Office for Children and
- 13:48Education Services dismisses call for independent
- 13:52investigations into unresolved allegations.
- 13:55This message called the close gaps in the child abuse enquiry.
- 14:01Whistleblowers ignored, Victims ignored, Public bodies
- 14:04protected. That's the reality of child
- 14:06protection in Scotland today. Presiding Officer, the tragic
- 14:10human cost of child abuse is incalculable.
- 14:13The lost childhoods the last in trauma.
- 14:16As a society, nothing should be more important than safeguarding
- 14:21our children. But from Nathi, countless other
- 14:24failures by the state expose the brutal truth.
- 14:27We are failing victims again and again, every single day.
- 14:35And another person who did an excellent job of of covering
- 14:38what was going on was Fergus Ewing MSP, who is on the
- 14:42petitions committee and he has been part of the petitions
- 14:44committee, which they have been in unanimous agreement for over
- 14:47a year now that this needed to go further.
- 14:49So this is a quite a powerful clip from Fergus Ewing.
- 14:55This is a this is a palpable, egregious, serious injustice
- 14:59caused to the most innocent girls in the country over a
- 15:05sustained period of over 30 years for several weeks at a
- 15:10time, has still not been redressed by either the Glasgow
- 15:14Corporation or the Scottish Government.
- 15:16Now I think the Scottish Government must take the lead.
- 15:18We must accept the responsibility to do that.
- 15:21How it is done is a mere detail. If it requires legislative
- 15:25reform, that must be done. If it requires an executive
- 15:29direction to redress Scotland, that must be done.
- 15:32We cannot hide behind legalistic arguments.
- 15:36The idea that these children were put there for a holiday or
- 15:41rest, fight, care. What an insult.
- 15:44But it's also, as well as an insult, factually wrong for
- 15:48Nathie is a residential school the corporation advertised for
- 15:54teachers. What do teachers do?
- 15:59They teach in schools. So that argument is just an
- 16:04insult to the victims. It is platitudinous, pedantic,
- 16:10nitpicking, legalistic and I don't think 1 moment that the
- 16:15current Deputy First Minister would seek to invoke or stand
- 16:19behind that argument. The other argument is Mr. Smith
- 16:22has said is that they ceased, they did not cease to be under
- 16:25parental control. Are they really saying that the
- 16:28parents consented to the abuse that their children have
- 16:31suffered? What arrant nonsense.
- 16:35What an absurd, absurd argument. The indisputable fact is that
- 16:42these girls were sent there by Glasgow Corporation.
- 16:45Glasgow Corporation owned the school.
- 16:48They are part of the state. The state is responsible for the
- 16:53abuse. The abuse that.
- 16:59Now what I would like to say about what he just said was that
- 17:02was a direct result of the evidence that I collected after
- 17:04spending days and hours countless times, Mitchell
- 17:07Library in Glasgow, in the national records of Scotland and
- 17:10so on. And I want to credit him again
- 17:12because if we go back to March 2024 when I was, I was cited
- 17:16back in the Petitions Committee. Let's play that short clip from
- 17:19Mr. Ewing. Thanks, convener.
- 17:23We're indebted to Professor Dan Mccarry for submission of the
- 17:2611th of March 2024 and just reading there from she states
- 17:32the purpose of address for historical institutional child
- 17:35abuse should be to benefit survivors.
- 17:38Currently, the eligibility guidelines specifically exclude
- 17:42survivors of short term residential school abuse.
- 17:46This is unjust. So this weekend I caught up with
- 17:53some of the survivors, particular Lynn Sheeran and
- 17:57Sharon Cruden, who have been interviewed by Brian previously
- 18:00as part of our series on the interviews with some of the
- 18:03survivors. And I wanted to get their
- 18:05thoughts on what they thought around what happened because
- 18:07they were in the gallery on Thursday.
- 18:09So let let's play their their thoughts here.
- 18:12Just a minute please. I think that more Ms. BS could
- 18:15have sat and stayed and listened to the debate.
- 18:18The fact that the majority and them all stood up after First
- 18:24Minister's questions and left was actually embarrassing to
- 18:29thank them that not so long back there most of them were saying
- 18:33that they stand by us and they'll help us and we'll fight
- 18:37for justice, we're fight for redress and it.
- 18:43Was. It was.
- 18:44Shocking to see them getting up and leaving their seats and the
- 18:48few that that stay fantastic. We appreciate your support
- 18:52immensely but I just wish that more of them would have followed
- 18:57through. But they told us a few months
- 18:59back that they would help us and that in itself was quite
- 19:03downheartening. And Shane, what do you think?
- 19:06Yeah, I totally agree with the willing.
- 19:10The fact that all these women had made their way, done
- 19:12Edinburgh for this debate and just totally slapped his in the
- 19:17face by doing that. I mean we can understand that
- 19:20some of them have got other meetings to go to, to do stuff
- 19:23like that, but not everyone, not everyone.
- 19:28Just have a bit of compassion and heed it out at least.
- 19:33And. Make a contribution and a speech
- 19:35of a speech of some sort that's great in our favour.
- 19:39We need, we need everybody on board here for support.
- 19:44But just getting up and walking out was just an absolute
- 19:48embarrassment at the end of. The day.
- 19:54So I think this is an appropriate time to point out a
- 19:57couple of screenshots that I took from the recording of the
- 20:00debate. So if we can pull this slide up
- 20:02on the screen, this was First Minister's Questions, which
- 20:05happened immediately before the phonetic debate.
- 20:08Then there was a short pause. They stopped the video
- 20:11recording, and then we came back about 3 minutes later.
- 20:14And what did we see? Just very few MSPs alone by
- 20:19themselves. I think there are maybe 5 total
- 20:21and in the entire floor. That's Kate.
- 20:24Standing there by herself. And what I would like to do is
- 20:26call out the the people who did stay and contribute.
- 20:30So of course, Colin Smith, Alex Cole, Hamilton, those two were
- 20:33together at Fernethi. They went to Fernethi with the
- 20:36women a couple of years ago on a trip.
- 20:38So they they know first hand exactly what it was like.
- 20:41Of course, Fergus Ewing, who we just heard from Marie School,
- 20:44Golden and Foisal Chowdhury, Makie Chapman, Monica Lennon, so
- 20:48they all spoke in favor of the women.
- 20:50And then of course, we heard from Deputy First Minister Kate
- 20:53Forbes. And it's always been the first
- 20:55minister or the deputy first minister for the last few years
- 20:57who have been the ones denying the justice and saying, well,
- 21:00these are the reasons why we can't do it.
- 21:02So if we can just put Kate up here on the screen for just a
- 21:05minute, here's what she had to say.
- 21:06That she did commit to continuing close engagement with
- 21:10survivors engaged directly with Glasgow City Council because
- 21:13they do have direct responsibility for what happened
- 21:15to the women. Look at how we could provide
- 21:18greater levels of emotional support, see whether the
- 21:21Scottish club abuse inquiry would cover for Nethi itself.
- 21:24And she actually said in pursuit of the truth.
- 21:27So what I see in her language is lots of empty promises that
- 21:30we're going to talk, we're going to engage, we're going to
- 21:33listen, we're going to see. She talked about how they will
- 21:37be included in Phase 10 of the inquiry, which is going to be
- 21:40looking at the provision of residential care for children in
- 21:43establishments run by local authorities.
- 21:45As for nephew was and what's very disappointing as well is
- 21:49that not only were they not remaining in the chamber for the
- 21:51debate, but we also saw very little press coverage of it.
- 21:54We did see here on the 12th of June, which was the day that the
- 21:57debate happened, a statement from Alex Cole Hamilton's office
- 22:00who's been supporting the bill along with Colin Smith saying
- 22:03that we need to open this up to the survivors.
- 22:05And we saw one other article in mainstream media on the Daily
- 22:08Record which came out over the weekend, which featured Lynch
- 22:12Sheeran herself, who we just heard from.
- 22:14But that is all we have seen. So UK column has covering this
- 22:17from the beginning and we will continue to do so until the
- 22:19women get the justice that they deserve.
- 22:21Mike and Brian. Diane, just one final question,
- 22:25if we could. How many women does this affect
- 22:28for anybody that hasn't been following this story?
- 22:31Well, the school was open between 1960 and 1991.
- 22:35The women were there for six weeks at a time and some of them
- 22:39went more than once. So we could potentially
- 22:41calculate thousands and thousands of women that were
- 22:43affected. And we've had maybe stories from
- 22:46about 200 women who are been in the survivor group, but we know
- 22:49that there's many, many more. And so the campaign has involved
- 22:52getting women to speak out if they were there and maybe not
- 22:55even aware that this is going on because of the cover up, because
- 22:58of the fact that it's not being provided anywhere except by us.
- 23:02And we will continue to do so. So we need everyone to spread
- 23:05the word to get more Glaswegian women who were abused and for
- 23:08nothing to come forward. OK, Diane, thank you for that.
- 23:12Well, I'm just going to reinforce this business of
- 23:14massive cover up across governments of child abuse.
- 23:17And of course, if our government is prepared to cover up wide
- 23:21scale abuse of children, whether it's grooming gangs or it's in
- 23:26residential homes or foster homes for children, or it's
- 23:30north of the border for Nethi, If the government is prepared to
- 23:34do this, of course the government is capable of
- 23:37anything and that includes prosecuting malicious proxy wars
- 23:42overseas. But the point UK column is
- 23:44making here today is we have a vicious attack on our own
- 23:48society, our own families, not in ones and twos.
- 23:52This is happening on a huge scale and the government is
- 23:56covering up that abuse. Now we are looking at the
- 23:59country and saying this is to provoke unrest and violence in
- 24:03this country and unrest and violence in this country is
- 24:07going to be a critical issue to over and above what is happening
- 24:11overseas on distant shores. So let's reinforce this.
- 24:15This is just a few quotes from the Woods report sector expert
- 24:20review of the new multi agency safeguarding arrangements.
- 24:23This is back in May 2021. So this was the headline from
- 24:28Community care. Social work isn't social work
- 24:32isn't falling to bits. It has some deep challenges to
- 24:34which we can provide remedies and if we get into this, I've
- 24:39only taken a little bit of it, but it's the usual placitudes.
- 24:43The resources for protecting children are under much stress.
- 24:47The recruitment and retention and safeguarding profession of
- 24:51safeguarding professionals remains a challenge across the
- 24:55three statutory agencies. We just can't get the right
- 24:58people. It goes on.
- 25:00The report estimates the current shortfall in children's social
- 25:04care budgets is 824,000,000. We can't get to grips with
- 25:10protecting children unless another 824,000,000 has slapped
- 25:14on the table. But it's the money circulating
- 25:17around abused children which is funding the whole child abuse
- 25:21industry in UK. People have got to start to
- 25:25understand what's happening here because it is the government and
- 25:28its agencies, committees and those conducting reports who are
- 25:35wittingly or unknowingly contributing to the covering up
- 25:40of abuse. Let's just continue through.
- 25:43So the report went on and it said that Whitehall departments
- 25:46need to demonstrate more effectively a culture of joined
- 25:50up working to support local implementation of the new
- 25:54arrangements to support their full potential to further
- 25:58improve the safeguarding of children.
- 26:00You can't further improve it because what we've got is the
- 26:03abuse of children on a massive scale, producing income for a
- 26:08vast number of people being covered up by the government.
- 26:12This is about joined up thinking which is actually allowing
- 26:16criminal activity. I'm describing it here as part
- 26:19of an orchestrated, protective, protected, abusive multi agency
- 26:25cabal. And if we look at this final
- 26:28comment, it's talking about the leadership of the multi agency
- 26:33arrangements. And of course, this is where the
- 26:35problem really lies because there's no separation of powers.
- 26:39We've got local authorities, we've got clinical commissioning
- 26:43groups and we've got the police all working together in
- 26:47partnership. So the moment we have abusers
- 26:51operating in the system through the local authority, for
- 26:54example, the local police are already implicated because
- 26:58they're not watching from a distance to uphold law.
- 27:02They are in partnership with the authorities abusing the
- 27:06children. So this is the nub of the
- 27:08matter. It's a national club with no
- 27:11separation of powers. And Even so, this could not
- 27:15operate without the facilitation of the family courts which hide
- 27:21the abuse within secret courts. So if you want some further
- 27:27proof here, we could jump to Australia.
- 27:29This is back to 1997 when an investigation and a report came
- 27:36out which was called breaking the code of silence and this was
- 27:40about corruption and cover up, particularly of child abuse in
- 27:44NSW, in Australia. So UK column today absolutely
- 27:49pushing. Before we start worrying about
- 27:51what's happening overseas, let's have a look at what is happening
- 27:55in UK. And to our mind, we are being
- 27:58attacked by our own government which is desperate to get social
- 28:02breakdown because if that can be achieved, these new policies and
- 28:07control structures are going to come into post.
- 28:10Meanwhile, Mike, our illustrious leader Keir Starmer is out of
- 28:15the country, having set the Dogs running over grooming gangs.
- 28:21What's he up to in Canada? He's committing carnage now.
- 28:23Yesterday, as Brian says, Keir Starmer met with Mark Carney in
- 28:27Toronto. Well, sorry, in the West of in
- 28:30the, the, the mountains in the West of of the country.
- 28:34Now they began by what discussing what they described
- 28:37as the grave situation in the Middle East and they said that
- 28:41this with was with a view to de escalation.
- 28:43I think probably not. They claimed to have had a warm
- 28:47and productive conversation about Britain and Canada's
- 28:50future relationship. Kearney confirmed that Canada
- 28:53would ratify EU KS accession to the comprehensive progressive
- 28:56agreement on for trans Pacific partnership in the autumn.
- 29:00So that's this massive Pacific trade deal and they agreed to
- 29:04set up what they described as a joint task force to quote
- 29:08turbocharge progress on other areas of mutual benefit, UN
- 29:11quote. So let's have a quick look at
- 29:13what they were talking about South trade and semiconductors
- 29:18is was at the top of the list. But aside from that, they
- 29:21announced Quantum to develop secure transatlantic
- 29:25communications based on quantum technologies.
- 29:27That's because the Chinese have done this first.
- 29:30So they decide they they've decided they want to get on this
- 29:33bandwagon allowing us to connect our national systems and lay the
- 29:37groundwork to create a truly global next generation network
- 29:40with application across our financial and telecoms sectors.
- 29:43Does that make you feel good, Brian?
- 29:45No good. The next one on the list is
- 29:48digital. And they said that this was to
- 29:50mutually arrange, force nation building digital public
- 29:54infrastructure. So that's fantastic too.
- 29:56Next came artificial intelligence, which is they say
- 29:59all about deepening and exploring new collaborations on
- 30:02frontier AI systems to support our national security.
- 30:05So this is actually about national security.
- 30:08It's not about anything else. They mentioned an organization,
- 30:11a company called Cohere, which is the Canada based Google
- 30:15founded AI startup, which both Canada and the UK have memoranda
- 30:20of understanding with. They then talked about bio
- 30:23manufacturing, which is all about strengthening
- 30:26collaboration to deliver economic growth and be better
- 30:29prepared for future health emergencies.
- 30:31So they're sticking with the the policy agendas as quick hard as
- 30:35they can here. Critical minerals, again
- 30:37attempting to sideline China. So this is all about finding
- 30:40them, mining them and so on and all about infrastructure
- 30:44production and processing capabilities.
- 30:47And they had a whole section on enhanced defence and security,
- 30:50including continued support for Ukraine, of course, intelligence
- 30:54sharing, cybersecurity and border security.
- 30:57This was all done in the run up to the G7 meeting which also
- 31:01began yesterday in the Canadian Rockies.
- 31:04This is not going to be the usual formality this time.
- 31:07There'll be no joint communique. There'll be fewer round table
- 31:11meetings in favour of one-on-one meetings, all at least as far as
- 31:16the mainstream press is concerned, to get some consensus
- 31:19for what comes next. The there are going to be extra
- 31:22attendees there with leaders from Modi is coming from India,
- 31:26there's going to be leaders from Brazil, Zelensky is going to be
- 31:29there from Ukraine. There are going to be people
- 31:31there from Australia and from Saudi Arabia.
- 31:34Mark Rutte and Antonio Guterres are due to be there as well.
- 31:40The mainstream media is presenting this is all this idea
- 31:44of no communique and all the rest as being an effort to avoid
- 31:47Trump getting in the way of things.
- 31:49Oh, and we shouldn't forget Ursula von der Leyen because
- 31:51she'll be there. And of course, her main priority
- 31:53is consensus to maintain pressure on Russia.
- 31:57And she said that last week. We put forward a proposal for
- 32:00the for an 18 sanctions package. I invite all G7 leaders,
- 32:05partners to join us in this endeavour.
- 32:08And of course that's because that's worked so far, hasn't it?
- 32:11Now the summit was supposed to be about this protecting our
- 32:16communities and the world, building energy security and
- 32:19accelerating the digital transition and securing the
- 32:22partnerships of the future. Well, that's all been abandoned
- 32:26in favour of this war, of course.
- 32:29So as I say, Zelensky making a celebrity appearance.
- 32:33As I mentioned, war with Trump over tariffs and also war with
- 32:37Iran. Now while we mention Iran, the
- 32:41Starmer regime decided to send more aircraft to the Middle East
- 32:45to support Israel. Starmer has said that he sent
- 32:48typhoons and air to air refuellers quotes for
- 32:52contingency support across the region.
- 32:54Does that sound likely to you? No.
- 32:56No, I mean, there's not much more to say, is there?
- 32:59Because it's it's it's much more than contingency support.
- 33:03But anyway, you know, I'm going to say thanks to Patrick for
- 33:06sending this over to me. We've got a short video clip of
- 33:08former British diplomat Karen Ross, who made a statement on
- 33:12this. Now, if you don't know who he
- 33:13was, he resigned from the Foreign Office after the Iraq
- 33:17War. But let's have a listen to what
- 33:19he said about this deployment to the Middle East from Starmer.
- 33:24Hi, I'm Khan Ross. I was head of Middle East Policy
- 33:26at the UK mission to the UN. I was also head of the Israel
- 33:29Palestine desk in the British Foreign Office.
- 33:33Keir Starmer has just decided to send British military assets to
- 33:37the Middle East, presumably to join the Israel Iran conflict on
- 33:42Israel's side. Couple of things about this.
- 33:45First of all, Israel's attack on Iran was illegal under
- 33:49international law. It is not legal under the UN
- 33:53charter to attack other countries unless you yourself
- 33:56have been attacked IE self defence, and Israel was not
- 34:00attacked. Secondly.
- 34:02To join a conflict, IE expand the number of countries who are
- 34:06part of that. Conflict is of course
- 34:08escalatory. Starmer has repeatedly said he
- 34:11wants to de escalate the conflict.
- 34:14Actions speak louder than words. Britain is contributing to the
- 34:18escalation of the Iran, Israel conflict.
- 34:23Thirdly, of course, we shouldn't forget Gaza.
- 34:28The UK government under Starmer is complicit in Israel's
- 34:32Commission of war crimes in Gaza, and perhaps even genocide
- 34:37by the deliberate starvation of the Palestinian population.
- 34:41There should be a public inquiry into this complicity.
- 34:47Now, the only thing that I might challenge him on there is the
- 34:50idea of a public inquiry because as we're as we're making the
- 34:52point today, these things have a tendency to be there in order to
- 34:56cover up more than anything else.
- 34:57But I don't know if you've got any thoughts on what he said.
- 35:00Well, I think it's obvious. Something that I saw at the end
- 35:03of last week was that one of the key spokesman for Labour friends
- 35:09of Israel was actually saying that Netanyahu's position was
- 35:14untenable and he should be removed.
- 35:16So I think there is dissent in the Labour Party, but of course
- 35:19Keir Starmer is installing himself as a dictator really
- 35:23might, which is the key part of the problem.
- 35:26OK, let's just have a break from Israel for for a moment and what
- 35:30do we want to say to our audience?
- 35:31A huge thank you to everybody who's recently joined up as a
- 35:35member. Utterly brilliant.
- 35:38We've had a number of people joining us over the last few
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- 36:32Visit the UK column shop if you'd like to purchase one of
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- 36:38huge amount of material on the UK column website, often more
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- 37:03Now we have been asked for more details on the UK column on
- 37:10location in York. We're going to tease you at the
- 37:13moment because we're going to keep exactly what we're going to
- 37:16do under wraps for a little while longer.
- 37:19But suffice to say this is a fantastic location.
- 37:23So the event will be on Saturday the 18th of October.
- 37:27We're very much looking for a full house because if we can
- 37:31achieve that then we are absolutely dedicated to give you
- 37:35what you've all been asking us for, which is a weekend event on
- 37:39the 20th anniversary of UK Column in 2026.
- 37:44So watch out for more details on this really good event.
- 37:49Now I got some. Well, I got summoned for an
- 37:53interview by Ben Rubin a few days ago.
- 37:56There was a lot happening with the UK Column Studio, so Ben
- 38:00wisely said let's go on to Dartmoor in the Rain and the
- 38:04Mist and the Clag where I will interview you.
- 38:07So we had an informal chat. I was interrogated by Ben Rubin
- 38:13and we covered a lot of information in quite an
- 38:16interesting environment. So join us for that.
- 38:20That'll be going out at 1:00 tomorrow.
- 38:23Now, Diane, you've also flagged up this, the Scottish People's
- 38:28COVID-19 Inquiry Conference. Can you tell us a little bit
- 38:31more? Yeah, sure.
- 38:34So this is a reflection by Professor Richard Enos, who's
- 38:37the chair of Common Knowledge Edinburgh, who organized this
- 38:40event which we held back in February.
- 38:41I'm also on the executive committee for Common Knowledge
- 38:44Edinburgh and I spoke on the media lies and the media
- 38:47campaign that went on at the time in 2020.
- 38:50And I just want to say that one of the most important things he
- 38:53highlights in this article, which will be part of the
- 38:55series, we've got all of the talks from the conference, from
- 38:58other people as well who spoke on the day and including the
- 39:01statistics who that actually proved according to the
- 39:06information itself, that in Scotland there was no pandemic
- 39:09and there was no COVID as we were told that there was.
- 39:13So there's very important information in those videos and
- 39:16I would urge everyone to watch them and share those as well.
- 39:20These thoughts from Professor Renos are very, very
- 39:23interesting. And the next questions that need
- 39:25answering, as you said in the article, is who needs to be held
- 39:28to account to what happened in Scotland and of course around
- 39:31the world and what do we do about?
- 39:34It excellent. Thank you for that.
- 39:35Also tonight we've got German warfare going out.
- 39:38What happened to journalism with Lara Logan?
- 39:43That's at 7:00. Really interesting series and
- 39:46German doing some really good work with UK columns.
- 39:49So if you haven't seen any of that before, log in tonight at
- 39:527:00. And also we want to remind
- 39:56people that June 26th to the 29th is the Sounds Beautiful
- 40:01festival in Wimborne, Dorset and we will see you there.
- 40:06More details on that in the coming days.
- 40:09Now where? Where, where do we want to go
- 40:12now? Well, let's reconvene with the
- 40:13subject of Israel. So we have, yes, Rachel Reeves
- 40:19talking about UK's involvement in this whole disastrous affair.
- 40:24Let's listen to what she had to say.
- 40:27Well, exactly. But as so as a point of
- 40:30principle, and I understand you don't want to talk about
- 40:33anything operational, we can't predict what's going to happen
- 40:36in the future. But as a point of principle, we
- 40:39are allies to the Israelis and there could be a situation here
- 40:43where we are asked to deploy assets in their support and we
- 40:48would definitely we would have to consider that, wouldn't we?
- 40:50Well, what we've done in the past, as you know Trevor is help
- 40:55protect Israel from income coming strikes.
- 40:59So a defensive activity, so. Paul, if I I'm just simply, I'm
- 41:03not going to. Rule anything out at the at this
- 41:05stage, Trevor, it's fast moving situation, very volatile
- 41:09situation. But we don't want to see
- 41:11escalation. We want to see de escalation
- 41:14because there are it's a very volatile part of the world.
- 41:17And of course what happens in the Middle East as we know often
- 41:21has repercussions around the world.
- 41:23We've already seen in the last few days, for example, oil and
- 41:26gas prices begin to go, but that has consequences for people here
- 41:30in the UK. And so we do have an interest in
- 41:33de escalation in the region and that is what we are urging.
- 41:37But just one final thing on the issue of Iran and Israel.
- 41:42The Israelis have made it pretty clear that part of what they
- 41:46want is regime change in Tehran. Do we support that?
- 41:51I've got no time for the Iranian regime, for the suppression of
- 41:57the oppression of their own people.
- 41:59And we have serious concerns, which we've expressed on a
- 42:02number of occasions about the Iranian nuclear program.
- 42:05But we want to see de escalation.
- 42:07At the moment we are not trying to ramp up the rhetoric.
- 42:11We are very concerned about the developments in the Middle East
- 42:15because of the implications here at home, but also the
- 42:18implications for the Middle East.
- 42:22Just an incredible interview overall because of the things
- 42:27that she didn't say, the weasel wording.
- 42:30So we've been providing intelligence material to Israel,
- 42:34which has clearly allowed Israel to conduct his aggressive
- 42:38attacks on Iran. She's trying to sell that as
- 42:42defensive. We're apparently putting jet
- 42:44aircraft out in the Middle East in order to, quote, protect our
- 42:49people. I'm not sure how that works.
- 42:51So, Mike, it's truly obscene what the British politicians are
- 42:55doing at the moment, because they're helping to ferment these
- 42:58wars overseas and then holding up their hands.
- 43:01It was nothing to do do with us. But she did admit what the UK
- 43:06government is really after and that is regime change in Iran.
- 43:10We don't like the government of Iran, therefore they need to be
- 43:15removed. But of course many countries in
- 43:17the world say we don't like the government of UK.
- 43:20We'd rather they were removed. But we can't have that stance
- 43:24because of course it's only the British government and the
- 43:28Western governments which are right.
- 43:30The hypocrisy Mike is breathtaking.
- 43:33Absolutely off the charts. Off the chart, and I'd like just
- 43:36to remind us, our audience, the UK column for a very long time,
- 43:41this goes back to 2011, was warning about David Cameron's
- 43:46personal stance on Israel. He he was to be quoted saying
- 43:50that basically his allegiance to Israel was unshakable.
- 43:55And we pointed out that meant automatically that UK came
- 43:59second. And I believe that that is
- 44:02actually absolutely the case. But of course, he didn't just
- 44:05talk the language. He went and walked the walk.
- 44:08Let's have a listen to that. We'll have a look at this little
- 44:10clip from Middle East, Middle East Eye that was talking about
- 44:15what what Cameron's been up to. But while the US and Israel have
- 44:22long rejected the International Courts Authority and are not
- 44:25signatories of the Rome Statute, the the UK is and is bound by
- 44:29the court's decision to arrest the Israeli leaders.
- 44:32Yet according to former staff working at the ICC prosecutor's
- 44:35office, David Cameron warned Kareem Khan that the UK would
- 44:39would withdraw from the ICC and defund the court if it was
- 44:43forced to make that decision. In a heated phone call, Cameron
- 44:47reportedly told Khan that going ahead with the arrest warrants
- 44:50would be like dropping a hydrogen bomb and that it would
- 44:53make the ICC look like it was losing the plot.
- 44:56Khan responded to Cameron's threats of withdrawing from the
- 44:58Rome Statute, saying that if it were to occur that it would have
- 45:03that it would have to accept that the rules based system
- 45:05would be dead. Cameron replied saying that Khan
- 45:08was making a huge mistake and that the world was not ready for
- 45:12this. A month later, Kareem Khan went
- 45:14ahead with the charges, indicating that then no unknown
- 45:19figures had attempted to intimidate him and his team.
- 45:25And we just add to that, of course, the US has actually
- 45:27taken out sanctions against him and other members of the
- 45:30International Court in order to bully and threaten them into
- 45:34silence. So who's who is our government
- 45:37working for? Is it the population of UK or is
- 45:41it an overseas power that at the moment is demonstrating it can
- 45:46be particularly aggressive? Should we be looking to our
- 45:49intelligence services to help calm down the situation?
- 45:53Oh. Absolutely, absolutely.
- 45:54Let's just look at where we are with that.
- 45:56So Keir Starmer announced yesterday that Blaise Metrovelli
- 46:02CMG is going to be the first ever female chief of the
- 46:06Security Intelligence Service. She becomes the 18th chief of
- 46:10the organization's in the organization's history and of
- 46:14course no one as C So she has operational responsibility or
- 46:18she will have very shortly for MI 6 and is the only publicly
- 46:23named member of that organization.
- 46:26She will supposedly be accountable to the foreign
- 46:29secretary. She's currently director General
- 46:31of Q Branch, responsible for technology and innovation in MI
- 46:366 and has previously held a director level role in MI 5.
- 46:40And she succeeds the Bilderberg attendee, Sir Richard Moore, who
- 46:44leaves the service, uh, towards the autumn.
- 46:47Umm, So what do we know about her?
- 46:48Uh, let's, uh, see, she's a 47 year old.
- 46:52She's a career intelligence officer who joined the Secret
- 46:54Intelligence Service in 1999. She served as second secretary
- 46:59brackets political in Basra in 2004, which puts her right in
- 47:03the heart of the Blair regime and of course linked therefore
- 47:07to the Iraq war. And then last January, she was
- 47:12an attendee at this organization, at this event at
- 47:15the Deshi Foundation on Transforming Democracy, all
- 47:19about how so-called democratic states can best use AI and
- 47:23thrive. She's listed in the conference
- 47:25summary as Director General, Tech and Innovation at the
- 47:29Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.
- 47:31Interestingly enough, because of course they don't want to, they
- 47:33didn't want to identify her as MI 6 at that time.
- 47:37Now you can watch last Friday's news programme for a report by
- 47:39Mark Anderson on the Ditchley Foundation.
- 47:42So she was made a Companion of the Order in Saint of Saint
- 47:46Michael and Saint George last year.
- 47:48So let's just have a quick look at what she said when she was
- 47:51given this job. Here she is.
- 47:54I'm proud and honoured to be asked to lead my service.
- 47:56MI 6 plays a vital role with MI5 and GCSQ and keeping the British
- 48:00people safe and promoting UK interests overseas.
- 48:04Which of those two do you think is the highest priority?
- 48:06I would suspect my kids UK interests overseas
- 48:10overwhelmingly. Yes, but this narrative about
- 48:13keeping people safe keeps coming back.
- 48:15Of course, as she went on to say, I look forward to to
- 48:17continuing that work alongside the brave officers and agents of
- 48:21MI 6 and our many international partners.
- 48:24I mean, what are your thoughts on this?
- 48:26Well, our international partners, I'm going to say
- 48:28straight away, includes Israel right the way across the
- 48:32intelligence field. We're embedded with Israel and
- 48:36have been since Francis Maude, Conservative MP, announced this
- 48:40to the nation. We're in partnership with
- 48:43Israel. We we are an ally of Israel.
- 48:46Never debated in the House as far as I know.
- 48:48And she's going to work presumably to promote Israel's
- 48:52interests. I may be a bit hard here, Mike,
- 48:55but I think I think reality is coming to the surface.
- 48:58Well, I think it's fascinating that she began her career
- 49:01effectively under Rich Richard Dearlove and was subsequently
- 49:05posted to Iraq immediately after the Iraq war.
- 49:07So she was part of that cabal and clearly not going to be
- 49:12doing anything to de escalate any events in Ukraine or the
- 49:17Middle East, I would say. No, because British interests
- 49:21lie in destabilizing these areas and regime change so that the
- 49:26natural assets can be raped. That is the meat of it.
- 49:30And Theresa May, of course, several years ago was, was
- 49:34obviously talking about a sort of Operation Barbarossa 2025 in
- 49:42the UK being able to get its hands on the resources in
- 49:45Ukraine. So it's pretty obvious what's
- 49:48going on. And I for one would say that to
- 49:50me, our security secret intelligence services and
- 49:55security services are not protecting the nation state in
- 49:58any shape or form. She has got nice hair though.
- 50:02OK, let's move on with that comment.
- 50:05We better. Well, of course, alongside with
- 50:09the state dictatorship comes censorship.
- 50:11So Diane, you've been absolutely taking the lid off how
- 50:16censorship is working across the country and also of course, how
- 50:20the library and the educational system is being used to groom
- 50:24particularly children and young people.
- 50:26What have you got for us? Yeah, thanks, Brian.
- 50:30So last week I was in Buckingham at the University of Buckingham
- 50:34doing a talk that I was invited to to present by Professor
- 50:37Dennis Hayes, who is the director of Academics for
- 50:39Academic Freedom. And I've interviewed him
- 50:41previously on UK column. This this was called In
- 50:45Defensive Libraries. And I added the subtitle They're
- 50:48burning books again because they actually are.
- 50:50And I just wanted to thank everyone who came out to see my
- 50:53talk. We had a mix of friends of the
- 50:55University of Buckingham as well as members of UK Column and in
- 50:58some cases some as far as 80 miles away to come see me.
- 51:02So what's actually happening here is what I realized is
- 51:05hypocrisy. And this came out of some of the
- 51:07discussion that happened as a result of UK Column members
- 51:10asking me questions after the end of my talk.
- 51:13And what I'm going to talk about is, as people know that have
- 51:16watched me previously talking about the sexualization of
- 51:18children when it comes to the library content that's been
- 51:21being provided to children as young as primary school age,
- 51:24which of course includes as young as children in
- 51:26kindergarten, so 5 year olds. One thing that's important to
- 51:29note is that notebooks are actually censored or banned in
- 51:32the UK or in America. But the librarians both in the
- 51:35UK and in America under the American Library Association, as
- 51:39well as here, the Chartered Institute of Library and
- 51:41Information professionals, which sort of booted me out of my
- 51:44profession originally, they are basically saying that we have to
- 51:49put this in front of children because it's inclusive, it's
- 51:51diverse, and so they need to see these things.
- 51:53So just as a reminder, here's a couple of examples.
- 51:57We have, for example, in My Daddy's Belly.
- 51:59This was a book that says it's the story of a transgender dad
- 52:03giving birth, obviously meant for young children.
- 52:05So how confusing is that going to be?
- 52:07Another really shocking example is here.
- 52:11There's basically a glossary in a book that's called This Book
- 52:14is Gay, and you can look at this class to read yourself and you
- 52:18can see that for, at least for me, there are words that were
- 52:20defined that I've never even heard of myself.
- 52:23And this is also been found in primary schools in the libraries
- 52:27throughout the West. If parents want to do this for
- 52:30their children, that's fine. But the issue is that the state
- 52:32is putting in front of their children without the knowledge
- 52:34of the parents because the parents aren't being told what
- 52:36they're being provided from school.
- 52:39This, as we know from work done by Hugh McCarthy, which has been
- 52:42published on UK column in recent times.
- 52:44This is actually happening according to guidance provided
- 52:47by globalist organizations such as the UN and the World Health
- 52:50Organization, which states that children are sexual beings from
- 52:53birth and therefore should be exposed to this content.
- 52:57On the other hand, university and national libraries are
- 53:00actually censoring and they call it decolonizing.
- 53:03But actually what it means is that they are destroying library
- 53:06collections and catalogs. So I have just a short clip here
- 53:09from the University of Leeds library just as an example of
- 53:13how they define decolonization in the library.
- 53:19A question that's often asked is what does it mean to decolonize
- 53:23the library? So here's a video to explain
- 53:26what that means. First, let's start with the
- 53:31definition. To decolonize something is to
- 53:35identify, challenge, and revise or replace assumptions, ideas,
- 53:39values, and practices. The reflector colonizers
- 53:42dominating influence, and especially a Eurocentric
- 53:46dominating influence. But why does decolonization
- 53:55matters to the library? Decolonizing the library
- 54:00encourages students and staff to challenge unconscious biases
- 54:04that have been formed by a fixation on Eurocentric
- 54:07perspectives, narratives, and knowledge systems.
- 54:12Put simply, So that again is the University of Leeds that is on
- 54:19YouTube if you want to see the entire video.
- 54:21So what we're seeing is that British, Western European,
- 54:24so-called Eurocentric content, it needs to be moved aside in
- 54:28British libraries to make room for the prioritization of
- 54:31content that is not British, Western European.
- 54:34To I want to be clear, there's nothing wrong with adding
- 54:37different voices from different countries and different
- 54:39perspectives from around the world.
- 54:40But what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing is that academics in
- 54:44this country are experiencing that some of their long standing
- 54:47materials, basic textbooks, research materials are being
- 54:51removed from the library by the librarians, from the catalog and
- 54:54from the collection without the knowledge or any discussion from
- 54:57the academics. And that to me is censorship.
- 55:00So when we combine that with the fact that librarians are pushing
- 55:04sexualization materials in front of primary school children and
- 55:07that they're removing materials from university age, people who
- 55:11are of consent to, in my opinion, can be anything they
- 55:14want to, I just find it that's just a staggering example of
- 55:17proxy of what the librarians and library associations are doing.
- 55:23Thank you, Diane for that. Now, Brian, we're going to
- 55:28related censorship topic, but I want to bring this on screen.
- 55:31This is Kitchen counter blog from Blogger Alistair Kitchen.
- 55:34You'll find it on Sub Stack now. He was detained last week upon
- 55:41arrival at Los Angeles airport and deported back to Melbourne,
- 55:45where he lives, having been held in custody for 12 hours.
- 55:48He says that the United States border officials told him it was
- 55:52because of what he has written in the past on pro Palestine
- 55:55protests by university students in the United States.
- 55:58He said he left Melbourne on Thursday bound for New York and
- 56:01stopped was stopped and interrogated by US Customs and
- 56:04Border Protection officials during his stopover in Los
- 56:08Angeles. And he said it was he was
- 56:10clearly targeted for politically motivated reasons.
- 56:14And he said that the the staff there spent 30 minutes
- 56:18questioning about his views in Israel and Palestine, including
- 56:22his thoughts on Hamas. Now, this is very important,
- 56:25very similar behaviour to that of the British counterterrorism
- 56:27police at British airports. Except of course, in the cases
- 56:31that we're aware of, at least people weren't deported
- 56:33afterwards because they were mainly British people.
- 56:35But anyway, I've got to mention that they were waiting for me
- 56:40when I got off the plane in in New York recently, not with the
- 56:44same outcome. And we'll talk about that a
- 56:46little bit more in extra. But anyway, getting back to to
- 56:52kitchen, he said he had cleaned up his online presence,
- 56:55expecting ad hoc digital sweeps before he went on on holiday or
- 57:00to to the trip to New York. But he was not prepared for
- 57:04their sophistication. And because they basically it
- 57:07didn't matter that he had cleared his digital profile in
- 57:10the meantime. They had clearly historical
- 57:12information. And he's he is alleging that
- 57:16this sophisticated approach from them is almost certainly
- 57:18facilitated by Palantir. And he has said that if you're
- 57:22deleting social media 48 hours before your flight to the United
- 57:26States, it's already too late. He said that his phone contents
- 57:30were immediately downloaded on threat of deportation and but
- 57:33that in retrospect he should have denied the search and
- 57:37accepted immediate deportation. He said in a general he was too
- 57:41compliant, too trusting and too hopeful.
- 57:44So this is is clearly something which is transatlantic in nature
- 57:48and I think it's a very negative and very totalitarian approach
- 57:52that both governments seem to be taking.
- 57:55Well, it's it's a window into what the governments really are,
- 57:58be it in the US or here in the UK, Mike.
- 58:00So at least this stuff is coming up to the surface.
- 58:04Any idea we're in a democracy is completely false now in 2025,
- 58:10and this is just another example of the sorts of pressures the
- 58:14state is going to put you under if you dare to disagree with the
- 58:17state. I think it's that simple.
- 58:20Diane, let's finish then with a story from the Daily Mail.
- 58:25Yeah, so this is something that a lovely UK column member sent
- 58:29to me early this morning. This was in the Daily Mail over
- 58:32the weekend about the Bilderberg meeting happening in Sweden
- 58:35right now. And it says that if you read the
- 58:38article further on, it sort of talks about how they infiltrated
- 58:42the 2018 Bilderberg meeting, the first time an undercover
- 58:46journalist ever managed to do so, gaining insights about the
- 58:50meetings in her workings. Now, I think that our own Mark
- 58:52Anderson would have something to say about that, because he's
- 58:55been covering the Bilderbergs for much longer than that.
- 58:57I'm even going back to Charlie Stilton, who covered the
- 59:00Bilderbergs for The Guardian starting in 2009.
- 59:04So I just thought it was a really, really kind of darkly
- 59:07funny example of one of the wives that needs to be
- 59:10interested in front of us. Yes, yeah.
- 59:15My comment on it is this is more signs of the mainstream media
- 59:19trying to adapt to, to look like a new media.
- 59:24So they are sliding across the BBC's doing this, Times Radio in
- 59:29particular putting out material which has got a slightly amateur
- 59:33tinge to it because they are so desperately worried about the
- 59:37exposure. So I, I think there's a lot in
- 59:39that article. Diane.
- 59:42I think that brings us to the end of today's news.
- 59:44Diane, Mike, thank you very much for joining me.
- 59:47Huge thank you to our audience, wherever you are in the world.
- 59:50And once again, a huge, huge thank you to everybody who's
- 59:54taken out membership and is helping to fund UK column and
- 59:58help us do what we do. We couldn't do it without you.
- 1:00:02Thanks very much for joining us. Bye bye.