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

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

0:08
Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, the thirteenth of March twenty twenty four, just
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after one o'clock. Welcome to the UK Column News. I'm your host Mike
0:14
Robinson joining me today with Vanessa Billy from Damascus and Charles Ballatt. Welcome to
0:20
the program both. Vanessa, we're going to get started with the Middle East
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and well, the new port that's being built. Is it being built really
0:27
for humanitarian purposes in my opinion and in the opinion of gods and particularly friends
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of mine now that have been displaced to the south in Rafah. No,
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but that shouldn't come as any surprise, of course, this is basically an
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EU ua US project, ostensibly as from Delayan has said, to open a
0:52
humanitarian corridor. Despite the fact, of course there are land crossings that could
0:58
easily be used if Israel and Egypt were to open them to allow humanitarian aid
1:03
into Gaza. This plan now is being hijacked by Netanyahu in the Israeli media.
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In just the next slide diplomatic source this is in Jerusalem Post. Gaza
1:19
maritime route was Netanyah whose idea this is an exclusive and in the article itself,
1:25
what does it actually tellas so it talks about Israel Katz Now, the
1:30
Foreign Minister had drawn up plans for a maritime route by a cych press involving
1:36
a floating island. One of the complicating factors with a maritime route was the
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absence of a port in Gaza big enough to handle cargo ships. Here is
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where obviously the US comes in. Defense Minister Joev Gallant, together with the
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Navy commander, the head of the coordination for Gaza itself, if Sunday on
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the work needed to establish a naval peer. However, I'm not the only
2:05
one to have concerns about the true purpose of this plan. This was only
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I think two weeks after October the seventh. There was in fact, eleaked
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in Israeli media are planned to ethnically cleanse Garza, not only to Egypt,
2:22
but specifically to European countries that would be prepared to take in Palestinian refugees.
2:28
And a recent report regarding the port in Andalu the US port plans in Gaza
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have hidden objectives. And this is a Jordanian expert talking about a floating port
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off the shores of Gaza is a humanitarian facade hiding voluntary migration to Europe and
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undermines the enclave's sovereignty. He goes on to point out the fact that also
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any humanitarian aid coming in will not go directly to the American port in Gaza,
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but we'll go to the Ashtod port in the occupied territories to be checked,
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and then since under Israeli navy control and drones, to the Palestinian territory.
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And then interesting that in reality, of course, what many people are
3:15
saying, this is an opportunity for the US to increase its military presence in
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what is effectively already it's military outposts in the Middle East. A thousand US
3:28
troops deploying to build the offshore port for Gaza AID, and they're saying that
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it's going to take at least two months for this port to be finalized.
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And of course in that time we're already at famine situation in northern Gaza,
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and we're heading that way in central and southern Gaza. So two months,
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how many people are going to die in that time? And of course else
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undermines the idea that this is a humanitarian project by the United States. I
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think this was about two weeks after to October the seventh This was an article
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and the intercept that talked about secret expansion of a secret military based US military
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base in Le Nasure says it about twenty kilometers from Gaza, and then added
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to that. More recently, Haretz again Israeli media intelligence reveals unprecedented extent of
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US arms lift arms airlifts sorry to Israel since October. The seventh Biden administration
4:30
has reportedly made one hundred secret arms sales to Israel since the start of the
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award. So that's on top of the billions, of course that have been
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poured into Israel to enable its Genocida Colorstinians. Publicly available flight data shows exactly
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what happened, and so over I think it's over one hundred and eighty arms
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airlifts to Israel, the majority coming in from Katar and Germany, so global
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bases, US strategic global bases sending armed effectively under the radar of public knowledge
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but picked up by a flight radar into Basically the majority has gone into the
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Israeli Air Force base at never Team. And of course we shouldn't forget that.
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Certainly, the US and Israel and the EU and the UK and all
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the Gulf states have an interest in the natural gas reserves in the Levante Basin,
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which are in the range of one hundred and twenty two trillion cubic feet,
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and Gaza has never been permitted to actually exploit those reserves itself and has
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been deprived of billions in income as a result. And then actually the sort
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of pilot boat which is leaving Lannaca and Cyprus left this morning. When I
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put this up yesterday, it hadn't left. It's bringing two hundred tons of
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rice and flour, which should offer interesting wording here immediate relief to civilians in
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Gaza. It's coming from a Spanish ngo called Open Arms. But we have
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to bear in mind that in peacetime, so even before October the seventh,
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there were five hundred trucks per day coming into the Gaza enclave. So we're
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talking there what ten thousand tons per day, So two hundred tons is a
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drop in a very large ocean, as are of course the aid drops that
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are effectively Hollywood humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. So effectively, in my view,
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this port is very much a trojan horse. And as they said,
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friends of mine have said they're expecting that once the work on the port has
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finished, the Rougher incursion will begin. So what they're saying is that it
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will take two months, the starvation will continue. After two months, the
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Rougher incursion by Israel will continue, and the survivors from that incursion will be
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potentially driven into Egypt or forcibly deported by ship by the Americans to whichever European
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port is prepared to take them in. Thank you, Vanessa. I just
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want to end this segment. Maybe you'll have a comment on this. There
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was a graph going around social media. I'm not sure what the source of
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it was. It may have been Al Jazeera, but I looked at the
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figures, I checked them, and so I just wanted to show what this
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was. So first of all they were at it was looking at the number
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of children killed in war. And in twenty nineteen something around four thousand.
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This is across the entire planet. Of course, in twenty twenty that looks
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like another two thousand or so, in twenty twenty one about the same,
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and in twenty twenty two about the same. So in those four years,
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the number, according to the United Nations was twelve one hundred eighty three and
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just to put that in perspective, since October the seventh in Gaza. The
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current number, and although that the Israelis of course would dispute that because it's
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come from the Gazen authorities is twelvey three hundred. But I think Vanessa,
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just very briefly that puts this whole thing in a little bit of perspective.
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Yeah. Absolutely, And actually I was watching Scott Ritter, yes, who
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made a very interesting point. He said that what has caused such an awakening
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about the Palestinian cause is the fact that these thirteen fourteen thousand children, whatever
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the number is, it's horrific has been They've been massacred in a very short
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time scale. You know, thousands of children have died at the hands of
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Israel since nineteen forty eight. But because that spread out over a very long
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time span, people are not as horrified as they have been, of course,
8:56
by this genocidal campaign in guards are in Yeah, thank you, Okay,
9:03
let's move on with war situation and well, good news. Perhaps because
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Admiral to Tony Radigan, of course, who recently, as we mentioned,
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was telling us that no one in the Ministry of Defense is talking about conscription
9:18
in any traditional sense of the term. He has been given another term as
9:22
Chief of the Defense Staff. So the Prime Minister and the Defense Secretary are
9:28
pleased to confirm that the Chief of the Defense Staff, Admiral Tony Radikin,
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will be extended in his post until Autumn twenty twenty five. The Chief of
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the Defense Staff is the professional head of the Armed Forces and the principal military
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advisor to the Defense Secretary and the Prime Minister. He was commissioned into the
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Royal Navy in nineteen ninety. He served, they say, in numerous command
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and staff appointments, both ashore and afloat, and in command of UK and
9:52
international forces. So I was interested in that and wanted to know what had
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he commanded at least float. Well, this is one of the things he
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commanded for two years HMS Blazer. I'm not sure what that, whether it's
10:07
an offshore patrol vessel or what, but it's pretty small boat anyway. And
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then apparently it was three years on HMS Norfolk, which is a frigate.
10:15
So that looks like Charles, I don't know if you've got any thoughts on
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this, but that looks like five years in operational command prior to that,
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of course, he was in relatively junior roles. Subsequent to that, he
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was in staff roles which don't seem to have had any operational role at all.
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So do you think that's sufficient for somebody who's the effective head of the
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British military. Good afternoon, everybody. No, I don't think it is
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at all, and I don't think it is even in relation to his peer
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group. It was said at the time that Patrick Sanders, who's now Chief
10:46
of the General Staff, would have been preferred to Radikin. He's got much
10:52
more command and operational experience. But perplexingly, Boris Johnson, the then Prime
10:58
Minister, to appoint Radikin. So there's a possibility, I suppose that he's
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being set up as the fall guy for what happens over the next two years.
11:07
But the other thing to make note of is what he conducted alongside his
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naval career. I mean, he continued to practice law and qualified as a
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barrister in nineteen ninety six. So it does seem in many ways a very
11:20
very odd appointment and even order extension. Yes. Indeed, Well, sticking
11:26
with British military, we were talking about a British defense spending recently and twenty
11:33
five billion pounds MLD expenditure across the country and so on. They produced this
11:37
nice little graphic that they were sending out in the across the social media and
11:43
so on. We were talking about the fact that Russia and China's defense spending
11:48
is significantly lower than the West, but they seem to be able to do
11:52
that in a much more effective or apply it in a much more effective way.
11:56
Well, CNN now has published this article Russia producing three times more artillery
12:01
shells than US and Europe for Ukraine. So what they're saying is that Russia
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is producing about two hundred and fifty thousand artillery munitions per month. That's about
12:09
three million per year. And CNN's quoting NATO intelligence estimates of Russian defense production,
12:18
and that's compared to the US and Europe, which have capacity to generate
12:20
only about one point two million munitions annually to send to Well, they're mostly
12:28
sending them to Kiev. Of course, at the moment, the US military
12:31
is set has set a goal apparently according to CNN, of one hundred thousand
12:35
rounds of artillery a month by the end of twenty twenty five, which is
12:39
still less than half of what the Russians are doing, and they quote officials
12:43
who are saying that Russia is currently firing around ten thousand shells a day compared
12:48
to just two thousand shells a day from the Ukrainian side, and the ratio
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is worse than some places across the Ukrainian front. So they're really upset that
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Russia is running artillery factories twenty four to seven on rotating twelve hour shifts,
13:03
and that Russia is now recruited a further million people to work in the defense
13:09
sector. So that's up from two to two and a half million before the
13:13
war to about three and a half million now. So let's just put that
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back on screen for a second and have a look at the comment from Lieutenant
13:22
General Stephen Basham, who's from US European Command. He's saying, if you
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can actually control the economy, so because it's an authoritarian regime, it's much
13:31
easier, then you can probably move a little faster than other countries out there.
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But the West will have more sustaining part, he claimed, well will
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it? Because in parallel with this, then Politico has published this article saying
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Pentagon needs Congress to hand over ten billion dollars to replace weapons sent to Ukraine.
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And they're basically saying in this article that if Congress doesn't hand over the
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ten billion dollars, then the US will have no capacity to replace those weapons.
13:58
So it it just is such a pathetic situation. Really, the West
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finds itself in has shut down its manufacturing capability to such an extent that even
14:11
if it wants to buying the war drums, it's not really in a position
14:15
to other than through just a load of rhetoric. So anyway, in the
14:18
meantime, then in Poland, the US have been basing military over there for
14:26
a couple of years. Now here is Donald Tusk. He went over with
14:31
mister Duda to try and persuade Joe Biden to send more troops to the United
14:37
States to Poland. Sorry, he wants more, and he basically got down
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on his knees and begged, please, please, please, he said,
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and well, Biden, maybe this was the only word he knew at the
14:48
time or something, but he said, nope, it ain't going to happen.
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So the US refusing to send any more troops to Poland at this time,
14:56
at least now. In the meantime, the question of what happens with
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the UK's nuclear deterrent is in the headlines. As far as Chatham House is
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concerned. There is a few days ago the field tried and test that we
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talked about a couple of weeks ago highlights and imbalance in the UK defense strategy,
15:13
and Chatham House now pushing the narratives. Really what we want to do
15:16
is to give nuclear weapons to the RAF as well. Now as we know,
15:22
the US is moving F thirty five a's into Lake and Heath, and
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there's talk of nuclear weapons going to Lake and Heath, the first time that
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the US is based nuclear weapons in the UK for quite some time. And
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the F thirty five of course, the F thirty five A at least set
15:39
up to launch those tactical nuclear weapons we're talking about here. And so Chatham
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how is very keen that perhaps the UK might want to invest in some F
15:50
thirty five a's so that we can have some tactical nukes on ours as well
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as on the Americans. I don't think this is a really useful platform for
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that. But Charles, let's move on then to the UK's energy securely.
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Thanks Mike, Yes, and we start with the not altogether surprising announcement from
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the Energy Secretary that there are one or two holes in the net zero policy,
16:19
an announcement yesterday saying that the strategy for gas is to take a common
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sense approach. And she said, this is Claire Courtino, so that in
16:30
a plan set out today, the government has committed to support the building of
16:33
a new gas sorry of new gas power stations to maintain a safe and reliable
16:37
energy source for days when the weather forecast doesn't power up renewables, as though
16:44
the penny has just dropped. She goes on to say that this is the
16:48
latest step in efforts to reach net zero in a sustainable, pragmatic way that
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rids the UK of the need to rely on foreign dictators like Putin. And
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this very much is part of the of the agenda. The UK led the
17:02
way on banning imports of Russian gas and is delivering new sources of homegrown energy
17:07
with new nuclear power plants, record investment in renewables and new on and gas
17:11
licenses in the North Sea. So let's see exactly how dependent upon that terrible
17:18
dictator Putin we actually were. This is a House of Commons briefing paper which
17:22
is about the imports of fossil fuels from Russia, and we see here that
17:26
in actual fact, in twenty twenty one imports from Russia made up just four
17:30
percent of the gas that we used, notably though twenty seven percent of coal,
17:34
which we will come back to, but nonetheless straight away sort of disingenuous
17:40
statistics being used from the start. Rishie Sunac follows it up with an article
17:45
in The Telegraph in which he also points out that renewables cannot be relied upon
17:49
all the time because the sun doesn't shine at night and the wind doesn't blow
17:52
all the time. So he says that this is how we will keep your
17:56
lights on and your bills down. It's the insurance policy Britain needs to protect
18:00
our energy security now, this recurring theme, while we deliver our net zero
18:04
transition, and he continues, you can't protect national security without delivering energy security.
18:11
The war in Ukraine reminded us all of that a nation that is dependent
18:15
on the whims of dictators for its energy supply can never be truly safe.
18:19
Well, how consistent is his message, and in particular we consider the relationship
18:26
the UK either may or may not have with countries that are possibly or could
18:32
be or have been declared as dictatorships by the United Kingdom. For example,
18:36
we buy gas from China, Algeria, we bought gas from North Korea as
18:40
recently as twenty eighteen, Nigeria, catar and of course the European Union.
18:47
Even the Daily Telegraph last year with a comment on Britain now being an elite
18:52
dictatorship where majority opinions are crushed, and it's hard to disagree with the sentiment
18:57
of Alistair Heath's point. Now, coming back to the security part of it,
19:03
it's as though the narrative is in actual fact to push us towards the
19:07
idea that everything that we do must be concerning NATO and Russia. And so
19:15
we see that NATO is broadcasting a lot about energy security. This is from
19:19
January, and they talk about a NATO not being an energy institution, which
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of course it certainly isn't, but energy developments effect the international security environment and
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how can have far reaching security implications for the Allies, And so they go
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on. Here's a picture of Jen Stoltenberg last year on the coast of Norway,
19:38
effectively suggesting that NATO is sort of verging on being a protection racket where
19:45
it comes to particularly gas and Norway again we'll come back to. But what
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we'll look at now is the energy that we do actually use in the UK
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at the moment, and in particular how the renewable side of it works.
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So this is from Energy dashboard. This is taken at six o'clock this morning
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and on the left hand side you can see the red arrow pointing at seventeen
20:07
point three percent of the energy being used being provided by gas and notably at
20:11
the bottom sixty percent being provided by wind. Now you might be thinking,
20:15
oh, that's great, how admirable that wind is able to provide that.
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Of course, the moment the wind stops, that's sixty percent of energy that
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we need to find from somewhere else. The other part, though, that
20:26
the Prime Minister and the Energy Secretory are not being entirely consistent on on the
20:30
right hand graphic is that seventy one percent of the carbon intensity is coming from
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that seventeen percent. So they've got to make their minds up as to what
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they really mean by all of this. For a bit more detail, we'll
20:45
look at the digestive energy UK energy statistics, which again picks holes in their
20:52
narrative. We can see the graph starts here on nineteen ninety six on the
20:56
left hand side, and effectively, in both supply and demand for natural gas
21:00
in the UK, there's been a steady decline since the turn of the century.
21:06
So it's frankly unrepresentative to suggest that this has become a problem. Just
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now the graph on screen now, the bottom part shows exactly how dependent we
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are on Norway's gas, which supplies over half of what we use, and
21:22
again makes relevant Sweden's recent move into NATO. And also we see from the
21:32
export from the UK that actually before Russia made an incursion into Ukraine back in
21:37
twenty twenty one, exports of natural gas from the United Kingdom had in fact
21:41
gone up quite considerably. Now I just close out by pointing out that the
21:47
National Grid has renamed itself, or is renaming itself, the National Energy System
21:52
Operator. And the reason I draw your attention to that is that they have
21:57
rebroadcast the government line that government to set a clear deadline for coal fired power
22:02
stations to cease production by October twenty twenty four. So what are we doing
22:07
to make that happen. We won't go into that now, but we will
22:08
put a marker there and have a look at it back in or sorry,
22:12
in the future in October of this year to see exactly where the government had
22:17
got to with that you called little or running a protection racket for you know,
22:23
let's protect your gas pipelines. Is that what nord stream is about?
22:26
Do you think, Well, I didn't want to expand this segment too much,
22:33
but I mean that, you know, it's a very very interesting part
22:37
of it, for sure. And also the other bit that I didn't really
22:41
mention was that in all the sort of NATO rhetoric does go very much,
22:47
you know, with your previous segment about conscription and about this idea that we
22:51
must do something to protect our own energy security and therefore come and you know,
22:55
come and join the armed forces to do so. And yes, I'm
22:59
just finally on that then, Charles. I mean, when we look at
23:02
what's going on with farming and the issue of farm security, with food securely
23:06
and then we've got this issue of energy security, that there doesn't seem to
23:08
be a terrible momentum going on here to try to build the capacity that we
23:14
need if we're going to maintain the type of population that we have on a
23:18
longer term business. I think that's absolutely right, and it's been pointed out.
23:22
I mean, the farming community I think is divided on whether or not
23:26
net zero is a thing in that whether the science behind it stacks up.
23:32
And even for those that do believe that climate, the changing climate can be
23:37
driven by common dixxide emissions, they are still very quick to point out that
23:41
in not producing foods here that are said to produce, you know, a
23:47
certain amount of combon dioxide that still has to come from somewhere. So it's
23:52
again it's just smoke and mirrors with how you're actually purporting to be putting forward
23:59
these statistics. And I mean, really they're nonsense. I'm afraid exactly as
24:03
you say, nothing being done really to address the population increase and the enormous
24:07
pressure on all these systems. Yes, okay, thank you, Charles,
24:11
Thank you for that. Okay. Now, if you like what the UK
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UK. Now tomorrow at one pm, the second part of No Smoke Without
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Fire, which is focusing on King Charles and his influence on the net zerial
24:52
agenda, is going out. This is Brian and Debbie discussing this issue.
24:56
That's at one pm tomorrow on the UK column webs site in the usual places.
25:02
I'd like to say thank you to everybody that's signed up for the Climate
25:06
Science Masterclass. Now, we had planned that this would go begin on Tuesday
25:11
next week, Tuesday the nineteenth, and that's exactly what will happen. But
25:14
we're actually going to run a second session in parallel, effectively Tuesdays and Thursdays
25:22
at seven pm, so that anybody that wants to join on either of those
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days can do or on both if you want to. If you've signed up
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for this, if you still want to have a look at the details of
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it, it's Climate Coourse dot UK column dot org. But basically we've had
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sufficient people sign up for this that we want to split it into two,
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so maybe we can share people out between the two sessions and give more time
25:45
for everybody to interact with David Siegel directly. So thanks again everybody that's signed
25:51
up for that. The interview that I did with Matt Ertt on the British
25:56
origins of the UFO Psychological Operation is up on the uk com website. If
26:00
you haven't seen that yet, please have a look at it and do share
26:03
it. And that's what we have for an eye. So back to you,
26:08
Charles and well the issue of transitioning yes, thanks Mike. Yes,
26:18
specifically if one believes it to be possible transitioning gender. And this is the
26:25
news that NHS England published yesterday saying that they will no longer be prescribing what
26:30
are called puberty suppressing hormones PSH. Puberty suppressing hormones are not available as a
26:36
routine commissioning treatment option for the treatment of children and young people who have gender
26:41
incongruence or gender dysphoria. Now, where has this come from and what do
26:48
we think about it? The NHS in their statement say what we have decided.
26:52
They say NHS England has carefully considered the evidence review conducted by the National
26:57
Institute for Clinical Excellence and has identified and reviewed any further published evidence available to
27:03
date. We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support safety or
27:08
clinical effectiveness of PSH to make the treatment routinely available at this time. Now,
27:15
there are a number of things that fall out of that. The first,
27:18
I've highlighted the date twenty twenty. Why has it taken four years for
27:23
the evidence review to be examined and considered in this way? Further, if
27:30
there is deemed to be insufficient evidence, now, why was it considered that
27:34
there was enough evidence at that time? And who made these decisions? Who
27:40
is it that can be held accountable for these things having happened, how many
27:44
people have been affected by this? And indeed who has been allowed to conduct
27:49
these sorts of treatments. So in the background to the document, the NHS
27:56
effectively tries to justify its position by saying diagnostic approaches have been described with reference
28:00
to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders Version five, published in
28:06
twenty thirteen, Gender dysphoria and the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health
28:11
Problems Version eleven, effective twenty twenty two. Gender incongruent. So the reason
28:18
I show that is that we are repeatedly told that any issues surrounding gender are
28:23
not a mental disorder, but they are in fact some sort of physical manifestation.
28:30
But quite clearly stated there, this is a mental disorder. And indeed,
28:34
whether or not you believe it's fueled by influences on the children, or
28:40
it comes from within and is being in effect, the flames are being fanned
28:45
by these professionals. Either way, this is in effect a shocking admission that
28:49
they proceeded to do this for a number of years with completely insufficient evidence that
28:56
in any way what they were doing was the right thing. We'll go on
29:00
to look at the particular drug of choice for the NHS, which is triptoralin
29:07
and some of the side effects. Now, the side effects, as you
29:08
might imagine, are far too long to read out or list, but I
29:12
thought concerning, since we've just looked at the mental side of it, we'd
29:17
look at the psychiatric effects and listed here. Bear in mind this is prescribed
29:21
to children. Very common decreased libido, sleep disorders or mood changes, and
29:26
common psychiatric disorders or side effects insomnia, emotional mobility, loss of libido,
29:33
depression, depressed mood or irritability. Now does that sound in any way like
29:40
the sort of drug that should be given to children who are already in a
29:44
state of mental turmoil? I think not, but of course, the world
29:49
being as it is, even though the NHS is saying that it can't prescribe
29:52
this anymore, if you want to buy it, at very quick search on
29:56
the internet produced pure peptide to UK, where you can by a bottle of
30:00
tryptooral in for ten pounds a throw, So again no problem getting it.
30:06
As I said at the beginning, I mean, perhaps we consider that the
30:08
wind is changing directions. So I just want to point towards two private members'
30:14
bills in Parliament at the moment, the first in the House of Lords sponsored
30:18
by Baroness Burt, the Conversion Therapy Prohibition Bill, and within that she's suggesting
30:23
that a person commits an offense if they practice or offer to practice conversion therapy,
30:27
which is defined as the practice aimed at a personal group of people,
30:33
which demonstrates an assumption that any sexual orientation or gender identity is inherently preferable to
30:40
another, and which has the intended purpose of attempting to change the person's sexual
30:44
orientation or gender identity, or suppress a person's expression of sexual orientation or gender
30:51
identity. Now somewhat regrettably. At the same time, there is a bill
30:56
in the House of Commons from the Labor MP Lloyd rus A Mole, which
31:00
in effect has similar provisions. But what I do want to highlight from his
31:04
bill is the rather ambiguous text where he suggests that, or rather the bill
31:11
suggests that no offense is committed where a person expresses a religious or other belief.
31:15
Now it's easy to see how that could be manipulated. And further at
31:21
the bottom there, an offense is not committed where a health practitioner takes an
31:25
action in the course of providing a health service, provided that the health practitioner
31:30
complies with regulatory and professional standards and considers in their reasonable professional judgment that it
31:37
is appropriate to take that action. So this is where we return to the
31:41
prescriptions of these drugs, and we think that those professionals believed that it was
31:48
reasonable to be prescribing those things in the first place. So even if these
31:52
bills do go through, it's very easy to see already how they could be
31:56
manipulated for effectively to the detriment of the mental health and physical wellbeing of children.
32:04
Thank you, Charles. Okay, now let's move on now to Foreign
32:07
Office. First of all, Foreign Office spending. We published this website some
32:13
time ago and almost immediately the Foreign Office stopped publishing their information. Now,
32:17
this is a database just basically intended to make it easier for people to search
32:22
the information that the Foreign Office used to publish on spending over twenty five thousand
32:28
pounds. So what I'm showing on screen is just one example of FCO spending
32:32
to the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, and they might amound money that they've spent
32:37
with them over the years. But if we scroll down further down the page
32:42
and look at the details of this, we see that all we can never
32:45
find out exactly what the money went for. So we know that it went
32:49
to a particular organization, but we don't know what project it went to,
32:52
because everything gets allocated to something called program spend brackets Oracle projects control account And
33:00
of course what we're talking about there is an Oracle database which is being used
33:05
to host all these records, the public side of which the public never gets
33:10
to see the detail of this records. But Vanessa, we thought we'd look
33:14
at you thought you'd look at what Oracle is up to with the British government
33:19
and more broadly in fact, yeah, I mean we had a discussion about
33:23
this and you know, I know that you and a lot of people would
33:28
say yes, But I mean Oracle is just one of many storage cloud systems
33:35
like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, etc. What's the problem.
33:38
The government has to use something to store its information. But what worried me
33:45
immediately is that Oracle appears to have what is virtually a monopoly across government information.
33:52
And what is also worrying and is a question that I would like to
33:58
ask, and we were talking Mike about the potential FOI who actually can access
34:05
this information, who controls this information, who decides where this information is shared?
34:15
So let's have a look at this what I consider to be really a
34:16
monopoly of information storage from the British government across all sectors. So if we
34:23
look at Oracle customers on the next slide where it will talk about the Cabinet
34:31
Office. So there is a recommendation there from Steve Pulborough, who's Deputy Director
34:38
Architecture and Information Assurance Government shared services at the UK Cabinet Office. And then
34:45
if we move on, you can see, sorry, the dogs have decided
34:49
to start playing. It is connected to local government and across the NHS in
34:57
specific areas of the country, but growing. And then, perhaps most worrying,
35:05
this was in twenty twenty and as far as I know, it's ongoing.
35:07
Oracle was awarded the UK Ministry of Defense cloud infrastructure contracts and let's have
35:14
a look at what that entails. So basically, the Ministry of Defense will
35:19
capitalize on the choice and economic benefits or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure can provide. Led
35:25
by Chief Information Officer Charlie Forte, the Ministry of Defenses Digital Organization Defense Digital
35:32
brought together and replaced a number of organizations including information systems and services in twenty
35:39
nineteen. It has an annual budget of over two billions and a team of
35:45
around twenty four hundred personnel, including military, civil servants and contractors. The
35:52
organization is responsible for making sure that effective digital and information technology is put into
35:58
the hands of the military and business front line. Who founded Oracle A guy
36:07
called Larry Ellison was the co founder of Oracle in nineteen seventy seven, but
36:14
let's have a look at a little bit of his background. So Oracle itself
36:19
started off as a project for the CIA. Allison named his company after Project
36:23
Oracle, a nineteen seventy CIA operation he worked on. Our very first customer
36:30
was the CIA, Allison boasted telling the story of how in nineteen seventy seven,
36:35
the CIA commissioned his firm to build them a database. From there,
36:38
Allison immediately began pitching to other wings of National Security State, and within months
36:45
had secured contracts with Navy Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, and the NSA.
36:50
The bottomless pit of money available for the military has helped turn Oracle from a
36:54
tiny operation to a forty six billion dollar per year bechemos. Then let's have
37:01
a look again. We talked last week at UNA eight two hundred and the
37:06
development of a surveillance state in Israel itself. So the founder of Oracle,
37:13
Larry Ellison, is Jewish. I would counter that by saying he's clearly Zionist.
37:20
Then let's have a look at a little bit of information about him.
37:22
So he's connected with Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Benjamin Netan, Yahoo,
37:29
the current Prime Minister in Israel, conducting, of course, the genocidal campaign
37:34
against Palestinians. But most interesting among its contributions to Israeli causes are more than
37:39
twenty six million given to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, as well
37:45
as five hundred thousand dollars to fortify a community center in Sterot in two thousand
37:51
and seven. Reportedly, according to The New York Post and various other media
37:57
outlets, Netanyahu was reportedly offered lucrative Oracle board seat by Larry Ellison in twenty
38:05
twenty one. I would assume he didn't accept it because to do so he
38:09
would have to step down from the Kanesset, which would lead him to prosecution
38:15
or corruption. But then let's have a look at the Larry Ellison Foundation current
38:21
investments. Guess what the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, And then let's
38:27
have a look at how much money Allison poured into this. Let me do
38:31
you, Mike? Can you read that from me? So it says according
38:35
to the Larry Ellison Foundations IRS return file last year, Oracle CTO and founder
38:39
donated thirty three points eight three million dollars to the Tony Blair Institute in twenty
38:45
twenty one and plans to contribute another forty nine point three seven million in the
38:50
near future. And thank you Mike. And guess what this is focusing on
38:57
with the Tiny Blair Institute and where called launched the Africa Vaccine Management in the
39:02
cloud. People can freeze that screenshot and read it for themselves or go to
39:08
the Larry Ellison Foundation, Charles, that might be of interest to you.
39:14
And then I took from an article by mint Press News Alan McLeod and Loki,
39:20
the pro Palestinian activist in the UK openly pro Israel tech group now has
39:24
control over the UK's most sensitive national data. Now Larry Allison stepped down in
39:31
twenty fourteen. However, he was replaced by Saffra Katz, billionaire American Israeli
39:39
who has also contributed to various Israeli organizations and contributed to the Trump presidential campaign
39:49
in twenty twenty one. Second, and then if we look also so while
40:00
opening a new data center in Jerusalem in twenty twenty one, so Affricats laid
40:05
out Oracle's purpose, stating very clearly we are not flexible regarding our mission and
40:10
our commitment to Israel is second to none. Sorry, come here, I
40:19
do apologize this is a free world, and I love my employees, and
40:23
if they don't agree with our mission to support the state of Israel, then
40:28
maybe we aren't the right company for them. So very clearly stating that Oracle
40:35
supports Israel and does not effectively stem any confrontational dissonance towards that support. Larry
40:44
Ellison and I are publicly committed to Israel and devote personal time to the country,
40:49
and no one should be surprised by that. Katz made the comments in
40:52
response to a question about Israel's poor human rights record and the rebellion of Silicon
40:57
Valley employees refusing to facilitate the country's war crimes. In twenty seventeen, Katz
41:05
was offered the position of US Director of National Intelligence. And interesting, you
41:10
pointed out to me, Mike, that interesting how the UK government has basically
41:16
kicked Hugh are We out of UK telecom networks because of what is considered to
41:22
be a threat from China itself. And I would again remind everybody to look
41:30
at the twenty thirty RODMA or UK Israel bilateral relations and bearing in mind Oracles
41:38
let's say partisan approach towards Israel. How many units eight two hundred the spy
41:45
network from Israel employees are actually at Oracle and the extent to which Oracle now
41:54
has control over the majority of the information from all sectors of the British government.
42:00
Yes, thank you for that, Vanessa. We're going to follow up
42:04
on this with other companies that are embedded in British infrastructure, whether that be
42:10
government infrastructure or corporate infrastructure. So we will see how we do with that
42:15
over the next few weeks. Now I want to then move on to the
42:20
DSTL port and Dying, So there reason May was visiting here. She is.
42:27
Yesterday I visited Salisbury, six years from Russia's brisen use of a chemical
42:31
weapon on British soil. It was a pleasure to thank staff at DSTL mod
42:36
Porton down for their professionalism and for everything they do away from public view to
42:42
keep our country safe. So you know, she's not worried about making the
42:45
point that porton Downes right beside Salisbury where the alleged chemical weapons attack on the
42:52
script als happened. But I just thought, for the sake of a bit
42:54
of a laugh, we would have a look at some of the comments under
42:58
this. So first of all, we have honesty twenty twenty two here saying
43:01
the criminal perpetrator returns to the scene of her own crime, so somebody gets
43:06
it. Then we have Rob Brabo here saying, yeah, and wasn't an
43:12
amazing stroke of luckily the first person to go to the end of the scripulse
43:15
was the chief nurse of the British Army, And indeed it was. And
43:20
then we have Charlie Radner here saying, here we go anti Russia rhetoric mixed
43:23
with the old fear factor, and let me guess we must be sending more
43:28
points to Ukraine softens up. Well, I think that's a fair point.
43:32
But a couple of weeks ago, Charles was talking about Dragon Far and DSTL
43:39
all over their Twitter account over the last couple of days, really excited about
43:44
Dragon Far. This is this, how do we describe it? The energy
43:50
directed energy weapon. Let's have a look at a little bit of video that
43:52
they've been posting on their Twitter feed. The Dragonfire laser has achieved a UK
44:01
first with a high power firing against an aerial target, the precision, accuracy,
44:07
and costing only around ten pounds per shot. It's a potential game changer
44:13
for air defense. Working closely with industry, the UK continues to invest in
44:19
cutting edge technologies and keep the nation safe. So, Charles, you were
44:24
talking about this a couple of weeks ago. They're clearly extremely excited about it.
44:29
I mean, I'm not sure if you've got any more thoughts. Well,
44:35
apart from its sounding like Liz Trust has done the voiceover for the publicity.
44:40
Yeah, I think that they do seem to go on about the cost
44:45
of it, the cost per shot. I mean, on a serious sort
44:47
of defense note, if it were a capable technology and there was a certainty
44:54
that it didn't harm the user and that there was not collateral damage, all
45:00
of those things I think are completely unproven at the moment. Then in comparison
45:05
with weapon systems that would wreak similar havoc, the price would be astonishing.
45:12
I mean, you know, ten per if what she says is true.
45:15
And again I'm not quite sure how that's calculated. And again I dare say,
45:20
like most of the figures were presented with, it would have been arrived
45:22
at via slightly spurious means, but it potentially is very capable. I think
45:29
the question the question to ask is what is the intended purpose? And what
45:34
sort of countermeasures would for example, Russia have And with everything else we've talked
45:38
about drones, particularly, the Russians either have the exact same capability or they
45:45
have the countermeasure which is better established and more capable. So I think what
45:51
remains to be seen is what on earth the operational the intended operational use for
45:55
this is. Well, that's a very good question, and so I or
46:00
is it about shooting down drones or other missile defense or is it for setting
46:05
forest fires which help with the climate change agenda? But anyway, we can
46:09
discuss that more in the future. I'm saying that a little bit tongue in
46:14
cheek, but let's stick with d STL and they've decided to set up what
46:17
they're describing as centers for Doctoral training, so there are two of them being
46:23
set up. These centers are going to enable novel research and provide a future
46:27
pipeline of trained research staff and critical technology areas for defense. So it's not
46:31
a huge amount of money's sixteen million pounds so far, but it's going to
46:36
fund centers for doctoral training led from the universities of Southampton and Edinburgh. So
46:42
let's have a look at the Edinburgh one in particular, and look at the
46:45
key areas that they're looking at. So artificial intelligence autonomy, so that's autonomy
46:52
of vehicles and so on, digital twins and human machine interaction. So this
46:58
fits in with the six G that we were showing I think this time last
47:01
week. But I want to focus for this purpose on the digital twins aspect
47:07
of this, because many people aren't aware of digital twins. So let's just
47:10
remind everybody what digital twins are. So this is from the IBM website,
47:15
is a digital twin, so let's look at their their definition. A digital
47:20
twin is a virtual representation of an object or system designed to reflect physical object
47:25
accurately. It spans the object's life cycle, is updated from real time data,
47:30
and uses simulation, machine learning and reasoning to help make decisions. And
47:36
of course mostly this is being promoted as something which you applied to infrastructure.
47:39
So if you create a digital twin of a real way network and you can
47:46
analyze its miintenance requirements, you can analyze its any potential for problems on the
47:54
lines and so on in real time. But my issue with this is the
48:00
behavioral change in particular, because they're not just looking at digital twins of physical
48:06
steel and infrastructure. They're looking at digital twins of human beings as well.
48:09
This is something which is being widely researched in universities. Let's just bring a
48:15
couple of the research papers on screen. So here is one designing human digital
48:21
twins for behavior changing therapy and rehabilitation a systematic review. Here's another one designing
48:27
human digital twins. Actually that's the same one, I do apologize. Here's
48:31
another example from another paper. This is all about human behavior modeling in the
48:37
digital twin. So digital twins the human digital twins being a feature of academic
48:45
research already. Now, of course, it wouldn't be possible to model with
48:50
current IT infrastructure to model or create digital twins for every human being in the
48:55
country. But what happens if you want to create a digital twin for perhaps
49:00
some people of interest, maybe people that are involved in campaign groups or in
49:06
activism in some way, with a view to either working out what would be
49:09
the best way to change people's behaviors, or at least to try to analyze
49:15
what actions they might be taking in the future. So there are a couple
49:17
of aspects of this. One is how they analyze changing behaviors in human beings,
49:22
but also how they analyze the potential for shall we say, pre crime
49:29
and thought crime and things that people haven't actually done but may in the digital
49:35
metaverse be considered as being a likely likely outcome. I think this is an
49:39
extremely dangerous direction to be heading in, and so we'll keep reporting on this
49:47
in the coming days and weeks. Charles, let's bring you back then and
49:52
come on to the Holocaust Memorial. Thanks many, Yeah, this is something
49:59
I can but at the end of last year, the very bizarre and somewhat
50:04
underhand process by which the government is pushing forward plans for Holocaust Memorial in the
50:08
Victoria Tower Gardens to the south of the Palace of Westminster. Now an update
50:15
on this. First of all, the controversy continues. The architect of the
50:21
entire scheme, Daniel Leeberskin, has suggested that even he thinks that it might
50:25
be the wrong site for it. Following the report that I gave a couple
50:30
of months ago, many people wrote in to refer specifically to the Imperial War
50:36
Museum and the Holocaust galleries that it holds there. So I've been in touch
50:39
with the Imperial War Museum to find out exactly what it is that they have
50:45
to say about this. I was interested to know as to whether the government
50:47
had been in touch, bearing in mind the proximity, and I've heard back
50:52
from the press office the Imperial War The Museum's position is such they welcome the
51:00
UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation's commitment to preserving the memory of the Holocaust with the initiative
51:05
for a Holocaust memorial in learning center. We support the commitment to stand up
51:08
against anti Semitism, prejudice and hatred, as well as supporting existing organizations across
51:15
the UK to continue to advocate the importance of learning about the Holocaust for generations
51:20
to come. Okay, fair enough. They go on to say, we
51:22
are grateful to the foundation for generously sharing its plans for the memorial and learning
51:27
center, located less than a mile from Emperial War Museum, London at Victoria
51:31
Tower Gardens. We're in discussions with them on the thematic exhibition within the learning
51:36
center to ensure that the curation and narrative does not replicate iwm's own Holocaust galleries
51:43
and digitally enabled learning suite. So I think they're being very diplomatic, But
51:49
the highlighted text there really seems to suggest that the Imperial War Museum have taken
51:52
the common sense view that to put an almost identical memorial in a completely inappropriate
51:59
side less than a mile away is complete and utter madness. And that's before
52:05
we even get into the political ramifications of doing such. And the map here
52:09
just shows the proposed site on the left or the west of the picture and
52:13
the existing site. They really are that close together. And exactly how a
52:17
government department would suggest a Holocaust center is going to be so markedly different to
52:23
what the Imperial War Museum has as to justify its existence on land that is
52:29
specifically protected from such developments is certainly a mystery if one follows due process.
52:37
But this goes further, and really I think the politicization of war memorials of
52:44
the dead and indeed capitalizing on these situations. It's something Jeremy Hunt's taken up
52:50
in his budget speech last week. He has said that as we mourn the
52:57
tragic loss of life in Israel and Gaza, the Prime Minister reminded us last
53:00
week of the need to fight extremism and heal divisions. So I start today
53:02
by remembering the Muslims who died in two World Wars in the service of freedom
53:07
and democracy. And it's amazing to see that he has sort of suggested that
53:12
had the Prime Minister not mentioned it, he wouldn't necessarily have thought of any
53:16
Muslims that had died in those wars, being nearly eighty years ago. We
53:22
need a memorial to honor them. So, following representations from the right Honorable
53:25
Member for Bromsgrove and others, I've decided to allocate one million pounds towards the
53:29
cast of building one. Whatever your faith, or color or class, this
53:32
country will never forget the sacrifices made for our future. So what's this all
53:37
about? Why is he doing it well? The announcement in the King's Speech
53:43
last year about the Holocaust Memorial seemed very much to capitalize on what happened in
53:47
Israel and subsequently on October the seventh last year. So it looks like Jeremy
53:52
Hunt is either seeking to sew division or score political capital, or as he
53:59
referred to, flush out people that can be described as extremists. But furthermore,
54:04
he's also suggesting, which I think is totally disingenuous, that Muslims were
54:09
fighting as Muslims and not as nationals of the particular country that they were fighting
54:15
from. And I think this is something that really should be pointed out and
54:20
sort of stopped. So just to highlight how things have been done today to
54:24
what were done at the time. Theealth the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which
54:29
has responsibility for all the graveyards of soldiers or combatants of all faiths. I
54:37
just illustrate here here is a grave of or headstone rather of a Christian soldier
54:44
with a cross at the bottom of it, and here we see Muslim and
54:51
Jewish graves. So to suggest that there's the necessity for something other than this
54:58
is frankly an overstatement and as I say, seems to have behind it nothing
55:05
more than political opportunism and disingenuity. Okay, thank you Charles. Now we
55:12
will let's move on back to the UK and Sister Dying. We were talking
55:16
about this on Monday's program, the fact that Manya Macron has decided to bring
55:22
in legislation in France. If we just bring the up he was bringing this
55:28
legislation in France, and we talked about this on Monday's program. Well,
55:31
Kirs Starmer was being interviewed by ITV News yesterday and as part of that interview
55:39
he made a telephone call to Hester Ranson and he said this, we are
55:46
going to commit to this. I'm personally committed to it because, as you
55:51
know, the current law is a complete prohibition ban on assistant to his side
55:57
and then it's left essentially and in reality to the Chief Prosecutor. So me
56:02
when I was sitting in that role for five years to decide which cases go
56:07
forward and which don't. And I tried to get that right in all the
56:09
cases I saw, but that's not a very good way of doing it.
56:13
It ought to be for Parliament to decide. I'm personally in favor of changing
56:17
the law. I can give you my commitment esther absolutely that if we are
56:22
privileged enough to win the election, then we will make time for this vote.
56:25
It'll be a conscience vote obviously, but that's why cross party support is
56:31
going to be really important. So that is a position to cure Starmer and
56:37
let's fears that he is likely to become the next Prime minister, so we've
56:42
got to be prepared for that. And if you feel that assisted dying is
56:45
not something that you want to see being mid routine in the UK, then
56:52
it's time to start campaigning on that pretty soon. So okay, we've got
56:57
to finish, but we're just going to end with this because I saw this
57:00
during the runs of social media and I thought it was quite appropriate. So
57:06
okay, we're talking about Ireland here. So the headline is on the graphic
57:09
Ireland will change forever depending on who you vote for. Lots and lots of
57:13
countries with elections coming up at the moment, the UK included. But if
57:17
we scroll on down this, they're comparing the political parties. So on the
57:22
left hand they've got the Independence, the Arish Free and Party, Liberty Republic
57:28
and so on. And on the right side they've got mainstream parties like Shinfein,
57:32
Fianna, FOYL, Finegil, Green Party, Liberal Party, Social Democrats
57:37
and so on, and they're looking at the sort of positions of those parties,
57:42
so the party and the independent candidates and the various other smaller parties being
57:47
pro rights, pro privacy, pro freedom, pro cash, pro culture,
57:51
neutrality, ownership, sovereignty, freedom of speech and so on. And on
57:54
the right hand side the mainstream parties being against rights, against privacy, against
58:01
freedom, against cash, against culture, neutrality, ownership, sovereignty, freedom
58:06
of speech, and the rest. I just thought that was a really interesting
58:10
comparison. I think it's something that applies equally to the UK, to the
58:15
many EU countries, if not all EU countries, certainly to the United States.
58:20
I'm not seeing anybody standing in the presidential election who's going to be any
58:23
different to the parties on the right hand side, and we might want to
58:29
consider that whenever we're looking for a candidate to vote for in the coming general
58:34
election in the UK. Is a good point well made, I thought,
58:37
So anyway, we're going to leave it there for today. I'm would say
58:40
thank you very much to Charles and Vanessa for joining me today. Thank you
58:44
all for watching. We'll be back in a few minutes if you're a UK
58:46
column member for some UK column news extra. Otherwise, don't forget No Smoke
58:53
without Far at one pm tomorrow, and we'll be back for the news on
58:58
Friday with Debbi and Ben as usual. See you then, bye bye,
59:09
mm hmm.