Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News - 14th May 2025

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UK Column News - 14th May 2025 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Hello, It's Wednesday, the fourteenth of May twenty twenty five,
0:11
Speaker 1: just after one o'clock and welcome to UK column News.
0:13
Speaker 1: I'm your host Mike Robinson. Joining me in the studio
0:15
Speaker 1: today is Charles Mallot. Welcome to program, Charles, Thank you Mike,
0:19
Speaker 1: and by videolink, we have Vanessa Billy and Sandy Adams
0:22
Speaker 1: snyleiter in the program. We're going to be covering the
0:24
Speaker 1: victory in the High Court over low traffic, neighborhoods, online safety,
0:27
Speaker 1: the Middle East and water scarcely. But let's begin, Charles
0:31
Speaker 1: with allegations of war crimes by the British military.
0:35
Speaker 2: We will, and in doing so, we'll examine what BBC
0:38
Speaker 2: Panorama's latest offering I Saw War Crimes has to say
0:42
Speaker 2: about itself. In this short clip from their advertising promotion.
0:50
Speaker 3: Those who served with UK Special Forces are about to
0:54
Speaker 3: break a code of silence. They don't want to be identified.
0:58
Speaker 3: We've used actors to say speak their words, but they
1:01
Speaker 3: want the world to know what they saw.
1:04
Speaker 4: Everyone knew what was going on.
1:06
Speaker 5: It's not Scout Camp.
1:07
Speaker 4: Everyone knew what was happening.
1:10
Speaker 5: People were murdered.
1:14
Speaker 4: The government has set up a public inquiry, but it's
1:17
Speaker 4: only looking at operations between twenty ten and twenty thirteen.
1:22
Speaker 4: We've been told the unlawful killings started much earlier.
1:29
Speaker 2: So that's been produced by Hannah O'Grady, who's been the
1:32
Speaker 2: journalist at the center of much of this type of investigating.
1:36
Speaker 2: And of course the critical part here really, insofar as
1:39
Speaker 2: credibility is concerned, is that they are using actors. So
1:42
Speaker 2: whilst on facebooit it might seem significant that Special Forces
1:46
Speaker 2: veterans have stepped forward, they've done so in an anonymous sense,
1:49
Speaker 2: so it is in that respect hard to know what
1:51
Speaker 2: to make of it. I should say that I reported
1:53
Speaker 2: on this last on the twenty fifth of September last year,
1:56
Speaker 2: so there's not enough time to go into all that
1:58
Speaker 2: detail today, so please look back at that news program
2:01
Speaker 2: for further detail. I'm now just going to show a
2:05
Speaker 2: little bit of video from what the BBC is describing
2:08
Speaker 2: as being from the Special Forces taken in Iraq, and
2:14
Speaker 2: the claims either Panorama program are that these sorts of
2:18
Speaker 2: videos were produced by troops and squadrons deployed in order
2:22
Speaker 2: to effectively promote competition between units, most particularly in relation
2:31
Speaker 2: to what they call the kill counts. And so the
2:34
Speaker 2: statistics here being shown on screen that over a six
2:36
Speaker 2: month tour four hundred and twenty four detainees and nineteen
2:40
Speaker 2: enemy killed, just as an example. Now, there's no suggestion
2:45
Speaker 2: here that this was an isolated incident, isolated either to
2:50
Speaker 2: the UK or indeed to Afghanistan or Iraq. And therefore
2:55
Speaker 2: it's relevant to look to Australia, which has investigated this
2:59
Speaker 2: in a official and perhaps comprehensive sense, And going back
3:03
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty the Breton Report, which states that credible
3:08
Speaker 2: information existed in twenty three incidents in which one or
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Speaker 2: more non combatants were unlawfully killed by or at the
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Speaker 2: direction of Australian special forces, which may constitute the war
3:20
Speaker 2: crime of murder. Now, the Chief of the Australian Defense Forces,
3:26
Speaker 2: Angus Campbell, spoke in twenty twenty, and it's interesting to
3:30
Speaker 2: note the contrast between what he said and what has
3:33
Speaker 2: come from Ministry Defense in the UK.
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Speaker 6: What the Inspector General finds is greatly at odds with
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Speaker 6: that good effort and damaging to our moral authority as
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Speaker 6: a military force. His report details credible information regarding deeply
3:55
Speaker 6: disturbing allegations of unlawful killings by some I would respectfully
4:03
Speaker 6: ask Australians to remember and have faith in the many
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Speaker 6: I assure you I do to the people of Afghanistan.
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Speaker 6: On behalf of the Australian Defense Force, I sincerely and
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Speaker 6: unreservedly apologize for any wrongdoing by Australian soldiers.
4:30
Speaker 7: The Defense chief pointed to a culture of what he
4:32
Speaker 7: said was toxic competitiveness between an SAS unit and commando unit.
4:37
Speaker 7: The allegations General Campbell described as a disgrace to both.
4:42
Speaker 7: He said it was a shameful record. There were incidents
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Speaker 7: allegedly involving patrol members who were coerced to shooting a
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Speaker 7: prisoner in order to achieve what was called a first
4:52
Speaker 7: kill or blooding. We also heard details from the inquiry
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Speaker 7: that found the soldiers sought to cover up their crimes
4:59
Speaker 7: by using what was called throwdowns, those being usually pistols, ammunition,
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Speaker 7: grenades or handheld radios to be placed on the bodies
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Speaker 7: of victims.
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Speaker 2: So that was a Channel nine report which becomes relevant
5:13
Speaker 2: because all of this led to a man named Ben
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Speaker 2: Roberts Smith who was then a corporal in the Australian
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Speaker 2: Special Air Service and will just pop him on screen
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Speaker 2: now because he is crucial to what happened in Australia
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Speaker 2: and there are enormous parallels with what the BBC program
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Speaker 2: has articulated. But it should be pointed out that Robert
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Speaker 2: Smith found himself at the center of a defamation case
5:38
Speaker 2: because back in twenty eighteen articles were written by journalist
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Speaker 2: Nick McKenzie, in particular suggesting that he had been responsible
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Speaker 2: for a number of extra judicial killings whilst in Afghanistan,
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Speaker 2: and in twenty twenty three this he sued for defamation
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Speaker 2: against mackenzie, but it was chucked out on the balance
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Speaker 2: of probability that he had in fact committed such Now,
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Speaker 2: at the time, Robert Smith was working for Channel seven,
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Speaker 2: a rival channel in Australia owned by Kerry Stokes, who
6:07
Speaker 2: has bankrolled his appeal, which the decision for which is
6:11
Speaker 2: due to be announced on Friday. So it seems beyond
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Speaker 2: coincidence that this could be happening at the same time
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Speaker 2: as the Panorama program. Now, for much more information on this,
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Speaker 2: I had point you towards the sixty minutes program in
6:24
Speaker 2: Australia Theater of War, a link to which will be
6:26
Speaker 2: in the show notes. And indeed this now brings us
6:29
Speaker 2: back to the UK because the other thing reported by
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Speaker 2: the BBC is that this man shown on screen now,
6:36
Speaker 2: General Gwynn Jenkins, whose strategic advisor to the Defense Secretary,
6:41
Speaker 2: was at the heart of this at the time in Afghanistan,
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Speaker 2: and that he had knowledge by way of a report
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Speaker 2: back in twenty eleven when he was commanding UK Special
6:51
Speaker 2: Forces in Afghanistan, and he sent that report up the
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Speaker 2: chain of command to the then Director Special Forces, who
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Speaker 2: was Mark Carton Smith, who went on to become Chief
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Speaker 2: of the Defense Staff here in the UK. What Jenkins
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Speaker 2: is accused of not doing is passing that report to
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Speaker 2: the Ron Military Police further investigation, and again I refer
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Speaker 2: you back to my report of the twenty fifth of
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Speaker 2: September last year. Jenkins has subsequently gone on to be
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Speaker 2: Director Special Forces himself and is accused there of overseeing
7:20
Speaker 2: the blocking of Afghan attendees at the inquiry into events
7:26
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan, which has been going on for some considerable
7:29
Speaker 2: period of time now. Now added to that, he is
7:33
Speaker 2: also tipped to be the next First Sea Lord, which
7:35
Speaker 2: course is pertinent in so far as Ben Key, the
7:38
Speaker 2: current incumbent, has just stepped down over an affair with
7:42
Speaker 2: the female subordinate, which Brian will talk a bit more
7:45
Speaker 2: about on Monday. And what this brings to mind is
7:48
Speaker 2: the government's decision to repeal and replace the Northern Ireland
7:52
Speaker 2: Troubles Legacy and Reconciliation Act in twenty twenty three. So
7:56
Speaker 2: there's an awful lot more to this story than meets
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Speaker 2: the eye, and it's not entirely certain why the BBC
8:02
Speaker 2: would be putting it out now and what there is
8:04
Speaker 2: to it. That one possibility is that it does certainly
8:08
Speaker 2: seem to obscure much of what's been going on in Gaza.
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Speaker 2: There is a sort of normalization of war crimes because
8:13
Speaker 2: there's been a considerable reaction against this, as though this
8:16
Speaker 2: is all part and parcel of the job. So I
8:18
Speaker 2: think there's going to be much more to talk about
8:20
Speaker 2: this in extra.
8:22
Speaker 1: Thanks Charles Vanessa. Let's come to you then. And of
8:25
Speaker 1: course Trump has been inside the Arrabia. So what has
8:28
Speaker 1: he been up to?
8:31
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, apparently Trump has been arranging to meet with
8:36
Speaker 8: Joe Lanni, the head of the Syrian Hunter, which of
8:41
Speaker 8: course is basically al Kaeda that came to power after
8:44
Speaker 8: the International Crew of December twenty twenty four. I don't
8:51
Speaker 8: know if their slides are a bit mixed up because
8:54
Speaker 8: this one is a little bit further on, but I'll
8:58
Speaker 8: just keep going. So this is basically the first meeting
9:03
Speaker 8: of a US president with a Syrian president in twenty
9:07
Speaker 8: five years. Of course, unfortunately, this is a meeting with
9:15
Speaker 8: the leader of al Qaeda. And we hear, of course
9:18
Speaker 8: that Trump has had the meeting this morning in Saudi
9:22
Speaker 8: Arabia before he headed off to catal And this is
9:26
Speaker 8: basically following a meeting in Damascus between a Trump let's say,
9:34
Speaker 8: one of the Trump management, Jonathan Bass, who was reported
9:38
Speaker 8: by Syrian media to have gone to Damascus to meet
9:42
Speaker 8: with Joe Lani in order to lay the ground for
9:47
Speaker 8: the meeting with Trump. Jonathan Bass is someone who on
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Speaker 8: his ex account talks about respect for religious freedom and
9:58
Speaker 8: coexistence without a of course, mentioning the fact that Israel
10:01
Speaker 8: itself has no respect for the coexistence with Palestinians and
10:06
Speaker 8: is currently genociding Palestinians in the occupied territories and in Gaza.
10:12
Speaker 8: Now as a result of Bass meeting, apparently, jo Lani
10:16
Speaker 8: basically agreed to give America access to oil reserves in
10:23
Speaker 8: Syria and to further and expand trade with the United States,
10:28
Speaker 8: which of course means occupation by the likes of the
10:31
Speaker 8: International Monetary Fund and overall control by the US and
10:36
Speaker 8: Israel of the Syrian economy going forward. He also promised
10:42
Speaker 8: Trump a Trump Tower to be built in the middle
10:45
Speaker 8: of Damascus, and so all of these sweeteners were basically
10:52
Speaker 8: to give him the opportunity to meet with Trump, and
10:55
Speaker 8: that in fact led to Trump lifting the sanctions on
11:00
Speaker 8: Al Qaeda, which had been in place. All the sanctions
11:03
Speaker 8: rather had been in place since nineteen seventy nine onwards.
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Speaker 8: So let's just listen to Trump addressing the Gulf States
11:12
Speaker 8: regarding the lifting of sanctions on Syria, and also.
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Speaker 9: With President Erdigan of Turkey, who called me the other
11:21
Speaker 9: day and asked for a very similar thing among others
11:25
Speaker 9: and friends of mine, people that have a lot of
11:27
Speaker 9: respect for in the Middle East. I will be ordering
11:31
Speaker 9: the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give
11:34
Speaker 9: them a chance at raapers.
12:01
Speaker 10: Oh what I do for the Crown Prince.
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Speaker 8: But of course, you know, part of this deal was
12:25
Speaker 8: effectively the normalization between Syria and normalization of relations between
12:31
Speaker 8: Syria and Israel, which apparently has been achieved, and Trump
12:36
Speaker 8: is not lifting all the sanctions. I'm told by sources
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Speaker 8: in Syria that around thirty percent have actually been lifted,
12:42
Speaker 8: So this seems to be a bit more of a
12:44
Speaker 8: gesture than anything else. And I don't know if we
12:47
Speaker 8: can go back to the slide from Mardowa, because she
12:53
Speaker 8: basically went on her telegram channel to talk about the
12:58
Speaker 8: you know what has not been a fat acted basically
13:00
Speaker 8: by Trunk's grand gesture in front of Saudi Arabia in particular,
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Speaker 8: and I very much paraphrase what she said, but basically
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Speaker 8: it doesn't mean an end to US illegal occupation of
13:13
Speaker 8: Syrian resources, either directly or by proxy. No end to
13:18
Speaker 8: Israeli aggression against Syria, the bombing of multiple sites across
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Speaker 8: Syria since December twenty twenty four, no reversal of the
13:27
Speaker 8: Turkish theft of Aleppo industry which began in twenty eleven,
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Speaker 8: no trade without US or Israeli approval, and of course
13:37
Speaker 8: basically the embedding of US and EU and UK banking
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Speaker 8: facilities in Syria to ensure future control. No military or defense,
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Speaker 8: much of which was destroyed by Israel from December last
13:50
Speaker 8: year onwards. No unity of the Syrian minorities because we're
13:54
Speaker 8: heading towards partitioning no end, of course, to the ethnic
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Speaker 8: cleansing by sorry, I think that's type correction in the
14:03
Speaker 8: system by Joe Lani's gangs, because of course, what they're
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Speaker 8: effectively doing is normalizing al Qaeda as a leadership for
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Speaker 8: Syria and effectively also normalizing the ethnic cleansing programs that
14:18
Speaker 8: have been carried out by the forces under the control
14:23
Speaker 8: of Jolani. And in fact, of course, what did Trump
14:26
Speaker 8: get from Saudi Arabia in return the biggest arms deal
14:32
Speaker 8: in history, dozens of US defense companies so called defense companies,
14:38
Speaker 8: providing one hundred and forty two billion arms package, also
14:45
Speaker 8: reported to probably expand beyond that, including air and missile defense,
14:50
Speaker 8: air force capability, space advancement, and maritime security. And of
14:56
Speaker 8: course we have to bear in mind that none of
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Speaker 8: that would be done unless Saudi Arabia had agreed to
15:02
Speaker 8: normalize with Israel, because Israel would not allow Saudi Arabia
15:05
Speaker 8: to develop any kind of offense or serious defense capability
15:10
Speaker 8: unless it was approved by Israel and to Israel's advantage,
15:14
Speaker 8: And looking at the fact that maritime security is part
15:17
Speaker 8: of the deal of course that would also impact on Iran.
15:22
Speaker 8: And if we remember what Jonathan Bass also said that
15:25
Speaker 8: he agreed with Joe Lani that there would be cooperation
15:28
Speaker 8: between Jolani, Syria and the US to basically go against
15:35
Speaker 8: Iran in the future. This is all while, of course,
15:39
Speaker 8: the US is allegedly conducting negotiations with Iran. And then finally,
15:45
Speaker 8: the video shows Trump talking about the sanctions that he's
15:49
Speaker 8: very recently imposed upon Iran. So let's have a look
15:52
Speaker 8: at that.
15:54
Speaker 11: I want to make a deal with Iran. I want
15:56
Speaker 11: to do something of as possible. But for that to happen,
15:59
Speaker 11: it stop sponsoring terror, halt its bloody proxy wars, and
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Speaker 11: permanently and verifiably sees its pursuit of nuclear weapons. They
16:08
Speaker 11: cannot have a nuclear weapon. I don't imagine as anybody
16:12
Speaker 11: at this table or anybody in this room that would
16:14
Speaker 11: say they can. I'm strongly urging all nations to join
16:19
Speaker 11: us in fully and totally enforcing the sanctions that I
16:22
Speaker 11: just placed on Iran. And we also place secondary sanctions
16:27
Speaker 11: which are in certain ways even more devastating.
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Speaker 8: So secondary devastating sanctions, and as I said, all this
16:38
Speaker 8: literally a couple of days after the negotiations in Arman
16:42
Speaker 8: between Stephen Whitcroff and the Iranian representatives.
16:47
Speaker 5: Thank you for that, Vanessa, thank you.
16:49
Speaker 1: Now let's come back to the UK and still talking
16:53
Speaker 1: military matters and well Brexit without the exit continues and
17:00
Speaker 1: Nigel is silent. The Times here claims that they have
17:04
Speaker 1: had sight of leaked documents now being an organ of
17:08
Speaker 1: the deep state, I'm sure it was a leak.
17:10
Speaker 5: Sarcasm over.
17:12
Speaker 1: The Times says that and I quote leaked defense deal
17:15
Speaker 1: warns that Europe face is the greatest threat in the
17:18
Speaker 1: generation from Russia. Sorry, I've put the wrong graphic on
17:22
Speaker 1: I do apologize.
17:24
Speaker 5: That was Vanessa the.
17:27
Speaker 1: Greatest threat in a generation from Russia as it pledges
17:29
Speaker 1: closer cooperation on military matters with the EU. And The
17:34
Speaker 1: Times goes on to report that the UK and the
17:36
Speaker 1: EU will unveil a defense and Security Pact next week
17:39
Speaker 1: as part of a wide ranging deal that will bring
17:42
Speaker 1: Britain into the closest alignment it has had with the
17:44
Speaker 1: EU since Brexit. Now, they say that the security pact
17:48
Speaker 1: says that the UK and the EU face a decisive
17:51
Speaker 1: moment and the greatest threat in a generation because of
17:56
Speaker 1: Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a campaign of espionage and
18:00
Speaker 1: sabotage in the West. It says the seriousness of the
18:03
Speaker 1: challenge requires a unique and ambitious new agreement on security,
18:07
Speaker 1: and they point to the threat from Trump as another cause.
18:11
Speaker 1: And they say it also provides a mechanism for joint
18:15
Speaker 1: working of the US. Sorry if the US refuse to
18:17
Speaker 1: alloy action under NATO's auspices. In this context, they say
18:21
Speaker 1: that EU and the UK have decided to establish an
18:23
Speaker 1: implement tailor made mutually beneficial security and defense partnership that
18:28
Speaker 1: will frame their overall cooperation across security and defense spectrum. Now,
18:34
Speaker 1: for the EU's part, they say they're happy for the
18:37
Speaker 1: UK to join the Common Security and Defense Policy which
18:40
Speaker 1: enables URSULA to deploy European troops seccorded from member states
18:45
Speaker 1: in peacekeeping missions. And get look at this, the collective
18:49
Speaker 1: self defense of European states. And I'm going to say,
18:53
Speaker 1: isn't this the role of NATO? And actually, what does
18:55
Speaker 1: collective self defense mean anyway? And hasn't all of NATO's
18:59
Speaker 1: aggress aggress over the last few decades been in the
19:02
Speaker 1: name of selective self defense? So this is exactly what
19:07
Speaker 1: the UK column has been warning about since twenty eleven.
19:11
Speaker 1: In fact, no other media organization has been covering this
19:14
Speaker 1: at all. The Express has given it some brief mentions
19:19
Speaker 1: from time to time, but never in massive detail, and
19:22
Speaker 1: this is a topic which Nigel Faraja and all the
19:24
Speaker 1: parties which he has led have steadfastly refused to engage with.
19:30
Speaker 1: We've also been warning since the day after the referendum
19:34
Speaker 1: that Brexit was and is without the Exit. We were
19:38
Speaker 1: heavily criticized for saying that at the time. Despite all
19:41
Speaker 1: the whoa over the Great Repeal Bill, successful successive British
19:46
Speaker 1: prime ministers have kept the UK more or less aligned
19:48
Speaker 1: with the EU regulations and standards to make it as
19:51
Speaker 1: easy as possible to bring the country back into as
19:55
Speaker 1: close an arrangement with the EU as possible, and there
19:58
Speaker 1: could be no doubt that the reason Theritish government signed
20:01
Speaker 1: up that to such a bad deal following Brexit was
20:04
Speaker 1: specifically to make it as painful as possible for ordinary
20:07
Speaker 1: people and therefore to drive support for exactly this now.
20:12
Speaker 1: The Times, then, in their article goes on to point
20:14
Speaker 1: out that the Defense Pact will be the centerpiece of
20:17
Speaker 1: a summit this month that will what they describe is
20:21
Speaker 1: open the way for the UK to restart selling food
20:24
Speaker 1: and agricultural policy products to the EU without customs checks.
20:28
Speaker 1: It will also commit both sides to working together to
20:30
Speaker 1: agree a separate deals such as issues around youth mobility scheme,
20:35
Speaker 1: the energy and energy market cooperation. So that is a
20:40
Speaker 1: Brexit without the exit. And we told you that this
20:43
Speaker 1: was the situation when no one else was, including Nagel Farage,
20:46
Speaker 1: So you can take from that what you wish.
20:50
Speaker 2: Any thoughts plenty, Yes, I mean I think well, we
20:54
Speaker 2: spoke about it last week, and as you say consistently,
20:56
Speaker 2: you know that the Defense Union side of it is
21:01
Speaker 2: sort of a case in point that we see across
21:04
Speaker 2: the board where if you chuck enough paperwork out there,
21:08
Speaker 2: and you make enough sort of formal and informal relationships
21:13
Speaker 2: with other countries or other armed forces or something along
21:17
Speaker 2: that line, you're paving the way to be able to
21:21
Speaker 2: just do anything. At any point you can always relate
21:24
Speaker 2: back to something that you have committed to in the
21:28
Speaker 2: past that enables what's happening now. And also I would
21:30
Speaker 2: just say that quite like you point out, as far
21:34
Speaker 2: as NATO is concerned, is it really acting within the
21:38
Speaker 2: specific scope of its articles. I don't think so at all.
21:41
Speaker 2: I don't think one can take that judgment, certainly not
21:43
Speaker 2: since early twenty twenty two. So there's an awful lot
21:47
Speaker 2: of hypocrisy in this, and I certainly it'd be very
21:50
Speaker 2: interesting to see where this sort of you know, undoing
21:53
Speaker 2: Brexit meeting takes us.
21:56
Speaker 1: Yes, Vanessa, very briefly, what are your thoughts on the
21:58
Speaker 1: idea of Ersilov and Learn having the ability to deploy
22:02
Speaker 1: troops in collective self defense.
22:06
Speaker 8: Well, as you said, we've talked about it multiple times
22:09
Speaker 8: on UK column. Not a surprise, But obviously that does
22:14
Speaker 8: seem to be a sort of a D linkage between
22:18
Speaker 8: the US and the EU, but also apparently at the moment,
22:21
Speaker 8: between the US and Israel to some degree. So I
22:24
Speaker 8: do wonder whether it is a true D linking or
22:29
Speaker 8: whether it's a way of enabling certain elements within the
22:34
Speaker 8: Alliance to operate alone.
22:37
Speaker 5: Yes, good point. Okay, thank you for that.
22:39
Speaker 1: Sadly, let's come on to you then, and well, perhaps
22:42
Speaker 1: we could consider this to be a good news story
22:46
Speaker 1: with the recent activity in the High Court over low
22:50
Speaker 1: traffic zones.
22:52
Speaker 12: Yes, and don't we need cheering up a bit to
22:54
Speaker 12: be honest. Yes. On the ninth of May, a South
22:59
Speaker 12: London local campaign group, the West Doulige Action Group, won
23:03
Speaker 12: a High Court victory against Lambeth Council in a judicial
23:06
Speaker 12: review to scrap low traffic neighborhood schemes in the area.
23:09
Speaker 12: Now this potentially could over to the first time it's
23:13
Speaker 12: happened that these schemes have been lawfully challenged in the
23:17
Speaker 12: High courts and this could potentially overturn LTNs fifteen minute
23:22
Speaker 12: cities and low traffic neighborhoods. Sorry, what do they call
23:29
Speaker 12: liverable neighborhoods? Sorry, they've got so many words for them. Anyway,
23:32
Speaker 12: these schemes are very flawed and this all came to
23:37
Speaker 12: light in this particular case prior to seeking the judicial reviews.
23:42
Speaker 12: It was done under a judicial review and these are
23:45
Speaker 12: the people that the main people that challenged it, the group,
23:50
Speaker 12: and they prior to seeking this judicial review. The West
23:54
Speaker 12: St Dolish Campaign Group has submitted a fifty three page
23:57
Speaker 12: dossier to the council highlighting it what he's what they
24:00
Speaker 12: saw as flaws in the process. This included concerns about
24:04
Speaker 12: the LTN worsening air pollution, displacing traffic into boundary roads,
24:08
Speaker 12: increasing road danger to residential streets. There was also concerns
24:13
Speaker 12: that the overwhelming levels of opposition about sixty five No
24:17
Speaker 12: sixty seven point five percent were literally being ignored, and
24:21
Speaker 12: the High Court ruled that Lambeth Council acted unlawfully in
24:24
Speaker 12: implementing the LTN. The Court found that the Council failed
24:28
Speaker 12: to properly consider this this fifty three page report, which
24:31
Speaker 12: is a massive flaw, and the failure to have done
24:35
Speaker 12: this was a serious failing, rendering the decision to make
24:39
Speaker 12: the court the orders unlawful. So this is really quite big.
24:43
Speaker 12: And the counselors who challenged it, I mean the sorry
24:50
Speaker 12: the activists that cant that challenged it, They said Lambeth
24:55
Speaker 12: Council chose to spend public funds fighting the very community
24:59
Speaker 12: excit to serve, rather than sitting down with us to
25:02
Speaker 12: find a workable, locally supported solution. Meanwhile, over seven hundred
25:07
Speaker 12: residents and businesses had no choice but to raise more
25:11
Speaker 12: than fifty pounds to just have their voices heard. It's
25:15
Speaker 12: a shameful misuse of resources that could have been avoided
25:18
Speaker 12: through genuine engagement. And the judge who presided over this
25:28
Speaker 12: his name is Tim Smith. So the council was guilty
25:32
Speaker 12: of a master class in selective partial reporting in how
25:36
Speaker 12: it reported the outcome of a library consultation. Now, these
25:39
Speaker 12: consultations we know are flawed because they're not done in
25:44
Speaker 12: any way that's representative of the community that they're trying
25:50
Speaker 12: to push this consensus on. So this is another example
25:55
Speaker 12: of councils acting ultravirus, which really means serious over each
25:59
Speaker 12: beyond the sky of their authority or the power granted
26:02
Speaker 12: to them by law. And we're seeing this across the board,
26:05
Speaker 12: particularly where I am, where freedom of speech is in
26:08
Speaker 12: the balance, where you've got you've got counselors all going
26:12
Speaker 12: off sick and apparently this is this is what happened
26:15
Speaker 12: in this case. A lot of them actually couldn't cope.
26:19
Speaker 12: And two years ago when they had a meeting in
26:22
Speaker 12: twenty twenty three over this Lambeth Council Ltn, a lot
26:28
Speaker 12: of them were in tiers. A lot of the councilors
26:31
Speaker 12: were in tears, and the staff were offered well being leave.
26:34
Speaker 12: We're seeing this they're really getting upset about being challenged. Well, boohoo,
26:39
Speaker 12: you know this is what this is what we're finding.
26:42
Speaker 12: So in the broader sense this is this really does
26:47
Speaker 12: give us some kind of decent precedent to challenge all
26:50
Speaker 12: of this, and Counselor Resina Chowdry, Deputy Leader of Lambeth Council,
26:56
Speaker 12: said the Authority was considering the implications of the judgment,
26:59
Speaker 12: but the LTN would remain in place for now and
27:02
Speaker 12: this is again a kind of example of their hubrious
27:07
Speaker 12: So maybe the Council will try and challenge it. I
27:09
Speaker 12: don't know, but for now it's a definite victory and
27:13
Speaker 12: hopefully the people's voices will be heard.
27:17
Speaker 1: Do you think, Sandy, do you think the reason they
27:20
Speaker 1: get so upset when they're challenged on this is that
27:23
Speaker 1: they're so ideologically brought into their own narrative that they
27:27
Speaker 1: can't They've lost the ability to represent anybody. They're only
27:32
Speaker 1: there to represent the policy itself.
27:35
Speaker 12: Absolutely, I mean I've seen it. You know, our town
27:38
Speaker 12: cat Clark has gone off and he's not likely to
27:41
Speaker 12: come back because he's being challenged about having actually, you know, lawfully,
27:48
Speaker 12: we're looking into the lawful challenge against them for what
27:51
Speaker 12: they've done, and they can't cope with it. They actually
27:53
Speaker 12: have this hubrious that they believe that they are above
27:56
Speaker 12: the law. That's it.
27:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, on.
27:59
Speaker 1: That top, I'll just mention that the legal precedent for
28:02
Speaker 1: this comes from I believe the eighteenth century.
28:05
Speaker 5: It's Antique versus Carrington is the case law.
28:08
Speaker 1: And what that law basically says is that us as
28:10
Speaker 1: individuals have the right to do anything except what is
28:14
Speaker 1: expressly denied tos by law, whereas corporate entities, governments, these
28:21
Speaker 1: types of people have the right to do nothing except
28:23
Speaker 1: what is permitted by law. Now, what became clear a
28:27
Speaker 1: number of years ago was that councils were increasingly reversing
28:31
Speaker 1: that position, and we're attempting to take upon themselves the
28:34
Speaker 1: right to do anything that they chose. And this is
28:38
Speaker 1: something that we've seen time and time again, and we
28:40
Speaker 1: absolutely need to keep in mind. The legal precedent in
28:44
Speaker 1: this country is only us as human beings, as individuals
28:48
Speaker 1: that have the right to do what we like unless
28:50
Speaker 1: it's prevented by some kind of restriction, legal restriction. Otherwise
28:55
Speaker 1: they have the right to do nothing. And so you know,
28:59
Speaker 1: I think that should be born in mine. Thank you
29:01
Speaker 1: for that, Sandy. Let's move on. If you like what
29:05
Speaker 1: the UK column does, you'd like to support us. The
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29:44
Speaker 1: Tonight at seven pm, Warfare is going to be speaking
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Speaker 1: to German is going to speaking to Michelle Wilkins about
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Speaker 1: Kurt Cobain and he did not kill himself, she says,
29:56
Speaker 1: So join jerm for that at seven pm on the
29:59
Speaker 1: live stream. Tomorrow at one pm, Brian will be speaking
30:03
Speaker 1: to another resident of Fornethi Residential School in Scotland. This
30:08
Speaker 1: is Debs and so that will be at one pm tomorrow.
30:12
Speaker 1: Joined Brian and Debs for that. And then just to
30:17
Speaker 1: let you know that the on demand version of the
30:19
Speaker 1: Truth about Emmy with Catherine van Dome and doctor Liz
30:23
Speaker 1: Evans is on the website at the moment.
30:26
Speaker 5: Stand in the Light.
30:27
Speaker 1: Let's have another reminder for that that's happening May the
30:30
Speaker 1: twenty third and twenty sixth. That's a bank holiday weekend
30:34
Speaker 1: Kigarn and Cumbria. If you're not going to that, we
30:36
Speaker 1: strongly if you're in the area at least we strongly
30:38
Speaker 1: recommend you do. They're looking forward to a good turnout
30:42
Speaker 1: for that. And we're delighted to say Charles that The
30:45
Speaker 1: Light newspaper has covered our recent live event.
30:49
Speaker 2: Absolutely yes, very many thanks to Serena Wilde who was
30:52
Speaker 2: at the event with us, and she's written a great
30:54
Speaker 2: piece in the most recent edition of The Light. So
30:57
Speaker 2: there we go, highlighting the important and symbiotic relationship between
31:01
Speaker 2: The Light and UK Column and we'll look forward to
31:03
Speaker 2: seeing Serena at the next event. But there's also a
31:05
Speaker 2: part sorry she spoke to Catherine Gunn who was one
31:09
Speaker 2: of our speakers, and that's also contained within this edition,
31:11
Speaker 2: so do get your copy.
31:13
Speaker 1: Thank you, and a reminder of Science Beautiful taking place
31:16
Speaker 1: in Wimborne and Dorset during the twenty sixth to twenty
31:19
Speaker 1: ninth and.
31:22
Speaker 5: Well go.
31:23
Speaker 1: Basically, we will be there. We can't make it to
31:25
Speaker 1: the standard of light this year. We will be there
31:27
Speaker 1: next year, I'm quite sure. But we will be at
31:29
Speaker 1: Scignce Beautiful. And if anybody hasn't entered the giveaway for
31:33
Speaker 1: two free tickets on the UK cold fistbook page, the
31:37
Speaker 1: opportunity is there, so please do head over to the
31:40
Speaker 1: UK coln fistbook page and enter that if you would
31:43
Speaker 1: like to get two free tickets to Signce Beautiful. Now
31:47
Speaker 1: let's move on to online safety of a kind because
31:51
Speaker 1: Ofcom has released their latest edition of the Children Parents
31:56
Speaker 1: Media Use and Attitudes Report, and I just wanted to
31:59
Speaker 1: go through this a little bit. Media literacy, they say,
32:04
Speaker 1: enables people to have the skills, knowledge and understanding they
32:07
Speaker 1: need to make full use of the opportunities presented both
32:10
Speaker 1: by traditional and the new communications services.
32:14
Speaker 5: Is this making it oh yet, Charles.
32:16
Speaker 1: Media literacy also helps people to manage content and communications
32:20
Speaker 1: and protect themselves and their families from the potential risks
32:23
Speaker 1: associated with using these services. So the question is what
32:27
Speaker 1: are these potential risks and dangers? And just to sort
32:31
Speaker 1: of highlight that some of the statistics from this first
32:34
Speaker 1: of all, let's have a look at children's media use.
32:39
Speaker 1: So what have we got here. There's been an increase
32:41
Speaker 1: in three to five year olds using social media platforms
32:45
Speaker 1: three to five year olds. Let's look at some of
32:47
Speaker 1: the statistics. Nineteen percent of three to five year olds,
32:50
Speaker 1: according to this report, have their own mobile phone, eighty
32:53
Speaker 1: five percent use a device of some kind to go online.
32:57
Speaker 1: Three to five year olds you're talking about here, Fifty
32:59
Speaker 1: six percent use me apps. Ninety one percent of the
33:03
Speaker 1: people that these are, of course, the people that are
33:05
Speaker 1: using social media using the internet, ninety one percent use
33:09
Speaker 1: video sharing platforms, thirty seven percent use social media, and
33:13
Speaker 1: of those, sixty percent have their own profile. So sixty
33:16
Speaker 1: percent of the thirty one percent of the three to
33:18
Speaker 1: five year olds that are using the Internet have their
33:20
Speaker 1: own social media plat profiles. The three main platforms for
33:26
Speaker 1: three to five year olds are YouTube, whatsopp and snapchat.
33:30
Speaker 1: Let's see what else they're saying here. Of the eight
33:32
Speaker 1: and ten of three to seventeen year olds, so seventy
33:35
Speaker 1: nine percent of three to seventeen year olds who have
33:37
Speaker 1: their own profile on social media, messaging, VSP or live
33:41
Speaker 1: streaming sites, sixteen percent include a photo of themselves, which
33:45
Speaker 1: anyone can see. Let's go on. The majority of parents
33:49
Speaker 1: do not think the benefits outweigh the risks of their
33:52
Speaker 1: children being on social media, messaging and video sharing apps,
33:56
Speaker 1: but they still give them a mobile phone. They still
33:58
Speaker 1: give them a tablet. More than seven and ten seventy
34:02
Speaker 1: two percent of parents are concerned that their child would
34:04
Speaker 1: be unable to distinguish between real and fake online content,
34:08
Speaker 1: but they still give them a phone. Let's see what
34:11
Speaker 1: else we've got here. Viewing of broadcast TV continues to
34:15
Speaker 1: decline among children age four to fifteen, so maybe that's
34:18
Speaker 1: a good thing. But more children are watching live stream videos,
34:23
Speaker 1: a growing trend over the past three years. And they
34:26
Speaker 1: go on to say that the three most common online
34:29
Speaker 1: safety topics taught in schools are how to recognize harmful content,
34:34
Speaker 1: how to keep personal information safe, and being kind and
34:37
Speaker 1: respective to respectful to others online. Well, I'm going to
34:40
Speaker 1: suggest that whatever they're learning on those topics in school
34:45
Speaker 1: is probably nonsense in all three cases. Now, by the
34:48
Speaker 1: age of six to seven, thirty percent of children have
34:51
Speaker 1: their own phones. By the age of eight to nine,
34:54
Speaker 1: forty two percent have their own phones. There's little or
34:58
Speaker 1: no difference between those those statistics, by the way, across
35:01
Speaker 1: the demographic categories. In other words, education and job role
35:06
Speaker 1: plays no part on this. And just to a couple
35:09
Speaker 1: of graphics on this, let's just look at this one
35:11
Speaker 1: first of all. So that's showing the proportion of children
35:16
Speaker 1: that go online by age eighty five percent three to five,
35:19
Speaker 1: up to one hundred percent by sixteen. And then if
35:22
Speaker 1: we look at the top five communication apps and sites
35:25
Speaker 1: used by age group, clearly YouTube is well ahead from
35:28
Speaker 1: the age of three.
35:30
Speaker 5: So what do we say about that.
35:32
Speaker 1: I'm just going to mention a comment here that this
35:34
Speaker 1: is unrelated but came out at roughly the same time.
35:37
Speaker 1: This is from Rachel de Susan, the Children's Commissioner, saying
35:40
Speaker 1: children have told me this harmful content often finds them
35:44
Speaker 1: rather than them actively seeking it out. Girls and young
35:47
Speaker 1: as young as nine have told my team about strangers
35:50
Speaker 1: asking for their home address online, and in a room
35:53
Speaker 1: of fifteen and sixteen year olds, three quarters had been
35:56
Speaker 1: sent a video of someone being beheaded. Then she goes
35:59
Speaker 1: on to say content like this is often promoted and
36:02
Speaker 1: offered to children by complex recommendation algorithms designed to capture,
36:07
Speaker 1: retain their attention. That's her typographical error, by the way,
36:10
Speaker 1: designed for business purposes, not the interests of users. Well,
36:14
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you're going to have a hard job, Rachel,
36:17
Speaker 1: convincing me that any online service provider is providing through
36:21
Speaker 1: an algorithm videos of beheadings for business purposes. This doesn't
36:26
Speaker 1: make sense, So you are misrepresenting the situation. The situation
36:30
Speaker 1: is pretty dire with respect to children and how young
36:34
Speaker 1: they are and being given the access to this content.
36:37
Speaker 1: But of course you will take advantage of that to
36:41
Speaker 1: suggest that that results in the requirement for more regulation
36:45
Speaker 1: of the Internet. We'll talk about more about this in
36:47
Speaker 1: extra but three year olds, yes, what can we say, Vanessa.
36:53
Speaker 1: Let's come back to you then. And well, Yemen, yep.
36:59
Speaker 8: So, to have a look at an article in the
37:01
Speaker 8: New York Times which basically confirms everything that I reported
37:06
Speaker 8: last week on UK column News reference Trump's sudden ceasefire
37:13
Speaker 8: with the Yemeny. So this is a New York Times
37:16
Speaker 8: article from yesterday. Why did Trump suddenly backpedal on the
37:21
Speaker 8: war against and so Rula in Yemen? So from the
37:25
Speaker 8: article itself in the first thirty days and Serrula, they actually,
37:30
Speaker 8: of course said the hauties, but i've amended that shot
37:33
Speaker 8: down seven American MQ nine Jernes thirty million each, hampering
37:39
Speaker 8: Central Commands ability to track and strike the group. Several
37:43
Speaker 8: US F sixteens and an F thirty five fighter jet
37:47
Speaker 8: were nearly struck by the Yemeny air defense, making real
37:51
Speaker 8: the possibility of American casualties. And of course we shouldn't
37:56
Speaker 8: forget the drama of the leaked WhatsApp coversation, which apparently,
38:01
Speaker 8: according to the article, put the lives of US military
38:06
Speaker 8: and particularly pilots at risk. And then of course there
38:10
Speaker 8: was a huge US deployment to effectively support Israel both
38:16
Speaker 8: sustaining the genocide of Palestinians and preventing the prevention of
38:21
Speaker 8: the genocide by the Yemen's two aircraft carriers. Additional B
38:26
Speaker 8: two bombers, which of course are nuclear capable, and fighter jets,
38:29
Speaker 8: as well as Patriot and Thud air defense were sent
38:33
Speaker 8: to the Middle East. But in fact the article admits
38:36
Speaker 8: that there was very little degradation of the Yemeny capability
38:41
Speaker 8: of hitting both vessels in particular, but also continuing their
38:46
Speaker 8: air strikes or the missile strikes against the occupied territories
38:51
Speaker 8: and basically enabling not only the blockade of Israeli shipping,
38:55
Speaker 8: but also an effective no fly zone in the Bengurian
39:02
Speaker 8: airport because international airlines are still canceling flights into Benngurian
39:07
Speaker 8: after the Yemen he's attacked it again since the USC Spire,
39:12
Speaker 8: which didn't incorporate Israel. The Pentagon is concerned again. This
39:17
Speaker 8: is something that we mentioned last week, and if we
39:22
Speaker 8: can just have that up on the screen. So many
39:24
Speaker 8: precision munitions were being used, especially advanced long range ones
39:29
Speaker 8: that some Pentagon contingency planners were growing increasingly concerned about
39:34
Speaker 8: overall stocks and the implications if the US might have
39:38
Speaker 8: to ward off an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China.
39:42
Speaker 8: So exactly as we said, pretty much has been confirmed
39:47
Speaker 8: by the New York Times is that Trump had no
39:50
Speaker 8: choice but to withdraw from any kind of aggression against
39:55
Speaker 8: Yemen in order to conserve stocks and prevent the loss
40:00
Speaker 8: of life and loss of equipment, which has reached over
40:02
Speaker 8: one billion dollars.
40:05
Speaker 5: Yes, and saying thank you for Essa. That was.
40:09
Speaker 1: You heard it here first, of course. But anyway, Charles,
40:12
Speaker 1: let's come back to the UK and well, we haven't
40:16
Speaker 1: had any rin for quite some time.
40:18
Speaker 5: We haven't.
40:18
Speaker 2: No, and not just the government of the BBC is
40:21
Speaker 2: wanting to make much of this. The strength of the
40:24
Speaker 2: climate change narrative for its purveyors is such that almost
40:31
Speaker 2: any kind of weather, and obviously we're talking mostly about
40:34
Speaker 2: dry weather, but almost any kind of weather can be
40:37
Speaker 2: attributed to it. Twenty twenty five this year, in that regard,
40:40
Speaker 2: has been a gift for the fearmongers. So hot off
40:43
Speaker 2: the back of flood warnings, here is the BBC declaring
40:45
Speaker 2: a record drought, something which the government has been reporting
40:49
Speaker 2: in a slightly less melodramatic manner, and certainly is the
40:53
Speaker 2: case that March was a very dry month. April two
40:56
Speaker 2: has been drier than usual, so they say, which has
41:00
Speaker 2: left several reservoirs described as exceptionally low. So in positing
41:05
Speaker 2: that virtually everything we do with water is wrong, that
41:10
Speaker 2: means that the door is open force solutions, and as usual,
41:13
Speaker 2: the World Economic Forum is on hand with a few recommendations.
41:17
Speaker 2: Most of these, of course, concerned public private partnerships which
41:20
Speaker 2: are of no benefit to the end user, or the
41:23
Speaker 2: assertion that artificial intelligence is the answer to everything. Now,
41:28
Speaker 2: all of this points to investment at the corporate level,
41:31
Speaker 2: which means the expectation of a return. The Environment Agency
41:37
Speaker 2: points to the further commoditization of water, and not just
41:41
Speaker 2: that which is used for washing and drinking, but water
41:45
Speaker 2: which constitutes what is called blue space. Now, essentially this
41:49
Speaker 2: means putting a value on large bodies of water, which
41:52
Speaker 2: is precisely why increasing increasing initiatives now focus on the
41:57
Speaker 2: use of water for in particular health and well being
42:01
Speaker 2: reasons shown here again by the BBC. This cold water
42:05
Speaker 2: swimming program is run out of Derreford Hospital in Plymouth
42:08
Speaker 2: and it's exactly a case in point. Just last week,
42:12
Speaker 2: the National Audit Office released a report about the state
42:18
Speaker 2: of managed water in the UK and what they think
42:21
Speaker 2: needs to be done about it. Now this is one
42:23
Speaker 2: of their auditors setting it out.
42:26
Speaker 13: The scale of the challenge facing water regulators is huge.
42:30
Speaker 13: The shortfall of nearly five billion liters of water per
42:33
Speaker 13: day is expected by twenty fifty and government has set
42:37
Speaker 13: the sector statutory targets to reduce its environmental impact. At
42:42
Speaker 13: the same time, consumer trust has fallen to its lowest
42:46
Speaker 13: level since twenty eleven. To address these challenges, the water
42:50
Speaker 13: sector needs to attract an unprecedented amount of investment. There
42:55
Speaker 13: are three regulators for the sector off WHAT, the Environment
42:59
Speaker 13: Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate. They all have different
43:03
Speaker 13: responsibilities which sometimes overlap, but no one has responsibility to
43:08
Speaker 13: inspect wastewater assets.
43:11
Speaker 3: Off WHAT.
43:12
Speaker 13: The water sector's economic regulator expects spending on infrastructure improvements
43:17
Speaker 13: to rise to forty seven billion pounds in the next
43:21
Speaker 13: five years, as part of at least two hundred and
43:24
Speaker 13: ninety billion pounds of enhancements needed to meet government's targets
43:29
Speaker 13: over the next twenty five years. At the current rate,
43:32
Speaker 13: it would take seven hundred years to replace the entire
43:36
Speaker 13: existing water main network. Plans are also currently in development
43:41
Speaker 13: for thirty large water supply projects, including nine reservoirs, which
43:46
Speaker 13: off WHAT estimate will cost an extra fifty two billion
43:50
Speaker 13: pounds to build. The need for investment coincides with a
43:54
Speaker 13: period of weakening financial performance and reduced investor confidence in
43:58
Speaker 13: the water sector. Depro must understand both the cost and
44:02
Speaker 13: deliverability of its plans and the impact these plans will
44:06
Speaker 13: have on customers bills.
44:11
Speaker 2: Indeed, the impact on customers bills, so the takeaway message
44:14
Speaker 2: there is unambiguous. Despite the failings of all those directly
44:19
Speaker 2: associated sorry just sorr, I'm sorry, directly responsible. The burden
44:26
Speaker 2: of the cost will fall upon those indirectly affected i e.
44:29
Speaker 13: You.
44:29
Speaker 2: Now, this is at least consistent with the message from
44:33
Speaker 2: the Environment Agency, and this is what the former chair
44:36
Speaker 2: Alan Lovell said back in twenty twenty three. He made
44:40
Speaker 2: it clear that to grip the existential risk of supply
44:45
Speaker 2: and demand, we will need to ask the public to
44:48
Speaker 2: save water and pay more for it. Now, for this government,
44:52
Speaker 2: one might think this presented an opportunity to go some
44:56
Speaker 2: way to sorting things out with their much form planning
45:00
Speaker 2: an infrastructure bill, but in fact there's absolutely in no
45:03
Speaker 2: regard given to the improvement of the water infrastructure or
45:07
Speaker 2: any mention of it being a new consideration sorry of
45:10
Speaker 2: consideration in new housing developments. And now it should not
45:14
Speaker 2: be forgotten though, that the bill does give enormous powers
45:16
Speaker 2: of compulsory purchase of land, and that in the case
45:19
Speaker 2: of agricultural land, any development premium is removed and the
45:23
Speaker 2: landowner may only receive the base agricultural price for the purchase.
45:29
Speaker 2: One very obvious mitigation exercise would be rainwater harvesting, and
45:34
Speaker 2: it's most indicative to note that the Environment Agency actually
45:37
Speaker 2: has a regulatory position on this, which clarifies, sorry, which
45:43
Speaker 2: clarifies when you can use harvested rainwater without a water
45:48
Speaker 2: abstraction license. Given that many colonial administrations forbade the harvesting
45:54
Speaker 2: of rainwater in an apparent attempt to stop mosquito's breeding,
45:57
Speaker 2: it's not too much of a stretch to see that
45:59
Speaker 2: this relation might change. However, in terms of practical application,
46:05
Speaker 2: it's worth taking a quick look at rainwater harvesting. A
46:08
Speaker 2: UK website which puts average water consumption per head per
46:12
Speaker 2: year at around fifty five thousand liters, and a house
46:15
Speaker 2: with a roof space of just fifty square meters will
46:19
Speaker 2: collect on average forty thousand liters in the UK. But
46:22
Speaker 2: you won't find the government, the Environment Agency, or the
46:24
Speaker 2: National Audit Office, or indeed the World Economic Forum, and
46:28
Speaker 2: certainly not any of the water companies suggesting that you
46:31
Speaker 2: think about that, and announced just late last month the
46:35
Speaker 2: Government suggesting that water bosses might face up to two
46:39
Speaker 2: years in prison. This, when one looks into the detail,
46:41
Speaker 2: actually really just concerns non compliance with an investigation, so
46:46
Speaker 2: unlikely to have much of an effect. But I would
46:49
Speaker 2: draw your attention to the Police Crime Centercing Courts Act
46:53
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two and the offense under section seventy
46:56
Speaker 2: eight of intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance, and
47:00
Speaker 2: the offense is committed by somebody who does an act
47:02
Speaker 2: or omits to do an act that they are required
47:04
Speaker 2: to do by an enactment or a rule of law. Now,
47:08
Speaker 2: of course, this what this does do, is to take
47:12
Speaker 2: away the offense, the common law offense of causing public nuisance.
47:16
Speaker 2: And it's just yet another sort of nail in the
47:20
Speaker 2: coffin of the common law. So that is though to
47:23
Speaker 2: be considered with regard to the water companies and indeed
47:27
Speaker 2: holding them to accounts. And of course we've heard a
47:29
Speaker 2: story from Sandy just now about the merits of the
47:32
Speaker 2: challenge and this piece of legislation could be used as
47:36
Speaker 2: such a tool.
47:38
Speaker 1: Thank you, Charles. Okay, Sandy, let's come back to you then.
47:42
Speaker 1: And we've been talking about the dimming of the sun
47:46
Speaker 1: in recent news programs.
47:47
Speaker 12: What's the litist well, I mean, bearing in mind obviously
47:52
Speaker 12: I know we've spoken about it before. You know, sixty
47:54
Speaker 12: I think it's fifty six point eight million has been
47:57
Speaker 12: allocated by the government who fund experiment, sayming at dimming
48:00
Speaker 12: the sun as if they weren't doing it before anyway,
48:04
Speaker 12: And you know on they brought this in on April
48:07
Speaker 12: the twenty fifth, which involves the use of atmospheric aerosol
48:12
Speaker 12: technology technology known as SATAN stratospheric aerosol transport and nucleation.
48:18
Speaker 12: I mean, it sounds extraordinary, doesn't it. But anyway, and
48:22
Speaker 12: how silly is that when you've got when you've got
48:26
Speaker 12: ed Miller band led by net zero. You know, he's
48:32
Speaker 12: in charge of all the net zero dmiliband and he's
48:35
Speaker 12: come under scrutiny for his energy policies, particularly the apparent
48:38
Speaker 12: contradictions between investing billions in solar panel installations across the
48:43
Speaker 12: country and allocating fifty plus million to protect you know,
48:48
Speaker 12: to aimed at you know, when we've put all that
48:50
Speaker 12: towards it, you know, blocking the sun. I mean, it
48:52
Speaker 12: just doesn't make sense. So armed with that information, we
48:56
Speaker 12: sent a letter to our local MP two C watch.
49:00
Speaker 12: She would think about it, Sarah Dikar lib Dem and
49:03
Speaker 12: I know it's almost pointless asking them, but she came
49:07
Speaker 12: up with quite a long, quite a long answer, and
49:12
Speaker 12: part of it is here on the screen. The response.
49:15
Speaker 12: You know, this is a response we receive. Thank you
49:17
Speaker 12: for contacting us about the government supporting this endeavor to
49:20
Speaker 12: explore the use of geoengineering, including using limited funds from
49:24
Speaker 12: the taxpayer. It's understandable that there are concerns about such
49:28
Speaker 12: technologies and ventures into areas of alternate actions to reduce
49:34
Speaker 12: temperatures and stabilize the global challenges in the climate. However,
49:38
Speaker 12: climate change is an essential threat, an existential threat, soaring
49:42
Speaker 12: temperatures leading to wildfires, floods, droughts, rising sea levels or
49:47
Speaker 12: affecting millions of people directly and billions more through falling
49:51
Speaker 12: food production. This is quite interesting, the falling food production. Well,
49:55
Speaker 12: why because we're covering our land in solar panels and
50:00
Speaker 12: and wind farms as well as housing which they are allowing.
50:04
Speaker 12: I mean, none of it makes sense. And she's saying
50:07
Speaker 12: urgent actually is needed in the UK and around the
50:09
Speaker 12: world to achieve net zero and avert catastrophe they are
50:13
Speaker 12: causing it. We only have to look at the recent
50:17
Speaker 12: and more regular heavy rainfall causing repeated flooding. You know,
50:21
Speaker 12: we've already addressed that because they're breaking down the infrastructure
50:25
Speaker 12: for draining the Somerset levels, so that's rubbish. Anyway, it
50:29
Speaker 12: goes on and on and on, and she talks about,
50:33
Speaker 12: you know, sort of these data centers and that they're
50:37
Speaker 12: trying to create create ways of upping the renewables. But
50:43
Speaker 12: what they don't understand is that food security is being
50:46
Speaker 12: threatened here. And I just want to just remind everyone
50:51
Speaker 12: about the sixteen critical infrastructure sectors that must be protected.
50:58
Speaker 12: And this is what the Government of public themselves. There's
51:01
Speaker 12: sixteen of them and you've got I can't sort of
51:05
Speaker 12: read some of them on that it's not very good
51:07
Speaker 12: and visual, but anyway, it's the thirteenth one is food
51:13
Speaker 12: and agriculture, so it is one of the thirteenth one
51:16
Speaker 12: is food and agriculture, and it's these are the governments
51:20
Speaker 12: own protected infrastructures. And yet all of this is not
51:25
Speaker 12: protecting our food and we have and I'm going to
51:29
Speaker 12: follow this up with Sarah Dyke. She's going to get
51:31
Speaker 12: quite a lengthy letter from me explaining that food security
51:35
Speaker 12: is not being taken into consideration at all. These people
51:39
Speaker 12: are just plain bonkers.
51:42
Speaker 5: Yeah.
51:42
Speaker 1: The only thing I would challenge you on there, Sandy,
51:44
Speaker 1: is is to suggest that this is in any way unintentional,
51:49
Speaker 1: and you know, we'll talk a lot more about this
51:51
Speaker 1: and extra. I'm quite sure it's not by accident that
51:55
Speaker 1: we're busy shutting down in our farming industry in this
51:57
Speaker 1: country while apparently making deals with other countries to import
52:01
Speaker 1: more and more food from from other countries. So you know,
52:05
Speaker 1: we we will talk more about this an extra, So
52:07
Speaker 1: thank you very much for that. Back to Vanessa then,
52:10
Speaker 1: and Vanessa, you were talking earlier about the breaking up
52:15
Speaker 1: of Syria.
52:16
Speaker 5: So what's the let us do on Syria?
52:19
Speaker 8: Yeah, I just wanted to do a quick catch up,
52:21
Speaker 8: but I think the slights have been misaligned. So I
52:24
Speaker 8: don't know if we can go forward to the French
52:27
Speaker 8: port deal and go past the nice pictures of President
52:31
Speaker 8: Trump and old Jilanney, and then I can sort of
52:37
Speaker 8: get started on what's actually happening in Syria at the moment.
52:42
Speaker 5: Sorry, don't have the.
52:47
Speaker 8: Okay, all right, that's a shame we don't even have
52:52
Speaker 8: them at.
52:54
Speaker 5: Uh, you keep talking about.
52:59
Speaker 8: Okay, So basically, I just wanted to do a catch
53:01
Speaker 8: up on Syria and the carver of Syrian territory, which
53:07
Speaker 8: is ongoing. First of all, in recent news, the French
53:12
Speaker 8: have renewed or extended their deal for the control of
53:17
Speaker 8: Latakia Port on the coast, which of course is very
53:19
Speaker 8: close to the Russian military base in Hamomeme and Tartus.
53:25
Speaker 8: The French shipping giants CMA GGM has extended its contract
53:30
Speaker 8: to a further thirty years to develop and run the
53:33
Speaker 8: port of Latakia, with a view to investing two hundred
53:37
Speaker 8: and thirty million euros into the port, which of course
53:42
Speaker 8: gives France control to some degree in that area again
53:47
Speaker 8: which formerly was an Allo White protectorate under the French mandate,
53:54
Speaker 8: and to some degree brings it into competition with Russia,
53:57
Speaker 8: that is also consolidating its military press in the same area.
54:02
Speaker 8: And then basically we've recently had talks between Turkey and
54:06
Speaker 8: Israel in Azerbaijan to ease the tensions over Syria, because
54:11
Speaker 8: we've talked about on UK Column the fact that Israel
54:14
Speaker 8: has been preventing any serious expansionism from Erdowan into the
54:20
Speaker 8: depths of Syria by bombing potential military bases and air
54:24
Speaker 8: defense spaces that would be under the control of the
54:27
Speaker 8: Turkish state. And then recently also the PKK has declared
54:35
Speaker 8: its dissolution and an end to the armed struggle, which
54:39
Speaker 8: in my opinion is very much about giving legitimacy to
54:43
Speaker 8: the Kurdish factions, separatists under the control of the US
54:48
Speaker 8: and also of course supported by Israel. And I just
54:53
Speaker 8: wanted to have a look at this map and then
54:57
Speaker 8: go through everything I've just said and give idea of
55:00
Speaker 8: how Syria is heading towards partitioning and if we can
55:05
Speaker 8: just keep them up on for a few seconds. So
55:09
Speaker 8: on the coast, although that circle should be a little
55:12
Speaker 8: bit closer to the Latakia area, you will have France
55:17
Speaker 8: and Russia potentially forming some form of protectorate, driving out
55:23
Speaker 8: the al Qaeda and affiliated forces and potentially bringing it
55:29
Speaker 8: under the control of Russia, with France there as a
55:32
Speaker 8: sort of buffer against Russian expansionism, I would speculate. In
55:37
Speaker 8: the south, of course, you have Israeli expansion creating what
55:42
Speaker 8: it calls the security perimeter. You have the DRUS forming
55:47
Speaker 8: a separatist movement. I'm very much simplifying things because they
55:51
Speaker 8: are a little bit more complicated than this. But Asraels
55:55
Speaker 8: eyeing up the Drew's factions as a means to occupying
56:00
Speaker 8: further to the east in the south, and then that
56:03
Speaker 8: would give it access to what it is called the
56:06
Speaker 8: David Corridor, which is the Blue Arrow, which would take
56:09
Speaker 8: it up the eastern flank of Syria, the border with
56:12
Speaker 8: Jordan and Iraq, and give them entry into Iraq and
56:16
Speaker 8: towards the Euphrates. In the northeast, the Kurds would be
56:20
Speaker 8: given some kind of autonomous region or federal system under
56:27
Speaker 8: the auspices of the US Turkish territory. As you can
56:31
Speaker 8: see that they've been allowed to keep is in the
56:34
Speaker 8: blue sections. In the north they have advanced very slightly.
56:37
Speaker 8: But as I said, Israel as preventing any further expansionism
56:42
Speaker 8: from Urduwan and with al Qaeda or Jolani as long
56:47
Speaker 8: as he lasts, of course, in the Green area, which
56:50
Speaker 8: end up being a relatively centralized area surrounded by competing
56:56
Speaker 8: regional powers who all have in their interest to Iran
57:01
Speaker 8: out of the region. So that's where we're heading. It
57:03
Speaker 8: doesn't mean that that is actually going to be achieved,
57:06
Speaker 8: because there are other variables involved, of course, including the
57:11
Speaker 8: resistance and Syrian political movements that are now coming forward.
57:19
Speaker 1: You say, for as long as Jelani lasts, I mean,
57:22
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on churches Very briefly, if Trump
57:26
Speaker 1: is meeting Jilani today, does that give him any kind
57:29
Speaker 1: of extra underpinning.
57:33
Speaker 8: Yeah, it does. I mean it remains to be seen
57:35
Speaker 8: what happens with the sanctions, whether they do actually enable
57:39
Speaker 8: him to flourish as a state. There is some degree
57:43
Speaker 8: of skepticism over that, and of course he's under pressure
57:46
Speaker 8: internally from other armed factions who don't consider him to
57:51
Speaker 8: be extremist enough. So it remains to be seen whether
57:54
Speaker 8: he does stay in place for the time being or
57:58
Speaker 8: he eventually is pushed out.
58:00
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you for that, Vanessa.
58:02
Speaker 1: Okay, let's just finish off with this piece of great
58:06
Speaker 1: news because the UK government has implemented a cutting edge
58:11
Speaker 1: AI tool. So the UK regime is announced consult which
58:15
Speaker 1: is part of a suite a tools which they call Humphrey.
58:19
Speaker 1: Humphrey is a swee of AI tools which allows civil
58:23
Speaker 1: servants to they This is according to the government speed
58:25
Speaker 1: up analysis of what the public and experts tell them
58:30
Speaker 1: during consultations, and the one that they tested this on
58:33
Speaker 1: was a consultation for the Scottish government. They say that
58:37
Speaker 1: nearly identical results were find by AI. This after an
58:42
Speaker 1: expert review which ranked themes that were important for policymakers
58:47
Speaker 1: to take on board. This is their words. While currently
58:50
Speaker 1: in trial with war development taking place, AI will analyze
58:53
Speaker 1: other consultations responses in a bid to save officials from
58:58
Speaker 1: seventy five thousands of manual analysis every year, which costs
59:03
Speaker 1: twenty million pounds in staffing costs. So they're going to
59:05
Speaker 1: make people unemployed, basically is what they be saying. And
59:09
Speaker 1: this is going to help create a quote more agile,
59:12
Speaker 1: effective state refocused on delivering the plan for change.
59:15
Speaker 5: Does this make you feel good?
59:17
Speaker 13: Oh?
59:17
Speaker 5: Yeah, not yet?
59:18
Speaker 1: Okay, well it gets better because well let's bring the
59:23
Speaker 1: Secretary Peter Kyle on screen and he's saying, no one
59:28
Speaker 1: should be wasting time on something AI can do quicker
59:31
Speaker 1: and better, let alone wasting millions of taxpayers pounds and
59:34
Speaker 1: outsourcing such work to contractors. After demonstrating such promising results,
59:40
Speaker 1: Humphrey will help us cut the costs of governing and
59:43
Speaker 1: make it easier to collect and consprehensively review what experts
59:46
Speaker 1: in the public are telling us on a range of
59:48
Speaker 1: crucial issues. And they're saying and he's saying that the
59:52
Speaker 1: Scottish government is taken the first step and very soon
59:55
Speaker 1: I'll be using consult within Humphrey in my own department,
1:00:00
Speaker 1: and others in Whitehall will be using a too, speeding
1:00:02
Speaker 1: up our work to deliver the plan for change. I
1:00:05
Speaker 1: can't imagine what could possibly go wrong with that.
1:00:09
Speaker 2: Well, I think given time, you might come up with
1:00:11
Speaker 2: one or two things. But I would say that the
1:00:14
Speaker 2: critical bit there, one of them, is for it to
1:00:18
Speaker 2: be described as doing something that's almost right. And of
1:00:21
Speaker 2: course if it's almost right, then it's wrong, and that's
1:00:25
Speaker 2: the bit they never want to talk about indeed.
1:00:28
Speaker 1: Okay, well we're going to leave you with that thought
1:00:30
Speaker 1: for today. I'm going to say thank you very much
1:00:32
Speaker 1: to Vanessa and Sandy for joining us. If thank you
1:00:35
Speaker 1: all for joining us. We'll be back in a few
1:00:37
Speaker 1: minutes for some extra If you're a UK column member.
1:00:39
Speaker 1: If you're not, we do need your support. Please consider
1:00:43
Speaker 1: joining us, and then you can join us on UK
1:00:45
Speaker 1: column News Extra as well. We'll see in a few minutes. Otherwise,
1:00:48
Speaker 1: enjoyed jam tonight and Brian's interview tomorrow, and we'll see
1:00:52
Speaker 1: you on Friday for another news program.
1:00:54
Speaker 5: Bye bye
1:01:00
Speaker 10: Three