Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News — 22nd April 2026

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UK Column News — 22nd April 2026 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon.
0:09
Speaker 2: It's Wednesday, the twenty second of April twenty twenty six,
0:12
Speaker 2: just after one o'clock. Welcome the UK Colin News and
0:14
Speaker 2: host by Robinson. Joining me in the studio today is
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Speaker 2: Charles Mallett. Welcome to program, Charles, and by video link
0:20
Speaker 2: from Lebanon is Vanessa Bailey.
0:21
Speaker 1: No.
0:22
Speaker 2: Later in the program, I'm going to be reporting on
0:24
Speaker 2: young people's attitudes to fighting for the UK in a
0:27
Speaker 2: war and the dead scientists story in the United States.
0:31
Speaker 2: Vanessa is going to be reporting on the post regime
0:33
Speaker 2: change situation in Syria as well as the littst from Lebanon,
0:37
Speaker 2: and Charles will have the litist on live facial recognition
0:40
Speaker 2: and bird flu vaccines. But we're going to begin today
0:43
Speaker 2: with Ollie Robbins, Sir Oliver Robins, as he's otherwise known.
0:47
Speaker 2: Until last week, of course, he was Permanent Undersecretary at
0:50
Speaker 2: the Foreign con Wealth and Development Office, and he appeared
0:53
Speaker 2: before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee yesterday to give evidence
0:57
Speaker 2: on the vetting of Peter Mandelson, Ambassador to Washington. The
1:02
Speaker 2: session was chaired by dim Emily Thornbury and it was
1:05
Speaker 2: convened after The Guardian reported contradictions or sorry they were
1:11
Speaker 2: suggesting contradictions at away and Robin's earlier written evidence that
1:15
Speaker 2: he gave on the sixteenth of September last year and
1:18
Speaker 2: his oral evidence that he gave on the third of
1:20
Speaker 2: November last year, and the latter that was given alongside
1:24
Speaker 2: Cabinet Secretary so Chris Warmwold, let's just have a brief
1:28
Speaker 2: listen to his opening remarks.
1:33
Speaker 3: So thank you for the opportunity to set things out.
1:34
Speaker 3: I won't go on at length, but I think there
1:36
Speaker 3: are three important framing points I need to make. Firstly,
1:40
Speaker 3: as you say, when I walked into post as Permanent
1:43
Speaker 3: Undersecretary on the twentieth of January last year, I wasn't
1:47
Speaker 3: walking into a vacuum. I arrived to a situation in
1:52
Speaker 3: which a due diligence report had been undertaken into Mandelssohn
1:58
Speaker 3: by the Cabinet Office, assessing the reputational risks and his
2:02
Speaker 3: fitness for office. The Prime Minister had then presumably taken
2:06
Speaker 3: advice on his fitness for office. The name had been
2:09
Speaker 3: submitted to the King as Minister's recommendation. The Prime Minister
2:14
Speaker 3: had made an announcement that Manilson was his nominee without caveats.
2:20
Speaker 3: The British government had sought agrimont the formal diplomatic process
2:24
Speaker 3: for a host government accepting a nominee from the US government,
2:28
Speaker 3: and that had been obtained before I arrived in Post.
2:31
Speaker 3: He'd been given access to the building, he'd been given
2:35
Speaker 3: access to low classification it and from time to time,
2:41
Speaker 3: for case specific issues, he was being given access to
2:44
Speaker 3: higher classification briefing. So I'm afraid I walked into a
2:49
Speaker 3: situation in which there was already a very very strong expectation,
2:54
Speaker 3: and he would have seen the papers released already under
2:57
Speaker 3: the humble address that coming from Number ten that he
3:01
Speaker 3: needed to be in Post and in America as quickly
3:04
Speaker 3: as humanly possible.
3:07
Speaker 2: So that was his opening gambit. And as previously reported
3:11
Speaker 2: on this program, Madelson's appointment had already been announced when
3:14
Speaker 2: Robins took up the job. So we've got to wonder
3:16
Speaker 2: why he's taking the can or carrying the can for
3:18
Speaker 2: it right now. He described as a stained expectation from
3:23
Speaker 2: Dining Street that the new ambassador would be deployed to Washington,
3:26
Speaker 2: as he just said, as rapidly as possible. And then
3:30
Speaker 2: you know, under questioning from Thornbury on the source of
3:33
Speaker 2: the pressure. He identified Number ten's private office as the
3:37
Speaker 2: channel he was most aware of. He was actually asked
3:40
Speaker 2: for more specifics, and he effectively refused to give them
3:45
Speaker 2: by saying that he didn't know. I didn't find that
3:47
Speaker 2: termly credible, but anyway, that was his position. He set
3:51
Speaker 2: out a dispute between the Cabinet Office and the FCDO
3:54
Speaker 2: over whether Madison required developed vetting at all, and according
3:58
Speaker 2: to his account, the Cabinet Office initially took the position
4:01
Speaker 2: that no vetting was necessary and that the FCDO had
4:04
Speaker 2: to insist the process be carried out. But let's listen
4:07
Speaker 2: to another brief exchange from the meeting.
4:12
Speaker 4: Are you saying, are you saying that the UKSV didn't didn't.
4:18
Speaker 2: Recommend that DVB denied. Are you saying that.
4:22
Speaker 3: No, I'm trying to tell the committee what I was
4:24
Speaker 3: briefed in that meeting, saying borderline. I was told it
4:28
Speaker 3: was a borderline case and that they leant against borderline
4:33
Speaker 3: and leant against And that's different.
4:35
Speaker 2: Is it to recommend that DVB denied?
4:39
Speaker 3: I can only tell you the words I was I
4:42
Speaker 3: you were not aware that this box that had taken
4:45
Speaker 3: it the red box saying clearance denied until the government
4:49
Speaker 3: published it. I've never seen a shoot like that, John.
4:52
Speaker 3: But even if you hadn't seen the sheet, you didn't know.
4:54
Speaker 3: You didn't know that the clear recommendation final decision of
5:00
Speaker 3: UKFV was clearance denied. I was told that it was
5:04
Speaker 3: a borderline case and that UKFV were leaning against granting clearance.
5:12
Speaker 2: Now, Charles just comes across to me, is real, Sir
5:14
Speaker 2: Humphrey Appleby stuff for anybody that knows, yes, minister, yes,
5:17
Speaker 2: Prime minister. Because he's not answering the questions, he's absolutely
5:21
Speaker 2: off for skidding and you know you wouldn't expect any
5:25
Speaker 2: different from a politician, but he's supposed to be a
5:27
Speaker 2: civil servant.
5:28
Speaker 5: Yes, But there does seem to be a code. I mean,
5:30
Speaker 5: first of all, it's very obvious that nothing was his fault,
5:33
Speaker 5: and to some extent a certain amount of it can't
5:36
Speaker 5: be in his fault. But equally, the code seems to
5:39
Speaker 5: be that you absolutely don't chuck somebody else into the
5:42
Speaker 5: mess in order that it doesn't blow back on you.
5:45
Speaker 5: So he wouldn't have got to such a position, I
5:48
Speaker 5: don't think by being able to, or rather by not
5:52
Speaker 5: being able to wriggle or dance his way out of
5:55
Speaker 5: what appears to be a lie that entraps.
5:59
Speaker 2: Himsolutely liberal Democrat MP Richard Ford asked Robins about a
6:05
Speaker 2: Sky News report that Morgan McSweeney, then the Prime Minister's
6:08
Speaker 2: chief of staff, had telephoned Robin's predecessors of Phil Barton
6:12
Speaker 2: and instructed him to just effing approve it. Robins said
6:16
Speaker 2: he did not recall Barton using these words, but confirmed
6:20
Speaker 2: that Barton's handover had left him with a clear impression
6:23
Speaker 2: of pressure and divisiveness and sorry and dismissiveness from Downing
6:27
Speaker 2: Street towards the vetting process. Ford also raised an email
6:33
Speaker 2: that was dated at the twentieth of December twenty twenty
6:35
Speaker 2: four from the Number ten Private Secretary for Foreign Affairs
6:39
Speaker 2: to Mandelson referring to forms that McSweeney had mentioned to
6:43
Speaker 2: him earlier that day, and the chair clarified that these
6:47
Speaker 2: were conflict of interest documents McSweeney. The issue of McSweeney
6:51
Speaker 2: and the fact that McSweeney had such a close relationship
6:55
Speaker 2: with Mandilson was brought up during the thing, but Robins
6:58
Speaker 2: wouldn't admit that that was the source of the pressure.
7:02
Speaker 2: But anyway, this goes on Prime Minister's questions. Has just happened?
7:06
Speaker 2: We haven't seen it because we were preparing for the news,
7:08
Speaker 2: but undoubtedly this was being discussed.
7:12
Speaker 1: Certain there'll be a lot to come out later.
7:14
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Vanessa, let me welcome you to the program.
7:18
Speaker 2: And let's move over to the Middle East. And what's
7:20
Speaker 2: the letterst on Lebanon?
7:24
Speaker 6: Yeah, well Lebanon. It still has another four days before
7:27
Speaker 6: the end of the seas far. Of course, the Iranian
7:31
Speaker 6: Israeli US ceasefire has ended. Trump has allegedly extended it
7:36
Speaker 6: while of course maintaining the blockade on Iranian chips and
7:41
Speaker 6: goods being transported from Iranian ports. But of course, also
7:46
Speaker 6: unsurprisingly Israel has not adhered to the seas far whatsoever.
7:51
Speaker 6: And in fact, we've seen wholesale destruction in the south
7:56
Speaker 6: beyond the eight kilometer buffer zone that they were claiming
8:00
Speaker 6: they were trying to create last week. So let's have
8:03
Speaker 6: a look at this article from the Cradle which says
8:06
Speaker 6: Israel claims ownership of the Lebanese gas field at Kanna
8:10
Speaker 6: after establishing Gaza style yellow line near border. And if
8:14
Speaker 6: we have a look at the next slide, which shows
8:17
Speaker 6: the map from the Zonus spokesperson. He regularly puts these
8:21
Speaker 6: posts out on X. This has been very badly translated
8:25
Speaker 6: from the Arabic, but it shows effectively the area and
8:28
Speaker 6: red that Israel is now attempting to not only occupy,
8:32
Speaker 6: but to destroy entirely, so ethnically cleansing this whole area,
8:37
Speaker 6: very similar to Gaza, where of course entire neighborhoods were
8:41
Speaker 6: detonated and destroyed. And that is effectively what has been
8:45
Speaker 6: going on. And if you look at this map, you'll
8:47
Speaker 6: see to the left of it, So here they're basically
8:50
Speaker 6: informing I think it's seventy villages which include Christian and
8:55
Speaker 6: Sunni Muslim alongside the Shia Muslim communities in this to
9:01
Speaker 6: evacuate basically north of the Litani River. Again, but if
9:05
Speaker 6: you look to the left you'll see the two red
9:07
Speaker 6: lines that stretch out into the sea. And if we
9:11
Speaker 6: have a look at the next post, so this is
9:13
Speaker 6: from a Lebanese analyst on X. What he's basically saying
9:19
Speaker 6: is this shows a map of the Karna gas exploration areas.
9:26
Speaker 6: Ninety eight percent, he says in a later post of
9:31
Speaker 6: the area in red has seen the majority of the
9:35
Speaker 6: attacks with white phosphorus, so again very clear that Israel
9:38
Speaker 6: is trying to effectively ethnically cleanse this area. And what
9:42
Speaker 6: he's saying is that with Israel extending this into the
9:48
Speaker 6: maritime territory, into the sea territory, they're trying to take
9:53
Speaker 6: control of Block eight in the Karna Energy Block. There,
10:00
Speaker 6: Bloc nine has been shown to be a dry oil well,
10:04
Speaker 6: so effectively they're now trying to seize the exploration of
10:08
Speaker 6: Block eight. So unsurprisingly, Israel is time to take control
10:12
Speaker 6: of both water and gas resources in Lubanon. And then
10:17
Speaker 6: when I talk about wholesale destruction, this following video some
10:21
Speaker 6: reason hasn't uploaded in brilliant quality, but this was taken
10:25
Speaker 6: by a Zionist drone of binch A Bell, which is
10:28
Speaker 6: a city that I spoke about last week where Israel
10:31
Speaker 6: has been trying to seize the entire city. Instead, what
10:35
Speaker 6: they've done now is to completely eradicate it basically and
10:41
Speaker 6: very much. Also, I heard today this is part of
10:43
Speaker 6: a Hannibal doctrine because during the war with the Lebanese
10:47
Speaker 6: Resistant before this current ceasefire, there were Israeli soldiers presumed captured,
10:54
Speaker 6: So of course what they've done is to destroy the
10:57
Speaker 6: entire area, including to kill potentially those Israeli military captives
11:05
Speaker 6: to ensure that they're not interrogated again, something that we
11:08
Speaker 6: saw after October the seventh with the massacre of Israeli
11:14
Speaker 6: civilians by the Israeli forces. This, I mean just devastation
11:22
Speaker 6: in the South, and that's across the South, in all
11:26
Speaker 6: towns and villages, including as I said, many Christian towns.
11:31
Speaker 6: And a very recent report, this is from the Times
11:34
Speaker 6: of Israel, the IOF confirm the photo of a soldier
11:37
Speaker 6: smashing a Jesus statue in Lubanon, saying it's genuine and
11:42
Speaker 6: of course vowing action, which of course is damage limitation.
11:46
Speaker 6: But let's have a look at the image. So this
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Speaker 6: is a Zionist soldier attacking a statue of Jesus in
11:53
Speaker 6: one of the Christian towns in the South. Let's just
11:56
Speaker 6: have a look at a close up because personally I
11:59
Speaker 6: find the six extremely disturbing. And then Natanyahu basically went
12:05
Speaker 6: on x to try and again limit the damage. He
12:10
Speaker 6: basically it's noted that he doesn't mention the name of Jesus.
12:15
Speaker 6: He simply says it was wrong of his forces to
12:21
Speaker 6: desecrate a statue in this way. But he also says
12:24
Speaker 6: that Christians are being slaughtered in Syria and Lebanon by Muslims,
12:28
Speaker 6: which of course is entirely untrue. In fact, throughout history
12:32
Speaker 6: in Lebanon, it is the Christian proxy forces of Israel
12:35
Speaker 6: that have slaughtered Palestinians and Lebanese inside Lebanon. And of
12:39
Speaker 6: course it is Al Qaeda, again a proxy of Israel
12:44
Speaker 6: in Syria, that have been responsible and continue to be
12:47
Speaker 6: responsible for the slaughter of Christians. But he also goes
12:50
Speaker 6: on to say that Christians thrive in Israel. The population
12:55
Speaker 6: and standard of living is growing, and Israel is the
12:58
Speaker 6: only place apparently in the Middle East that adheres to
13:00
Speaker 6: freedom of worship for all. So let's see how true
13:03
Speaker 6: that is. This was one response to his post on
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Speaker 6: x you wrote a whole post about Jesus but couldn't
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Speaker 6: even name him. You destroyed churches and mosques in both
13:15
Speaker 6: Palestine and Lebanon, and I would also say in Syria
13:19
Speaker 6: you spit on Christians and kill everyone regardless of their faith.
13:22
Speaker 6: You desecrated religious symbols everywhere. Your post is damage control,
13:27
Speaker 6: as I said, But then if we have a look.
13:30
Speaker 6: This is a report from twenty twenty five in The
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Speaker 6: Guardian talking about Christian communities and Israel. They're trying to
13:38
Speaker 6: make it unbearable. Jerusalem Christians faced Easter under Israeli crackdown
13:43
Speaker 6: and many people have seen the videos of particularly Orthodox
13:47
Speaker 6: Jews spitting on Christian worshipers in various areas of the
13:52
Speaker 6: occupied territories. And this is from twenty twenty two. Jerusalem Christians,
13:58
Speaker 6: we shrunk from twenty percent to two percent of the
14:01
Speaker 6: population due to Israeli violence. And interesting that in Iran
14:08
Speaker 6: we have seen the Jewish communities come out in support
14:11
Speaker 6: of the Iranians against the war and aggression from the
14:16
Speaker 6: US and from Israel. And then finally, I just wanted
14:21
Speaker 6: to remind everyone that Israel effectively provided weapons, funding and
14:27
Speaker 6: hospital support for the terrorists, that Al Qaeda terrorists and
14:31
Speaker 6: affiliates in Syria prior to them being brought to power
14:35
Speaker 6: by Israel and the entire US UK led alliance of
14:40
Speaker 6: regime change. And meanwhile, those Al Qaeda elements that are
14:45
Speaker 6: now ruling over Syria have been carrying out suicide bombings
14:50
Speaker 6: and persecution of all ethnic minorities but also including Christians.
14:55
Speaker 6: So just to show the rank hypocrisy of Natania, whose
15:01
Speaker 6: statement and this article from that I wrote back in
15:04
Speaker 6: twenty twenty five in UK column talks about one of
15:08
Speaker 6: the terrorists suicide bombings that was done under the control
15:13
Speaker 6: of Ja laniank.
15:16
Speaker 2: You for that, Vanessa. So you know, what is the
15:21
Speaker 2: situation today that you're saying that the cease fire was
15:25
Speaker 2: never really adhere to. It's got another couple of days
15:28
Speaker 2: to run. What are people's expectations over the next couple
15:31
Speaker 2: of weeks the war will start again?
15:36
Speaker 6: I mean there have been assassinations today, bombings today, particularly
15:41
Speaker 6: in Somo, another town that I visited in West Baca
15:45
Speaker 6: and wrote about for UK column. There was a young
15:48
Speaker 6: man assassinated there. So I think really the resistance here
15:53
Speaker 6: is waiting to see what happens with Iran. If the
15:56
Speaker 6: ceasefire holds there, then they will try to maintain some
16:00
Speaker 6: of ceasefire here. But beyond that, if Run picks up
16:04
Speaker 6: the war again or is under attack as it is
16:07
Speaker 6: of course its boats are under attack, then we will
16:10
Speaker 6: see it begin again here.
16:13
Speaker 2: Thanks for that, Charles. Let's move forward to you then,
16:17
Speaker 2: and here back to the UK and the issue of
16:20
Speaker 2: live facial recognition.
16:22
Speaker 5: Yeah, and not exactly to be described as a good
16:25
Speaker 5: news story, although perhaps an opportunity to apply pressure. This
16:28
Speaker 5: refers to a judgment made by the High Court, or
16:32
Speaker 5: at least the judgment based on a judicial review that
16:36
Speaker 5: was bought by brought by the claimants Sean Thompson and
16:41
Speaker 5: Silky Carlo of Big Brother Watch Now. Among their concerns.
16:46
Speaker 5: As it was written up in the judgment, the claimants
16:50
Speaker 5: put it that live facial recognition can be deployed without
16:54
Speaker 5: the consent or knowledge of the persons involved on a
16:58
Speaker 5: large scale or in crowded location. The overwhelming majority of
17:02
Speaker 5: persons whose facial biometrics are captured and processed are not
17:06
Speaker 5: suspected of any wrongdoing and are not otherwise persons for
17:10
Speaker 5: whom the police are looking. There is a risk of
17:12
Speaker 5: false identification, which may result in intrusive questioning to establish identity.
17:18
Speaker 5: I'll go on to qualify that exactly with relation to
17:21
Speaker 5: what happened to Sean Thompson himself, but before I do,
17:25
Speaker 5: we will listen to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service,
17:29
Speaker 5: Mark Rowley, explaining in his words what has happened.
17:34
Speaker 7: This legal judgment is a significant and important victory for
17:37
Speaker 7: public safety. It confirms that the Met is right and
17:41
Speaker 7: acting lawfully to use the best modern technology to reduce
17:45
Speaker 7: crime and keep pace with the evolving threats that we face.
17:49
Speaker 7: Live facial recognition works and it's one of the biggest
17:53
Speaker 7: breakthroughs for policing. It's actively removing thousands of dangerous and
17:58
Speaker 7: wanted defenders from London streets, including individuals who pose a
18:01
Speaker 7: serious and ongoing threat to our communities, including those wanted
18:06
Speaker 7: for the most serious offenses such as rape, domestic violence
18:10
Speaker 7: and child sex offenses. Our data shows that technology is
18:14
Speaker 7: highly accurate and fair, and we've already made more than
18:18
Speaker 7: two one hundred arrests using it. Last year alone, more
18:22
Speaker 7: than three million phases walk past the cameras, resulting in
18:26
Speaker 7: only twelve forse alerts, none of which led to an arrest. Crucially,
18:30
Speaker 7: every alert is reviewed by trained officers before any action
18:34
Speaker 7: is taken.
18:37
Speaker 5: So given what I've just read out concerning the concerns
18:41
Speaker 5: of the claimants, he's very deliberately ignoring any of the
18:44
Speaker 5: issues with it and instead simply referring to the way
18:46
Speaker 5: in which the Met Police has used it and apparently
18:50
Speaker 5: intends to use it. And this is a critical part
18:52
Speaker 5: of it, which again i'll come on to describe, but
18:55
Speaker 5: we'll just look at another statement put out about this
19:00
Speaker 5: from Big Brother Watch effectively a sort of question and
19:03
Speaker 5: answer session on it and what it is in particular
19:07
Speaker 5: that we should be concerned about, and they set it out,
19:09
Speaker 5: I think very concisely. It's a fundamental principle that individuals
19:12
Speaker 5: should not have to identify themselves to the police unless
19:16
Speaker 5: they are suspected of criminal behavior. LFR Live facial recognition
19:21
Speaker 5: reverses this protection by indiscriminately subjecting innocent members of the
19:25
Speaker 5: public to mass identity checks. And this is exactly what
19:29
Speaker 5: it is that Mark Rowley is not going to address now.
19:35
Speaker 5: He does go on to talk about his view, in
19:38
Speaker 5: his view, the way that the Court have passed judgment
19:41
Speaker 5: on the way the Met Police use LFR.
19:46
Speaker 7: Today. The Court has been clear our use of live
19:48
Speaker 7: facial recognition is lawful and disappointed by our strong safeguards.
19:53
Speaker 7: The judgment confirms that we are deploying the technology responsibly
19:57
Speaker 7: and with care. It shows that awareness, accuracy and accountability
20:02
Speaker 7: with part of our design from the beginning. It also
20:06
Speaker 7: recognizes that we have strong oversight and strong safeguards in place.
20:11
Speaker 7: These include checks to ensure it's proportionate and that people's
20:14
Speaker 7: rights such as the rights to privacy and freedom expression
20:17
Speaker 7: are protected in a way that does not breach the
20:20
Speaker 7: Human Rights Act.
20:25
Speaker 5: And in referring to the Human Rights Act, he absolutely
20:27
Speaker 5: exposes the critical mismatch really between what the claimants subject
20:31
Speaker 5: to and what the court has looked at. And again
20:35
Speaker 5: in the judgment from the Judicial Review, they specifically say
20:38
Speaker 5: that they're not concerned with the merits or the d
20:40
Speaker 5: merits of the use of LFR by the MET, but
20:43
Speaker 5: only whether the METS is acting within the limits of
20:46
Speaker 5: its legal powers. And it is almost as though this
20:49
Speaker 5: system is absolutely set up to predicate or set the
20:53
Speaker 5: conditions for this sort of result. Now from the judgment,
20:56
Speaker 5: the claimants can tend firstly that policy violates Article eight
21:00
Speaker 5: of the European Convention of Human Rights and allows for
21:03
Speaker 5: interference with the respect the right to respect for private
21:06
Speaker 5: and family life, and then it's the use of LFR
21:09
Speaker 5: is not in accordance with the law. And secondly they
21:11
Speaker 5: can tend the policy violates Articles ten and eleven in
21:15
Speaker 5: that it allows restrictions upon freedom of expression and freedom
21:18
Speaker 5: of assembly. Obviously, really has just there said that that
21:22
Speaker 5: is not the case and He then further manipulates what
21:25
Speaker 5: he describes as public support in terms of approval for LFR.
21:30
Speaker 1: So we'll just listen to him talking about that.
21:35
Speaker 7: I would also add the public are firmly on our side.
21:38
Speaker 7: Around eighty percent of Londoners support the use of life
21:40
Speaker 7: facial recognition to keep them safe. Yes, a small number
21:44
Speaker 7: of campaign groups continue to argue that the police should
21:47
Speaker 7: be prevented from using so it's proven tools that help
21:50
Speaker 7: us catch ped defiles, rapists, violent criminals and those wanted
21:54
Speaker 7: by the courts. Their position is increasingly out of step
21:58
Speaker 7: with both public opinion and the realities of modern communities
22:03
Speaker 7: and modern policing.
22:07
Speaker 5: So very cynically ignoring the views people who've actually looked
22:10
Speaker 5: into it, thought about it, and are aware of the dangers.
22:14
Speaker 5: And then we'll just go on to have a quick
22:15
Speaker 5: look at his speculation about how technology is harnessed appropriately.
22:23
Speaker 7: This isn't secret. Surveillance deployments are clearly signposted, highly visible,
22:28
Speaker 7: and the technology never replaces professional judgment. Life facial reciction
22:32
Speaker 7: technology is a key part of our determination to accelerate
22:36
Speaker 7: the use of smart policing tools to better protect London's
22:39
Speaker 7: communities and also to help us make the best use
22:42
Speaker 7: of our limited resources.
22:46
Speaker 5: And with regard to whether technology does or doesn't influence
22:50
Speaker 5: the outcomes, the instance concerning Sean Thompson was that he
22:53
Speaker 5: was misidentified and ironically he was mistaken for his brother,
22:58
Speaker 5: and his brother was the object of the scrutiny because
23:01
Speaker 5: he had in fact attacked Sean. Now he was described
23:06
Speaker 5: as having felt anger and distress as a result of
23:09
Speaker 5: the way in which he was treated, and Mark Rowley
23:12
Speaker 5: has in effect completely ignored this. But the point to
23:14
Speaker 5: draw out of it is that the system, the computer,
23:18
Speaker 5: in effect influenced the decision that was made on the
23:20
Speaker 5: ground by those police who would not otherwise have fallen
23:24
Speaker 5: into that trap. So it looks very much like a
23:25
Speaker 5: slippery slope, and I think it does also beg the
23:27
Speaker 5: question with regard to a recent Telegraph article, is this
23:31
Speaker 5: going to help or hinder stories like this police being
23:34
Speaker 5: too busy to arrest pedophiles. The suggestion that technology is
23:38
Speaker 5: the answer to everything is absolutely not reinforced by what
23:43
Speaker 5: we see here, So we will absolutely be following up
23:46
Speaker 5: on this, and as I say, it would be really
23:47
Speaker 5: an encouragement to do what you can to resist the
23:50
Speaker 5: further deployment of LFR in any way that you can.
23:54
Speaker 2: Thank you, Charles, thank you for that. If you like
23:56
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24:26
Speaker 2: us meet the censorship. Now in September, of course, we
24:30
Speaker 2: are having our twentieth anniversary get together. We've produced a
24:35
Speaker 2: little video to introduce that.
24:43
Speaker 4: UK Column is twenty but twenty years we've been the
24:48
Speaker 4: antidote to mainstream propaganda, the most established online alternative news
24:55
Speaker 4: organization in Britain. Join us as we mark this month
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25:23
Speaker 4: wonderful anniversary weekend.
25:34
Speaker 2: Do you want to go on with us and mentioned
25:36
Speaker 2: Jonathan Marshall?
25:37
Speaker 1: I do, Yes, absolutely I do.
25:39
Speaker 5: Jonathan Marshall is booked to join us for the whole
25:42
Speaker 5: weekend in actual fact, and we are very pleased with
25:45
Speaker 5: that because he will be flying his falcons at the
25:49
Speaker 5: at the venue and he is a terrific speaker at
25:51
Speaker 5: very inspirational chap and there's an interview on the website
25:54
Speaker 5: so you can catch up with what he's all about,
25:57
Speaker 5: So please do go and have a look at.
25:58
Speaker 2: That brilliant At Night to Night at seven pm, Jerem
26:02
Speaker 2: speaking of Mark McDonald's on navigating ideological extremism, joining for
26:06
Speaker 2: seven at that and then Carl has got to be
26:10
Speaker 2: looking at the future of Taiwan at nine one pm tomorrow,
26:14
Speaker 2: Military Matters Episode five.
26:16
Speaker 1: Charles Dasyah.
26:17
Speaker 5: We're extending the series and it's very timely this really
26:20
Speaker 5: because of course, a lot of what we are discussing
26:22
Speaker 5: concerns the apparent refusal of the United Kingdom to join
26:27
Speaker 5: in the wider war, but of course in actual facts
26:30
Speaker 5: being drawn in very much and how that impacts on
26:33
Speaker 5: those either serving or potentially serving in the armed forces.
26:37
Speaker 2: Okay, let's move on then to bird flu clue.
26:39
Speaker 5: Yes, and if you are groaning inwardly, it is indeed
26:43
Speaker 5: a case of here we go again, an absolute onslaught
26:47
Speaker 5: really of propaganda led as is so often the case
26:50
Speaker 5: by the BBC, who have been gleefully announcing just this
26:54
Speaker 5: morning that a vaccine trial against a potential pandemic strain begins,
26:59
Speaker 5: and of course a critical words the idea that there
27:01
Speaker 5: is a pandemic strain. Now from this article written by
27:06
Speaker 5: their Health editor, it's said that it's impossible to know
27:09
Speaker 5: if H five N one will be the strain that
27:12
Speaker 5: causes the next flu pandemics. Absolute determination that there will
27:16
Speaker 5: be a next flu pandemic, which absolutely makes one wonder
27:19
Speaker 5: whether such a thing is possible at all. There have
27:22
Speaker 5: been other experimental vaccines. This is all sounding very familiar,
27:26
Speaker 5: and indeed the editor took part in the trial in
27:28
Speaker 5: Oxford in two thousand and six, but the JAB, although safe,
27:31
Speaker 5: did not prove to be very effective. So all the
27:34
Speaker 5: key phrases there and indeed this one. There have been
27:38
Speaker 5: around one thousand confirmed human cases reported to the World
27:41
Speaker 5: Health Organization since two thousand and three, and nearly half
27:44
Speaker 5: of those proved fatal, so in other words, very very
27:48
Speaker 5: very few. Now in terms of who is running what,
27:52
Speaker 5: we look to the NIHR, which is responsible for this
27:56
Speaker 5: trial that interestingly this morning going to see whether you
27:59
Speaker 5: could be part of their research, that page wasn't actually working,
28:03
Speaker 5: but their headline about the vaccine trial launching is indeed
28:08
Speaker 5: up and running, and if you have sharp eyes you'll
28:10
Speaker 5: notice that the lady being jabbed on the right there
28:13
Speaker 5: is the same one standing with her chickens on the
28:15
Speaker 5: BBC page. So absolutely joined up messaging, which is why
28:19
Speaker 5: you very specifically use the word propaganda. Now from this
28:23
Speaker 5: NIHR page that one of the critical parts to observe
28:27
Speaker 5: is that the study is also supported by Maderna's collaboration
28:30
Speaker 5: with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. And it will
28:35
Speaker 5: not surprise you to learn that just a couple of
28:37
Speaker 5: years ago, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the
28:39
Speaker 5: Welcome Trust pledged three hundred million dollars to this organization
28:43
Speaker 5: to fight the COVID nineteen and combat the threat of
28:47
Speaker 5: here we go again, future pandemics. Now, there are too
28:51
Speaker 5: many conflicts of interest to list, but this is exactly
28:54
Speaker 5: the same pattern on the animals or the zoonotic side
28:58
Speaker 5: an apparent threat, and of course from but the Bill
29:00
Speaker 5: Gates himself is prone to speaking enthusiastically about his twentyfold
29:04
Speaker 5: return on investment from vaccines. Now, all of this is
29:07
Speaker 5: predicated on the threat and the specter of the next pandemic,
29:11
Speaker 5: and it's the World Health Organization who decides whether or
29:15
Speaker 5: not this is actually a thing. Now, we go to
29:19
Speaker 5: their website to look at what they say about this,
29:23
Speaker 5: as well as being mindful of the fact that, of
29:25
Speaker 5: course it's entirely problematic to gifts an organizations such centralized
29:32
Speaker 5: control of this sort of thing. They say that humans
29:36
Speaker 5: can be infected with avian swine and other influenza viruses.
29:41
Speaker 5: They also go on to say that currently circulating zeroonotic
29:44
Speaker 5: influenza viruses have not demonstrated sustained human to human transmission.
29:50
Speaker 5: And yet this is exactly what the rollout of a
29:54
Speaker 5: vaccine trial is predicated on. So therefore we'll go to
29:58
Speaker 5: the United Kingdom and have a look to see what
29:59
Speaker 5: they say saying. This is from the UK Health Security Agency.
30:03
Speaker 5: With regard to human cases of avian flu being detected
30:06
Speaker 5: in England since twenty twfty one, there have been seven
30:10
Speaker 5: detections and two of which this is obviously, all by
30:14
Speaker 5: PCR tests. In the other five detections all individuals were asymptomatic,
30:19
Speaker 5: So that word is going to be making a comeback
30:23
Speaker 5: sometime soon. And just by comparison admissigly a rather ridiculous comparison,
30:28
Speaker 5: but one nonetheless it's put. So much of this is
30:30
Speaker 5: based on statistics. Apparently, the first of August is the
30:33
Speaker 5: most accident prone day of the year in the United
30:35
Speaker 5: Kingdom and more than a thousand people report in with
30:38
Speaker 5: claims to the National Accident Helpline on the first of August.
30:41
Speaker 5: It does rather put things in perspective, albeit a silly perspective. Now,
30:46
Speaker 5: a key building block between in terms of the spread
30:50
Speaker 5: is that supposedly that exists between animal species, and of
30:55
Speaker 5: course this can only be validated by the misuse of
30:57
Speaker 5: the PCR test, which, just to remind you, may not
31:00
Speaker 5: or determined illness. It may not determine the source of
31:03
Speaker 5: illness or indeed that anything may pass from one organism
31:07
Speaker 5: to another, or in this instance that birds can be
31:10
Speaker 5: described as the origin of anything which may subsequently be found.
31:14
Speaker 5: But anyway, back to the statistics this year so far
31:17
Speaker 5: one we have one case of animal transmission. One poor
31:22
Speaker 5: otter somewhere up in Scotland has been launced with a
31:26
Speaker 5: PCR test and found guilty, and therefore everybody else suffers
31:30
Speaker 5: the consequences, at least in so far as propaganda is concerned.
31:35
Speaker 1: Now as to the.
31:38
Speaker 5: Other issue running concurrently with this course of vaccination for
31:41
Speaker 5: poultry themselves, now, why how is it that this is justified? Well,
31:45
Speaker 5: annual outbreaks cost the UK government and industry up to
31:48
Speaker 5: one hundred and seventy four million pounds each year, probably
31:51
Speaker 5: a lot more than that. Actually, the disease has significantly
31:53
Speaker 5: impacted both captive and wild birds globally since or a
31:57
Speaker 5: coincidence twenty twenty. Now, of course, that is because of
32:01
Speaker 5: the approach to what is described as bird flu, which
32:03
Speaker 5: is found by in effect a fraudulent scientific mechanism, and
32:07
Speaker 5: the birds are killed approximately at a rate of one
32:10
Speaker 5: per positive test to forty eight thousand birds that have
32:14
Speaker 5: absolutely nothing wrong with them. And I'm not suggesting by
32:16
Speaker 5: saying that that the tested bird has anything wrong with
32:19
Speaker 5: it either in terms of the latest situation as it's
32:22
Speaker 5: set out by the government. This is for England, but
32:25
Speaker 5: they do include statistics from across the United Kingdom. Since
32:29
Speaker 5: the current outbreak as it's described, which began in twenty
32:32
Speaker 5: twenty five has started. In actual fact, only one hundred
32:35
Speaker 5: positive cases have been found. So why is it that
32:40
Speaker 5: several million birds are now dead? You might be asking, now,
32:46
Speaker 5: what about humans? We sorry, before we do that, we
32:51
Speaker 5: look at the regulations concerning vaccination, and this is actually
32:54
Speaker 5: a key part of it, because of course Statutory Instrument
32:57
Speaker 5: two seven zero three from two thousand and six specifically
33:01
Speaker 5: declares that no person shall vaccinate any bird against avian influenza,
33:05
Speaker 5: except where required or licensed by the Secretary of State.
33:08
Speaker 5: And yet we absolutely are in a position where this
33:11
Speaker 5: is being done. So in fact it has been justified
33:14
Speaker 5: through a sort of a backdoor qualification. And if you're wondering, well,
33:18
Speaker 5: why is it that birds would get ill in the
33:21
Speaker 5: first place, I mean, how is this liable to happen?
33:24
Speaker 5: And just as an example, this is a fairly standard
33:27
Speaker 5: commercial poultry shed in the United Kingdom, and let's go
33:31
Speaker 5: back to where we started, because of course humans kept
33:33
Speaker 5: in the same conditions are most likely to have similar results.
33:37
Speaker 5: This is BBC News from this morning, in which they
33:40
Speaker 5: had a very lengthy piece with the chief executive of
33:43
Speaker 5: McDonald's of all places, who was given an ample opportunity
33:47
Speaker 5: to talk up the apparent health benefits of eating their products.
33:52
Speaker 5: So whilst it might seem superficially unrelated, absolutely it isn't.
33:56
Speaker 5: And of course this is yes, another opportunity for the
34:00
Speaker 5: specter of as yet undefined threats to use the road
34:04
Speaker 5: out of very profitable mr and a vaccine technology. We
34:08
Speaker 5: will keep our eyes on this absolutely.
34:11
Speaker 2: Well, let's head over to the United States and because
34:13
Speaker 2: almost a dozen scientists related to notice almost a dozen
34:19
Speaker 2: related to nuclear and space defense programs tied to NASA,
34:22
Speaker 2: SpaceX and Blue Origin are dead or missing in cases
34:25
Speaker 2: as far back as twenty twenty two. And apparently this
34:29
Speaker 2: has gone largely unnoticed by authorities and the public until now.
34:34
Speaker 2: So let's just bring it on screen. So that's according
34:36
Speaker 2: to Fortune, in a story which began on social media
34:39
Speaker 2: and has migrated widely onto mainstream media. And then on Monday,
34:44
Speaker 2: the Top House Oversight Committee Republican James Comer said the
34:49
Speaker 2: growing group of missing or dead scientists was a national
34:53
Speaker 2: security threat that lawmakers were taking seriously, except the available
34:58
Speaker 2: evidence doesn't support the claim that anything extraordinary is happening.
35:01
Speaker 2: The pattern looks like an apparent cluster, but it absolutely
35:06
Speaker 2: falls apart under any serious scrutiny. The list making the
35:10
Speaker 2: rule rhymes contains eleven names spanning twenty twenty two to
35:13
Speaker 2: early twenty twenty six, across the Jet Propulsional Laboratory at
35:17
Speaker 2: Los Alamos MIT, Caltech Kansas City National Security Campus, and
35:22
Speaker 2: one retired Air Force major general. So the question is
35:26
Speaker 2: what's unusual about that? People die all the time, and
35:29
Speaker 2: it's not exactly large numbers, Bearing in mind we're talking
35:32
Speaker 2: about five years or something like that, right, So they're
35:36
Speaker 2: also there's no substantial substantive links between the people on
35:39
Speaker 2: the list and the scan. As I say, the time
35:42
Speaker 2: skill isn't a matter of days or weeks, it's a
35:43
Speaker 2: matter of years. Having said that, several of the disappearances
35:47
Speaker 2: do share a profile. They left on foot, they took
35:52
Speaker 2: a handgun with them, Belongings and phones are left behind,
35:55
Speaker 2: and in some cases the phones are a factory reset.
35:59
Speaker 2: But it's could be argued that this more consistent with
36:01
Speaker 2: suicide or intentional disappearance rather than for an intelligence abduction, because,
36:06
Speaker 2: of course, this is what is being framed around this.
36:09
Speaker 2: This is being blamed on potentially Russia, China or Iran.
36:13
Speaker 2: It's the usual suspects once again. But just as one example,
36:18
Speaker 2: thirty four year old scientist Immy Eskridge is confirmed to
36:22
Speaker 2: have died by suicide in twenty two in Alabama. Now, Trump,
36:26
Speaker 2: for his part, told reporters last Thursday that he hopes
36:30
Speaker 2: it's random, but we're going to know in the next
36:33
Speaker 2: week and a half. Pretty serious stuff. Hopefully a coincidence
36:36
Speaker 2: or whatever you want to call it, is what he said.
36:39
Speaker 2: I just run through a quick timeline. Of course, we
36:41
Speaker 2: all know that Operation Epic Fury began in Iran on
36:45
Speaker 2: the twentieth of February Trump's orders. They struck targets to
36:51
Speaker 2: what they said was dismantle the Iranian regime security apparatus
36:55
Speaker 2: as really officials then said told the US that how
36:59
Speaker 2: many had been killed in the opening strikes, and that
37:03
Speaker 2: and the operation triggered Ranian retaliation across the Middle East.
37:07
Speaker 2: Then that we have had the two week conditional ceasefire
37:12
Speaker 2: negotiated through Pakistan, with Iran committing to open the straight
37:18
Speaker 2: up homos. We'll be talking about that a little bit
37:20
Speaker 2: later in exchange for suspension of US strikes. That ceas
37:24
Speaker 2: far window was supposed to expire today, but as Vanessa's
37:28
Speaker 2: already mentioned, that seems to have been extended until the
37:32
Speaker 2: so called negotiations complete. And then the scientist's story broke
37:36
Speaker 2: into the mainstream White House briefings on the fifteenth and
37:39
Speaker 2: sixteenth of April, and then FBI Director Patel confirmed to
37:44
Speaker 2: Fox News on Sunday that there would be an investigation,
37:47
Speaker 2: and then on Monday, Comer and his colleague Burlison issued
37:52
Speaker 2: a letter which demanding the agency briefings by the twenty
37:56
Speaker 2: seventh of April. So the story is absolutely being elevated
37:59
Speaker 2: to maximum visibility just at the time the seas fire
38:02
Speaker 2: was due to expire. Now Trump has announced it as
38:06
Speaker 2: to say that this is far extended to the conclusion
38:08
Speaker 2: of the negotiations. But this all feeds into the war narrative,
38:13
Speaker 2: and it's something that we should be absolutely aware of,
38:16
Speaker 2: particularly since COVID is high politicians and the mainstream media
38:21
Speaker 2: makes them normal seem abnormal, and that is I believe
38:25
Speaker 2: exactly what's going on here.
38:26
Speaker 5: Charles absolutely, do scientists get badly That's a very good question.
38:31
Speaker 2: But anyway, let's move on then, and continuing with war,
38:35
Speaker 2: the continuing feel.
38:36
Speaker 5: On this well, it is looking increasingly hard to cover
38:40
Speaker 5: up the hard reality. We've had many a hollow gesture
38:43
Speaker 5: over the lost well forever actually, but from the coalition
38:47
Speaker 5: of the Willing, we're now staggering alongside France into something
38:52
Speaker 5: that is described as being a multinational force. I'm not
38:57
Speaker 5: sure that the word force is even used. Perhaps they
39:00
Speaker 5: really decided against that in terms of reality. But we've
39:02
Speaker 5: had a rehash of what was described as happening at
39:05
Speaker 5: the Permanent Joint Headquarters the other day and there was,
39:11
Speaker 5: as I say, this statement put out by the government. Sorry,
39:14
Speaker 5: I can just have that back on screen because I
39:16
Speaker 5: quote military planners from over thirty nations will advance detailed
39:20
Speaker 5: planning to reopen the straight uformers in a two day
39:23
Speaker 5: UK hosted conference. The work is part of a UK
39:26
Speaker 5: and French leadership of a multinational coalition to reopen the
39:29
Speaker 5: Straight Yeah, sorry, so not force, it's a coalition. And
39:32
Speaker 5: they go on to say the sessions will advance military
39:34
Speaker 5: plans to reopen the Straight as soon as conditions permit,
39:37
Speaker 5: following a sustainable ceasefire agreement. And I've put that in
39:40
Speaker 5: bold because it it just goes to show this entire
39:43
Speaker 5: thing is completely conditional upon the actions of other countries,
39:47
Speaker 5: most not to be the United States and Israel. Of course,
39:49
Speaker 5: there's absolutely no reference to either of those countries in
39:52
Speaker 5: this statement. Now on this specific issue, or at least
39:55
Speaker 5: the shenanigans going on around the Strait, Mike has rather.
40:00
Speaker 2: Well, it's really a bit more about that actually, because
40:02
Speaker 2: as you say, thirty nations getting together today the plan
40:05
Speaker 2: how to reopen the Straight of Hormuz, as if they
40:08
Speaker 2: are going to be able to do that anyway, the
40:11
Speaker 2: talk's taking place, as Charles said, at UK's point a
40:14
Speaker 2: permanent joint headquarters at Northwood. Now this is this work
40:18
Speaker 2: is part of the UK and French. This is how
40:20
Speaker 2: they describe it, leadership of a multinational coalition to reopen
40:24
Speaker 2: the Straight. The Sessions will advance military plans to reopen
40:27
Speaker 2: the Straight as soon as conditions permit. Does that mean
40:30
Speaker 2: when there's nobody there to shoot add them or something?
40:33
Speaker 5: Is that well, when somebody else done all the work
40:35
Speaker 5: for yeah, okay, it's going to build on progress.
40:39
Speaker 2: Mid last week when Starmer was over in Paris to
40:42
Speaker 2: meet the fifty one countries now at the Paris Summit,
40:46
Speaker 2: they called for an for the unconditional, unrestricted and immediate
40:49
Speaker 2: reopening of the Straight of Hormuz and confirm the establishment
40:53
Speaker 2: of an independent and strictly defensive multinational mission to protect
40:57
Speaker 2: Mertian vessels, reassure commercial shipping operators and conduct mind clearance operations.
41:03
Speaker 2: And the UK and France are working to ensure that
41:05
Speaker 2: the military plan involves as many partners as possible and
41:10
Speaker 2: brings the expertise of each nation together in support of
41:13
Speaker 2: our shared interest.
41:14
Speaker 1: But this is I.
41:15
Speaker 2: Believe Charles, by getting the Europeans together, this is an
41:21
Speaker 2: efforts to bolster that sort of put pressure on them
41:25
Speaker 2: to develop their military capabilities which they don't still have exactly.
41:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, So smoking mirror is absolutely no way of delivering
41:33
Speaker 5: any sort of an effect, right, but plenty of talk
41:37
Speaker 5: which I doubt can be followed up with any sort
41:40
Speaker 5: of action at all, and this rather sums up the
41:43
Speaker 5: whole attitude of government. And by coincident, I found a
41:46
Speaker 5: picture on Twitter of kissed armor and John Healy visiting
41:50
Speaker 5: sub mariners. It just seems to sort of some situation
41:53
Speaker 5: up really, which was them sort of waving off rather
41:56
Speaker 5: rusty looking submarine which is presumably undemanned, and you can
42:00
Speaker 5: ways to imagine them just saying right, yeah, see you later,
42:02
Speaker 5: good luck as they pack them off to totally uncertain future.
42:07
Speaker 5: And this is kind of reinforced by reports that are
42:09
Speaker 5: coming out. Admittedly hearsay, but the Telegraph here reporting about
42:13
Speaker 5: Special Forces disgruntlement and indeed resignations over what's described as
42:20
Speaker 5: war crime witch hunts. Now they specifically cited D Squadron
42:24
Speaker 5: and G Squadron to to SAS, and it seems impossible
42:29
Speaker 5: to ignore the coincidence with the recent arrest of Ben
42:31
Speaker 5: Robert Smith, the highly decorated former Australian soldier of the
42:36
Speaker 5: Australian SAS, arrested indeed four war crimes as though this
42:41
Speaker 5: has caused concern on this side of the Equator. Now
42:46
Speaker 5: The Daily Mail has more on this, with specific regard
42:51
Speaker 5: to the SAS Regimental Association, which is reckoned to have
42:54
Speaker 5: put out a community to its members which read that
43:03
Speaker 5: there are currently two hundred and forty two Special Forces
43:06
Speaker 5: Group personnel who've been issued with Section nines for Northern Ireland, Afghanistan,
43:10
Speaker 5: Syria legacy investigations. Not all are accused. To make sure
43:13
Speaker 5: I've accused and witnesses you can't chin them off. I'm
43:15
Speaker 5: afraid if the rule nine is refused then a Section
43:17
Speaker 5: twenty one is enacted. Serious stuff, I'm afraid. Now the
43:21
Speaker 5: specific details of which rule means what is sort of
43:24
Speaker 5: neither here nor there. But the point is that there
43:25
Speaker 5: are an awful lot of people, both serving and formally
43:28
Speaker 5: serving in Special Forces who are now under investigation and
43:31
Speaker 5: therefore feeling that they are not in any way protected
43:34
Speaker 5: by the government, and of course that could leave significant
43:36
Speaker 5: void in the special forces capability at a time when
43:39
Speaker 5: the government is talking about being able to use armed
43:41
Speaker 5: forces to counter the threats apparently from Russia and of
43:45
Speaker 5: course Iran. Now at the same time as this, there
43:51
Speaker 5: is a report in the Express that the Minister of
43:54
Speaker 5: Defense has lost track of at least ninety five thousand
43:57
Speaker 5: people described as being fit and willing veterans for urgent recall.
44:00
Speaker 5: Now this relates directly to the Armed Forces Bill, which
44:03
Speaker 5: of course is making provisions as it runs through Parliament
44:06
Speaker 5: now to be able to recall veterans on a much
44:09
Speaker 5: wider scope than had been done before. And of course
44:11
Speaker 5: another very significant cause in that bill is that once
44:14
Speaker 5: people are on the books as a reservist, there is
44:17
Speaker 5: a channel opened up to put them into full time
44:22
Speaker 5: service from that reserve capability. So that's absolutely one to
44:26
Speaker 5: watch on things to watch. George Robertson is the person
44:30
Speaker 5: who's quoted. Lord Robertson, who's one of the lead author
44:33
Speaker 5: actually of this Strategic Defense Review from last year. It
44:36
Speaker 5: was he that was quoted as having said that the
44:38
Speaker 5: Ministry of Defense had lost track of all these people.
44:40
Speaker 5: Of course ironic given they just rolled out the Veterans
44:42
Speaker 5: Digital ID Card, which was absolutely meant to be able
44:45
Speaker 5: to track and gather data on the two point two
44:48
Speaker 5: million veterans in the country. We'll just listen to what
44:50
Speaker 5: Robinson said recently about the state of the armed forces
44:52
Speaker 5: and what should be done.
44:56
Speaker 8: There is a corrosive complacency tod Britain's political leadership. Lip
45:03
Speaker 8: service is paid to the risks, the threats, the bright
45:07
Speaker 8: red signals of danger, but even the promised national conversation
45:13
Speaker 8: about defense can't be started. The cold reality of today's
45:19
Speaker 8: dangerous world is that we cannot defend Britain with an
45:24
Speaker 8: ever expanding welfare budget, and all of country approach to
45:29
Speaker 8: defense is the only way to ensure that we are
45:33
Speaker 8: resilient against the kind of attack that we face at
45:37
Speaker 8: the moment and to prevent those that we might face
45:43
Speaker 8: in the future. The threats are no longer theoretical, nor
45:50
Speaker 8: are they distant from our shore. What Iran has shown
45:55
Speaker 8: in the Middle East and what the wanton violence of
46:00
Speaker 8: the Russian occupation in the Eastern Ukraine illustrates and technicolor
46:06
Speaker 8: it's what we feace in today's world of war.
46:13
Speaker 5: I think what he's really saying there is that in
46:16
Speaker 5: order to get a grip of the threat that he
46:19
Speaker 5: has written large through the Strategic Defense Review, that is
46:22
Speaker 5: an existential one posed by Russia, we are going to
46:24
Speaker 5: need conscription and emergency measures of some sort, now slightly oblique,
46:31
Speaker 5: but I think very much related. We look to Japan,
46:34
Speaker 5: which has just after many decades since the Second World War,
46:38
Speaker 5: changed its policy on exporting what's described as being defense equipment,
46:44
Speaker 5: and I consider that this is very significant in light
46:47
Speaker 5: of the fact that the Ministry of Defense in Japan
46:51
Speaker 5: has as the effectively the main part of its website,
46:55
Speaker 5: the Japan US Alliance, given the action taken by the
47:00
Speaker 5: United States and Israel at the moment, it really cannot
47:03
Speaker 5: be ignored. What is the apparent coincidence between Japan changing
47:07
Speaker 5: its policy and indeed what's going on with its alliance
47:10
Speaker 5: and the actions of the United States, I think cannot
47:12
Speaker 5: be ignored and that will be again one to watch.
47:16
Speaker 2: D Thank you for that, Vanessa. Let's come back to
47:18
Speaker 2: you then, And what's the latest in terms of the
47:22
Speaker 2: regime change in Syria.
47:27
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, you know, I mean, people tend to forget
47:30
Speaker 6: the disasters that has left behind in the countries that
47:33
Speaker 6: have been targeted and where the West and Israel have
47:37
Speaker 6: been successful in securing regime change, like Syria, Libya, Iraq
47:42
Speaker 6: and so on, and so I don't really want that
47:44
Speaker 6: to happen because Syrians continue to suffer. There is mass poverty,
47:49
Speaker 6: Electricity is worse than it was when I was there,
47:53
Speaker 6: despite some of the propaganda reports coming through in the
47:56
Speaker 6: West from the Al Kaeda region. There is mass starvation,
48:02
Speaker 6: mass unemployment, mass insecurity, lawlessness. There are murders on a
48:08
Speaker 6: daily basis, rapes, abductions and so on. And this is
48:11
Speaker 6: across the board now targeting not only ethnic minorities, but
48:15
Speaker 6: also even Sunni Muslim individuals. And there is just basically
48:21
Speaker 6: consistently prime in almost every city of Syria. And this
48:28
Speaker 6: is an article basically published I think yesterday in the
48:32
Speaker 6: New York Times. Syrian billionaires needed a favor in Washington,
48:37
Speaker 6: and they invoked the Trump name.
48:39
Speaker 2: Now what is this about.
48:40
Speaker 6: I'm talking here really about Syrians in diaspora. So not
48:45
Speaker 6: only this particularly wealthy family, but individuals in diaspora funded
48:51
Speaker 6: by the United States Department, Individuals who despite not intending
48:56
Speaker 6: to ever return to Syria since the regime chain because
49:00
Speaker 6: of course it's unlivered, unlivable in and they prefer to
49:04
Speaker 6: stay in the worst but who nevertheless, through the fourteen
49:07
Speaker 6: years of war, called for regime change, called for sanctions,
49:12
Speaker 6: called for a no fly zone, and called for the
49:15
Speaker 6: collective punishment of their own people.
49:19
Speaker 1: And so in this.
49:20
Speaker 6: Article, what it basically says is last summer, Representative Joe Wilson,
49:24
Speaker 6: a Republican of South Carolina who visited Syria many times
49:29
Speaker 6: in the last few years before the fall, sat in
49:32
Speaker 6: his Capitol Hill office in rapped attention as Middle Eastern
49:35
Speaker 6: investors laid out their plans in a video to develop
49:39
Speaker 6: coastal property in Syria, a cruise ship port, a polo club,
49:42
Speaker 6: a Bugatti car showroom, a world class golf course, all
49:47
Speaker 6: in a country that had just recently been torn apart.
49:50
Speaker 6: I had crossed that out, Oh, thank you by civil war,
49:54
Speaker 6: because of course it wasn't a civil war. It was
49:56
Speaker 6: effectively an I Sex Cia mossad Mit regime change war. Now,
50:03
Speaker 6: this family, the al Chayette family, the entire family who
50:09
Speaker 6: were living in diaspora in Doha, and Kata Kata of
50:12
Speaker 6: course bankrolled both the media and the actual al Qaeder
50:16
Speaker 6: elements in Syria to the tune of billions. Effectively now
50:22
Speaker 6: are coming back typical predator capitalists to come back and
50:26
Speaker 6: benefit from the destruction of the country, to invest and
50:30
Speaker 6: to build the country in the way that they want
50:32
Speaker 6: to see it, which is effectively to win twelve billion
50:35
Speaker 6: in regime sponsored contracts to rebuild. And they effectively lobbied
50:40
Speaker 6: Trump to lift the sanctions, and Joe Wilson told them, well,
50:45
Speaker 6: the best way to do this, of course, is to
50:47
Speaker 6: offer Trump a golf course in his name in Syria.
50:51
Speaker 6: And one of the al Kayat brothers replied saying, oh,
50:54
Speaker 6: I've already done that. We've already labeled a resort that
50:58
Speaker 6: I'm planning to build as the Trump X y Z
51:02
Speaker 6: Report Resort. So under Trump, what we're seeing, of course,
51:07
Speaker 6: is this kind of crony capitalism on steroids where these investors,
51:14
Speaker 6: many of whom are running shell companies, facad companies, which
51:18
Speaker 6: means that the billions that are coming in are going
51:20
Speaker 6: to disappear. They're certainly not going to improve the living
51:24
Speaker 6: conditions or security of the Syrian people. And then I
51:28
Speaker 6: wanted to pull this up. This was published yesterday by
51:31
Speaker 6: one of the channels that basically promotes Jolani propaganda. The
51:37
Speaker 6: Damascus Governor and the Ministry of Tourism launched the Coshun
51:40
Speaker 6: Journey project during a ceremony in Damascus. Once a former
51:44
Speaker 6: regime military site only during the war, I hasten to
51:48
Speaker 6: add Mount Cashune is being transformed into a tourism destination
51:53
Speaker 6: aimed at boosting the economy and creating thousands of jobs
51:56
Speaker 6: through local Syrian expertise, key features and the promenade Bridge
52:01
Speaker 6: of Memories overlooking Damascus, Cassume wings accommodation, the Kingdom of
52:07
Speaker 6: Bees restaurant, an amphitheater, and a cable car. Now I
52:10
Speaker 6: can guarantee that not one of the actual population of
52:15
Speaker 6: Syria is going to be able to afford to go
52:17
Speaker 6: to this area. And I wanted to make a personal
52:21
Speaker 6: comment here because this is a photo that I took
52:23
Speaker 6: about three years ago when I visited this area. It's
52:26
Speaker 6: one of the most stunning areas and Damascus, but also
52:30
Speaker 6: historically one of the most important. Here you can actually
52:34
Speaker 6: visit the cave where Cain killed Abel, according to the
52:41
Speaker 6: history of Syria, and whose blood stained the mountain red
52:46
Speaker 6: from the base up to the peak. And apparently the
52:50
Speaker 6: legend goes that the mountain shook with horror at the
52:55
Speaker 6: horrific crime that was committed by Cain, and the ae
53:00
Speaker 6: Gabriel put his hand in the cave, and you can
53:03
Speaker 6: still to today see the handprint in the roof of
53:07
Speaker 6: this cave. It's also the shrine of the forty Saints,
53:11
Speaker 6: so it's an area of great historic significance and pilgrimage.
53:17
Speaker 6: And yet we're seeing if we move on to the
53:19
Speaker 6: next image, this is what it's going to look like,
53:21
Speaker 6: which just reminds me of something people might go, oh,
53:25
Speaker 6: that looks amazing, but I can guarantee you that a
53:28
Speaker 6: room or a table in the restaurant or the hotel
53:32
Speaker 6: is going to be well beyond the capability of the
53:35
Speaker 6: majority of the Syrian population, and it will be an
53:38
Speaker 6: attraction for those in Syrians in diaspora who will now
53:42
Speaker 6: come back, and also for the Saudi's, the Qataris and
53:47
Speaker 6: the UA alliance that enabled the regime change war in
53:53
Speaker 6: the first place. And then finally, I also just wanted
53:57
Speaker 6: to mention this, this is what we so often see
54:00
Speaker 6: post regime change. The Jolani regime eyes full privatization of
54:07
Speaker 6: public health. Again, my experience through the ten years that
54:10
Speaker 6: I was working in Syria and living in Syria for
54:13
Speaker 6: five of those years, the health service was unbelievable, despite
54:17
Speaker 6: the effects of economic sanctions and the war itself. They
54:22
Speaker 6: are trying to sell it in one of the articles,
54:25
Speaker 6: again very much affiliated to the Jolani regime, if we
54:29
Speaker 6: can have the next slide up rather than being privatization,
54:33
Speaker 6: it's a partnership plan between the public and private sector.
54:37
Speaker 6: But I think we all know what that means having
54:39
Speaker 6: seen it with the NHS in the UK. So again
54:44
Speaker 6: I refer people to this article that I wrote a
54:46
Speaker 6: while ago about the Syria being prey to the globalist
54:50
Speaker 6: cabbal and crony capitalist al Qaeda regime very similar to
54:55
Speaker 6: what happened in Iraq after the two thousand and three war.
54:59
Speaker 6: Horror buying for me to see Syriah plunged into this
55:03
Speaker 6: kind of depraved era.
55:08
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you for that report, Finessa, thank you very much.
55:12
Speaker 2: Now let's move back to Plymouth now and Plymouth Live.
55:16
Speaker 2: And this article is an opinion piece. Now it says
55:21
Speaker 2: USB one bomber is flying over Plymouth. Is not normal. Now,
55:25
Speaker 2: this is by Tony Staunton, who's a he's member of CND,
55:29
Speaker 2: but he's a trade genius mainly. And I just wanted
55:31
Speaker 2: to run through it. Just put that the full slide
55:34
Speaker 2: back on there, please, Chris. I'll just want to run
55:37
Speaker 2: through some of the quotes from this, just very briefly.
55:39
Speaker 2: He said, B one bomber is filmed high in the
55:42
Speaker 2: sky over Plymouth. It's rumblings distinct from rolling thunder. Causes
55:46
Speaker 2: to look skywards to question and to access to assess. Sorry,
55:51
Speaker 2: it's not normal, not usual. Signed Britain is an aircraft
55:55
Speaker 2: carrier for the United States. He says, not only those
55:59
Speaker 2: who are comfortable with a special relationship, applaud the US
56:02
Speaker 2: basis strewn across our island and the use of the
56:04
Speaker 2: Royal Air Force for Trump's illegal war in Iran. Just
56:08
Speaker 2: as Blair and Bush's invasion of Iraq in two thousand
56:10
Speaker 2: and three is now recognized as illegal under international laws,
56:14
Speaker 2: so will the bombing of Iran in twenty twenty six.
56:17
Speaker 2: There are no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear weapons
56:20
Speaker 2: in Iran. The illegal invasion is costing the US eight
56:24
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety one million dollars each day, and the
56:27
Speaker 2: global economy hundreds of billions in disruption, transport and agriculture
56:31
Speaker 2: descending into chaos. By the end of this week, roughly
56:35
Speaker 2: sixty thousand Americans American service members will be in the
56:38
Speaker 2: Middle East, the largest concentration since the two thousand and
56:41
Speaker 2: three invasion of Iraq. On Saturday, we're protesting at RAF Fairford.
56:47
Speaker 2: Demand the UK stops the bombers, kick the US nuclear
56:51
Speaker 2: weapons off, British soil fund nurses not Yuke's vote for
56:54
Speaker 2: welfare not warfare.
56:57
Speaker 1: I have to say.
56:58
Speaker 2: I have a lot of sympathy with a lot of
57:02
Speaker 2: the comments in that opinion piece.
57:04
Speaker 1: Charles.
57:05
Speaker 2: What I thought was A little bit disappointing was the
57:08
Speaker 2: determination to politicize it, because that wasn't the only political
57:12
Speaker 2: comment that was made in the article, which of course
57:15
Speaker 2: then divides people because he's busy criticizing, you know, right
57:20
Speaker 2: wing politics and so on, then that's going to convince
57:24
Speaker 2: right wing people of the right wing mind not to
57:27
Speaker 2: go to the protest on Saturday. I think this is
57:30
Speaker 2: something that everybody needs to be protesting, and we need
57:32
Speaker 2: to set this political aspect of this aside.
57:36
Speaker 5: I agree, but I think it is a feature of
57:38
Speaker 5: almost all protests which just looks anything but organic these days,
57:43
Speaker 5: because there is always a protest and a kind of
57:45
Speaker 5: protest ensuring that in effect they cancel each other out
57:49
Speaker 5: in the beliefs of either side are lost in the chaos.
57:53
Speaker 5: And in fact that's exactly what happened at Fairford when
57:55
Speaker 5: there was a sort of moderate protest some weeks ago.
57:59
Speaker 5: There was there was a sort of pro peace element
58:03
Speaker 5: and then a war well you know, but sort of
58:08
Speaker 5: back our boys oddly protect Israel.
58:12
Speaker 1: Yes, so yes, very complicated okay.
58:15
Speaker 2: And related in a sense then is this report from
58:19
Speaker 2: the John Smith Center, Glasgow University. So half of young
58:23
Speaker 2: people are wisely suggesting that they would never take arms
58:26
Speaker 2: take up arms for the UK. According to Paul run
58:29
Speaker 2: by the john Smith Center. This is a poll of
58:33
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen to twenty nine year olds sponsored by Nationwide.
58:36
Speaker 2: It shows that those who say they expect their lives
58:39
Speaker 2: to be better than their parents has halved in a year,
58:42
Speaker 2: from sixty three percent to thirty six percent. The pole
58:45
Speaker 2: also finds that only twenty five percent of young people
58:48
Speaker 2: feel they're being treated fairly by the political system, and
58:51
Speaker 2: fifty percent say there are no circumstances under which they
58:54
Speaker 2: would take up arms for the UK. They're mainly concerned
58:57
Speaker 2: about the impact of AI and jobs, but asked which
59:02
Speaker 2: political leader best represents British values, forty five percent failed
59:06
Speaker 2: to name any current leader, saying either none of the
59:09
Speaker 2: above or that they just don't know now. The quote
59:13
Speaker 2: that's doing the ruins on mainstream media coverage of this
59:16
Speaker 2: is from Eddie barnesho is the director of the john
59:18
Speaker 2: Smith Center, who said that bearing in mind the economic
59:21
Speaker 2: realities young people face quotes, it should be little surprised
59:25
Speaker 2: at fifty percent say they wouldn't fight for the country
59:27
Speaker 2: any circumstances or as many young people might put it.
59:31
Speaker 2: Why fight for a country that isn't fighting for you. Now,
59:34
Speaker 2: I ask to rank the main issues affecting the UK
59:38
Speaker 2: today young people. The top five in descending order were inflation,
59:43
Speaker 2: the cost of living, housing, affordability, healthcare, immigration and asylum,
59:48
Speaker 2: and jobs and job security. Since last year, then young
59:52
Speaker 2: people have moved slightly leftwards politically then apparently so twenty
59:56
Speaker 2: two percent and I placed themselves on the left. That's
59:59
Speaker 2: up from seventeen percent last year. And the proportion of
1:00:02
Speaker 2: younger people identifying with the right has fallen from twenty
1:00:05
Speaker 2: to twenty percent to fifteen percent in this survey. And
1:00:09
Speaker 2: then on geopolitics, the survey says that young people believe
1:00:13
Speaker 2: the UK has some responsibility to intervene overseas, particularly in
1:00:17
Speaker 2: cases of human rights abuses. So still clearly a lot
1:00:20
Speaker 2: of information to be given over there, and a lot
1:00:25
Speaker 2: of communication still to happen, and there's still open to
1:00:28
Speaker 2: reparations with former colonies, with six percent saying yes.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: Or maybe so.
1:00:33
Speaker 2: There's a lot in that report and I do recommend
1:00:36
Speaker 2: people read it. But at least people are not prepared
1:00:40
Speaker 2: to take up arms at this stage with the current
1:00:44
Speaker 2: regime that we have in this country.
1:00:46
Speaker 1: Not for now.
1:00:48
Speaker 5: And I think this is something we've talked about a lot,
1:00:50
Speaker 5: is that there may be a threshold. We're just we're
1:00:53
Speaker 5: not there yet. And this is why we talk repeatedly
1:00:56
Speaker 5: about the idea that there could be an emergency, which
1:00:59
Speaker 5: would you know, to open the flat gates to exactly
1:01:03
Speaker 5: that sort of thing, a false flag attack on UK.
1:01:05
Speaker 5: So being the most obvious, I assume we're meant to
1:01:08
Speaker 5: infer ignorance on that statistic about not being able to
1:01:12
Speaker 5: identify leaders, rather than it being a reflection of them
1:01:16
Speaker 5: not actually identifying any of those people there as being leaders.
1:01:19
Speaker 2: No, No, I think it was more to do with
1:01:21
Speaker 2: the fact that they thought that the people that were
1:01:22
Speaker 2: running the control idiots.
1:01:24
Speaker 5: Basically basically, that's fine as long as that's what's calling out.
1:01:28
Speaker 2: But we could talk more about this an extra and
1:01:30
Speaker 2: so we'll be back in a couple of minutes on
1:01:32
Speaker 2: the livestream. If you UK called members will stick around
1:01:35
Speaker 2: and join us for extra. Otherwise, watch jerm and Carl
1:01:40
Speaker 2: tonight and Ran and Charles tomorrow from Military Matters. We'll
1:01:44
Speaker 2: be back at one pm as usual on Friday for
1:01:47
Speaker 2: another news program.
1:01:48
Speaker 1: See then