Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News Podcast 5th April 2024

Transcript

UK Column News Podcast 5th April 2024 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Good afternoon. It's Friday, the fifth of April twenty twenty four, just
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after one o'clock. Welcome to the UK Column News. I'm your host Mac
0:14
Robinson joining me today we have Ben Rubin and Debbie Evans. Now we're going
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to get started with OFCOM who have published their plan of work for twenty twenty
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four and twenty twenty five and it's really exciting. It's so exciting it's impossible
0:29
to know how they're going to actually get through it. Also, let's have
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a look at a couple of the atoms that they're talking about here. First
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of all, they are going to work this year to develop a media that
0:37
we can trust and value. Audiences can watch and listen to public service content
0:41
which is broadcast across the UK and reflects its diversity, a plurality of choice
0:47
of a wide range of providers and producers competing fairly for audiences. And of
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course what they don't say is that as a result of the Online Safety Bill,
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there will be a plurality of choice with regard to whether it's BBC or
0:59
IT, Channel four, GBN News that you watch, but the content will
1:03
be the same on all of those platforms. More or less, but don't
1:07
worry. Audiences are going to be protected from harmful content, harmful content wild.
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Freedom of expression is safeguarded, but only certain types of expression. They
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then talk about living in a safer living a safer life online, so services
1:25
have appropriate governance and accountability arrangements in place to assess risk to users, especially
1:30
children. So they keep banging on the child drum here. Users are aware
1:34
of what they can do to be safer online and contin controlling the content that
1:38
they see. And part of this is all about making sure people are literate
1:42
with respect to the Internet and so on. And the final item here,
1:46
as I'm sure Ben will have something to say about, is trust Offcom is
1:51
established as a credible and trusted online safety regulator with whom maybe with other online
1:57
safety regulators around the world world, not with the general public. But we've
2:01
put that back on screen again. There's a third one here, which is
2:05
enabling wireless services to the wider economy, and they're saying that spectrum is available
2:09
to enable the communications industry to meet anticipated growth and innovation in consumer mobile and
2:15
wireless services. And they're talking about here a millimeter with technology which still hasn't
2:22
been rolled out in the UK yet, but they want to roll out very
2:25
very quickly, and as we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, they will
2:29
be running an auction in order to auction off the spectrum to the various companies
2:36
that are involved in providing mobile services in the UK. So that is really
2:42
what they're talking about with respect to their business plan. I went to look
2:46
at how many jobs they have advertised at the moment, because they don't have
2:51
the staff to actually pull this gag off at the stage, and they have
2:55
eight roles available at the moment, none of which are with respet back to
3:00
online safety or the media at all. So it's not clear how they're going
3:06
to manage to succeed here. But don't worry, it doesn't end with these
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types of issues because they also talk about AI. They have also published their
3:15
strategic Approach to AI for twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five. Because OFCOM
3:22
will also be the regulator for AI in the UK. No one knows quite
3:25
how, but that's what they're going to be and this is basically what they're
3:29
saying. They're saying whatever the government says, so they're quite happy with the
3:32
government's approach to AI. Regulation. Now. Of course, while all this
3:38
is going on, they continue to have their call for evidence on online safety
3:44
regulation. We talked about this a week or two ago as well, and
3:47
they're looking for evidence mainly from the platforms, on how they're going to meet
3:53
the obligations under the new Online Safety Act. Reddit has now or in the
3:58
last week or so, decided to weigh into the debate here by saying,
4:02
well, basically, we're going to quit the UK or well maybe not actually,
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because they aren't really in a position to quit. They're just about to
4:12
IPO, so they're about to launch on the stock market, and they are
4:15
particularly concerned that the online safety regime. They're not so much concerned about it
4:19
as it stands, but they're concerned that the way that the online safety regime
4:25
might be implemented means that they, as a smaller organization by comparison to Meta
4:30
or to Twitter, would be unfairly discriminated against because the regulator burden on them
4:35
would be higher as a smaller business. So really this is just them giving
4:41
their feedback on how they see the situation going. But ben trust is absolutely
4:47
at the heart of this. Media literacy is at the heart of what Offcom
4:51
wants to do over the next twelve to eighteen months. But you frankly,
4:57
they don't have the budget to pull all this off, so I'm not really
5:00
clear how they're going to achieve it. But I just thought you might like
5:02
to comment on the trust issue, in particular trust as it relates to Offcom.
5:10
I think they've got an uphill struggle, let's just put it like that,
5:14
and they're going to be trying to enforce trust, ram it down our
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throats, using algorithms, using this technology. But I think that the harder
5:24
they try, the less they're going to trust them. Ultimately, Yes,
5:29
indeed, so let's come, do you know, Ben? And of course
5:33
in the meantime, we've got other policy agendas working hard in the background b
5:40
corpse because now zero is on its way. Absolutely yes, there are many
5:46
agendas afloat in society at the moment. And in March we saw a big
5:53
noise about B Corp, the industry body focused on the certification of small business
6:00
is to show that they adhere to a very specific set of operational and ideological
6:03
principles. There was a big noise about it. And we've got a short
6:06
field here to introduce the section. Was that a common purpose they want to
6:57
see field down I think it might be. Yeah, absolutely so, Yeah,
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how funky, how cool, how exciting, like everyone can get on
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board with it. No more business is usual. Companies are for the people
7:12
and the planet, not just for profit, right, Bolder Better is a
7:15
bit like build b Better, isn't it? And actually this stuff comes from
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the same place. It's basically a way of disseminating ESG, SDG all that
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kind of stuff out into the economic system. They're pretty well established now,
7:30
has been going for around fifteen years and they are well established in the UK.
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It's one of the most developed markets for them. Actually. They've got
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this handy little map that they put together which lists eight hundred and sixty five
7:44
companies all around the country. Yeah, full national spread and they're aggressively expanding
7:48
their memberships. What Bee Court Muther's all about this March So they've been up
7:53
in Manchester. They created a mural with the names of lots of different Bee
7:58
Corps people very excited about that. They've also been in Liverpool and also all
8:03
across the north of Ingham. Actually a big focus on the North this year
8:07
for b Court months. So you can see this outdoor ad on the side
8:09
of an HSBC in Liverpool. It's all about forward, it's progress right.
8:15
This is the progressive mantra. We've got to move forward. We've got to
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get away from what we've had before, that's all terrible. We've got to
8:20
go to this brave new world that we're going to create. They got glowing
8:24
coverage all over the progressive press, as you can imagine. The Guardian have
8:28
been talking about it. Also, The Big Issue here gave them a really
8:33
good write up, unsurprisingly given that this was actually written by the guy that
8:37
runs B Cork in the UK. It's what they call native advertising, by
8:41
the way, and that was paid for by gif Gaff, who is a
8:45
B Corp. Giftgaff, the mobile phone network operator. They produced this funky
8:50
little b to z of B Corpse you get it. Quite cool, Yeah,
8:54
a little creative idea there, build the story. Waitros got in on
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the act, right. I mean this is absolutely everywhere it's inescapable, outdoor,
9:03
in the press, in stores, so waitros have put over prime promotional
9:09
space to push BE Corps in their stores, really ramming the message home for
9:16
Middle England. They also did this big national survey to explore awareness of the
9:22
corps certification across the country. Apparently it's all great news because fifty eight percent
9:28
of people said that business certification helps them make decisions about where to spend their
9:31
money, so that's a good statistic or B corp people value this kind of
9:37
thing, but there's still some work to do. Only thirty eight percent of
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UK consumers know what an actual B CORP is as opposed to just more broadly
9:46
understanding business certifications, so it's not quite a household name yet, but they're
9:52
getting pretty close, to be honest with you, there's a lot of energy
9:54
going into this and there's a lot of companies out there who are very very
9:58
proud to and I can talk about being part of the movement right. It's
10:01
a real badge of honor for people that are involved in it, so they
10:05
put it all over their brand, all over their product, all over their
10:09
websites, and esscially a lot of how the route to finding out about this
10:13
stuff for people people are genuinely do them quite favorably. So over the last
10:20
six months, seventy one respondents agreed that the BEE Corp certification is having a
10:28
positive impact. Sorry to interrupt, just to say that's seventy one percent of
10:33
respondents. Yes, So seventy one per cent of the people involved in the
10:39
survey said that they thought the bee Corps that knew about what BEECRK was said
10:43
that they thought Beecorp is having a positive impact. So broadly speaking, people
10:48
think that that is a positive thing. They done a very good job of
10:50
pring themselves and building awareness of consensus around this, and actually there's it goes
10:58
beyond just this as being a social movement, which is how it's positioned,
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and there's actually some quite significant statistics coming out of their survey saying that people
11:07
would like the government to introduce new measures to encourage all businesses to behave like
11:13
b corps. They want to regulate for this. They're actually actively promoting that.
11:18
So there's this thing called the Better Business Act they've introduced, and that
11:22
be Corp is basically standing directly behind. They don't call it b Corp,
11:26
but they're actively involved in this. They want to change UK legislation to ensure
11:31
every company in the UK aligns the interest of shareholders with those of wider society
11:35
and the environment. The DeBie you'll recognize a lot of this language. It's
11:39
all very much linked into what's happening with Terra Carta and that whole agenda.
11:46
They've actually been updating, been really busy right all this promotional stuff. They've
11:50
also been looking at their core certification as well, which they've updated over the
11:54
past eighteen months. They've introduced a whole bunch of additional requirements. They made
12:01
it even more rigorous and even more difficult to achieve certification. And I actually
12:09
sat on a call about ten days ago now with between B Corporate and an
12:15
organization called Futurists and what they've been doing. As well as adapting and extending
12:20
the certification, they've been building a digital platform that will contain this and they've
12:26
taken the six hundred pages of documentation right, it's the six hundred page application
12:31
that you have to go through. So there's a really serious amount of work
12:33
and a serious number of things that have to be complied with in order to
12:37
become a B Core And they've turned this into a digital platform and they're using
12:43
artificial intelligence to translate it into all of the different languages that would be required
12:48
to disseminate this stuff globally. There's a really interesting use case. An example
12:54
of AI being used to disseminate and coordinate global policy from Western nations. Started
13:01
in the US, it's heavily present in the UK, out to an international
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audience and all those different countries and markets around the world. Right, this
13:09
is a really significant thing. They've also updated again, ha said really busy,
13:15
updated their global leadership team. They've introduced new board roles for a gentleman
13:20
called Andrew Kassoy, a lady called Katie Hill, another lady called Janine we
13:24
Are. I'm going to focus just on Andrew Kassoy. Actually, he's a
13:28
really interesting fellow. He was one of the original founders of the Bee Court
13:31
movement. He was also very excited to be invited to become a participant in
13:39
a Rockefeller Foundation Ballaggio Center of Residents that he is going to be participating in
13:46
this year. So this is obviously all LinkedIn to Rockefeller and we can get
13:52
a bit more insight into mister Cassoy's views on things from this short clip from
13:56
a recent event that he spoke out in Paris. The objective was never to
14:01
build an empire of certified fee corporations. The objective was to build a community
14:09
of leaders and in building a community of leaders that they could work together collectively
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as part of a larger stakeholder capitals and movement to change the narrative about the
14:24
purpose of business and then to exercise their collective power. And I know in
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our community sometimes the word power is kind of a bad word, but I
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think it's critical that these businesses come together to exercise their collective power to demand
14:41
change to the rules of the game, to demand that someday all businesses behave
14:46
like be corpse. That's quite a profound set of things that he said there,
14:54
right is the guy that helped to found the movement has just been put
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into a global position on the Global Board. To phrase stakeholder capitalism straight out
15:01
of the Cloudschweld playbook. He talked about power, collective power, organizing in
15:09
order to transform the system to make it more amenable to their agenda, and
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pushing towards a day where all businesses behave like the corps and the platforms they're
15:22
building, the technology they're building would help facilitate this. Just to land on
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one specific example, I think it's a nice way to tie it up to
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the end here, Let's have a little look at Arloe Brady, who is
15:33
the chief executive of Freud Communications, talking about his thoughts on the Bee Court
15:39
movement as a BEE CORP certified organization. Hi, my name's Arlo Brady and
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I'm the CEO of Freud Communications. Becoming a BEE Corp was a really easy
15:52
decision for us to make as a company. At Freud's, we put purpose
15:56
and impact at the heart of all of our work, and in twenty two
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twenty three alone, we donated more than two million pounds worth of pro bonos
16:03
support to causes globally that are aligned with the global goals. We were one
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of the first at scale pr agencies to achieve this accolade and I'm immensely proud
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of our achievement and the continuing improvement that we're demonstrating as we recertify with an
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improved score of ninety point six. Our b Corp Report is launching today and
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hopefully this will give you an insight into what life at Freud's is a proud
16:30
BEE Corp is all about. For us at Freud's, it's about love and
16:34
work and if you like what you read, please do come and join us.
16:42
So Freud's part of the movement, very excited about it. Did he
16:45
notice. Regular viewers will remember the tapestry from Goals House in Davos that sits
16:52
on the walls of the Freud's office in London. Apparently, putting to that
16:56
video isn't that interesting. They seem to be right of a whole lot different
17:00
stuff for its communications. And actually, if we couldn't make it any more
17:03
clear where this Bee Corp movement is coming from and what is directed towards,
17:07
Goals House have actually done it for us. They say here in this post
17:12
from just a couple of days ago, that the corp standards and the global
17:17
goals are intertwined and orientated towards the same vision. They are effectively doing the
17:25
same thing. Yes, OK, I think we're going to talk a little
17:27
bit more about this and extra I've got quite a few questions that have come
17:30
out of that report, Ben, so thank you very much for that.
17:34
Now let's move on to Well, the question is Debbie, are we ready
17:38
for war? Good afternoon everyone, Yes, and that is the question.
17:44
And what brought me to this question actually was the NHS board meeting last week.
17:48
Now it hasn't been published yet on YouTube, but I'm a bit impatient
17:52
and I like to look at the board papers and there were a number of
17:56
board papers that interested me. But we've all become used, haven't we to
18:00
emergency drills. The NHS is completely overwhelmed, as we know, too many
18:04
patients, not enough beds. Are we ready for war? And earlier on
18:08
this year, Brian featured this report at UK Parliament, ready for war with
18:15
a big question mark. And in the next slide you'll see that the report
18:19
was formalized at the House of Commons Defense Committee. It was formalized twenty twenty
18:26
three, twenty twenty four, just this year. But Sky News have been
18:30
asking the same question actually as I've been asking, which is is the UK
18:37
preparing for war amid threats of conflict? And what did they find out?
18:41
And now just remember this report was only on the third of April, so
18:45
it's recent. So what did Sky find out? Well, they found out
18:49
that according to leaked reports, there's going to be an exercise next week,
18:55
our two day war game, which is going to take place involving Ministry of
19:00
Defense, the Cabinet Office and the Home Office. And if we go on
19:04
a little bit further into their report, we can see that Keith Deeer,
19:10
who's a former intelligence officer and advisor to Boris Johnson actually says the problem is
19:17
there is no plan. So do the NHS have a plan? That's my
19:22
next question. And the NHS Board meeting last week brought up their annual Emergency
19:30
Preparedness, Resilience and Response Assurance Reports, so I thought, well, you've
19:33
got to go and have a look in that. Obviously, it's an annual
19:37
update, so we're not presumably looking at anything too much in the near future.
19:42
However, let's just dissect it a little bit. So disruptive threats,
19:47
they're looking at weather, infectious disease, major transport accidents, or a terrorist
19:53
attack. And what I found a little bit alarming was that they're kind of
19:57
bragging that three hundred and seven thousand people will be supported by an integrated Primarne
20:03
community mental health service this year and for next year. And my concern is
20:10
that actually we shouldn't have that many people that need mental health support. But
20:15
we've got a new NHS Resilience team and we're going to be reviewing the operations,
20:22
but operations for what exactly, Well, we seem to be looking at
20:26
mass casualties, burns, annex pandemic, hazardous materials, managing contaminated individuals who
20:33
present to healthcare will come onto that in a minute. And other NHS buildings.
20:38
And now I'm not quite sure what these other NHS buildings actually are.
20:42
Perhaps they're the Nightingale Hospitals, I'm not sure. But clearly you can see
20:47
that there's going to be implementation of new standards in relation to ambulance services,
20:52
chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear support to acute trusts. But the
20:57
other thing I found in their report was that they were talking about energy disruptions.
21:03
So they're talking about energy supply chain disruptions, but I've just highlighted it
21:08
therein red because it's slightly different from other reports they've brought out, which is
21:14
indicating that we may be looking at long duration power outages. Now I don't
21:19
know what those long duration power outages exactly are. Perhaps they're going to be
21:26
extreme weather. Maybe that's what they're going to be focusing on. But what
21:30
are they basing their modeling on. Why are they doing all of this preparedness
21:33
now? So here are some of the things that have happened in the last
21:38
year or so. So they've been looking at the coronation. They said that
21:41
in May the twenty third, there was a big health input. They needed
21:45
a lot of coordination. The knife marauder in Nottingham has given them something else
21:51
to model on. In June twenty three, then there was a BT technical
21:56
fault which meant that people couldn't contact nine ninety nine and there were actually eleven
22:00
and a half thousand calls that were impacted before BT could back up the systems.
22:04
And then if we move on to September twenty twenty three, we can
22:07
see that they're looking at RACK. They're using RACK as a modeling tool.
22:14
That's the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. We've seen that in public buildings and schools
22:19
and some hospitals. Also they're looking at the car park fire in Luton.
22:23
If you remember, we were looking as to whether that might have been caused
22:26
by an electric vehicles also suspected hijacked aircraft and nothing actually happens on that incident,
22:34
but they treated it as a major incident. But then we're looking at
22:40
November twenty three more incidents that they're modeling on. So we've got a water
22:45
supply interruption, and then of course this year we were looking at that big
22:48
launch of the Measles Incident MMR campaign, So they're wanting to uptake on vaccinations
22:56
and they consider that a major incident. And then finally we're looking at twenty
23:02
twenty three and twenty twenty four carbon monoxide in Lancashire poisonings and even in our
23:07
very own home County Devon in Plymouth, they're looking at modeling on the the
23:15
World War II bomb that was recently found in someone's garden. Now this is
23:19
all taking place with a triparthite of partners. So we're looking at the NHS,
23:25
the Department of Health, and the UKHSA and NHS England have now revised
23:30
this program which is going to be implemented in autumn twenty twenty four. But
23:36
who's going to be doing these exercises? The NHS is overwhelmed, we haven't
23:40
got enough a staff. So I found this paper from Cambridge Can Life Act
23:44
to patients in a mass casualty incident exercise benefit as exercise players And if you
23:49
look at the discussion there, it says on the next slide it'll say that
23:53
it's imperative for staff to know what to do to respond. However, globally
24:00
there don't seem to be enough resources. There's not enough staff within the health
24:03
services to be able to be released to do these exercises. So who does
24:10
these exercises? Well, look no further than crisis cast and crisis cast they
24:17
carry out simulations of incidents, so for the UK, the Middle East and
24:22
will actually globally worldwide, but they're looking at They work with schools, with
24:26
local authorities, they work with shopping centers, media, military, criminal justice,
24:32
government, private security firms, you name it. But who are crisis
24:37
cast and crisis casts actually are the learning and development consultancy which is another segment
24:44
all of its own. And also there you can see the National counter Terrorism
24:48
Security Office Army be the best and cyber Essentials Now cyber Essentials are a UK
24:55
certification scheme which shows how an organization has got protection again any kind of cyber
25:02
attack. So the clients long list of clients here, very interesting clients.
25:07
You've got the National counter Terrorism Security Office, the Ministry of Defense G four
25:11
S, Sussex Partnership NHS. That's interesting because that's where our very own Stephen
25:17
Lightfoot, who is chairing the MHRA board meetings for so long he's still chair
25:22
Bournemouth UNI Open University, British Army and ads who kind of a talent spotter
25:27
in aerospace, defense and security, the UK Parliament and securitass And just to
25:36
finalize this segment and highlight that mass casualties are definitely on the agenda and is
25:41
asking more questions I think than answering. But of course the who have got
25:45
their finger in the pot two. So if you want to find out more
25:49
mass Casualty Management system document from the World Health Organization. Okay, thank you
25:56
for that, Debbie. Okay, if you like what the UK dog,
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you'd like to support us. All the information about how you can support us
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is that support dot UK column dot org. We do need your support and
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well we'll be talking a little bit more about that extra in a couple of
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weeks time. But please do have a look at that page and help us
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out if you possibly can. You could pick something up at the UK Column
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Shop, but please do share anything you find on the various platforms, especially
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UK column dot org and UK column Extracts dot com at uk Now. Yesterday
26:32
Charles was interviewing Sir Julian Rose. That is up on the UK column website.
26:36
Now have a look at that. It's an extremely interesting interview. Have
26:40
a look at that if you possibly can. It's called the Corruption of the
26:44
Organic Movement. And also another reminder of the interview with Hillary Baltrop, who
26:52
I'm glad to say is a UK column member, will be on with us
26:56
on Extra Today to discuss on these We hope she will to follow up and
27:02
to say well, basically she wants to say thank you to everybody that has
27:06
offered so much support following that interview, so please join us for that.
27:11
I also want to remind everybody about the Science Beautiful Festival taking place in Dorset
27:15
and Wimborne on the twenty seventh to the thirtieth of June. UK Colin will
27:19
be there along with many other people, and Wendy Gin, who's one of
27:23
the organizers, will be joining us an extra for that as well. But
27:26
Debbie, the series of No Smokes Without Fire is doing very well, the
27:33
series on the Green King, which is of course as King Charles, So
27:40
tell us a little bit more. Well, Yes, I would like to
27:44
thank everybody. You know, we've had some phenomenal comments and thank you so
27:48
much, and lots of information as well. So the series is growing all
27:53
the time and getting much more interesting. But I just want to highlight a
27:59
little bit from next week's No Smoke which is going to go out because this
28:03
is particularly for us here in the UK, but also our friends in Canada,
28:08
Australia, New Zealand and Australia, New Zealand and Canada particularly pay attention
28:15
because we're going to be talking about the Commonwealth and how does it figure in
28:19
King Charles's plans, where's the funding streams coming from for King Charles's big sustainable
28:27
initiatives and it gets a very interesting story. But I want to introduce you
28:32
to Kansuck International and we will be talking about a super Commonwealth perhaps, And
28:38
I've got a little bit of video to show you about what is Kansuck and
28:44
the clues in the initials C n Z UK for Canada, New Zealand,
28:51
Australia, UK. So Kansuck. Let me introduce you to Kansuck International.
28:59
By implementing a Kanzak Defense Agreement, such cooperation would increase significantly, creating a
29:03
military alliance of like minded sovereign nations with a tremendous presence on the international stage.
29:11
Firstly, the Kansas countries are geographically positioned to rapidly deploy operations in either
29:15
the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, ensuring the safeguard of sea lanes, trading routes,
29:21
and offshore territories across the world. Given their locations and by engaging in
29:26
closer operations, the Kansas countries would have a formidable presence to ensure international peace
29:32
and security, and with a combined military budget of over one hundred ten billion
29:37
dollars, it would be the third largest military power in the world, larger
29:41
than Russia or any of the EU countries. Secondly, as Canada, Australia,
29:47
New Zealand and the UK collaborate together as part of the already existing Five
29:49
Eyes Intelligence Alliance, the implementation of a Kansack Defense Agreement would ensure the effective
29:56
development of signals, military and human intelligence, advancing public safety and national security
30:02
across the four countries. Not to mention where authoritarian governments across the world seeking
30:07
greater power and influence, a Kanzack Defense Alliance would provide a united front in
30:12
deterring hostile military actions, preventing adversarial action via air, land or sea,
30:18
and eliminating threats of war, cyber attacks and terrorism. Finally, with the
30:23
United Kingdom occupying a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. A Kansack
30:29
Military and Defense Alliance would afford Canada, Australia and New Zealand representation on this
30:33
Council, providing a stronger unified voice for these countries and ensuring mutual values of
30:38
peace and democracy are advocated in all future discussions. So there's Kanzak international,
30:48
I can see. Probably Mike there you've got a comment. Well, I
30:52
was wedding myself all the way through that. I have to say, Debbie,
30:55
someday we don't need to accidentally leave the microphones on while some of that
30:59
stuff playing so people can get an impression of what we're saying behind the scenes,
31:03
because that was just ridiculous. Of course, if the only measure of
31:07
your defense capability is the size of your defense budget, and of course our
31:12
defense budget is larger than Russias, and yet our capability is significantly smaller than
31:18
Russians, that the irony and that statement there just had me in stitches.
31:25
But yeah, I don't we have to also consider and put that alongside August.
31:30
Of course, with springs the United States into the picture as well,
31:34
and we shouldn't forget that. So okay, thank you for that, Debbie.
31:38
Now let's move on Ben, and well, are we paring decisions that
31:44
shape the world? Someone's powering decisions to shape the world. Was certainly attempting
31:49
to, but actually looks like it's been a bit of backclash, which is
31:52
what I'm going to talk about. So we're going to dig into the progressive
31:56
liberal agenda, a big bar of which involves in women. Aren't they wonderful?
32:01
Into positions of power and authority all around the system. I'm going to
32:05
talk about that in the context of some work done by this organization. It's
32:09
called Varian. I introduced them back in January. They were formerly called Cantar
32:15
Public and there are big global communications consulting firm formerly owned by WPP, which's
32:22
the biggest international advertising group, and they were bought from WPP in a private
32:29
equity deal last year by the old Lehman's brother private equity business. I actually
32:35
remember them from the financial crisis, So great bunch of people here. They
32:39
have a global public policy and communications business and that as might introduce them.
32:45
They describe themselves as powering decisions that shape the world, and that includes using
32:50
it from their own literature, creative execution of behavioral change campaigns. So this
32:55
is a propaganda outfit essentially working with global governance and NGOs, and this female
33:04
agenda is right at the heart of it. We're going to talk about that
33:07
in the context of a partnership that they've established with this organization, the re
33:12
Global Forum, whose express purpose is to put what they call trailblazing women leaders
33:19
and their allies into positions of power to help more women attain and retain power.
33:24
This word gets used again and again in this ecosystem. That's all they
33:30
ever talk about as far as I can tell. So these two organizations have
33:34
created a joint report. It's called the Recivic Index or Leadership. It's about
33:38
exploring attitudes towards female leaders. It's a big survey that they've run across thirteen
33:44
nations, the G seven, the Nordics polland they've had thirteen thousand respondents and
33:51
basically they asked all of the respondents whether men or women were more suited to
33:55
leadership roles in a range of different industries and other parts. And basically,
34:00
if you get to one hundred, then you're perfect and you think everyone should
34:05
be equal and are equal and actually anything less than that is evidence of what
34:10
they call prejudice. And they're very excited because we're starting to see a downward
34:15
trend. They've been running this since twenty eighteen. The numbers have been going
34:19
up and have been relatively stable for the past five years, but this year
34:22
they've gone down. So we're becoming more prejudiced, apparently, according to their
34:28
survey, and that's being driven interestingly by young people in particular. So young
34:35
people are now more prejudiced than their parents. More young people think that men
34:39
are better suited to positions of leadership than women, right, And apparently,
34:45
according to the report, that's all to do with disinformation and Andrew Tait and
34:50
social media. But interestingly, it's actually young women as well as young men
34:54
who are saying this, Yeah, it's not just a male thing. There
35:00
is a consensus view for me, or a growing perspective, that men are
35:05
actually better suited positions of leadership than women in almost every area of society.
35:09
This is obviously extraordinarily bad news for Varying and recomic Global Forum because, as
35:17
they say in the report, amazing statement for them to make it. Our
35:21
explicit goal is a world in which the Recivic Index score of one hundred is
35:25
the norm, and this would be a world where men and women are viewed
35:30
as equally suitable to lead. Nothing to do with whether they are actually equally
35:35
suitable to lead, is all to do with whether they are viewed as such
35:38
and tracked as such in our report. Just think about that. That's a
35:43
really fascinating statement for them to make. This big, multi billion dollar international
35:47
corporation funded by private equity money, hyper focused on delivering this. Now,
35:52
obviously the findings have not been particularly positive. If that's their end game.
35:58
There are four conclusions that they on. The first one, I won't read
36:01
all of this out. It's probably a little bit difficult to see, but
36:04
i'll summarize. The first one is the biggest concern is the increase in prejudice
36:08
that we're seeing in younger people. And their recommendation is that policymakers, business
36:13
leaders, the media, academic institutions, the whole of society needs to work
36:17
together to dig into this and to make interventions which can change that, which
36:23
can make a tangible, sustained impact against reversing that trend. The second point
36:29
is we've got to keep going, and this is the classic double down mentality
36:32
that you get from the left in particular. Right, So they've recognize that
36:37
their data paints what they call a dismal picture, that there are areas where
36:42
progress is taking holes, So we've got to stay the course. The third
36:45
point is we've got to stop thinking that needing to fix women is the answer.
36:51
Women aren't the problem, according to the report, and we don't need
36:54
to fix them. The issues are about the way that organizations, companies,
36:59
and societies work. So we have to re engineer societies, companies, and
37:06
organizations in order to meet the stated aims or this group fascinating. And then
37:12
the final point is we need to take a much stronger view about the actions,
37:15
behaviors, and microaggressions that women in other groups experience every day in the
37:21
workplace. So those nasty men have got to be put in their place,
37:23
basically, and we need retraining in order to adjust our behavior. Right,
37:29
And that all feels a little bit to me like this, doesn't it the
37:34
famous footwork Orange re education scene. Right. The beatings will continue until morale
37:40
improves. I'm not sure that doubling down and insisting on this being rammed down
37:50
people's throats ever more comprehensively is going to work ladies for fortune and actually realizing
37:54
that would be what a leader would do. Anyway, where's this coming from.
38:00
Three characters I'm going to chuck in the mix that have just popped up
38:02
to me from this organization I think are really important to look at. First.
38:06
One is the UK CEO. This feallure here, Craig Watkins. Now
38:10
he's been there for a couple of years now, he joins when it was
38:15
still cantile public just before the pandemic actually in twenty nineteen, so he was
38:20
there through that entire period of behavioral modification that happened, and I'm sure that
38:24
they were very heavily involved in that, like all of the communications networks.
38:28
But before that he was at e Y formerly ernstin Young, the big consulting
38:32
firmer. I spent a couple of years of my career and he actually ran
38:37
business development for the government sector, sitting on top of one hundred and sixty
38:40
five million pounds in revenue a year. Right, there's a lot of money
38:44
floating around in this public private marketplace. And before that he was a civil
38:51
servant. He was at the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the
38:53
Metropolitan Police. So from a very long career in the civil service, he
38:58
still straight to Ewy, helped them earn a load more money in their government
39:01
business. And now he's gone into this organization Variant and is no doubt using
39:07
his black book to open up very lucrative deals for very inside UK government and
39:12
elsewhere. Really mucky this stuff. Two non execus have just been appointed,
39:16
two very interesting non executive directors. The first one this fella Matthew Postgate.
39:22
He was up until fairly recently the chief technology and product opposite of the BBC.
39:28
He also helped launch the Eyeplayer, was responsible for the migration to mobile,
39:32
big player in the media world. And whilst he's on the board of
39:37
Variant, he is also on the board of UK Strategic Command within the Ministry
39:40
of Defense. Right, so the Ministry of Defense is sat right next to
39:45
this organization promoting this agenda and focused on behavioral change. Fascinating. Another big
39:53
hitter, this time David Millerband, the lesser spotted. Miler Band a lot
40:00
of his time in these days as the chief executive of International Rescue out in
40:04
New York, but also bringing his network and expertise to bear as a non
40:12
executive on the board of Varian and what else has he been doing with his
40:15
time while he's been hanging around with some ladies at Davos House where Arlo Brady
40:22
and the Satanic Tapestry go every January to coordinate their plans for global governance and
40:34
all of this stuff. He's a link back to the same tiny little group
40:37
of people. Debbie, I'm going to have to ask you what your thoughts
40:42
are on what band's just reported. Do you know what I knew you were
40:46
going to say that? And I'm trying to process this because I'm like,
40:52
I haven't got any words for a minutte. Can I come back to you
40:55
on extra Let's do that. Yes, I'm very very key for the area
41:00
of view on this. Okay, Well, sticking with gender issues of a
41:04
type, I want to bring this report on screen. This is a scientific
41:08
paper called Development of Gender non Contentedness during Adolescence and Early Adulthood, and of
41:15
course it's talking about people that are experiencing or children that are experiencing gender dysphoria
41:19
of some kind. And well, I just want to bring one of the
41:23
graphs on screen here because what they're saying in this report is that seventy eight
41:30
percent of children in this case from the age of ten upwards, and in
41:36
fact they're in the young adulthood as well, seventy eight percent of people don't
41:39
have an issue with gender. With whatever gender they think they are, they
41:44
do not have any gender non contentedness. As they talk about it, they
41:50
talk about two percent of people from the age of ten upwards who have an
41:55
increasing gender non contentedness, so that so that would be an increasing from almost
42:01
never saying that they wanted to be of the opposite sex to perhaps to being
42:07
sometimes saying that they want to be of the opposite sex, and then the
42:12
remaining nineteen percent of people as they get older, they basically drop this whole
42:19
notion of having trouble with the gender that they are. So they're saying that
42:25
that nineteen percent falls from almost never talking about wishing to be the opposite sex
42:31
to actually never talking about wishing to be the opposite sex. So let's just
42:36
look at a couple of the points that they make in their conclusion here.
42:38
First of all, they say, we find that gender non contentedness is most
42:43
common around the age of eleven, and that the prevalence decreases with age,
42:47
and of course the thing that's of particular concern is how children from the age
42:52
of eleven in particular are targeted with you know, we can help you if
42:58
you have these problems, and the problems that they have are effectively encouraged in
43:02
their schools and other places. So if we put that back on screen again,
43:07
then I just want to remind everybody of the comments that Bertrand Russell made
43:10
way back in his book The Impact of Science and Society, and he was
43:15
talking about the future scientific dictatorship that we were all going to be living under,
43:21
and he said, I think the subject which I mean most of most
43:23
importance politically is mass psychology. Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth
43:30
of modern methods of propaganda. And he said, it may be hoped that
43:34
in time anybody will be able to be persuaded of anything if he can catch
43:38
the patient young and is provided by the state with money and equipment. Now
43:44
we're going to talk a little bit more about who's being provided by the state
43:47
with money and equipment in a minute, But I just wanted to make the
43:51
point that catching people young and sort of encouraging these thoughts is something that we've
43:55
witnessed over the last number of years and just make the point that this is
44:00
something that the establishment is understood for quite a long time. Now. Coming
44:06
back to the report then, they said that the results of the current study
44:09
might help adolescence to realize that is normal to have some doubts about one's identity
44:15
and one's gender identity during this age period that's from the age of ten upwards,
44:20
and that this is also relatively common. And they say that our data
44:23
indicate associations between experiencing gender non contentedness and a poorer self concept and mental health
44:31
throughout adolescence. And the thing that I think we have seen is how that
44:37
idea of having a poorer self concept and poorer mental health is something which we've
44:45
seen encouraged in people. And this is I think of concern so now,
44:51
of course, as a result of this encouragement and the physical harm that's been
44:57
done to people as a result under Identity Development Service was closed recently. We
45:05
reported this at the time. This of course is Tavastock and Portman Foundation,
45:08
NHS for IT Foundation trusts. But as Debbie pointed out to me earlier,
45:15
it does say here very clearly that news services for children and young people with
45:17
gender and congruence are being established with the creation of a Northern hub and a
45:22
Southern hub. Now there's a lot of talk in the media over the last
45:24
couple of days about the chaotic nature of the creation of these two new hubs.
45:31
But Debbie, this just looks to me like, just as with other
45:36
pretty unpleasant NHS strategies like Liverpool Care Pathway, for example, they're just rebranding
45:43
Tavastock into a new form and they're just going to carry on regardless. Yeah,
45:49
one hundred percent. And I have got something to say about this because
45:52
honestly, just a couple of weeks ago in my blog I was reporting about
45:57
this this new gender service. What they're trying to do is get GPS GPS
46:02
to sign up to go on a short course, a gender counseling, gender
46:07
reassignment, gender referral course, so that now there are five thousand children on
46:14
the waiting list and many of them are going to be referred to GPS,
46:16
and GPS are saying we don't know anything about gender reassignment, which is why
46:21
they're being incentivized to sign up learn so that now your GP will be your
46:28
first point of contact. Yes, okay, well Debbie, why we have
46:31
you? Let's talk about the Future of Food report from Sinsbury's. I think
46:36
I mentioned this before, but we've gotten update we have. Indeed, Sandy
46:40
and Brian have brought this to attention before with the fifteen minute cities. But
46:45
my question is how safe is your salad? Because that's what we're going to
46:49
be looking at. And of course in the Sainsbury's Future of Food Report it
46:52
goes right up to twenty one sixty nine, which is just insanity. But
46:58
let's look at twenty twenty five. And what they're looking at is food as
47:02
a medicine, and they're saying that people are going to be drawn to food
47:07
with health benefits and we should see food as a medicine. And they're even
47:10
referring to two organizations or two terms there, one called shop with your Dock
47:16
and the others called fresh food pharmacy, with pharmacy being spelled as farmacy.
47:25
And the question I think that we all have to ask ourselves is how far
47:30
do we actually go? What is the probability or the possibility of medicalizing food
47:37
like we have medicalized water with fluoride. So I want to take you back
47:45
to a couple of bits of news that we did a few weeks ago with
47:49
regards to Tennessee, because there's been an update. So you might remember we
47:54
featured that Tennessee were considering passing a bill that would prohibit vaccines to be put
48:00
on food without being labeled. Well, HB one eight ninety four has now
48:07
added a new definition to the word drug. So HB one eight ninety four
48:14
states that drugs are also food that contains a vaccine or vaccine material. Now,
48:21
this bill has passed and it's now awaiting signature by Senator I can't remember
48:30
his name, Bill Lee. I think his name is. It's got to
48:34
be signed off by Bill Lee. Now I went to look at what happened
48:37
in the Senate and we saw it a few weeks ago. And the first
48:40
thing I want to just show you is Senator Hensley, who is moving the
48:47
bill forward. When you listen to him, it's only a very short clip.
48:52
Just keep an eye on the lady behind him, Senator Heidi Campbell,
48:57
because she's getting ready to move. So have a listen to the proposal of
49:01
the bill. Thank you, mister Speaker. House Bill eighteen ninety four merely
49:08
would require any food that contains a vaccine or vaccine material would have to be
49:15
classified as a drug and labeled as such. With that, mister speaker,
49:19
I renew my motion. So he's renewed the motion, and now we have
49:28
Senator Heidi Campbell. She was the lady that was sitting behind. And to
49:31
be honest with you, you're going to see that these senators are like rabbits
49:36
in the headlights. And see what or hear what Senator Heidi Campbell said.
49:45
So while I feel like this legislation is play basically anadine, I mean,
49:52
I guess it's addressing something that I can't imagine whatever exists, which is the
49:58
idea that we would somehow I'll be putting vaccines into foods that you would buy
50:02
in a grocery store. I mean, I can't think of any logical reason
50:08
why anyone would ever do that. And so she's completely astounded. But I
50:16
think we have to look at this bill as the canary in the coal mine.
50:21
I want to introduce you now to Senator Frank Nicely, who had plenty
50:25
to say, let's listen. Thank you, mister speaker. Actually, I've
50:31
been reading about this for a couple of years now and evidently that with this
50:35
new technology they can they can raise this let us is what they're talking about.
50:39
First. They can raise this stuff so cheap. And I've been read
50:43
by it talking about putting it in and let us and mass dedicate everybody,
50:47
like to do with floor out in the water. I mean, who who
50:51
to control the dose? If you're if you eat a lot of lettuce,
50:54
you're gonna get a lot of m RNA. If you don't eat any,
50:57
won't get any. And they're actually talking about other vegetables that they're trying to
51:00
put this in. And my question is we just have to be sold at
51:05
a drug store? Could they? Would you still bite in a grocery store?
51:08
Why don't we just outlaw this stuff completely. We don't have any idea
51:13
what it's going to do to our children or I mean to us or the
51:15
old people anything. I mean, this stuff like that of a science fiction
51:20
movie. I mean, it's it's ridiculous. It changes your DNA. It
51:24
said mRNA changes your DNA. When if you have your DNA tested now and
51:30
you eat a bunch of this lettuce, take a bunch of these mr vaccaines
51:32
and you go back and get your DNA tested again. It's going to be
51:36
a little different. It's not going to be the same as was that you
51:38
were born with that you got from your parents. This is dangerous stuff.
51:43
We need to study it and probably need to outlaw it. I mean,
51:45
I can't imagine when I first read about this, this cannot be true,
51:51
but you keep reading about it and it is true. But thank you for
51:54
bringing this bill. And I disliked the outlaw the whole state and outlaw whoever
52:00
trying to make it. Thank you, yes, and I would like to
52:06
outlaw it as well. And I think I just want to make it completely
52:08
clear. And this is a message from our very own Cheryl Granger as well,
52:13
So thank you Cheryl in that she wanted me to say that mRNA is
52:17
not safe in animals or humans, should never have been used. It should
52:23
be outlawed. And what he was referring to there with regards to DNA was
52:28
he was referring to DNA contamination. But we'll be talking to Cheryl a little
52:31
bit more about that another week, I promise. Yes, And in d
52:37
Debbie, thank you for that. And we're hoping we're going to be hosting
52:39
some posium on mRNA and the NOD to dis in future and so on,
52:45
And we should also mention, Debbie, just very briefly. Of course,
52:49
the government is still working towards rolling out folic acid, supplementation of flour,
52:57
white flour for bread and so on, because we've got to medicate the entire
53:01
population and not just pregnant women. So you know, have you got any
53:06
thoughts on that, very briefly, Well, I mean, as you've said,
53:10
Mike, you know, now we're looking at medicalizing water, we're medicalizing
53:15
food. If there's one thing in the UK that we're very good at and
53:19
it's growing lettuces and tomatoes, so I might suggest that we grow our own.
53:23
But mRNA is a massive subject. There are hundreds coming down the line.
53:28
It's not just COVID, it's not just flu. There are many more.
53:31
But it's going to be something that we're going to be keeping our finger
53:34
on the pulse and reporting on in the future. Thanks Debbie, and I
53:39
just want to sort of finish the main segment here on Needle. And obviously
53:45
the last two days have been a celebration of Neddle seventy fifth anniversary. Some
53:49
people have been celebrating anyway. One of those people was our illustrious leader.
53:53
If we can bring him on screen and see what he had to say.
53:57
In nineteen forty nine, in the hope of avoiding another devastat wore, the
54:00
UK joined together with a handful of allies to sign the North Atlantic Treaty and
54:04
pledge that we would also always come to one another's defense. This anniversary is
54:10
the moment to renew our historic pledge to this alliance and say that no matter
54:14
who tests us, we will not waver. Now. I think we've touched
54:17
on the question of whether we are actually in a position to fight any kind
54:22
of war or not earlier in the program. But the point is that obviously
54:30
two days of foreign minister meetings in Brussels all about how they would support Ukraine
54:37
and so on over the last two days, and one of the things that
54:39
they have wanted to do is to move the running of the support for Ukreate
54:49
into NATO itself, and the United States isn't quite so happy about that.
54:53
So let's just bring mister Blincoln on screen, as he explains, Tree represented
55:00
here at NATO remains rock solid. Will do everything that we can, Allies
55:08
will do everything that they can to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to
55:14
continue to deal with Russia's ongoing aggression. Ukraine will become a member of NATO.
55:20
Our purpose at the summit is to help build a bridge to that membership.
55:28
So he's prepared to go that far and say that Ukraine will become a
55:30
member of NATO, but Stollenberg was wanted to go further. He said,
55:34
today allies have agreed to move forward with planning for GRIDDO NATO role and coordinating
55:37
security assistance and training. And of course we were talking about this on Wednesday.
55:44
This takes NATO potentially into direct conflict with Russia. So if we put
55:50
that back on for a second, then John Kirby had this to say,
55:54
it's bigger than NATO, this effort to move coordination role into NATO. He
56:01
said that there are fifty some ord nations around the world, including a Theando
56:06
Pacific involved in supporting Ukraine, and what brought them together was American leadership.
56:12
So America not quite ready to seed this par to Brussels just yet, but
56:19
it was left up to the Hungarian Foreign minister to talk a bit of sense
56:23
here. He said that now proposals have been put forward which unfortunately carry the
56:28
threat of NATO crossing red lines and NATO maybe closer to this war than ever
56:32
before. So some descent from within Europe, some descent from the United States,
56:38
but Stoltenberg and the EU sort of elites very much wanting to see NATO
56:46
taking a much more hands on role with the whole Ukraine conflict. As for
56:52
Russia themselves, this is what the Ministry of Defense was saying. The Kiev
56:57
regime does nothing without the approval of its Western curators. And now he was
57:01
speaking here to the Russian Defense minister. They were speaking to the Russian Defense
57:07
Minister, and they were really wanting to reinforce the point with respect to the
57:12
French talking about putting boots on the ground in Ukraine, that they trusted French
57:17
special services were not involved in any of the recent events around Ukraine, and
57:23
particularly with respect to the business in the terrorist attack in Moscow. So anyway,
57:32
the last two days in Brussels have been not quite as united as they
57:37
were hoping for. Perhaps, but we've all got to applaud seventy five years
57:42
of NATO, because goodness knows, we would be in a much less safe
57:45
place if it weren't for that organization, wouldn't we be now? Another organization
57:51
that makes us extremely safe, of course, is the City of London,
57:53
So let's just end with this. To create a more sustainable, diverse and
58:32
competitive City Corporation, we need a plan and to deliver that plan, we
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need our people to grow and that is why we have our new Corporate Plan
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and our first New People Strategy, which are intrinsically linked to guide what we
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do, how we do it and why we do it, whilst putting our
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most important asset, you, our people, at the heart of all we
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do. Thousands of you have engaged in developing these essential pieces of work by
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which the City Corporation will live and breathe, and because of this, we
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now have the strongest possible foundations on which to build our future success and support
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committed to positive challenge, learning all the way through collaboration, through culture,
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you have helped shape, our powerful goog will be unstoppable in the City London,
59:54
the UK and beyond. So thanks to all of you, each and
1:00:00
every one of you. And here's to our fantastic five years ahead and beyond.
1:00:07
So Ben tell us about this five year corporate plan because the music was
1:00:10
rising, right, Yeah, City of London, the movie, the Five
1:00:17
Year Plan. I mean the main thing that jumped out me about this it
1:00:21
is like this, this is the end point of DEI, right, so
1:00:23
diversity, equity inclusion. You know they use all the bud words, the
1:00:29
buzzwords in there. You see this a lot at the moment. It's been
1:00:31
going on for a few years, but I thought this was like the absolute
1:00:34
zenith of this whole thing. Right, You've got the City of London,
1:00:37
it's the belly of the beast. It's the center of a global network of
1:00:40
corruption that's existed for centuries. And what are they doing. They're coming out
1:00:46
with a propaganda film with let's be honest, some ethnically diverse people and some
1:00:52
women. They saved all the white men to the end. They've got a
1:00:55
new chief executive who is uh, who would probably describe himself as a black
1:01:00
man. I don't like using this terminology, right, but unfortunately we ventured
1:01:05
into this territory, so we're going to have to talk about it a little
1:01:07
bit. And this is now being used as a word of burnishing the reputation
1:01:10
of this institution. It shouldn't exist, right, but it's issuing a five
1:01:15
year plan talking about it sustainable future. And yeah, I just think it's
1:01:20
an incredibly cynical piece of communication from them. We know they're up to well.
1:01:24
Indeed, maybe we'll have a little bit more about that next week,
1:01:27
but Stalin would be pride anyway. We should leave it there for today.
1:01:31
I'm going to say thank you very much to Ben and Debbie for joining me,
1:01:36
and thank you all for watching. We will be back in a few
1:01:38
minutes for some extra with as I said, a couple of special guests.
1:01:44
We'll see you there. But if you're not a UK col number and you
1:01:45
can't join us for that, have a great weekend. We'll see it on
1:01:50
Monday at one pm as usual,