Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News — 14th January 2026

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UK Column News — 14th January 2026 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, the fourteenth of January twenty twenty sixth,
0:11
Speaker 1: just after one o'clock. Welcome to UK column News. I'm
0:14
Speaker 1: your host Mike Robinson joining me in the studio today.
0:16
Speaker 1: Charles Mallett, Welcome to the program. Charles, you back, and
0:18
Speaker 1: Vanessa Billy joined us by video link. Later in the program,
0:21
Speaker 1: Alex Krill will be joining us to discuss the censorship
0:24
Speaker 1: on Substack, which Vanessa reported on last week. I'll be
0:28
Speaker 1: looking at allegations of foreign interference by Iran and China
0:31
Speaker 1: and the claim to climb down on digital ID by
0:33
Speaker 1: the Starmer regime. And Charles will be investigating extremism in
0:37
Speaker 1: the UK. But we're going to begin with Iran.
0:40
Speaker 2: Vanessa, we are repeat a spin cycle yet again. We
0:46
Speaker 2: see the repeat of the kind of Arab spring narratives,
0:50
Speaker 2: but also the same narratives that were used to destabilize
0:54
Speaker 2: Ukraine back in twenty fourteen. But I just wanted to
0:58
Speaker 2: start with I'm sure people don't need it of the
1:02
Speaker 2: violence being meted out against civilians and anti genocide protesters.
1:08
Speaker 2: This is in Germany. Just very quick show of that.
1:11
Speaker 2: But of course we're seeing similar videos being disseminated from
1:16
Speaker 2: throughout the EU and the UK. And then of course
1:21
Speaker 2: Palestine Action direct action group activist group that targeted albert
1:29
Speaker 2: Is really weaponry systems in the UK and who are
1:33
Speaker 2: now a number of them incarcerated basically by the British
1:38
Speaker 2: regime beyond their remand period and waiting for trial dates.
1:46
Speaker 2: If we can just.
1:47
Speaker 1: Have the.
1:50
Speaker 2: Sorry, the screen on Palestine hunger strikers near death intent
1:57
Speaker 2: on continuing protests. Now, of course this is Hebrew Maraisi
2:01
Speaker 2: and Cameran Ahmed. Now, heybuy's on seventy two days, which
2:06
Speaker 2: is beyond even the nineteen eighty one Bobby Sands hunger
2:10
Speaker 2: strike which was sixty six days when he died in
2:15
Speaker 2: British custody. So very frightening that the British government is
2:18
Speaker 2: effectively allowing these young people to die under British incarceration
2:24
Speaker 2: when all they were doing were protesting genocide. When one
2:28
Speaker 2: compares that to the narratives coming out of British media
2:31
Speaker 2: and the British regime, the EU and the US targeting
2:35
Speaker 2: Iran for legitimately putting down externally fermented riots and attacks
2:43
Speaker 2: on civilians inside Iran. Yet again, of course mirroring what
2:47
Speaker 2: happened back in twenty twenty two with the very much
2:52
Speaker 2: exploited death of Massa Amini, who didn't die under torture
2:58
Speaker 2: or abuse, but was taken to hospital and.
3:00
Speaker 1: Died there from heart problems.
3:02
Speaker 2: So let's have a look at basically what Trump has
3:05
Speaker 2: been saying. Of course, he's coming out with make Iran
3:09
Speaker 2: great again. He's saying to the protesters to keep protesting,
3:14
Speaker 2: take over the institutions. And Larajani, who's basically the National
3:20
Speaker 2: Security Council heard, has said, we declare the names of
3:24
Speaker 2: the main killers of the people of Iran. Of course,
3:26
Speaker 2: Trump and Natanyahu, Mossad of course proven to have been
3:31
Speaker 2: behind many of the protests and weaponizing the rioters against Iran.
3:39
Speaker 2: And then I'll come on to a couple of other
3:41
Speaker 2: points towards the end. But if we then look at
3:45
Speaker 2: what Trump is trying to orchestrate, and of course now
3:48
Speaker 2: the British and the EU are joining in effect of immediately,
3:52
Speaker 2: any country doing business with the Islamic public of Iran
3:55
Speaker 2: will pay a tariff of twenty five percent on any
3:58
Speaker 2: and all business being done with the This order is
4:01
Speaker 2: final and conclusive. Thank you for attention to this matter.
4:07
Speaker 2: So what does this actually mean? What effect will this
4:09
Speaker 2: have on Iran? Iran has of course lived under sanctioned
4:12
Speaker 2: for some time, but this was put out by RT India.
4:17
Speaker 2: If we just click on the screen, we'll see just
4:21
Speaker 2: the headline there. Iran pulls out of Bricks drills Bricks
4:25
Speaker 2: plus drills at South Africa's request due to pressure from
4:29
Speaker 2: the United States. So bricks countries are effectively getting a
4:32
Speaker 2: bit wobbly at the fact that they might be have
4:36
Speaker 2: imposed upon them the twenty five percent tariffs that Trump
4:39
Speaker 2: is using to collectively punish Iran for resisting attempts to
4:45
Speaker 2: destabilize it from within. Then that's followed up by reports
4:50
Speaker 2: I think this was in the Globe and Mail saying
4:53
Speaker 2: that Iran actually defied pressure to withdraw from the Brick's
4:56
Speaker 2: military exercise in Cape Town, and one of its naval
5:00
Speaker 2: vessels was seen to be joining the other bricks vessels
5:05
Speaker 2: to take part in the drills. That's not yet fully confirmed,
5:09
Speaker 2: but it appears that Iran is itself refusing to back
5:13
Speaker 2: down despite a certain degree of weakness from within bricks itself. Then,
5:18
Speaker 2: of course, what the Western media is not going to
5:21
Speaker 2: show you as it did in Syria, it never showed
5:24
Speaker 2: in twenty eleven, when the regime change war began against Syria,
5:29
Speaker 2: it never showed you the hundreds of thousands that went
5:34
Speaker 2: out on the streets to support President A Sad and
5:38
Speaker 2: the Syrian Arabami And again in Tehran more than three
5:42
Speaker 2: million people were reported to have gone out onto the streets,
5:45
Speaker 2: and those protests in favor of the Iranian government and
5:51
Speaker 2: the IRGC and the security forces were seen basically across
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Speaker 2: the country. Then, of course the BBC is as always
6:01
Speaker 2: supporting the narrative of the bringing down of the Iranian
6:07
Speaker 2: in speech marks regime of course always used to denigrate
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Speaker 2: a target country, and this is BBC Verify. The video itself,
6:16
Speaker 2: which is only about a minute and a half, will
6:18
Speaker 2: be in the show notes. They talk about mortuary videos
6:22
Speaker 2: showing the aftermath of the attacks by the Iranian forces.
6:30
Speaker 2: Now in the report itself, the disinfo babe, the latest
6:34
Speaker 2: disinfobabe from the BBC, is talking about having had supplied
6:38
Speaker 2: to them videos of mortuaries with body bags and so on,
6:41
Speaker 2: and of course they're claiming that those are civilians that
6:44
Speaker 2: were killed by the security forces. As the BBC has
6:48
Speaker 2: always done supported the narratives that are being used to
6:52
Speaker 2: destabilize target countries. We saw exactly the same thing in Syria,
6:57
Speaker 2: and so I've just included a short report from a
7:00
Speaker 2: forensic doctor in Iran who actually went to the same
7:04
Speaker 2: mode that the BBC is talking about and gave this
7:07
Speaker 2: report on the bodies that he examined, which he said
7:11
Speaker 2: were being shot by snipers placed on the roofs surrounding
7:15
Speaker 2: the streets where the rioters were carrying out attacks against civilians.
7:20
Speaker 2: So let's just have a look at.
7:21
Speaker 3: This as sad as in case Tandos.
8:07
Speaker 2: So there's a lot to unpack about these actions taken
8:11
Speaker 2: by both externally supported and internal protesters, but we can
8:16
Speaker 2: perhaps go into greater detail.
8:18
Speaker 1: In extra Yes, we can thank you for that. Foredessa,
8:22
Speaker 1: well let's come back to the UK. It's still related
8:25
Speaker 1: to Iran. But this article in the Scottish Herald is
8:29
Speaker 1: carrying a headline here the Network of Scottish ex account
8:35
Speaker 1: school dark amid Iran blackout, and they're saying ex accounts
8:39
Speaker 1: linked to Iran have gone dark after an Internet blackout
8:42
Speaker 1: was imposed on the West Asian nation. The silence from
8:47
Speaker 1: the group of accounts which began on Thursday said comes
8:51
Speaker 1: as widespread protests against the leadership of the Islamic Republic.
8:55
Speaker 1: Now they talk about a network of fake accounts with
8:58
Speaker 1: names like Fiona, Jake and Lucy, all being quiet since
9:03
Speaker 1: the uprising in Iran began. But these accounts appear to
9:07
Speaker 1: be based in Europe, they say because of VPN use,
9:11
Speaker 1: so we can see on screen here some examples of
9:14
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. Jake claimed that the top BBC
9:16
Speaker 1: anchor resigned on air and was immediately detained by security
9:19
Speaker 1: services are saying that these tweets became much more extreme
9:23
Speaker 1: in the run up to the activity in Iran and
9:27
Speaker 1: then went dark. Meanwhile, Fiona said that protestors have seized
9:30
Speaker 1: ball moral state and international markets are dumping UK assets
9:35
Speaker 1: as images of tanks in Edinburgh go viral and so on.
9:38
Speaker 1: So this is what it's all about it now apparently
9:40
Speaker 1: these are really Iranian accounts were established to set up
9:45
Speaker 1: to campaign for Scottish Independent so you may ask why,
9:49
Speaker 1: but we'll come on to that in a second. And
9:51
Speaker 1: the article claims in the post from these accounts, as
9:53
Speaker 1: I say, became much more extreme in the run up
9:56
Speaker 1: to this. So what was interesting that they quoted this
10:01
Speaker 1: company here Sayabra, which is claimed to be a disinformation
10:08
Speaker 1: uncovering good, bad content fake content online the disinformation discovery organization.
10:17
Speaker 1: But the problem about this is that, well who is
10:21
Speaker 1: it and who's behind it? So Sabra in fact claims
10:26
Speaker 1: that they discovered twenty six percent of profiles discussing Scottish
10:31
Speaker 1: independence were fake on Twitter. But this is who they are.
10:34
Speaker 1: They are an AI part disinformation detection and social threat
10:39
Speaker 1: intelligence platform headquartered in Tel Aviv in Israel. They were
10:43
Speaker 1: founded in twenty seventeen and their positions they described themselves
10:47
Speaker 1: as being a leader in combating online disinformation, fake profiles,
10:51
Speaker 1: and AI generated content across social media platforms. They were
10:55
Speaker 1: founded by their Chief Executive, Dan Brahmy, their CEO Yosef
11:00
Speaker 1: dar and the CTO Ido Shraga. All of them have
11:03
Speaker 1: backgrounds in Israeli military intelligence. So Brani Brami, for example,
11:08
Speaker 1: was former IDF shooting and combat instructor and previously a
11:12
Speaker 1: strategy consultant that Deloitte. Darr was a longtime veteran of
11:17
Speaker 1: Unit eighty two hundred. He served from twenty four to
11:20
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen and he became head of department. Shraga was
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Speaker 1: a former cybersystems engineer at the IDF. And if we
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Speaker 1: just bring Dan Bramy on screen here, this is how
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Speaker 1: he's quoted on their website. Our proprietary technology, developed by
11:37
Speaker 1: senior veterans from the Israeli Special Operations Command, allows us
11:41
Speaker 1: to use sophisticated algorithms and advanced data analytics to determine
11:46
Speaker 1: when automated bots are being used to spread lies across
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Speaker 1: social media platforms. And in twenty twenty four, in January
11:53
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, in fact, they added Mike Pompeio to
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Speaker 1: their list, to their board, so this is all good stuff.
12:00
Speaker 1: Question Fanessa is is this an Iranian effort to influence
12:03
Speaker 1: Scottish independent or independence or is it an is really
12:07
Speaker 1: operational to operation to reinforce the idea of foreign interference
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Speaker 1: by Iran. And another question that comes to mind is
12:14
Speaker 1: did these accounts go dark because a bunch of Iranians
12:17
Speaker 1: were disconnected from the Internet as part of the crackdown
12:20
Speaker 1: on the uprising there or did they go dark because
12:23
Speaker 1: it is really operatives time their activities with what was
12:27
Speaker 1: going on in Iran. And you know, many of the
12:31
Speaker 1: employees of this company have been recruited from or have
12:34
Speaker 1: backgrounds in unity. They two hundred and other intelligence is
12:37
Speaker 1: really intelligence units. So is this a service, I'm sorry,
12:43
Speaker 1: a post service, private enterprise, or is it an ongoing
12:46
Speaker 1: is really intelligence operation? I mean, I don't know the
12:49
Speaker 1: answer these questions, but the whole thing doesn't smell the
12:52
Speaker 1: best as far as I can see. I just would
12:54
Speaker 1: be interested in your thoughts.
12:58
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I've got no idea why would
13:00
Speaker 2: want to interfere in Scottish affairs.
13:04
Speaker 4: That's not number one.
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Speaker 2: So it seems to me far more likely that it's
13:07
Speaker 2: to be a Zionist hand or a Unit eight two
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Speaker 2: hundred behind that the personalities that have been described in
13:19
Speaker 2: order to give the impression that Iran is trying to
13:24
Speaker 2: interfere in affairs in the UK and you know elsewhere.
13:30
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's very hard to say definitively, but almost
13:35
Speaker 2: certainly I would say Unit eight two hundred is behind this.
13:40
Speaker 2: And I don't think the blackout, I mean the blackout.
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Speaker 2: When you talk about a blackout in Iran, people forget
13:45
Speaker 2: that Israel also imposed a blackout when it was under
13:48
Speaker 2: attack from Iran. But of course the BBC ETAL don't
13:52
Speaker 2: mention that, they don't make any comparison. It's just Iran
13:55
Speaker 2: is cracking down on communication because it wants to violently
14:02
Speaker 2: put down the protests, right. But the reality is, of
14:06
Speaker 2: course Iran is protecting itself, just as you could say
14:09
Speaker 2: Israel was protecting itself from bad press when it was
14:13
Speaker 2: under attack from Iran.
14:15
Speaker 5: The any thoughts on this, well, I mean, I would
14:18
Speaker 5: agree that it does look like it's coming from one
14:20
Speaker 5: particular direction, and that's certainly not Iran. But of course
14:23
Speaker 5: this is greatly to the advantage of the Security Minister here,
14:28
Speaker 5: Dan Jarvis, because of course Iran last year was the
14:32
Speaker 5: central character in his foreign interference sort of narrative, and
14:36
Speaker 5: it was at that time that the particularly information surrounding
14:40
Speaker 5: sort of nuclear weapons and Iranian spies and all that
14:43
Speaker 5: kind of thing was going on.
14:44
Speaker 1: So I think this works.
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Speaker 5: You know, this works to a number of people's advantage,
14:49
Speaker 5: and you know, in the information sharing age, and I'm
14:52
Speaker 5: talking between intelligence agencies and governments, it's not impossible to
14:56
Speaker 5: imagine that if this was coming from Israel, the UK
14:59
Speaker 5: administration would also be aware, obbed.
15:02
Speaker 1: Well, sticking with disinformation, yeah, and so on in a sense,
15:06
Speaker 1: but also extremism. Then Charles we are.
15:09
Speaker 5: Yes, Well, I mean that they're one and the same
15:11
Speaker 5: thing at least, so they're being cast at the moment.
15:13
Speaker 5: Now the latest really is what might be described as
15:16
Speaker 5: a thinly veiled attack on family cohesion, but children in particular,
15:20
Speaker 5: and this is via an organization called shout Out UK
15:24
Speaker 5: which within the administrative area of Hull and East Riding
15:29
Speaker 5: has been dressed up as an educational resource. Now they
15:32
Speaker 5: say that they are countering disinformation through political and media literacy.
15:37
Speaker 5: They also make a strong point of saying they don't
15:39
Speaker 5: receive funding from anywhere else. Of course you read the
15:42
Speaker 5: fine print, and in actual fact they are able to
15:45
Speaker 5: bid for government contracts and indeed have had money coming
15:48
Speaker 5: in from government to deal with propaganda. Now one considers
15:53
Speaker 5: exactly which direction that's going to go in. It makes
15:56
Speaker 5: that the next bit makes sense, which is a gay
16:00
Speaker 5: or at least it's being referred to as a game
16:03
Speaker 5: of sorts, a free youth centered interactive learning package effectively
16:07
Speaker 5: pointing people towards prevent and helping young folk how to
16:13
Speaker 5: identify harmful content and more importantly what to do about it,
16:18
Speaker 5: and of course is being dressed up as being educational.
16:22
Speaker 5: Now I went through the first question puts to the
16:28
Speaker 5: player of the game, which is that you come across
16:31
Speaker 5: a video online and you're not quite sure about it,
16:34
Speaker 5: So I'll just go through the options teletrusted adult, talk
16:37
Speaker 5: to a stranger online to find out more about the video,
16:41
Speaker 5: or download the video. Now, what I would say that
16:44
Speaker 5: comes out of that, absolutely immediately is that it's stripping
16:46
Speaker 5: away from the person learning about this, that they have
16:51
Speaker 5: no agency, responsibility or indeed critical thinking. You have to
16:55
Speaker 5: do something that involves either behaving like an idiot or
17:00
Speaker 5: to relying on somebody else. And this actually pertains very
17:03
Speaker 5: much to what Ben was reporting on Monday, and this
17:06
Speaker 5: network of adults that children can get in touch with
17:09
Speaker 5: if they're not allowed to trust their own judgment. Anyway,
17:12
Speaker 5: if you choose the wrong option, you then get masses
17:14
Speaker 5: of people going crazy about how much they really enjoyed
17:18
Speaker 5: that video that you posted. And then, of course your
17:21
Speaker 5: conscience is supposed to kick in, and we are told
17:24
Speaker 5: that Charlie wasn't sure if this was the right thing
17:26
Speaker 5: to do. Some of the ideas in the video were
17:29
Speaker 5: extreme and violent. And the next thing is it does
17:31
Speaker 5: spiral downwards quite quickly and within a very short space
17:34
Speaker 5: of time, you're reminded, it's important to remember that downloading
17:38
Speaker 5: or streaming certain content can lead to a terrorist offense conviction.
17:44
Speaker 5: And so what this is doing here is absolutely cementing
17:47
Speaker 5: that direct link between the use of or the passage
17:51
Speaker 5: of information and terrorism via what's being described as extremism.
17:55
Speaker 5: And just a reminder that, of course, when extremism was
17:58
Speaker 5: reworded by Michael Gove two years ago, it paralleled almost
18:02
Speaker 5: exactly with that written up by the Soviet Union one
18:06
Speaker 5: hundred years previously. Now, the next point to make on
18:11
Speaker 5: this is that a year ago at least Reform, the
18:15
Speaker 5: Reform Party Reform UK were up in arms about what
18:19
Speaker 5: Prevent was doing, and they were saying that they were
18:22
Speaker 5: concerned about two tier policing or grooming gangs. Now, in
18:26
Speaker 5: some respects, of course, Prevent does help with the Reform
18:31
Speaker 5: Party narrative, at least specifically on migration and the specter
18:35
Speaker 5: of terror. And so considering that we should just take
18:40
Speaker 5: a quick look at the video of the latest member
18:44
Speaker 5: of Reform to join the party.
18:48
Speaker 6: Hello, Tony's from the Telegraph, missus Ahawi on this point
18:51
Speaker 6: about COVID vaccines, I hear the point about free speech,
18:54
Speaker 6: but that the doctor previously mentioned told Reforms conference that
18:57
Speaker 6: the vaccines that you rolled out may have caused the
18:59
Speaker 6: King cancer and he was described by David Bull as
19:02
Speaker 6: someone who worked with him to write reforms health policy.
19:05
Speaker 6: So do you reject those views and if they have
19:08
Speaker 6: shaped reforms health policy, will you try to change it?
19:11
Speaker 7: I think you'll find David Bill actually spoke about vaccines
19:13
Speaker 7: on Friday night at our event that we held down
19:16
Speaker 7: at the Excel Center with just Shia three thousand people
19:20
Speaker 7: launching our London campaign. And I think you'll find if
19:23
Speaker 7: you look at what Dr David Bull, our chairman, said,
19:26
Speaker 7: how proud he was of the work actually for centuries
19:29
Speaker 7: that London had done and led the way in with vaccines.
19:32
Speaker 7: And as name said previously, we get all sorts of
19:35
Speaker 7: speakers from all over the world.
19:37
Speaker 1: Some of them have different opinions. Can I just from
19:39
Speaker 1: Tony please?
19:40
Speaker 4: I expected more from you?
19:42
Speaker 8: Right?
19:42
Speaker 7: That was a really stupid question, right, and it doesn't
19:45
Speaker 7: even deserve an answer to try again next time? Right?
19:51
Speaker 5: So leading from Niger frash, but that's Nadim Zahawi who
19:54
Speaker 5: was the vaccines minister during the COVID tyranny. And it
19:58
Speaker 5: comes across there as somebody who is not really able
20:00
Speaker 5: to manage himself appropriately with some sense of decorum would
20:05
Speaker 5: have been appropriate in that situation. Not really a very
20:08
Speaker 5: pleasant response to that man there. But we therefore consider
20:12
Speaker 5: this defection to reform. So if we just pot that
20:16
Speaker 5: on screen, now Zahawi himself, and how does this look
20:22
Speaker 5: to the supporter of reform, what is the direction of
20:25
Speaker 5: travel that Zahawi a friend of Israel himself whilst with
20:31
Speaker 5: the Conservative Party. This suggests really I would say that
20:36
Speaker 5: the narrative that's being promulgated by reform, which is that
20:42
Speaker 5: the specter of terror is never far away. It is
20:45
Speaker 5: the fault of migrants who aren't large or at least
20:49
Speaker 5: the ones that we should be concerned about are Brian
20:51
Speaker 5: skinned and Muslim. And indeed, I will go on to
20:55
Speaker 5: substantiate that, not least because Zahawi himself tweeting back in
20:58
Speaker 5: twenty twenty two congratulating Natanyahu on his election victory and
21:02
Speaker 5: reinforcing the point that UK and Israel are great friends.
21:06
Speaker 5: Well that might seem innocuous enough. The rhetoric on either
21:11
Speaker 5: support for Israel or indeed taking the view against Iran
21:17
Speaker 5: was stepped up last summer with a tweet from Reform
21:20
Speaker 5: saying Reform UK stands behind the military actions of the USA.
21:23
Speaker 5: Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons and
21:26
Speaker 5: the future of Israel depends upon it now. Back in October,
21:30
Speaker 5: I reported that Richard Tice had spent time in Israel
21:33
Speaker 5: and this is just a quote from an article he
21:36
Speaker 5: wrote in The Conservative Woman back then about the reports
21:42
Speaker 5: of famine, which he's described as being a blatant lie,
21:45
Speaker 5: saying it's all considerably more nuanced than the BBC, Sky
21:47
Speaker 5: and other mainstream news outlets carry breathless reports about starving children,
21:52
Speaker 5: seek to imply, so this is all adding up to
21:57
Speaker 5: going in a particular direction, especially whereas between Iran and
22:01
Speaker 5: Israel concern to It is therefore pertinent that Nigel Faras
22:04
Speaker 5: went to the Iranian embassy in London earlier this week
22:07
Speaker 5: and this is what he said whilst he was there.
22:13
Speaker 7: Well, I've just been there with the protest outside the
22:15
Speaker 7: raid of embassy. Quite tough, quite tough, you know, women,
22:22
Speaker 7: they're in tears home heeving members missing, very real beautiful
22:28
Speaker 7: Persian people.
22:30
Speaker 9: You wonderful beet well you freedom by don't this time?
22:34
Speaker 7: Aren't we gonna win?
22:37
Speaker 9: We're gonna win. You've got to believe that this is
22:41
Speaker 9: the moment freedom loving people of this great country leaves
22:46
Speaker 9: your help. Let's win, Let's make this revolution. Freedom for Iran,
22:51
Speaker 9: freedom for Persia.
23:00
Speaker 7: Whype up the British government to see this is the
23:03
Speaker 7: most appalling regime it's been there over forty years. They've
23:06
Speaker 7: got to go. Why don't we help them? Do it?
23:08
Speaker 7: Breathe a wonderful Iranian Persian brievement.
23:15
Speaker 5: So Nigel Faras hoping to score a lot of political
23:18
Speaker 5: capital there. There's definitely something else going on in the background,
23:20
Speaker 5: and it's worth pointing out also this is very much
23:23
Speaker 5: a change of tune from Farage. We look at a
23:26
Speaker 5: report back in twenty thirteen, Faras talking about love bombing Iran,
23:31
Speaker 5: saying that concluding a piece there saying I'm not coming
23:35
Speaker 5: here like everybody else to be falling to the Jewish community,
23:38
Speaker 5: saying you're the most important group of people in the country,
23:41
Speaker 5: although you may be now. The way the direction this
23:45
Speaker 5: is pointing was articulated to press conference of his earlier
23:48
Speaker 5: this week's we just have a look at what he
23:49
Speaker 5: said as that conference opened.
23:53
Speaker 7: Before the main events today. A couple of quick comments,
23:56
Speaker 7: I am quite a good friend of Razor Polavi. What
24:00
Speaker 7: the final settlement would be in Iran if this revolution succeeds,
24:05
Speaker 7: I don't know, but I do believe him to be
24:07
Speaker 7: a positive and helpful influence. It is obviously tragic that
24:11
Speaker 7: so many people have been killed over the last few days,
24:14
Speaker 7: wholly unsurprising, and perhaps a lot of the silence we
24:19
Speaker 7: get from our establishment is of course because they all
24:22
Speaker 7: backed the JCPOA deal back in twenty fifteen, which I
24:26
Speaker 7: was vehemently opposed to, which frankly, has done nothing more
24:30
Speaker 7: than prolong the life of this absolutely monstrous regime.
24:37
Speaker 5: So Faraja expressing his support for Rizapolavi, the xle crime Prince,
24:41
Speaker 5: the son of the late Shah of Iran. Now, the
24:43
Speaker 5: reason this is relevant is because of a piece put
24:46
Speaker 5: up by Haret recently, in fact just a couple of
24:49
Speaker 5: days ago, talking about the Israeli influence in terms of
24:53
Speaker 5: the campaign to install Pilava and what they've identified here,
24:56
Speaker 5: which relates exactly back to what Mike's just been talking about,
25:00
Speaker 5: out that a large scale digital influence campaign in Persian
25:03
Speaker 5: was underway, operated out of Israel and funded by a
25:05
Speaker 5: private entity that receives government support, and it goes on
25:10
Speaker 5: to say the campaign promotes Pelavi's public image and amplifies
25:13
Speaker 5: calls for restoring the monarchy. The campaign relies on avatars
25:16
Speaker 5: fake online personas posing as Iranian citizens on social media.
25:21
Speaker 5: They were first discovered by social media researchers in Israel
25:24
Speaker 5: and abroad. So the journey that we're sort of weaving
25:28
Speaker 5: here from the beginnings of extremism in the UK go
25:31
Speaker 5: absolutely straight through reform policy and indeed to exerting influence
25:36
Speaker 5: on behalf of Israel where Iran is concerned. I mean,
25:40
Speaker 5: I'm sorry they we've gone a bit of it on time,
25:42
Speaker 5: but I would be interested to hear Vanessa's points of view,
25:45
Speaker 5: or specifically on the last bit about per Lava and
25:48
Speaker 5: the sort of campaign to support him and where that's
25:51
Speaker 5: come from, where that's likely to go.
25:55
Speaker 9: Well.
25:55
Speaker 2: Of course, the Polavi campaign is related to the former
25:59
Speaker 2: Shah of Iran, and that was a former CIA British
26:02
Speaker 2: coup because Prime Minister Mosedek had dead to nationalize oil
26:10
Speaker 2: resources in Iran and so therefore he had to be
26:13
Speaker 2: got rid of in order for the Shah to come
26:16
Speaker 2: in with his dictatorship backed by the US and the
26:20
Speaker 2: UK in order to reopen oil supply to both countries,
26:24
Speaker 2: but particularly to what is now BP British Petroleum.
26:31
Speaker 1: It never the script never changes then as well, absolutely
26:35
Speaker 1: point yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway more an extra yes, definitely. Okay,
26:40
Speaker 1: Well let's move on then to Substack and the censorship.
26:43
Speaker 5: There we will, which is an extension of Vanessa's report
26:45
Speaker 5: from last week relating to censorship. And as Mike pointed
26:49
Speaker 5: out beginning of the program, we have Alex Creole on
26:53
Speaker 5: the program with us today. We just look at the
26:55
Speaker 5: letter that he sent to Substack recently, which Vanessa is
26:59
Speaker 5: a co signet too, and it's to the chief executive.
27:03
Speaker 5: Obviously it's been there a week now. So my first
27:08
Speaker 5: point Alex obviously you know, very welcome to UK column again.
27:11
Speaker 5: Good to see you. Now, just give us a bit
27:15
Speaker 5: of background. What was it that prompted you to write
27:17
Speaker 5: the letter and what were the main points that you
27:19
Speaker 5: were putting across in it.
27:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
27:23
Speaker 4: So I was prompted to write the letter because we
27:27
Speaker 4: had feedback from some of our subscribers across different authors
27:33
Speaker 4: that they were being challenged with age verification to access
27:38
Speaker 4: our content. And you know immediately that seems strange because
27:43
Speaker 4: age verification is only required for accessing harmful content, which
27:49
Speaker 4: is essentially pornography and information on committing self harm. So
27:55
Speaker 4: to me, it was completely insane, frankly that people were
27:59
Speaker 4: being changed menage to verify their age in order to
28:02
Speaker 4: read our writings about sort of current affairs. And you know,
28:07
Speaker 4: with a little bit of talking across substack, it became
28:11
Speaker 4: pretty clear that that experience was repeated for a number
28:16
Speaker 4: of authors, a number of accounts they also saw their
28:21
Speaker 4: readers being challenged for age verification, and that was the
28:25
Speaker 4: same I think for Vanessa and other accounts also confirmed
28:30
Speaker 4: that so Geopolitics and Empire James Delingpole and Doc Malik
28:36
Speaker 4: also had got this feedback from their subscribers that they're
28:41
Speaker 4: being challenged. And what we all saw of all of
28:43
Speaker 4: us was a very significant drop in our paid subscriber numbers.
28:49
Speaker 4: Mine started in about November or maybe even end of October.
28:54
Speaker 4: Every single day you're seeing an outflow of paid subscribers.
28:59
Speaker 4: At the same time, you know you've enjoyed years of growth,
29:03
Speaker 4: or you're seeing growth in unpaid subscribers, but the paid
29:06
Speaker 4: subscribers were just leaving every single day without any exception.
29:12
Speaker 4: I mean, every day you would log it and see
29:14
Speaker 4: how many had gone, and it's gone to about twenty
29:16
Speaker 4: percent at the moment. So what we did, I thought
29:20
Speaker 4: collectively we could write so across our group it's about
29:25
Speaker 4: sixty thousand subscribers. And I wrote to the CEO and said,
29:29
Speaker 4: you're not actually authorized to challenge people to verify their
29:35
Speaker 4: ages unless they're trying to access harmful material, and actually
29:41
Speaker 4: Offcom for all its faults, makes it clear that there
29:44
Speaker 4: is absolutely no legal requirement and no way you can
29:48
Speaker 4: require people to verify their age to access content that
29:53
Speaker 4: is not harmful. So Substack is behaving completely inappropriately, and
29:58
Speaker 4: they're using the requirements of the UK Online Safety Act
30:03
Speaker 4: as an excuse because the real problem is their classification
30:07
Speaker 4: of our material as potentially harmful, being pornography or information
30:12
Speaker 4: about self harm. So this is an internal Substack problem
30:17
Speaker 4: that seems to affect only a very sort of specific
30:21
Speaker 4: group of accounts, some of which are here today. You know,
30:24
Speaker 4: any kind of off narrative authors are being attacked with
30:30
Speaker 4: this imposition, which doesn't seem to apply because as a
30:33
Speaker 4: user I can access kind of normal authors without any
30:39
Speaker 4: age challenge. So this seems to be only applied to
30:43
Speaker 4: a sort of tight group of dissident kind of authors,
30:47
Speaker 4: and that's what we've challenged them on, and so far
30:51
Speaker 4: we haven't heard back from them, but this experience we're
30:55
Speaker 4: having is shared by a number of other authors as well.
31:00
Speaker 1: Thanks for that.
31:01
Speaker 5: Now, obviously, as you say you haven't had a response,
31:04
Speaker 5: I mean, what are the parameters within which you think
31:08
Speaker 5: a response should be framed. What do you expect to
31:11
Speaker 5: get back.
31:13
Speaker 4: I expect to get back probably that they made a mistake,
31:17
Speaker 4: because they do envisage in their own documentation that you
31:20
Speaker 4: can be mis classified and if you've been misclassified, just
31:25
Speaker 4: fill out this box and we'll reclassify you. So I
31:29
Speaker 4: think they will do that. But I don't think that
31:31
Speaker 4: was really enough, because that they've actually caused considerable sort
31:37
Speaker 4: of financial pain if you added up across the whole
31:40
Speaker 4: group of authors that have gone on there. As I said,
31:43
Speaker 4: you've seen about a twenty percent decrease in revenue over
31:48
Speaker 4: three months or so, and the only possible reason I
31:51
Speaker 4: can see for that is the imposition of age verification
31:56
Speaker 4: requirements by substack goes completely against the trend. There's also
32:01
Speaker 4: another specter, which is that authors can actually end up
32:05
Speaker 4: being quite severely financially punished by substack because people are
32:10
Speaker 4: being locked out of their substack accounts who are paid subscribers,
32:15
Speaker 4: and then those authors are then being challenged for taking
32:19
Speaker 4: money that they're not providing a service for because the
32:23
Speaker 4: actual subscriber is no longer able to access that author's content,
32:27
Speaker 4: so they're ending up being the authors are ending up
32:30
Speaker 4: being charged all kinds of bank recovery fees. So this
32:34
Speaker 4: can spiral into a big financial penalty for authors on substack.
32:38
Speaker 4: And on one substack author has written about this and
32:42
Speaker 4: he's gone through the maths, it can add up to
32:44
Speaker 4: a lot of money.
32:47
Speaker 1: Yes, Alex, I mean this is a really important point
32:49
Speaker 1: because you know, if I don't know what typical subscription
32:54
Speaker 1: you're asking for, paywork or contributors or people that are
32:57
Speaker 1: writing on substack are asking for. But let's say it's
32:59
Speaker 1: three or five pounds a month or whatever it is,
33:02
Speaker 1: and you end up getting a fifteen or a twenty
33:04
Speaker 1: five pound charge, you know that is that is a
33:08
Speaker 1: big hit and an extremely unfair hit, particularly since, as
33:12
Speaker 1: you say, this is an optional thing for substack.
33:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, and a guy he's called agent one three, one seven,
33:23
Speaker 4: one one, which is not a very catchy title, but
33:26
Speaker 4: he's actually been through maths of how this would work.
33:30
Speaker 4: If you get, you know, three hundred subscribers with this
33:35
Speaker 4: fifteen pound charge, you're into sort of four and a
33:38
Speaker 4: half thousand pounds of charges for the author. And you know, again,
33:44
Speaker 4: as you said, Mike, it's you're being punished for your
33:49
Speaker 4: subscribers walking away due to substack imposition, which they imposed
33:54
Speaker 4: completely inappropriately so and it's the author that ends up
33:58
Speaker 4: being punished since completely outrageous. But that's where we are
34:03
Speaker 4: at the moment.
34:05
Speaker 1: Ada, Mean, what do you think the answer to this is,
34:07
Speaker 1: because because my question would be, should independent journalists, independent
34:13
Speaker 1: authors be using platforms like substack, because you know this
34:18
Speaker 1: is you know, you're relying on a third party who
34:22
Speaker 1: could always become hostile at some point in the future.
34:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great question, and I think opinions are
34:30
Speaker 4: split on that. So obviously, any of these kind of
34:33
Speaker 4: hub hub and spoke centralized systems, you know, the guys
34:38
Speaker 4: in charge of the hub, can can cause you extreme damage.
34:43
Speaker 4: But the other side is, of course it is a
34:45
Speaker 4: good distribution platform and it kind of works better than
34:50
Speaker 4: any other system there is for independent authors to make money,
34:54
Speaker 4: so it's an open question that you know, do you
34:57
Speaker 4: take the risk and get the benefit or do you
35:00
Speaker 4: walk away?
35:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think.
35:03
Speaker 5: Lots more to talk about on that, so we will
35:05
Speaker 5: do so next time. Please say that Alex will remain
35:07
Speaker 5: on for extra so if you remember, you'll get to
35:09
Speaker 5: listen to that Alex Greylan thinking coredition.
35:11
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Yes, thank you, Alex. Okay, Well,
35:15
Speaker 1: if you like what the UK column does and you'd
35:17
Speaker 1: like to support us, the details can be obtained via
35:20
Speaker 1: the front page of the website. Have a look at
35:23
Speaker 1: the click button, the button to click on there if
35:27
Speaker 1: you'd like to find out how you can support us.
35:29
Speaker 1: If you can't support us financially, then please do share
35:32
Speaker 1: content and let's deal with some of the censorship that
35:36
Speaker 1: we're talking about. Just a few minutes ago. Now tonight,
35:40
Speaker 1: Jerrem is speaking to Larry Sanger about Wikipedia, who's suggesting
35:45
Speaker 1: that Wikipedia is a central intelligence and walk Nest. That's
35:48
Speaker 1: a seven pm. Carl is talking about Taiwan again at
35:52
Speaker 1: nine pm, so joined for that, and very briefly, Charles
35:56
Speaker 1: tomorrow you're speaking with Ian Overton.
35:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he's been referenced on the News program by
36:01
Speaker 5: Vanessa in fact a number of times, very interesting conversation
36:04
Speaker 5: about the situations involved involving UK forces in armed conflict,
36:10
Speaker 5: in a lot of situations where they absolutely should not
36:12
Speaker 5: be involved, so really worth tuning into.
36:15
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, and we'll just bring the graphic up
36:18
Speaker 1: here for Abby Roberts Part two, which is at seven pm.
36:23
Speaker 1: This is for members only at seven pm on the
36:24
Speaker 1: UK COLN website. Please do join Jfern for that. Okay,
36:32
Speaker 1: let's move on then and talk about digital ID because
36:39
Speaker 1: this is quite a development here. So here is the
36:45
Speaker 1: BBC News headline, Government drops plans for mandatory digital ID
36:50
Speaker 1: to work in UK and let's just have a look
36:54
Speaker 1: briefly at what they're saying in the report said the
36:57
Speaker 1: government has job plans for requiring workers to sign up
36:59
Speaker 1: to light scheme in order to prove the right to
37:02
Speaker 1: work in the UK by twenty twenty nine. Right to
37:04
Speaker 1: work checks will be done digitally, for example by using
37:06
Speaker 1: biometric passports, but registering with the new digital ID program
37:10
Speaker 1: will be optional. That's my emphasis there. This marks a
37:14
Speaker 1: shift from last year when the government first announced the policy,
37:17
Speaker 1: and Prime Minister Sirkar Starmer told an audience. You will
37:21
Speaker 1: not be able to work in the United Kingdom if
37:23
Speaker 1: you do not have a digital ID. It's as simple
37:25
Speaker 1: as that. Well, let's just have a quick look at
37:28
Speaker 1: some of the responses. Then, So here is kemmy bidknock
37:33
Speaker 1: good ridden. She says it was a terrible policy anyway,
37:36
Speaker 1: Well is it good ridden? We'll talk about that in
37:38
Speaker 1: a second. Here is Zach Polanski from the Green Party
37:43
Speaker 1: the government if you turned on ID cards good. Don't
37:47
Speaker 1: think it's a U turn either. But we'll come on
37:49
Speaker 1: to that as a second as well. And well, this
37:51
Speaker 1: is Nigel Faraja's comment, this is a victory for individual
37:54
Speaker 1: liberty against the ghastly authoritarian government. Reform would scrap it
37:58
Speaker 1: all together. Well it's great that perform with scrap it
38:01
Speaker 1: all together. But you know, Nigel Farage is not pointing
38:04
Speaker 1: out that, in fact, there is no U turn here
38:07
Speaker 1: at all, because what are we looking at. We're looking
38:11
Speaker 1: at the government pulling back a little bit from a position.
38:15
Speaker 1: So the word mandatory is gone, the word voluntary is
38:17
Speaker 1: absolutely still there, the digital ID program is absolutely still there.
38:22
Speaker 1: What have they done? Is this then backtracking again because
38:25
Speaker 1: of the pressure from the campaigners and so on, well,
38:29
Speaker 1: of course it isn't, because if we actually look at
38:31
Speaker 1: the psychological techniques that are at work here, we've got
38:34
Speaker 1: three examples here of what we might be talking about.
38:37
Speaker 1: First of all, the door in the face technique, and
38:40
Speaker 1: I'm going to say rip to Scott Adams here, because
38:42
Speaker 1: of course Dilbert is expressing how this or giving example
38:47
Speaker 1: of how this works. So in the first cartoon here,
38:50
Speaker 1: it's saying that the Gilbert speaking to someone who's saying, oh,
38:54
Speaker 1: my babysitter canceled tonight, Dilbert says, too bad. And in
38:58
Speaker 1: the next frame, hey, I have an eye. Do you
39:00
Speaker 1: like kids? Gilbert says, I'll not watch your kids tonight.
39:04
Speaker 1: And in the third frame that the person says, I
39:07
Speaker 1: was going to ask you to adopt them, and Dilbert says,
39:10
Speaker 1: absolutely not. The best I can do is watch them tonight.
39:13
Speaker 1: So the person gets what they wanted by taking an
39:16
Speaker 1: extreme position and then walking back from it. So we've
39:20
Speaker 1: put that back on screen. Then the next one is
39:22
Speaker 1: the Overton window, and that shifting now. Of course, the
39:25
Speaker 1: Overton window is the idea that things become normalized over
39:29
Speaker 1: time in a step by step way, slowly over time.
39:34
Speaker 1: But of course what Starmer is in a sense doing
39:37
Speaker 1: here is normalizing digital ID by making it voluntary and
39:41
Speaker 1: therefore not something that you have to worry about because
39:44
Speaker 1: you can choose not to accept or not to use it.
39:49
Speaker 1: And then of course we have the contrast effect, which
39:52
Speaker 1: is where we're basically celebrating this big win and we
39:56
Speaker 1: take our guard down as a response. And of course
39:59
Speaker 1: that's exactly where we are at the moment, because anybody
40:02
Speaker 1: that's campaigning on digital ID is going to find it
40:05
Speaker 1: very difficult to get engagement from the general public who
40:10
Speaker 1: and I see it as something that is completely voluntary
40:12
Speaker 1: and they don't have to worry about and the sort
40:15
Speaker 1: of threat to them at this point in time is
40:18
Speaker 1: no longer a thing. And so Charles, we have this
40:21
Speaker 1: situation that they did exactly the same thing with the
40:25
Speaker 1: inheritance tax for farmers, and it's a common theme with
40:30
Speaker 1: governments in the UK to pull this kind of gag.
40:33
Speaker 1: It is effectively a psychological operation on the general public
40:36
Speaker 1: because they end up with what they want at the
40:38
Speaker 1: end of the day.
40:39
Speaker 5: Of course, absolutely, I know we've seen it time and again.
40:42
Speaker 5: I mean it was very much played slightly differently, but
40:44
Speaker 5: during the COVID period where something that seemed very much
40:48
Speaker 5: right of arc was put out there, it was left
40:50
Speaker 5: to sort of settle for a few days and then
40:52
Speaker 5: rode back on slightly and then sure enough there'd be
40:56
Speaker 5: a clamoring for it. I think the other thing to
40:58
Speaker 5: point out with this is, of course that the the
41:00
Speaker 5: number of contracts that are already signed out there, as
41:03
Speaker 5: it were for private companies to be working on behalf
41:07
Speaker 5: of the governments in a way, whether it's manager or not,
41:09
Speaker 5: sort of neither here nor there. It's still it's still
41:12
Speaker 5: going to happen as far as that can exactly.
41:15
Speaker 1: And they just pushed the responsibility for making it mandary
41:18
Speaker 1: onto the private sector than government. Yes, so, but you know,
41:23
Speaker 1: I suppose that a related topic here fornessa, let's just
41:27
Speaker 1: have a chat about Palanteer and what it's been up to.
41:32
Speaker 4: Yeah.
41:33
Speaker 2: Volunteer, which alongside Unit eight two hundred and various other
41:37
Speaker 2: Israelis by units, is effectively taking over or taking control
41:42
Speaker 2: of surveillance and AI tech, both in the US, where
41:46
Speaker 2: Trump has embedded them into his administration, but also now
41:51
Speaker 2: in the UK. So this is from the Pollunteer website
41:55
Speaker 2: Palaenteer UK Competitive innovation through data exploitation. For over a decade,
42:03
Speaker 2: Polunteer has provided world meeting data operation software to the
42:06
Speaker 2: UK Armed Forces and its allies, and of course not
42:09
Speaker 2: forgetting that Albert Systems itself is now training members of
42:14
Speaker 2: the British Army. So this was a meeting in September
42:18
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. This is from a UK government document
42:22
Speaker 2: between Defense Secretary John Heay meeting Pallenteer CEO Alex Kapp.
42:28
Speaker 2: Now I just want to quickly insert a section from
42:32
Speaker 2: I think it was a zoom meeting of Polunteer employees
42:37
Speaker 2: and Alex Kapp where he's supposedly talking to customers and
42:40
Speaker 2: potential customers, just to give an introduction to what I
42:46
Speaker 2: would describe as Alex Copp's psychopathy. But let's have a
42:50
Speaker 2: look at this.
42:52
Speaker 8: You know, we are doing well in United Kingdom and
42:54
Speaker 8: many other places. Palenteer is here to disrupt and make
43:00
Speaker 8: our the institutions. We partner with the very best in
43:02
Speaker 8: the world and when it's necessary to scare enemies and
43:06
Speaker 8: on occasion kill them, And we hope you're in favor
43:09
Speaker 8: of that. We hope you're enjoying being a partner, and
43:12
Speaker 8: we're really happy and very very.
43:14
Speaker 1: Focused on what we're doing. Thank you for your time.
43:17
Speaker 10: Thank you. That concluded.
43:22
Speaker 2: So they're prepared to kill people for their customers, and
43:26
Speaker 2: that of course includers Israel during the ongoing genocide in
43:31
Speaker 2: Gaza and the West Bank. So let's have a look
43:33
Speaker 2: at what the UK government document actually said. So they're
43:37
Speaker 2: talking about a new strategic partnership with Volunteer to unlock
43:41
Speaker 2: up to one zero point five billion investment into the
43:44
Speaker 2: UK to deliver new jobs growth National security. Volunteer announce
43:48
Speaker 2: his plans to make the UK It's European HQ for
43:51
Speaker 2: defense and create up to three hundred and fifty new
43:55
Speaker 2: high skilled jobs, cementing the UK as a state of
43:58
Speaker 2: the art defense technology HUT. Palunteer and UK military to
44:02
Speaker 2: develop AI powered capabilities already tested in Ukraine and of
44:06
Speaker 2: course we now know in Gaza to speed up decision making,
44:09
Speaker 2: military planning and targeting to kill people. In other words,
44:13
Speaker 2: it will see Palentteer invest up to one point five
44:16
Speaker 2: billion to make the UK a defense innovation. They don't
44:19
Speaker 2: create up to the jobs making defense and engine for growth.
44:24
Speaker 2: And then let's see what they say also embedded within
44:27
Speaker 2: the document, So they talk about volunteer and the UK
44:31
Speaker 2: military working together to make the UK the leading edge
44:34
Speaker 2: of innovation in NATO. Some of these new capabilities will
44:38
Speaker 2: support development of what is known as the kill chain,
44:41
Speaker 2: whereby military planners fuse a wide range of information and
44:44
Speaker 2: data sources from open sources and military platforms to provide
44:49
Speaker 2: military commanders with faster options for attacking an enemy target.
44:54
Speaker 2: Of course, the enemy will eventually also be domestic populations.
44:59
Speaker 2: This would form an element of the Digital Targeting Web
45:02
Speaker 2: announced in the Strategic Defense Review, which we'll have a
45:05
Speaker 2: large and diverse supplier ecosystem. So I don't think I'm
45:10
Speaker 2: alone in finding this pretty sinister. And then on the
45:15
Speaker 2: seventh of January, Middle East I published an article saying
45:18
Speaker 2: that Corbyn slams the UK for a two hundred and
45:22
Speaker 2: forty million pounds deal with Israel linked US tech giant Plenteer.
45:27
Speaker 2: So there is some pushback against this, but actually really
45:31
Speaker 2: not enough. And then if we have a look at
45:35
Speaker 2: a recent interview with Alex kap this was one of
45:40
Speaker 2: the on the YouTube video. This was one of the screenshots.
45:43
Speaker 2: If we can just go back to the Oppenheimer moment,
45:46
Speaker 2: which again I just find quite sinister. So he describes
45:50
Speaker 2: in his own paper, our Oppenheimer Moment, the creation of
45:54
Speaker 2: AI weapons. The interview itself was with New York Times
45:59
Speaker 2: Andrew ros Sulkin. It was at a New York Times event.
46:02
Speaker 2: I think it was a couple of months ago. Well,
46:04
Speaker 2: let's just hear what Ross Sorkins says. Initially in his
46:08
Speaker 2: introduction to Alex Kropp.
46:11
Speaker 11: Forty four hundred billion dollars and after October seventh, Karp
46:15
Speaker 11: has been perhaps singularly the most outspoken CEO in America
46:18
Speaker 11: to support Israel. Week after the attack, he took out
46:21
Speaker 11: a full page ad in this newspaper, The New York
46:23
Speaker 11: Times had four words on it said, Palenteer stands with Israel.
46:27
Speaker 11: Should say the IDEF and Masade are clients of Palenteer.
46:31
Speaker 11: There are a lot of questions about what they're doing
46:33
Speaker 11: here in the US, including their contract with ICE and
46:36
Speaker 11: their work around the world, and we are going to
46:38
Speaker 11: talk about all of it. Alex, thank you for being
46:40
Speaker 11: with us.
46:41
Speaker 8: Couldn't imagine why we're controversial, couldn't imagine.
46:45
Speaker 1: Let's discuss it.
46:49
Speaker 2: So, of course, when he's saying he supports Israel, what
46:51
Speaker 2: he's effectively doing is providing direct support to the genocide
46:55
Speaker 2: of Palestinians in Gaza. And then let's see another section
46:59
Speaker 2: of one of his responses to Ross Saulkin.
47:04
Speaker 11: There is yes.
47:05
Speaker 8: Then there's the more subtle answer. All these countries and
47:08
Speaker 8: people I defend in public, like Israel's a perfect example.
47:11
Speaker 8: I think most of the critiques of Israel, not all,
47:14
Speaker 8: not all, but a lot of people just have like
47:17
Speaker 8: Israel derangement or Jewish arrangement syndrome. It's like they're like hobbyists.
47:22
Speaker 8: It's like they think about Jews all day. It's like,
47:24
Speaker 8: I don't know, I grew up in the Jewish community.
47:26
Speaker 8: How often do you think about Jews. I don't think about.
47:28
Speaker 1: Jews very often.
47:29
Speaker 8: So it's like, hey, I of course I'm going to
47:32
Speaker 8: defend in a way publicly that I can assure you privately.
47:36
Speaker 8: People have less present conversations than the one we're having.
47:39
Speaker 8: Like I told, I told Israeli governments from the beginning,
47:42
Speaker 8: maximum violence to the people organizing violence, minimal violence to
47:46
Speaker 8: the people on the front end.
47:47
Speaker 1: I told every single person.
47:48
Speaker 11: Did you think that they lived up to that we're
47:50
Speaker 11: going to talk about?
47:54
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, this is quite extraordinary. Pollenteer we're
47:56
Speaker 2: involved in the development of the AI tech was Daddy,
48:00
Speaker 2: which effectively was used by the Israelis to identify alleged
48:05
Speaker 2: Hamas members would then track them back to their home
48:08
Speaker 2: and target the home, so then killing all of the
48:11
Speaker 2: family members living in that home. Volunteer were involved in
48:15
Speaker 2: the Grim Reaper operation, which were the Pager attacks in
48:18
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four in Lubanon that mutilated more than three thousand,
48:24
Speaker 2: mostly civilians, including children, removing eyes, amputating hands, and effectively
48:31
Speaker 2: mutilating civilians. So this doesn't quite bear out, of course,
48:36
Speaker 2: I mean, we shouldn't really be surprised by that. And
48:39
Speaker 2: then this was quite interesting. I found this guy, one
48:43
Speaker 2: Sebastian Pinto on substack, who was a former Pallunteer employee
48:49
Speaker 2: based in Denver in the US, and I recommend everybody
48:52
Speaker 2: reads this article. It's a very interesting deep dive into
48:57
Speaker 2: the Palanteer systems and basically into the ISTAR systems intelligence surveillance,
49:04
Speaker 2: target acquisition and reconnaissance, which he actually describes as being
49:10
Speaker 2: very akin to terrorism in how it responds to threat
49:14
Speaker 2: and of course it supports state terrorism as we've seen
49:18
Speaker 2: clearly from the US under the Trump administration through the
49:23
Speaker 2: ICE agents that have effectively recently killed an American citizen
49:29
Speaker 2: in Minneapolis and are conducting violent operations against US citizens
49:34
Speaker 2: on a daily basis under again the Trump administration. Pallenteer
49:39
Speaker 2: supports that. And then let's have a look at what
49:45
Speaker 2: Sebastian Pinto actually talks about in his article. So, just
49:50
Speaker 2: as Palenteer software can set algorithmic thresholds to define who
49:54
Speaker 2: is a target and justify their killing, the New York
49:57
Speaker 2: Times sets the narratives that allow this skilling to continue
50:02
Speaker 2: to absolve genocide, justify war, define terrorism, and perpetuate international aggression. Nonetheless,
50:09
Speaker 2: as both continue to enable genocide in Palestine or stoke
50:13
Speaker 2: fire for war with Venezuela, people are wising up to
50:17
Speaker 2: the ways in which these corporations weaponize information to protect
50:22
Speaker 2: and enrich those in power. And he then goes on
50:26
Speaker 2: he's then quoting Alex carp again. So Carp in another interview,
50:31
Speaker 2: actually said the primary way to create peace in this
50:34
Speaker 2: world is to scare our adversaries when they wake up,
50:38
Speaker 2: when they go to bed while they're seeing their mistress.
50:41
Speaker 2: The most effective way for social change is humiliate your
50:45
Speaker 2: enemy and make them poor. Does that sound familiar. And
50:49
Speaker 2: of course you had the former director of mo Yosi
50:53
Speaker 2: Cohen talking about every phone in the world has a
50:56
Speaker 2: bit of Israel in it. So again you can see
50:59
Speaker 2: this collusion between Polunteer and Israel, and now the embedding
51:03
Speaker 2: of Volunteer into institutional structures in the UK and in
51:08
Speaker 2: the US and the US it's far more advanced, but
51:11
Speaker 2: I think in the UK we're going to see a
51:14
Speaker 2: lot more of Polunteer in the future.
51:17
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, thank you for that. Vanessa. Let's come
51:20
Speaker 1: on to a piece of propaganda in the Daily Telegraph.
51:23
Speaker 1: Let's bring it on screen and well, the headline there
51:28
Speaker 1: is uncovered secret room beneath Chinese embassy that poses threat
51:33
Speaker 1: the city, and they say the Telegraph obtains unreducted plans
51:37
Speaker 1: showing how close the underground complex will come to cables
51:41
Speaker 1: carrying sensitive British financial data. Now, in the article itself,
51:45
Speaker 1: they say China is to build a hidden chamber alongside
51:48
Speaker 1: Britain's most sensitive communication cables as part of a network
51:51
Speaker 1: of two hundred and eight secret rooms between its new
51:54
Speaker 1: London super Embassy. The Telegraph can reveal this newspaper has
51:58
Speaker 1: uncovered detailed plans for an underground complex below the vast
52:02
Speaker 1: diplomatic site in central London, which Beijing has sought to
52:05
Speaker 1: keep from public scrutiny. The drawing show that a single
52:09
Speaker 1: concealed chamber will sit directly alongside fiber optic cables transmitting
52:13
Speaker 1: financial data to the City of London, as well as
52:16
Speaker 1: email and messaging traffic for millions of Internet users. But
52:22
Speaker 1: if that isn't comedic enough for you, this so just
52:25
Speaker 1: put this back on screen William for a second, because
52:27
Speaker 1: it was this photograph that had me in stitches, because
52:31
Speaker 1: it's just comedy gold. What the Telegraph doesn't explain in there, well,
52:37
Speaker 1: for anybody's just listening. By the way, it is the
52:39
Speaker 1: Telegraph journalist standing on a manhole cover with a measuring
52:44
Speaker 1: tape showing the distance between the manhole cover and the wall.
52:47
Speaker 1: It is pathetic. But what the Telegraph doesn't explain, of course,
52:51
Speaker 1: is exactly how Chinese embassy staff will snoop on the
52:54
Speaker 1: data on these fiber optic cables. Maybe they're going to
52:57
Speaker 1: tunnel out of their secret room which is on the plant,
53:00
Speaker 1: or maybe like the League of League of Gentlemen. If
53:03
Speaker 1: anybody remembers that nineteen sixty film, they'll be in access
53:06
Speaker 1: through the manhole covers in the street as they dress
53:08
Speaker 1: up as BT workers and hide what they're doing with
53:11
Speaker 1: smoke bombs. I mean, how stupid does this have to
53:16
Speaker 1: be before people begin to recognize what they're being subjected to.
53:21
Speaker 5: I'm not sure, but that could well turn out to
53:23
Speaker 5: be a journalistic face graph of the year. And it's
53:25
Speaker 5: second making January Well, I think you've actually brought back again.
53:30
Speaker 5: I can't, I can't really enjoy it enough. But I
53:33
Speaker 5: mean the other thing is, you know what a massive distraction.
53:36
Speaker 5: Every single organization that we could list that's supposed to
53:40
Speaker 5: preserve the integrity of financial any other sensitive data has
53:44
Speaker 5: had a breach in recent times. So why not just
53:47
Speaker 5: do it the old fashioned way and hack into it
53:48
Speaker 5: if you want it? I mean, size, why would you
53:51
Speaker 5: spend all that time and effort digging?
53:53
Speaker 1: Yes, because just just to be clear about this, you
53:56
Speaker 1: cannot snoop off fiber optic cables without physical acts access
54:00
Speaker 1: to the kibbles, So you know this is just well anyway,
54:05
Speaker 1: But where does that leave us with China?
54:08
Speaker 5: Well, it leaves us with again. I think a moment
54:13
Speaker 5: of irony, partly in response to what avert Cooper was
54:16
Speaker 5: saying about Iran and sanctioned sanctions. Of course always waives
54:21
Speaker 5: the great big dangling threat. But it's just interesting to
54:23
Speaker 5: note that China, the Chinese State, has posted information about
54:29
Speaker 5: their trade surplus of the year just passed. China's foreign
54:34
Speaker 5: trade hits new high, up three point eight percent in
54:37
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five. Just a little bit of detail off
54:39
Speaker 5: the State Council's website. The foreign trade value hit forty
54:43
Speaker 5: five point four to seven trillion yuan, which is about
54:46
Speaker 5: six point four eight trillion US dollars according to data released,
54:50
Speaker 5: and it marks the ninth consecutive year of growth for
54:53
Speaker 5: China's foreign trade since twenty seventeen. Begging the question sanctions,
54:57
Speaker 5: so what sanctions of course, and tariffs, but as demonstrated
55:02
Speaker 5: by China, as demonstrated by Russia, and presumedly Iran. I mean,
55:06
Speaker 5: the rhetoric from well obviously a vat Cooper at the
55:09
Speaker 5: Minie issues in the chair is just senseless, pointless and hopeless,
55:14
Speaker 5: and China here demonstrating exactly those three things.
55:18
Speaker 1: I mean. Part of the problem here, Charles, is that
55:20
Speaker 1: no matter what they say about sanctions on China and Russia,
55:24
Speaker 1: there's still trid going on between the West of course
55:26
Speaker 1: and China and Russia, so of course they're not going
55:29
Speaker 1: to be suffering terribly badly. Indeed, yeah, yeah, okay, well
55:33
Speaker 1: let's finish the program today then with some farming news.
55:37
Speaker 5: Indeed, in actual fact slightly limited on the news front.
55:42
Speaker 5: It's rather more what sort of hasn't been said. It's
55:44
Speaker 5: that the Oxford Farming Conference took place last week. There
55:49
Speaker 5: is a rival, the real Oxford Farming Conference, so that
55:52
Speaker 5: there's the sort of there's always controversy surrounding it. I
55:55
Speaker 5: think one thing that is worth drawing out. The report
55:58
Speaker 5: from the OFC this year is just the absolute goldigook
56:02
Speaker 5: they've gone into. They say that how the UK agriculture
56:05
Speaker 5: now operates in a I don't know how you pronounce,
56:07
Speaker 5: it's actually bannie or Barney Bani world one that is brittle, anxious,
56:12
Speaker 5: nonlinear and incomprehensible. I think incomprehensible I'd go along with.
56:17
Speaker 5: They go on to say that shocks from shifts in
56:19
Speaker 5: world trade dynamics, regional conflicts, Brexit, and the public debt
56:22
Speaker 5: crisis have all combined with increasingly disruptive weather events to
56:26
Speaker 5: create uncertainty and instability, nothing you haven't really heard before.
56:29
Speaker 5: I think the point to make there is that there's
56:31
Speaker 5: absolutely no suggestion that either government or corporations might be
56:34
Speaker 5: accused of derailing agriculture wholesale. But we'll just have a
56:39
Speaker 5: listen to Emma Reynolds the Sector of State in her
56:43
Speaker 5: address to the Farming Conference.
56:47
Speaker 11: Today.
56:47
Speaker 10: I'm going to cover a lot of ground, but there
56:49
Speaker 10: are three commitments that run throughout my speech. First that
56:54
Speaker 10: this government is serious about partnership with your sector. Second,
56:59
Speaker 10: that we're committed to giving you clarity and stability. Third,
57:03
Speaker 10: that we're backing you to grow with confidence and resilience.
57:08
Speaker 10: Let me start with the announcement we made just before Christmas.
57:12
Speaker 10: Since starting this role in September, I've listened to farmers
57:16
Speaker 10: and stakeholders about your concerns on proposed changes to inheritance tax.
57:22
Speaker 10: You told me the threshold was too low. You told
57:25
Speaker 10: me it would hit small family farms, the very farms
57:28
Speaker 10: we want to protect, farms that have been in families
57:31
Speaker 10: for generations, farms you understandably want to pass on to
57:35
Speaker 10: your children. We have listened, and we are making changes,
57:40
Speaker 10: increasing the inheritance tax threshold for agricultural and Business Property
57:45
Speaker 10: Relief from one million to two and a half million pounds.
57:48
Speaker 10: That means couples can pass on five million pounds without
57:52
Speaker 10: paying inheritance tax on their assets. And that's on top
57:56
Speaker 10: of the existing allowances such as the nil rate band.
58:00
Speaker 10: Around eighty five percent of estates claiming APR, including those
58:05
Speaker 10: also claiming BPR, will pay no more inheritance tax. Good
58:10
Speaker 10: governments listen and when they hear real concerns, they act.
58:17
Speaker 5: So for anyone thinking that the era of the vacuous
58:20
Speaker 5: SoundBite had died with the Blair administration, I think that
58:24
Speaker 5: might prove them wrong. Essentially, her talk was a te
58:26
Speaker 5: very tame regregitation of the farming Profitability Review, which I
58:30
Speaker 5: went through last week written up by Minette Batter's also
58:33
Speaker 5: the press releases on the inheritance tax wordplay really because
58:38
Speaker 5: of course nothing has actually changed yet, so for her
58:40
Speaker 5: to say that the threshold has been increased and parrot
58:44
Speaker 5: the government's line on it is extremely disingenuous. And the
58:48
Speaker 5: bottom line really was that with regard to profitability or
58:52
Speaker 5: actually improving the lot of farmers, she really had nothing
58:55
Speaker 5: to say but ironcladding the subsidy to supermarket system, which
59:00
Speaker 5: of course, will not really benefit anybody in the short, medium.
59:04
Speaker 1: Or long term.
59:05
Speaker 5: Talking of long term, she referred to there being a
59:08
Speaker 5: twenty five year plan for farming. Of course they haven't
59:10
Speaker 5: actually written it yet, so it's the baseablell as to
59:12
Speaker 5: whether that might take roughly that time to write. So,
59:16
Speaker 5: as I say, it really was just soundbites with very
59:19
Speaker 5: little substance in terms of money. She referred to thirty
59:23
Speaker 5: million pounds being spent on farmers to help them share ideas,
59:27
Speaker 5: and that was one of her things. The other one
59:30
Speaker 5: was thirty million pounds on farming and protected landscapes, which
59:32
Speaker 5: of course again is similar to a lot of the
59:35
Speaker 5: environmental initiatives which really give the authorities the power to
59:41
Speaker 5: take control of land, so again a very much double
59:45
Speaker 5: edged policy. She then talked about the Sustainable Farming Incentive,
59:49
Speaker 5: which coursed very controversial towards the end of last year
59:52
Speaker 5: after the enormous pickle that had been made of it
59:55
Speaker 5: by the previous Conservative government, and on that she said specifically,
1:00:01
Speaker 5: you'll still have plenty of choice, but this government recognizes
1:00:04
Speaker 5: that SFI must work alongside food production and not displace it,
1:00:08
Speaker 5: so effectually trying to convince people that the government has
1:00:11
Speaker 5: actually been listening when this was said absolutely at the
1:00:15
Speaker 5: outset and is not a point of her making. She
1:00:17
Speaker 5: then goes on to say, we will limit how much
1:00:19
Speaker 5: land to be put into certain actions and review payment
1:00:22
Speaker 5: rates for others. Again, that was done by the Conservative
1:00:24
Speaker 5: administration when they've realized that they'd made an absolutely gargantuan
1:00:28
Speaker 5: miscalculation earlier on last year and had to do an
1:00:31
Speaker 5: about face. Now, related to this, I think I would say,
1:00:37
Speaker 5: is the consultation that's gone out on well, what's being
1:00:42
Speaker 5: talked about as Welfared's proposed ban on keeping laying hens
1:00:46
Speaker 5: in cages. Of course there is a ban on that,
1:00:49
Speaker 5: but only for those who keep three hundred and fifty
1:00:51
Speaker 5: birds or more. Now this goes under the banner of welfare,
1:00:55
Speaker 5: and I think a point to raise here is, well,
1:00:58
Speaker 5: what about high expansion nightragen foam, which course is the
1:01:01
Speaker 5: preferred killing method for birds supposedly infected with bird flu.
1:01:07
Speaker 5: Of course, we don't really need to go into detail
1:01:09
Speaker 5: again about how that's achieved through the PCR test and
1:01:13
Speaker 5: all the various shortcomings, but not really a welfare solution
1:01:16
Speaker 5: and indeed avoiding a much bigger issue. First of all,
1:01:20
Speaker 5: the killing methods, but also the conditions inside broiler factories.
1:01:25
Speaker 5: And then the other thing just to point out is
1:01:27
Speaker 5: a really excellent illustration of how supernational policy is cleaved
1:01:31
Speaker 5: to by the United Kingdom and then use to manipulate
1:01:34
Speaker 5: the destiny of overseas territories whilst maintaining of course that
1:01:37
Speaker 5: it easy in their own interests. And therefore we take
1:01:40
Speaker 5: a look at the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill which
1:01:45
Speaker 5: has just had a development, but just to read the
1:01:50
Speaker 5: opening text to make provision for an in connection with
1:01:53
Speaker 5: the implementation by the United Kingdom of the agreement under
1:01:56
Speaker 5: the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
1:02:00
Speaker 5: and the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity
1:02:04
Speaker 5: of areas beyond National jurisdiction. Now that's the that's the
1:02:07
Speaker 5: critical part really here. And of course in the draft
1:02:11
Speaker 5: legislation there are provisions for regulation that may be enforced
1:02:17
Speaker 5: and indeed criminal sanctions. So this is the British government
1:02:19
Speaker 5: taking un policy and indeed anything that comes out of
1:02:22
Speaker 5: the Conference of the Parties UH and that those whims
1:02:26
Speaker 5: are then translated into laws that are then foisted upon
1:02:29
Speaker 5: overseas territories at the same time as telling them that
1:02:31
Speaker 5: they have autonomy and self determination. So that's the that's
1:02:35
Speaker 5: the farming wrap up, which leads us into.
1:02:39
Speaker 1: Well, I was just going to say, you know, we
1:02:40
Speaker 1: are we are a little lit here for reasons I
1:02:42
Speaker 1: can't possibly understand. But anyway, we should we should watch
1:02:46
Speaker 1: the final video here. We should.
1:02:48
Speaker 5: Yes, no, this is well, this should have been done
1:02:51
Speaker 5: ages ago actually, but this is the galvanized people. If
1:02:52
Speaker 5: you if you are at a loose end on a
1:02:54
Speaker 5: Thursday lunch time, you could do a lot worse than
1:02:56
Speaker 5: going down to broadcasting house. Now, this is what happens
1:02:58
Speaker 5: at BBC Truther.
1:03:02
Speaker 12: Truth Our Act the BBC those days one till two,
1:03:07
Speaker 12: we'll expose the lies, disclose the truths or facts from
1:03:11
Speaker 12: fiction in the news. This Corbyn will be there as well,
1:03:15
Speaker 12: as he has many truths to tell and you can
1:03:18
Speaker 12: speak out if you like, so don't miss out its
1:03:21
Speaker 12: open mic. We're detectors off the seat. Those who lie
1:03:26
Speaker 12: will defeat, the truth will win out. There's no doubt
1:03:30
Speaker 12: those who lie will route out the BBC lie off
1:03:34
Speaker 12: the week.
1:03:35
Speaker 4: That is what off.
1:03:36
Speaker 12: We shall speak the lies by a mission and of truth.
1:03:40
Speaker 12: Really is no excuse now it's time to make a stand,
1:03:45
Speaker 12: so please come along. The lender have strengthen numbers is
1:03:49
Speaker 12: what we want, so let's present a united front.
1:03:57
Speaker 5: Well, as he's saying, strengthen numbers is what they want.
1:03:59
Speaker 5: So if you are able, do get down there, because
1:04:02
Speaker 5: I think it would be great to have a grind
1:04:04
Speaker 5: swell of attendance there outside the BBC every week Thursday
1:04:07
Speaker 5: one o'clock.
1:04:08
Speaker 1: There's a link in the show notes. Okay, thank you Charles,
1:04:11
Speaker 1: thank you to Alex and Vanessa. Today we are going
1:04:14
Speaker 1: to have to leave it there because we're absolutely well
1:04:16
Speaker 1: past time. Join us in a few minutes off the
1:04:18
Speaker 1: UK cole a member for UK col News Extra don't
1:04:22
Speaker 1: forget Jeremy carl Tonight and Charles interview tomorrow at one pm.
1:04:27
Speaker 1: We'll be back as usual one pm on Friday. We'll
1:04:29
Speaker 1: see you then. Thanks for joining us, by bye bye