Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News — 18th March 2026

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UK Column News — 18th March 2026 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, eighteenth of March twenty twenty sixth
0:11
Speaker 1: just after one o'clock. Welcome to the UK Column News
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Speaker 1: and my host Mike Robinson joining me in the studio
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Speaker 1: today Charles Mallett, Welcome to the program. Charles, thank you
0:18
Speaker 1: by and by video link from Lebanon, is Vanessa Billy Now.
0:21
Speaker 1: Later in the program, Charles is going to be reporting
0:23
Speaker 1: and how the Food Standards Agency is keeping us all safe,
0:27
Speaker 1: and on nuana's efforts to sue the United Kingdom over
0:30
Speaker 1: the Field Tory migrant deportation scheme. I'll be reporting on
0:34
Speaker 1: the UK government's UAI plan and also how they intend
0:36
Speaker 1: to fund mainstream media. And Vanessa is going to bring
0:39
Speaker 1: us up to date with what's happening in Lebanon and
0:41
Speaker 1: at the United Nations Security Council. But we'll go to
0:44
Speaker 1: again today with a follow up from last Wednesday's report
0:47
Speaker 1: on the UK so called defensive posture with respect to Iran,
0:50
Speaker 1: and we're back to Arif Fairford, Charles.
0:53
Speaker 2: We are, indeed and as well as Wednesday Friday, because
0:56
Speaker 2: of course I went down to Fairford on Thursday where
0:59
Speaker 2: I got to have a good look at the well
1:02
Speaker 2: to essentially to substantiate the reports that live ordinance was
1:07
Speaker 2: being loaded onto be one bomber aircraft Info view of
1:11
Speaker 2: the public and the BBC are now reporting the roads
1:15
Speaker 2: are closed and screens have been put up around the
1:18
Speaker 2: RAF base because of course when I was there there
1:20
Speaker 2: was it was very easy to view through the chain
1:23
Speaker 2: link fence and now that is being changed now. It
1:28
Speaker 2: was considered at the time that there might have been
1:31
Speaker 2: a pr exercise in making it so visible that the
1:33
Speaker 2: Americans were obviously loading bombs onto aircraft in British territory
1:40
Speaker 2: and what the repercussions of such thing might have been.
1:45
Speaker 2: But interestingly, in the BBC article they quote the five
1:49
Speaker 2: hundred and first Combat Support Wing who are responsible for
1:53
Speaker 2: the set decorations, and they say that five hundred first
1:57
Speaker 2: Combat Support Wing remains vigilant and will take appropriate actions
2:00
Speaker 2: to ensure the safety and security of our US service members, civilians,
2:04
Speaker 2: contractors and their families. Well fair enough, but the question
2:08
Speaker 2: is are they being that vigilant And in my personal
2:11
Speaker 2: experience from last week, I would say not at all.
2:14
Speaker 2: But also this raises the very real issue of the
2:17
Speaker 2: safety and security of the UK civilian population in the
2:20
Speaker 2: area and in particular the proximity to the fence. I
2:24
Speaker 2: referred to this in my report from last week, and
2:27
Speaker 2: I've just got an Ordnance Survey map here showing just
2:31
Speaker 2: outside the village of Marston Maizie the less than three
2:34
Speaker 2: hundred meters between the Jaydam bombs being loaded and inhabited residences.
2:39
Speaker 2: And the question really is is this endangering British lives?
2:42
Speaker 2: Maybe not necessarily simply the loading of ordnance, but also
2:47
Speaker 2: the fact that Fairford and other places are being turned
2:50
Speaker 2: into a target if indeed we go along with the
2:52
Speaker 2: narrative being propagated by MI five, which is that there
2:55
Speaker 2: is a constant threat from the Iranian state and that
3:00
Speaker 2: it is directly appropriate to refer to that in the
3:03
Speaker 2: United Kingdom as being live at the moment now in
3:06
Speaker 2: so far as activity from Fairford, I am going to
3:10
Speaker 2: show footage from air nav radar which shows a recorded
3:15
Speaker 2: flight A B one on a active what looks like
3:20
Speaker 2: being over the West Bank and Jordan returning into our
3:24
Speaker 2: af Fairford at six minutes past five GMT this morning.
3:28
Speaker 2: So many thanks to the UK column viewer who sent
3:32
Speaker 2: that in to us. With regard to the activities of
3:36
Speaker 2: five husand and first Combat Support Wing. I think it's
3:40
Speaker 2: worth considering what they've actually done. A longstanding UK column
3:45
Speaker 2: viewer has been out taking photographs for me at Fairford,
3:48
Speaker 2: and this was taken yesterday. Quite clearly, that's a section
3:51
Speaker 2: of fence that has not yet been screened off. That's
3:55
Speaker 2: with the fence screened off, and obviously the terrain dictates
3:58
Speaker 2: that it's still very easy to see over the fence.
4:02
Speaker 2: Further at the gate a couple of the crash gates
4:05
Speaker 2: here shown where if you're just standing on the ground,
4:07
Speaker 2: admittedly you might not be able to see through. However,
4:10
Speaker 2: of course to cut a hole in scaffold netting is
4:12
Speaker 2: really not so difficult. But mostly it might be said
4:15
Speaker 2: that this is tactical incompetence, because of course what have
4:18
Speaker 2: they done. They have poked out their own eyes. They
4:21
Speaker 2: don't have any sensors on the fence, they have no
4:23
Speaker 2: CCTV and no patrols, and they've now put up a
4:26
Speaker 2: screen which means that they cannot see what members of
4:29
Speaker 2: the public or or indeed journalists like myself. Bearing in
4:33
Speaker 2: mind I was subsequently questioned by police at the instigation
4:37
Speaker 2: of the United States visiting forces. So this does seem
4:41
Speaker 2: to be a bizarre movement by the Americans. Now as
4:47
Speaker 2: to the continued denial of the there being any involvement
4:52
Speaker 2: of the British in this action, the T Shirts are
4:55
Speaker 2: more or less printing themselves now. Starmer, as quoted by
5:00
Speaker 2: Bryan Garrish on Monday, saying that we will not be
5:02
Speaker 2: drawn into the wider war. That's proving to be less
5:06
Speaker 2: and less likely now. A couple of days ago, there
5:09
Speaker 2: was an interview on Radio for Today program with an
5:12
Speaker 2: American retired General Ben Hodges. He was a former commander
5:16
Speaker 2: of the US Army in Europe and it was most
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Speaker 2: revealing in exposing the position that the United Kingdom Armed
5:23
Speaker 2: Forces find themselves in. So we just listened to the
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Speaker 2: first his first comments on the state of the British
5:29
Speaker 2: armed forces.
5:32
Speaker 3: The quality of the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy,
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Speaker 3: the ro Marines and the British Army. The quality is
5:40
Speaker 3: where what I remember for decades is the size the capability.
5:45
Speaker 3: It's just not enough and this is entirely a decision
5:48
Speaker 3: of the British government. The amount of defense capability that
5:53
Speaker 3: you have. Every nation makes choices, and I think certainly
5:59
Speaker 3: the UK's capabilities to do what it has done in
6:02
Speaker 3: the past. It's just not there.
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Speaker 2: So start contrast there with the words that were used
6:09
Speaker 2: in Monday's news program coming from beyond the British Army
6:13
Speaker 2: General Cerrali Walker, who was adamant that of course we
6:16
Speaker 2: do have such capability. A disagreement there from General Hodges,
6:20
Speaker 2: and he went on to speak about the use of
6:23
Speaker 2: UK airfields.
6:27
Speaker 3: The United States needs strong allies, and that means allies
6:30
Speaker 3: that have real capability, strong economy, resilient society as well
6:34
Speaker 3: as military capability and world class intelligence networks that we
6:40
Speaker 3: all need from each other. So the United States needs that,
6:44
Speaker 3: just like we need the access that UK has given
6:46
Speaker 3: us for decades at the various RAF bases. That's important
6:51
Speaker 3: for us.
6:55
Speaker 2: To the American perspective there, and it should very much
6:57
Speaker 2: be noted that it is purely American interest. And of
7:00
Speaker 2: course Mike played the crip at the clip of General
7:03
Speaker 2: Sir Richard Sheriff the other day talking about the absolute
7:06
Speaker 2: lack of special relationship and how the American action is
7:09
Speaker 2: purely for the interests of the Americans. Now to the
7:12
Speaker 2: lawfulness of any such action, I'll just show you a
7:15
Speaker 2: video that was put out by the White House on
7:17
Speaker 2: social media just recently, and if you can't see this,
7:20
Speaker 2: it is a essentially turning what's been named Operation Epic
7:25
Speaker 2: Fury into a video game with sports sort of cartoon
7:30
Speaker 2: sports people shooting at targets which turn out to be
7:35
Speaker 2: real footage of parts of Iran being blown up. And
7:40
Speaker 2: that is the level to which the official communications from
7:44
Speaker 2: the White House have sunk. So I would invite people
7:47
Speaker 2: to make up their own minds as to the way
7:48
Speaker 2: in which the Americans are regarding the action that they're undertaking,
7:54
Speaker 2: but in particular the lawfulness of it. And now as
7:57
Speaker 2: to the way that the British Ministry of Defense is
8:00
Speaker 2: reframing the narrative. There they are here posting an intelligence
8:04
Speaker 2: update and making specific reference to space and this is
8:08
Speaker 2: going to be very much more a part of the
8:12
Speaker 2: war narrative.
8:13
Speaker 3: Here.
8:13
Speaker 2: UK Space Command continues to support the UK's and our
8:16
Speaker 2: allies in response to this conflict. Also later in the
8:19
Speaker 2: same statement, they say that UK typhoon and F thirty
8:22
Speaker 2: five aircraft continued to conduct defensive air patrols over Katar,
8:26
Speaker 2: bar Rain, the UA, Jordan and the Eastern Mediterranean. Now,
8:30
Speaker 2: of course, defensive has been a euphemism for an awful
8:35
Speaker 2: lot of things over the last two and a half years,
8:37
Speaker 2: and of course, whether to be any hostile engagement, that
8:40
Speaker 2: of course would still be described as being defensive. Now,
8:44
Speaker 2: the reason for referring to that particular update is because
8:50
Speaker 2: I want to go on to describe a couple of
8:52
Speaker 2: press releases from the Foreign and Commonwealth Foreign Commonwealth and
8:57
Speaker 2: Development Office. First of all, on the left hand side
8:59
Speaker 2: of the screen actually touches down in the Gulf to
9:01
Speaker 2: demonstrate support for regional allies facing Iranian aggression. Now that
9:05
Speaker 2: follows on from the support given by Typhoons and thirty
9:08
Speaker 2: five's the Gulf States and the Eastern Mediterranean. And then
9:12
Speaker 2: on the right hand side is seemingly unrelated press release
9:15
Speaker 2: going back to December of last year.
9:17
Speaker 1: UK Sanctions.
9:19
Speaker 2: Command is responsible for Suddan atrocities and pledges additional humanitarian support.
9:24
Speaker 2: As Cooper says, atrocities must not go unpunished. Now, I'm
9:30
Speaker 2: going to hope to illustrate the diabolical hipocrisy of the
9:33
Speaker 2: British state by going through each of these. And first
9:35
Speaker 2: of all, we'll listen to EVEK. Cooper speaking about Sudan
9:38
Speaker 2: last month.
9:41
Speaker 4: Today in the Security Council session. We will be discussing Sudan.
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Speaker 4: It is the greatest humanitarian crisis of the twenty first
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Speaker 4: century and the world must not look away. And we've
9:53
Speaker 4: seem too how too often the world has looked away
9:59
Speaker 4: from the atrocity in Sudan. That is why the UK
10:03
Speaker 4: led the process to commission the UN fact finding mission
10:08
Speaker 4: into the RSF siege and capture of El Fasher, whose
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Speaker 4: the report is out today and whose findings I will
10:18
Speaker 4: be taking to the Security Council this morning. And the
10:23
Speaker 4: report's findings are chilling. Starvation used as a weapon of war,
10:29
Speaker 4: mass killings, civilians ambushed and slaughtered as they fled, and
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Speaker 4: women raped by the bodies of their murdered children, ethnic
10:40
Speaker 4: targeting and perpetrators calling for extermination, and what the report
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Speaker 4: describes as hallmarks of genocide.
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Speaker 2: There are atrocities, indeed, and if you're wondering what on
10:57
Speaker 2: earth that has to do with Iran, as If at
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Speaker 2: coup tells everybody not to look away at the same
11:03
Speaker 2: time as she absolutely looks away. The reason for this
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Speaker 2: is because the rapid support forces in Sudan, who are
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Speaker 2: responsible for majority of the action, which can be described
11:12
Speaker 2: as genocide is supported and armed and funded by the
11:15
Speaker 2: government of the United Arab Emirates. This is very well
11:18
Speaker 2: documented and of course I've just mentioned the declaration that
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Speaker 2: the United Kingdom is actively protecting the UAE. So this
11:26
Speaker 2: is quite an extraordinary circle of in effect corruption and
11:31
Speaker 2: misery at the hands of the British state. And for
11:33
Speaker 2: further information on this, i'd invite you to read the
11:36
Speaker 2: article because if you've just popped that back on screen,
11:38
Speaker 2: an article by the Campaign Against Arms Trade entitled Genocide
11:41
Speaker 2: in Sudan, the Road of the UAE and the complicity
11:44
Speaker 2: of the West, And to illustrate the point of how
11:48
Speaker 2: being looked away actually manifests. This is the paper from
11:51
Speaker 2: the International Court of Justice last May, at which they
11:55
Speaker 2: said that the application for Sudan's application requests for the
12:03
Speaker 2: indication of provisional measures and orders that the case be
12:05
Speaker 2: removed from the general list. This is basically Iran, Sorry Sudan,
12:09
Speaker 2: taking the United Arab Emirates to court because of the
12:14
Speaker 2: relationship between the UE and the RSF as described now,
12:20
Speaker 2: just on a sort of British round up at this end,
12:23
Speaker 2: it is interesting to note first of all that the
12:27
Speaker 2: push for recruitment in the armed forces has yielded no results,
12:32
Speaker 2: or at least no published results. Med confirming to me
12:34
Speaker 2: last night that the supposed gap year scheme, which was
12:37
Speaker 2: meantal this month, has made no progress. And also we've
12:40
Speaker 2: got the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory first of all,
12:43
Speaker 2: on open source innovation and report here about the collaboration
12:48
Speaker 2: between defense academia, industry and international partners. And that goes
12:52
Speaker 2: back exactly to the point about space being used, which
12:55
Speaker 2: is something that Mike has talked about in the past,
12:57
Speaker 2: the idea of dual use technolog and that space whilst
13:02
Speaker 2: the Space Command sits alongside the Space Agency, means that
13:05
Speaker 2: any civil application may also have a military one. And
13:09
Speaker 2: then also the announcement from DSTL that as part of
13:14
Speaker 2: this sort of collaboration and innovation, they've updated the paper
13:19
Speaker 2: on the five Eyes science and technology side of it. Now,
13:23
Speaker 2: this is something you've spoken about a lot in the past,
13:27
Speaker 2: I mean, either with specific relation to you know, the
13:30
Speaker 2: Iran situation or indeed the situation here. I mean, I
13:33
Speaker 2: just wonder if you've got any comment on the five Eyes.
13:36
Speaker 2: We'll keep that for extra We'll keep that for extra.
13:38
Speaker 1: But let's come back on to around itself then, and Vanessa,
13:44
Speaker 1: what's the situation there and particularly what's Trump been talking about?
13:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean I stumbled upon sadly, there's press
13:54
Speaker 5: conference with Trump and with the Irish Prime Minister Michael Morton,
14:00
Speaker 5: who apparently was in the US for Saint Patrick's Day,
14:04
Speaker 5: and I just wanted to play some sections of it.
14:06
Speaker 5: I mean, effectively, he spends almost the entire time bashing
14:09
Speaker 5: Native for not coming to his support in the illegal
14:13
Speaker 5: war against Iran. But let's just have a lesson to
14:16
Speaker 5: his response to one question here, I said that your.
14:21
Speaker 6: War against Iran is illegal as an attack on international law.
14:25
Speaker 1: Who said the Irish president.
14:28
Speaker 7: Look, he's lucky.
14:31
Speaker 8: I exist. That's all I can say.
14:34
Speaker 7: Because if you're going to allow countries that are sick
14:37
Speaker 7: and demented, and they are demented to have nuclear weapons,
14:42
Speaker 7: everybody in the whole world should be very thankful. And
14:45
Speaker 7: I'm disappointed in NATO, very disappointed. I'm disappointed in a
14:48
Speaker 7: couple of other countries too, but they should be very
14:53
Speaker 7: thankful that this group of people feels the way we do,
14:56
Speaker 7: because if a country like Iran was allowed to have
15:00
Speaker 7: the power of a nuclear weapon, if we didn't stop them.
15:03
Speaker 7: I stopped them twice. I stopped them my first term
15:06
Speaker 7: when I terminated the Iran nuclear deal, which was Barack
15:10
Speaker 7: Obama's deal. It was one of the maybe the worst
15:12
Speaker 7: deal I've ever seen.
15:16
Speaker 5: And actually that's the first and only time in that
15:18
Speaker 5: discourse that he doesn't call Barack Obama Barack Houssain Obama
15:23
Speaker 5: with emphasis on the Hossain. So let's hear what he
15:27
Speaker 5: then continues with.
15:31
Speaker 7: It gave everything to Iran, including billions of dollars in
15:35
Speaker 7: green cash. I don't mean cash, I mean green cash
15:38
Speaker 7: flown over by airplanes. I can't to this day I
15:43
Speaker 7: believe that was allowed to happen. And come to think,
15:46
Speaker 7: if it would be a good thing for somebody to
15:48
Speaker 7: look at, how does the president have the power to
15:50
Speaker 7: hand hundreds of millions of dollars of cash to terrorists.
15:54
Speaker 7: But it began with that, and I terminated that deal.
15:57
Speaker 7: If I didn't terminate that deal, we might not be
15:59
Speaker 7: here right now. If I didn't terminate that deal, unbelievable
16:04
Speaker 7: nuclear holocaust would have taken place. And then I did
16:07
Speaker 7: it a set.
16:12
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm impressed that the Irish Prime Minister had
16:14
Speaker 5: the decency to look puzzled at that commentary from Trump,
16:18
Speaker 5: and he.
16:18
Speaker 1: Has every right to do so.
16:20
Speaker 5: This again, is Trump just making history up out of nowhere.
16:24
Speaker 5: So I had a quick look at this from the
16:26
Speaker 5: Brookings Institute the United States. This was in twenty sixteen,
16:31
Speaker 5: Iran and one point seven billions. Sorting out the details.
16:34
Speaker 5: So what are the details that Trump is claiming that
16:37
Speaker 5: Barack Hussain Obama handed this money over in planeloads to
16:42
Speaker 5: Iran In the sixties and seventies, Iran under the Shah,
16:46
Speaker 5: of course, was the largest partner of the US Foreign
16:49
Speaker 5: Military Sales the FMS, As an Obama administration official explained
16:54
Speaker 5: earlier this year, as part of the fms's program, a
16:57
Speaker 5: trust fund was established with Iranian funds to pay US
17:01
Speaker 5: contractors as work progressed on the various contracts. In February
17:05
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy nine, days before the culmination of Iran's revolution,
17:09
Speaker 5: the US and Iran agreed to a memorandum of Understanding
17:13
Speaker 5: that halted these payments and voided many of the remaining purchases.
17:17
Speaker 5: The MoU also called for Iran's unexpended FMS funds to
17:23
Speaker 5: be placed in an interest bearing account. So what did
17:26
Speaker 5: effectively happen. This was both under the Bush and the
17:31
Speaker 5: Obama administration.
17:32
Speaker 1: Well guess what.
17:33
Speaker 5: The US were put under huge pressure to return not
17:38
Speaker 5: only the money being held in the unexpended Fund's account,
17:43
Speaker 5: but also to pay not only the four hundred million,
17:47
Speaker 5: six hundred million, sorry, but also one point three billion
17:50
Speaker 5: in interest. So just another demonstration of how Trump literally
17:54
Speaker 5: makes stuff up as he goes along, and that any
17:57
Speaker 5: information that he's putting out should be considered extremely unreliged.
18:01
Speaker 5: And I just wanted to play here because of course
18:03
Speaker 5: the insult towards the Iranian people, not only with the
18:07
Speaker 5: video game that you mentioned, Charles, but also the language
18:10
Speaker 5: that is being used to describe a six two hundred
18:14
Speaker 5: year old civilization. And I just wanted to play two videos.
18:18
Speaker 5: The first one is a young Iranian woman that has
18:21
Speaker 5: returned to Iran from the safety of Europe to stand
18:24
Speaker 5: with the Iranian people and to be in her homeland
18:28
Speaker 5: during this time.
18:28
Speaker 1: So let's just play this.
18:31
Speaker 9: It's all about more, I guess, and imperialist because in
18:38
Speaker 9: this world you don't have the certain option. You either
18:40
Speaker 9: have to fight with them or you have to be
18:42
Speaker 9: there as slave. We choose not to be a slave.
18:44
Speaker 9: And that's like the struggle of Iranians, Palestinian lem not historians,
18:49
Speaker 9: You're all connected. It's the same thing I was living
18:53
Speaker 9: in Europe. I can be in the second day of
18:55
Speaker 9: all just to say that I'm here, I'm in my
18:58
Speaker 9: country is land, and here it will be your grave. Here,
19:02
Speaker 9: it will be the grave of anyone who has the
19:04
Speaker 9: plan of big Israeli Israeli, Big is Ra Hill. Many
19:09
Speaker 9: people ask him, oh, you're going back to do what,
19:12
Speaker 9: and I said, it's not about doing what, it's about
19:14
Speaker 9: being there.
19:15
Speaker 7: I came here just to be because.
19:18
Speaker 9: Me being here is a sense of solidarity that I'm
19:21
Speaker 9: standing with my people. And it's not like, oh, my
19:25
Speaker 9: people are being on the bombardment. I'm just sitting in
19:27
Speaker 9: Europe on on myself and reading the news.
19:30
Speaker 5: No, I couldn't do that, which is quite extraordinary because
19:36
Speaker 5: if you consider the videos we've seen of Iranians and
19:39
Speaker 5: diaspora actually cheering on the bombing of their people. And finally,
19:43
Speaker 5: this is what I found, a very moving conversation with
19:47
Speaker 5: a young Iranian woman with her son out on the
19:51
Speaker 5: streets while they are being bombed, and because it's in
19:55
Speaker 5: Iranian Persian, sorry, There are subtitles, but by basically she
20:00
Speaker 5: responds to to them asking her how she will deal
20:03
Speaker 5: with the hardships having a young son.
20:05
Speaker 1: So let's just play this.
20:08
Speaker 10: Really, honnand I got gabas Corny, my joy fellow, Snchel
20:19
Speaker 10: and Saul shards and they give me cornaa mala jangi
20:27
Speaker 10: tonam when I ROAs and corn and corner again on
20:38
Speaker 10: your behind days.
20:49
Speaker 5: So what she's effectively saying is why should she worry
20:52
Speaker 5: about any hardships that she faces after the hardships being
20:55
Speaker 5: faced by the children in Gaza, and that Iran and
21:00
Speaker 5: everyone really must stand up against the oppression by the
21:04
Speaker 5: Zionist entity.
21:06
Speaker 1: Thank you for that, Vanessa. Let's move on then to
21:11
Speaker 1: Rachel Reeves because she was let's see what's happened here? Yes,
21:16
Speaker 1: Rachel Reeves with Liz Kendl yesterday to visit the National
21:20
Speaker 1: Quantum Computing Center. She announced that the UK is going
21:25
Speaker 1: to see the fastest adoption of AI in the G
21:28
Speaker 1: seven with a record two point five billion pounds boost
21:32
Speaker 1: to secure the UK. This is her words as a
21:35
Speaker 1: world leader in AI and quantum and she also said
21:38
Speaker 1: that the UK's ambition is to lead the quantum revolution,
21:43
Speaker 1: which they hope is going to create one hundred thousand
21:45
Speaker 1: UK jobs, maybe AI jobs, but we'll see, and generated
21:49
Speaker 1: two hundred and twelve billion pounds of economic impact over
21:52
Speaker 1: the next two decades. And they said that the investment
21:55
Speaker 1: delivers on the UK government's Modern Industrial Strategy, which has
22:00
Speaker 1: identified digital and technologies including AI and quantum as one
22:04
Speaker 1: of the high growth sectors. So that's what they're saying
22:07
Speaker 1: about it.
22:08
Speaker 3: Now.
22:08
Speaker 1: Reeves herself had this to say, AI is the defining
22:12
Speaker 1: technology of her era. The choice is this, we can
22:15
Speaker 1: bury our heads in the sand and leave it to
22:17
Speaker 1: other countries whose values made different from ours, to shape
22:20
Speaker 1: and own this technology. But what she really interested in, well,
22:25
Speaker 1: I would argue that this is the kill chain that
22:28
Speaker 1: this regime is really interested in. And here's a quick
22:32
Speaker 1: quote from the Strategic Defense Review from twenty twenty five.
22:35
Speaker 1: Of course, informed by lessons from Ukraine, the digital targeting
22:39
Speaker 1: web can connect sensors or would connect sensors, deciders and effectors,
22:43
Speaker 1: informed by AI and supported by a common synthetic environment.
22:47
Speaker 1: The targeting web web epitomizes how integ the integrated force
22:52
Speaker 1: must fight and adapt. But we already know from John
22:55
Speaker 1: Heay's meeting with Alex Karp that another way of describing
22:59
Speaker 1: the digital target targeting web is the kiled Chin. And
23:02
Speaker 1: of course Volunteer absolutely well and truly embedded with the
23:07
Speaker 1: UK government on this. Well. Volunteer has felt the need
23:09
Speaker 1: to defend the killed Chin in a letter to the
23:12
Speaker 1: United Nations Special Rapporteur. And I just pulled one quote
23:15
Speaker 1: from this because I'm sorry if that makes anybody feel ill,
23:19
Speaker 1: but it just it's ridiculous. The quote is Volunteer has
23:22
Speaker 1: a long standing commitment to the preservation of human rights,
23:26
Speaker 1: so that's really their position to this. But also in
23:28
Speaker 1: a speech given recently or in the last couple of days,
23:33
Speaker 1: Alex Karp has said this, have a listen.
23:40
Speaker 6: But it's a highly meritocratic culture with elite institutions and
23:45
Speaker 6: ideally shaped actually for AI because of mathematical aptitude. So
23:49
Speaker 6: we're not a monolithic culture. But the one thing I
23:53
Speaker 6: tell paleteerians in America and outside of America, you can
23:56
Speaker 6: be on any side of the issue, but if you're
23:59
Speaker 6: expecting us to not support war fighters when they're in battle, you.
24:05
Speaker 1: Got the wrong company.
24:06
Speaker 3: Uh.
24:07
Speaker 6: And we Appalenteer support war fighters.
24:10
Speaker 1: Uh and uh.
24:12
Speaker 6: And once the war starts, we stopped. We're not interested
24:15
Speaker 6: in debating how we're supporting them. We are very very
24:18
Speaker 6: proud to have our role in making sure the American
24:23
Speaker 6: men and women come home safe, safe and happy and
24:27
Speaker 6: proud of what they're doing.
24:29
Speaker 10: Uh.
24:30
Speaker 6: And that sometimes means that people on the other side
24:33
Speaker 6: don't go home, and we are very proud of that.
24:37
Speaker 6: And I'd like to just encourage everyone here who whatever
24:41
Speaker 6: side your you know, whatever your beliefs, you know, those
24:44
Speaker 6: people on the battlefield are the reason every business in
24:50
Speaker 6: this country gets away with winning abroad and h.
24:57
Speaker 2: And uh.
24:59
Speaker 6: And you should know when you're interacting with Talenteer, those
25:03
Speaker 6: are our values.
25:06
Speaker 1: So this is what the Starmer regime is actually investing in.
25:09
Speaker 1: It's not an AI for the benefit of individual people
25:13
Speaker 1: or ordinary people. It's in the kill chain. And they've
25:16
Speaker 1: doubled down, of course on the relationship with Palanteer, and
25:21
Speaker 1: they are indeed fully engaged with the use of AI
25:23
Speaker 1: for targeting and the consequence. It seems to be the
25:26
Speaker 1: position that they're taking. But in the meantime, it's increasingly
25:29
Speaker 1: recognized inside the Ministry of Defense that Pallunteer, as they
25:34
Speaker 1: describe it in this particular article, the USAI company is
25:40
Speaker 1: scaling with hundreds of millions of pounds in the UK
25:42
Speaker 1: government contracts. But these mod whistlebowers apparently are claiming that
25:47
Speaker 1: this is posing a national security threats to the UK.
25:50
Speaker 1: I can't disagree with that. Now, this is an article
25:53
Speaker 1: in the Nerve and as I say, they're quoting two
25:56
Speaker 1: anonymous high level sources working with the Ministry of Defense,
26:00
Speaker 1: and these sources are reported as saying that while the
26:03
Speaker 1: underlying data may remain under the m ord's control, the
26:06
Speaker 1: insights derived from that data do not. The implications of this,
26:10
Speaker 1: the insiders say, are far reaching, especially because of the
26:13
Speaker 1: vast quantity of personal and other data the company has
26:15
Speaker 1: access to across the UK government department. So that's where
26:20
Speaker 1: we are with this at the moment. Charles, what are
26:23
Speaker 1: your thoughts?
26:25
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, this is not to he put any
26:28
Speaker 2: form of praise on him, but it is in some
26:30
Speaker 2: ways refreshing to hear somebody be honest about the business
26:33
Speaker 2: that they're engaging in, rather trying to obfuscate the truth
26:37
Speaker 2: and pretend that people aren't going to die as a
26:39
Speaker 2: result of their actions. So at least people in some
26:42
Speaker 2: senses know where they stand and indeed know where governments
26:45
Speaker 2: stand by using Palentia, that much is at least clear.
26:48
Speaker 2: I think in so far as the what on Earth
26:51
Speaker 2: did people think was going to happen? Question or category,
26:55
Speaker 2: I mean, what I would just follow that with is
26:58
Speaker 2: something goes back. I suppose a few weeks really we
27:01
Speaker 2: talked about Anthropic and Open AI and their relationships with
27:04
Speaker 2: the Pentagon and indeed their attitude towards this sort of
27:08
Speaker 2: similar subject area. But it's just been announced that both
27:11
Speaker 2: those companies and probably more have hired chemical and bio
27:15
Speaker 2: biological weapons experts. And this is because in their risk
27:18
Speaker 2: report published back in February of this year, there's a
27:23
Speaker 2: table of threats or potential misuse and under the sort
27:28
Speaker 2: of chemical and biological weapons column it's written individuals or
27:33
Speaker 2: small groups with limited resources might use AI models to
27:37
Speaker 2: gain access to chemical or biological weapons, leading to the
27:40
Speaker 2: risk of catastrophic harm. Now those categories in that particular
27:44
Speaker 2: paper are much more extensive than that. But as I say,
27:47
Speaker 2: what on Earth did people think was going to happen?
27:50
Speaker 2: And this does articulate well the lack of thought or
27:53
Speaker 2: the lack of regulation in particular, that has gone into
27:56
Speaker 2: any of this and of course now we're seeing the
27:59
Speaker 2: situation where this technology is embedded absolutely across the board,
28:04
Speaker 2: and in many cases I would have thought it's in
28:07
Speaker 2: effect gone too far down the track for anything to
28:09
Speaker 2: be done. Apart from these rather pathetic regard actions like
28:11
Speaker 2: employing weapons experts to try to deal with it, how
28:15
Speaker 2: would they compete with an AI in the system.
28:17
Speaker 1: I don't know, Vanessa. Before we move on, I just
28:20
Speaker 1: want to get your thoughts on this, because of course
28:22
Speaker 1: Palestine and Iran are both on the receiving end of
28:25
Speaker 1: the AI kilchain. So what are your thoughts.
28:30
Speaker 5: Well, not only Iroon in Palestine, but now of course Lebanon.
28:34
Speaker 5: It's being used here to dictate target bank to Israel,
28:39
Speaker 5: and we're seeing the mass bombing of whole areas, probably
28:45
Speaker 5: based on the same systems as we're used in Gaza.
28:50
Speaker 1: Indeed, Okay, thank you for that. Okay, let's move on then.
28:53
Speaker 1: So if you like what the UK Column does, we
28:56
Speaker 1: do need your ongoing financial support if you can help
28:59
Speaker 1: a side. The details are on the UK Column website.
29:02
Speaker 1: If you have a look on the front page, you'll
29:03
Speaker 1: be taken to a link which shows you where you
29:06
Speaker 1: can find out more. If you can't help us financially.
29:10
Speaker 1: We do need you to share this program and anything
29:13
Speaker 1: else that you like from the UK column because that
29:16
Speaker 1: helps us beat the censorship regime in the country. And well,
29:21
Speaker 1: once again say thank you very much everybody that is
29:23
Speaker 1: helping in any way possible, because that is massive for us.
29:28
Speaker 1: Now tonight at seven pm, Jerremans speaking to Zoe Harcom
29:31
Speaker 1: on why being fatter is good is better if for
29:34
Speaker 1: people of older age. I'm going to be very interested
29:39
Speaker 1: because I'm not sure an interesting one I agree with that,
29:41
Speaker 1: So we're going to have to watch that and find
29:43
Speaker 1: out what you're saying. And at nine pm tonight, Carl
29:48
Speaker 1: za is speaking to Arnold Bertran on Europe's aside packed
29:52
Speaker 1: why the Iran War is a catastrophe for the European
29:54
Speaker 1: Union and China is laughing, So join us for that
29:58
Speaker 1: at nine and German at seven as well. And well,
30:03
Speaker 1: let's move on then to the question of assisted dying,
30:07
Speaker 1: because the MSPs in Scotland have rejected the chance to
30:11
Speaker 1: make Scotland the first part of the United Kingdom to
30:14
Speaker 1: legalize assisted dying. Let's take just a quick look at
30:17
Speaker 1: the announcement of the result.
30:20
Speaker 11: The result of the vote on motion two to one
30:23
Speaker 11: zero zero five in the name of Lee MacArthur is
30:27
Speaker 11: Yes fifty seven No sixty nine. There was one abstention.
30:32
Speaker 11: The motion is therefore not agreed and the Assisted Dying
30:36
Speaker 11: Bill for Terminally Ill Adult Scotland Bill falls.
30:42
Speaker 1: So the bill was brought by this man, Liberal Democrat
30:46
Speaker 1: Liam MacArthur, and it would have of course allowed terminally ill,
30:50
Speaker 1: mentally competent adults to seek medical help to end their lives.
30:55
Speaker 1: The issue of coercion was the main objection that opponents
30:58
Speaker 1: had apparently, and macarth Arthur complained that those who rejected
31:01
Speaker 1: the bill gave a woefully inadequate response to the suffering
31:06
Speaker 1: and trauma experienced by dying Scott's and their families, So
31:09
Speaker 1: that was his position. The upshot of all this is
31:12
Speaker 1: that campaigners have failed to persuade anyone that assisted dying
31:16
Speaker 1: is safe, either in Scotland or in fact in England
31:19
Speaker 1: and Wales, where the equivalent bill is still stalled in
31:22
Speaker 1: the House of Lords. As everybody will be aware and
31:26
Speaker 1: it's generally acknowledged now that that is not going to
31:28
Speaker 1: pass in this parliamentary session. Lord Faulkner of course is
31:33
Speaker 1: disgusted with the failure in both parliaments, and he has
31:37
Speaker 1: vowed to fight on. In fact, on today's BBC Today
31:40
Speaker 1: program this morning, he made it clear that the fight
31:43
Speaker 1: is not over and that the bill will be brought back.
31:46
Speaker 1: This is the English Bill, the English and Welsh Bill
31:49
Speaker 1: be brought back and the next time the Parliament Act
31:51
Speaker 1: is likely to be used to prevent the House of
31:53
Speaker 1: Lords from similarly preventing the passage of the bill in
31:56
Speaker 1: the future. I remember the House of Lords is there
31:59
Speaker 1: as a revising chamber. It's a constitutional function is to scrutinize,
32:03
Speaker 1: to amend, to delay legislation that's passed in the House
32:07
Speaker 1: of Commons or at least agreed at that point within
32:12
Speaker 1: the sort of chain of events of the legislation passing
32:15
Speaker 1: through Parliament, and also to provide a stop on executive overreach.
32:20
Speaker 1: So this is when the government is misbehaving, as it
32:23
Speaker 1: absolutely is at the moment, and he's mentioning the Parliament
32:26
Speaker 1: Act with the Parliament Act of nineteen eleven and nineteen
32:30
Speaker 1: forty nine absolutely subvert the role of the House of
32:34
Speaker 1: Lords because they used to have an absolute veto on
32:38
Speaker 1: the House of Commons if they disagreed with what it
32:40
Speaker 1: was a decision was making or with the legislation was
32:42
Speaker 1: putting through and the Parliament Act makes that a suspensive role.
32:49
Speaker 1: Now under the Acts, if the Commons passes a bill
32:51
Speaker 1: in two consecutive sessions and the Lord's refuse a the
32:55
Speaker 1: bill will be presented, will be presented for a role
32:58
Speaker 1: assent without the Lord's consent, and that bypasses the Lord's entirely. Ironically,
33:04
Speaker 1: the nineteen forty nine Act was a self passed using
33:07
Speaker 1: the nineteen eleven Act to do that. So anyway, that's
33:11
Speaker 1: the situation. But Charles we should remember, of course, at
33:15
Speaker 1: Lord Faulkner's son, Himish, has been one of the main
33:19
Speaker 1: proponents of the Iraq War, or at least propaganda for
33:22
Speaker 1: the Iraq War over the last couple of years. Iran.
33:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely no as well, no, I mean one roles
33:30
Speaker 2: In Feller as Foreign Office Minister. He has been absolutely
33:35
Speaker 2: hammering the narrative that Iran is minutes away from arming
33:40
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons and sending them off in particularly our direction,
33:44
Speaker 2: which courses fed into the narrative that Iran poses a threat,
33:48
Speaker 2: a direct threat to the United Kingdom, either through a
33:50
Speaker 2: potential nuclear program or through the so called state threats
33:55
Speaker 2: of the type I referred to earlier that are constantly
33:57
Speaker 2: being foiled by Ken McCallum and his band, the Security Service.
34:01
Speaker 2: So it just seems an extraordinary coincidence, probably not the
34:05
Speaker 2: right word, that Hamish Faulkner, son of Lord Faulkner, would
34:10
Speaker 2: be pushing a narrative that has ended in plenty of
34:14
Speaker 2: death and destruction.
34:16
Speaker 1: Indeed, Vanessa, let's come on to Lebanon, then what is
34:20
Speaker 1: the littust from there?
34:23
Speaker 5: Well, we all had a very sleepless night again last night,
34:27
Speaker 5: heavy concentration of warplanes overhead and very heavy bombing not
34:31
Speaker 5: only in the suburbs of Beirute, but also closer again
34:35
Speaker 5: to Central Bay Route, very heavy warheads being used. But
34:42
Speaker 5: I just wanted to quickly show this map, which I
34:44
Speaker 5: think is a little bit out of date. I think
34:46
Speaker 5: it's from the fourth to the sixth of March, but nevertheless,
34:49
Speaker 5: not much has changed. The green dot show the level
34:52
Speaker 5: of bombing or the concentration of bombing in the south
34:56
Speaker 5: of Lebanon. The blue squiggly line is the Latany River
35:00
Speaker 5: and the shaded area is the area that Israel is
35:03
Speaker 5: now claiming.
35:04
Speaker 1: As a buffer zone.
35:05
Speaker 5: And so it's begun a ground invasion. You can see
35:08
Speaker 5: from the little blue man going up to the right
35:12
Speaker 5: hand side of the border there and the error pointing
35:17
Speaker 5: to a town called Rayam, which has been witnessing some
35:22
Speaker 5: of the heaviest.
35:23
Speaker 1: Fighting for the last couple of weeks.
35:25
Speaker 5: Actually Israel has so far been completely unable to invade
35:29
Speaker 5: or to take any position within Khyam. But it's interesting,
35:34
Speaker 5: well not interesting. It's sort of shocking that the Israeli
35:36
Speaker 5: is now talking about sending something like four hundred and
35:40
Speaker 5: fifty thousand, so half a million reserves to the border
35:43
Speaker 5: to take on one hundred thousand maximum HESBLA fighters inside Lebanon.
35:49
Speaker 5: So they are making a very big push. The video
35:53
Speaker 5: upcoming is just a demonstration of the strikes last night.
35:58
Speaker 5: This is the same building from two different angles, so
36:02
Speaker 5: let's just have a look. It has to be said
36:33
Speaker 5: that there are still people living in these areas in
36:37
Speaker 5: the suburbs, and all of these strikes were to kill
36:40
Speaker 5: one person, a targeted assassination which brought down numerous apartment
36:45
Speaker 5: buildings and killed I think to date about ten civilians.
36:50
Speaker 1: Some images here.
36:51
Speaker 5: These were pre dawn strikes also, so while people were
36:54
Speaker 5: sleeping at still Ramadan, so people obviously I was kind
36:59
Speaker 5: of sleeping in in the morning. Massive damage to civilian
37:04
Speaker 5: infrastructure and property. And then also the two images that
37:09
Speaker 5: are coming up next. This is a family that were
37:11
Speaker 5: killed in strikes on the eastern border of Lebanon in
37:15
Speaker 5: the Bulbak area, an entire family apart from one boy
37:19
Speaker 5: who's now in hospital, who you can see on the right.
37:24
Speaker 5: And then I also just wanted to show this video
37:27
Speaker 5: which was taken this morning showing just some of the
37:30
Speaker 5: devastation in the Dache area from the recent bombing. And
37:37
Speaker 5: of course they've been unable to reconstruct from the war
37:40
Speaker 5: back in twenty twenty four. When the ceasefire came into
37:43
Speaker 5: effect in November, no one has been able to reconstruct,
37:46
Speaker 5: and Israel has continued violating the ceasefire. And then this
37:51
Speaker 5: is just a comment. The longer comment is on Mardua
37:54
Speaker 5: Osmand's telegram journal and the link will be in the
37:57
Speaker 5: show notes. But she's addressing the Lebanese government or factions
38:01
Speaker 5: within the Lebanese government, who of course are aligned effectively
38:05
Speaker 5: with Israel and Washington, and she says, nobody is asking
38:07
Speaker 5: you to end the war. You're clearly not capable of that,
38:11
Speaker 5: at least show some spine and do something to do
38:14
Speaker 5: to support the displaced and terrorized children. And she's absolutely right.
38:19
Speaker 5: I have to say the government here is doing nothing.
38:22
Speaker 5: The most they're doing is suggesting that refugees and displaced
38:26
Speaker 5: people head to the north to Tripoli into Akka, which,
38:29
Speaker 5: of course Tripoli particularly is infested with those that are
38:34
Speaker 5: aligned with Joe Laney so effectively tach theories, so the
38:37
Speaker 5: chances of them remaining safe in Tripoli is very slim,
38:41
Speaker 5: particularly if the threatened invasion from Syria goes ahead. And
38:46
Speaker 5: then finally, I have been following Craig Mohaibo before was
38:51
Speaker 5: it you an official before he resigned over Gaza, and
38:56
Speaker 5: he is a human rights lawyer and he basically says
38:59
Speaker 5: all people must work in solidarity with Lebanese, Palestinian, Iranian people.
39:05
Speaker 5: The alternative is death, destruction and subjugation, and I have
39:09
Speaker 5: to agree with him. He also said the Israeli regime,
39:13
Speaker 5: lawlessness and impunity are existential threats to all who live
39:18
Speaker 5: in the region, to international peace and security, and to
39:21
Speaker 5: the very idea of international law itself. The machine must
39:26
Speaker 5: be defeated. I have to say he's been one of
39:28
Speaker 5: the strongest supporters of the resistance war against Israel and
39:33
Speaker 5: Washington on X and I do recommend following him.
39:41
Speaker 1: Thank you, Vanessa. Just a quick question. I mean you're
39:44
Speaker 1: saying that the warplanes were flying overhead. I think it.
39:48
Speaker 1: This doesn't This is just constant day and night, is it.
39:54
Speaker 5: The warplanes not so much. The drones are constantly overhead.
39:57
Speaker 5: The warplanes tend to be there are at night when
40:01
Speaker 5: the heaviest bombing raids come. But in recent weeks they've
40:05
Speaker 5: been flying incredibly low, I mean to the point where
40:07
Speaker 5: you can actually see them. Previously you could hear them,
40:10
Speaker 5: but they would be at very high altitude, so you
40:12
Speaker 5: wouldn't necessarily see them. But they are now flying extremely low,
40:17
Speaker 5: and the helicopters and endless drones.
40:21
Speaker 1: And the litterist was that the attacks are moving further
40:26
Speaker 1: into the center of Beirute. Where do they intend to
40:31
Speaker 1: end this?
40:34
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, if you remember we reported on the
40:36
Speaker 5: fact that Israel said if Hesbola were not disarmed, then
40:40
Speaker 5: they would start targeting essential infrastructure in all of Lebanon,
40:44
Speaker 5: including the airport. They had a twelve hundred number of
40:50
Speaker 5: structures that they intended to strike if the war continued,
40:53
Speaker 5: and also HESBLA had launched a huge missile attack prior
40:57
Speaker 5: to this bombing. I think two waves of more than
41:01
Speaker 5: two hundred missiles that hit target inside the occupied territories
41:04
Speaker 5: before the bombing wave.
41:07
Speaker 1: Right, okay, thank you for that. Well, we'll talk much
41:09
Speaker 1: more about that in extra have no Diet. But Charles,
41:12
Speaker 1: let's come back to the UK then and the future
41:15
Speaker 1: of food, because the Food Standards Agency has been making comments.
41:19
Speaker 2: On what they have to be eating in the indeed,
41:21
Speaker 2: and one might say they're rather out of their depth.
41:23
Speaker 2: Now we've reported a lot on where the direction of
41:26
Speaker 2: what is being described erroneously as food is going. The
41:30
Speaker 2: Food Standards Agency, just to remind you, has a remit
41:33
Speaker 2: to preserve the safety of the way in which food
41:36
Speaker 2: is produced and that really should mark the end of
41:40
Speaker 2: what it is able to do. But exactly as Mike says,
41:44
Speaker 2: it has produced a document entitled Future Foods that could
41:47
Speaker 2: transform UK plates by twenty thirty five and specifically referring
41:51
Speaker 2: to technologies, saying that technology is most likely to generate
41:54
Speaker 2: food safety and regulatory needs in Great Britain over the
41:58
Speaker 2: coming decade. Now we'll get into the detail of exactly
42:01
Speaker 2: what they are. But first of all, we're going to
42:03
Speaker 2: listen to an exchange between the head of the FSA,
42:06
Speaker 2: Professor Susan Jeb and then in response Professor Tim Lang,
42:11
Speaker 2: and we're just here Susan Jeb on Radio four.
42:15
Speaker 12: First of all, look, our food system is always evolving
42:20
Speaker 12: and this is really exciting science. So let's celebrate that
42:24
Speaker 12: in British Science Week. But we need these new foods
42:28
Speaker 12: to help us address some of the big societal challenges
42:31
Speaker 12: of our time. We know that diet related problems are
42:36
Speaker 12: causing ill health. We know that the way we produce
42:39
Speaker 12: food is putting huge stress on our environment, and we
42:42
Speaker 12: know that with all the geopolitical instability around the country
42:46
Speaker 12: around the world, we need to be more food secure
42:50
Speaker 12: in the UK. And so some of these new technologies
42:54
Speaker 12: can help solve those challenges health wise.
42:57
Speaker 1: What challenges could they solve there?
42:59
Speaker 2: Because we can to get.
43:00
Speaker 12: A lot of this stuff anyway, of course, but because
43:03
Speaker 12: we're manufacturing these things in very controlled environments, it will
43:07
Speaker 12: be possible to tailor them much more specifically to our
43:11
Speaker 12: particular needs. So perhaps to change the type of fats
43:15
Speaker 12: that are in a product, or to develop particular foods
43:19
Speaker 12: if you like designer foods for people with particular nutritional needs.
43:23
Speaker 12: But the key thing is that with all these new technologies,
43:27
Speaker 12: we have got to be sure they're.
43:28
Speaker 1: Safe and effective. Quite possibly.
43:33
Speaker 2: Now, I'm just going to run through a list of
43:35
Speaker 2: the sorts of things that she is actually referring to you,
43:38
Speaker 2: and I'll leave you to decide whether you want to
43:39
Speaker 2: eat any of them, or whether you'd consider that any
43:42
Speaker 2: would constitute food. The first being controlled environment agriculture, which
43:45
Speaker 2: you heard are talking about, precision and biomass fermentation, cellular
43:49
Speaker 2: agriculture including cell cultivated foods, edible intechs, and of course
43:54
Speaker 2: a reminder there that kite in this substantive ingredient is
43:57
Speaker 2: not bioavailable to human beings. Molecular farming using plants or
44:01
Speaker 2: plant cells as tiny factories to make specific food ingredients
44:05
Speaker 2: such as proteins and enzymes. Gas fermentation using microbes to
44:09
Speaker 2: convert captured carbon dioxide, hydrogen, or other industrial gases into
44:13
Speaker 2: single cell proteins and other useful food ingredients. Now, these
44:18
Speaker 2: last who appear to encapsulate how far removed the description
44:21
Speaker 2: of food has become from reality.
44:23
Speaker 1: So we look at first of all three D food.
44:25
Speaker 2: Printing, building foods in this I quote like chocolate or
44:30
Speaker 2: mashed potato out of layering edible, sorry, out of layering
44:35
Speaker 2: edible neither my apologies, I will start again. Of course,
44:40
Speaker 2: neither of those is needed by human beings in the
44:42
Speaker 2: first place, and indeed the ingredients come from a printer.
44:46
Speaker 2: She then talks about reverse food manufacturing, taking nutrients back
44:50
Speaker 2: out of food and turning them into new ingredients. So
44:54
Speaker 2: as if that isn't enough, she is painting a picture
44:57
Speaker 2: where the FSA is because coming much like the MHRA,
45:02
Speaker 2: which of course is described as a regulator as an
45:05
Speaker 2: actual fact, is becoming an enabler. Now she appeared to
45:08
Speaker 2: fairly far off course and was corrected I would say,
45:12
Speaker 2: or put back on course by Professor Tim Lang, who
45:16
Speaker 2: was the author of the National Preparedness Commission Just in
45:19
Speaker 2: Case reports, and this is him countering Susan Jeb.
45:25
Speaker 1: But I mean, if you look at.
45:26
Speaker 8: The technologies that the report, the bigger report the FSA
45:30
Speaker 8: Food Standers Scotland has produced, they're all factory approaches. In
45:36
Speaker 8: in a sense, what this represents is the Food STANDARDIZ
45:39
Speaker 8: Agency accepting the government's economic agenda of trying to engineer
45:45
Speaker 8: biology and move away from the land towards factories. But
45:49
Speaker 8: it's that that's actually brought us the problems that did
45:52
Speaker 8: the societal problem. Susan Jeb referred to namily obast two things,
45:57
Speaker 8: but the hard criticism I had, So I wouldn't like
46:01
Speaker 8: listeners of the Today program to think this is actually
46:04
Speaker 8: the future that's coming. It's one version of the future
46:08
Speaker 8: that's coming. There are technologies that are completely missing in
46:11
Speaker 8: this report, artificial intelligence, ransomware, the weaponization which my report
46:17
Speaker 8: for just in case report that you referred to short
46:20
Speaker 8: for the Natural Preparedness Commission went into. These are the
46:24
Speaker 8: things which are affecting people directly.
46:29
Speaker 2: So despite the fact he is in effect an insider
46:32
Speaker 2: in that he does write documents for government use him Lang,
46:36
Speaker 2: they're not shy of criticizing exactly what it is that
46:39
Speaker 2: the FSA is trying to push, and of course the
46:41
Speaker 2: exposing itself as first of all a net contributor to
46:44
Speaker 2: the process of destroying the British countryside and the way
46:47
Speaker 2: of life, destroying the natural environment and destroying human health,
46:50
Speaker 2: but also gifting enormous control and profits to big food
46:54
Speaker 2: and big farmer and as they say, they could transfer
47:00
Speaker 2: UK plates by twenty thirty five. It's up to the
47:02
Speaker 2: UK column audience and the wider population to ensure that
47:05
Speaker 2: this does not happen. But the signs are not good,
47:08
Speaker 2: and I just pick a recent BBC report on the
47:11
Speaker 2: decline in market for sheep farmers, which has been a
47:14
Speaker 2: steady trend over the years, a number of different influences,
47:16
Speaker 2: of course, one of them being the lure of ultra cheap,
47:20
Speaker 2: ultra processed foods, but also the push of subsidy, which
47:23
Speaker 2: the article does reference how changing subsidies have made an
47:26
Speaker 2: impact away from livestock and towards nature recovery, but also
47:30
Speaker 2: interestingly how Muslim communities could make a difference. And I
47:34
Speaker 2: quote from the article AHDB the Agriculture and Horticulture Development
47:38
Speaker 2: Board statistics suggests that eighty percent of hollal consumers eat
47:42
Speaker 2: lamb on a weekly basis and sixty four percent eat
47:44
Speaker 2: mutton weekly. By contrast, only six percent of the general
47:48
Speaker 2: UK population eats lamb each week. And so the HDB
47:55
Speaker 2: going on to produce an article that substantiates effectively the
47:59
Speaker 2: case for the Muslim population of Western Europe now providing
48:03
Speaker 2: the main market for British sheep farmers and of course,
48:06
Speaker 2: the Muslim population of the United Kingdom now being the
48:09
Speaker 2: bastion upholding the British tradition of eating lamb and mutton.
48:14
Speaker 2: So I will continue to look at this and how
48:16
Speaker 2: the food trends go. But of course there's only one
48:18
Speaker 2: way really to defeat the type of narrative put forward
48:21
Speaker 2: by Susan jeb and that is to change the eating
48:24
Speaker 2: habits of the British population.
48:26
Speaker 1: Absolutely okay, thank you for that, Charles Snyle. Let's look
48:30
Speaker 1: at the situation with news media in the UK now,
48:33
Speaker 1: the starmar regime represented by the culture Sectorary Lisa Nandy
48:38
Speaker 1: has posted this on X yesterday, reporting on her new
48:43
Speaker 1: local media strategy. Now, make no mistake, this is about
48:45
Speaker 1: bringing centralized narrative control to the local level and the
48:49
Speaker 1: name of broadening the media to be it and supporting
48:51
Speaker 1: new voices and supporting local media transition to digital business models,
48:56
Speaker 1: because that's what it's all about. Launching this strategy, Nandy said.
49:00
Speaker 1: This strategy will provide unprecedented funding for local media LEDs
49:06
Speaker 1: to invest in innovation and infrastructure, almost tripling the size
49:09
Speaker 1: of funding for community radio, harnessing the power of local
49:13
Speaker 1: and national government and giving more young people access to
49:16
Speaker 1: high quality journalism and the opportunity to pursue careers in it.
49:21
Speaker 1: And she said the strategy we published today is a
49:23
Speaker 1: start and not the endpoint, and we recognize there is
49:26
Speaker 1: more to do, but it's the start of a new
49:28
Speaker 1: approach to local media which nurtures it and places it
49:32
Speaker 1: directly at the heart of our government support for our
49:34
Speaker 1: country because the future of news is local. That's her position.
49:40
Speaker 1: And as say, she announced twelve million pounds in funding
49:43
Speaker 1: a new regional media forum in the West of England
49:46
Speaker 1: to explore ways to improve the relationship between journalists and
49:50
Speaker 1: local public services. And don't forget the children, because they're
49:53
Speaker 1: also launching a campaign in schools in the Northwest of
49:56
Speaker 1: England to inspire young people from all backgrounds to pursue
50:00
Speaker 1: called media careers. Now, this is a continuation of the
50:03
Speaker 1: Tory policy launched by Matt Hancock when he was Culture Secretary.
50:08
Speaker 1: Because always remember Starmer was elected on a platform of change.
50:12
Speaker 1: The bottom line is that once news media is funded
50:15
Speaker 1: by the state, it's no longer independent.
50:18
Speaker 2: Charles indeed, yes, I mean this is something that obviously
50:23
Speaker 2: we've been covering for a long time, coming Ben in
50:26
Speaker 2: particular reporting on the way this is very likely to go.
50:28
Speaker 2: And I think the probably misused expression that springs to
50:33
Speaker 2: mind is he pays the piper and you know, effectively
50:37
Speaker 2: and fund that they will get exactly the result that
50:39
Speaker 2: they desire, which of course is the way that this
50:40
Speaker 2: is intended to go.
50:43
Speaker 1: Let's move on to Rwanda.
50:44
Speaker 2: We will no, it's just a very brief piece because
50:46
Speaker 2: of course you will remember the absolutely bungled attempt to
50:52
Speaker 2: first of all suggest that there was a way in
50:54
Speaker 2: which the government could deal with the migration problem, but
50:58
Speaker 2: that also they had a a workable plan with good
51:01
Speaker 2: optics surrounding it. But whilst the Psalma regime may have
51:05
Speaker 2: forgotten about planned to deport to Rwanda, the Ruwandan administration
51:09
Speaker 2: has not an on screen. Now we've got a press
51:10
Speaker 2: release from the Rwandan government going back to January signaling
51:14
Speaker 2: their intent to take the United Kingdom government to court
51:19
Speaker 2: over this canceled migration partnership. And the reason for reporting
51:23
Speaker 2: on it today is that at the Permanent Court of
51:26
Speaker 2: Arbitration in the Hague the case is being heard. So
51:29
Speaker 2: obviously I can't actually tell you specifically what will have happened,
51:32
Speaker 2: but in summary, as far as the British were concerned,
51:37
Speaker 2: it was the inability of Rwanda to be able to
51:39
Speaker 2: guarantee the safety of the individual once deported, and it
51:43
Speaker 2: must be said that this cannot have been unclear before
51:45
Speaker 2: the arrangement was either proposed or agreed with Rwanda. So
51:49
Speaker 2: the government's defense, which is long and one might say tedious,
51:54
Speaker 2: has them hiding behind every single piece of furniture in
51:57
Speaker 2: order to get out of it. But in life of
52:01
Speaker 2: the complete failure to act in Sudan or to prevent
52:03
Speaker 2: any action in Iran, it should be notable the government
52:06
Speaker 2: is willing to attempt to defend a clear cutcase of
52:09
Speaker 2: reneging on an agreement. So I'll report on the outcome
52:13
Speaker 2: when it comes through. I don't know if you've got
52:15
Speaker 2: any comment on well, at the very least.
52:18
Speaker 1: You could say it was ill advised from the start.
52:20
Speaker 1: Of course, it was a Liam attempt to appease certain
52:23
Speaker 1: sections within the Tory party itself. They've got themselves into
52:27
Speaker 1: a big hole and they're not going to be able
52:29
Speaker 1: to dig themselves out of it. Absolutely, Yeah, a backfire.
52:32
Speaker 1: But of course, you know, because this is going on
52:33
Speaker 1: at a time like it is, whether anyone's going to
52:36
Speaker 1: pay any attention to it or will actually reflect negatively
52:38
Speaker 1: on the government it almost regardless of the outcome, remains
52:41
Speaker 1: to be seen. Vanessa. Let's come back to you then,
52:44
Speaker 1: and what's been going on in the Unitedations Security Council.
52:50
Speaker 5: Well, we've had a second resolution, of course, the first
52:53
Speaker 5: was you and Security Council Resolution two eight h three
52:58
Speaker 5: in relation to passing the Trump scam in Gaza, where
53:02
Speaker 5: the genocide has continued unabated. This again is Craig Makaibo,
53:07
Speaker 5: who went on to describe exactly what happened with the
53:11
Speaker 5: UN Resolution to eight one seven, which was passed on
53:14
Speaker 5: the eleventh of March. So he says, for the second
53:17
Speaker 5: time in four months, and he includes the resolution to
53:19
Speaker 5: eight O three, the UN Security Council has today bowed
53:23
Speaker 5: to the US Empire and its vassals and ignored international
53:27
Speaker 5: law on its behalf, and neither Russia nor China have
53:30
Speaker 5: acted to stop it through their veto rights both abstained
53:33
Speaker 5: and actually the resolution was co sponsored by India, another
53:38
Speaker 5: one of the founding members of Brick before it became Bricks.
53:41
Speaker 5: In the middle of the unlawful and bloody US Israel
53:45
Speaker 5: Axis aggression on Iran, the Council is entirely silent on
53:49
Speaker 5: the aggression and on Iran's charter based right to defend itself.
53:53
Speaker 5: Instead of condemning the aggressors, it condemns only Iran for
53:56
Speaker 5: attacks on the territory of countries in the region, the
53:59
Speaker 5: Gulf states hosting US military basis, some of which have
54:03
Speaker 5: been directly complicit in the aggression, proving once again how
54:07
Speaker 5: oil and money are valued more than sovereignty, human lives,
54:11
Speaker 5: or international law. The resolution gained a record number of
54:15
Speaker 5: state co sponsors, and the Council that has allowed genocide
54:19
Speaker 5: and serial aggression to continue for more than two years
54:21
Speaker 5: in the region without action, has decided that oil prices
54:25
Speaker 5: are a step too far. Now in this section, I
54:29
Speaker 5: just want to focus on Russia, but I also would
54:31
Speaker 5: quite like to discuss China in extra if we can so.
54:36
Speaker 5: First of all, what I've done is look at the
54:38
Speaker 5: timeline leading up to this vote at the UN Security Council.
54:42
Speaker 5: This was on the twenty fifth of February. Reports were
54:45
Speaker 5: being put out. The report up on screen thanks Russia
54:50
Speaker 5: Booth's budget reserve fund amid falling oil revenues.
54:54
Speaker 1: Now, if you read the report, it talks about the
54:56
Speaker 1: fact that.
54:59
Speaker 5: Funds are hemorrhaging out of the fiscal funds, the budget
55:02
Speaker 5: revenue funds and the National Wealth Fund, and so therefore
55:08
Speaker 5: steps were taken to try and replenish those funds basically
55:14
Speaker 5: which are falling based on the sanctions on oil revenues.
55:19
Speaker 5: And then if we look at what happened after this,
55:22
Speaker 5: So on the third of March, President Brutin had talks
55:28
Speaker 5: on the telephone with leaders of Bahrain, Gata, Saudi Arabia
55:31
Speaker 5: and the UAE. And it's worth mentioning that previously Girol Demetria,
55:36
Speaker 5: who's the envoy for Prutin to the United States and
55:40
Speaker 5: is negotiating reference both Gaza and Iran and now of
55:46
Speaker 5: course Ukraine, but Katar had been responsible for basically floating
55:53
Speaker 5: many of the National Wealth Fund and their subsidiaries in
55:57
Speaker 5: Russia a few years ago under the direction of Kirol Dmtyev.
56:03
Speaker 5: Then basically on I think it was the fourth put
56:11
Speaker 5: In If we could have it up on screen, please thanks. Basically,
56:16
Speaker 5: President put In put in a call to Trump. The
56:19
Speaker 5: presidential aide Yuri Yushakov said that it was a highly
56:23
Speaker 5: important and constructive call. It went on for about an hour.
56:28
Speaker 5: According to this report, and then on the day of
56:32
Speaker 5: the UN abstention, so again both Russia and China abstained,
56:36
Speaker 5: which effectively means the resolution went straight through without any
56:41
Speaker 5: veto blocking it, despite the fact that the US had
56:44
Speaker 5: already blocked a Russian resolution draft resolution, which was only
56:51
Speaker 5: calling for a ceasefire. By the way, it also wasn't
56:53
Speaker 5: naming the aggressor. So on the day of the UN abstention,
56:58
Speaker 5: Kirol Demtyev, sorry, if I can just have that back
57:00
Speaker 5: on screen. I know I'm jumping around. Putin's Aid arrives
57:04
Speaker 5: in the United States for talks with Trump administration on
57:07
Speaker 5: economic cooperation, and that includes Jared Kushner Stephen whitkof both
57:12
Speaker 5: of whom, of course are pro zion Is pro Israel.
57:17
Speaker 5: And then basically as a result of these talks, Trump
57:21
Speaker 5: agreed to lift the sanctions for a period of time.
57:24
Speaker 5: I think it's one month to allow the supply of
57:26
Speaker 5: Russian oil. And unsurprisingly, Russia is earning now an additional
57:31
Speaker 5: approximately one hundred and fifty million dollars per day due
57:35
Speaker 5: to the rising oil prices. And I also have to
57:38
Speaker 5: say that Kirol Zemtyev today or yesterday went on X
57:42
Speaker 5: also condemning Noto for not supporting Trump in his war
57:47
Speaker 5: against Iran. Now, people might say Kirol Demtyev is fifth
57:51
Speaker 5: column and so on, but he has the ear of
57:53
Speaker 5: President Prutin, he has his education based in the West.
58:00
Speaker 5: He has connections or was working at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs.
58:03
Speaker 5: He introduced very Western centric financial systems, including mortgage systems,
58:09
Speaker 5: into Russia. So in my opinion, he directly represents Putin's
58:15
Speaker 5: policy here. I don't think you can say that it's disconnected.
58:20
Speaker 1: And how is there any indication how Iran is feeling
58:24
Speaker 1: about that? Vanessa Well, I mean.
58:28
Speaker 5: Iran is being diplomatically very careful. I mean they're not
58:32
Speaker 5: right now in the midst of a war going to
58:34
Speaker 5: basically condemn Russia or China on whom they are dependent
58:39
Speaker 5: for certain aspects of that war. China for its Beado
58:43
Speaker 5: satellite system. I don't actually believe in the line that
58:46
Speaker 5: Russia is providing any intelligence to them, simply because I
58:49
Speaker 5: don't think it's necessary. I think all of the surveillance,
58:52
Speaker 5: and we can talk about this comes through the Chinese
58:55
Speaker 5: military satellite system.
58:58
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you for that. We'll talk about it. An
59:00
Speaker 1: extra as well. But let's and Charles with a little
59:04
Speaker 1: bit of and finally.
59:06
Speaker 2: Let's as we continue to have artificial intelligence and robotics
59:12
Speaker 2: rammed down our throats, is the only possible future that
59:15
Speaker 2: we can imagine. It is pertinent to consider that these things,
59:19
Speaker 2: in their technological manifestations are fallible. So we're just like
59:23
Speaker 2: a couple of robotics incidents that have occurred in Macau
59:27
Speaker 2: and California in recent weeks. Well, obviously absolutely ludicrous, but
1:00:08
Speaker 2: I think a timely reminder that this stuff hasn't really
1:00:11
Speaker 2: been thought through, doesn't really work and shouldn't be part
1:00:14
Speaker 2: of our future.
1:00:15
Speaker 1: I think we can probably agree on that. Well, look,
1:00:18
Speaker 1: thank you very much Vanessa and Charles and for everybody
1:00:21
Speaker 1: that's watched today. We've got to finish there for now.
1:00:24
Speaker 1: Stick with us if you're a UK column member for
1:00:26
Speaker 1: UK called News Extra, which is following on this live stream,
1:00:30
Speaker 1: and otherwise enjoy Germ and Soil can steal tonight and
1:00:35
Speaker 1: also an interview at one pm tomorrow. As usual, we'll
1:00:37
Speaker 1: be back on Friday for the News at one pm.
1:00:40
Speaker 1: We'll see you then. Thanks for joining us bout it