Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News Podcast 20th March 2024

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UK Column News Podcast 20th March 2024 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, the twentieth of March twenty twenty four, just
0:11
after one o'clock. Welcome to the UK Colin News. I'm your host Make
0:14
Robinson joining me in the studio today, Charles malland welcome to the program.
0:17
Charles very much, and by video link from Damascus, Vanessa Billy. We're
0:23
going to get started with this man, the former King of England as we
0:28
used to call him. Mark saidwell, now many people will have forgotten who
0:31
he is, but at one point he was head of the Civil Service,
0:35
amongst other things. So let's just remind ourselves the kind of role that he
0:39
had at this time, which is why we dubbed him the King of England
0:42
and put him on the throne. That was, you know, he was
0:45
effectively in charge of Foreign Office, Ministry, Defense, Human Intelligence, Military
0:50
Intelligence, DCSQ and so on, this whole range of things. Joint Intelligence
0:55
Community Committee, COBRA all went into him as head of the Home Civil Service,
1:00
National Security Advisor and head of the Cabinet Office. He was basically in
1:03
charge of everything. Now. He then went on following leaving that role to
1:08
head up the Atlantic Future Forum, which is all about the Transatlantic Alliance and
1:15
so on with respect to defense and security. Well, he is one of
1:21
the authors of a new report from this organization, the New Bletchley Network as
1:26
they call themselves. So let's just look at the key people that are on
1:30
this author's list for this report. This is report number nine from this lot.
1:37
And Lord Robertson, the former head of NATO, Sir Richard General,
1:40
Sir Richard Barons, Nigel Hall, he established the New Blechteen Network. Former
1:46
military officer, Lord David Richards, former Chief of the Defense Staff. I
1:49
think Richard Sheriff and Mark saidwell are the five names out of the group that
1:56
I chose because they were the ones that jumped out at me. So let's
2:00
just look at some of the text that they have produced as part of this
2:05
report. So here we are. We'll start off with this. We must
2:08
signal to adversaries and potential adversaries the fact that we are strong. That's Britain
2:13
they're talking about, and want to get stronger, whilst at the same time
2:16
having no interest in attacking or subverting subverting any non aggressive city or country.
2:23
So I'm not quite sure what the definition of a non aggressive city or country
2:27
is let's go on with it. They want to deteror and prevent, sorry,
2:30
to deter and prevent war, we need a credible, credible, new
2:34
model army. And they put new Model Army with capital N M and A
2:37
and this is the acronym is NMA in the rest of the report. So
2:40
they want a credible new model army and exemplar and widely respected, ready to
2:46
go war landforce and reserves. And I find it, Charles fascinating that they
2:52
are choosing to use that term. Of course, they are invoking, you
2:57
know, the the Civil War at this point, and well then new model
3:00
army involved conscription, so are they perhaps hinting in that direction. I don't
3:07
know any thoughts. Well, I think very much hinting in that direction.
3:12
I think it harks back to a time of incredible turmoil. And also there
3:15
is this continual sort of recycling of old terminology with Bletchley and the new model
3:23
Army, which just is very discordant with the continual push for innovation and all
3:28
things being new and futuristic. It does seem to jar with that as well.
3:32
It's no strange, very strange, So let's go on with it.
3:36
Then they go on to say, to be credible in the Terrence terms,
3:38
we need to prepare genuinely for war and communicate this to potential foes, NATO
3:44
AN allies, and particularly to the British public. So they're very concerned that
3:46
the propaganda continues. We need to consider streamlining and reconfiguring our whitehall, top
3:53
security architecture and subordinate headquarters. We need warready whole of nation, new command
3:58
and control arrangements and realign responsibility, accountability, authority and budgetary chains. And
4:04
they say the new model, the new model regular army and reserves must reconnect
4:09
across our communities. They should become the go to career choice for Generation Z
4:13
and Alpha based upon outstanding training, education, skills, opportunities and exciting lived
4:18
experience. Never mind the death, destruction and the rest that goes with it.
4:21
If we're preparing for a war, delivering all this, turning around thirty
4:27
years of decline and producing an exemplar NMA demands a concerted campaign. It probably
4:32
requires an overarching COVID vaccine style task force approach if it's be to be delivered
4:39
in time. Vanessa, let me welcome you to the program and ask what
4:44
are your thoughts on that well, for me, it's quite interesting. What
4:47
pops out for me is exemplar, which is very reminiscent of templar. Of
4:54
course, an odd, odd usage of that terminology twice to paragraphs. But
5:02
maybe I'm just being making too many connections. But does seem quite interesting to
5:06
me? Yeah, I don't really know. I mean, what are the
5:11
Russians supposed to make of this? This just looks like insanity to me.
5:14
But anyway, what is What else has been going on around defense and sanctions?
5:21
Yeah, sanctions in particular. Good afternoon, everybody. We're constantly being
5:27
reminded how tough the United Kingdom is when it comes to fighting against the authoritarianism
5:32
of Putin and Russia. The House of Commons Library has produced a briefing paper
5:40
with detail about sanctions against Russia and why do we do it. They're considered
5:45
to be a useful foreign policy tool. They're restrictive measures intended to be temporary
5:48
that can be used to force change in behavior, constrain the country's actions,
5:54
or to communicate a political message to other countries and individuals. So I thought
5:58
we'd examine exactly how so they do change behavior? And we're able to look
6:02
at this through the details provided by the Department for Business and Trade. But
6:08
before we go into that, we'll just look at the map, because this
6:11
has been touched upon in the mainstream, but I think not enough inferences have
6:15
been drawn. I've got arrows on a map here showing the western and southern
6:19
parts of Russia and the countries that border Russia, particularly Finland, Estonia,
6:24
Latvia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. So all we're going to do is
6:29
really follow a story that's to do with the sanctions that have been implemented against
6:36
Russia. And I draw your attention to the fact that nine point eight billion
6:40
pounds, which is the figure that's not being traded with Russia, is roughly
6:45
equivalent to the commitment for the defense budget to Ukraine. So that's sort of
6:51
worthy of significance. But really to highlight that where exports haven't been made to
7:00
Russia, they must of course have gone somewhere else. Now highlighted in the
7:02
mainstream media is the enormous rise of imports in cars to Azerbaijan. We see
7:10
for the last quarter an increase of twenty eight point seven percent to Azerbaijan,
7:15
and we see that cars total fifty eight point two percent of goods to Azerbaijan.
7:21
Is this a one off? Kazakhstan an increase of eighty nine point two
7:27
percent in the last quarter, with cars listed as twenty four point six million
7:30
or six point eight percent of that. Georgia too an increase of twenty six
7:35
percent, and cars forming twenty one percent of that, Estonia an increase of
7:43
eleven percent, more moderate cars fifteen percent of that fifty million pounds, and
7:47
Finland accounting for six point nine percent increase with cars at five point eight percent
7:56
or eighty five million pounds, obviously close at home, more realistic that they
8:00
would have had an existing conduit there. And then finally Latvia again a moderate
8:05
increase of five point two percent, but cars up or rather at around thirty
8:09
four million pounds or eight point nine percent. So it's obvious in a way,
8:16
if one is to eliminate the possibility of coincidence, that whilst cars aren't
8:20
being exported directly to Russia, they are of course going into Russia, most
8:24
likely over the border from these countries that do import in such large quantities.
8:31
Now so it looks like a gigantic book cooking exercise to make it look like
8:35
sanctions do actually do something to be able to continually talk tough. And this
8:39
course relates back to Mike's previous segment on the steps being made towards a war
8:46
footing. But of course, what is it that the industry and the government
8:50
is saying about the cars themselves? So we'll have a quick look at where
8:54
we're supposed to be going on this path to zero emissions. We've got their
8:58
declaration from September last about eighty percent of new cars and seventy percent of new
9:03
vans to be at zero emissions, whatever exactly that means by twenty thirty.
9:07
And the detail from that sets a minimum annual target, starting with a requirement
9:13
for twenty two percent of new cars sold in twenty twenty four to beat zero
9:16
emission. Now, what they don't specify here is who those cars are to
9:22
be sold to, or indeed where. And we go on to the Society
9:28
for the Motor Manufacturers and Traders who have a publication, a monthly publication,
9:37
and they've got statistics from January in which they confirm that the bulk of production
9:43
this month, which has gone up dramatically, was for export, So nearly
9:48
eighty percent going for export overseas shipments up eleven point six percent. Of course,
9:54
they're at pains to suggest that these increases really have only been affected in
9:58
terms of the trade with the US, China and Japan and Australia. But
10:03
I think we can extrapolate from that that the figures we've looked at confirm that
10:09
there have been significant increases elsewhere, particularly on the borders with Russia. And
10:15
again they go on to say that on the electrical vehicle side of it,
10:20
UK production of battery electric, plug in hybrid and hybrid vehicles rose again by
10:24
combined four point five percent to account for thirty five point seven percent of overall
10:28
outputs. Therefore, that suggests that it's well above the government target. However,
10:33
in line with overall figures, the majority of these models were exported.
10:39
So this is the government putting forward the argument not only that we are winning
10:46
against Putin economically because we are imposing these sanctions and continually modifying them, but
10:52
also that we're winning in terms of electric vehicles and indeed vehicle production, and
10:56
in an actual fact, none of those things is true. Yes, Okay,
11:01
thank you, Charles Vanessa. Let's welcome back to the program. And
11:05
last week we were talking about Oracle and the relationship between Oracle and Israel.
11:09
This week we want to have a look at the UK Israel Tech Hub.
11:15
Yes, spending more time down the Bonnie Labyrinth of Israeli your Dionist influence over
11:22
sectors of British society, pretty much all sectors. Rather than me reading off
11:28
the screen, let's play the video, which is a promo video of this
11:31
UK Israel Tech Club based in Tel Aviv at the British Embassy. Interesting this
11:37
video was put out just before the COVID project kicked off. I'll leave you
11:41
to draw your own conclusions. So let's play the video. Truly awful music.
12:48
I don't know who picked up but anyway, So one of the services
12:52
of the UK's World Peck Club is to organize the spoke business delegations and in
12:58
twenty twenty two they organized health tech delegation to Israel. So let's just play
13:03
a few seconds of their kind of promo video of that event. So interesting
13:41
that they appear to be focusing very much on the Midlands and the north of
13:45
the UK. And here is a screenshop from that video and you'll see on
13:50
there are included Manchester University, Leeds University and Sheffield University. So it would
13:56
be quite interesting to speak to some of these so called part partners of the
14:01
Israel tech sectors or ecosystem to see exactly what level of collaboration is there.
14:09
Now, this was mentioned in the media on their website. More than three
14:13
hundred Israeli companies have already a presence in the UK. I would say,
14:20
now it's closer to four hundred and one in seven NHS drugs it comes from
14:28
Israel. Now, then again on this video, let's look at the partners.
14:33
So you have their the NHS. Of course, you have Astrozeneka sort
14:37
of blaringly in the right hand corner, and a number of other fairly well
14:43
known organizations within the British government who works with the UK Israel Tech cub On
14:50
the next slide we can see so you have basically the Department of Digital Culture,
14:56
Media and Sports, Foreign and Commonwealth of Development Office, Department for Business,
15:03
Energy and Industrial Strategy. Now also a little reminder that about two weeks
15:09
ago we looked at the influence of Unit eight two hundred, So bearing in
15:13
mind that this is literally a tech hub, a reminder that the best tech
15:18
school on Earth is the Israeli Army by Unit eight two hundred. Israel's Unit
15:24
eight two hundred a conveyor belt of high tech startups. So to what degree
15:28
does the eight two hundred unit have influence also over these partnerships now you had
15:35
previously or you still have currently? Sorry, the UK Israel Business The organization
15:41
has a network of over two thousand companies and ten thousand business leaders and works
15:48
closely with the Department for International Trade, the British Embassy in Tel Aviv,
15:52
the Israeli Embassy in London, and the UK Israel Tech Hub. Now,
15:58
interestingly, this was found in nineteen fifty is the Anglo Israel Chamber of Commerce,
16:03
so two years after the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians the Knakbar in nineteen forty
16:08
eight, when Palestinians possess of their land. In twenty eleven, it merged
16:17
with the Israel Britain Business Council the IBBC and became the uk IB. Yes,
16:23
it all does get very confusing. The chairman of this one, the
16:32
UKIB, Danny Cassler, a dedicated supporter of nonprofit organizations and charities. As
16:40
a corporate trustee of the Anglo Israel Association another one. His family's involvement in
16:45
the creation of the State of Israel has instilled in him a passion for Israel's
16:51
growth in all areas, and he sits on the board of several such organizations.
16:56
And then we have thank you Dan Bashadski, oh, sorry, Dr
17:03
Vashadski, who's the executive director. He holds degrees from the Hebrew University,
17:07
served as a team commander in the IDF Special Forces and at Ukib. He
17:15
has expanded the organization's focus on executive programs. So again you have this very
17:22
heavy Israeli military influence on these organizations and groups. And then honorary presidents Trevor
17:30
Chin. Who is Trevor Chin? You might ask, well, this was
17:36
I think it was two years ago twenty two. Secret document reveals Israel lobbies
17:41
dominance of labor. Multimillionaire Trevor Chin secretly funded Starmer's leadership campaign earlier in twenty
17:48
twenty and has a long history of financing pro Israel groups in both main parties
17:53
of government. His pledges included sorry, that's Reed's pledges, So that was
18:00
Reed's pledges to Chin included committing labor to opposing BDS, the Palestinian lad Boycott,
18:07
Divestment and Sanctions movement, as well as promoting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliances
18:15
working definition of anti Semitism. But who else does Trevor Chin get involved with?
18:22
So there you can see very clearly the Israel Britain Business Council, the
18:26
IBBC. As we mentioned, he's a member of the executive committee of BYCOM.
18:32
This is interesting. You can look him up. You can find out
18:34
all of the other Zionist lobbies that he is a member of, President of,
18:41
on the Committee of etc. It's very easy. But what is BYCOM?
18:48
So according to a Guardian article in two thousand and nine, how the
18:52
pro Israel lobby and Britain benefits from a generous London tycoon. Britain's most active
18:57
pro Israeli being organization, which is the British Israel Communications and Research BIKOM,
19:06
which flies journalist Israel on fact finding trips read I would read propaganda and organizes
19:14
access to senior government figures, has received nearly one point four million in two
19:18
years from a billionaire Dona, whose father made a fortune manufacturing arms in Israel
19:26
and YCOM is known basically for influencing media, government officials, etc. This
19:32
is from a slide that Brian put on the news back in November twenty twenty
19:37
three, which shows very clearly the billionaire donor to Bykom and to Cameron in
19:48
this case is Haju Zebla Doovich, who is ready thank you, industrialist and
19:59
arms dealer, as was his father before him. And you can see there
20:03
two million has gone to Ycom. Ycom is making donations to the conservative Bycom
20:07
is also making donations to the Conservative Friends of Israel, and you can see
20:15
that this is entire merry go round of both money laundering and donations and sponsorship
20:21
of political opinion. In my opinion, then let's look at the Bycom team.
20:26
So in the management director of Ycomb, Richard Pater, fifteen years basically
20:33
influencing government officials, diplomats and journalists. He regularly briefs British audiences on Israeli
20:41
politics and security. Read into that what you will. He regularly appears on
20:47
the BBC. He's responsible for UK delegations to Israel. He joined from Israel's
20:52
Prime Minister's office and he also served in the idf Armored Brigade and continues to
21:00
serve even now in the reserves. And let's have a look at some of
21:03
the researchers of focus on Caleb Bandora on the right, he is basically living
21:10
in Israel since two thousand and five. Pre Bikoon he was policy planning.
21:15
He was in the policy Planning division of Israel's Foreign Ministry, and pre two
21:18
thousand and five he was in the Public Affairs Affairs department at the Israeli Embassy
21:26
in London. And then moving on, we can see that basically the UK
21:34
Israel Tech kag Is Hub is still alive and kicking in January twenty twenty four,
21:42
so in the mid of the war. And this was an interview with
21:45
Tajul Yanov for Strategic Partnerships and critical tech leads at the UK Israel Tech Hub
21:52
and basically what she says, with UK elections looming, she doesn't think it
21:59
will make any difference to the relationship between Israel and particularly the UK Israel Tech
22:04
cub On whichever party is in power, they will continue to promote support and
22:11
expand the partnership and collaboration with Israel. And I'd just like to leave you
22:18
with a quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt in nineteen thirty eight his message to
22:22
the Congress on curbing monopolies. The first truth is that the liberty of a
22:29
democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a
22:33
point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its
22:40
essence is fascism ownership of government by an individual or a group, or by
22:45
any other controlling private power. For a discussion, But I think, Mike,
22:51
one point that I really do want to make is to what extent does
22:56
this collaboration freeze out UK startups and UK tech development, so, in other
23:03
words, indigenous tech development right? And to what degree do those companies and
23:10
organizations that take part in this collaborative exercise have to align themselves with British foreign
23:18
policy and Israeli policy in order to get a look in to these partnerships and
23:23
collaborative exercises and projects. Yes, that's a very good point, a very
23:30
good question. We'll discuss that a little bit more. An extra and also
23:33
the other question that needs to be asked, Vanessa, is this a takeover
23:37
of British tech by Israel or is this in fact the inevitable payoff for Israel
23:48
continuing to pursue our foreign policy in the region. Yeah, I mean that
23:53
is a good question and it definitely needs discussion. Okay, well we'll have
23:57
a chat about that in an extra. So thank you very much for that,
24:00
Vanessa. Okay, if you like what the UK Column does, you'd
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on the various platforms, especially on UK column dot org and UK coln Extracts
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dot co dot uk. Now. At one pm yesterday, Brant's interview with
24:29
Madeline Hunt went out. She is looking at consuls and the well the title
24:37
of this was the Twilight of Democracy and UK consuls and so on, very
24:41
much a feature of what she was talking about. If you're interested in that
24:45
area and council policy, then have a look at that interview. Tomorrow.
24:51
Joy Warren is the guest for an interview and she is going to be talking
24:55
about fluoride, Fluoride in her water and the whole principle of mass medication upon
25:00
populations. And finally, then I just want to mention this, the UKCV
25:06
Family has now established itself as a proper charity. These of course, are
25:11
a group of quite a number of vaccine injured so they've described themselves as a
25:17
friendly UK based community of individuals that unfortunately experienced life changing adverse reactions after receiving
25:22
COVID nineteen vaccines. So you can find out more about this group at Ukcvfamily
25:29
dot org. Please do have a look at that and support them if you
25:33
possibly can. Many of the people that are involved in that are extremely ill
25:37
still and don't see any prospect of improvement in their situation. They're certainly not
25:42
getting any support from the mainstream media or from the UK government, and certainly
25:48
not from the MHRA or the industry. So they do need support and help
25:53
to promote their work that they're working very hard and extremely trying cumstances. Okay,
26:00
let's move on then, and where is this the Shipping the Future conference?
26:08
Yes, which I'll come to in just a second. But we hear
26:11
so much now about artificial intelligence and the way that we're being pushed and all
26:18
relating to sort of innovation. So I thought we just have a closer look
26:21
at education because on the eighteenth Monday, there was a conference in Manchester next
26:27
Generation Assessment, and in effect this was, or at least part of it
26:33
was an examination of the use of artificial intelligence, not so much in the
26:38
sphere of education itself, more in terms of assessment. And there are just
26:42
a few points I think that are worth making around this. So we see
26:47
that one of the breakout sessions was conversations around AI and assessment, and we
26:52
highlighted text here looking at the potential for AI to radically change the status quo.
26:57
So that's just put out there rather starkly without any real justification of the
27:03
benefits or otherwise of radical change. So we see again breakout session f explore
27:08
the benefits of digital exams for students and teachers as well as what it as
27:14
well as what it will take to make it a reality. So we see
27:18
this a lot now, really, the unchallenged way in which technology is just
27:22
put forward as the answer without any real justification, and it looks an awful
27:29
lot like change is being mistaken for progress. We look back at Gillian Keegan's
27:37
press release back in January of this year, speaking at the bet Show twenty
27:41
twenty four, and again she reinforces the message. She says, today we're
27:47
publishing our latest research on AI and education, having brought together views from our
27:51
world leading experts and educators. I want to encourage countries to continue sharing evidence
27:56
as it's generated, so that we can all better harness the opportunities to make
28:00
a real difference in classrooms across the world. So again an unqualified assertion that
28:06
difference in some way is good. What I thought we'd do, therefore,
28:10
is have a quick look at some of the well a couple of independent schools
28:14
that are in the top rankings by OFSTED, the first being Saint Paul's Girls'
28:18
School, which have developed a sort of an AI contraction, for want of
28:23
a better word, called I Pauline. I'm not sure if I'm saying that
28:26
correctly, but nonetheless, they, in their sort of explanation of what it
28:32
does, they ask this question, if a machine or an application is generating
28:36
the answer to all the tasks that are assigned to students, does it really
28:38
benefit the students themselves? And rather staggeringly, the answer is yes. The
28:44
solution to whatever has been assigned to them is right there in front of them,
28:48
but it isn't building up the pupil's knowledge itself or helping them realize their
28:51
potential and abilities. So should this actually be classed as education or laziness?
28:56
Well that's an extremely good question, which they don't of course go on to
29:00
answer, but at first glance it looks very much like it strips away any
29:04
necessity for critical thinking. And also the other thing is the inherent bias that
29:11
might be put into any of these systems. So we'll look at another example
29:15
here. This is from Eton College, who've sort of put forward a hypothesis
29:19
for the future in which they talk about a typical school day in twenty twenty
29:25
eight. It doesn't seem to be a school day at Eton. The child
29:29
featured as a girl, whilst Eaton remains an all boys' school, but it
29:33
talks about her attending a secondary school in the UK and artificial intelligent tools form
29:38
part of almost every lesson and subjects. These changes have rolled out across all
29:42
levels of education, including state and independent sectors. And then they go on
29:48
the ais are all aware of these questions, the teacher having prompted them before
29:52
the lesson, and they have been instructed not to directly answer them, rather
29:56
guide the students to piece together the answers themselves. What exactly is a teacher
30:02
supposed to be doing? But further detail here, and this is where I
30:06
believe it gets rather ridiculous. They talk about having a physics lesson. They're
30:08
learning about gravity. So to start the lesson, the teacher invites everyone to
30:12
chat with Isaac Newton via their tablets and ask him what people used to think
30:17
about gravity when he was young. The students in the class all start to
30:21
speak to their tablets, and the sumaculum of Isaac Newton on their screens responds
30:26
to their questions. Well, we'll come back to exactly where that could go
30:30
in a minute, But just let's suppose that they start to ask about things
30:33
that aren't directly related to gravity, and then finally they go on and again
30:38
they address this bias. Today, the class is studying how the face recognition
30:42
algorithms of the same era were deeply flawed. This is talking about going back
30:47
to a decade or so ago being over one hundred times more accurate at recognizing
30:51
light skin males compared to dark skin males. So how is this going to
30:56
be dealt with? And is there any suggestion that over compensation played a part
31:00
in this, And if we think about what Newton might have said on other
31:03
topics, this is where this slide becomes relevant. There's an example here from
31:07
Adobe Firefly on the left and Gemini, both AI products available at the moment,
31:14
Gemini being Google's product. Yeah, sorry, is Gemini absolutely being Google's
31:18
new AI products But you can see here that or at least if you're listening
31:22
and not watching. But essentially, it represented an awful lot of people who
31:27
were certainly not black or Asian of any color other than being white, have
31:36
been inserted into history in places that they simply weren't. So. Returning to
31:41
the idea that education could be enhanced by this, or indeed that this would
31:47
lead people towards critical thinking or a wavem indoctrination, seems extremely far fetched and
31:52
effectively set up for a massive failure. So, on the theme of failure
31:56
and linked, perhaps indirectly, I'm just going to have a quick look at
32:00
what happened in Sainsbury's and in fact Tesco last weekend March sixteenth. The tweet
32:07
here due to an error with an overnight software update. We're experiencing issues with
32:10
contactless payment and will not be able to deliver the vast majority of today's groceries
32:15
online orders. The stores are open as usual, accepting chip and pin and
32:20
cash payments. They put another tweet out that same day saying that they're unable
32:24
to contact customers directly, but the online ordering system is working properly and all
32:30
the rest of it. The Sun newspaper followed this up with an illustration of
32:36
how the smart shop capability in effect completely collapsed. And really the purpose of
32:44
selecting this story is not just a poke fun at Sainsbury. It's rather more
32:46
it's to make the serious point that companies across the spectrum are seeking to put
32:52
people in a position where they trust some system that's labeled as being smart,
32:58
and this goes right up to digital currency, digital identity, and it's examples
33:02
like this that demonstrate how quickly and how easily the entire system is rendered completely
33:07
and utterly incapable. And of course the only thing to fall back on are
33:12
the existing tried and trusted measures such as say cash and indeed the previously existing
33:19
card technology. So really it's just another illustration of much vaunted sort of technological
33:24
progression in the name of progress, but of course, actually really it's just
33:30
change, not necessarily for the good. However, we are going to continue
33:32
to have it ran down our throats and you might be where the BBC have
33:37
sort of revamped their website. So this is the way that the tabs fall
33:42
now when you select innovation, and it's just interesting to see that under innovation,
33:45
not only do we see artificial intelligence, we also see health science and
33:50
health under innovation. So this is definitely not going away and might I mean,
33:54
I'm sure you've got lots of thoughts on this. It's something that I
33:57
know you've very closely followed. We will talk much more about this extra.
34:02
My first question to you, Charles was on your comment about eating being the
34:07
boys school. Is that still the case? Well, of course, you
34:09
know, it's really up to the boys what they are these days, but
34:13
I misspoke. Yeah, that is a very very good point. And after
34:16
all, they were talking about twenty twenty eight, and who knows, I
34:20
mean, you might be able to choose the year by then. It could
34:22
be any we'll see. Indeed, Okay, I have really been not wanting
34:30
to cover this topic, and I'm going to say we're not going to be
34:32
talking really about kit Middleton here, so stick with me until I get to
34:37
the point. But we need to start off just by bringing her on and
34:40
reminding everybody that a few weeks ago we saw our couple. A week or
34:45
two ago we saw this image appearing in all the various mainstream headlines kid middled
34:50
and spotted for the first time after surgery, and wild conspiracy theories in new
34:53
photos, and the photo appeared which didn't look very much like her, and
34:59
of course lots of people were saying that this wasn't her on social media.
35:04
Then of course we had the whole faruor over the photograph that she allegedly took
35:07
of herself, or at least her the Prince took of her and her children,
35:14
and this turned out to be photo shopped and was removed by all the
35:17
various agencies, and of course this absolutely inflamed the discussion online and so on.
35:23
And then a couple of days ago we saw a video clip appearing in
35:28
the Sun apparently claimed to be showing her. Princess Kate seen on video for
35:32
the first time since surgery, looking happy and relaxed on shopping trip with William,
35:37
and most people seem to be in agreement that this doesn't look anything like
35:42
her, and they are absolutely disputing that it is her. And now,
35:45
what is the result of all this being because each at each stage along the
35:50
line of this, bearing in mind that there's been mainstream media that has been
35:53
pushing this narrative, what has happened is that it has inflamed a social media
35:59
particular Twitter and TikTok absolutely inflamed them with huge amounts of discussion about it and
36:06
so on, and all kinds of claims of it not being her and all
36:08
this kind of thing. I'm not going to comment on that. I'm interested
36:12
here on what the mainstream media has done. And of course, as you
36:15
would expect, the lovely Marianna Spring turfs up to the BBC this morning.
36:22
Last night actually was when they originally published it. How kids body double conspiracy
36:28
theory spread on social media and you know, this whole issue of whether the
36:31
person in that photograph is Kit Middleton or not is very interesting because let's just
36:37
look at a little bit of the text from this article. Because Marianna Spring
36:40
says, I messaged dozens of tich talkers posting these videos throughout the world,
36:45
many of whom were zooming in and analyzing the Princess of Will's facial features and
36:50
comparing them with those in pictures of the lookalike. You'll note that it's not
36:53
in pictures of the alleged look alike or they claim to look alike. It
36:58
is definitive the pictures of the look alike. So is this just bad journalism
37:02
by Marianna Spring or has she let something slip here? I'm not clear,
37:07
But anyway, let's go on with it, because the next thing that we
37:10
need to mention, of course, is that you know, the BBC has
37:14
been absolutely driving the narrative that what's going on with Kate Middleton at the moment
37:19
is very similar to what happened with Princess Diana. And of course the press
37:22
and the media very much vilified for what happened with Princess Diana, but now
37:27
it's social media that's being vilified for what's happening with Kate Middleton. And so
37:34
they had Diana's brother, Earl Spencer on with Laura Kunsburg on Sunday and then
37:40
this morning the news hit It was claimed to be an exclusive by the Mirror
37:45
that somebody has perhaps driven by all this appalling behavior on social media has decided
37:52
that they needed to try to find out what is really going on with Kate
37:54
Middleton. And so there's been a security breach at the hospital that she was
37:59
at clinic, and that somebody, a member of hospital staff or more than
38:04
one member of hospital staff, attempted to view private medical records. So what's
38:08
this all about. Well, of course, what it is actually all about
38:13
is censorship. And so for example, we had this from the Joint Committee
38:19
and National Security talking about offcom the Electoral Commission, this whole narrative of defending
38:27
democracy which is running in parallel at the same time as the UK approaches a
38:30
general election, and how social media is such an appalling thing, an appalling
38:37
risk for democracy at the moment, and so on. Now, what I'm
38:40
saying here is that what we're witnessing is a psychological operation, that the mainstream
38:47
press are doing things which are designed to instill a reaction in the general public.
38:52
That reaction appears on social media, and that therefore justifies claims that social
38:59
media needs to be much heavier regulated, much more heavily regulated. Sorry,
39:04
and well, let's just not forget that this country absolutely has precedent for this,
39:10
and remind everybody that in March twenty twenty, the spy b Sage subgroup
39:16
were absolutely promoting the idea of the mainstream media exploiting fear in order to drive
39:24
adherents to social media, sorry to social distancing measures that the government was trying
39:30
to push in at the time. So kind of in parallel with that DAN,
39:36
a couple of weeks ago, we had this article from Politico US tech
39:39
giants refused to work with Britain's top security a top secret military censorship board.
39:45
Now what is this top secret military censorship board that they're talking about, Well,
39:49
this is the DSMA, and of course this is the organization that pushes
39:53
forward dnotices. Now DSMA Notice one, a D notice one is the a
40:00
notice which aims to prevent the inavertent disclosure of information which would improve and adversaries
40:06
knowledge and understanding of the UK's military plans, current operations and capabilities. And
40:12
basically this is supposedly a voluntary scheme that the mainstream media is involved with,
40:16
and as soon as the D notices issued, they voluntarily choose to self censor
40:22
in order to make sure that whatever the topic was that they were going to
40:25
cover isn't covered. And it's really up to this organization, the SMA,
40:31
whether that those notices are issued. But are getting back to the political article
40:37
here, this is what they had to say. Britain's Media Censorship Board is
40:40
trying to woo big tech, but the Silicon Valley giants just aren't interested.
40:45
Tech firms including Google, Meta and x have repeatedly spurned the secret of British
40:49
Committee in its mission to prevent state secrets spreading across social platforms. And they
40:55
quote Jeffrey Dodds as saying, we've been trying to break into the so called
41:02
tech giants. He's the DSMA noticed secretary and former military diplomat, as they
41:08
describe it, and he said that Meta and Google were among those that had
41:14
been reached out to. Now, Google has already been, as they highlight,
41:17
a member of the d SMA committee, but they left following Edward Snowden's
41:22
revelations and the DSMA hasn't been able to get them back on board since.
41:27
And the quote from the article says Google felt they were unable to sit on
41:30
a committee which is independent, voluntary, non statutory, but nevertheless they felt
41:32
they couldn't sit on it because it was too linked to the government. Well,
41:37
I think that's absolutely true. But I think what we've got here is
41:39
now a multi prompt, real serious, concerned effort to demonize everything that's happening
41:45
on social media and the rather pathetic story of Kate Middleton, which let's face
41:51
it, if she was up and about and walking at a garden center or
41:55
whatever it was the other day, she could very quickly of thirty seconds produce
42:00
a little video saying thank you to all our friends and all the public for
42:05
supporting her at this time. But that's not coming. All we've got in
42:08
the meantime is speculation and the driving of this fraw on social media, and
42:15
in fact, if we get involved in that discussion, we're following for the
42:19
trap. In my opinion, Let's move on then and Scotland and Land.
42:25
Indeed, we've covered a lot on the environmental schemes that are either being put
42:30
out as proposals or indeed have met reality in England and Wales. So now
42:36
I focus on Scotland with the Land Reform Bill dated fourteenth March twenty twenty four,
42:42
and in effect this highlights really how devolution can affect itself, which is
42:47
essentially that the destination is the same, but the language used with which to
42:52
get there is slightly different. So the bill here places legal responsibilities on the
42:59
are the very largest landholdings to show how they use their land and how that
43:04
use contributes to key public policy priorities such as addressing climate change and protecting and
43:10
restoring nature. These owners will also have to engage with local communities about how
43:15
they use the land. So I'm not going to go too much further into
43:19
the bill, which obviously is a bill at the moment, but in effect,
43:22
the way that the Scots are aiming to do this is actually slightly different,
43:27
and by remarkable coincidence, there is a campaign launched at almost exactly the
43:32
same time by Community Land Scotland saying that they're calling on the Scottish government to
43:37
commit to ensuring ten percent of Scotland's land to be community owned by twenty thirty
43:43
through urgent and ambitious land reform and by working with local communities for a more
43:47
just and greener Scotland. And this is their sort of recurring themes, just
43:51
a few bits from their website Scotland's for sale, but who is buying it?
43:54
And then they talk about helping communities realize the benefits of community ownership to
44:00
be fair to them. On Twitter, put they have highlighted some of the
44:04
inconsistencies in environmental policy. They talk about that carbon offsetting undermining the need to
44:09
reduce direct carbon emissions if one puts to one side the entirely flawed scientific concept
44:15
there. But they do that. They make the point that allowing people who
44:17
are polluting, such as shell and Fails, to maintain business as usual and
44:22
keep polluting when it means that some other activity has got to be done somewhere
44:27
else to offset this is of course ludicrous, as is the planting of non
44:31
native trees. So this is what they're dealing with on the left on the
44:36
impacts. But then they I would say, they perhaps overstep on the right
44:39
what can be done because they talk about changing how the economy works through decarbonizing
44:45
it, dismantling systems of injustice, Encouraging wealthy individuals and corporations to buy land,
44:50
plant trees with public money and profit from Scotland's extremely unequal land innership will
44:53
not solve climate crisis, but entrenched systems that caused it. They don't qualify
44:59
that exactly, but they do go on to say, when community to own
45:02
their own land, net zero target, sustainability of local livelihoods, and caring
45:07
for biodiversity can all be centered rather than prioritizing profit from the land. Well.
45:13
It's interesting, of course, when one considers how the various lures being
45:16
offered to English and Welsh farmers are manifesting themselves. So Scotland's issue seems to
45:21
be that the vast majority of the land is a in the hands of a
45:25
very small number of landowners, which is something that's been a recurring theme over
45:30
many years. So where has this come from? We go back to twenty
45:35
fourteen the Land of Scotland and the Common Goods. So now the language that
45:39
we see here is starting to make sense in what really seems in some ways
45:44
to be a sort of either communist or at least sort of communitarianist approach that
45:49
again twenty fourteen language. The largest private landowner in Scotland at present is the
45:52
Clue Estates, with nearly one hundred thousand hectales, or just over one percent
45:55
of Scotland's land area. The concern is not what an upper limit should be,
46:01
but the principle that there should be an established limit. Now that's out
46:06
of date because the largest landowner in Scotland is now a Scandinavian. But nevertheless,
46:13
of course, the significant detail here is that this has not come from
46:16
Scotland. It's come from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organizations voluntary Guidelines on
46:22
Responsible Governance of Tenure, and it includes the provision that states may consider land
46:28
sealings as a policy option. These guidelines are supported by, amongst others,
46:32
the G twenty group of states, including the UK. So we just go
46:37
back a little bit further to twenty twelve to see exactly what we are referring
46:43
to here, which, as stated, are the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance
46:46
of Tenure. So the idea here is really that although in the first instance
46:52
this was introduced as being entirely voluntary, of course it's weaved its way into
46:57
proposed legislation to suggest that it must go ahead. And indeed, it's interesting
47:01
to see how government in this case seems to be working alongside a pressure group
47:07
to take land away from people who deemed to have too much of it.
47:12
Okay, well, we're going to move back to the Middle East. Before
47:15
we do that, we're going to go to the heights of Commons. And
47:16
here is a tweet from Andy McDonald MP that says Tory Minister Andrew Mitchell tells
47:22
me I should be comforted by the ideas of lawyers being embedded in Israeli armed
47:28
units. Let's just have a look at this a little bit of video.
47:32
To any reasonable and informed observer, the conduct of the war in Gaza by
47:38
Israel contravenes basic international humanitarian law, is fairly to distinguish between armed combatants and
47:45
civilians, and using force beyond what is militarily necessary offense against the prohibition of
47:52
inflicting unnecessary injury and is wholly disproportionate. Over one hundred thousand Palestinians been killed
48:00
or injured by Israeli forces in Gaza since last October. So, whilst the
48:06
Minister relies on Israel being a democracy capable of abided by its legal obligations,
48:14
when the overwhelming evidence is that it is not doing so, what legal advice
48:19
has he received about the complicity of and the dangers to our country of failing
48:25
to take sufficient action under the relevant treaties to which this country is a signatory
48:31
to deter such gross breaches of international humanitarian law? As I said, mister
48:40
Speaker, we do continue to assess Israel's commitment and capability to comply with international
48:47
humanitarian law. Those assessments are supported by a detailed evidence base, conflict analysis,
48:54
reporting from CHARITIS and NGOs, international bodies and partners, statements and reports
49:01
by the Israeli government and their track record of compliance, and we take all
49:07
of that into account in making the judgments we make. But I would point
49:09
out to him that when it comes to targeting, when it comes to military
49:15
action, the Israeli Defense Force has its own lawyers embedded in those units and
49:22
in much the same way of prudence that the British military do. That is
49:28
not something which you see in any other force in the region, and it
49:31
should give some confidence that they are seeking to abide by international humanitarian law.
49:38
Okay, So before we get the NASA's thoughts on that comment that he's Marrie,
49:45
what is the situation with lawyers in the British military? Well and less
49:49
things have changed very drastically in some censuses correct in that Army Legal Services would
49:54
provide personnel forward personnel put into a PHAPS a divisional or brigade headquarters. But
50:01
the idea that they're going any further forward than that is I'm afraid ludicrous.
50:06
And also to suggest that they would be able to influence the decisions of more
50:12
junior commanders. I mean, first of all, there simply aren't enough of
50:14
them. So I'm afraid what Andrew Mitchell says does not stack up in any
50:17
way at all. Yeah, Vanessa, that's the British situation. What's your
50:22
thoughts on what he said about the IDEAF and the lawyers. I mean,
50:27
it's absolutely ridiculous. In that kind of fighting environment in Gaza, lawyers or
50:34
not, they will be carrying weapons and they will be partaking in the crimes
50:38
that the IOF for are committing against civilians that are being recorded on an almost
50:44
minute by minute basis. So I mean, yes, it's entirely ludicrous.
50:47
It also harks back to this idea that Israel is capable of investigating its own
50:55
crimes against humanity. Has he not read the four page report by South Africa
51:02
or even followed on social media? I presume he's modern enough to be able
51:07
to do that. The thousands of videos demonstrating the IOF sadistic measures taken against
51:16
guards and children, civilians, medical staff, etc. Thank you for that,
51:24
just bring us up to dit what's been going on with Sifa Hospital.
51:30
Yeah, well, I mean, actually that's interesting following on from what we've
51:32
just been talking about, because I wanted to demonstrate how bike on, the
51:37
British Israel communications and research organization, packed full of former IDF and Zionist lobby
51:45
influencers, actually reports on what is going on in the war. And the
51:50
most recent sort of big event is the fourth Siege, an attack on Sifa
51:57
Hospital in central North and Gaza, And so let's I want to see how
52:02
BIKOM put it out. And bear in mind they claim that they have huge
52:07
influence. The Guardian claimed in two thousand and nine that they are one of
52:12
the biggest influencers in the UK on the opinions of media, including the BBC,
52:16
on government officials, even MPs like Andrew Mitchell there and so let's just
52:25
have a look. So they basically channel the IDF spokesperson Hagari who's claiming that
52:32
the IDF is operating in compliance with international law and against the Hamas tourist organization.
52:40
The claim again that Hamas is operating out of hospitals, which has been
52:44
debunked on the third previous occasions and using civilian infrastructure in a systematic cynical pattern
52:51
of behavior, et cetera, et cetera. So basically bykom channels the IDF,
52:54
nothing else. They claimed that an operation was planned several days ago.
53:00
Who basically assassinate senior terrorists meaning Hamas resistance members. But let's have a look
53:07
how mondovice again. Let's say an anti Zionist regime Israeli media outlet who talk
53:16
about the real reason that Israel stormed Al Shifa Hospital yet again, so let's
53:21
have a look at what they tell us, which is very different. So
53:24
the assassination was of Al Mahbu, who was the director of operations of the
53:31
Gaza Police Force, nothing to do with Hamas terrorist forces, and in reality,
53:37
he was in charge of the distribution of humanitarian aid that was being brought
53:43
into Chifa Hospital, into UNRA centers surrounding chief of hospital, and he managed
53:50
to actually deliver a fair amount of humanitarian aid to northern Gaza that is basically
53:57
enduring real famine conditions through the lack of delivery of humanitarian aid by Israel and
54:07
by Egypt. So basically they wanted to assassinate him. Now, why did
54:14
they want to do this? What the IOF is trying to achieve inside Gaza?
54:17
If we look at the final slide on what Mondavice basically points out,
54:22
and this is in line with what I'm hearing. Basically, the Israeli forces
54:29
have been civil society, all police security forces. Today in Nasarat Camp,
54:38
which is on the western coast, they assassinated another director of police forces and
54:44
security forces there. So they're trying to create an environment of societal disorder in
54:50
the hope that tribal factions will will take hold and will create a fragmented Gaza
54:55
that is easier for the Israeli Alliance control. So, as Mondavi says,
55:01
in foiling Mahbu's pivotal role in coordinating the delivery of humanitarian aid the starving civilians
55:09
in Gaza while restoring as semblance of social order to the north. In other
55:14
words, the attack on Al Shifa was an assassination operation aimed at breaking down
55:19
civil order. It aimed to facilitate Israel's genocidal project and paid the way for
55:23
total control over the area without resistance. The unfolding events of the past few
55:30
days expose Israel's intention of engineering famine and contributing to social breakdown. It reminds
55:37
us that this is not only a war against Gaza's resistance but also against its
55:40
people. Yes, thank you, Vanessa, thanks very much for that.
55:45
Let's just end on this report from the National Audit Office on immigration and the
55:52
cost of hosting immigrants in the UK. They're saying one point two billion times
55:58
the cost of the Home large site scheme to house asylum seekers and that that
56:01
is going to be more expensive than the cost of keeping asylum seekers in hotels.
56:10
So this was a conclusion. The Home Office has made progress and planned
56:13
reduce the use of hotels to accommodate people seeking asylum, but in rapidly progressing
56:17
its plans to establish large sites it has incurred negidery, spending and increased risk.
56:24
The site at Scampton as yet to be opened, the Weathersfield and the
56:29
Bibi Stockholm. We are accommodating far fewer people originally planned. It appears inevitable
56:32
that collectively these early sites will now cost more than the alternative of using hotels.
56:37
The Home Office plans to develop a coherence strategy for the type and quantity
56:43
of accommodation it needs. Are welcome, but it needs to build flexibility because
56:46
the inherent difficulty of predicating or sorry predicting the number of people who might choose
56:52
to seek asylum and they uncertainly created by the implementation of the Illegal Migration Act.
56:58
And I would just want to mind everybody about the amount of money that
57:01
is made through people trafficking and human traffickers. And now this one hundred and
57:06
fifty billion dollars whatever that is in pounds is only for forced labor. But
57:13
as we can see, forced labor is only thirty eight percent of the total
57:16
of the twenty one million victims of human trafficking worldwide. Eight percent is for
57:22
other including organ trafficking. But the main section of this is sexual exploitation and
57:29
many many children involved in that. Now we've made the point that the UK
57:34
government's response to human trafficking is in the total of something around one hundred and
57:38
fifty million pounds a year, one hundred and fifty million, not one hundred
57:43
and fifteen billion. So in other words, that one hundred and fifty million
57:46
is effectively the cost of doing business. And they're doing nothing through their war
57:52
program and so on, to stop trafficking. They're doing nothing to stop the
57:59
criminals that are trafficking. It seems to me that if we're going to spend
58:01
one point two billion on accommodating people when they get here, what would happen
58:07
if we spent one point two billion instead of a few million on actually trying
58:12
to deal with the problem in the first place, And in fact, if
58:15
we stopped the war policy, then perhaps we have a lot more money to
58:20
do that. Just a thought. Let's just end with the BBC because this
58:28
tweet I saw from concerned citizen today, BBC can't even tell the truth about
58:34
the reporter's location. Watch the same vehicles on loop as she is apparently live.
58:38
Obvious green screen legacy media is dead. So we have this little bit
58:44
of video. We just thought you'd like to see it for a bit of
58:46
amusement. Watch the background and listen for the horns to you tell us more
58:53
about what's been happening. Obviously, tension between the two countries running very high
58:59
in recent times, very high in eater and in course, in fact,
59:02
in course the last few minutes, we just had confirmation from one of the
59:07
Foreign ministry here in Pakistan confirming that Pakistani did carry out attacks inside Afghanistan,
59:14
inside Afghanistan territory. The statement has come saying this morning Pakistan carried out intelligence
59:20
based anti terrorist operations in the border regions inside Afghanistan. Is the target of
59:24
the operations was a particular terrorist group that is responsible they say for multiple Okay,
59:30
so you get the pint now, I'm I'm going to hold our hands
59:32
up and say, you know, what's behind us may not really be there
59:36
and so on, and maybe perhaps we could be accused of the same thing.
59:39
But actually, since we have less and a fraction of one percent of
59:43
the budget at BBC News, I think that's fair enough. In their case,
59:46
I don't know that is clearly misrepresentation. They've gone quite a bit of
59:51
effort to persuade everybody that the traffic noise was there and so on, although
59:57
the green screen itself was pretty poor, not that I or well, Charles
1:00:00
is better than I am. I don't have any herod to have this problem
1:00:04
round the edges with. But you know, Vanessa very quickly thought, what
1:00:10
can I say? Really, I mean, it takes me back to I
1:00:15
think it was the start of the SMO in Ukraine and it was Lindsay Hilsom
1:00:20
of Channel four who was on a balcony which could have been virtually anywhere at
1:00:24
the time. So yeah, you know, yeah, don't believe anything you
1:00:29
see on the BBC's basically the thoughts there. Okay, let's leave it there
1:00:32
for today. Thank you very much as Vanessa and Charles for being with me
1:00:36
today. Thank you all for watching. We'll be back in a few minutes
1:00:39
if your a UK column member for some extra Otherwise, don't forget the interview
1:00:44
at one pm tomorrow on Fluoride, and we'll see you at one pm for
1:00:47
the News as usual on Friday. See them bye bye bye.