Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News — 16th October 2026

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UK Column News — 16th October 2026 · UK Column Radio

0:04
Speaker 1: Thanks for watching!
0:18
Speaker 2: Good afternoon.
0:19
Speaker 3: It's Friday the 16th of October, 2026, just after one o'clock.
0:22
Speaker 3: Welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson.
0:24
Speaker 3: Joining me in the studio today is Patrick Henningsen. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 3: to the program, Patrick. It's great to be with you, Mike.
0:28
Speaker 3: And by video link, we have Basil Valentine. Later in
0:31
Speaker 3: the program, we'll be discussing this week's Supreme Court hearing
0:34
Speaker 3: into the inability to request judicial review when the Attorney
0:38
Speaker 3: General refuses to reopen inquests into someone's death. And we'll
0:41
Speaker 3: be joined by a special guest for that. We'll be
0:43
Speaker 3: looking into Hamish to Bretton Gordon's connections to MI6. And
0:47
Speaker 3: we'll be reporting on Wes Strading's view of the future
0:50
Speaker 3: of US-UK defence relations. But we're going to begin, Patrick,
0:54
Speaker 3: with you and Zelensky's latest visit to the UK.
0:58
Speaker 2: Well, here he is. He's arrived. He's arrived. The little
1:03
Speaker 2: green goblin has landed in the UK. As you can see,
1:06
Speaker 2: he is there with King Charles. And, well, I guess
1:11
Speaker 2: he's hoping to get things. Certainly his ultranationalists are expecting
1:15
Speaker 2: that he arrives back in Kiev and not empty-handed here.
1:20
Speaker 2: So what are we looking at? This is the shakedown
1:22
Speaker 2: artist who is in the UK. He's doing rounds of interviews, Mike.
1:26
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've seen it, but the Piers
1:28
Speaker 2: Morgan media opportunity for the Ukrainian president, I don't want
1:34
Speaker 2: to call him elected because he's two years out of mandate.
1:37
Speaker 2: He suspended elections indefinitely until such a time that he
1:40
Speaker 2: claims it's safe to have elections, i.e. the war's over
1:44
Speaker 2: on his terms. which means there'll never be elections. Either
1:47
Speaker 2: he goes first or leaves the country or whatever. But
1:51
Speaker 2: so extraordinary things were said in this Piers Morgan interview.
1:56
Speaker 2: And also extraordinary things were said not only by Zelensky,
1:59
Speaker 2: but by Piers Morgan himself. The first thing was this
2:03
Speaker 2: incredible claim that Zelensky has made about the true number
2:08
Speaker 2: of casualties. And he just can't answer this question straight.
2:11
Speaker 2: Here it is.
2:14
Speaker 4: Huge amount.
2:15
Speaker 5: The biggest during all this.
2:18
Speaker 4: How many casualties?
2:20
Speaker 2: 43,000 each month now.
2:21
Speaker 4: Really? On the Russian side alone? On the Russian side alone.
2:25
Speaker 4: And how many are you losing on the Ukrainian side?
2:29
Speaker 2: I can't share.
2:30
Speaker 5: But between us, for today, it's from 7 to 10,
2:35
Speaker 5: 1 to 7, 1 to 10.
2:39
Speaker 4: The ratio?
2:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:40
Speaker 4: From Ukrainian to Russian?
2:41
Speaker 2: Yes.
2:42
Speaker 4: So for every Ukrainian being killed, 7 to 10 Russians.
2:45
Speaker 6: Are being killed?
2:46
Speaker 5: Every Ukrainian now kills from 7 to 10.
2:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so that's the claim made by Zelensky, Mike.
2:57
Speaker 2: You know, 43,000 Russian troops per month are getting killed.
3:01
Speaker 2: All the experts that we've been speaking to and the
3:04
Speaker 2: ones that seem to really know what's going on, are saying, well,
3:07
Speaker 2: it's more like the opposite. The ratio, he's saying 10
3:10
Speaker 2: to 1. We reported on the exchange of dead bodies.
3:14
Speaker 2: Ukraine doesn't have any to trade with the Russians when
3:18
Speaker 2: they do the meetup points. The Russians, however, have a
3:21
Speaker 2: lot of Ukrainian dead conscripts to trade. So the evidence
3:26
Speaker 2: suggests that Zelensky is lying. And that's a very important line, Mike,
3:29
Speaker 2: because this is key in selling the war to the Europeans,
3:34
Speaker 2: to the British public, to get people to think we
3:36
Speaker 2: need to keep going. We're winning. Remember in the summer,
3:39
Speaker 2: Ukraine's turned the corner. What was that, July? And suddenly
3:43
Speaker 2: in August, they weren't. So anyway, that's how the propaganda
3:46
Speaker 2: is going. But, you know, we'll put it in perspective.
3:50
Speaker 2: Look at this man. Sorry. We'll go back.
3:55
Speaker 6: I'll do it. Yes.
3:58
Speaker 3: Keep talking.
3:59
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this man here, former British Prime Minister Boris
4:02
Speaker 2: Johnson here, the West should have armed Ukraine earlier to
4:07
Speaker 2: deter Russia. He's flogging his book. This was just a
4:09
Speaker 2: few months ago. This is the man that's really responsible
4:13
Speaker 2: for this conflict. Boris Johnson basically sabotaged the Istanbul peace
4:18
Speaker 2: agreement in March and April of 2022 and promised Zelensky
4:23
Speaker 2: that not to sign this agreement, which would have given
4:26
Speaker 2: him ended the war effectively. They would have kept their territory,
4:30
Speaker 2: minus Crimea, of course. But now people are basically saying, no,
4:35
Speaker 2: that never happened. That's historical fact. But this is the
4:39
Speaker 2: information campaign that's going on. We'll bring this up here.
4:44
Speaker 2: And you'll see a lot of these here. The US
4:46
Speaker 2: and Boris Johnson forced Ukraine not to sign the peace
4:49
Speaker 2: deal in Istanbul. This is by the European Union's calling
4:52
Speaker 2: this disinformation. And if we go through the The media,
4:55
Speaker 2: we see tons of stories like this. This is a
4:59
Speaker 2: PR campaign here. This is a disinformation campaign. Putin repeats
5:04
Speaker 2: nonsense claims that Boris Johnson scuppered efforts to end the
5:09
Speaker 2: Ukraine invasion. So there's clearly a campaign going on here
5:15
Speaker 2: that is an actual disinformation campaign. As we said last week,
5:19
Speaker 2: the only hybrid war that we can see going on
5:21
Speaker 2: in Europe and the U.K., is the hybrid war being
5:24
Speaker 2: waged by our governments against the population in Europe and
5:28
Speaker 2: the UK and the West more broadly. That's the only
5:31
Speaker 2: hybrid war that we're seeing here. Now, the other thing, Mike,
5:35
Speaker 2: that you continually see in this conversation is this fetishization
5:39
Speaker 2: of the Second World War. Like, Putin can't be allowed
5:42
Speaker 2: to win. How many times have we heard this? We
5:45
Speaker 2: don't want to be Neville Chamberlain. And Putin is Hitler,
5:48
Speaker 2: and we don't want to be Chamberlain. We want to
5:49
Speaker 2: be Churchill. And here's Piers Morgan basically recycling that old
5:55
Speaker 2: trope yet again. Listen.
6:00
Speaker 4: Putin is the Hitler of our time. Do you agree
6:03
Speaker 4: with her when she says Putin is the Hitler of
6:06
Speaker 4: our time?
6:07
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
6:07
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
6:08
Speaker 3: It's true.
6:11
Speaker 4: You think he's that evil?
6:13
Speaker 2: No.
6:14
Speaker 7: He is evil.
6:16
Speaker 5: He's not, I mean, he's not so strong as evil,
6:20
Speaker 5: I think so. But people are afraid of him. And
6:25
Speaker 5: he's not, I mean.
6:28
Speaker 8: Mr.
6:29
Speaker 4: President, I'm being told by your team that we have
6:32
Speaker 4: to wrap up because you have two important meetings, one
6:35
Speaker 4: with my prime minister and one with my king. I
6:37
Speaker 4: can only thank you for coming all the way to
6:39
Speaker 4: the studio. Thank you. It's great to see you again.
6:42
Speaker 4: You know how I feel about this. I want Ukraine
6:45
Speaker 4: to win this. And I want America and I want
6:47
Speaker 4: President Trump. I've known him a long time. And if
6:50
Speaker 4: you're watching President Trump, do the right thing here. Siding
6:52
Speaker 4: with Vladimir Putin against this guy and his country is
6:56
Speaker 4: the wrong thing. It's what we called in World War
6:59
Speaker 4: II appeasement to Hitler. Don't be that guy. Give this
7:03
Speaker 4: guy the support he needs to defeat the modern day Hitler.
7:07
Speaker 4: That's how I'd like to end this interview. I wish
7:09
Speaker 4: you all the very best.
7:10
Speaker 3: Thanks so much.
7:10
Speaker 4: And please send my best to the Ukrainian people. We
7:13
Speaker 4: in England, in the UK, we're right behind you. be
7:16
Speaker 4: under no doubt about that.
7:17
Speaker 5: We are thankful to you and to your nation, absolutely
7:21
Speaker 5: great nation, great people, great Britain, which is from the
7:25
Speaker 5: very beginning on the right side of history.
7:31
Speaker 7: Wow.
7:32
Speaker 2: What did you think of that?
7:33
Speaker 3: Is that the role of a journalist?
7:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. That's probably the worst piece of journalistic moment
7:40
Speaker 2: probably that we've probably ever seen here. Not only he
7:43
Speaker 2: opens quoting Laura Loomer, of all people, Piers Morgan, then
7:47
Speaker 2: the British people are divided according to the polling on this.
7:51
Speaker 2: So who is he to speak for the country is
7:53
Speaker 2: what we're saying. And again, invoking the whole Chamberlain trope,
7:58
Speaker 2: it's unbelievable, completely beyond the pale. Among other problems with
8:04
Speaker 2: that interview is just there's so many things we could
8:07
Speaker 2: just dissect it one after the other. But Piers Morgan
8:10
Speaker 2: has so much blood on his hands by platforming Israeli
8:14
Speaker 2: war criminals for months and months and over a year,
8:18
Speaker 2: maybe two years after October 7th, denying that there was
8:21
Speaker 2: a genocide. And now he's been on a mea culpa
8:23
Speaker 2: tour for the last year trying to change sides because
8:27
Speaker 2: he realized that the public and everyone's against him. And
8:29
Speaker 2: to salvage what's left is credibility. He's done that. And
8:32
Speaker 2: he has blood on his hands here as well because
8:35
Speaker 2: he is shilling for a war that could have been ended.
8:39
Speaker 2: In April of 2022. But the British, Boris Johnson is
8:43
Speaker 2: responsible for canceling that peace agreement and for hundreds of
8:50
Speaker 2: thousands of dead Ukrainians. So that wasn't necessary. So here's
8:55
Speaker 2: this is the Zelensky party line this week. Ukraine to
8:59
Speaker 2: resume strikes. He's been betrayed by Trump. And so he's
9:02
Speaker 2: going to now resume strikes against Russian refineries. He's defiant
9:06
Speaker 2: against the president here. And here's the telegraph. Zelensky, I
9:11
Speaker 2: feel betrayed by Trump. And this is really what he's
9:14
Speaker 2: worried about here. That's the real concern for this guy
9:17
Speaker 2: is that the begging bowl is going to dry up here.
9:21
Speaker 2: And this is Ukrainian whistleblower and journalist here, Marta Havryshko.
9:27
Speaker 2: And she says, I, along with 73% of Ukrainians who
9:31
Speaker 2: voted for Zelensky, feel utterly betrayed by him. We voted
9:36
Speaker 2: against the war, against the Banderite Nazis, against the language Taliban.
9:41
Speaker 2: She's talking about the banning of Russian language by the
9:43
Speaker 2: Zelensky regime. Instead, we got Poroshenko's army language faith on steroids,
9:49
Speaker 2: plus a war that has already claimed hundreds of thousands
9:53
Speaker 2: of lives and threatened to claim countless more, all under
9:56
Speaker 2: the Bandera, Nazi crowds, fascist rallying cry, Slava. ukraine here
10:01
Speaker 2: so listen it's not all bad news mike uh mark
10:05
Speaker 2: rute's wife seems to have slipped a red pill in
10:09
Speaker 2: his cornflakes uh the other morning and he said this
10:12
Speaker 2: at a press conference to our absolute utter shock.
10:17
Speaker 5: Um he's um Russia foolish enough to consider attacking any
10:24
Speaker 5: of NATO countries.
10:26
Speaker 2: Thank you. We don't think so.
10:28
Speaker 6: And we see no imminent threat against NATO territory.
10:31
Speaker 2: And if we would see a buildup, we will react
10:33
Speaker 2: to it. So Trump has clearly called the sales and
10:38
Speaker 2: marketing manager for weapons and defense procurement at NATO and
10:43
Speaker 2: told him there's a new sort of talking point this week.
10:46
Speaker 2: And so, again, we're absolutely shocked that they actually said that.
10:50
Speaker 2: But there we are. So it's an interesting situation, Michael. Absolutely.
10:53
Speaker 3: Well, in the meantime, Defense Secretary Wes Streeting used a
10:57
Speaker 3: speech in Washington yesterday to call for closer UK-US defense
11:00
Speaker 3: partnership built on rapid innovation and industrial scale. He was
11:05
Speaker 3: determined that Britain is increasing its military effort out of
11:08
Speaker 3: self-interest rather than at the behest of the United States.
11:13
Speaker 3: He was speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
11:17
Speaker 3: and he said the dangers of the last century were, quote, returning,
11:20
Speaker 3: armed with the technologies of the 21st. And he framed
11:23
Speaker 3: support for Ukraine as both principal and national interest. And
11:27
Speaker 3: he argued that experience since Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea
11:31
Speaker 3: showed that appeasement fails. So let's listen to a short clip.
11:36
Speaker 3: This is from the beginning of his speech.
11:40
Speaker 1: The gravest dangers of the 20th century are returning. armed
11:44
Speaker 1: with the technologies of the 21st. And it is not
11:47
Speaker 1: yet clear if this century will be defined by freedom
11:51
Speaker 1: or tyranny. Russia is waging war in Europe. Our adversaries
11:56
Speaker 1: are probing and provoking us on a daily basis. The
11:59
Speaker 1: threats we face are growing and getting closer to home.
12:03
Speaker 1: And the very nature of warfare itself is being transformed
12:07
Speaker 1: before our eyes. Britain and America have never been content
12:11
Speaker 1: to simply watch history unfold At defining moments, we have
12:16
Speaker 1: helped determine its course. The frontline for freedom today can
12:21
Speaker 1: be found in Ukraine. Ukraine did not ask for this war.
12:26
Speaker 1: President Putin invaded their country.
12:30
Speaker 3: So that's his position. He said that the war had
12:33
Speaker 3: transformed warfare with cheap drones destroying tanks worth millions. And
12:37
Speaker 3: he declared that the traditional procurement model is now obsolete.
12:41
Speaker 3: He said that the UK aims to cut the time
12:43
Speaker 3: from concept to contract for new platforms from six years
12:46
Speaker 3: to two. This is very similar to the rhetoric we
12:48
Speaker 3: heard over vaccines and preparation for new vaccine rollout. And
12:53
Speaker 3: for most other purchases, he said, under three months. He
12:57
Speaker 3: cited the Raven Ground Launch Missile System delivered to Ukraine
13:00
Speaker 3: in four months at under $ 25 million for the first
13:03
Speaker 3: eight units. And he said that the UK now has
13:05
Speaker 3: access to frontline combat data from Ukraine's Avengers Lab AI platform.
13:10
Speaker 3: So this is how he framed it.
13:15
Speaker 1: Warfare is as tough and as bloody and as deadly
13:19
Speaker 1: as it has ever been. But Ukraine has changed the
13:22
Speaker 1: character of conflict forever. A $ 650 drone can destroy a
13:28
Speaker 1: $ 4 million tank. Uncrewed boats costing a quarter of a
13:32
Speaker 1: million dollars sink warships worth $ 65 million. The time between
13:38
Speaker 1: detecting and striking targets has compressed dramatically. And new technology
13:44
Speaker 1: can be deployed in weeks rather than years. The lesson
13:48
Speaker 1: is clear. Military power is no longer measured simply by
13:52
Speaker 1: who has the biggest, most expensive platforms. It is about
13:56
Speaker 1: who can innovate fastest, produce at scale, and turn relatively
14:01
Speaker 1: cheap technology to devastating military effect. Our competitors are combining
14:08
Speaker 1: industrial scale with rapid advances in autonomy, AI, drones, cyber
14:14
Speaker 1: and electronic warfare. So modernisation is not just a case
14:18
Speaker 1: of inventing or buying new kits or technology. Modernisation is
14:22
Speaker 1: about getting affordable, adaptable, accessible weaponry into the hands of
14:27
Speaker 1: our military as quickly as possible.
14:32
Speaker 3: Now, Streeting, we'll talk in a second. Streeting went on
14:35
Speaker 3: to argue that allies must outproduce adversaries as well as
14:38
Speaker 3: out-innovate them. And he said that Andy Burnham saw the
14:41
Speaker 3: biggest sustained rise in defence spending since the Cold War
14:45
Speaker 3: as a chance to re-industrialise Britain. So we're seeing all
14:49
Speaker 3: the same talking points that we've been talking about for
14:51
Speaker 3: quite some time. He warned against by British, made in
14:54
Speaker 3: Europe and America first, becoming rival agendas. And he said
14:58
Speaker 3: that the UK, as a bridge... could act as a
15:02
Speaker 3: bridge between the American and European arms industries. And he
15:06
Speaker 3: conceded that the United States' frustration over Europe's reliance on
15:09
Speaker 3: American power was largely justified. And he credited Trump with
15:14
Speaker 3: making the issue impossible to ignore. Let's just hear him
15:17
Speaker 3: one last time as he makes that particular point.
15:21
Speaker 1: Now, I know there's been frustration here in Washington about
15:24
Speaker 1: Europe's reliance on American military power. Bluntly, much of that
15:29
Speaker 1: frustration has been justified. President Trump is not the first
15:33
Speaker 1: American president to demand that Europe takes greater responsibility for
15:37
Speaker 1: its own defense, nor have those demands been limited to
15:41
Speaker 1: Republican presidents. But President Trump has brought a new urgency
15:46
Speaker 1: to that challenge, and he has made it impossible for
15:49
Speaker 1: Europe to ignore. The result is the most significant shift
15:53
Speaker 1: in European defense ambition in a generation.
15:58
Speaker 3: So I'm going to say thank you to Wes Streeting
16:00
Speaker 3: for confirming my argument about what Trump's role has been
16:04
Speaker 3: in all this. But anyway, his argument, though, is, correct
16:07
Speaker 3: me if you think I'm wrong here, Patrick, but his
16:09
Speaker 3: argument seems to be that the deaths of millions no
16:12
Speaker 3: longer needs to be a big ticket item. This follows
16:15
Speaker 3: on from our reporting of what Richard Knighton was saying
16:17
Speaker 3: about the integrated force with troops, crewed platforms, drones, AI,
16:21
Speaker 3: and data linked across land, air, space, and cyber that
16:24
Speaker 3: we were talking about on Wednesday's news program. And this
16:27
Speaker 3: seems to be about a recognition that this kind of
16:29
Speaker 3: warfare seen in World War I and World War II
16:31
Speaker 3: are not affordable in modern bankrupt economies, but the same
16:34
Speaker 3: kinetic effect, the same or greater levels of death and
16:37
Speaker 3: destruction are possible at a fraction of the price.
16:40
Speaker 2: And he's clearly arguing that this is a great thing. Yeah,
16:43
Speaker 2: that's the argument they're making, basically. And no one's challenging
16:46
Speaker 2: on that. And for West training to say, Andy Burnham's
16:50
Speaker 2: announced record spending on for defense. Well, I can announce
16:53
Speaker 2: record spending on my grocery bill this week, but it
16:57
Speaker 2: doesn't mean I've got more food in my basket. There's
16:59
Speaker 2: a little thing called relative purchasing power parity, which means
17:03
Speaker 2: that Russia gets a lot more bang for the buck
17:06
Speaker 2: for what they spend. When you're spending 1 million pounds
17:10
Speaker 2: on a missile and the Iranians are spending 50,000 pounds
17:15
Speaker 2: on the same missile, that's a 20 X increase on
17:18
Speaker 2: your side. It's not sustainable. You don't have the money.
17:22
Speaker 2: You don't have the industrial base. You don't have the
17:24
Speaker 2: energy base to run these kind of military industrial expansions
17:29
Speaker 2: at scale. The same with Russia, even more in terms
17:32
Speaker 2: of industrial and energy base than even Iran does. Isn't
17:35
Speaker 2: the more economic decision, the more economic route to negotiate,
17:40
Speaker 2: to use diplomacy, to try to get a negotiated settlement
17:44
Speaker 2: so that we're not bankrupting each other and pushing everybody
17:47
Speaker 2: towards World War III? I would think that should be
17:50
Speaker 2: an avenue worth exploring. And I bet if you put
17:53
Speaker 2: that to the public in a referendum, they would agree
17:56
Speaker 2: with me and not agree with what our politicians are
17:59
Speaker 2: currently saying. Absolutely.
18:01
Speaker 3: Thanks for that, Patrick. Okay, now let's move on. Matt
18:04
Speaker 3: Campbell's brother was killed in the attack on the World
18:07
Speaker 3: Trade Center on September the 11th, 2001. Matt has wanted
18:11
Speaker 3: a fresh inquest into his brother's death. And under Section
18:15
Speaker 3: 13 of the Coroner's Act, that can only happen if
18:17
Speaker 3: the Attorney General first grants permission, known as a fiat,
18:21
Speaker 3: to apply to the High Court. Now, the Attorney General refused.
18:25
Speaker 3: And last year, the Divisional Court ruled that the refusal
18:29
Speaker 3: could not be challenged in the courts at all. Matt
18:31
Speaker 3: took this case to the Supreme Court, as we can
18:33
Speaker 3: see on screen at the moment, and his case was
18:35
Speaker 3: heard on Wednesday and Thursday this week. Over two days
18:39
Speaker 3: of argument, Matt's barristers told the justices that no minister
18:45
Speaker 3: should hold a power that is beyond legal scrutiny because
18:47
Speaker 3: it leaves it open to being used unlawfully. The government's
18:51
Speaker 3: counsel argued that the decision belongs to the Attorney General alone,
18:55
Speaker 3: who answers to Parliament rather than the courts. And the
18:57
Speaker 3: Five Justices Act asks both sides some probing questions. They've
19:02
Speaker 3: reserved their judgment. Their ruling will matter well beyond, of course,
19:07
Speaker 3: Matt's own personal case. It will affect any family refused
19:11
Speaker 3: to second look at how a loved one died. And
19:13
Speaker 3: I'm delighted to say that Matt Campbell joins us now.
19:15
Speaker 3: This has been a long time coming, Matt. I think
19:18
Speaker 3: this is the first time you appeared on the UK
19:20
Speaker 3: column was 2021, and you'd already been pressing for this
19:23
Speaker 3: for quite some time before that.
19:25
Speaker 8: So maybe.
19:26
Speaker 3: If we just begin with a little bit of background,
19:28
Speaker 3: because if you just tell us when you applied for
19:30
Speaker 3: the inquest into Jeff's death to be reopened, remind us
19:33
Speaker 3: what the Attorney General had said and what the reasons
19:37
Speaker 3: were given for not pursuing the second inquest.
19:42
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, we applied in August 2021. It was
19:45
Speaker 9: a two and a half thousand page application. We had
19:49
Speaker 9: eyewitness testimonies. expert testimony and we could clearly demonstrate an
19:53
Speaker 9: insufficiency of inquiry and we thought it'd be fairly straightforward
19:56
Speaker 9: that they would you know give give a decision and
19:58
Speaker 9: give it soon and make it a positive one grant
20:00
Speaker 9: their fear um and they didn't and we challenged the
20:05
Speaker 9: decision it was in january 2024 is the decision that
20:07
Speaker 9: um We challenged through judicial review at the High Court,
20:12
Speaker 9: as you said, last year. I mean, that refusal was
20:15
Speaker 9: very terse and it really didn't make a lot of sense.
20:21
Speaker 9: I mean, I certainly didn't seem to be applying any
20:23
Speaker 9: sort of statutory test to the application that we put forward.
20:28
Speaker 9: And so, yeah, we managed to push this all the
20:31
Speaker 9: way to the Supreme Court where, I mean, essentially what
20:34
Speaker 9: they were looking at was, is the attorney general amenable
20:39
Speaker 9: to judicial review of a decision they make um because
20:43
Speaker 9: the high court as you said found that they are
20:46
Speaker 9: effectively immune and as it stands that means the door's
20:49
Speaker 9: closed we have no recourse um to basically get the
20:53
Speaker 9: courts to look at the legality the rationality of that
20:56
Speaker 9: decision and so yeah the hearing for the last two
20:59
Speaker 9: days um very much focused on that the gatekeeping functions
21:04
Speaker 9: of the attorney general and and basically the attorney general's
21:08
Speaker 9: um council you know basically held that they should have
21:12
Speaker 9: absolute immunity but I mean it got a bit ridiculous
21:15
Speaker 9: at one point where you know my case he put
21:18
Speaker 9: forward a hypothetical which is you know suppose there's been
21:21
Speaker 9: a bribe or there's been a toss of a coin
21:23
Speaker 9: or a roll of a dice would you still stand
21:26
Speaker 9: by that absolute immunity and you know he was basically
21:29
Speaker 9: browbeaten by panicked actually it was seven judges not not
21:32
Speaker 9: five got kind of uh pushed into a corner and
21:35
Speaker 9: he had to agree yes And that therein basically exposed
21:40
Speaker 9: the fragility and the consequences of having this absolute immunity. So,
21:45
Speaker 9: I mean, yes, it was an interesting couple of days
21:48
Speaker 9: and there was a lot of questions from the judges
21:50
Speaker 9: to both sides. I guess you can ask me how
21:56
Speaker 9: I thought it went.
21:58
Speaker 3: Well, we will come on to that. Before we do, though,
22:01
Speaker 3: your barrister told the Supreme Court that this particular case
22:04
Speaker 3: is not about 9-11. It's the broader issue that is
22:07
Speaker 3: important here. But of course, the inquest into Jeff's death
22:10
Speaker 3: is about 9-11. And I know you believe the reasons
22:13
Speaker 3: for the refusal to investigate Jeff's death further are political.
22:16
Speaker 3: But my question is, how confident are you that the
22:19
Speaker 3: Supreme Court is immune from the same kind of political pressures?
22:24
Speaker 9: I mean, I know it's political, but the decision shouldn't be.
22:27
Speaker 9: I mean, I'm not naive enough to know that that's
22:29
Speaker 9: not going to play a part. Essentially, it should be
22:31
Speaker 9: just looked at the merits of our application. Was there
22:34
Speaker 9: a sufficient inquiry? And does the new evidence, is it
22:38
Speaker 9: worth being pushed up to the High Court to make
22:40
Speaker 9: a decision? We didn't look at any of the evidence
22:45
Speaker 9: because that wasn't the issue being debated at the Supreme Court.
22:51
Speaker 9: I'm confident that what we put in our application should
22:54
Speaker 9: have been sufficient to get that fear granted in the
22:57
Speaker 9: first place. And we shouldn't be where we're at. I mean,
22:59
Speaker 9: I can't believe, you know, more than five years down
23:02
Speaker 9: the line, we're still fighting to actually get the opportunity
23:07
Speaker 9: for the courts to look at the lawfulness of their decision.
23:12
Speaker 9: There's been a long fight and we've not even talked
23:15
Speaker 9: about what went on beforehand.
23:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Matt, if the Supreme Court rules that the
23:25
Speaker 3: Attorney General can be challenged, I mean, where does that
23:30
Speaker 3: leave your case? Because at the end of the day,
23:34
Speaker 3: does the Attorney General still have the right to say
23:37
Speaker 3: that he's not going to take it any further?
23:38
Speaker 9: I mean, what this case is about is about removing
23:42
Speaker 9: this barrier that we've got.
23:44
Speaker 2: It's got to go.
23:45
Speaker 8: So we have to win this stage.
23:47
Speaker 9: If we win on the immunity issue, if we win
23:50
Speaker 9: and get the full grounds of judicial review applied to this,
23:53
Speaker 9: you know, not being immune, what we want is to
23:57
Speaker 9: be remitted back to the High Court, where at the
23:59
Speaker 9: moment it's actually still at the permission stage. So the
24:02
Speaker 9: High Court is assessing, is our case arguable? I mean,
24:05
Speaker 9: clearly on paper we think it's arguable. And for the
24:09
Speaker 9: High Court to agree, But yes, we need to actually
24:12
Speaker 9: look at the grounds that we've given as to why
24:15
Speaker 9: the decision that the Attorney General made back in January
24:18
Speaker 9: 2024 is an unlawful one. It is irrational and certainly
24:23
Speaker 9: isn't what you expect the Attorney General to do when
24:27
Speaker 9: presented with more than enough in front of them to
24:29
Speaker 9: make a positive decision for us.
24:32
Speaker 3: And so if it goes your way and that goes
24:35
Speaker 3: back to the High Court, the High Court can compel
24:38
Speaker 3: the Attorney General to vote.
24:40
Speaker 9: Force the inquest um they have i think my understanding
24:43
Speaker 9: is they can compel them and give them very narrow
24:47
Speaker 9: uh guide rails as to making a new decision um
24:51
Speaker 9: and you know in theory you'd hope they'd be put
24:54
Speaker 9: into a corner where they have to base and say
24:55
Speaker 9: yes but i mean ultimately the power to quash and
24:59
Speaker 9: open a new inquest it lies with the um high
25:02
Speaker 9: court not with the attorney general they are just the
25:05
Speaker 9: gatekeeper so One would hope the outcome of the judicial review,
25:09
Speaker 9: if it's in our favor, would be to compel them,
25:11
Speaker 9: as you said, to basically grant their fear.
25:17
Speaker 2: And last question, Matt, we see quite a few supporters
25:21
Speaker 2: there behind you. I would imagine, you know, how is
25:25
Speaker 2: your family feeling about how this is going? I realize
25:29
Speaker 2: it's been a long battle. How has this affected you
25:32
Speaker 2: personally and your family pursuing this incredible challenge?
25:37
Speaker 9: Well, my mum and my younger brother, Rob, were there
25:40
Speaker 9: for both days. My mum also attended the High Court
25:43
Speaker 9: hearing last year. They know it's been a long journey.
25:45
Speaker 9: They've heard me talk about stuff for many years, and
25:47
Speaker 9: they know my mum is very supportive and proud of
25:50
Speaker 9: what I'm trying to do on behalf of Geoff. It's
25:53
Speaker 9: affected us. I mean, 9-11 did full stop. I lost
25:56
Speaker 9: my brother, and the ripples of that never cease. What
26:00
Speaker 9: has been hard over the years is fighting... the system,
26:04
Speaker 9: trying to get answers, trying to get some sort of
26:07
Speaker 9: truth and justice for my brother. And, you know, what's
26:09
Speaker 9: going on right now is just a part of that
26:12
Speaker 9: lawfare that goes on when you go up against the system.
26:15
Speaker 9: You know, it's procedural attrition at the moment. You know,
26:18
Speaker 9: every single stage is a barrier. You've got to ask permission.
26:20
Speaker 6: You fight.
26:21
Speaker 9: You know, I just look at it. It's like there's
26:22
Speaker 9: a big, long war, but we keep winning these battles
26:25
Speaker 9: that are put in front of us. And this is
26:26
Speaker 9: just the next step to ultimately getting a new inquest.
26:30
Speaker 3: Well, Matt, I've just got to say a huge well
26:33
Speaker 3: done for getting it to this point. So we've got
26:36
Speaker 3: to thank you, but we've also got to thank all
26:38
Speaker 3: the people that have supported you over the years, and
26:41
Speaker 3: there have been a lot of them.
26:43
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, I'm so grateful. We would not be
26:45
Speaker 9: where we were at. I mean, it would have died
26:47
Speaker 9: a long time ago if it wasn't for the generous support,
26:50
Speaker 9: you know, both in terms of sharing what I'm doing
26:52
Speaker 9: as a campaign, but obviously donating financially to pay, you know,
26:57
Speaker 9: the legal costs, which are, you know, quite high, to
27:00
Speaker 9: say the least. And yeah, there's a lot of people,
27:05
Speaker 9: I think, who support what I'm doing. I mean, I
27:07
Speaker 9: think we're sick and tired of basically being lied to,
27:10
Speaker 9: covered up about stuff. And, you know, this is one
27:13
Speaker 9: way of getting light shone on an area where at
27:17
Speaker 9: the moment it's been shunned and ignored over the years.
27:20
Speaker 9: And so I'm hopeful that, you know, that's my role
27:24
Speaker 9: in trying to shine light, truth and justice on, you know,
27:27
Speaker 9: my brother's death.
27:30
Speaker 3: Matt, thank you very much for joining us today and
27:33
Speaker 3: well done. And I hope the case goes your way
27:36
Speaker 3: and we'll speak to you again in the not too
27:38
Speaker 3: distant future, I'm quite sure. So thanks for joining us.
27:41
Speaker 2: Cheers.
27:41
Speaker 8: Thanks, Chaps.
27:43
Speaker 3: Basil, over to you then. And well, Sally Rooney at
27:47
Speaker 3: Palestine Action, what's the latest?
27:51
Speaker 6: Hi, Mike. Yes, great to be with you. And hello
27:54
Speaker 6: to our viewers all over the UK. The firestorm in
27:58
Speaker 6: the media and politics that was set off by the
28:02
Speaker 6: Green Party's vote two weeks ago to declare that Zionism
28:07
Speaker 6: is racism, well, nobody could really have predicted the extent
28:11
Speaker 6: to which it's caused this absolute virago, for my view,
28:15
Speaker 6: stating the obvious. The clue is in the name, and
28:19
Speaker 6: as is often the case with witch hunts, it seems
28:21
Speaker 6: to be contagious. Of course, there's the very deliberate conflation
28:27
Speaker 6: or criticism of the ideology of Zionism, which by definition
28:32
Speaker 6: privileges Jewish people over native Palestinians. And that is declared
28:39
Speaker 6: anti-Semitism itself an anti-Semitic trope, ironically. But nowhere there was
28:45
Speaker 6: this better illustrated this week than by Adam Bolton, the
28:49
Speaker 6: Sky News political analyst when referring to Sally Rooney. The
28:55
Speaker 6: Palestine Action Ban remains in place for the time being,
28:59
Speaker 6: for all Ed Miliband's fine words and the obvious nonsense
29:04
Speaker 6: of the ban. And it led this week to Faber
29:08
Speaker 6: cancelling the distribution of the Irish novelist Sally Rooney's books
29:14
Speaker 6: in the UK. I had no idea she's actually an
29:16
Speaker 6: enormously popular novelist. And because she said she would donate
29:21
Speaker 6: the proceeds from sales to Palestine Action, that's it. Now,
29:26
Speaker 6: it's worth remembering that if she was writing in support
29:31
Speaker 6: of genocide, she wouldn't be banned. You can buy books
29:34
Speaker 6: by the Moors murderer Ian Brady and all sorts of
29:38
Speaker 6: other ghouls. but you can't buy Sally Rooney's books anymore.
29:43
Speaker 6: The casual anti-Semitism of the conflation of Zionism with Judaism,
29:51
Speaker 6: with Jewish people in general, was no better illustrated than
29:54
Speaker 6: by Adam Bolton this week on Sky News when talking
29:56
Speaker 6: about Sally.
29:58
Speaker 10: Where she said that she's going to spend all her
30:02
Speaker 10: royalties on Palestine action. And, you know, I fail to
30:07
Speaker 10: see what the content of her books, which is basically
30:11
Speaker 10: about the love life of Generation Z Dubliners, has to
30:16
Speaker 10: do with Palestine and Israel. But she, in common with
30:20
Speaker 10: a lot of people in Ireland, is taking a very
30:24
Speaker 10: strong pro-Palestine, I have to say, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish stance.
30:30
Speaker 6: Notice the way Adam just slipped in anti-Jewish at the end.
30:34
Speaker 6: It's not anti-Jewish at all. It's anti-genocide. And the little
30:38
Speaker 6: snigger from the co-presenter as well, when Adam said that
30:43
Speaker 6: her books had nothing to do with Palestine, as if
30:47
Speaker 6: people in the arts, or anybody for that matter, really
30:50
Speaker 6: don't have any business taking a principled stance against genocide.
30:54
Speaker 6: Really bizarre and gutter stuff, frankly. Very sinister.
30:59
Speaker 1: Anyway.
31:00
Speaker 6: This prompted the following tweet from Zach Polanski, who's fighting
31:05
Speaker 6: a rearguard action in support of the Green Party's motion. Apparently,
31:10
Speaker 6: Sally Rooney is anti-Semitic because she opposes genocide. People in
31:13
Speaker 6: Ireland are anti-Semitic because they oppose genocide. This was his
31:15
Speaker 6: comment on Adam Bolton. This is why Andy Burnham's comments
31:19
Speaker 6: yesterday in the House of Commons when he condemned the
31:22
Speaker 6: Green Party motion were so deeply irresponsible, blurring all the
31:26
Speaker 6: lines between being Jewish and and criticizing Israel, even though,
31:30
Speaker 6: of course, his own foreign secretary has criticized Israel. And finally,
31:37
Speaker 6: some pushback from Zoe Williams in The Guardian. Sally Rooney's
31:41
Speaker 6: stand on Palestine is brave and humane. The Normal People's
31:46
Speaker 6: author's determination to support Palestine action, even if it means
31:49
Speaker 6: that her books are withdrawn for sale in the UK,
31:51
Speaker 6: makes a mockery of Britain's terrorism laws. It certainly does.
31:58
Speaker 2: Basil, thank you for that. And just a quick addendum
32:01
Speaker 2: to that. She canceled her trip to the UK for
32:03
Speaker 2: fear of being arrested.
32:04
Speaker 8: Yes.
32:05
Speaker 2: So she didn't come in the end to the UK
32:09
Speaker 2: from Ireland, which is incredible. Absolutely.
32:12
Speaker 3: Okay, let's move on. If you like what the UK
32:14
Speaker 3: Club does, we do need your ongoing financial support. Details
32:17
Speaker 3: on the website. You can make a donation. Join us
32:20
Speaker 3: as a member, monthly, annual, or lifetime donation. If you
32:23
Speaker 3: can't support us financially, please do share this program. Anything
32:27
Speaker 3: else that you see on the website, that helps us
32:30
Speaker 3: greatly as well. You could pick up a copy of
32:32
Speaker 3: issue three of the column that is available for sale
32:35
Speaker 3: at the moment. Now, a quick reminder on Sunday, A
32:38
Speaker 3: Thousand Words, Jake is speaking to Matt Glamour. And then
32:42
Speaker 3: on Tuesday, we're going to have episode 11 of Military
32:45
Speaker 3: Matters going out at 1pm on Tuesday. So join us
32:48
Speaker 3: for those if you can. Let's just move on to
32:51
Speaker 3: image to Brett.
32:52
Speaker 6: And Gordon here.
32:53
Speaker 3: I just want to give a little bit of a
32:54
Speaker 3: history lesson here, the type of material that he has
32:57
Speaker 3: pushed out in the past, because he is what might
33:00
Speaker 3: be called, I suppose, an influencer in some ways. His
33:03
Speaker 3: main focus has been Russia, China, and chemical weapons. For example,
33:07
Speaker 3: this article from January this year, which hasn't aged so well,
33:11
Speaker 3: headlined Putin is about to be knocked off his perch.
33:15
Speaker 3: He said the extraordinary claim that one of Putin's many
33:17
Speaker 3: palaces was attacked by 91 drones this week, this is
33:20
Speaker 3: in January, is case in point. The CIA has now
33:23
Speaker 3: briefed the US president that this was almost certainly a
33:26
Speaker 3: false flag operation. And he managed to write that without
33:29
Speaker 3: any sense of irony at all, I suspect. Crucially, US
33:33
Speaker 3: and NATO, he said, security guarantees extending 15 years amount
33:36
Speaker 3: to de facto NATO protection. Even more alarming for the
33:40
Speaker 3: Kremlin is Trump's open discussion of Western boots on the ground.
33:44
Speaker 3: That is Putin's worst case outcome. So he might be
33:47
Speaker 3: an influencer, but he's not terribly accurate in his influencing, perhaps.
33:52
Speaker 3: But here's another example from July 2018. Wive Novichok could
33:56
Speaker 3: be Russia's most terrifying weapon in a war with the West.
34:00
Speaker 3: This is hilarious. And he was speaking to Channel 4
34:03
Speaker 3: News at the time. Sorry, this was at the time
34:05
Speaker 3: of the Don Sturgis inquest, which is a related example
34:09
Speaker 3: of the type of thing he talks about. So let's
34:11
Speaker 3: just have a quick look at this.
34:14
Speaker 7: And it was three GRU men who travelled to the
34:16
Speaker 7: UK to try to kill her father eight years later
34:20
Speaker 7: under aliases. They were, in reality, Alexander Mishkin, Anatoly Chapiga
34:25
Speaker 7: and Denis Sergeyev, who stayed in London while the other
34:28
Speaker 7: two travelled to Salisbury, smearing Novichok on Skripal's door handle.
34:33
Speaker 7: The pair then discarded the perfume bottle containing it before
34:36
Speaker 7: travelling back to Russia.
34:38
Speaker 11: We're talking about something called Novichok, the most deadly chemical
34:42
Speaker 11: ever manufactured by man. And if you think that something
34:46
Speaker 11: like chlorine is maybe toxicity one, this is toxicity 10,000.
34:51
Speaker 3: And of course, let's not forget the immortal claim of
34:55
Speaker 3: Novichok in hand grenades. Here's the quote. We put that
34:58
Speaker 3: on screen. So this was quite incredible. The devastating Salisbury
35:03
Speaker 3: nerve agent could be put in missiles or even hand grenades. Now,
35:06
Speaker 3: just as an aside, if you want to know more
35:09
Speaker 3: of the background of this, do have a look at
35:11
Speaker 3: our Skripal and Novichok What Didn't Happen event. which took
35:14
Speaker 3: place in Salisbury last year, and that's on the UK
35:17
Speaker 3: column website.
35:20
Speaker 2: Deadliest nerve agent known to men. So he's the progenitor
35:23
Speaker 2: of that talking point.
35:24
Speaker 8: Absolutely.
35:25
Speaker 2: Actually, one of the main progenitors, but it doesn't end there.
35:28
Speaker 2: And we'll bring this up on screen. Great report, which
35:31
Speaker 2: was released recently on the grey zone here. This is
35:34
Speaker 2: by Kit Clarenberg. British chemical warfare commentators, MI6 ties exposed here.
35:40
Speaker 2: in leaked emails. And just to give you a preview
35:43
Speaker 2: of what we're going to be talking about here, private
35:45
Speaker 2: messages show that Hamish de Breton Gordon, a top British
35:49
Speaker 2: pundit on the Salisbury poisoning incident, was a close associate
35:54
Speaker 2: of the MI6 officer who handled the Russian intelligence defector
35:57
Speaker 2: Sergei Skripal at the center of the scandal in question
36:01
Speaker 2: and reaped considerable benefits from his proximity to the case.
36:06
Speaker 2: Old-fashioned terms That's called Conflict of Interest. I want to
36:10
Speaker 2: welcome onto the program right now the author of this
36:14
Speaker 2: amazing report, Kit Klarenberg of The Gray Zones, joining us
36:18
Speaker 2: on the live link right now. Kit, welcome to the program.
36:22
Speaker 8: Hey, how's it going?
36:24
Speaker 2: Very well, thank you. This is quite a salacious report, Kit.
36:29
Speaker 2: It contains a lot of pretty shocking emails here. Firstly,
36:35
Speaker 2: what was your first impression when you're reviewing these emails
36:39
Speaker 2: with the gray zone. There's a lot to unpack here,
36:43
Speaker 2: but go ahead.
36:45
Speaker 8: Yeah, sure. I mean, I was on the one hand,
36:48
Speaker 8: greatly amused and on the other, completely unsurprised. But I
36:53
Speaker 8: was nonetheless shocked. You know, you referred to him as
36:56
Speaker 8: an influencer who's not doing a good job of influencing
36:59
Speaker 8: in your introduction. I think he's doing a very good job,
37:02
Speaker 8: according to his actual objectives, which is to publish relentless
37:08
Speaker 8: negative and absolutely brain dead takes on every single article. um,
37:12
Speaker 8: foreign policy and the quote unquote defense issue going. Um,
37:17
Speaker 8: I always assumed that he did so in direct coordination
37:20
Speaker 8: with intelligence actors. He himself, Hamish has, um, been involved
37:24
Speaker 8: directly in MI6 operations related to sample, supposed chemical weapons
37:29
Speaker 8: sample gathering in Syria. So the fact that he is
37:32
Speaker 8: directly coordinating everything that he's saying and doing with, um,
37:37
Speaker 8: a rather notorious MI6 officer known as, uh, Pablo Miller was, yes,
37:43
Speaker 8: kind of unsurprising, but nonetheless shocking. It's also quite shocking
37:47
Speaker 8: to have him openly admit in his rather banterish exchanges
37:52
Speaker 8: with Pablo Miller that all of his tub thumping about
37:54
Speaker 8: the threats of chemical and biological war are part of
37:59
Speaker 8: his job flogging gas masks. So if you go back
38:03
Speaker 8: over that, I mean, you picked one of his recent
38:05
Speaker 8: bad take by Hamish, but you could have picked literally
38:08
Speaker 8: anything he's ever said or written. as being completely divorced
38:12
Speaker 8: from reality on top of Novichok hand grenades. At one stage,
38:16
Speaker 8: he seriously claimed, and this was reported in numerous mainstream
38:19
Speaker 8: media outlets in 2015, kind of peak of the Syrian
38:23
Speaker 8: dirty war, that household fridges could be turned into improvised
38:27
Speaker 8: chlorine bombs. Completely and utterly laughable stuff, like really like
38:32
Speaker 8: just just risible. But he is frequently wheeled out on
38:36
Speaker 8: the media to talk about whatever's trending and introduced as
38:40
Speaker 8: an expert. I mean, recently he was doing the rounds
38:43
Speaker 8: of the BBC and Sky talking about this supposed plague
38:47
Speaker 8: in Russia that he said we shouldn't panic about, but
38:49
Speaker 8: should be concerned about whatever that means. That's rather fallen
38:53
Speaker 8: off in this volley of claims about data centers reducing
38:57
Speaker 8: the amount of bot content online. It's absolutely the kind
39:00
Speaker 8: of thing. And this is a man who himself in
39:02
Speaker 8: this September wrote a column for the Daily Telegraph saying that,
39:08
Speaker 8: quote unquote, Russian bots had slandered him as being part
39:12
Speaker 8: of a security service conspiracy. Well, I think these emails
39:16
Speaker 8: prove that this is far from a libel.
39:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take a look at just a couple of
39:21
Speaker 2: the samples that are in your report uh here kit
39:24
Speaker 2: here's this one this is from pablo miller to uh
39:27
Speaker 2: to hamish saying thanks hamish for your warm words thanks
39:30
Speaker 2: for all your sterling media work during the dark days
39:33
Speaker 2: of the last march and april very much appreciated see
39:36
Speaker 2: you in december if not sooner and uh yeah that's
39:40
Speaker 2: uh oh pabs and then hamish says glad glad to
39:45
Speaker 2: hear you're on the mend i guess uh I trust
39:48
Speaker 2: it wasn't Novichok induced. So that's a bit of a
39:51
Speaker 2: personal one there. But this one here is actually more interesting, Kit.
39:56
Speaker 2: I want you to comment on this. Rehab going swimmingly.
40:00
Speaker 2: I will stop there and let you take over. What
40:02
Speaker 2: are we looking at here?
40:05
Speaker 6: Yeah, sure.
40:05
Speaker 8: So, I mean, this is just as a bit of background.
40:08
Speaker 8: Pablo Miller and Hamish Brett and Gordon are acquainted as
40:11
Speaker 8: a result of many years ago, they served in the
40:14
Speaker 8: same tank regiment, the Royal Tank Regiment, which is regarded
40:17
Speaker 8: as this kind of world class. I think it was
40:18
Speaker 8: the very first military tank unit in history. It's a
40:23
Speaker 8: very close knit circle of people, many of whom ended
40:27
Speaker 8: up in the security and intelligence services, some like Mark
40:29
Speaker 8: Mark Urban, interestingly, who ends up as a journalist. You know,
40:34
Speaker 8: they engage in all sorts of, yeah, like kind of
40:36
Speaker 8: military bro banter. And what's quite interesting, and we do
40:40
Speaker 8: have further stories forthcoming on this, is while at no
40:45
Speaker 8: stage did Pablo or Hamish or Urban or any of
40:48
Speaker 8: these other, you know, kind of MI6 military people in
40:51
Speaker 8: Miller's wider milieu. They didn't express any doubt about Salisbury,
40:56
Speaker 8: about the official story. And in fact, actually, they were
40:58
Speaker 8: pushing privately from a very early stage that this was
41:01
Speaker 8: this dastardly attack on Western civilization with a battlefield response
41:05
Speaker 8: chemical weapon, make of that what you will. But yeah,
41:10
Speaker 8: this is a fairly representative example of how they speak
41:15
Speaker 8: to each other. They don't seem to be taking this
41:17
Speaker 8: alleged threat of Russia very seriously. They mainly go in
41:20
Speaker 8: for mockery. But yeah, I mean, these people are possessed
41:24
Speaker 8: of surging, rabid kind of mania about Russia. And I
41:28
Speaker 8: think that this is largely attributable to the fact that
41:33
Speaker 8: In the early 90s, Pablo Miller was based in Estonia,
41:37
Speaker 8: and there was a number of fairly high-profile MI6 people,
41:42
Speaker 8: including Christopher Steele, the well-known fraud, who were all serving
41:47
Speaker 8: in what became the former Soviet Union in the early 90s.
41:51
Speaker 8: From then on, these people frequently set up personal fiefdoms,
41:56
Speaker 8: working in conjunction with organized crime. And and other unsavory elements.
42:03
Speaker 8: They pushed privatization. They were engaged in the bribery, the
42:07
Speaker 8: infiltration of police and security forces and militaries. And it
42:12
Speaker 8: was all a big game to them because there was
42:14
Speaker 8: no more KGB. And I mean, Skripal's recruitment was a
42:20
Speaker 8: legacy of this, that MI6 wanted information on Russian spies
42:24
Speaker 8: in Europe so they could, quote unquote, win in their
42:28
Speaker 8: new Cold War. And Skripal was on hand to provide
42:32
Speaker 8: that information for a fee. This background got rather lost
42:36
Speaker 8: in all mainstream media reporting, but a lot of details
42:39
Speaker 8: got lost, specifically because idiots like Hamish, Brett and Gordon
42:43
Speaker 8: were not only on hand to to offer completely bogus
42:47
Speaker 8: supposed expert advice, which is completely unscientific. But also, they
42:52
Speaker 8: were on hand to relentlessly push this idea that Russia
42:57
Speaker 8: is this civilizational threat and Britain Western civilization from this
43:05
Speaker 8: dastardly barbarian at the gates. And yes, I mean, these
43:10
Speaker 8: people have been dreaming for a very long time of
43:12
Speaker 8: exactly what's going down in Donbass right now. Well, maybe
43:16
Speaker 8: not exactly. But yeah, this has been in the pipes
43:18
Speaker 8: for a very long time. And there are some extraordinary
43:21
Speaker 8: excerpts in other emails where pablo miller refers to crimea
43:26
Speaker 8: and syria and the the source prince and having woken
43:29
Speaker 8: the twits up like the contempt for average people for
43:32
Speaker 8: support you're not believing that russia is this grand um
43:36
Speaker 8: you know nazi tier global menace that needs to be
43:41
Speaker 8: um you know dealt with with military force and subversion
43:44
Speaker 8: etc you know that hasn't really caught on and um
43:47
Speaker 8: miller's angry at people for that.
43:51
Speaker 2: Well, here's the article in question. We'll bring this back
43:54
Speaker 2: up on screen, these emails here. And this one particularly here,
43:58
Speaker 2: which Kit alluded to earlier, I trust all is good,
44:01
Speaker 2: was a shooting with RAN 5S on Friday in Font Hill.
44:06
Speaker 2: Of all places, are you going to lunch, et cetera. Bizarrely,
44:09
Speaker 2: I've been offered a fellowship at Cambridge, which I've decided
44:12
Speaker 2: to take up as it beats flogging gas masks. Mike, so,
44:17
Speaker 2: you know, he's talking up the Novichok. as the deadliest
44:20
Speaker 2: nerve agent known to men. And yet, on the other side,
44:23
Speaker 2: he's got a business flogging gas masks and hazmat suits.
44:26
Speaker 2: And it just reminds me of images like this in Salisbury.
44:31
Speaker 2: Where are they scurrying to? And then here, the white helmets.
44:38
Speaker 2: I would imagine he might have a line in on
44:40
Speaker 2: that sort of bit of business as well. The chemical attack.
44:44
Speaker 2: Problem with the chain of custody that he was involved with,
44:47
Speaker 2: with so-called evidence-based of chemical attacks in Syria. So all
44:52
Speaker 2: sorts of questions around this man. So in final kit,
44:57
Speaker 2: he's got his fingers in so many pies. He is
45:01
Speaker 2: really important to the Telegraph and to the mainstream media
45:04
Speaker 2: for really pumping the fear on just about every one
45:07
Speaker 2: of these just oddball stories that somehow they managed to
45:11
Speaker 2: spin into some kind of coherent narrative here. But just
45:15
Speaker 2: in final Kit, your final conclusions and where you think
45:21
Speaker 2: this is heading?
45:23
Speaker 8: Well, I mean, I did actually speak to Hamish on
45:25
Speaker 8: the phone and he immediately hung up when I said
45:27
Speaker 8: who I was and why I was calling. And I mean,
45:30
Speaker 8: you know, and he's since blocked me. But yeah, I mean,
45:33
Speaker 8: we have we have more to come on this. Miller
45:36
Speaker 8: is an extremely well-connected guy. And I think it's very
45:39
Speaker 8: difficult to understand how we got into the point that
45:42
Speaker 8: we have. in every way at this particular point of time,
45:50
Speaker 8: without reference to all of this behind-the-scenes skullduggery of briefing journalists,
45:55
Speaker 8: seeding these bogus narratives. I saw today that The Economist
45:59
Speaker 8: published a piece bemoaning how, well, Putin is such a pariah,
46:06
Speaker 8: but he's not going to lose this thing. And it's
46:10
Speaker 8: very difficult to negotiate peace because of Putin's wickedness. Well,
46:16
Speaker 8: I mean, why, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority
46:20
Speaker 8: of you Europeans almost unanimously do not want to fight
46:28
Speaker 8: in this and aren't ready for that. Governments, for all
46:30
Speaker 8: their rhetoric, are certainly not ready for that. But it's
46:34
Speaker 8: an issue that cannot be ignored precisely because people like
46:37
Speaker 8: Pablo Miller and their assets in the media, like Hamish,
46:41
Speaker 8: who is basically a stand-in for Miller, who was protected
46:44
Speaker 8: from media scrutiny over Salisbury, by a rigorously enforced D notice.
46:50
Speaker 8: An entire ecosystem or culture has been created of people
46:56
Speaker 8: who are just paid to just endlessly rant about the
47:00
Speaker 8: evils of Putin and Russia in every conceivable way. And yes,
47:04
Speaker 8: they're not only getting money out of this, they're getting
47:06
Speaker 8: an enormous amount of undue credibility and influencing God knows
47:10
Speaker 8: how many people in precisely the wrong ways. One might
47:14
Speaker 8: think that Hamish is litany of terrible takes, you know,
47:18
Speaker 8: completely bogus, unscientific analysis would have harmed his career. But
47:23
Speaker 8: while there remains this intense media appetite for relentless negativity
47:28
Speaker 8: about Russia in every conceivable regard, he's got a job
47:31
Speaker 8: for life. And as I, you know, in another email,
47:35
Speaker 8: he refers to how he's secretly working for the MOD, unpaid,
47:38
Speaker 8: but he does get a military rail card for his efforts.
47:42
Speaker 8: So all the more reasons. to just lie and lie
47:44
Speaker 8: and lie and maybe sell some of the Darth Vader
47:47
Speaker 8: style gas masks of which he's so fond. keep their
47:55
Speaker 8: eyes peeled. It's very, very difficult to share text articles
47:59
Speaker 8: on social media now. I see it's very, very difficult.
48:02
Speaker 8: So yeah, just keep an eye on our website and
48:05
Speaker 8: indeed our Substack because we have something even more explosive
48:09
Speaker 8: related to another of Miller's clandestine associates coming very soon.
48:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, Kit. And we've got links to this
48:16
Speaker 2: Grey Zone report as well as Kit's Substack in the
48:19
Speaker 2: show notes at UK column Kit Klarenberg, thank you so
48:23
Speaker 2: much for sharing this report with us and for your
48:26
Speaker 2: incredible commentary on it. Thank you.
48:28
Speaker 3: Basil, back to you now. And well, the question of
48:32
Speaker 3: data centers and Scotland.
48:35
Speaker 6: Yes, Mike, not just Scotland, the whole country, something like
48:38
Speaker 6: a hundred of these monstrosities are planned in the next
48:43
Speaker 6: few years, not to say weeks and months. Scotland is
48:48
Speaker 6: the first battlefield, and that's because they want to build
48:50
Speaker 6: one on the site of a historic battlefield, a site
48:54
Speaker 6: that is seismically important to the history of Scotland. is
48:59
Speaker 6: at risk. Meanwhile, in Havering, this is the campaign for
49:04
Speaker 6: the protection of rural England, pointing out a proposed campus
49:09
Speaker 6: on the edge of London would swallow 218 hectares of greenbelt.
49:15
Speaker 6: That's more than 300 football pitches worth. And these things
49:19
Speaker 6: are of course, make a terrible noise. They consume huge
49:22
Speaker 6: amounts of water and power, as well as swallowing up
49:27
Speaker 6: our lovely green fields of England, what's left of them.
49:32
Speaker 6: It's Google, indeed, who plan to build a data center
49:35
Speaker 6: on an Essex local wildlife site that houses the brown-banded carderbee,
49:41
Speaker 6: one of Britain's rarest bumblebees. What do they care? We've
49:45
Speaker 6: all got to be able to create little AI movies
49:50
Speaker 6: every day, and that's what all this is needed for.
49:53
Speaker 6: Over in Finland, Google has been ordered to halt work.
49:59
Speaker 6: Two data center sites after more than 740 acres of
50:03
Speaker 6: forest were destroyed without the necessary permissions. Surprise, surprise. So
50:09
Speaker 6: it's not just the UK that's facing this. It's all
50:13
Speaker 6: over the world. And why? Well, Jeff Bezos has made
50:16
Speaker 6: it clear. Water for AI may need to be prioritized
50:22
Speaker 6: over human needs, putting AIs in first place. Here's his logic.
50:27
Speaker 6: If we starve our data infrastructure of cooling resources just
50:32
Speaker 6: to maintain baseline human comfort, like being able to turn
50:36
Speaker 6: on the tap and make a cup of tea, we
50:38
Speaker 6: are actively delaying the birth of a super intelligence that
50:42
Speaker 6: could solve all of our resource problems in the first place. Wow.
50:47
Speaker 6: That's all I can say. And meanwhile, what else are
50:51
Speaker 6: these things being used for? Well, Anthropic, the people who
50:55
Speaker 6: are busy scanning and shredding books, they're building a pre-crime system. Yes,
51:01
Speaker 6: Minority Report. We're heading straight there to monitor the people
51:06
Speaker 6: protesting against AI. My God. Absolutely breathtaking stuff. Will this
51:12
Speaker 6: be fed into the Metropolitan Police supercomputer overseen by Palantir?
51:19
Speaker 6: It appears this week Sadiq Khan has backed down over
51:22
Speaker 6: his threat to cancel Palantir's contract. The Campaign for the
51:28
Speaker 6: Protection of Rural England are very hot on this issue.
51:33
Speaker 6: It's in the show notes, cpre.org. We need to press
51:36
Speaker 6: pause on data centres before we sleepwalk into a land crisis,
51:40
Speaker 6: not just a land crisis, a resource crisis. I did
51:43
Speaker 6: actually approach the CPRA. I spoke to them requesting a
51:46
Speaker 6: spokesman today, but they saw something on our website about
51:50
Speaker 6: skepticism around COVID and decided they didn't like that. Therefore,
51:55
Speaker 6: they didn't want to come on our program. I don't
51:57
Speaker 6: see what the two have got to do with each other,
51:59
Speaker 6: but that's their prerogative, of course. And another organization, Stop
52:04
Speaker 6: Dirty Data Centers, again, in the show notes, proposing days
52:09
Speaker 6: of action on the 6th and 7th of November this
52:11
Speaker 6: year across Europe to stop dirty data centers. And finally,
52:17
Speaker 6: an intriguing thing popped up on my Instagram feed. A
52:23
Speaker 6: British tech company is building the next generation of AI infrastructure.
52:27
Speaker 6: Found out more. Do I want to invest?
52:35
Speaker 3: Well, Basel, I mean, I mean, was that the punchline
52:37
Speaker 3: to invest? That was the punchline. Of course, that was
52:41
Speaker 3: the punchline.
52:43
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah.
52:44
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a very good investment. And a
52:47
Speaker 2: lot of the big money is actually now moving out
52:50
Speaker 2: of the hyperscaling and data centers because it's the biggest
52:54
Speaker 2: bubble ever inflated. I think Basel has given us every
52:57
Speaker 2: reason in the world from that segment not to invest
53:01
Speaker 2: in in this crazy scale up of data centers. Anyway,
53:07
Speaker 2: let's go to potentially good news here. It looks as
53:11
Speaker 2: if the White House has overruled Pete Hegseth, again, this
53:15
Speaker 2: time on the live streaming of the execution of Nadal Hassan.
53:20
Speaker 2: It would have been a military execution by a firing squad.
53:23
Speaker 2: Pistol Pete wanted to live stream it globally. in the
53:26
Speaker 2: name of fighting radical Islam. I can't imagine that would
53:29
Speaker 2: be considered incitement for a religious holy war. That's just me.
53:34
Speaker 2: But so we'll bring this back up on screen. So
53:36
Speaker 2: what we're asking, is this a case of Trump the merciful? Well,
53:40
Speaker 2: let's take a look at his recent tweet on this.
53:44
Speaker 2: There he is, Donald Trump. And this is what he's
53:48
Speaker 2: saying here. Nadal Malik Hassan, a former U.S. Army major
53:52
Speaker 2: turned traitor, is a very bad and very evil man.
53:56
Speaker 2: He killed many people, et cetera, et cetera. So he's
53:58
Speaker 2: going on here. He's blaming Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama
54:04
Speaker 2: and Obama's FBI. They failed to intercept the communications or
54:09
Speaker 2: they haven't acted. So he's blaming Obama for this mass shooting, basically.
54:14
Speaker 2: But then he's saying that, well, you know, as I'm
54:20
Speaker 2: basically giving clemency here for this. Well, I think we
54:27
Speaker 2: missed that one.
54:28
Speaker 6: Yeah.
54:28
Speaker 2: But unfortunately. But so Trump, the merciful, all hail Trump,
54:34
Speaker 2: the merciful. He is giving us clemency to this. So
54:39
Speaker 2: here's Pete Hegseth here having a bad month. And this
54:43
Speaker 2: is what we found out recently here. This is what
54:46
Speaker 2: they're saying. While US airstrikes are failing to stop the
54:50
Speaker 2: global cocaine boom. So the drug trade is up rather
54:54
Speaker 2: than down after shooting up all these drug boats and
54:57
Speaker 2: fishing boats. Pete's obviously not happy about that. And also
55:02
Speaker 2: this one as well. Photos show extensive damage to all
55:05
Speaker 2: these US bases. That was a very embarrassing leak. And
55:09
Speaker 2: then there's this one, the Iran wars cost the military
55:12
Speaker 2: 81 aircraft, including $ 3. 3 billion in losses in congressional report fines.
55:18
Speaker 2: That's the Jerusalem Post, among other media outlets there. So
55:21
Speaker 2: it's just gone from bad to worse for Pete. And
55:23
Speaker 2: now the talk is that he's going to be sacked.
55:26
Speaker 2: Trump's going to fire him because they want to avoid
55:29
Speaker 2: the embarrassment of him being impeached. Thomas Massey is filing
55:32
Speaker 2: impeachment on Pete Hegseth. That's going to mean a big
55:37
Speaker 2: sort of hearing in the House of Representatives in the
55:39
Speaker 2: new year. And it's going to be very embarrassing for Hegsath.
55:42
Speaker 2: So to preserve what's left of his absolute shredded legacy,
55:47
Speaker 2: he's apparently going to resign or Trump might fire him
55:52
Speaker 2: or they'll do something.
55:53
Speaker 3: And how much of the rebranding of the Defense Department?
56:00
Speaker 3: to the Department of War? Was Pete Hegseth so much
56:02
Speaker 3: of it was Trump's? If they get rid of Hegseth,
56:04
Speaker 3: will they revert to the original branding?
56:06
Speaker 2: That's a good question. And that question comes up with
56:10
Speaker 2: this live stream execution. Was this a Trump administration agenda item?
56:15
Speaker 2: Did the Israeli lobby push this? Or was this all Hegseth?
56:19
Speaker 2: And it's very convenient. They'll be able to, I think,
56:21
Speaker 2: dump a lot on Hegseth. That's why I think he's
56:25
Speaker 2: going down with the ship, as it were, no pun intended.
56:29
Speaker 2: So it's certainly the rebranding of the Department of Defense.
56:33
Speaker 2: This is just one of those things that is just
56:35
Speaker 2: beyond the pale. And it's shocking that more people didn't
56:38
Speaker 2: push back on it at the time. That's all I
56:40
Speaker 2: can say. Yeah, indeed.
56:41
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you for that, Patrick. Basil, let's come back
56:43
Speaker 3: to you to finish off with some more in case
56:45
Speaker 3: you missed it.
56:48
Speaker 6: Yes. Hello, Mike. Good to see you. From destruction to reconstruction,
56:54
Speaker 6: genocide profiteering. As Sal Rad, who of course has published
56:58
Speaker 6: the uh don't say palestine a forensic analysis of how
57:03
Speaker 6: the media has created acceptable conditions for genocide created consent
57:11
Speaker 6: and here's another appalling headline this time in haretz uh
57:16
Speaker 6: which uh Well, what more do we need to say? Surprise, surprise,
57:20
Speaker 6: Israeli firms want to make a fortune out of rebuilding Gaza.
57:25
Speaker 6: Another surprise, not. 57% of Gaza's youth suffer from depression
57:30
Speaker 6: after three years of genocide. Also on that chart, 98%
57:35
Speaker 6: of Gaza's youth suffer from constant anxiety, which when there's
57:40
Speaker 6: every chance you could be murdered and blown to pieces
57:42
Speaker 6: at any moment, is hardly surprising, absolutely. catastrophic and a
57:48
Speaker 6: small window into some of the suffering there now of
57:53
Speaker 6: course no wonder Zelensky wants to keep everything going Kiev
57:56
Speaker 6: now ranks third in all of Europe for sales of
57:59
Speaker 6: Bentley only London and Paris sell more not Berlin or
58:03
Speaker 6: Rome not Madrid capital in the middle of the war
58:07
Speaker 6: and third in Bentley sales. What a surprise. Next up,
58:12
Speaker 6: despite kicking over 5 million Americans off food stamps to
58:16
Speaker 6: save money, the US has bought 12 new Apache helicopters
58:19
Speaker 6: and 25 new F-35s for Israel, because apparently there are
58:24
Speaker 6: two bricks standing on top of each other which haven't
58:27
Speaker 6: been blown up yet in Gaza. So more death and
58:32
Speaker 6: destruction on its way to the indigenous people of the Levant.
58:38
Speaker 6: And indeed, of course, the film Nasa, which has so
58:41
Speaker 6: enraged Netanyahu and his cohorts that he's now issued an
58:46
Speaker 6: edict for the soldiers participating in it to be arrested. Well,
58:52
Speaker 6: I haven't seen it yet, but this is a direct quote. Yes, completely.
58:56
Speaker 6: It's intentional killing. We intended to kill those children. And indeed,
59:01
Speaker 6: that is fully in accordance with what Netanyahu himself said
59:06
Speaker 6: about Amalek, and various other Israeli politicians as well. Here's
59:13
Speaker 6: Asal Rad again. A ridiculous way this story is presented
59:19
Speaker 6: by AP. Israel says commercial goods will not enter Gaza,
59:22
Speaker 6: a major shutoff for the territory. So they modified it
59:27
Speaker 6: and said commercial goods are no longer entering Gaza, raising
59:30
Speaker 6: fears of worsening shortages in the territory. No reference, of course,
59:34
Speaker 6: to who is actually making it worse. This is just
59:39
Speaker 6: sort of happening somehow. really, really sinister the way this
59:44
Speaker 6: is presented to global audiences. But don't worry, because Apple
59:48
Speaker 6: has acquired the Israeli artificial intelligence startup QAI, which develops
59:53
Speaker 6: technology that reads facial movements and interprets silent communication. So
1:00:00
Speaker 6: if you pull a face when you see a child
1:00:03
Speaker 6: being blown up, then, well, that's all going to go
1:00:07
Speaker 6: on the big computer somewhere. So long as you're inside
1:00:11
Speaker 6: of a camera, an Apple camera somewhere, then your facial
1:00:15
Speaker 6: movements will be monitored. And finally, China is now apparently
1:00:22
Speaker 6: issuing ID cards to AI-generated digital humans. Yes, you read
1:00:29
Speaker 6: that right. allowing them to open bank accounts and enter
1:00:34
Speaker 6: commercial partnerships. Although a Chinese friend of mine has pointed
1:00:37
Speaker 6: out it is not a real legal ID for humans,
1:00:41
Speaker 6: nor can it be used to open a bank card. Essentially,
1:00:44
Speaker 6: it's an official permit. The primary goals are accountability. AI
1:00:49
Speaker 6: itself cannot be sued or arrested, and the certificate links
1:00:52
Speaker 6: the virtual character to its parent. This is for legality
1:00:56
Speaker 6: and commercialization and IP protection. There are apparently... AI characters
1:01:03
Speaker 6: out there now with millions of followers and they're, you know,
1:01:08
Speaker 6: soon going to be going on tour and releasing merchandise this,
1:01:14
Speaker 6: that and the other. We really are through the looking glass, gentlemen.
1:01:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, perhaps Hamish, Brett and Gordon is one of those.
1:01:21
Speaker 8: I don't know.
1:01:21
Speaker 3: But anyway, we'll talk more about that in extra. Thank
1:01:24
Speaker 3: you very much for that, Basil.
1:01:25
Speaker 6: Thank you, Patrick.
1:01:26
Speaker 3: Thanks to Kit and to Matt for joining us today.
1:01:29
Speaker 3: I hope everybody has enjoyed the program. If you have,
1:01:33
Speaker 3: stay with us if you're a UK column member for
1:01:34
Speaker 3: some UK column news extra. If you're not a member,
1:01:38
Speaker 3: maybe you'd like to join and then you can join
1:01:39
Speaker 3: us for extra as well. But in the meantime, have
1:01:42
Speaker 3: a great weekend. We will be back on Monday at
1:01:44
Speaker 3: 1pm as usual. We'll see you then. Thanks for joining us.