Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 19th of March
2025, just after 1:00, and welcome to UK Column News.
I'm your host, Mike Robinson, and joining me via video link
today is Charles Mallett, Vanessa Bailey and Sandy Adams.
We're going to begin today with the UK regime's attack on the
welfare, welfare system. Now the Labour government has
announced major cuts to the welfare system in the UK and
today they're publishing a green paper called Pathways to Work.
The main focus of this announcement was on the disabled
and long term sick and getting them back into work.
This is what they were trying to claim.
It's all about getting them back into work.
So they've announced they're going to spend £1 billion,
that's £1 billion to do that. This is, they say, going to end
years of inaction, government inaction which has led to one in
eight young people not currently in work, education or training
and 2.8 million people in economically inactive due to
long term sickness. And they say that this is one of
the highest rates in the G7. Now, I think the first thing to
note is that no one in the mainstream media, at least in
their coverage of this was wanting to speak about why there
are so many people on disability benefits, because the fact is
that these that they're roughly double the number of people.
So if we just bring this graph on screen and have a look at how
this situation has changed uh, since 2014, fifteen uh, but
around 2019, uh, there were something around 200,000 people
uh, claiming pip uh, this is personal independence plan, uh,
payment, sorry. And uh, by 2023-2024 that was up
to around 400,000. So a doubling In the last few
years, the DWP is has reinforced this graph by admitting that
since the pandemic so called, the number of working age people
receiving PEP has more than doubled from 15,300 to 35,100 a
month. And that the number of people
aged 16 to 24 receiving PEP per month has also got risen from,
in this case, 2967 to 7857 a month.
And they're saying that over the next five years, if no action is
taken, they say the number of working age people claiming PIP
is expected to increase from 2 million in 2021 to 4.3 million,
costing 34.1 billion annually. But the question is, what do
they mean by take no action? Do they mean if they don't
simply cut the support? Or do they mean that they're
going to do something to actually repair the damage done
by the government policy that we've seen over the last several
years? And let's don't, you know, never
mention the jobs. Uh, but my question is, what's
this really about? One thing that it isn't about is
filling job vacancies because the number of unfilled jobs has
been falling now for 2 1/2 years.
The estimated number of vacancies was 812,000 in the UK.
That according to the latest statistics from the ONS.
That was between October and December 2024.
Now 812,000 might seem like a big number but isn't really.
And it represents a decrease of 24,000 from the previous
quarter. That's 2.9% fall and a 12.7%
fall from the previous year, same period the previous year.
So the direction of travel is not good if hundreds of
thousands of new people are going to be forced into the
market because there are already 1.9 people per vacancy before
this change. But I think that actually the
disabled here are effectively the poster children for
something else that's going on. Certainly the part of this is
about punishing anyone for whom locked down and jobs had a major
detrimental effect on their lives, but it's also as, say,
cover about something else. So here's an exchange from the
debate yesterday in the House of Commons.
This is Tory MP Mark Pritchard asking Liz Kendall.
Well, he had this to say. Youth unemployment stood at
642,000 as of the last quarter of 2024, a rise of 136,000 on
2023, and a youth unemployment rate at 14.8%.
She mentions earlier in her statement.
Earn and learn. Does she agree with me that one
way of perhaps attracting some people back into work is for her
to have discussions with her colleague in the Ministry of
Defence, the Defence Secretary? And would she agree with me?
Getting more young people into His Majesty's Armed Forces, Air
Force, Navy, Army would be a starting place.
I absolutely agree with the honourable gentleman, indeed,
before I was appointed to this position in Opposition as a
constituency MP. I have discussed.
With my local job centre and the armed forces recruitment,
precisely these issues, because of the really exciting careers
and opportunities that are available, I think are really
important for young people in in my constituency and the one that
he represents. And I will certainly be having
more conversations with colleagues in the Ministry of
Defence to make sure we put this plan into action.
So she's going to put this plan into action.
What plan? What is what are the details?
No one's talking about this plan.
So maybe this is something everyone might like to write to
their MP about and ask exactly what is the plan with the
Ministry of Defence which is going to be put in action.
I think we know whether it's called conscription or National
Service, it is coming and I think if we don't want our
children and grandchildren involved, now is the time to
take note and take action. Charles, any thoughts on that?
Thanks, Mike. Good afternoon all.
Yeah, well, I think my first thought is that the government
have an amazing amount of control over the younger
generation. First of all, like we see here,
people who are claiming any sort of benefits are obviously
financially dependent upon the government, so therefore can be
pushed in any which way. But the other thing, looking at
it the other way around, if we're to say this, this is a
plan, when quite clearly it isn't.
But if we're talking about people who are wilfully staying
out of the workplace, either because they're unfit enough to
enter it due to quite probable injuries from pharmaceutical
products or indeed the product of simply living a very healthy,
sorry, unhealthy lifestyle from 2020 haven't been sort of
interned. What sort of people are going to
be fed into the armed forces if they're not willingly coming
forward? The bar would have to be lowered
considerably in order the people got through whatever training is
required. So that so the the outcomes for
anybody concerned would be absolutely terrible.
But the, you know, the euphemistic language previously
described of course, as economic inactivity is, you know, that
there is an absolutely enormous disaster here below the surface,
which is just not being not being dealt with at all.
So exactly what do the government mean when they say
we're talking about dealing with it exactly?
I don't know. Yes, indeed.
OK, well just to finish this off then I'll just bring this tweet
on screen. Robert here saying I'm 76 and
worked since I was 16. Explain to me how the UK state
pension is a benefit because this is also part of these cuts.
Where's the money I paid into it gone?
You talk Ponzi scheme, I give you the UK government.
I just want to say this is exactly the point that I've been
trying to make for years now. State pension obligations for
the UK state at the moment is £6.1 trillion.
This is unpayable and so it is a Ponzi scheme and there was only
ever going to be a rolling back on the state pension scheme,
whether that means increasing the pension age or reducing the
pension. So we'll keep you posted on that
as we as we move on. Vanessa, let me welcome you to
the programme now. And of course, everybody talking
about Donald Trump and the great peacemaker with his conversation
with Putin yesterday. But what else has he been up to?
Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, he's so far fulfilling
his mandate to bring a ceasefire to Ukraine.
However, he's turning his attention to West Asia and in
particular Iran on behalf of Israel.
So this was something that Donald Trump tweeted out, I
think yesterday, hundreds of attacks being made by Houthi,
which is, of course, known as Antrulla, the sinister mobsters
and thugs based in Yemen, based in Yemen.
I mean as if they're not Yemeni and hated by the Yemeni people.
In reality, of course supported by the huge majority of the
Yemeni people in their battle to to end the occupation and
oppression of Palestine. All emanate from and are created
by Iran in capital letters. He then went on to add to this
with further threats. Every shot fired by the hoodies
will be looked upon from this point forward as being a shot
fired from the weapons and leadership of Iran in capitals
again. And Iran will be held
responsible and suffer the consequences and those
consequences will be dire. Then basically, I think it's one
of the spokespeople for the for the the White House basically
went on to Fox News to reiterate the message that Trump was
putting out. So let's just play this
extraordinary statement. Well, the Trump administration
and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on
their attacks in Gaza tonight. And as President Trump has made
it clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to
terrorise not just Israel but also the United States of
America will see a price to pay. All hell will break loose.
And. All of the terrorists in the
Middle East, again, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iranian backed
terror proxies, and Iran themselves should take President
Trump very seriously when he says he is not afraid to stand
for law abiding people. He is not afraid to stand up for
the United States of America and our friend and our ally, Israel.
I mean, this is this is just, I mean, Trump is effectively
apparently declaring war on the entire resistance access across
the region from Palestine through to Iran at the same time
in Israel. This statement was put out by
Israel cats. I've called him the war minister
of Israel. If Hamas doesn't release all the
hostages, the gates of hell will open in Gaza and the murderers
and rapists. If Hamas will meet the IDF with
forces they have never known before.
Of course, we're back to the ceasefire shenanigans, which is
never anything more than a than a theatrical play to effectively
be used as a weapon to blame Hamas and to enable what is now
happening, the violation of the ceasefire in Gaza and the
continuation of the ethnic cleansing and genocide.
And then again, Ben Gabir is announced to be rejoining the
Netanyahu coalition, praising the mass killings carried out in
Gaza in the last 48 hours with mass bombing.
And then the statement by the Zionist IDF and Israeli
occupation forces who said that they launched a strong offensive
against, of course, they called them terror organisations.
These designated areas are considered dangerous combat
zones for your own safety. Addressing the Palestinians
sheltering and got in what's left of Gaza, you must evacuate
immediately to known shelters in western Gaza City and in Khan
Yunus. Of course, this is again forced
displacement of people that have already been multiple times
displaced. The Rafah crossing with Egypt is
now closed to all medical cases looking to enter Egypt for
hospital care or even to go abroad for medical treatment.
So we're back to full on genocide.
While a number of Hamas resistance fighters were killed
in the attack, I think it was 3 or 4.
The majority of the victims, of course, were children.
Yet again, just a couple of photos from the aftermath of the
attack itself the other day and the headlines even in Western
media. I have to say I didn't have to
look very far. More than 400 Palestinians.
I think the number is now around 462 in one attack killed and
schools injured now reaching close to an estimated 600
injured across the majority children in extensive Israeli
airstrikes on Gaza. And this is a statement from
Tanya, doctor Tanya Haj Hassan, who works for medicines, some
Frontier or Doctors Without Borders in Gaza itself.
She said immediately after she described the horrors that she
saw. And of course, she's been there
for much of the genocide in Gaza.
There were probably three men. The rest were all children,
women and the elderly, everybody caught in their sleep, wrapped
in their blankets, Terrifying. So she describes the fact that
again, the majority of the victims were disabled, elderly,
innocent civilians, children and women that have been targeted
since October the 7th. At the same time, of course,
Trump has effectively with the UK, started a new round of the
war against Yemen, which began in March 2015.
And in the initial strikes, around 50 Yemenis were killed,
injured in the USUK aggression on Yemeni cities, which include
the targeting of hospitals and cancer centres and schools.
Yemen has retaliated. Harry S Truman attacked for a
second time within hours by various ballistic missiles and
drones. And there are reports now that
there have been 4 attacks on the USS Truman at the same time,
when we're talking about Trump launching what is effectively a
regional war, Israel has been increasing its attacks on Syria.
It bombed southern Syria a couple of days ago.
In data, there are convoys of Israeli troops and hardware
coming into Syria for the last 48 hours.
And yesterday, they bombed what they described as missile
battalion in Homs in Syria. So on the border, very close to
the border with Lebanon, and I'll come on to that next.
If we have a quick look at the map, we talked about this
previously just to keep the map on screen, the red circle shows
the area on the Syrian Lebanese border which was attacked I
think about a month ago. We we talked about it on UK
column by the HTS Al Qaeda forces who were driven back by
the tribesmen and the clans in this area.
There has been a more concerted attack in the last few days by
HTS forces. There's now a sort of a semi
ceasefire, but they were again driven back by the tribesmen and
now the Lebanese army forces are on the border with heavy
artillery to force back the Syrian terrorist attack.
I won't call them Syrian actually, because the majority
of them are foreign mercenaries. So and at the same time Israel
was actually bombing the Lebanese side on behalf of
Jolani's forces. Israel has been bombing southern
Lebanon corresponding with the attack by HTS.
So it becomes very clear that Israel is trying to open 2
fronts against Hezbollah and Lebanon, using HTS or Al Qaeda
as a proxy in the northeast and attacking directly in the South,
while, of course, disrupting and destabilising Syria, and while
Al Qaeda is continuing with the massacres of the ethnic
minorities inside Syria. So it appears to be very clear
that Trump, while, let's say, ending the war in Ukraine in
agreement with Putin, is now focusing very much on West Asia,
with Iran, one assumes, as the final target.
Thank you very much for that, Vanessa Wolf.
More international news later on, but let's come back to the
UK 1st. And Charles, a couple of weeks
ago, we were talking about GB energy.
That must be going very well, surely?
Well, I think we can probably qualify that.
Yes, we'll look at great British energy and this is something UK
column has talked about even back at its inception last year,
2024. Spoiler alert, it is not great,
it's not really particularly British and there is going to be
very little in the way of energy.
But the reason it's in the news today is that there has been a
report from the Institute for Public Policy Research which
relates back to the Labor Party manifesto of 2024.
So right away we are stuck in the zone of net zero being
absolutely ideological rather more than than anything else.
And in the manifesto they said that they were going to turn the
page decisively on the Conservative ideas that have
caused chaos in order that they can take ownership of the chaos
themselves. The proposal is that the this is
pushed on by £8.3 billion worth of investment, which can only be
said to secure perhaps 5% of the total energy requirement
following the year 2030. So that's an absolutely paltry
amount of electricity to be generating at one minute past
midnight this morning. They were meant to publish the
full report, but like all things connected to net zero, that
didn't work. And we'll then take a look at
the chief executive just to see the sorts of alignments we're
considering here. Run by a chap called Jurgen
Meyer, who is also running the digital cast bolt here,
accelerating the digital future. And of course, because we know
now from the National Energy System operator that all energy
is really to be diverted towards artificial intelligence and
control of our lives in order that we surrender our own
requirement for energy. This is entirely in keeping with
the direction of travel. Now, this of course provides an
opportunity for political opportunism.
And this is where the leader of the opposition has jumped in,
receiving a certain amount of criticism.
But of course, it's all very theatrical.
Kemi Badnock here taking flak for saying that we're now going
to be dependent upon China, which has instantly meant that
she's been fact checked by Carbon brief.
Now, the moment you start telling lies about this sort of
stuff, you are definitely going to get caught out.
So the irony being that last year the the IPPR written
produced a paper written by the same man who's produced today's
report, Simon Gaspara produced a document called Second Wind in
which they said to meet global net 02030 targets, the world's
wind manufacturing annual capacity will have to increase
to 350 gigawatts, which is significant increase on where we
are now. I know these figures are
slightly meaningless, but the point is needs to be ramped up
dramatically. And the report went on to say
that China, China is the global wind superpower.
China accounts for 3/5 of the world's capacity in wind
nacelles and blades, and accounts for the overwhelming
majority of mining and refining of essential rare earth
minerals. So.
But not might be right. But of course, is China a threat
or not? And is 1 to take the Richard
Dearlove line or not? So this absurd line being walked
when it concerns net zero, which as I say, of course, is an
ideological commitment rather than anything else.
Now, what I'll do is I'll just set in context what this means
in terms of energy. This is taken from Energy
Dashboard live at 6:00 this morning.
The overall picture of energy on the left there.
Now I'm putting a red arrow down onto the renewable contribution,
which was only just over 9% this morning because the sun hadn't
yet got up and it wasn't really blowing much in the way of wind.
What is worth drawing your attention to is the box just to
its right, which I've ringed there in red because that is the
total contribution from imports and nuclear, which amounts to
just over 8.5 gigawatts of energy, which is what Great
British energy is supposed to recover from an £8.3 billion
investment. Now, is it worth it if the sun's
not going to shine and the wind's not going to blow?
I will leave you to answer that question yourself.
And now on the right, we see the what's called the carbon
intensity. So even if all of this stuff
works and we do get by some miracle 5% of renewable energy,
if you turn the gas on, then you're destroying your fiction
of net zero because of course you're straight into the zone of
what they call high carbon intensity.
Now, just to give an indication of the direction this dreadful
scam is going, the Alpha Ventus offshore wind capability that
Germany had set up 15 years ago is now going to be closed
because it cannot be profitable because the subsidy has dried
up, which just reinforces the point.
This is absolutely a totally and utterly failed policy.
And just to contextualise the requirements by space for all of
these various technologies, we'll just look at the Nuclear
Energy Institute, which shows here with a graphic which I'll
describe the acreage taken up in order to produce 1,000,000 MW
hours. Now to produce 1,000,000 MW
hours, nuclear would require 103 acres, solar would require 3200
acres and wind would require a whopping 17,800 acres.
So we talked a lot on this programme about the stealing of
agricultural land in particular, but land in that belongs really
in the natural world being completely destroyed by the so
called renewable technology. Now last week I spoke about a
food and farming symposium that was going to take place in
Cheltenham at the weekend, which Julie did and it was a great
success. Sandy was there too.
And very pleasingly this has been reported by the Stride News
and Journal, an article put in by Kate Divine.
So we see this on screen and it's worth noting that there
were two members of Parliament there, 1 pictured here standing
next to Auk column journalist. And here's the Jeffrey, Jeffrey
Clifton Brown, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which
of course is significant because he has recently audited the
absurd carbon capture scheme and highlighted the incredible
inefficiencies of that particular technology.
But within the article, I'd just like to draw out the following
text, which is how it concluded, which is that supranational and
unaccountable influence over the food supply via the UN's
Sustainable Development Goals. And the Davos influence is
something that those present expressed their determination to
challenge and resist. So I think to have it on record
that a sitting member of Parliament, and indeed one who
chairs the Public Accounts Committee, was present at such
an event is significant. It means that this is being
heard and it really cannot be hidden.
That this zero agenda fails at every turn is absolutely
becoming good for public concerns.
Of course, now it's over to people to keep pressure on,
particularly where it concerns the utter waste of taxpayer
money, as indeed we see with this absurd idea for Great
British energy. Charles, thank you very much for
that. Let's come on Sandy.
Charles, talking about 20-30 is the deadline.
Undoubtedly what you're about to report here is also related to
the year 2030 as well. And later on we'll be going to
be talking about European defence and it's also becoming
related to 2030 to 2030, massively significant year.
But what's been going on in in Bristol?
Well, the residents of of Barton Hill, E Bristol got a bit of a
shock last week. An overnight police operation
took place in Bristol to finish installing a controversial
Liverpool neighbourhood scheme. The council and its contractors,
I think they're called ETM and Avon and Somerset Police arrived
at Barton Hill at approximate approximately 3:00 AM in the
morning on Thursday the 13th of March to install planters, bus
gate signs and roads as part of the East Bristol Liverpool
Neighbourhood Scheme. The installations took place in
multiple locations at the same time.
UMM protesters arrived between 4:00 and 5:00 AM to attempt to
stop these works but only succeeded in stopping the
instalment of 1 Bus Gate at the junction of Marsh Lane and
Avondale Rd where a group of women actually laid down in the
road to halt the contractors. As work was abandoned at this
gate, the final E left on gate Bus gate was was not completed.
So they did actually, you know, at least stop something.
Now you know. This scheme attempts to reduce
traffic in parts of Barton Hill, Lawrence Hill, Redfield and
Saint George by closing off side roads to cars and creating a
series of no through roads, dead ends and culdesacs whilst
allowing pedestrians and cyclists to go through.
However, many in the area of Bristol have said it's made life
really difficult for them, with some saying car journeys have
doubled or tripled in length because of congestion.
I mean, we've seen this in other, in other areas, uh, this
time, umm, uh, this, you know, this nightmare, you know, we've
seen it in all these other, other cities.
Contractors were supported by 28 Avon and Somerset Police
officers and a police drone operator team.
By morning, planters Rd blockages and bus gates were
installed across the area, including two locations.
Um, you know, other locations in, in East East Bristol.
Officers and contractors left the scene at around 6:00 AM.
Now, even in Somerset, police confirmed that 28 officers did
attend with, with drone support. And they said that they had
they, they, they were sort of trying to, you know, calm the,
the, the protesters. They said they'd held back a few
demonstrators. Now there's a cafe owner who
said that she was not told about this.
She said her business would suffer if the closure of the
road happened, and she was. She said that there was nothing
about bus gates, nothing about Rd closures.
Not a single time did they mention it.
Now the Police and Crime Commissioner for Avon and
Somerset Police, Claire Moody, said she'll look into the heavy
police presence at protest at the protest.
And she said. I obviously have a scrutiny role
around policing. So I just want to acknowledge
that it's something I'm aware of, the number of police
involved. I mean it's something I'm
investigating and it's something I'll be following up.
Meanwhile, the Green leader of the council, Tony Dyer said.
I think it's very clear there are some very strong feelings
about this process. We do take those seriously.
Well, I wonder what we have to remember is that Bristol is a
combined authority, weka, the West of England Command
Authority. With the new directly elected
mayoral elections on May the 1st, this will drive the people
further away from any decision making process.
And what's deeply concerning is that the is the assault on the
community is not on any democratic process despite
strong opposition. This is a classic example of
what we can expect when these smart city mayors are in power.
The fact that the IP that that the P the Police and Crime
Commit Commissioner said she will investigate the heavy
handed approach of the police in this incident in incident is
ironic. Her position as Police and Crime
Commissioner will not exist in the future.
According to the Cities and Communities Act of 2016 and the
Devolution White Paper of 2025, the powers of the Police and
Crime Commissioners will be given over to the Mayors for
Climate and Energy in the combined authorities along with
all the powers currently led by, you know, held by Westminster.
This begs the question really, where will this leave the people
of the UK with their freedom of movement and rights to go about
their business trampled on? It's nothing short of fascism in
my view. Devolution is set to cost the
taxpayer over 400 million. So let's look at what the
devolution means. Straight from the devolution
White Paper and Angela Rayner has quoted.
We will give mayors strong powers over housing, planning,
transport, energy, skills and employment, backed up with
consolidated funding. Devolution will no longer be
agreed at the whim of a minister in Whitehall and Jim McMahon,
you know, he was quoted as saying.
This white paper initiates the biggest transfer of power out of
Westminster to English regions this century.
He also, um, you know, he, he's, he also did, didn't, did mention
another quote in, in the summary of the, of the devolution white
paper, which I found interesting.
He said this is ambitious, but it's not new.
This programme of reform continues the work of the 1997
governments onwards which saw the formation of the Mayor of
London, devolved parliaments of Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland and freedoms for local government with the creation of
combined authorities. The power of economic, social
and environmental well being. Well, what he's really saying is
it's the continuation of Tony Blair's legacy of devolution
from 1997 which ended up with Northern Ireland in the Good
Friday Agreement. In my view, he speaks of
economic, social and environmental well being and I
think what he really means is ESG, environmental and social
governance. So that's, uh, that's my report
from Bristol. Uh, but, but the key point here
is, uh, Sandy, that, you know, lots of people will look at
devolution and they'll think, well, this is a great thing.
It's taking power away from these idiots in Westminster who
are, you know, clearly incapable of using it properly.
It's putting, it's bringing it to the local level.
We will have more of a say in what happens at a local level.
But in fact it's quite the opposite because it's putting,
we're just replacing a Prime Minister with an elected mayor
who may be elected, but in fact is ideologically aligned with
more global interests. And, and, and they have the
election for the mayor sewing up just as tightly as they have for
Westminster. So we will end up with someone
who is basically untouchable. Absolutely.
I mean, 100% it's a, it's a Trojan horse to actually remove
the powers from Westminster to, to destroy our representation of
government. Even if they are, I mean, yes,
they're not good, but at least, you know, you do have some sort
of say. But with this lot, you won't
have any say at all. Yes, Sandy, thank you very much
for that. OK, let's move on.
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Uh, another reminder of the UK column on location.
Uh, I think there are less than 50 tickets left now, I think
something like that at the moment.
So if you are able to come along for that, please do.
Catherine Gunn, Alex Thompson, Patrick Hennigsen, Roger Mia
talking at that. But at that, Brian Garish will
also be speaking now tomorrow at 1:00 PM.
Then Brian is going to be speaking to film maker Chris
Burgard, who was present at Capitol Hill on the day that
Biden and the media screamed rioters held a dagger to the
throat of America and American democracy.
Now, his documentaries tell a different story.
And if you'd like to know more about that, join us at 1:00 PM
tomorrow. The interview that went out at
1:00 PM yesterday. Charles was with Liz Evans.
It was, yes, and I really recommend listening to it's very
candid account of her journey, first of all into the NHS and
the incredibly constrained thinking that she encountered
there and then back out into complementary medicine, but also
particularly her focus now being on medical ethics and indeed the
harms from the COVID vaccine. So very much worth listening to.
And Liz will be joining us on the news on Friday, so please
join us at 1:00 PM if you want to hear more from her and then
Charles, the Food Finders Hub. Yes, indeed.
This was the sort of fallout and follow up action from the
symposium that I referred to on Sunday, launched by Mark Byford
who spoke very well about it. This is a way of connecting
producers of food with the consumer in a really, really
direct way. So please do take a look at
this. The link will be in the show
notes. It's not to say that everything
has to go through the Food Finders Hub, but it's really
just to understand the concept of dealing directly with farmers
and the producers of food and cutting out all the influences
that turn things bad. Brilliant.
Thank you, Charles. Now let's move on then to
European Defence. And well, Ursula von der Len is
frankly off her head, and I mean really insane actually.
So allow me to demonstrate. Yesterday she was speaking to
military cadets in Denmark about the future of war in Europe, and
she announced what she called Readiness 2030.
Because 20-30, as we've mentioned already, is a key
deadline year for everyone. Um, so she announced 4
priorities for readiness 2030, a surge in defence spending, uh,
with up to 8,000,008 billion, sorry, €800 billion.
We talked about that over the last couple of weeks.
This is her plan. Uh, and then we've got pan
European cooperation was the next thing she was talking.
That includes military mobility, which is what they describe as a
functioning EU wide network of land corridors, airports and
seaports to facilitate the fast transportation of troops and
military equipment. They don't call it this, but
let's call it the Russian front because that's what it's what
it's all about They're talking about, or she's talking about a
what she's calling a porcupine strategy for Ukraine, whatever
that means. And maybe she means it's
completely so bristling with missiles that it's dangerous to
touch it or something. She talked about setting up a
joint task force with Ukraine. And finally, she talked about
the other feature of European Defence Union that we've been
talking about for a long time, which was an EU wide market for
defence equipment and a single point procurement process.
So this is the defence union that we've been warning about
for 15 years and the war danger that comes with it is absolutely
there for everyone to see. So how was she justifying this?
Well, first of all, she had something to say about
Greenland. Let's have a listen.
Europe must get ready for war. I'm of course talking about the
ongoing war in Ukraine and conflicts in other theatres, but
also the repeated and continued attacks on critical
infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, and of course the ongoing
competition for influence in the Arctic region, including
Greenland. And to all the people of
Greenland and of Denmark as a whole.
I want to be very clear that Europe will always stand for
sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Sovereignty and territory, territorial integrity was
something that we're talking about with respect to Ukraine.
Now they're talking about with respect to Greenland.
Is their intention to seriously, you know, face off against the
United States? I don't know.
But this is this is unhinged language that she's using.
She went on to talk about Trump's desire to reorient to
China. Just take Russia.
We already know its determination to deny other
countries their right to choose their own path.
And now Russia is on an irreversible path to creating a
pure war economy. It has massively expanded its
military industrial production capacity. 40% of the federal
budget is spent on defence, 9% of it's GDP and this investment
fuels it's war of aggression in Ukraine while preparing it for
future confrontation with European democracies.
And just as these threats increase, we see our oldest
partner, the United States, move their focus to the Indo Pacific.
So we're going to talk about this much, much more.
An extra, I'm quite sure, but let's just listen to a final
clip because she's absolutely determined.
I mean, obviously what's Trump is doing here is justifying this
move towards military integration in Europe.
Let's listen to why her comments about when the United, the
European Union should act. The point is that we must see
the world as it is, and we must act immediately to face up to
it, because a new international order will be formed in the
second half of this decade and beyond.
So as we stand here today, Europe faces a fundamental
choice about its future. Do we keep reacting to each
challenge in an incremental and cautious way?
Or are we ready to grasp this opportunity to build a more
secure Europe, one that is prosperous, free and ready,
willing and able to defend itself?
Dear Carrots, the answer is clear.
The choice is none. Europe is ready to step up.
We are ready to take control of the change that is inevitable
because we cannot afford to be pushed around by history and
that means acting now is a must. So we've got to act now.
Now, just to clarify the jump cuts that were in those three
video clips, I wasn't cutting any words out of that.
I was cutting out silences. So it was just to to slightly
compress the time that she said those words, but the words were
in the order that she gave them. But in the meantime, as we've
been reporting for a couple of weeks and, uh, yobs was, uh,
reporting on this again on Monday, Germany has been
subverting its own constitution in order to enable Starmer and
von der Leyen to enable their war policy.
Well, yesterday it actually did it.
So a 2/3 majority in the Bundestag voted to allow these
huge increases in defence and infrastructure spending.
Uh, and this of course, is going to exempt, uh, spending on war
from Germany's otherwise strict debt rules.
And it's going to create out of nothing something like €500
billion of a war fund. The question now or the question
of whether to go ahead with this now moves to the upper house,
the the Bundesrat, which needs to approve the deal also by a
2/3 majority before it actually becomes law.
And that vote is going to happen on Friday.
But as Patrick has been reporting, the incoming
chancellor, Friedrich Mertz proposed these measures
immediately following his election when in 180° reversal
of the policy he campaigned on. So, you know, this is wrong in
so many levels as far as I can see.
But finally, on this topic, for now, Katya Callas, who is the
the equivalent of the EU foreign minister, the special
representative was in the UK this week to meet with John
Healey, who's the Secretary of State for War, and David Lammy,
who's foreign Secretary. Let's listen to what Healey and
Callas had to say. Kaya welcome.
This is a time when the demands of the moment mean European
partners has come together, recognising the NATO as a
cornerstone of European security.
But we need to do more. You and the Commission and the
European Union are stepping up, just as we are in the UK.
We must step up together on European security, on defence
spending and on reinforcing our industrial bases.
And to to add to that, it is more defence spending.
How can we do more, but also how we can spend the money and more
cleverly, I mean the new technologies, what's could be
their innovation and and the capabilities that we can develop
further so that we could have a European security in really.
Strong hands. Exactly so, and I think we can
learn from what we have been involved in with supporting
Ukraine, can't we? We need our European defence
industries to be able to innovate at a wartime pace.
We need to make sure that what we spend on defence also drives
economic growth. But on Ukraine, now is also the
time when we must maintain our strong support for Ukraine.
We must not jeopardise the peace by forgetting about the war, and
we will together reinforce our efforts to secure that peace.
Because European security starts with the Ukraine right now, and
that's why we need to support them to be able to defend
themselves. So thank you very much for.
Exactly. So thank you.
Vanessa, these people are off their heads.
That wasn't scripted at all. I mean, just think just
listening to them is like, I'm, I'm in the Truman Show or
something. It's, it's so disconnected from
reality. It's quite incredible.
Sorry, I'm a bit speechless actually on this one.
Yeah. Well, well, move on with it
because we've got more here from you on UK and EU cooperation.
Oh yes, exactly. Well, I mean, people will
remember back in January, just after the international coup
finally toppled the Syrian government and replaced it with
Al Qaeda. So Lammy was then saying that he
discussed the importance of an inclusive political transition
and regional security with interim Syrian Foreign Minister
Assad Shibani. The UK will support Syria's long
term stability through humanitarian aid and
coordination. Of course they didn't.
They basically destabilised Syria to the maximum from about
2009 onwards. But let's look Fast forward to
17th March, UK pledges up to 160 million to support Syria's
recovery and stability in post Assad era.
The UK government has pledged 160 million in aid.
I always put that in inverted commas to help stabilise.
Should also be in inverted commas.
Syria. Following the fall of the Syrian
government, let's have a look at what the actual Minister for the
Middle East, Hamish Volcano said.
UK aid delivered through trusted UN and NGO partners will provide
life saving support for Syrians, including refugees across the
region. Of course, like we know who
those trusted NGOs are, predominantly the White Helmets.
We also know that there will be 0 transparency about that 160
million, add to the previous millions, if not billions, that
the UK has sent to support basically Al Qaeda and their
White Helmet helpers and all other NGOs associated with Al
Qaeda in Syria. And then this is quite
interesting. This was on the 6th of March, an
update on Syria lifting asset freezes on 24 entities, which
includes the Syrian airlines, the Syrian Central bank.
But interesting that they're maintaining sanctions on the
Assad family because of their alleged links to the Captagon
drug trade in Syria. That we've covered quite a few
times on UK column and and debunked, particularly ABBC
documentary accusing former President Assad of being the
head of the captain trade. And interesting that there have
been a number of arrests recently, all drug smugglers in
Syria. So despite President Assad no
longer being present and the most recent one, Iraq's Interior
Ministry announced Sunday the seizure of 1.1 tonnes of
Capticon in the arrest of a major cross border drug network
in coordination with Erbil and Soleimani Counter Narcotic Units
authorities. Tractor truck going from Syria
via Turkey. So one assumes it's going from
Idlib, which was previously under the control of Gilani, who
is now the unelected self proclaimed president in
Damascus. And it is one of the Iraq's
largest drug busts. So few questions to be raised
over, one, the reason for the sanctions and two, the
propaganda regarding the Capticon production in Syria.
And then we move on back to Brussels and von der Leyen and
the whole team there. This is standing with Syria
donor conference in Brussels that ended I think a couple of
days ago. And who was invited?
The interim foreign minister who of course was previously al
Qaeda. I know that we've mentioned this
before. He was actually a founder of al
Qaeda in Syria named back in December as a caretaker foreign
minister. I know I keep repeating this,
but I do think it's quite important.
And here is a picture of him on on the right or left, depending
on how you're looking at it. I think that was at the WEF in
Davos and on the left as an acting al Qaeda and formerly
ISIS member carrying out atrocities against Syrian
civilians. And of course, he did meet Kaya.
Sorry, I'm putting on the Arabic accent bilateral meeting between
Foreign Minister Sad al Shibani and EU High Representative
Kayakalis on the sidelines of the Brussels donor conference on
Syria. So again, the EU and their
various representatives embracing al Qaeda members in
Brussels. And of course, they're also
upping the ante in their funding for Syria.
The EU and its partners, Kayakalis says, just pledged 5.8
billion for Syria and its neighbours.
This will support Syria at a crucial time of transition and
address the dire needs on the ground.
This is a chance for the people of Syria to seize the moment and
shape their own destiny. But I just want to move on to
Assad Chibani's actual speech that he made where again he was
blaming. He was basically reiterating the
propaganda that has sustained the regime change war for the
UK, the EU and the US against Syria since 2011, that it was
all the fault of the minorities and President Assad.
He states that the age of tyranny is over.
We have sworn an oath to our people that the age of
oppression has passed and will not return.
And he goes on, he says, and as is the case now that I've put in
brackets there, the unelected al Qaeda Syrian government remains
the sole guarantor of civil peace.
Well, really, I mean, last week we talked about the ethnic
cleansing and the effect of genocide that's being conducted
by HTS and its various foreign mercenary, fanatical extremist
terrorist groups against the people in the coastal area,
particularly Christians and Alawites, but even against Sunni
Muslims who are protesting massacres of Syrian otherwise.
So I just want to play this video of a lady who was being
interviewed in Jablay on the coastal area in Syria.
I was so dumb. The massacres are continuing,
houses or apartments, shops are being looted and burned and
there is now talk of displacing all of the other white civilians
and replacing them with Sunni Muslim extremist factions to
actually sort of reconstitute that area of of Syria.
And I just wanted to quickly show this rather than another
execution video. This is a kid in Al Bab, Aleppo
being given a semi automatic, I think it is by an HTS fighter.
This is how the children in Syria are being indoctrinated.
So I would also ask when to the UK or EU pledge money to
actually alleviate the problems in the target countries.
Yeah, good question, Vanessa, good question.
Thank you for that. And Sandy sticking with EU and
UK, Nigel Fries is pretty silent in this.
But what are what are the, what's going on with respect to
our potential rejoining? Well, Keir Starmer, as we know,
has been strengthening ties with EU without allegedly reversing
Brexit. I mean, he's proposing an EU
security pact, you know, UKEU security pact with the
collaboration on defence and intelligence matters, aiming to
bolster NATO, all that kind of thing.
And the stuff that we've been talking about.
He's now in in May, on May the 19th, 2025, he's hosting an EU
leaders for post Brexit summit. And this is the first summit
obviously since Brexit to explore avenues for deeper
cooperation and to reset relations between the UK and the
EU, you know, engaging in bilateral talks with the E with
key EU nations. He's engaged in discussions with
leaders like German Chancellor Olaf Schultz and French
President Emmanuel Macron to negotiate bilateral agreements
focusing on defence, energy security and scientific
collaboration. So he's advocating for closer
economic ties whilst, um, apparently ruling out rejoining
the EU. And he seeks to improve economic
relations by addressing trade barriers and all that, you know,
the recognition of agreements to facilitate smoother trade
between the UK and the EU member states without allegedly
reversing Brexit. But yesterday on this, this was
published on Monday from the the House of Commons Library that on
Monday, the 25th of March at 4:30, there'll be a debate in
Westminster Hall on E petition 700005 on applying to join the
EU. The debate will be led by Paul
Davis MP. So as we all thought Sama
Starmer is, you know, he's determined to reverse Brexit and
and and debate on us rejoining. Yes, and it shouldn't come as a
surprise to anyone really, But yes, I believe that's what's
happening. So Charles, let's come back to
you then. And, well, what's going on with
the police? Well, as ever, never quite the
right thing. And we have our attention drawn
to this by the tribunal that's been going on in Croydon last
week, shown here by Sex Matters, who have described it as a
tribunal concerning and well particularly they're reporting
on the anonymity of a witness. Now, that's not actually
specifically what I want to go into, but this concerns Melanie
Newman, a Metropolitan Police Service employee who submitted a
statement of evidence that goes back to 2023.
And I think this really just lays bare the intentional
destruction of the public services, which I'll go on to
qualify. Now, she was in 2023, signed up
for what's called the Transgender Day of Visibility.
And in in her statement, she makes the following.
Well, she, she describes what it is that she thought in the
workplace and she is very explicit in, in her belief.
She says I have gender critical beliefs by which I mean that I
know there are two sexes with immutable biological differences
between them. I believe sex segregation and
recording is essential in some circumstances to ensure female
safety and equality. Opportunity, sorry, and equal
opportunity in much the same way that people are routinely
segregated and classified by age.
So it's important to note she's she's giving the policing
context there and she goes on to say I view this classification
as particularly important in the criminal justice sphere.
Males, irrespective of self identification, make up the vast
majority of violent and sexual crime suspects, defendants and
convicted offenders. She also went on to say that she
believes very much in freedom of speech and expression, which
presumably can't have endeared her to the Metropolitan Police
Service or perhaps the tribunal itself.
But the point really in all of this is that it teases out the
fact that that really what we're dealing with is an ideology and
nothing to do with the way in which a police service should be
able to conduct itself. And just to go on, to give a
flavour of what happened during this training, there were two
trans activists there speaking one.
I might get the name wrong, it might be Cher Coffey reposted a
video on Twitter of Posey Parker being assaulted at a Let Women
Speak event in New Zealand with a caption saying this was
hilarious. And another one called Eva Echo
who spoke in high Pollock terms about a need to save trans
people from gender critical people with quote warped,
twisted views. End Quote.
But never identified the nature of the risk.
He advised on how to dismiss concerns about trans women in
female only spaces and spoke about the government and media
in a conspiratorial manner. Now I think really one thing
that's come out of the tribunal, we're yet to see the the full
transcript. So it's it's hard to know
exactly which way it would have gone and what the significance
is. But certainly a senior police
officer there speaking at the tribunal wouldn't even commit to
saying that there was an identifiable link between the
male sex and violent crime. So that is the degree to which
the police psyche and modus operandi has been infected by
this kind of ideology. And I would say this points back
to the Equality Act 2010, which is now to be seen to be doing
that which it was intended for, which is really to create
division, confusion, the breakdown of the family unit and
particularly hypocrisy and contradiction in both law and
the workplace. And I think really what this
comes to is the use use of the positive action as enabled by
sections 158 and 159 of the Equality Act, which are
contextualised by this phrase, which is participation in an
activity by persons who share a protected characteristic that is
disproportionately low. So although it's an absurd
example, this means that you could manipulate the situation
in order to justify, for example, putting more pregnant
pregnant women into to frontline soldiering because of course
they would be represented in a disproportionately low fashion.
So once you've done that manipulation, it allows you to
go over anything, regardless of whether it's appropriate or
suitable or even desirable by the people who are looking for
employment into a position. Where as an employer, you can
treat a person more favourably in connection with recruitment
or promotion than another person.
Because person A has the protected characteristic, but
person B does not. And so with with that in mind,
we should look at this lady here, Emma Dunn, who is the
chair of a gender, which is spelled a colon and then gender.
But of course it is an agenda. And in her profile there, it
describes her as being the chair of a gender.
The cross government network supporting trans and intersex
staff across government. Emma is intersex and identifies
as female. Her pronouns are she her or they
them? Most confusing.
But the point is this, this this organisation agenda, it sits
within central government. And given what I've just said
about the Equality Act and the clauses that enable positive
action and the way in which the Metropolitan Police Service has
treated its own employees with regard to indoctrination around
in this case, gender issues and indeed the protected
characteristics part of, it's very hard to see how the
government itself is not weaponizing the Equality Act in
order to unlawfully positively discriminate in order to pursue
this ideology. Now obviously if anything
significant is to come out of the results of the tribunal,
then I'll report back on that. But I think this gives a very
good insight to the incredibly corrosive influences that are
attacking police from all sides and in a completely intentional
manner. Thank you, Charles.
Thank you. We're just going to end then
with this. But well, on Friday, I was
talking about the fact that Elon Musk and the US, sorry, in the
US, is running his dodge operation to cut bureaucracy
right across the federal government.
And just a few weeks later, as I mentioned on Friday, Starmer had
announced effectively the same policy with the NHS England, the
1st to fall. Here's the next effort then,
because they're cutting government waste apparently, and
they're going to cut up a bunch of credit cards, 20,000 credit
cards so far is what they're intended to cut up, or at least
freeze them so they can't be used.
And then they're going to make anyone that wants to use a
credit card in the civil service that I'm talking about here,
they're going to make them reapply for their credit card.
So according to the Cabinet Office, who's behind this great
innovation, their aim is to reduce the number of active
cards around 10,000. They haven't been able to give
the quality reports of outrageous spending that Musk
was able to do. And the examples they gave them
weren't talking about millions or hundreds of thousands even,
uh, they spoke about, uh, 1200 lbs spent on luxury coffee pods
by one team in two months and 1800 lbs on a quotes value for
money course. Absolutely shocking.
So rest assured, as the prime, as the Prime Minister set out
last week, he will be making sure that every pound spent
delivers for us. What a nice man.
I'm not sure what it's intending to deliver.
Perhaps Missiles on our heads is where we're heading, but we'll
talk more about that in extra as well.
We've got to end there. I'm going to say thank you very
much to Vanessa, Charles and Sandy for joining us today.
Thank you for joining us. Stick around for UK column for
some extra. We'll see you in a few minutes.
Otherwise, enjoy the interview at 1:00 PM tomorrow and we'll
see you on Friday. Bye bye.