Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 29th of
January 2025, just after 1:00. And welcome to UK Call News.
I'm your host, Mike Robinson, and joining me in the studio
today is Charles Mallett. Welcome to the programme,
Charles. Thank you, Mike.
And by video link, we do have Vanessa Beanie this week.
Welcome to the programme, Vanessa.
But we're going to get straight on here with bird flu.
Bird Food is yes again and the seasoned UK column viewer.
This will not come as a great surprise, but from the UK Health
Security Agency we've had what might seem like a very trivial
announcement of somebody being ill in proximity to birds, but
they're describing it as a case of bird to human avian flu in a
person in the West Midlands. And they are at pains to say
that the risk of avian flu to the general public remains very
low despite this confirmed case. Now people will be having bells
of Deja vu ringing in their heads.
I dare say circle at the bottom of this tweet.
I have included the text. Currently there is no evidence
of onwards transmission. This case, which I'm labelling
subject to change because we've seen how these things can and
will drift. Of course this represents an
enormous commercial opportunity, mostly for the Pharmaceutical
industry in terms of vaccinating or medicating not just poultry
but also human beings. Also for the bio security
industry as it's as it stands in so far as introducing measures
to not just places that keep poultry, but because there is
suggestion that this zoonotic capability means that in in some
senses anything is at threat. Therefore, of course this could
be wheeled out anywhere potentially and previously, and
I say previously, which I will qualify in a second for the food
cartels because this is introducing the notion of food
scarcity and manipulation of the food chain.
Now as you see from the tweet or did see from the tweet, the the
Health Security Agency using absurd spurious language of on
scientific nature like spillover, which of course has
absolutely no veracity or scientific standing.
Now this is significant, I would contend, not because I'm wanting
to reinforce the scaremongering narrative, but because of the
parallels to the messaging that we received at the end of 2019
and early 2020. So dipping back into Hansard
from the 23rd of January 2020, we had the shadow Health
secretary Sharon Hodgson talking about a global pandemic which
can be avoided. She said in the Commons that
there is a chance that a global pandemic can be avoided if
governments across the world take the right measures in a
timely fashion. This is sort of what the UKHSA
are saying now. On the very same day Matt
Hancock said most cases of the new coronavirus so far have been
non fatal. In these cases most people
experience cold and flu like symptoms and then recover.
However, there have been a small number of cases so far.
Where does proven more serious and fatal?
So the narrative, insofar as the pace and the use of what sounds
like a fairly innocuous incident, has the potential to
be blown up and up and up again from January.
If we go back to the timeline of 2020, the speed with which it
developed was extraordinary. On the 29th, the family that had
fled into the UK from China were reported to have fallen.
I'll the son called the NHS and declared that they had a fever
and a cough and that they'd arrived from Hubei province.
Now two paramedics stressed in hazmat arrived at the hotel.
Obviously very much overdramatic, necessarily so for
the narrative to be developed accordingly.
But an ambulance took them to a hospital in Hull and they were
tested and learned and behold, they were found to have the the
coronavirus the very next day, on the 30th of January, the risk
level was raised in the United Kingdom from low to moderate,
and the World Health Organisation declared that the
pandemic as it was described even then, was a global health
emergency. So the point I'm making here is
that it's very easy from one very simple illness that is
confirmed of course by the extraordinarily spurious PCR
test to developed this at speed if required and indeed if the
system is deemed ready for it. But of course this, as I say,
relies on the tests. And that's exactly what happened
back in 2020. The Public Health England lab
back in the north, sorry northwest London, confirmed that
they had coronavirus. So the UK column line throughout
this has been to examine the science, such as it is or such
as it isn't, and to state that there is a complete lack of,
sorry, an absence of evidence for the existence of avian
influenza as a discernible illness.
Further, there is no evidence for transmission in the way that
it's being described by the Animal and Plant Health Agency,
Defra and the Health Security Agency too.
But critically, like all of these things, it is being pushed
very hard by the BBC Now Farming Today, the Farming Today
programme earlier on had a, sorry earlier on today had an
interview with a free range poultry farmer, a free range egg
farmer and he set out the very faulty logic contained within
the countermeasures in so far as bio security is concerned.
We'll just have a quick listen to what he said.
It's about as near as we'd like to get, really, for bio security
reasons. Well, we're standing a good
distance from the sheds where David Peron has his layers.
I think the argument for housing can be odd because the biggest
case so far has been in Shropshire and that was all
housed birds because they were barn eggs and it makes the
argument for housing weaker. I sit the nail on the head there
because by the the government's own metrics or own logic, which
is to keep birds inside in the event of such an illness
confirmed by PCR, he, this man is stating that of course these
birds were already inside. Now, as we know well, no account
of the environmental conditions of birds or their feed or their
water is ever tested. This I have in black and white
from APHA by a Freedom of Information request.
Nevertheless, BBC Farming Today pushed it further by speaking to
an epidemiologist, Veterinary One Professor James Wood from
Cambridge. And this is what he had to say
in terms of confirming whether or not farm workers should feel
worried about it. So should farm workers on
poultry units be worried about this?
I think in general terms, no. If an outbreak of bird flu is
notified to the authorities, then they will be providing very
specific advice around the the sort of personal protection and
the PPE that people should be wearing if they have to go
anywhere near the birds. So in general terms, I don't
think this is something that poultry workers should be
worried about, but everyone should be aware that this is
something that could happen. Now, what he also said in
response to a question was that this cannot be passed from human
to human. So we're in the position now of
being expected to believe that a virus exists that can be passed
amongst wild birds. It can be passed from a wild
bird to domestic poultry and back again.
It can be passed between domestic poultry and it can be
passed from domestic poultry to a human being.
But somehow it's unable to go from a human being to a human
being unless of course it mutates.
And of course, I refer back to the case last year where we were
told that even bird flu had travelled to the South Atlantic
to infect elephant seals. So that there are holes in this
narrative a mile wide. But the likelihood is that the
population will believe this, which is why it's a significant
problem. Now, the epidemiologist James
Wood did did at least have the decency to say this is different
from the variant or the version in the United States, which he
cited as having conjunctivitis as a symptom, which it makes one
wonder, of course, why it's not just referred to as
conjunctivitis, but because of the proximity to animals, it has
a zoonotic label slapped on it. And there we go.
Now, the central message to the BBC's output this morning was to
suggest people don't think that it can't happen to you.
And this is very redolent of the narrative that was put out for
the coronavirus confection back in early 2020.
And it does represent corruption across the board, not just the
science, which is totally what without foundation, but by their
own logic, the countermeasures are known to be pointless.
The environmental conditions, as I say, are never considered or
assessed. And it's a complete corruption
for the consumer who has had the regulations changed, which means
they'll still be be able to buy eggs labelled as free range even
when they're not. So that sixteen rule has gone.
And of course, this lays the door open for further food
scarcity and ties in with that narrative driven towards what's
the suggestion that it's all to do with climate change.
And indeed, Defra is very keen to point out that in the scheme
of things that the destruction or the culling, as they say, the
humane culling of these birds is proportionate to the 20 million
that are slaughtered each week for human consumption.
So the the figures just in order to make it clear how the PCR
case, the PCR test drives this are that to date the there are
24 cases or 25 across the two strains they claim to have
identified. These are not deaths.
These are PCR cases. And as was pointed out in the
last news broadcast where I referred to this, there are
approximately 9500 slaughtered birds per discerned case by PCR.
So the the the point to draw out here is that the government is
well primed for the inflation of this particular narrative to
drive people towards bio security panic and the sense of
emergency and the 5 million doses of stockpiled vaccine for
humans, well made by CSL secularists, which of course
we've reported on in the past. So this will certainly be
something to keep a very close eye on.
And the only hope really is that following the years of
coronavirus propaganda that the expected audience will have
fallen foul of fatigue of the story.
But we shall see which way it goes.
Thank you, Charles. Vanessa, let's welcome you to
the programme. And we've been talking quite a
bit about Davos over the last few news programmes, but what's
your take on what happened there?
Well, yeah, I mean, everybody is well aware that the Syrian
foreign minister was present at Davos, but I just wanted to draw
attention to something that was published by Davos actually back
on the 9th of December. So then they were talking about
what to respect and who's coming.
Now, what's interesting, So this was what, one day after I
actually left Damascus, and so one day after the fall of
Damascus itself. And yet here they actually name
Assad Hassan al Shibani, Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Syria. So did Davos and WEF have full
knowledge of what was going on inside Syria and who would be
appointed the foreign minister? And then if we actually look at
who this foreign minister is, this is from the cradle, former
al Qaeda in Syria founder. So he was a founder of Nusra
Front in Syria, named as caretaker foreign minister.
And who should interview him? None other than snake oil
salesman himself, Tony Blair, former Middle East war envoy and
responsible really for the war against Syria since 911 in his
relations with President Assad from 2002 onwards.
So let's just have a very quick look at part of of the
remarkably unpleasant interview. And I apologise in advance for
forcing people to watch this again if they've already seen it
and. You've obviously got a lot of
different minorities in in Syria, Christians, Theresa,
Alawites and how how confident are you that this will be a
Syria for all the people given the the history and the
difficulties of the past I. Can say that now, as we Syrian
people, we are victims of the sectarian government and we are
also victims of this language and we refuse to use it for the
future of Syria. We are not Syrian people, not
divided into minorities. We are Syrian people and Syria
should be for all the Syrian people without any sectarian
dividing and also without to to punish someone regarding on his
background, social background, religious background or
sectarian group. That was about as tough as Tony
Blair got in his questioning and and his follow up question was
what about women in Syria? And we'll come on to that
because obviously there are daily reports of atrocities
committed by the HTS unelected government in Syria, former
still a prescribed terrorist group conducting dozens of
sectarian executions, kidnappings and torture across
Syria. And we'll just play one video
that is not particularly gruesome, but it shows a young
Shia Muslim man discovering that three members of his family have
been murdered by the HTS terrorists.
So if we can just play this? Nothing.
His anguish is very obvious. And when we're talking about
women, this is Doctor Rasha Al Ali who was a university
researcher at Haunt University and a member of the Arab Writers
Union who was kidnapped on the 20th of January after she
objected to the imposing of niqab law wearing and niqab
instruction at the universities in Syria.
Her body was discovered on the 25th of January with her fingers
amputated and signs of extreme torture and obviously she was
killed for her views about women in Syria.
And equally, Syrian Christians, of course, all minorities are,
are being faced with ethnic cleansing, displacement,
torture, etcetera, but particularly Christians also who
are finding that their daily life is, is being affected very
much. If we look at that what was
actually written in the article and they're being harassed to
effectively conform to Islamic rules and customs.
They're being asked to disarm escalating incidents of violence
towards religious minorities and even the fact that buses are
being boarded to ask the women and the men to segregate on the
buses, etcetera. So all, basically all minority
communities are suffering under the the imposition of the rules
of extremist Islamist government.
Thank you. Thank you for that, Vanessa.
We'll have more on on this a little bit later.
Now coming back to the UK then the other big story that's going
on at the moment is the issue of knife crime and the fact that
the government is about to impose more digital
identification on the general public in order to, they say, to
deal with this knife crime situation.
So this was being, this is actually going back to 2017.
So this is not something that's new.
Suddenly it's becoming a crisis. But this was LBC in 2017 saying
3 fatal stabbings in 36 hours, 35 murders under the age of 25
this year, a rise of 84% in 12 months.
Is knife crime getting out of control?
So, so this is not something that is is a recent issue.
So the government has announced stricter, what they're
describing as stricter age verification online.
They're adding the purchase of knives to the use of pornography
in terms of the regime that people are going to have to
abide by, they're describing it as what they call a stringent 2
step system, which will be mandated for all.
This is a quote will be mandated for all retailers selling knives
online, requiring customers to submit photo ID at the point of
sale and again on delivery. They say.
Government saying they have an ambitious mission to have knife
crime within a decade. Why are they only having it?
Question I'll. Ask before, I'm not sure.
Within a decade, as part of the plan for change, of course,
because this is all about change and a core element of this, they
say, again, this is a quote. We'll be addressing problems in
the online sales space. End Quote so they're saying that
a person may need to submit a copy of photo ID such as a
driving licence or a passport that they may need proof of
address such as a utility bill before and they're again going
to have to show ID after the package is delivered.
And this could also include submitting a current photo or
video of yourself if you're buying a knife to an online
retailer alongside their ID. Now the implications of this in
terms of personal data and you know, the potential for identity
theft, because of course you're going to be handing more and
more sort of personal information to more and more
retailers whose systems may not be terribly robust from a
security point of view. Now you may say, well, this is
so I'm not buying a knife. But of course this is now
pornography first. Now it's knives.
It's going to continue on the, the list to the point where
we're going to need ID for, for many, many things.
Um, it's also under this proposal going to be illegal for
any retailer to deliver a package containing a bladed
weapon to the doorstop to doorstep, sorry, when there's no
one in to receive it and so on. Uh, so anyway, uh, let's have a
look at what the our wonderful home secretary had to say about
this. Here's Yvette Cooper.
It's a total disgrace how easy it is for children to get
dangerous weapons online. She says more than two years
after Ronan Canada was killed with a ninja sword bought by a
teenager online, too many retailers still don't have
proper cheques in place. The measures I'm setting out
today will be crucial in addressing this problem and are
part of our plan for change and mission to make streets safer.
Well, are they? This is a very good question.
We'll discuss that in a second. But before we do, Idris Elba was
on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning because
the BBC at 9:00 PM this evening is pushing out a documentary
hosted by him on this topic. Let's just have a listen to a
minute or so of what he said this morning.
What has happened now is a look at the the schemes that are
working, that are showing, hey, this works.
So a lot of these schemes are losing their funding.
We need to look at the budget and perhaps make sure we can
support the schemes that the data shows work OK.
I think that we need to ban all knives period.
And let's not be grey arid about it.
I think heritage swords and such, yes.
But if you have one, have a licence for it, OK.
We even kitchen. How would kitchen knives work
with that? So the truth is, is that kitchen
knives are perhaps 25% of the knives used in most of the
terrible crimes. That's one of the stats in the
films. And those kitchen knives are
usually a domestic situation. So kitchen knives, of course,
it's very difficult, their domestic knife.
I do think there is areas of innovation that we can do with
kitchen knives. I hate to say it, not all
kitchen knives need to have a point on them.
That sounds like a crazy thing to say, but actually it would
reduce, you know, you can still cut your food without the point
on the knife, which is an innovative way to sort of look
at it. And in a country in crisis, I'm
sorry, but yeah, let's look at that.
But the truth is, all knives, you know, the loophole on the
heritage knives allows the sale of Nombie zombie ninja swords to
be sold. So let's ban them all.
And if you need, if you have one of those knives, get a licence
for it. Simple as that.
This is such nonsense. I mean, we were wetting
ourselves, frankly, during that, but we'll talk about that in a
second. It's such nonsense.
You know, he's talking about 25% of incidents involving kitchen
knives. Of course, if there's no
availability of other types of knives, that proportion is going
to go up, right? Because what everyone is doing
is looking at symptoms. They're looking at the symptoms
of a disease. Where?
So I would like to know where's the discussion about what's
causing young people to be absolute so absolutely
demoralised, frustrated and angry that they're resorting to
lashing out in this way? Where's the optimism in our
youth banning, what's banning knives going to do?
It's going to do nothing to stop violence along young amongst
young people if we don't deal with the underlying problems.
Take away the knives and they'll pick up rocks or they'll smash a
window and wrap a Shard of glass and gaffer tape to make a knife.
This is all wrong and you know Charles, we have to deal with
the the disease and not the symptoms we do.
It seems from what he's saying, it's not just kitchen knives
that don't have a point. And he really, I mean, what
you're saying is it is very much reminiscent of what the Duke of
Edinburgh, the late Duke of Edinburgh got pilloried for
after the Dunblane incident where he suggested that the
response to it would be akin to banning cricket bats just
because somebody had once hit somebody else over there with a
cricket bat. It is completely absurd.
I will be dealing touching on this again a little bit later in
the news, but but complete and utter nonsense.
How how the Today programme sustains that sort of a
conversation in in sort of good faith is beyond me.
Well, the Today. Programme has sustained the
conversation. They've they've made an entire
documentary about it tonight at 9:00 PM.
So, so they're absolutely the BBC as a whole sustaining this
conversation. We will talk more about this in
extra, but we shall move on. If you like what the UK column
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And there are other platforms, of course, if you want to share
directly with that helps us get around the various censorship
algorithms that are there. Now, tomorrow at 1:00 PM, Ben is
interviewing Rajamiya, of course, about the rape gangs.
He has been for six years calling out what's been going on
with the rape gangs in the North England.
Do watch that 1:00 PM tomorrow if you possibly can.
And yesterday's interview, Charles was with Catherine Gunn.
It was indeed. And as the pieces have moved
around the board in the Middle East today, it is very very
pertinent to cast our minds back just over 2 decades to the build
up to the Iraq War as it was then.
And Catherine Gunn's actions whilst working at GCHQ in
breaching the Official Secrets Act to do what she believed was
right at the time. And her story is extremely
compelling and and really does merit a revisit.
So please do listen to this and share it far and wide.
And she also offers her views on the world as it is now and and
gives a very, very concise sort of analysis of it.
OK. And we'd like to mention Public
Child Protection Wales is holding a conference on the 22nd
of February this year. It lasts from ten 10:30 AM to
4:30 PM. It's in Cwmbran near Newport.
We would just encourage everybody or as many people as
possible possible to go to that, if you can.
Certainly the presentation from Kim Isherwood at the UK column
conference in in October went down extremely well, so if any
way you can possibly support this organisation by attending
that would be fantastic. Details of public Child
protectionwheels.org They have a great line up of speakers that
are on screen at the moment, but including Rebecca Manning,
Doctor Anna Lutfi and so on. We will have the link to that in
the show notes, of course, so please do join us for that.
Now where does that take us, Charles the Klein?
No, before we get to that. One more.
Here that is this open letter being signed by doctors,
academics, and so on for RFK. This is to the Senate, of
course, because RFK's confirmation hearing is taking
place very, very soon. Lots and lots of signatures on
that. So there's a number on there,
another 4800 signatures, including the ones that are on
that I've just shown you on screen at the moment.
And so if anybody is a healthcare professional or an
academic would like to sign that, there is a Google Doc and
the link to that will be in the show notes as well.
And if you'd like to sign that, please do.
Let's move on to the climate bill.
Climate. Nature.
Bill, yes, which as reported on last week, was in Parliament for
its second reading Friday the 24th of January.
And there's been a response to the adjournment of this bill or
of the debate, which suggests that it's something of a
victory. And I would like to sound a note
of caution. This is something UK Column has
been following for some months now, and there's been a certain
amount of confusion about the bill itself, of course hidden
from the government website published by Zero Hour, who I
suppose, as their slide here suggests, probably haven't
raised quite the level of public support that they thought they
would. There's £6515 raised.
I should imagine they were hoping for a bigger push.
Nonetheless the the reason for qualifying this, in so far as it
doesn't seem entirely positive, is that what actually happened
on the day was the chamber was flooded with Labour MP's who
were whipped into a position of voting to adjourn until Friday
the 11th of July. Now this was led by the MP Roz
Savage who at the outset said that she had absolutely no
practical experience of farming and therefore was in a sense
leading the blind. Now I read through Hansard and
every single comment in the debate was entirely in support
of this. So to suggest that the
adjournment is a battle won, I would say is a very hasty
judgement and one that might need a little bit more scrutiny,
not least because there are many issues at stake here.
There is plenty of existing legislation, binding government,
all sorts of climate targets which we're well aware of.
This could well represent a cooling off period after the
Trump rejection of the Green New Deal and the likely backlash
from that. But also in in granting sort of
six months stay of execution, they've enabled the the raising
of public awareness and indeed calls for urgent action.
It's very easy for a state of emergency to be developed even
further. Of course we're supposed to be
in the midst of a climate emergency, but to make that seem
more acute with a six month lead in is not entirely difficult to
do if you think of the things that could be ascribed to
climate change. I've just been speaking about
bird flu. That is of course one such.
We've had the announcement today there are going to be 9 new
reservoirs in the United Kingdom.
So water shortages of course is another one.
And I refer you back to the comments of Alan Lovell, the
then chair of the Environment Agency, who said in 2023, I'm
most concerned about water resources.
But to grip the existential threat of supply and demand, we
will need to ask the public to do 2 things.
Save water and pay more for it. There is of course the
population shift via migration, which Mike's going to be
touching on in this programme too.
There's the poor harvest, the food shortages and the incoming
likelihood of food scarcity. So there's also time of course
for the government to sell the lie that renewable energy can
work as the the contribution of solar energy increases with the
increase in daylight. We've got the BBC, of course,
who are complicit in virtually every part of the government's
pushing of any agenda and that I, I would imagine, going to be
reporting on this theme in such sense as to give people the
impression that it must be pursued yet further.
Now on the solar side of it, I thought I thought it'd be worth
noting that the energy dashboard from 11:30 this morning notes
that 9% of energy on the grid is coming from solar, which, given
the area handed over to it from swathes of perfectly viable
farmland, is rather pitiful. But also in contrast, on the
left hand side of the chart, there imports remain at 15.3%.
So the suggestion that that that renewable energy is in any way a
viable and dependable source is of course ludicrous.
The other thing to point out is the continued corruption of the
system. Recent announcement that there's
a go ahead for a large scale solar farm in Lincolnshire which
is going to be run or at least funded by Ecotricity.
Dale Vince, the owner being a donor to the Labor Party.
So it seems reasonable indeed to question his relationship with
the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.
And of course there is the other aspect to all of this, which is
the, the, the response to a, a public clamour now that this
bill has apparently disappeared, as there's no better way to
activate the activists than to suggest that their future has
been dashed or shattered. So I, I am imagining that in
fact, between now and July, there will be a massive
propaganda campaign in order to pump this bill back up again,
whether it goes through as private members bill, it reigns
to be seen. But to dismiss at a stroke this
bill just because it has been adjourned, I would say is hasty.
And it's also worth considering the 11th of July is of course
just before the end of the school term, which gives the
education system plenty of time to work on the children within
its care in order to push the climate emergency and that could
philtre up to parents and beyond.
So again, one to watch. But I think to dismiss it just
because of what happened last Friday is very, very hasty
indeed. Well, Charles mentioned this,
let's talk about migration for a second, because the UK
population is now suggested it's going to hit 72.5 million by
2032, I think 75,000,000 by 2035 and this is fuelled by 4.9
million increase in net migration.
This is numbers coming from the Office for National Statistics
and the ONS where it pins to make the point that for the
first time we are overtaking France in terms of total
population. Of course, France has a
significantly larger landmass than Britain does, so population
density is less of a problem in France.
But France doesn't seem to be having the same problem as we
have. I wonder why now?
Chris Phelp, Who's the shadow? Sorry, sorry, sorry, wrong
button. The the shadow home secretary
said that 10 million arrivals over 10 years is too high.
It's far too high, he said. We need a binding legal cap on
visas issued each year, which is very, very substantially lower
than this in order to get the numbers down and under control.
And so we might suggest that there's a significant amount of
hypocrisy in that, bearing in mind that this current migration
situation has absolutely been driven up under Tory leadership
for the last 10-15 years, whatever it happens to be.
The Resolution Foundation here there, Representative Adam
Corlett has said that the Office for National Statistics
projections of higher working age population are going to be
more money for the government and for the Treasury.
So he said a larger working age population means a bigger
economy, more workers and higher tax receipts, which should
deliver a fiscal boost of around £5 billion a year by the end of
the decade. Well, he's talking about an
increase in population of 5 million people and a £5 billion
a year increase in the money to the treasury.
Then what does that actually mean?
1000 lbs per head Is that is that a good deal?
I don't. Think so?
I think Neil Ferguson may have lent out his calculator.
Well, indeed, that is true. So the question is, you know
what, what is going on here? Of course we have an ageing
population. We also have falling birth
rates. We've talked about this many,
many times in this programme. But we've we've also got the
issue of economic inactivity. And it's interesting that if you
look at the the mainstream press in recent weeks, there've been
some efforts to sort of launder this idea of economic
inactivity. This is something that the
Office for National Statistics has been talking about for a
long time, a long time, I mean, post the so called COVID
pandemic. But because as Charles has
pointed out on the programme before, long term sickness is
becoming a real problem in the country.
But we're trying to, in the mainstream press at least kind
of persuade ourselves that perhaps ONS is not counting this
properly. I think we did this with excess
mortality as well. The ONS was counting things in a
particular way. And then at some point they
decided that our people decided that they didn't like the
figures that were coming out. So the ONS was was encouraged to
change their model. This seems to be what's
happening here as well. We've got another graphic here
showing long term sickness broken down by age group.
And this is a significant, a significant problem here.
If if what we're saying is we've got to maintain migration at a
certain level in order to maintain in a younger working
age population in the country, because the the population
that's already here is not sufficient to grow the economy,
then we have a slightly different problem.
So we need to be looking at this anyway.
Coming back to Chris Phelp for a second, he also went on to say
we must also get more of the 9 million economically inactive
adults in the UK into the workforce and invest more in
technology and mechanisms to end the unsustainable reliance on
mass low skilled migration. But if we're talking about
technology and so on, increasingly we're talking about
AI, which is taking away jobs, even more jobs already.
So what direction are we going on?
And we have an ageing population.
This is a problem, don't worry, because the government has an
answer to that as well. It is assisted dying.
That's why there's so much discussion about that at the
moment. And Chris Whitty has been
speaking out on this because he's saying what we don't want
is a system which is very difficult for them, the people
that are wanting assisted dying for them to navigate so that
they spent their entire last six months of their lives.
If this bill is passed and they choose to take account of it,
which is a minority, he said. So these people would
essentially for the last six months of their lives be stuck
in a, what he described as a bureaucratic thicket.
We need to to keep this simple. And my view, the best safeguards
are simple safeguards. So make it as simple as possible
for people to end their lives because that'll take the
pressure off that particular end of the economic equation.
In the meantime, keep bringing more and more people into the
country and keep building up the pressure because, you know, at
the end of the day, I'm not going to deny that there are
some viewpoints out there which might be viewed as racist.
But actually most people's concern about this is the fact
that we don't have the infrastructure to, to cope with
it. We don't have the housing to
cope with it. We don't have the schools, the
hospitals and so on. This is, is a big problem, but
it's economy is at the back of it.
And and again, we're not dealing with with the the underlying
causes of the migration in the first place.
And when we're dealing with this, absolutely.
We're not and, and nor are we benefiting the countries that
people have come from. We are, we are draining many
countries of their resources in terms of brain power and and
manpower. And that that does not in in the
Oval scheme things help. So we'll talk about that more in
extra essay as well. Yes, absolutely.
So let's come on to extremism. Yeah, yeah, more.
Extremism, which was something I spoke about last week in
relation to the Prime Minister's speech about what he was
proposing to do in the aftermath of the conviction, sorry, the
not correct conviction of the Southport murderer Axel Riddick.
Abana and I described it as an exercise in conspired, conflate
with, well, with the BBC, conspired conflate the issues of
national security extremism with terrorism.
So to go back to summer 2024, Yvette Cooper said action
against extremism has been badly hollowed out in recent years,
just when it should have been needed most.
That's why I've directed the Home Office to conduct.
A rapid analytical Sprint on extremism to map and monitor
extremist trends, to understand the evidence about what works to
disrupt and divert people away from extremist views and to
identify any gaps in existing policy which need to be
addressed to crack down on those pushing harmful and hateful
beliefs and violence. So rather long winded.
Nonetheless, her team of civil servants did produce the so
called Rapid Analytical Sprint which by some miracle has been
leaked to the Policy Exchange. Now the The Policy Exchange
therefore have authored a document to respond to this.
Worth noting that one of the authors is Andrew Gilligan, of
great repute going back to 2003 and the affair concerning Doctor
David Kelly. But of course, as with all
government leaks, it's assumed to be intentional.
But to what end? And the the Sprint, as it's been
referred to, written up by civil servants, has made great effort
to shift the qualification of extremism from somebody
possessing an ideology to behaviours of concern.
So this just reinforces the point of view that it is being
conflated with terrorism, which of course is subject to being
redefined in order that it may be used to capture people more
easily. The specific behaviours they
refer to of violence against women and girls, misinformation
and disinformation and extreme violence and misogyny.
Now the Policy Exchange makes a a repeated point of saying that
it downplays Islamism, which they describe not not the civil
servants, but the Policy Exchange they're describing as
by far the greatest threat to national security.
So just on that, it's it interesting to note that
previously William Shawcross, senior fellow at the Policy
Exchange back in 2018 was in conversation with the Prime
Minister or well the now Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin
Netanyahu. So I think if there's time then
this we'll just ask Vanessa for a little bit of comment on that
and the sort of the policy exchanges leanings.
But just to proceed for now. They were saying, or rather
Shawcross previously has made the point about the Prevent
scheme, this should not be concerned with the 3536% of
referrals not concerning ideology or suspected terrorism,
but pertain to mental health and vulnerabilities of young people.
Now the civil service document that this Sprint has also had
trouble with Michael Gove's rework definition of extremism,
which we've talked about not before, saying there were
concerns the last government's definition could be used against
legitimate organisations and individuals, especially in the
absence of a test of proportionality and
reasonableness. Now that's exactly what I was
talking about last week with the example given by the BBC of
Patriotic Alternative and how there was a complete double
standard in the way that they were being looked at compared
with the Labor Party. Now really what they are meaning
by this is that they want to redefine it in such a way that
anybody who contradicts the mainstream narrative can be
captured as an extremist. And this is really no more than
at all with which to capture dissenting voices.
Now, going back to what Mike has been talking about with regard
to knife crime and the suggestion that violence has a
great deal to do with this, which may not necessarily be
denied. I I've just picked out as an
example the PlayStation game Fortnite because this is
something that is actively in effect opposed to what Idris
Elba has been saying. He's made specific reference to
the the, the ownership of knives and samurai swords.
And yet we see the BBC on their children's channel CBBC
promoting the computer game Fortnite.
So this is not a push for further online safety, but
really to ask the question of parents.
If children are going to be engaged or wasting their time
with games like this, what are they expecting that the result
would be? And of course, this plays
completely into the hands of the government with their reworking
of the definition of terrorism. Thank you, Charles.
Vanessa, any brief comments on that before we move on to
Lebanon? Well.
No, not really, except that it's the ongoing infiltration of all
of the UK government sectors, including security, by the
Zionist movement of course, which we've been talking about
extensively. OK, Thank you.
Let's move on to Lebanon then. So, of course, the ceasefire
ended in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Hezbollah rejects the extension of Israel's withdrawal deadline
from South Lebanon because, of course, Israel, rather than
withdrawing at all, has been embedding itself further and
actually encroaching further upon Lebanese territory in the
South. And So what basically happened
on Sunday, contrary to the recommendations even by the
Lebanese army that is supposed to replace Hezbollah military in
the South, but has been failing to do so because of the Israeli
obstacles put in their way, but also the recommendations of
UNIFO that civilians should not return.
Of course, what did they do? They returned to their homes in
the South. And this is just a short video
report from a local media outlet.
Define fear and threats. The people of southern Lebanon
rose with unshakable resolve on Sunday, returning to their homes
as the deadline for Israel's withdrawal expired.
Despite a ceasefire agreement requiring full withdrawal,
Israeli forces remain entrenched, violating the deal
with brutal force. As thousands of courageous
Lebanese crossed into their occupied towns, Israeli forces
responded with machine gunfire and shelling, killing 22 and
injuring 124 civilians in cold blood.
In addition to the violence, the Israeli forces arrested several
civilians attempting to reclaim their homes.
The Lebanese people demonstrated remarkable resilience as they
marched forward despite the Israeli army's violence.
From the elderly to the young, they pressed on, determined to
return to their homes and highlights their unwavering
commitment to reclaiming their lands and resisting oppression.
And so. What I wanted to show now is
just a video that a friend of mine very kindly took as she
went to the South yesterday during the the clashes between
civilians. So these are not armed
civilians, These are not effectively members of the
Hezbollah military. They are civilians and of
course, the devastation in the South became very clear from the
footage that she sent me, including, of course, the
demolition of mosques. But not only mosques of churches
also, as you will see shortly, this is one of the roads into
the town of Chiam that was occupied by the Zionist forces
and where civilians are still in danger of being shot or or
basically pushed back by the Zionist forces that are still
there even today. A number of people were sniped
as they were demonstrating against the Zionist tanks being
still in their villages. Last night.
There were a number of air strikes or drain strikes in
Novatia in the South with a number of injuries and again
this morning. And so basically Israel refusing
to leave, the people refusing to abandon their homes and very
similar scenes, of course, in Gaza with.
If we watch the following video, you'll see what Hamas is
describing as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
returning to their homes in the north, and Israel is claiming
that it's only 10s of thousands. But what is extraordinary about
this? While it's very hard, of course,
to describe the carnage that has been carried out by Israel both
in the South and in Gaza, what is extraordinary about it?
It's the first time that Palestinians in particular have
returned to their homes post genocide or post ethnic
cleansing. So in some ways that is a
tremendous moral victory. None.
And we'd actually reported. Previously on the plans by Motti
Kohana, which is basically Mossad, to bring in US and
Egyptian contractors. And actually the BBC was one of
the few media outlets to pick up this story and to point out the
fact that US and Egyptian contractors are now working in
Gaza screening cars as they pass through a checkpoint.
But of course the BBC doesn't find any problem with that.
That is not by any means a violation of Palestinian
sovereignty, which of course it is.
And then of course, this is all combined with what's going on in
South Lebanon with the increase of operations inside the West
Bank, which were predicted with Trump's election, that Israel
would perceive that it now has the green light to effectively
ethnic cleanse Janine and the rest of the West Bank.
And if we actually look at the report itself, what they're
saying is that the operation and Janine Operation Iron Wall will
be unprecedented in its size and scope, and that the military
operation in Jenin began with a drone attack on infrastructure,
he further said. Military analyst Amir Bachbot
further said that the operation will continue for as long as
needed, noting that the goal is to secure the Israeli army's
freedom of operation throughout the West Bank and destroy and
neutralise terrorists in inverted commerce,
infrastructure and time bombs. So basically Gaza for the time
being is finished. The Zionist movement has
transferred to the West Bank. Thank you, Vanessa.
Thank you very much for that. Plenty to talk about an extra
the day for sure Charles. Well, we've got another chance
we have. Yes, we'll go straight to.
A slide now showing the King's visit to Auschwitz, Which ties
in with the commemoration of the Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday
the 27th of January, marking 80 years since the liberation of
the Auschwitz camp. Now, this is something that the
king himself has described as a very as being a very personal, a
deeply personal pilgrimage, which might seem like a slightly
odd remark for somebody that has no personal connection either to
the place or any of the people who are involved or were
involved in it. But nonetheless, this has become
part of a of a very, very big splash of news and and
information and all leading to a particular point, which I, I
will come on to a little bit later.
But just to give an idea of of the significance of this, the
royal family typically from their Twitter profiles send out
about one message a day. They sent out nine tweets
specifically about the Holocaust Memorial Day.
Of course the Prime Minister Keir Starmer was at Auschwitz on
17th of January where he said time and again we condemn this
hatred and we boldly say never again.
But where is never again when we see the poison of anti semitism
rising around the world in the aftermath of October the 7th?
Where is never again when the pulse of fear is beating in our
own Jewish community as people are despicable targeted once
again for the very same reason because they are Jewish.
Now I think he's taking some great liberty there to suggest
that this is or any of what he's describing is because they are
Jewish is is a point too far. David Lammy hosted a a reception
at the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office and that was
with the Israeli Embassy. And he goes on to say I'm proud
to host you all in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development
Office on Holocaust Memorial Day and I've been so glad to come
into this job. As the UK holds the presidency
of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, I want to
thank all those involved in running our presidency, in
particular Eric Pickles, whose work as envoy only reinforces
the cross party nature of our country's commitment to
Holocaust remembrance. One of the projects we've been
sponsoring during our presidency has been 80 Objects, 80 Lives,
curated by the Association of Jewish Refugees and the UK
Holocaust Memorial Foundation. This exhibition connects the
testimonies of 80 survivors with 80 objects from before Now.
The Holocaust Memorial is something that we've talked
about a lot on UK column before because of the way in which it
has been a process by which planning permission has been
ridden roughshod over by successive governments.
But also to point out that quite specifically, the area in
question, which is Victoria Tower Gardens, the South Palace
of Westminster, is subject to restrictions on such
developments. Also worth noting that it
contains the Buxton Memorial, which you can see in the
foreground on the right of your picture there, but also the
Burgers of Calais and Monument to Emmeline Pankhurst, among
others. But of course, we are told that
the Holocaust must assume precedent, despite the fact that
it did not take place in this country.
Further, the Holocaust galleries are just over the river at the
Imperial War Museum, shown on the map there, less than a mile
away from the proposed site. So this is absolutely something
that it it deserves further scrutiny.
But back in September, Kier Starmer spoke at the Holocaust
Education Trust, where he referenced online misinformation
and conspiracy theories and again reinforced this point
about building a a national Holocaust Memorial and learning
centre, even though planning permission has not been granted.
And he said that well build it next to Parliament boldly,
proudly, unapologetically, not as a Jewish community
initiative, but as a national initiative, a national statement
of the truth of the Holocaust. The so this apart from this just
being a corruption of of the planning process or and the
restrictions on development in the Tower Gardens.
It is also, of course, dismissing all the other things
that are that are going on there.
He says that we've got to be bolder and more defiant about
the national importance of Holocaust education.
As you would all know, the Holocaust is on the curriculum
at Key Stage 3, and there is currently a review of our
National Curriculum. But tonight I'm making two
decisions in advance of that review.
First, the Holocaust will remain on the curriculum come what may.
And 2nd, even schools who do not currently have to follow the
national curriculum will have to teach the Holocaust.
When the new curriculum comes in for the first time, studying the
Holocaust will become a critical, vital part of every
single student's identity. And not just studying it,
learning from it too. So it seems reasonable to ask
why this subject should be the only one forced into the
curriculum by law. Now, closely related to this is
the news from just over a week ago from the Knesset saying that
the final readings have been approved for the 2nd and 3rd
readings in the prohibition on denial of the events of the
October the 7th 2023 Massacre bill, which has been sponsored
by a group of members of the Knesset. 16 of them supported
the bill without any opposing votes or abstentioned.
It's also proposed to add a new offence according to which
person who publishes statements denying the October the 7th
massacre with the intent of defending the Hamas terrorist
organisation and its partners or expressing sympathy or
identification with them, will be charged with a criminal
offence bearing a penalty of five years imprisonment.
This really does seem like a very significant move to make
and I'm describing a quote here to Saint Augustine.
Whether or not he said it or rate it is neither here nor
there, but it is as follows. The truth is like a lion, you
don't have to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend
itself. Now I've run over, but we will
be talking about this in extra because I would certainly like
Vanessa's comment on all of this and where it's going.
Indeed, Vanessa. Let me welcome you back.
And well, Trump then, has been in the media in the last day or
two for many, many things. But one of the things that's
grabbed the headlines has been his comments on Gaza.
Yes, I. Mean as I've mentioned.
Many times, you know, US foreign policy is basically A tag team
event. Biden devastated Gaza during his
presidency, and Trump is now coming in to try and put into
effect some of the ideas that were raised during the genocide
against the Palestinians that began 100 years ago but
obviously intensified after October the 7th.
So this is his idea to move the Gazans to Egypt and Jordan,
which of course we've heard before.
Jared Kushner, his son in law, was talking about developing the
Gaza waterfront territory into a new kind of real estate project
back in March 2024 and had absolutely no problem with the
ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in order to allow this to
happen. So let's just play a section of
what Trump said while he was boarding Air Force One.
So the sound is is not great, but I think you can pick up
pretty much what he's saying. Looking at the whole Gaza Strip,
right? Now, and it's a mess.
It's a real. You'd like Jordan to house
people, to take people. I'd like Egypt to take people.
I'm meeting with a talking to General El Sisi tomorrow
sometime over there. And I'd like Egypt to take
people and I'd like Jordan to take people.
I could. I mean, you're talking about
probably 1,000,000, 1/2 people and we just clean out that whole
thing. I mean the language, you know,
we just. Clean out the whole thing.
Now, this isn't a new idea. This is a leaked U.S. cable on X
published by Mohammad Chouhader, Gazan analyst and journalist.
So it's a leaked U.S. cable from 2004 where Israel's Nation
Security Council chief Gora Island admits that Gaza is a
huge concentration camp and calls for grabbing 600
kilometres. From the Sinai.
And of course, it's worth pointing out that the HTS
unelected government that is now in control pretty much in in
Syria and of course is collaborating with Israel, has
elements within Jordan and Egypt that are already to some degree
being triggered to destabilise those countries.
Should of course they not agree with Trump's plan to deport
Palestinians to both Jordan and Egypt.
Now this is quite interesting because another idea was also
posed that Trump was thinking of sending 100,000 Gazan refugees
to Albania. Albanian Prime Minister Eddie
Rama on Monday rejected reports that his country is holding
talks with the US on taking in 100,000 refugees.
And yet again, we have the Jared Kushner connection here, who is
looking at developing with Gulf money, Sazan Island off the
coast of Albania, which was a former Soviet Union military
outpost and chemical weapons facility.
Now it is Italian Albanian presumably working to combat
drug trafficking. So interesting scenario there.
I'm not quite sure how the Albanian connection comes into
that. If if anyone in the audience has
an idea, please let us know and we can talk about it in extra.
Thank you. Vanessa, thank you for.
That and well, we've got to finish because we are absolutely
out of time. So thanks to Vanessa.
Thank you to Charles. We will be back in a few minutes
on the members live stream for some extra stay with us.
Otherwise, don't forget the interview 1:00 PM tomorrow and
back for the news 1:00 PM on Friday.
See you then. Bye, bye, bye bye.