Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 7th of
January, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your host, Mike Robinson. Joining me today by videolink
are Charles Mallett and Vanessa Bailey.
Later in the program, Charles will be covering the state of
Britain's armed forces in a time of piracy in the from the United
States. Vanessa, we'll have more on
Venezuela and also substax response to online safety
requirements. And we'll have a farming update
and the UK's government's shiny new cybersecurity plan to talk
about. But we're going to begin today
with the situation with vaccinations in the UK.
And back in August, the government announced that a free
chicken pox vaccine will be offered for the first time to
children across England on the NHS from January this year.
And they said that thousands of children will be protected
against chicken pox for the first time.
So this is so the question is, is this to be a new vaccine
added to the schedule? Well, no.
In fact, GP practices are offering eligible children a
combination vaccine for measles, mumps, rubella and now
varicella, the clinical term for small.
Sorry for chicken pox. Apologies for that.
So MMR has become MMRV as we can see in this Health Security
Agency report here. So the roll out has been
confirmed by the UK Health Security Agency from the 1st of
January this year and MMRV vaccine will be introduced into
the routine childhood immunisation schedule in the UK.
They say that it's going to protect against the the four
diseases that we've mentioned and they say that's been safely
used for a decade over a decade. It's already part of the routine
childhood vaccination schedule in several countries including
Canada, Australia and Germany. And in addition, they're
reporting that the Hib men C vaccine is no longer to be
offered at the routine one year vaccine appointment.
Instead, children are going to get an extra dose of the six in
one vaccine covering diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio,
Hib and hepatitis B. And they also announced that
children born after the 1st of July 2024, for those children a
new 18 month appointment is going to be introduced and at
that, at that appointment, 1/4 dose of the six and one vaccine
is going to be offered at 18 months rather than 12 months.
And then finally, some moving things backwards and forwards
because the second dose of the meningococcal B vaccination,
which was previously offered at 16 weeks, is now moved to 12
weeks. In fact, that's from July last
year. And in order to enable that, the
first dose of the pneumococcal vaccine previously offered at 12
weeks is now going to be offered at 16 weeks.
On top of this, then the mobile vaccine vans are seeing MMRV
added to the list of vaccines they can deliver and pop up
clinics are being rolled out in various parts of the country to
make it more convenient, convenient for people to get
their jobs. Now joining me to discuss this,
I'm really pleased to say, is Doctor Andrew, Doctor Andrew
Wakefield. Welcome to the programme,
Andrew. And I suppose I want to begin by
asking, why do you think the government has decided to add
chicken pox to MMR? Good morning And it's great to
talk to you from Texas. Why they've done it is a mystery
to me. There is a convenience clearly
to combining these shots all in one.
Let me let me take you back to when I was in the UK and my
experience in talking to David Salisbury who was the principal
Medical Officer for vaccines at the time of the Department of
Health. And I done an extensive search
of all the pre licensing safety studies for the single measles
vaccine and the combination MMR vaccine.
And I couldn't find any valid comparisons of the safety
profile of these these these these these two approaches.
And I said to him, what evidence do you have that giving the
triple vaccine, the MMR is as safe as giving the single
vaccines? And he said we had no reason to
assume that the safety profile would be any different.
Now what you're doing is you are giving a human being a
combination of live viruses in a way in which they've never seen
them before. You're giving them together and
you're giving them by injection. You have absolutely no right to
assume anything in terms of it that the impact of that on
safety, none whatsoever. That requires extensive study.
And years ago when I, we didn't have the chicken pox vaccine in
the UK at the time, but years ago when I first spoke to the
media about the possible MMR autism link, I asked for further
studies. That's what I asked for further
studies. It was not don't vaccinate.
It was, we need further research.
Well, that research has now been done.
We're many years on. And I just want to read you this
because this is absolutely essential to to where we're
going with the chicken pox vaccine is this is a review of
all of the papers, 136 papers that purport to examine the link
between vaccines and autism. And it's done by and the
important thing is it's done by a group of people, some of whom
were profound sceptics about the possible link between vaccines
and autism, including Peter McCullough, who's the world's
most published cardiologist who's really come to the fore in
his criticism of the approach to dealing with COVID.
But this is the conclusion of the study, and let me just read
this to you. Combination and early time
routine childhood vaccination constitutes the most significant
modifiable risk factor for autism spectrum disorder.
Combination and early time vaccine.
So here you have a profound concern that the combination
vaccines, including MMR are indeed linked to the increased
risk of autism. Now they're suggesting putting
another vaccine in chicken pox. Well, let's how does this
confound Dr. Solopers opinion all those years ago that it was
reasonable to assume that something you were going to give
essentially to every child in the country and potentially
every child in the world was safe when you had no right to
assume that at all? That the adverse reaction rate
in terms of febrile seizures is double for the MMRV compared
with the MMR it is double. This is published.
These are published data from the manufacturers themselves.
And so it is not innocuous to combine these in a way in which
nature has never seen them before.
It is not innocuous. The other unanticipated effect
of this was that repeated exposure in the environment, the
chicken pox was essential in protecting adults.
What it did is to periodically boost the immune response, the
antibody response to chicken pox and allow people to be protected
into old age. When epidemics of chicken pox
were removed in this country by the routine use of the vaccine,
then children no longer called epidemics.
They were no longer chicken pox, they were no longer epidemics
and that boosting of elderly people did not occur.
And So what we saw in the face of chicken pox vaccination was
an epidemic of shingles in older people because they're immune
response to chicken pox was now diminished.
What did the industry do? The industry had discovered had
created a new disorder vaccine associated shingles.
What did they do? They took the chicken pox
vaccine, they increased its potency times 10 and they called
it a chicken pox vaccine. They had created for themselves
a new market and with it a very painful and debilitating
condition. So there these, these
interventions, these breaches of the sort of natural balance
between man and infection and not without severe consequences.
So is chicken pox a severe disease?
No, absolutely it is not. So does it merit the addition of
a chicken pox vaccine in an untested way to a population?
I don't believe it does. So those are my immediate
thoughts. And as we speak, what has
happened at the Advisory Committee on Immunization
Practices in this country is that they have now delayed the
first MMRV vaccine from infancy until four years of age
precisely because of concerns about the safety profile,
particularly in younger children.
So while one thing is happening in the UK, the years of
experience in the US with this vaccine have led to a different
policy being enacted. Indeed, Thank you very much for
that. And I just want to come back to
the the news here because the MHRA has decided that they are
going to authorize a new mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.
This is called jab. This is called Zipporah man.
And this is the comment that they made.
Patient safety is the is our top priority.
They claimed the approval of Zaparaman provides an
alternative vaccine for use in adults to prevent COVID-19
caused by SARS COV 2. As with all licensed medicines,
we will continue to monitor its safety closely as it becomes
more widely used. And of course, they cite a
yellow card. Once again, I mean just very
briefly because we've only got a few seconds left, but what are
your, what are your thoughts on the continued roll out of this
technology? Well, as John Leake, co-author
with Peter McCullough, said, repeated vaccination, continued
use of the COVID vaccine is for the for the insane.
The safety profile is disastrous and I, I'm extraordinary.
I mean, I'm astonished that it's actually still on the market.
There is a big move in this country, in the US to actually
have it removed from the market. The uptake of booster vaccines
for COVID is, is minimal. People have no longer any faith
in public health and are fully aware of the dangers of, or
certainly there is a growing awareness of the dangers of
these mRNA based product, so I'm astonished that they should
adopt that policy. Indeed.
Well, Doctor Andrew Wakefield, I'm going to say thank you very
much for joining us today. That's been fascinating.
We will hopefully see you back at some point in the future, but
that has been brilliant. Thank you for that.
Let's move on then to the so-called Coalition of the
willing. If we just bring this on screen,
here they are. They're all meeting in Paris
yesterday to discuss security of Ukraine and also what's going to
happen post ceasefire and post peace.
Allegedly. Now the graphic on screen says
coalition of the killing. I would say thank you to Dennis
for for drawing my attention to this variation of the of the
theme. But I think it's quite
appropriate 31 countries were represented at this thing in
person or online. White House envoy Steve Witkoff
and Jared Kushner, of course, were there representing, or at
least they were representing the United States.
Yesterday evening, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron announced at
a joint press conference that they'd made an agreement to post
forces in Ukraine as part of their guarantee to protect its
security. Let's just have a look at what
Starmer had to say here, he said on the deployment of forces to
Ukraine in the event of a peace deal.
This is a vital part of our iron cast commitment to stand with
Ukraine for the long term. It paves the way for the legal
framework under which British, French and partner forces could
operate on Ukrainian soil. And so I can say that following
a ceasefire, the UK and France will establish military hubs
across Ukraine and build protection protected facilities
for weapons and military equipment.
So Charles, let me welcome you to the program now and I'd just
be interested in your thoughts on this and where this takes us.
Good afternoon all and happy New Year.
I think it takes us into entirely the wrong place and
it's a it's a, an escalation tactic sort of beyond compare
really. I think also that, you know, his
statement is very confused and it's not at all clear really
what he does mean. I mean, he even gets cast iron
back to front. So there's, there's a lot more
to to come out, but I would say one thing that's that's been
missed is the way in which this clearly raises the possibility
of triggering of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization. And I just want to articulate
what I mean by that, which is by taking a look at Article 6.
We just pop that on screen, please.
So we've got the the treaty itself from 1949 and Article 6
clarifies the position of Article 5, which is for the
purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the
parties is to include an armed attack on the forces, vessels or
aircraft of any of the parties when in or over these
territories. Now, bearing in mind that
Ukraine is bordered to the West by 4 NATO countries, Romania,
Hungary, Slovakia and one other the the IT entirely raises the
possibility that that the movement of troops in and around
Ukraine and the area to the West has a significant potential to
to trigger this simply in a way, possibly by accident.
But I think it's commonly assumed that Article 5 relates
to a territorial incursion, when actually it doesn't need to.
It could, for the sake of argument, be British troops
operating in Romania or Poland, as opposed to an attack on
Poland or the Polish people. I think that point's worth
making. Absolutely.
Now let's continue with Starmer then, because he went on to say
this and we'll keep up the pressure on Russia, including
further measures on the oil traders and shadow fleet
operating operators funding Putin's war chest.
Which is pretty hilarious because Trump has plans to seize
what's being described by mainstream press as a tanker
involved in Venezuela and Venezuelan oil trade, the Bella
one. Except that the Bella one is no
longer the Bella one. It's now the marinara and it's
been reflagged as Russian. Now Forces News is carrying the
headline. Ghost riders arrive in the UK
and online chatter suggests something big is going down.
The article reports that flight tracking data and local
eyewitness reports have shown that at least 10 C 17 flights
have landed at 2 RAF bases, RAF Mildenhall and RAF Fairford and
they have unloaded Special Forces helicopters, U.S. special
Forces helicopters which have subsequently been seen on low
altitude flights. At least two AC130J gunships
have been seen. Flight tracking data is showing
the presence of U.S. Navy P8A aircraft flying patrols
over Irish waters because the, uh, Marinero is in waters near
Ireland's so-called exclusive economic zone.
And according to the BBC, then Russia has deployed Navy vessels
to export, uh, to, sorry to escort, uh, the oil tanker, umm,
And, uh, so, I mean, this is looking very Cold War like in
it's sort of standoff between US and potentially US and Russia
here. But in the meantime, on Monday
night, uh, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
Stephen Miller was speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper and he said
this. We live in a world in which you
can talk all you want about international niceties and
everything else, but we live in a world in a real world.
In a real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is
governed by force, that is governed by power.
These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since
the beginning of time. And not to be outdone, P Texas
now, of course, Secretary of State for war is heading around
the world saying things like we're re establishing deterrence
that's so absolute and so unquestioned that our enemies
will not dare to test us. Now He was he said that speaking
to workers at Newport, Newport News VA's shipyard on Monday, on
Monday, this was he said that he's calling, sorry, he's
calling his tour the Arsenal of freedom tour just so as you
know, and of course, he's hyping up the military industrial
complex. Let's just give you a sort of
sense of of what he's talking about.
Have a listen to this. Now here we are in 2026, and
President Trump is reestablishing dominance and
deterrence in our own hemisphere.
You will be a part of that lineage.
That's pretty cool. I get chills saying it and
thinking about it. There's something really weird
about that. But anyway, we'll talk about
that an extra, I have no doubt. He went on to say that the world
is taking notice. They're noticing American power,
they're noticing American strength, they're noticing
American clarity and leadership. We recognize we're the new era
of great power competition, a generational struggle to mean
peace, intend peace through strength, and we'll rise to meet
that challenge. That's why we proudly call call
ourselves the Department of War, not the Department of Defence.
Not because we seek war, but because we truly understand that
in order to ensure peace, you need to be prepared to deter war
and if necessary, decisively win it.
Our purpose is not to be reactive, but dominant so that
no enemy enemy, any enemy can ever challenge the United States
of America. It's quite incredible the
rhetoric coming out of him. But of course, just to finish
this off, then let's just quickly talk about the Greenland
issue. And before we do that, let's
just remind ourselves ourselves of Trump's position.
In action against Greenland. Well, I don't want to talk about
Greenland. Let's talk about Venezuela,
Russia, Ukraine. Don't worry about Greenland in
about two months. Let's talk about Greenland in 20
days on Venezuela, by the way. I have to, I will say this about
Greenland. We need Greenland from a
national security situation. It's so strategic right now,
Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all
over the place. We need Greenland from the
standpoint of national security. And Denmark is not going to be
able to do it, I can tell you. So that's his position.
The question is, what's the British position?
So here's Yvette Cooper speaking in the House of Commons.
The House will have seen recent comments from the United States
and from Denmark regarding Greenland.
Let me be very clear on the UK position.
Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Our close European partners, our long standing NATO allies and
all our countries work closely together on security issues and
will always do so. The future of Greenland is a
matter for the Greenlanders and Danes and no one else.
And Starmer was echoing those in comments, those comments and
comments that he had made. And so, Charles, question is,
are we are? Where do we draw the line?
Are we going to war with the United States over Greenland?
Do you think Europe? I mean not, that's just not
necessarily just the UK. Well, those that are pulling
some of the levers are determined that we go to war
with somebody exactly who it turns out to be sort of yet to
be decided. But I, I concluded last year's
news on Friday the 19th with what the Secret Intelligence
Service and the Ministry of Defence were saying.
So we'll just have a look at the these two on screen now, Blaise
Metro Welly, head of MI 6 and Richard Knighton, head of the
armed forces. And they were absolutely saying
that whilst there's been plenty of chatter throughout the course
of 2025, we're now clear there is a single focus and it is war
with Russia by some means or other.
Now, of course, this reinforced the narrative of the twin, well,
sort of combinations really of the state of emergency leading
through to the very real prospect of conscription.
And of course this is to sell us the whole of society approach to
war. Now, as far as the media were
concerned, obviously there were many people all over this, John
Simpson being a notable one, writing here with BBC in depth
saying that he's reported on 40 wars, but he's never seen a year
like 2025. And lo and behold, of course, he
too is pointing towards Russia, saying it's becoming clear that
one of them, one of the wars he's talking about, one of the
one of the sort of areas of conflict, has geopolitical
implications of unparalleled importance.
He means Ukraine. However, he does then go on to
think about it somewhat by saying that if you thought World
War Three would be a shooting match with nuclear weapons,
think again. It's much more likely to be a
collection of diplomatic and military manoeuvres which will
see autocracy flourish. It could even threaten to break
up the Western alliance. Well, quite where he's been to
provoke a statement about autocracy flourishing as though
it's as it's not yet happened remains to be answered.
But I think I would agree with him about the mixture of
diplomatic and military manoeuvres, but also the ceding
of power and control to the civilian entities that are
providing the means by which any sort of war might be prosecuted.
Whether that is cyber or via space, or indeed via much of the
hardware that of course is not yet owned or controlled by armed
forces. And on that very question we
consider that again. Just before Christmas, the
United Kingdom sent yet another package of air defence support
to Ukraine, £600 million worth of British made kit.
Begging the question. Of course it was.
Sorry. First of all, just specifically,
it was Raven and Grave Hawk counter Shyred turrets set to
bolster Ukraine's defences this winter.
OK, fair enough. But the but the question is to
be operated by whom? And when we think back to the
death of Lance Corporal George Wholey of the Special Forces
Support Group again just before Christmas, the question has not
satisfactorily been answered of what was he doing there?
So, so the question now is how is this situation is going to be
handled by the Ministry of Defence posturing on the one
hand almost Hegseth style, saying that peace through
strength and indeed regarding Russia as as an adversary means
that we must meet that threat with an appropriate response.
Now one part of this has been what might be described as the
somewhat laughable idea that recruits will go through a sort
of gap year process that be an Armed Forces Foundation scheme
to the BBC here reporting on what the government's describing
as a gap year scheme for long young people to bolster skills
and leadership. Now when you read the detail,
actually it's projecting that 150 people might come out of
this by the year 2026. It's not going to make a huge
amount of difference. However, what I would say is
that I think it will normalise that relationship with the armed
forces for young people. And also I think one shouldn't
forget the comments made by Rishi Sunak when he was in
office as Prime Minister talking about a a form of compulsory
service and when pushed, he said that people could have their
bank accounts frozen if they didn't comply with the request
for such a service. This could be the sort of the
thin end of the wedge. Not forgetting of course that
Serco, who take over the recruitment contract from Capita
in 2027 has been an unmitigated disaster with Capita.
But of course, Serco themselves are still in the position of
recruiting for the recruiting positions.
You couldn't really make it up Now.
The next thing is that the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill,
which the Labour government are effectively dismantling in order
that there can be prosecutions of British servicemen where
there will not be prosecutions for members or former members of
the IRA. And the Telegraph here reporting
released having published a letter from special forces,
former special forces personnel and I'll just take a a brief
excerpt from this, which is that commanders now hesitate fearing
years of litigation. Troops feel abandoned.
The public smells cover up allies question our secrecy and
reliability. This self sabotage needs no
foreign hand in this troubles bill.
The government is complicit in this war on our on our on our
armed forces. So it's really not looking good.
And of course the prevailing sense of the drop in morale from
the inside is articulated very well and very sadly by Sean
Raymond in the Daily Mail, who's just written an article on the
29th suicide that's taken place within the Rifles.
Admittedly the Rifles does now comprise 5 battalions so that is
quite a number of personnel but nonetheless a very sad statistic
and and indeed a telling one. Now on the procurement front,
the latest disaster is of course with the Ajax armoured vehicles
and we've just got a a clip from Luke Pollard, the Armed Forces
Minister, telling us what the score is.
That means in the event of any concerns during an exercise on
use of Ajax that they should be reported.
And as soon as concerns were reported, within 30 minutes of
that every, a single Ajax vehicle had stopped being used
and questions were asked to everyone involved as to how they
were feeling. That was the right approach,
that safety measure was the right thing.
Now we've just had Andy Wakefield on the programme
talking about vaccines and whether or not something should
be used on the basis of an assumption.
And it's interesting to see Luke Pollard there using the
precautionary principle in the way that it was intended, which
is if there is a risk or the suggestion of a risk, then you
stop the activity in order to work out what's going on.
That has been done in this instance, but bearing in mind
the sheer cost of the Ajax programme and the length of time
it's taken to have taken the entire fleet off the off the
road is spelling significant disaster for the Ministry of
Defence. Or as one might consider
labelling them, the Ministry of Pretence because they're putting
out the idea that we are ready to mobilise and to fight a war
with Russia, whilst demonstrating absolutely no
evidence of that being their position.
I mean, Mike, I don't know if you've got any, any particular
comment on the way this is looking not just from within the
United Kingdom, but what Russia, for example, might be thinking.
Well, no, I mean, I would the first question is what, why?
Maybe you can answer this. Why is the UK so bad at armoured
vehicles? First of all, because we seem to
have problems with successive versions of that.
But the, yes, I take your point about the, the precautionary
principle being used, that's only ever used when it suits.
It's not used with respect to electromagnetic radiation.
It's not used with respect to medical products.
It's only used in certain circumstances.
But I mean, what's your experience with this, Charles?
I mean the, the, the the armour that is provided for the armed
forces just seems to be subpar the whole time.
I think actually it's a factor that that spreads far further
than just armoured vehicles. I mean procurement as a whole.
And actually this pertains very, very much to the relationship
with the recruiters that you're forcing people who have no
commercial experience to try to make deals with civilian
organisations. And of course the military
personnel change, the civilian ones don't necessarily.
So you have an awful lot of people driving a project who
don't really know what it is they're doing.
By the time the project is delivered, it's, it's by and
large obsolete. You've also got the issue of
many, many organisations being involved in the same
organization. And in fact, it's worth pointing
out that L bit Systems designed the early warning system E laws
for Ajax. So you've got Israeli parts in
the Ajax fleet, which is, you know, first of all a compromise,
but also yet another complication to to the process.
Well, we'll be talking about Israeli involvement in another
process later on in the program. But before we get to that, well,
actually there will probably be some discussion about Israel in
this segment as well. Let me welcome, welcome, Vanessa
to the program. And well, obviously since the
last time you were on, we've had big changes, particularly in
Venezuela. So bring us up to date with with
your take on what's happened over the past week or so.
Yeah. Thank you, Mike, and welcome to
the new year everyone. Another year of turbulence of
course started very quickly on the 3rd of January with the
removal of President Maduro and effectively a major aggression
by Trump and the US against Venezuela.
Mike and I have had recently various conversations covering a
lot of the aspects of what is happening in Venezuela, but I'm
going to focus on particularly the aspect of Zionist or Israeli
influence on what happened in Venezuela.
So what has been the chatter in US think tanks for actually
years now? Reference Venezuela is
effectively the influence of Iran and of course the
resistance movements. If we can just put the the the
article up on the screen, Maduro, Hezbollah, Nexus, how
Iran backed networks prop up the Venezuelan regime.
This is in Atlantic Council. And this is definitely something
that not only Netanyahu has been pushing Trump with regards to
the threat from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, but also the previously
Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado, who was considered to
be a viable opposition to Maduro.
She's now been dropped by Trump. And then so she was basically
allowing herself very much with Israel.
Then This was another recent article.
There is various there are various articles including in
Fox News, Maduros Terror Island, Hezbollah in Venezuela, the IRGC
fake passports proxy hub. Let's have a look at the island
that they're claiming to be infested by Hezbollah.
You can barely see it on the map.
It's Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela in the
Caribbean there, which apparently now has become a
training ground for Hezbollah, which is I've struggled to find
any actual substantiation for that claim.
But then, of course, we have to remember that just prior to the
removal of Maduro and the attack on Venezuela, after a massive
military buildup by the United States under Trump, there was a
visit by Netanyahu, who had this press conference with President
Trump. And let's see what they
basically covered in part of that press conference.
You needed a very special man to to really carry through and
really help Israel through this horrible jam.
You know, these are major factions.
And it started with our negotiation with Iran.
I think it probably started with Solomani.
That was really where you mentioned that today, which
started with Solomani. Bad guy doing bad things,
hurting a lot of people, killing the American soldiers and other
soldiers. But it started right there would
probably be the starting point. And then from that point
forward, but you would you have a wartime Prime Minister at the
highest level. There could be other wartime
prime ministers, but they'd lose.
He won. And I think the people of Israel
appreciate it. I think a lot of the people in
the world appreciate it, actually.
And because of that victory, we were able to get peace in the
Middle East. So of course, he's referring to
the assassination of Haj Qasem Soleimani, who was instrumental
in fighting both ISIS and al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria.
And then let's have a look at what they say about the Abraham
Accords, which of course is designed to bring various Arab
states under the control or into the sphere of influence of
Israel. So let's roll this.
Tell us. Something about your plan to
expand Abraham Accords? Well, the Abraham Accords are a
great, there's a great achievement of Jared and
everybody that I mean, it was one of the great achievements.
They'll be expanded. So when he's talking about
expansion, of course, what he's also referring to are the Isaac
Accords, which now are seeking to capture or a secure a
greatest fear of influence for the Zionist movement in Latin
America started with President Mile of Argentina.
Interestingly enough, Danny Danon, this was the former UN
ambassador for Israel, if we can just put that quote up on the
screen. Israel has long been a beacon of
innovation and resilience. I am pleased to see that Isaac
Accord's initiative get off the ground and thank President
Milay, Sorry for setting an example for his neighbors in the
region. Now, I find this particularly
interesting because, as the following short video will
demonstrate, Argentina was actually among the list of
countries that Theodore Herzl, one of the founders of the
Zionist movement, was considering full settlement
alongside Palestine. So let's just have a look at
this short video. Those described Argentina as one
of the most fertile countries in the world and said that the
authorities would derive considerable profits from the
station of a portion of its territory.
In the following years, the Zionist movement also considered
other territories such as Sinai in Egypt, Cyprus Island and
today's Kenya to establish a state.
But in the meantime, settlers continue to enter Argentina.
Hundreds arrived in 1889, with the help of the Jewish
Colonization Association, they bought land and founded
Moyesville, some 600 kilometers from the capital Buenos Aires.
At its peak in the 1940's, the colony was composed of about
5000 Zionist settlers. In fact, Moise Villa Ville is
known as the Jerusalem of Argentina.
So who's already signed on to the Isaac Accords in Latin
America? If we have a look at the map,
you can see there of course Argentina, from which the entire
project emanated, Uruguay, Panama and Costa Rica.
So to the South and to the north of Venezuela, and then basically
if we look again, just there's another section of the press
conference between Trump and Netanyahu that of course, all of
this is very much pushing towards a greater escalation of
aggression against Iran. So let's just roll this.
So Iran has been greatly reduced in power, prestige.
I don't want to use the word humiliation because, you know,
they're trying to build up again.
But we can't let them build up because if they build up, they
can't be peace in the Middle East.
It was a mistake, You know, when they wiped out Iraq.
Iraq and Iran were about the same power and they fought each
other with different names for 1000 years.
And then our country came out and blew up one of those two
countries, namely Iraq. Then all of a sudden, Iran had
the whole Middle East all to itself.
But that's not true anymore. That's not true anymore.
So clearly, Iran is definitely on the target list.
And as we spoke about, Mike, there have been a series of
other countries within the resistance axis that have been
targeted since the fall of Syria.
And I just also want to point out that I spoke to Jose Bio
Morghi, the Ambassador for Venezuela here in Lebanon
yesterday. Mike, I know that you
interviewed him a little while back.
He actually is pretty buoyant about the situation.
He said on the streets, the government is back in control.
It didn't lose the control at all.
Opposition didn't come out on the streets at all after the
kidnap of President Maduro. There was no surrender.
The Cuba and special forces were fighting and of course, were
killed in the attack. And he said that the attack was
actually huge, not just the helicopters that were seen in
the video, but also a huge number of drones and jets.
So it was very difficult for the air defenses to respond
effectively. But he is relatively buoyant.
We can maybe talk more about that in EXTRA.
But then coming back to the Israeli influence in what's
happening in Venezuela, I want to introduce Paul Singer, the
billionaire Trump megadono set to make a killing on Venezuela
oil. Who is Singer?
This is from the article that Common Dreams In November 2025,
less than two months before Trump's operation to take over
Venezuela, Singer's investment firm, Elliot Investment
Management and one of its subsidiaries, Amber Energy
linked inked, sorry, a highly fortuitous deal.
It purchased Citgo, the US based subsidiary of Venezuela's state
owned oil company, for 5.9 billion.
Now Venezuela has valued that company at around 18 billion.
So this was a sale that was forced by a Delaware court after
Venezuela defaulted on its bond payments, of course, down to the
pressure of sanctions on them by the United States because they
dared to nationalize their oil. The court appointed special
master who forced the sale, Robert Pincus, is a member of
the board of directors for the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, AIPAC. Which is very interesting
because David Miller went on to X to point out the fact that
Singer is also the 6th largest donor to AIPAC.
He's a major benefactor of groups like Friends of the IDF,
the Israeli military. That have been committed
genocide in Palestine. He supported United Hatsala, an
Israeli volunteer EMS organization has links to
donations for programs that benefit Zionist settlement
programs in Palestine. So again, we see here the
Zionist hand, even behind the scenes, destabilizing and
weakening Venezuela. Thank you for this.
And just for those who don't know, what's an EMS
organization? Oh, actually, I'm not sure.
OK. OK, well, we'll find that out
for extra. I meant to check.
Yeah, OK. Find that out for extra and
we'll let everybody know. OK, Thank you Vanessa for that.
Let's move on then. If you like what the UK column
does, please support us. We do need your ongoing support.
If you would like to support us, there's a link on the front page
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Do share any material you find on the UK column, website or any
of the other platforms that's ours.
Please do that. And that helps us deal with the
censorship regime. Now tonight, we're getting very
controversial because Jeremy's going to be speaking to Bart
Seybrol about moon landings. That's 7:00 PM tonight and well,
tomorrow at 1:00 PM, Vanessa and I have recorded the next episode
of the Syria Podcast. We're not looking at Syria
specifically because obviously we're looking at the
implications of what happened, what has happened in Syria
globally. So let's let's just have a look
at a quick trailer for this. The UK has been less happy to
welcome Middle Eastern Christians into British
territory, which is kind of interesting.
But we're too busy welcoming the attack theories.
Yes, exactly. Syria was a linchpin really for
the entire global resistance axis or the remaining
independent countries that opposed imperialism and opposed
the Zionist occupation of Palestine as being a core
element of their foreign policy positions, right?
And, and so that goes from Iran, Yemen, through the whole of the
Middle East or, or West Asia, but then also expands into
regions of Africa, as we're now seeing coming under attack.
And of course, Latin America. Venezuela was an integral part
of the resistance axis. So Machado is also pushing this
rhetoric that Hezbollah is establishing itself in
Venezuela, that Iran is embedding itself in Venezuela,
Hamas is embedding itself in Venezuela, and so therefore
Venezuela represents a direct threat to Israel.
And of course, I'm sure that this was discussed between
Netanyahu and Trump. So 1:00 PM tomorrow for that.
Please join us for that. And then another reminder that
on Sunday at 7:00 PM, Jake is speaking to Abby Roberts and
painting Abby Roberts as part of the next, This is the next
edition of the 1000 Words podcast.
So join us at 7:00 PM on Sunday for that.
OK, Vanessa, let's come back to you then.
And staying with. Well, we're talking about
censorship now. And well over the last little
while we've been talking about the Online Safety Act of course,
for years in fact, but particularly in recent times,
the age verification requirements, this is starting
to affect some platforms, particularly sub stack.
Yes, many of us have been remarking on the loss of
subscriptions and the fact that sub stack is divided basically
into posts, which are equivalent to articles and notes, which is
a little bit like Facebook. You can just put out information
and receive comments, but even the notes now are being age
restricted. Not for everyone, only for
specific accounts that are of course dissident accounts and
countering establishment narratives.
So this is the sub stock official view on the Online
Safety Act. We believe that a Free Press is
essential for a free society and that in the modern world, that
means a free Internet. That's why we work to preserve
freedom of expression on the platform while putting
publishers and their communities in control.
Right? Well, this is not entirely true.
I mean, they go on to say with that context, the UK is now
requiring online platforms to label certain types of content
and ask people in the country to verify their age before viewing
it with Australia. And Australia is now included,
expected to introduce similar requirements in mid-december.
Only specific categories fall under these rules and we've
shared more details in our support page.
So what they're then saying is this connect your connection
with your subscribers won't change and the way you publish
content for your audience remains the same.
Your e-mail list publishing process and relationship with
your subscribers are not affected.
Totally untrue. And so basically we, we've
reached a point where thinking coalition, one of the sub stack
media outlets, and I highly recommend following them, has
basically piled put together a letter to be sent to the CEO of
Substack called Fighting back against Substack censorship.
You can check it out. It'll be linked to in the show
notes. And basically in that he, he, he
lays out the problems that we've all been experiencing, which are
effectively loss of subscriptions, people unable to
view our posts. Of course, they can still view
many of the mainstream media outlets that, that are still
contributing to sub stack. They aren't being affected by
any kind of request for identification.
And the fact is also that if you subscribe to sub stack or if you
subscribe to my sub stack, you already have to provide your ID
through a credit card. So why on earth are you having
to then repeat that process? According to Ofcom, there's
nothing in the Online Safety Act requiring contact that's not
harmful to children to be age gated, and there's also no
requirement to restrict legal content for adult users.
Providers required to use age checks should also seek to avoid
unnecessary content restrictions, however, according
to a website called Cyber Eagle. Graham Smiths blog on law, it,
the Internet and online media. He goes into some detail about
the Online Safety Act, Guardian of Free Speech, and at one point
he talks about the Age Verification Providers
Association that calls out detractors, sorry detractors,
labeling it as an instrument of censorship that stifles online
expression. This narrative completely
misrepresents the acts purpose and effect.
However, as Cyber Eagle says, one purpose of the ACT is
suddenly to tackle illegal content.
The purpose, however, is only the label on the legislative tin
Effect is what the tin contains. Inside this tin we find
substantive obligations that will inevitably result in legal
content being removed, not through over caution, but as a
matter of what the ACT expressly requires.
And so just part of the latter. That thinking coalition has
written to the CEO of Substantive Introducing such aid
restrictions may represent a breach of Substack requirement
to protect users rights to freedom of expression as set out
under Part 1, Section 1 of the OSA.
Substack acknowledges the possibility for potential errors
and mislabelling of account content.
However, it appears very unlikely that these restrictions
have been applied to a group of accounts who, broadly speaking,
produce similar content that challenges the mainstream
narrative. By chance.
In our capacity as users, we have not faced any equivalent
restrictions when accessing mainstream media content posted
on Sub stack. And he gives some examples.
It's also a point to make that none of our content should be
labeled as a threat to children or or promoting self harm.
So why are we being targeted? Of course we know why that's a
rhetorical question. Oh, by the way, EMS, emergency
medical services. OK, thank you.
Thank you for that. Well, of course, this was the,
this was the the intent from the beginning.
That's what the UK column was saying.
Pretty much from 20/17/2018 when the original online harms white
paper came out, we said this was going to be the inevitable
result. So there are no surprises and
Ofcom can say, well, it's not supposed to be used in this way
and the people that are supporting the regime can say
similar. That doesn't change the reality
and and the intent was clear from the beginning because if
you remember the idea of what what was considered hot, legal
but harmful had to be dealt with.
And you know that it all comes down to who defined harmful.
And so this was absolutely expected.
Charles, let's come back to you then and bring us up to date
with what's been going on with farming in the UK.
Well, we go back to 2025 initially, which was a year of
great turmoil and huge pressure for the farming and agriculture
industry in the United Kingdom. But you may recall that the
supposed publication of the Farm Profitability Review was meant
to be in October last year. That was held up.
But just before we do look at it, of course you will take note
that no expense has been spared in producing that cover image.
The back in November it was suggested that the Treasury had
buried the farming report because of the twin controversy
with the proposed change to inheritance tax.
And of course, the author of the profitability review is none
other than Minette Batters, the former president of the NFU.
And she was questioning the fag packet calculations that were
conducted by the Treasury and Defra in order to come up with
the proposed figures for those that would be affected by the
changes to inheritance tax. But now we've moved to the
review itself, which was in fact published just before Christmas,
but it wasn't time for UK column to deal with it then.
It's a very wordy document and a lot of it is very personal to
Minette Batters. But she does also have insights
due to her position with NFU. And one thing just to sort of
set the tone, that does appear to be an interesting point to
make. She says that in in her time
with NFU she often got a recurring negative answer from
Whitehall if she was asking if farming matters and the answer
often was no because it's only nought .6% of GDP.
Now of course that obscures the truth of the matter in so far as
the rest of the effect on the economy from what's produced and
then processed and then just exchange and all the rest of it
going right through to the to the end user, she says.
And another point she makes at the outset is that all sectors
have in common is a sharp rise in fixed costs.
Energy costs have risen significantly since the start of
the agricultural transition. And we'll come to exactly why
that may be. She then makes the point which
of course refers back to the earlier reports on this idea of
national security. The government has made a
commitment that food security is national security.
Yes, indeed they have. And how they're going to live up
to that. And then finally, she says in an
age of global insecurity and cyber attacks, building local
food resilience is equally essential to support our
national Just in Time food distribution network.
So what she does in response to setting out these sort of series
of problems is to put forward a series of solutions that I think
one must be frank, are are not groundbreaking and are not
likely to have a significant impact for the farmers.
And you see the image that's on screen in just a second is
rather sort of dumbing down, making the whole thing seem
rather very you simplistic and and childlike, as though if you
follow these simple steps, your farm will be in profit and
there's absolutely nothing to worry about.
Of course, while she does concede that farmers have been
incentivised not to produce food with all the environmental Land
Management scheme, she does very much bang the drum for not just
there being a climate emergency and that land owners and farmers
are responsible for the solution, but also that
renewable energy should form part of the backbone of the
agricultural economy. And if we just look at the
effect that for, for example, Great British Energy and Great
British Energy nuclear, which has been sort of slowly brought
in line with Great British Energy, just just just to remind
you of these statistics, which is Great British Energy has had
8,000,000, sorry, £8 billion thrown at it to promise to
deliver up to 5% of the requirement for electricity by
the year 2035. That is it.
So it's no wonder that nuclear has been bought in sort of
slightly under the radar in order to make the situation look
better. But of course, things like that
have absolutely driven the cost up.
Now we've seen this before because it was only in January
last year that the government announced very similar sort of
review and reforms. Talking about cast iron
commitments, talk for productions, this was 9th of
January last year in which they said that a cast iron commitment
to food security while introducing reforms to help
farmers diversify their income streams to support them during
poor harvest. OK, what did they actually mean
by that? They meant renewable energy.
That was it. That was their one plan was
sticks and wind turbines or some solar panels on your farm
guarantee yourself some income, never mind about producing food.
We'll call it food security, but actually nothing will really
change and this farm profitability review is not
really moving too far away from that Now.
The other significant change just before Christmas was that
to nobody's great surprise, the government have rode back a
certain amount on the proposed changes to inheritance tax.
But we'll just look at the way that they word it because they
say inheritance tax relief threshold to rise to 2.5 million
for farmers and businesses. Well, in actual fact, it hasn't
changed at all yet because the proposed change was first of
April. And they say having carefully
considered the feedback, the government is going further to
protect more farms and businesses.
And as that belty was overheard saying, sounds like doublespeak
to me because the threshold at the moment is 0.
So for the government to suggest that a change to their policy
before it's actually been enacted is of course
disingenuous and extreme. But just to look at where that
does leave things with the inheritance tax and the
agricultural property relief, we see that what they've done is
allowed 100% relate rate of relief to be set at two and a
half million with a 50% relief thereafter, which means that a
couple will be able to pass on £5,000,000.
Now what I'd like to draw this to a close with is a reminder
that the power lies with the people.
And we've got the grace here reporting that Christmas volumes
for supermarket sales were under pressure despite highest ever
sales. So whilst the amount of money
spent was more than ever before, that's largely an artefact of
the relationship with inflation. Rather than people buying more
stuff, they they were simply paying more for the same amount
or less. Which indicates exactly that.
Something that Minette Batters did not touch on at all, which
is the relationship that the the consumer may have directly with
the farmer and that that is the way that things would change.
And this is something that I wrote about last year on the UK
column Farmers protests the wrong target.
Now of course the inheritance tax thing is going to change.
So there is now the ability for the public to to dramatically
change things for farmers by dealing directly with them,
which is exactly why it is not mentioned in the profitability
review. Thank you, Charles.
Now in this age of technocracy, as we're entering the digital
ID, all the other surveillance and so on that's going on,
you'll be glad to know that since we're handing our DNA
effectively over to the British government that they have just
issued a new cyber action plan. Here it is on screen.
Let's see what this says it says.
Backed by over £210 million, the Government Cyber Action Plan
published on Tuesday sets out how government will rise to meet
the growing range of online threats it underpins.
UK government plans to digitise public services.
This will make more services accessible online, reduce time
spent on phone queues and paperwork, and enable citizens
to access support without repeating information across
multiple departments. These issues can be addressed by
embedding basic software security practices across the
software market. Amongst others, Cisco, Palo Alto
Networks, Sage Santander and NCC Group will come on board as the
schemes ambassadors and Palo Alto Networks, as everyone who's
been paying attention to the UK column for the last year or so
we'll know, is a unit 1800 spawned company.
Therefore where's our data going, set aside Cisco, U.S.
company, Sage Santander, Spanish bank, NCC Group, well at least
it's British apparently. But what?
What exactly will Palo Alto Networks be providing as part of
the government cyber action plan?
I think that's something that we need to invest, investigate some
more. But Charles, let's finish them
with electric vehicles. We will and they have been
pushed very, very hard. They've been subsidised, there
have been all sorts of incentives and encouragements
and the policy is foundering. The wheels are coming off now.
The guidance put out by the government indicates that there
are going to be changes to vehicle tax for electric zero
and low emission vehicles. So they're not going to be
subject in some cases to the same amounts of vehicle tax that
all other vehicles are subject to.
Now. The other thing, the point to
make is from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders
who just published a report yesterday.
They make the point that although there's been huge
investment by manufacturers and there are now over 160 EVs on
the market, with at least 60 more due sorry this year, they
say that uptake on these vehicles has only risen by 24%,
which means that only 1/4 of the models are currently eligible
for the incentive. And the critical part here is
that it's the manufacturers that are shouldering the burden of
driving up demand and in enforcing them to subsidise
their sale by more than 5 billion in 2025.
Now this is equivalent to £11,000 per battery electric
vehicle registered. And their their conclusion here,
which is hard to disagree with, is that such subsidies are
clearly unsustainable. So bad news for the.
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Of course, this is then intertwined slightly with the
relationship between BYD and Tesla.
BYD, the Chinese manufacturer now just overtaken Tesla in
global sales. And interestingly the BYD, their
second biggest market is in fact the United Kingdom.
So it shows that wouldn't affect the subsidies and indeed the
policy of pushing these types of vehicles has had on the
audience. And I just conclude by referring
back to the trade sheets for our relationship with Azerbaijan,
because it looked very likely last year and indeed the year
before that, Azerbaijan was the route through which Russia was
importing vehicles from the UK. But there's been a 55% decrease
over the course of the last year.
And of course, there is a massive relationship between
China and Russia as far as vehicles are concerned.
So a sanctions fail, but also AUK fail by the idea that
sanctions do actually do something, and indeed that
electric vehicles can be sold without end.
Indeed, Thank you for that, Charles.
Thanks to Vanessa and huge thanks to Doctor Andrew
Wickfield for joining us at the beginning of the programme.
We got to finish there for today.
We'll be back in a few minutes for some UK column news extra.
If you're AUK column member, please stay on the live stream
and join us for that if you're not a member and maybe you'd
consider joining and helping us out and also getting access to
that content. So we'll see a few minutes.
Otherwise, don't forget German warfare tonight, my discussion
with Vanessa at 1:00 PM tomorrow, and then we'll be back
for another news program at 1:00 PM on Friday.
We'll see you then. Thanks for joining.