Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 24th of April
2024, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK Column News.
I'm your host, Mike Robinson, joining me by video link.
Today we have Vanessa Bailey and Charles Mallett.
Welcome to the programme both. We're going to get started today
with defence spending and, well, this is the latest report from
the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute which
is having a look at defence spending across the world.
And of course the timing of this is quite appropriate as we'll
come on to in a second with Rishi Sunak in Poland yesterday.
But they're saying that the global defence spending has
reached 2400 and $43 billion in 2023 and that's an overall
increase of 6.8%. We'll look at the country
spending in a second. This is a comment from Nan Tian
saying states are prioritising military strength, but they risk
an action reaction spiral in the increasingly volatile
geopolitical and security landscape.
So this is the first time since 2009 that spending has been up
right across the globe. So let's just have a look at
some of the details of this. United States is up to these
figures are the total that they're spending.
That's not the amount that it's gone up by.
So it's up to $916 billion. And so that's 2.3 up, percent up
in 2023, more spending this year of course already.
But in 2023, across all the NATO, if you take NATO as a
whole, all 31 member states accounted for 1341 billion of
that 2443. So that's over 55%.
Russia is up to $109 billion, so that's a 24% increase.
Hardly surprising. What I find really amusing, of
course, is that the Ministry of Defence continues to pump out
propaganda telling us on their Twitter feed telling us that
Russia is no longer an exporter of defence equipment.
Hardly surprising under the circumstances.
China up to $296 billion and that is a 6% increase.
And Japan in the same region has increased theirs by 11%.
But Ukraine is now one of the major spenders in terms of GDP
anyway, so they're up to £64.8 billion.
That is 37% of its GDP, which makes the 2 1/2% that Rishi
Sunak announced for the UK yesterday look a bit silly.
Perhaps in one cut in one sense. But of course Ukraine starting
to get more money from abroad, as they could have been for
quite some time. But the stalemate over US
funding seems to be broken and I think 98 billion, another 98
billion heading over to Ukraine as a result of that.
So there he is, our glorious Leader with Poland's Glorious
Leader Leader Donald Tusk yesterday with flowers on the
table that all looks very nice while they're talking about
death and destruction across the world.
So let's just have a little look from Rishi or a little listen to
what he had to say yesterday. We did not choose this moment,
but it falls to us to meet it. In a world of increasing
threats, we must show our enemies that we are resolute and
determined, that their attempts to destabilise our world or
redraw its borders by force will fail.
That with our friends and our allies, we'll be at the
forefront of the defence of the free, democratic world.
And under my leadership, the United Kingdom will always stand
up for our interests, deter our enemies, and defend our values.
So hopefully that didn't make people feel too physically.
I'll it certainly did me at 1:00 earlier on when I watched it for
the first time. But let's see what they were
pumping out on Twitter this morning.
Because great propaganda here, £75 billion new funding secured
to fund the greatest strengthening of our National
Defence since the Cold War. To defend the UK and help
Ukraine defend freedom's frontline.
With a record 3 billion this year.
To lead in a more dangerous world.
From native's eastern flank to the Pacific.
With our Aucus allies. To modernize our armed forces.
To be able to fight and win against an enemy.
To support service personnel at the dawn of a dangerous era when
we need them more. And which will put our defence
industry on a war footing with at least £10 billion extra for
munitions. And to ensure that we have the
conventional forces we need to deter rising threats.
So of course while he was in Poland, he also met Jens
Stoltenberg and they of course were extremely excited with this
extra spending. Charles, what are your thoughts
on this? Good afternoon, all.
And I think this is just a sort of gigantic exercise in spin
really, because of course there's so much more to it than
money, which I will come on to in a bit, but it's, I think
completely nonsensical would be the word I choose.
Yes, yes, indeed. So let's come to your segment
then Charles. And more tanks running off the
production line in the UK as a result of this money.
Well, yes, the announcement that the Challenger 3, the latest
iteration in the UKS main battle tank, has rolled off the
production line, although not yet of course operational, but
here we see the Army advertising the soon to be capability or at
least relatively soon. Ryan Metal BAE Systems building
the tank. And of course there's much made
about the prosperity in securing jobs and all the rest of it.
And critically, and this is the important part, the the MO DS
buying 148 of these vehicles at a cost of £800 million.
So it is a lot of money, but I'd like to look back to 1983.
This is my copy of the presentation document at the
release of the original Challenger tank and it's worth
noting then that the MOD bought 420 main battle tanks.
So as Popular Mechanics asks or rather points out at 148.
Whilst it is a new tank and it may be quite a capability, there
are not going to be very many of them.
And indeed to set it within the context of the situation in
Ukraine and Russia at the moment.
The defence of Ukraine. Twitter profile posted that they
claim to have destroyed 6739 Russian tanks since February
2022. Now that may well be a work of
fiction, but nonetheless, 148 main battle tanks set against
that total, whichever way you look at it, is a very, very
small number. So the other thing to to point
out on the the actual capability of it and again to do with the
the situation that the the United Kingdom and the the MOD
and of course the armed forces are involved in.
It's worth pointing out the Challenger Three will be fitted
with an Israeli capability, the active protection system which
effectively is designed to if we just bring that on screen, it's
designed to be able to repel an incoming projectiles.
We just look at the the the text here which describes it as being
the Trophy MV medium variant currently in service with the
Israeli Defence Force. And basically the point of it is
that when something's fired towards the the the tank, this
activates itself and is supposed to effectively counteract the
the projectile. The text at the bottom there
says a final decision on trophy APS is not planned to be taken
until 2023. This in fact has been taken.
So we are definitely locked into that with Israel.
And it's it's just a point that's worth mentioning because
of course it means in effect that the most intelligent part
of the technology of this machine is owned by another
country or indeed an organization from outside of
this country, which might not be necessarily a new thing, but I
think is worth noting. And I'll then just come on to
what Mike's been talking about, which is the the sort of
disconnect between the equipment and indeed the money.
So we got the MOD equipment plan report from the House of Commons
Committee of Public Accounts from March of this year in which
they state that there's a £16.9 billion deficit between the MO
DS capability requirement and its budget.
In effect, there's been a series of sort of disconnects and
perhaps book cooking exercises that haven't quite turned out as
they should have done. And they conclude in this
paragraph by saying the Army, for example, could need around
12 billion more to fund all the capabilities the government
seeks. And finally they go on to say
the Med has not had the discipline to balance its budget
by making the difficult choices about which equipment programs
it can and cannot afford. So of course they talk about
suspend 2.5% of GDP on defence and finally they say the MOD has
not credibly demonstrated to Parliament how it will manage
its funding to deliver the military capability to
capabilities that government wants.
And just to reinforce Mike's earlier message, of course Prime
Minister on a visit to Poland announcing that 500 million
additional funding to Ukraine taking the UK military aid to 3
billion. So really, whilst the Challenger
3 development is in some ways a significant one actually in the
overall context of armoured warfare as it's intended to be,
if we're talking about some kind of direct conflict with Russia,
it's it's a meaningless gesture and and the the financial side
of it of course is is, well, a confused picture to say the
least. Yes, and in the meantime, of
course, the old Challenger tanks that we sent over to Ukraine
just to become scrapped once again over there, because that's
seems to be the scrap yard in the West at the moment.
But anyway, in the meantime then Germany and the UK have signed
another defence partnership. So we already have various
agreements, the Achan treaty and other things involved here, but
they've decided that they have deepened their defence and
security cooperation as the words that they used.
And in an initial step the UK and Germany will announce plans
for a joint endeavour to develop remote controlled howitzer, 155
millimetre wheels, artillery systems and so on.
So this continues. Here's Rishi getting off the
plane to in Germany. So an impressive figurine cuts
there. But in the meantime Foreign
Affairs magazine has reckons that Europe, but not NATO,
should be sending troops to Ukraine.
This is a pretty sick article, really.
The sub headline here is to halt Russia's advanced Kiev needs
needs more boots on the ground. In other words, there's an
acknowledgement here that significant numbers of boots on
the ground have already been decimated in this war, that
Ukraine is running out of boots on the ground to have decimated
in the war. And therefore Europe needs to
provide boots on the ground to fill the gap because otherwise
Russia is going to win this war. It is a pretty horrible comment
from foreign affairs here, and, well, I suggest people read it
and comment on it themselves. But I wanted to end on on this
note. Here's Barbara Woodward.
She's EU KS Permanent Representative to the UN and she
had this to say yesterday, President conflict related
sexual violence is not an inevitable consequence of war.
The UK remains committed to tackling conflict related sexual
violence and maybe if you look like Barbara Woodward that's the
case. But otherwise I think this is a
pretty reprehensible position to be taking because what she's
basically saying is that murder is is fine, don't worry about
that, we'll we'll continue to pursue the murder and so on.
It's the rape and the pillage that maybe we want to deal with
that somehow can can be excluded or removed from the picture just
as long as we keep the murder going.
Vanessa, I just wanted to get your thoughts on this, because
it seems to me that the way that you stop sexual violence and
warfare is to stop the warfare. Absolutely.
But also, of course, there is absolutely total omission of
Ukraine's part in child trafficking and sexual
prostitution trafficking, which is inevitable and it's becoming
a pattern, of course, but still it's it's disgusting hypocrisy
as usual. Yeah, 100 percent, 100%.
OK, well, let's move on then for more hypocrisy here, because of
course I can't remember how long ago we were talking about this,
but the the narrative, the Captagun, the drug is now Syria
is the main source of this drug in the world.
There has been an update on this story.
Yes, there has. Indeed, we reported a little
while back on Abbca documentary that was in collaboration with
three other media related outlets funded by the UK Foreign
Office by the National Endowment for Democracy and US Aid.
In other words, EIA and American intelligence agencies and Qatari
and Saudi Arabian media outlets based in the South of Syria.
Now one interesting point that I want to make here, I was looking
into this in the last few days is that Syria was largely drug
free. Funnily enough, until the regime
change war began in 2011 and 12 and Al Qaeda and ISIS and
various derivatives were using the drug to carry out suicide
bombing and also just to ensure their ability to continue
fighting even when they were injured.
So the Captigan 2 bill is on its way to the Senate as part of an
urgent legislative package. This was a report yesterday and
the media is full of reports on Syria being a narco state.
It was voted across both parties 364 and 58 against.
Headlines like this are flooding the media in the UK and the US.
So ISIS terrorists, which are proxies of the UK, US cartel in
Syria are intent on regime change.
They're taking captagon superhuman drug that makes them
charge at tanks. Yes, that's a real headline.
But what is quite extraordinary here is that the argument is the
President Assad is going to personally produce a drug which
enables ISIS to carry out attacks against Syrian forces
and civilians inside Syria. Just as we're supposed to
believe that President Assad would launch chemical weapon
attacks against his own civilians when his own forces
are about to liberate those civilians.
So again, we have this sort of mass suspension of disbelief
across the media. Who's one of the people
responsible for the sponsorship of this bill and others that I'm
going to mention, US Congressman, Republican, French
Hill, Second District of Arkansas.
And he's basically brought in a law package called peace through
strength. I would replace that with force
in the 21st century. So let's have a look at what
those bills include. Provisions included in a package
fighting against foreign adversaries and strengthening
national security, of course. And who are their allies?
Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. No guesses over why they are
their allies, But let's have a look here what he says.
Basically, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a
transnational drug kingpin. The hyperbole is getting more
and more extreme. Who exploits his dangerous drug
Captagun to generate billions in illicit funding and devastate
families in Syria and the region?
Now what's interesting? They're claiming that the income
from Captagun in Syria is 57 billion.
The GDP? The entire GTBGDP.
Sorry of Jordan is less than 50 billion.
So I'll let people work that out for themselves.
And in 2021 it was described as 5.7 billion.
So he's brought in the illicit cap to Gun Trafficking
suppression Act. He's also brought in the holding
Iranian Sorry, you never mind holding Iranians accountable for
their global terrorism. However, French Hill has
effectively skin in the game. In August 2023, he visited
northwest Syria in the presence of the Syrian emergency
passports who also facilitated the smuggling end of John McCain
in 2013 to meet with ISIS and other terrorist leaders.
And in the same way, French Hill met with Al Qaeda operatives,
including the White Helmet in northwest Syria when he came in
illegally. He's also being reported to have
been supporting the separatist movement on the next slide in
Swedar in in southern Syria, reportedly calling the Druze
leader of the separatist movement that's backed by Israel
and the United States in southern Syria.
And then if we move on, I just want to point this out.
So let's have a look. This was on an article that I
was reading. So these are headlines.
Now comes the Taliban narco state.
Well that's interesting because opium was not a problem under
the Taliban. It became a problem, of course,
after the US invasion. With China's help, Mexico is on
the verge of becoming a narco state.
Myanmar emergence of a narco state on India's eastern
borders, Guinea Bissau, micro state, narco state, and Syria
has become a narco state. Is this becoming a pattern Mike?
Well, let's go back to 1971 and Nixon's war on drugs display
this very short introduction. I began the meeting by making
this statement which I think needs to be made to the nation.
America's Public Enemy number one in the United States is drug
abuse. In order to fight and defeat
this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new all out offensive.
I've asked the Congress to provide the legislative
authority and the funds to fuel this kind of an offensive.
This will be a worldwide offensive dealing with the
problems of sources of supply as well as Americans who may be
stationed abroad wherever they are in the world.
It will be government wide pulling together the nine
different fragmented areas where within the government in which
this problem is now being handled.
Does this sound familiar? So you have the war on drugs.
What happens of course exponentially.
Drug trade increases, the War on Terror.
What happens is terrorism increases exponentially
worldwide. And of course, what this was
used to do by the Nixon administration was to isolate
economically and politically Latin American states back then.
And not forgetting, of course, that the US could potentially be
described as a narco state. It has a 500 billion income from
the drug trade into the US economy, which is almost
equivalent to their defence spending.
And it's renowned for funding both sides of the drug trade and
of course laundering money from the drug trade, providing money
and arms to both the security forces that are fighting the
drug trade while supplying weapons and support to the
actual drug cartels that are running the drug trafficking.
And of course the US is I think the number one in opioid use
globally. So very interesting here in the
fact that they were responsible for the introduction of the drug
Cactagon in the 1st place through the terrorist proxies
and and again echoes of the Kosovo Liberation Army that run
its forces, ran its forces on amongst other things on drug
trafficking, drug manufacturing, drug trade while being supported
of course by the West. And KLA were effectively
predominantly Al Qaeda. So I just want to give one
example. So in 2021 in Saudi Arabia, they
came up with a story that millions of Captagon pills, if
you just move on like this, had been brought in to Saudi Arabia
in a consignment of pomegranates from Lebanon.
And as a result, they basically shut down all imports from
Lebanon, bearing in mind that this was months after the
disastrous, catastrophic Beirut blast in late 2020.
So they effectively cut back one of the few areas of trade with
Lebanon, while increasing trade for the same products from
Israel. And this was designed
effectively to politically isolate and undermine Hezbollah
inside Lebanon. Because of course, Hezbollah, as
his President Assad in Syria, are blamed for the production of
this particular drug. Now what is this war on drugs
which appears to be re emerging since 1971?
Of course, it's designed to stigmatize target nations, to
isolate them politically and economically, and to enable and
facilitate further sanctions on an already unprecedentedly
sanctioned country, which is. Syria in reality increases drug
field violence because the US as we've seen, and Mexico is.
Mexico is funding both sides of the drug war potential to
orchestrate a failed state. In other words, to to bring an
already weakened state which has resisted regime change, to its
knees. And of course, it prevents
peaceful resolution and facilitates further Western
military intervention once the drug field violence has reached
a pitch so cynical marketing here by the West in yet another
attempt to to completely destabilise Syria.
And I mean you're talking about Syria, you've talked about much
broad many other countries there, Vanessa, but but we've
got to understand the scope, the scale and the scope of this.
It's not just about Syria or the other countries that you've
mentioned. It is a global thing and we
should remember that, you know, George W or George Bush senior
was accused of using the drugs trade to fund CIA black
operations when he was working for the CICIA prior to him
becoming President of the United States.
So you know the, as you say, the drugs trade is a major driver
for a lot of the wrongs that we see in the world these days And
for the last, for for the last 100 years or so, the war on on
drugs has has not solved anything.
And I mean the the the fentanyl situation in the United States
is off the charts. It's the same.
It's increasingly a problem in Scotland as well.
So that problem is coming to this country as well.
But people often sort of dismiss this as being irrelevant because
it's it's happening in Syria or it's happening in Lebanon or
it's happening in Saudi Arabia. This affects us on a daily
basis. Absolutely.
And if you look at a number of articles actually on the war on
drugs under Nixon, what it was weaponized to do was to actually
attack the kind of anti anti war left wing back then
organisations and to target them as being affiliates of drug
trade or being in support of narco state etcetera.
So you're absolutely right. Just as everything that we
protest against can be used against us, if it's spun in in
the right way, then this is very much also what is coming.
And plus, as you said, the introduction of these drugs that
even when it was production was stopped in 1986 but continued in
Bulgaria and was then smuggled into the Arab Peninsula by
Turkish and Balkan drug trafficking cartels.
So, you know, the fact is that who is moving all of these drugs
around the world and using them against populations to
destabilise and be and to stigmatise these populations.
Yeah, indeed. OK, Vanessa, thank you very much
for that. Now, if you like what the UK
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Tomorrow at 1:00 PM. The next edition of The Green
King, one of the latest programmes in the No Smoke About
Fire series, is going out 1:00 PM on the usual places on the UK
column website. If you are interested in Net
Zero and what King Charles is doing then that one's for you.
Quick reminder of the Sounds Beautiful festival taking place
in Wimborne at Dorset 27th to the 30th of June.
The promo code for 10% off tickets is UK column.
That promo code will work until midnight on Friday this week.
So if you would like to go to that, you're running out of time
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there. So join us if you can for that
Also stand in the light festival taking place 24th and 27th of
May in Cumbria. If you can come along for that
one as well. This would be great to say.
Hello. Now an event taking place on
Friday evening 7:00 PM to 8:30. This is all about excess deaths.
One once again Andrew Bridging will be taking part in this
Peter McCulloch, Pierre Corey and so on.
There'll be a webinar recording for this.
It's Channel Islands and UK Resistance, if sorry, Channel
Islands and UK Alliance, if you'd like to find out more, if
you have a search for that now. On Monday this week we put out
the premiere of Playing God, Unbelievably great documentary
with on a very, very dark topic. Nonetheless, I'm delighted to
say that Jackie Devoy, the producer, is with me again
today. Jackie, welcome to the
programme. What's the response been like to
the Premier, which went out on UK column, but also Children's
Health defence in the United States?
Yeah, it's been pretty amazing actually.
I've got some really good comments on social media.
People are still watching it every day.
So yeah, I'm not sure how many people have seen it on UK
column. I haven't actually checked and I
don't know. Can you see the figures on
there? I don't have the figures to
hand, but but, but the response in the forums has been extremely
positive. As I say, very dark topic, of
course, because we're talking about deaths in the National
Health Service, but nonetheless people very appreciative of the
work you've done here. Yeah, I haven't had any negative
comments at all, which is quite unusual.
When you when you put something out that you've made, they've
all been very positive, mostly very shocked.
You know I think a lot of people have have a rough idea but
demoside is a thing and then it is happening especially after
the first film that I made a good death with iconic.
You know we've talked a lot about euthanasia or mainly about
euthanasia in that so. But this film is a much broader
look at demoside death by government policy.
All different types of of of deaths.
People who've died in in, in, in trials for for untested drugs,
people who've died from the jab. People who've died from
euthanasia, drug overdoses in hospital and malpractice and
negligence, as well as a more deliberate kind of culling and
killing, which we've been seeing more so as the years go by.
Have you had any response from mainstream media or MPs yet?
And I wonder how long it's going to be before the fact checkers
attempt to come along. Well, I brought it to Andrew
Bridgen's attention, but I haven't heard back from him yet.
As you know, we had a meeting in the House of Commons with him
last June. So he's very, very much on site
and very supportive and has been supportive to to me and and some
of my support group over the last nine months or so.
And yeah, I'm sure once he has a look at the film he'll be able
to comment on it as well. But no, no other, no other MPs
have commented and they won't. A lot of MPs have blocked me so.
So I don't with no explanation, obviously I haven't done
anything directly to upset them. Let's put it that way.
Yeah. So we're we're we're hoping to
do more. More screenings all over the UK
as well in in cinemas. It's quite hard to get cinemas
to run these kinds of films, but we are going to be doing that.
Obviously that's going to, you know, cost a bit to organise,
but we're keeping the crowdfunder running for a little
bit longer. That's that crowdfunder playing
God final phase. If people can donate there.
We're trying to help the contributors as well.
A lot of them are still fighting for justice for their loved.
Ones and need some help. And we're also, as I said, doing
screenings. And also I'd like to kind of pay
some other people who work for cheap or free on the film to
help get it finished in that in that quite short time.
Frame. Yeah, so if anybody would like
to help with that, if you go to the Playing God video on the UK
column website, the the link is in the description.
So please do that. And I mean, what were the the
participants themselves? Has this been helpful to them?
Yes, that they're actually really appreciative.
I mean, I appreciate them for doing it because it's a very
brave thing to do, to come out and and tell these stories, but
it's also. It seems they appreciate the
film being made because it's finally given them that voice
and that platform to get that, get their stories heard.
So I think it's very important they're actually going to be on
Children's Health Defence tomorrow night.
Some of the people who told their stories in the film,
they're actually on the Doctor Brian Hooker show tomorrow on
CHD, so people can hear what they have to say about their
stories and about the film there.
And then also there's an interview with me and the
director, one of the directors, Naeem Mahmood, on CHD as well,
and on my show tomorrow night on Unity News Network.
I'll be talking to some of the people involved in the film,
too. OK.
So we would just ask everybody to share the film, contribute if
you can, if you haven't done so already, but also share those
programmes as well. So Jackie, I'm going to say
thank you very much for joining us.
Thanks for having me, Mike. Thank.
You OK? Brilliant.
Thank you, Jackie. Now, Charles, back to you then.
And food. Specifically, the slow March
towards food scarcity and the direct result of national and
supranational policy, and the rather obvious but neglected
response or rather reaction to it.
So we look at the Sustainable Farming Initiative, which is
already in its sixth version since it was announced in
January of this year, essentially set out as an
unlimited scheme. Defra have now conceded that
they do have to limit it, even though they still espouse that
it is to have the explicit purpose of taking land out of
food production. And they say that now it's
restricted to 25% of anybody's land.
Specifically, they refer to actions unlikely to deliver
their intended aims. But of course, they were not
clear about that in the first instance, which is why we are
where we are. So they say that if you applied
since the 26th of March, there are 6 actions which were saying
you'd be done on a proportion. Essentially, these are the ones
that just wholesale take take land out of production.
But the critical part here is that it does not apply to
existing agreements or applications submitted before
the 26th of March. And the question is therefore
how many people went into these schemes 100% or thereabouts, and
therefore not producing food at all this year.
So we'll just have a look at a clip from the popular YouTube
video Harry's Farm, in which he talks about this very issue.
So that is why they've gone for this greening.
And I'm going to get improved soil structure from doing this.
So long term, the soil structure on our farm will benefit from me
entering these schemes and the legging mixes every doing, and
they're replacing break crops. But it also means as a country
we're going to produce less food than we were.
And when this document was written, I don't think they took
into account also the rise in the population in the UK.
It is incredible how quickly the population rising.
The UK population between 1996 and 2021 went up 8.9 million,
that's 15% rise, about 6768 million if you go forward.
The number now for 2036? Seventy 3.7 million people.
It's rising at an alarming rate and we have to feed all these
people and all this land coming out of production and going into
these environmental schemes means there's less land being
farmed and I think we're heading well by 2027 when these schemes,
everybody signed up to these schemes and the reality hits.
We might even hit it in 2025, but there was an awful lot less
food being grown in the UK, so he's bothered to look into these
schemes and where they've come from.
But his view, which is to take the risk out of his farming
practices, is going to have been shared by many of his
contemporaries. And indeed he talks about his
neighbours having gone into these schemes wholesale.
He's only producing a third of his arable crop from previous
years. So we line this up against the
open goals that Defra are missing, and one of them, of
course is food waste, not discussed at all, but clearly a
very significant factor when we confront the possibility of food
shortages. So most recent publication in
the House of Commons Library says that most food waste comes
from the household 60% and this equates to 10.7 million 10.7
million tonnes per annum, which is equivalent to £250 per person
per year or 1000 lbs for a family.
You'd think, therefore, that the government would find it easy to
communicate this. And here is their communication
plan 2024 Five, in which they state that the purpose of it is
to change behaviours for the public good.
So you'd think they might indeed have started talking about food
waste and indeed how to deal with it.
But of course they haven't. Instead, this is something that
came through my letterbox the other day and I'm sure
everybody's seen similar things. Instead, what they're doing is
normalising the waste of food, and in actual fact they're going
a step further by talking about recycling it.
And so they suggest that there is a high quantity of it.
The emphasis of course, is on what you do with it and how
green your response to your food waste is, rather than not
actually wasting food. So as I say, a massively open
goal that's being missed. The other thing I've talked
about in terms of land use is solar farms, and we see the map
here showing the green dots are where existing solar farms are
and the ever increasing purple splodges are where proposed
solar farms are. And what's cropped up now is an
amazing illustration of the hypocrisy of the government and
those that are within it. Just a reminder here that Defra
of course did not collect specific data on the amount of
land that's generating renewable energy, as they say, but they
will start doing it in June as a result of persistent questioning
by UK column. But we've got here Michelle
Donilon MP in Wiltshire and she is actively campaigning against
a solar farm proposed in her constituency, Lime, Lime, Down
Solar. So we've got, she's put up a
text there and I've just taken a little bit of it to to
illustrate the hypocrisy. What she says that she's a big
supporter of our climate change ambitions, but the proposals put
forward by Island Green Power are completely unacceptable in
this location. So she doesn't want to confront
the underlying issue, but she wants to talk specifically about
the site. She then talks about a ginormous
battery storage site size of 200 shipping containers, and indeed
saying that it's unsuitable to the specific location.
Of course, she's entirely missing the point here we see
going back to her campaign 2019, it's unclear as to what that
chap is gesticulating, but he might be suggesting where she
could go. But she talks specifically about
wanting to continue to push for us to promote more and support
green energy, and indeed a Facebook post going back to the
price of the last general election.
Green technology is undoubtedly the future, and she supported
the Net 0 by 2050 target going into law, she says she'll be
voting to implement the Green Revolution plan.
Well, The thing is, she can't have it both ways, and indeed,
nor can her constituents. So it's worth pointing out, and
what I would really go back to is the comment that was made on
a planning application I reported on in January by the
West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority.
And the critical issue here is not not just that the the solar
farms themselves are taking up the best and most versatile
farmland. Or indeed that the the whole net
zero agenda is is. Sort of a corner of gigantic
proportions, but there is a real safety issue here and it is the
batteries. And we see here that within an
application that was made to Wakefield, the fire service
pointed out that control measures and verification of
standards, the tender of the battery installation has not
taken place. But they find it concerning that
no specific information in relation to fire risk and
explosion has been incorporated into the application.
And of course that's still the case.
It's not required in the application.
They go on and talk about regulatory reform.
They find it concerning that no specific information in relation
to fire safety management has been provided.
So they're unable to make any comment.
But then they they they finish up by talking about the risks of
vapour. Cloud, thermal runway and
explosion are very real risks and are becoming more common as
we see an increase in the number of best battery energy storage
systems rise. And here we are.
So, going back to Wiltshire and Donilon's constituency, there's
no definitive or preferred way of putting out a lithium ion or
a lithium ion or fire. There are, in effect, two main
options, one being to let it burn, or the other being to use
significant amounts of water for a protracted period.
Sorry to be looking away from the screen, but the point is
that Donilon is absolutely refusing to concede that.
The push for net zero, of course, is having the exactly
opposite consequences from those that are supposed to be intended
by it, and indeed is is demonstrating a personal
hypocrisy of gigantic or she might say ginormous proportions.
Yes, thanks, Charles. Thank you for that.
Now, Vanessa, let's come back to you.
And we've been hearing in the mainstream press in recent days
and weeks that members of the Jewish community feeling unsafe
in the UK. Yes, and this was an
extraordinary article in the Telegraph following an incident
with the Metropolitan Police at a Palestinian protest which
we'll come on to. Britain's Jews fear for their
lives because Sir Mark Rowley is a weak coward, while other
nations show strength and resolve in the face of the
Islamist menace. Our police have shamed
themselves. So I picked that.
I mean the article. I do recommend reading it.
It's quite extraordinary. It double s down on the
propaganda and hyperbole that is effectively pretext for the
genocide that has now been ongoing against Palestinians for
200 days. But this was an interesting
section of the article. So apparently the author joined
a ZOOM conference where she she states that the Jewish group
were deciding whether to ride out the present troubles and
hope for the best, or to make alia, which, of course, is to
take up residence or to settle in Israel, an offer available to
every Jew. While of course, Palestinians
have no right to return to their homeland.
She then says the younger, bearded guy who lived in
Manchester had already made-up his mind.
He'd witnessed several recent attacks on Jews, and his
family's bags were packed. Look at the demographics, he
said bluntly. The Muslim population is
growing. It's not safe for us, but this
is our home, one woman protested, her voice quavering.
The second said she was joining us from Tel Aviv.
She advised the rest of the group to get out while they
still could. Even faced with the prospect of
rocket attacks from Hezbollah and the threat of war with Iran,
that Lady and her husband still felt safer in Israel than in
Hampstead Garden suburb. This is quite extraordinary.
This is actually effectively spin to promote settlement in
Israel, while perhaps many settlers are actually fleeing
the security situation or lack of it in Israel.
And this was back in mid March. An Ali affair in London saw
hundreds from the British Jewish community attend and since the
start of the Gaza war they're claiming this is in Jerusalem
Post, a 40% increase in new immigrants from Britain to
Israel. So let's have a look at the
incident that sparked this article.
Sunak appalled by officers threat to arrest Jewish man at
pro Palestine rally rally as calls Mount from Met force to
quit. So let's see what was actually
said in the exchange, the officer can be heard saying to
him. You are quite openly Jewish.
While, of course, there were hundreds, if not thousands of
Jews actually on the March in defense of Palestine and against
a genocide that's being committed by Israel, this is a
pro Palestinian March. I'm not accusing you of
anything, but I am worried about the reaction to your presence.
No mention of arrest there. Now, Mike and Charles, I don't
know what you think, but this strikes me as, let's say, a
staged event to further fuel the claims that Jews are at risk.
But let's hear from some of the Jews that were actually on the
March. Well, I'm Jewish and I'm here
and I feel very safe. I actually feel very at home in
this crowd of people who just want peace.
As a Jewish person in London at weekends, I don't believe these
statements, but it's unsafe, absolute.
Rubbish. I've been here every Shabbat
with my kipan. I've had nothing but love,
nothing but welcome from everyone.
I've spoken to the idea that London is a no goes own for Jews
is just for the birds. It's rubbish.
These Jews have come out specially.
There were 500 of us meeting outside Belgrave Square.
We've all come here on purpose to show that that's rubbish.
Politicians are pushing it as just basically propaganda and to
to push their own narrative to pretend that there isn't another
voice that opposes the genocide going on in Gaza to try and
weaponize anti-Semitism to a degree.
We've been sold a false narrative and I think it's
really important for Jews everywhere to stand up and say
I'm not OK with this and this is not, it's not being done for.
Me, Jewish people are not a monolith.
They all think the same. There's thousands of Jewish
people who feel very comfortable in London and oppose the events
in Gaza. It seems that they don't agree
with the media headlines. Also over in the US, concerns
over anti-Semitism rise as Jews begin observing Passover and
then this article in the Guardian.
Not like other Passovers. Hundreds of Jewish demonstrators
arrested after New York protests that are about 300 people were
detained near as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's Brooklyn
home. So let's see what what the
article says. Hundreds of Jewish anti war
demonstrators have been arrested during Passover.
The 300 also arrests took place on Tuesday night at Grand Army
Plaza. So again it appears that also in
the US Jews are effectively on the side of humanity against the
genocide of Palestinians. And then let's have a look at an
article in Winner again Israeli media number of Westerners
seeking to make earlier surges. Since October the 7th Israel has
apparently received 12,745 new immigrants, 3074 of them in
March, quadrupling totals for October 2023.
Amid escalating global anti-Semitism, there has been a
significant rise in immigration requests from France, Canada,
the US, South Africa, Ukraine and Australia.
So are we seeing again the the Zionist orchestrating
anti-Semitism in order to increase illegal settlement in
the State of Israel? And I would question whether the
anti-Semitism is actually taking place, Vanessa at all or?
Whether it's merely. A media campaign.
But Charles, let's come on to the issue of the idea of right
wing extremism and Telegram seems to be a target now.
It does, Mike. Yes, As the window that
supposedly brackets extremism or any form of it expands
enormously, we see now that the latest group apparently to fall
foul of it is called Terrorgram and the Home Office have just
announced that Terrorgram has been added to the list of
prescribed terrorist organisations under the
Terrorism Act 2000. If you're scratching your head
wondering what that's all about, you're not the only one, but the
UK is the first country in the world to prescribe the Terror
Gram Collective after draft draft prescription.
Basically this will be laid before the House of Commons on
Friday and they described the Terror Gram Collective as an
online network of neo fascist terrorists.
This is critical language because they go on to say that
the government's commitment to tackle extreme right wing
terrorism and online radicalisation in all forms is
what's brought this about and that it's the first time it's
been used in this way. So they're calling it an online
terrorist network. This is not something that's
been done before, so the background to it is deeply
relevant. However, what they do is they
they clarify here. They say following an internal
review, the term extreme right wing terrorism was adopted as
the umbrella term to make it clear that those who hold
mainstream right wing views will not be in scope of any action by
counter terrorism authorities. Well, it'll be interesting to
see how far and how quickly that drift, because of course the
moment you set up such a such a mechanism for capturing people
who are apparently far right wing extremists, it's very easy
for other people to drift into this.
Anyway, the prescribed organization, obviously any
association with them, it carries all sorts of penalties.
But specifically they talk about it disrupting terrorism and
particularly here we see the encouraging of removal of online
materials. There's very clear focus here on
on the online side of it. But there are a couple of things
that as I say when we consider the drift offences under this
prescription would be to express an opinion or belief that's
supportive of a prescribed organization to wear clothing or
carry or display articles in public in such a way or in such
circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that the
individual is a member or supporter of a prescribed
organization. So I just remind you of the case
of Sam Melia who's been imprisoned for what were
referred to as far right activities by the by the crime
Prosecution Service anyway. Nonetheless, this has been
banded about the place we see the Telegraph here just
reporting it without question that terrorist group terror gram
had to be banned in the UK. There is a bit of a pedigree to
this. This is as far back as 2017
saying that terrorists love Telegram in particular.
So it's the Telegram app that's in effect the sort of target for
all of this. And I point you to a piece in
Politico from the 28th of March in which we're told that Pavel
Durov, the the chap that started Telegram, has been warned off by
Putin saying that terrorists are using it.
So he's getting it from all sides.
But he was asked specifically about the the Kremlin's war on
Ukraine and he said let's not go there, adding that it's very
important for the world to retain Telegram as a neutral
platform. We'll just play a very short
clip now of Durov speaking to Tucker Carlson about the
pressures that he feels on his Telegram app.
Largest pressure towards Telegram is not coming from
governments, it's coming from Apple and Google.
So when it comes to freedom of speech, those two platforms,
they could basically censor whatever is you can read access
on your smartphone. So I mean, do you run the risk
of being thrown out of their stores?
Exactly. That's what they make very clear
that if we fail to comply with their guidelines, so they call
it, children can be removed from the stores.
I wouldn't mean to characterise Pavel Durov as a as a beacon of
virtue and therefore different from competitors in that
marketplace. But it's very significant that
he does specifically make that distinction between the state
and these big corporations. But what we should come on to is
the the fact that whilst we hear a lot now about this terrogram
organization, it's almost invisible online now.
It's it's an unfair comparison I do concede, but I'm showing now
references in Hansard recorded by the UK Parliament of any time
Hamas has been mentioned or written about.
And there are 15157 such references in the last five
years. Now when you look at the same
thing for Terrogram Zero, there are no results.
It has never ever been mentioned or written about in any sort of
sort of parliamentary debate, written paper, anything.
And in actual fact they're so confident it won't be they've
projected out to October 2026. But so for an online terrorist
collective, it does seem quite extraordinary that they appear
to have absolutely no online presence whatsoever.
So where on earth does it come from?
Well, we look at a sort of pseudo charitable an
organization called Hope Not Hate which produces an annual
report called State of Hate. And here we find the sort of
kernel of the suggestion of Terrorgram in which they talk
about contemporary far right terrorism and having an
awareness of the labyrinthine and hard to monitor world of pro
terrorism online spaces. And they talk about exploring
the so-called Terrorgram network.
So essentially it's really just a term that's been applied to to
note a collection of a few dozen public channels and private chat
groups on the messaging app Telegram.
And of course, they're not specific at all.
They say telegrams extended the reach of an array of
international terroristic organisations and they talk
about ways, and then they talk about committing hate crimes and
threatening public officials. Now, of course, all this is
ringing a bell because this relates to what Tom Toughan that
was talking about the other day. Again, there's some very flimsy
academic background to this under this article here Militant
Acceleration Coalitions, in which they also talk about the
terror the terrorgram community, but they don't really define
exactly what that means. So essentially it looks very
much like terrorgram has been put out there, not least because
it sounds exactly like Telegram, but essentially to be able to
capture anybody who's doing anything online that may either
now or in the future be described as extremist.
And because it's been prescribed, it therefore goes
one up to being a terrorist offence.
So I'll just leave you with a reminder that in actual fact
things are a little bit murky than they seem because of course
the Ministry of Defense has a telegram channel and they
specifically have it here. They they broadcast in Russian
as well, and they've said here in their most recent message,
even amongst Russian officials, there is likely a low level of
understanding about total casualty figures because of a
long established culture of dishonest reporting within the
military. Well, how interesting.
I wouldn't say that the military of Russia is the only place that
there's been a culture of dishonest reporting.
Well, indeed. OK.
Now we'll we'll change topics here and move on to sort of
medical stuff and CRISPR of course gene editing, CRISPR is
the technology for that. We have a great article here
from the New York Times talking about or telling us the
generative AI has arrived to in the gene editing world of CRISPR
and what could possibly go wrong.
So because anybody that's used generative AI to produce you
know an image of somebody, they usually have two heads or six
fingers on their hands and so on.
So if we put that back on screen for a second, this is what they
say. Generative AI technologies can
write poetry and computer programmes, or create images of
teddy bears and videos of cartoon characters that look
like something from a Hollywood movie.
Now new AI technology is generating blueprints for
microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your
DNA, pointing to a future when scientists can battle illness
and diseases with even greater precision and speed than they
can today. Much as ChatGPT learns to
generate language by analysing Wikipedia articles, books and
chat logs, pro fluent technology creates a new gene.
New gene editors after analysing enormous amounts of biological
data, including microscopic mechanisms and scientists
already used to edit human DNA. Generative AI technologies are
driven by what scientists called a neural network.
A mathematical system learns skills by analysing vast amounts
of data. Pro Fluence technology is driven
by a similar AI model that learns from sequences of amino
acids and nuclear nucleic acids, the chemical compounds that
define the microscopic biological mechanisms that
scientists use to edit genes. Essentially, it analysis the
behaviour of CRISPR gene editors pulled from Nature and learns
how to generate entirely new gene editors.
As I say, what could possibly go wrong?
So this is the organization Pro. Fluent suggests people go and
look at them very closely. They are supported by 5 venture
capital organisations, Inside Partners, Air, St.
Capital, AIX Ventures, Convergent Ventures and Spark
Capital. So this is a hedge fund backed
technology company with a bunch of people working for it that
have no background whatsoever. If we put that on for no
background whatsoever in genetics or anything, I mean
that even their chief geneticist has got a very tenuous
connection to genetic research or any kind of scientific
background. These are all AI people that are
messing about and things they don't understand and it looks to
me to be extremely dangerous. And if if governments are
looking at regulating AI, maybe this is one place they might
want to start now. In the meantime, back in the UK
here Andrew Neil has been appearing in front of the House
of Lords media committee and he was well, let's just listen to
what he was asked and what his response was.
I'd like to take you to the role of government in the sort of
news sector and looking forward over the next few years.
How interventionist do you think government should be in
supporting the new sector, if at all?
And what do you think would constitute our government
overreach? You should steer the hell out of
it. You don't know anything about
it. You're only trouble.
We're not on your side. You're not on our side.
We're different. I mean, relations between
journalists, journalists, media and government should always be
bad and never in any account be allowed to get better.
A major industrial upheaval, a major technological revolution,
and we've come through the other side.
We've lost people by the wayside.
At times it seemed like the baton death March, but we've
come through and we now know what we're doing and we just
want to be allowed to get on with it.
So I'm going to say I agree with the first sentiment they
expressed their, I disagree with the second set, the meeting
expressed and we'll talk a lot more about this with Vanessa and
Charles an extra. But government interference with
the media isn't going away anytime soon.
And of course as we saw through COVID, government funding of the
media became an an an extremely concerning conflict of interest.
Let's just leave it at that for now.
We'll talk about a little bit more about this an Extra in a
few minutes if you're AUK column member, but we're going to leave
it there for today. So I'm going to say thank you
very much to Charles and Vanessa and to Jackie Devoy for joining
us today. Thank you all for watching.
We'll see you in a few minutes if you're UK column member on
Extra. Otherwise, enjoy the interview
at 1:00 PM tomorrow and we'll see you on Friday for another
news. Bye, bye.