Good afternoon. It's just gone 1:00 on Wednesday
the 4th of June 2025. Welcome to UK Column News.
I'm your host, Charles Mallett, and joining me in the studio
today is Brian Gersh. Welcome to the programme, Brian.
Thank you. Brian's going to be analysing
the comments made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
as well as looking at the ground truth in Ukraine at the moment,
particularly following Operation Spider Web, as reported earlier
in the week. We're also going to be joined
remotely by Vanessa Beeley from Lebanon, who's going to be
scrutinising the murky affairs of the Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation, as well as looking at foreign fighters in Syria.
And we also have Sandy Adams on Remotelink from Somerset talking
about the Ocean Conference, access to what are called blue
spaces and indeed natural resources, as well as a look at
the most recent attack on the Kursh Bridge in Crimea.
But we're going to start with the Strategic Defence Review and
the situation is that we're all going to war.
At least that is without doubt the central message from the
defence review, which has been released on Monday.
Back in February, UK Column surmised that the content of the
review would be based on the suggestion that the country
faces an existential threat and that this, for the most part,
concerns what is consistently described as Russia's illegal
war of aggression against Ukraine.
There are nearly 80 references to the ongoing conflict in the
document, and this is what Keir Starmer had to say about it.
The moment has arrived to transform how we defend
ourselves and to renew our nation.
An investment in British pride and the British people.
A defence dividend that will be felt in the pockets of working
people and the prosperity of the country securing growth for
generations. To become part of a new contract
to unite the Kingdom. A new spirit of service flowing
from every part of society, from the supply lines to the front
lines. Everyone benefits.
Everyone playing their role, doing their duty to the nation
and to each other to preserve our way of life and the things
that we hold dear. Because when it comes to
security and renewal, nothing works unless we all work
together. There it is, and as there were a
Hollywood production, we'll just continue to look on screen at
the trailer that the governments put out.
Recently. The government, of course, has
been releasing several dramatic trailers of the Defence Review
and each containing the same fundamental tenets based on an
incorrect premise. The first first duty of
government, of course, is not, as the state would have it,
national security. It should be to protect the
powerless from the powerful. This review is very obviously a
product of its three key authors, they being George
Robertson, formerly Secretary General to NATO and a previous
Defence Secretary during the Blair years, Fiona Hill, former
member of the US Intelligence Architecture, possibly not
former, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
She's also a dedicated Russophobe, she has compared
Putin to Hitler in the past, and then Richard Barons, the former
Commander Joint Forces Command, with his own defence industry
consultancy and a valid interest in AI and space.
So there are plenty of conflicts of interest here and this will
be something that Mike Robinson will focus more on in Friday's
programme. Now in summary, or at least
regard with regard to the content of the review
summarised, which is far detailed to cover in any great
depth in the in the programme. The main points are put by the
government as being the move to war fighting readiness and this
draws directly on the integrated operating concept which has been
mentioned consistently on this programme.
Next, of course, with Robertson in mind, is the idea that it is
NATO first, with the review stating that the UK remains at
the forefront of NATO efforts to safeguard the Euro Atlantic
against growing Russian aggression in all domains,
providing the ultimate guarantee of UK and allied security in
declaring its nuclear deterrence to the alliance.
There's a lot more in the review on the nuclear issue and it's
made very clear that nuclear war is not now considered as being a
remote possibility. Indeed, and I quote, nuclear
deterrence can no longer be considered separately from the
wider strategic environment as described in Chapter 2.
Any future crisis or conflict in which the UK is engaged may
include nuclear armed or nuclear aspiring states willing to use
nuclear threats to compel or constrain UK and Allied decision
taking. And lastly is the idea that
defence, rather war is the product of what is being called
a whole society approach. And there's a sense of immediacy
here with the recommendation on education that to quote again to
quote the review, to meet the changing needs of the integrated
force, education must be whole force by default, single service
by exception. And they say by the end of 2026,
Defence must establish a career education pathway for the whole
force, regulars, reserves and civil service designed to
respond to the changing ways of warfare over time and with NATO
at its heart. End Quote.
So with recruitment and retention in mind, both of which
are are in a parlour state, as has been reported here many
times, There are initiatives such as improved investment in
housing, though nothing really, which suggests that the spectre
of conscription will fade away. And even though the message has
been one of we're not ready yet for the past three years, here's
Richard Barron's speaking about the apparent sense of urgency
and how the money gets spent. People have had this ambition,
genuinely held it previously, but how do we get from thinking
about it, wanting it, planning it to a more Ukraine like war
footing where these things are sort of racing through the
supply chain and the development and and getting out to the front
line. So I think there are a number of
things really in our, in our favour now.
And you're, and you're right that some of this thinking, it's
been around for a while now, it's just taken time to, to
gestate. The first reason this is
different is we live in a much more threatening world.
And so you probably don't have the luxury of trying to stay the
same. You've got to change to stay
safe and deter effectively. The second thing is we have the
experience of Ukraine and Ukraine is an illustration of
war in the digital age. It's not a perfect template for
how we would fight, but we've learnt lessons in military
technology and also in the industrial arrangements that you
need to make that work. Change to stay safe.
What? What do you make of it, Brian?
I think, I think Charles, it's a huge propaganda exercise.
I'm slightly cynical because I'm the age I am and I've seen a lot
of these defence reviews come and go.
They've all been a lot of words, glossy paper and at the end of
the review it's never been implemented fully.
So you end up with some improvements, but overall a
decline in the armed forces. And we've just been having a
look at some interesting statistics here.
Relax, it's from full fact, so it must be correct.
But essentially, if we look, the track record is a consistent
decline in U KS armed forces. We're at the point at the moment
where we're talking around about 71, possibly 73,000 people in
the in the Army. When I first came into the
military scene way back in 72 total personnel 371,000.
And I think for you, Charles, it was still up at 298.
And now we're in this pitiful situation where we can't put
troops on the ground. The reality is the success of
the Russians in the war in Ukraine has shaken this
government to its boots and they're now desperate to try and
pull U KS destroyed military. They they want to rabbit out of
the hat. So I think this is all words.
We will see some new equipment but my prediction is if we're
speaking in five years time, we'll be saying what has not
worked. Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks very much, Brian. And going back to Richard
Barnes, I mean, what what he mentions only obliquely is the
main driver of all of this, which causes the war industry.
Now the government that's put out several announcements about
specific funding initiatives across the whole of the UK,
which this map shows. Now there's much more to deal
with and we will doubtless talk about this much more in extra,
but I would like to leave you with this chart from the
Financial Times, which shows how the arms industry benefits and
has benefited over the past five years.
Now, if you're listening rather than watching, the upward trend
shown is completely out of kilter with all the with the all
share line shown at the bottom, which is barely moved by
comparison. And with the focus of the
messaging on the commercial collaboration, it would seem
reasonable to predict that this trend will continue and that
this investment will cause precisely the sorts of threats
which are alluded to to materialise and thus the circle
turn. So we'll we'll come back to that
in extra. But for now, we will go across
to Vanessa in Lebanon. And as I say, you're going to be
talking about the Gaza humanitarian foundation.
We've got no sign. Oh, that's.
All right, Vanessa. Sorry, Carry.
On. Am I back?
You are back. Am I there?
Oh, OK. Yeah, basically.
So this is the multi spectrum genocide that is being waged
against Palestinians in Gaza and of course in the West Bank.
And there has been this humanitarian aid complex
established to supplant the UNRWA agency that of course the
Zionists have been trying to eradicate for for a number of
years, which was the primary UN agency providing aid and food to
Palestinians in all areas of the world, even the areas where of
course they're living in diaspora and unable to return.
So if we could just have a quick look at the Washington Post
headline. US consulting firm quits Gaza
humanitarian aid efforts amid criticism And if we just have a
look at the text within the article On Friday, a leading US
management consulting firm hired last fall to help design the
programme and run its business operations, withdrew its team
operating on the ground in Tel Aviv.
A spokesperson for the firm, Austin Consulting Group, said
the company had terminated its contract with GHF and placed one
of the senior partners leading the project on leave pending an
internal review. And of course, one can say this
isn't terribly surprising when you look at the figures of those
that have been killed while they've been gathering to
receive the aid. So 102 so far killed and 490 now
up to almost 500 injured. And of course, what's been
happening is that there have been centres established that
are effectively being run, as we've talked about before, by
American private military contractors that are known as
military mercenaries. And I would recommend that
everybody does a deep dive into this article by the Grey Zone.
I'll just run through some of the main points that it makes.
Top Israeli lawmakers have accused the Zionist regime of
laundering millions through US humanitarian organisations and
private military contractors. As I said, as we've talked about
previously on UK column the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was
established in Switzerland in February supplanting on riot
received over 100 million from an undisclosed donor.
But the Israeli opposition member and former Deputy Prime
Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said that Mossad and the Israeli
Defence Ministry are covertly funding GHF.
So that gives an indication as as to entirely what this
organisation is determined to do, which of course is to
increase 1 the starvation levels in Gaza.
Because if we look at this map, which was embedded in the grey
zone article, the humanitarian Islands in Gaza plan interim
phase, you can see basically the red pins there demonstrate I
think there's only 1237 actual aid points.
And of course in northern Gaza, the majority of people have been
told to evacuate to a tiny area in the South.
So 2,000,000 Gazans basically being kettled into that smaller
area in the South there. And so those northern ones are
largely not doing anything. But what this is doing is
creating IDP camps, internally displaced people camps and then
providing the so called humanitarian aid points.
And again, if we look at this, so that first of all there has
to be security inspection during entry on the aid.
So that's one delay. Then you have the biometric
certificate. This again is what we talked
about, actual biometric surveillance of these IDP camps
and only the approved Palestinians will receive aid.
And then basically there's distribution to these IDP
cities, note the term city. So basically what this is all
doing is further corralling Gazans into smaller and smaller
ever shrinking concentration camps that are now literally
camps, refugee sites, internally displaced people camps.
Then the aid is provided, as we said, only to those that are
approved by these American private military contractors.
They have to go through a series of security measures to be
allowed to receive the aid. And then once the starving
people are basically in the lines to receive the aid and
chaos naturally breaks out because of the starvation levels
they've been forced to endure, the IDF is opening fire on them
and killing them because effectively they've been drawn
out into the open and they can be murdered wantonly by the
Israelis. So yet again, you know, anything
that that is described as aid by the Zionist entity or by its
allies in the UK, EU or US, it cannot be seen as such.
It can only be seen as a further element of of genocide against
the Palestinians. Very depressing.
Vanessa, thank you very much indeed.
And I should point out the link to the grey zone piece will be
in the show notes, as indeed it will be to everything else that
Vanessa's spoken about. Now, Brian, you've been
following what Marco Rubio has been up to recently.
I have and I know there's controversy around him and he's
not everybody's cup of tea, but I was listening to him speaking
to the American Compass organisation.
If you've never heard of that, I hadn't either.
But it's an organisation promoting family, community and
industry to to help underpin the nation.
We're talking about the USA of course, the nation's liberty and
prosperity. So this was their 5th annual
events. Let's have a listen to what
Rubio had to say. And then in 1989 and 199091, it
was my first years in in college and literally the entire world
just transformed my by for my very eyes.
Understand you grew up your whole life and like the whole
world is about the Soviet Union and all of a sudden the Soviet
Union no longer exists. My favourite memory of that is
that I was actually taking a course that fall and by a Soviet
expert at the, I think it's in Gainesville, FL.
And this poor guy's entire career came coming down over a
three month period as the Soviet Union collapsed.
It's like all these years of work, you have a PhD in Soviet
studies and now the Soviet doesn't exist anymore.
So I don't know what he did after that.
I need to check up on that guy because.
But anyways, the point is the whole world transformed and
there was this effusive exuberance, the belief that the
Cold War is over, we won, and now the entire world is going to
become just like US, free enterprise democracies.
This is a very idealistic thing to believe.
But here's the other conclusion they made.
And that is that everybody that it didn't, nationhood no longer
mattered when it came to economics, that right now the
world would no longer have borders.
It wouldn't matter where things were made.
What mattered is they were made in the most efficient place.
And it became mantra. And look, I think it became part
of Republican orthodoxy for a very long time and orthodoxy
that I came up in, which was, it's OK if productive capacity
moves to another country, because what that will do is it
will free up our workers to do work that's even more productive
and pays them more. It was the famous or the
infamous idea that who cares that you lost your job at a
factory? You're going to learn how to
code. And then you're going to be,
you're going to make a lot more money doing that.
What was completely unrealistic #1 and became incredibly
disruptive that that decision was made.
But here's the other implication of it.
It robbed the nation of its industrial capacity, of its
ability to make things. And its industrial capacity and
its ability to make things has two ramifications.
The first is it hurts your economy, it hurts your country.
It robs people of jobs. And the transition is not nearly
as easy. But it also ends up becoming
corrosive and destructive to communities.
And as a result, we had a Rust Belt and we had places that were
gutted. So what I found so interesting
about that talk is a lot of what he says is, of course, factually
correct. These things did happen.
There was a a focus on the global economy and for us and
other nation states productivity absolutely declined to the
extent that widespread poverty existed came into being in
America. It's happened in UK as well.
He talks about a plan for a world with no borders.
This sounds very familiar. I'm sure Sandy's will have
something to say about that in a minute and robbed of our
industrial capacity. So all these things he's
describing factually correct. This has certainly happened in
the US and it's happened in the West.
But then he's used that wonderful little phrase they
what he doesn't talk about is the people that actually created
the globalist policy that America followed or engaged
with, which caused all the problems in the 1st place.
So he's not talking about the United Nations even, he's not
talking about the World Economic Forum, he's not talking about
the Trilateral Commission. He's not mentioning any of the
organisations which not only created the policies he now says
destroyed America, they are still destroying America.
So let's have a listen to a little bit more of this.
All of a sudden, that company or that field vanished because it
moved somewhere else where it was cheaper to do, and those
jobs were gone and obviously became incredibly destructive,
not just for the United States, by the way, but for many nations
in the industrialised West. But the other thing it robbed us
of is the ability to make things, which is a national
security impediment impairment and a very significant 1.
And that's never changed. That's always been true.
And so today what you find is because of all those years of
neglect, because of the loss of industrial capacity, we didn't
just undermine our society, we didn't just undermine our
domestic economy. We've undermined our position in
the world. And what you will find, and what
we find even now is that increasingly on geopolitical
issue after geopolitical issue, it is access to raw material and
industrial capacity that is at the core both of the decisions
that we're making and the areas that we're prioritising.
Part of the decisions that were made were in the end, if
something is good for the global economy, that's really what
matters. Ultimately.
A lot of public policy decisions were made without the nation
state in mind. Rather, the decision was, is
this good for the global economy?
The other, which is more broad but I think also ties to
economic policy, is the following.
Part of the decisions that were made were in the end, if
something is good for the global economy, that's really what
matters. Ultimately, a lot of public
policy decisions were made without the nation state in
mind. Rather, the decision was is this
good for the global economy? So again, some very, very
interesting comments there. He's saying that the nation
state was basically overlooked for the global economy and this
has taken America into a dangerous place.
Notice he said that making things equals national security.
And here we are in UK where supposedly the government's
brought in a defence review. And what is it actually?
What's actually happening? Well, our ability to make steel
just about gone. Our ability to produce
munitions? Gone.
We need the Germans to help us produce barrels for weapons on
the battlefield. So our manufacturing absolutely
destroyed by successive governments, and that equals a
direct attack on national security.
So where does Rubio sit? Do I trust him?
No, I don't. If he starts to talk about the
people that have brought in these agendas, such as the World
Economic Forum, then we know he's on the right path.
If he doesn't, this is another complete distraction for the
American public. In this case, Sandy, I don't
know whether you've got a very quick comment on that.
Absolutely. I mean, every, everything that,
that we, we had has gone, everything's been lost.
And, and you know, as a, as a nation state, the UK has been
hollowed out from inside for a number of years.
And, and we know really who's behind that.
So I, I totally get what you're saying.
He's not to be trusted because he's not calling out the actors
involved. He's, he's just, he's just kind
of brushing over it. So, yeah, you're absolutely
right. We, we, everything is, is gone,
really, that we held dear. Yeah.
I think I, I, I've just going to talk today about the Ocean
Conference that's happening. And this is all part, part of
this big agenda that that is, is, is really taking everything
away from from us and putting it into corporate hands.
And that's what we're seeing. And that's really what Rubio was
talking out about. But he's not calling them out.
So, yeah, last month I covered David Attenborough's 99th
birthday and the launch of his new film Ocean, which he's
proudly shown to schools throughout the the the country
to get children involved in saving, saving the planet.
And he's he's, he's kind of lamenting that he's not going to
live to see his great work seen. And, you know, The thing is that
the film was released to coincide with the, with the
ocean conference. You know, he's, he's, he, he,
this is about the, the, the children going, you know, having
the, the, all this propaganda put into the schools.
But it's on the back of this ocean conference that's
happening in, in Nice next week. So really the conference is, is
being held in Nice. It's called the Ocean Conference
and it's really taking into account Goal 14 of the of the
Sustainable Development Goals. And it's all about conserving,
you know, conservation and sustainability.
This is what they're talking about, the use of the oceans,
the seas and marine resources or, you know, sustainable
development really. And what they're what they're
sort of going into is, is the targets that they're looking at
is reducing marine pollution, managing and protecting marine
ecosystems, minimising ocean acidification, regulating
overfishing, prohibiting farming, you know, harm on for
farming subsidies. And, you know, increasing
scientific knowledge and enhancing the conservation and
sustainable use of oceans through international law and
stopping the the plastic and all that kind of stuff.
And it all sounds great, doesn't it?
You know, it's who wouldn't agree with cleaning up the
oceans for for future generations.
And this is what's Sustainable Development 14 is proposing that
it's doing. But there's a, you know, it's,
it's a very like all the goals 14 is sold as a necessary
benefit to mankind. But there's also a darker side
to this and it's related to the financial aspect of ecosystems
through what is referred to as the blue economy, which involves
financializing the sea resource, you know, all the resources
under the sea and the seabed, rather than focusing solely on
the conservation and environmentalism side.
So there's always like what what they give with one hand, it's
all about wonderful stuff like cleaning up the oceans and
everything. But on the other side, we've got
this, this really this new economy that they're, they're
pulling out of a hat. So on the 7th and 8th of June,
the Blue Economy and Finance Forum are hosting a less
publicised event in Monaco at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
And this Foreman Forum is designated as AUN Ocean
Conference Special Event, and it aims to mobilise funding to
restore ocean health and accelerate the transition to a
sustainable and regenerative blue economy.
And Christine Lagarde is going to be speaking there, of course.
And so the blue economy is presented as a new model for
sustainable ocean based development.
It promotes ocean industries like offshore energy, marine
biotechnology, ecotourism and seabed mining, all under the
promise of green growth and climate resilience.
But in reality, it's a means of financializing, you know, the
ocean floor and the oceans and turning marine life, ecosystems
and even the seabed itself into a tradable economic asset.
The fight, You know, the valuable minerals of the seabed
are needed to fuel the 4th Industrial revolution, the green
economy. At the end of the day, that's
what they're doing. Through mechanisms like blue
bonds, ecosystem service valuations and carbon
offsetting, oceans are increasingly being absorbed into
the financial system. Nature is being replaced,
packaged and sold. And coastal mangroves become
carbon credits. Fish stocks become debt
instruments and, you know, ocean health becomes a, a line in, in
the whole ESG portfolios. So it's a kind of a seabed gold
rush really. And it's control over marine
resources that shifts from communities to banks, hedge
funds and multinational corporations.
So small fishing communities are being treated like a threat to
the environment, but big companies are being allowed to
expand like massive fish farms, huge offshore wind farms and
deep sea mining operations. So, you know, at the end of the
day, it's global organisations like the UN and the World Bank
and powerful charities are creating plans to divide up the
ocean. As a result, small Fisher
fisheries and fishermen and and smaller communities could be,
you know, that that all their activities could be made
illegal. And in, you know, a lot of it is
all about foreign debt or aid, you know, in return for these
nations to give up control of their own waters, known as
exclusive economic zones, Eezs, areas that could benefit, you
know, their own people. These are being sort of swapped
really for it was almost like a nature swap step for nature
swaps so that the the people don't actually have a say in all
this. It's, it's all being handed over
to big corporations. So I'm just want to look at the
closer look at the sponsors of this.
And, and of course, you know, you'll, you'll see that Prince
Albert of Monaco plays a pivotal role in these initiatives.
He along with the World Economic Forum and all the major actors
and he's the founder of the president of the Prince Albert,
the second of the Monaco's foundation, which organises the
Monaco Ocean Week in collaboration with the Monaco
government and the Monaco the Yacht Club and into dish in.
In addition to the Blue Economy Finance Forum, Monaco Ocean Week
features various events including the Monaco Smart Yacht
Rendezvous and the Environmental Symposium organised by the Yacht
Club in Monaco. And these events focus on,
quote, sustainable yachting and innovative solutions for ocean
protection. And Albert's involvement
underscores Monaco's dedication to the ocean preservation and
its leadership in promoting sustainable practises in marine
environments. So, you know, if you look at
the, the this yacht, this huge super yacht thing, maybe I'm
missing something, but there's, you know, there's nothing
sustainable about smart super yachts for the Super rich.
So in short, the blue economy means nature is not protected,
but monetized and local stewards and are displaced by local
global stakeholders. And where oceans are no longer a
shared heritage, they become a financial instrument.
So it's not conserving life below water and it's more about
who profits from it. So that's that's what I'm
finding anyway. Great Sandy, thank you very much
indeed. And you're absolutely right in
terms of putting a value on it. And it's worth pointing out this
coincides absolutely with publication or reports from the
UK government about access to what they're calling green
spaces and blue spaces. And the point of that of course
is to put exactly that value on it.
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talks to Vicky Baggot, who is challenging the library system
in the United States, particularly on the
sexualisation of content of literature for children.
And that falls in line with the series of interviews that
Diane's been running, particularly with relation to
Diane Kleinman and indeed the organisation that they are both
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Now that takes us to the after effects of what was called
Operation Spider Web and an examination of what is or has
been going on in Ukraine, which Brian is going to have a look at
for us now. OK.
Thank you for that, Charles. Well, just just a very quick
comment. But of course we've seen Western
media, newspapers and TV video streams alike absolutely crowing
at the recent attacks on Russia, never mind how dangerous these
were in view of the fact that it implicated Russian strategic
assets. But at times radio has been one
of the leaders of this, that they seem to regard war as a
joke and they were full of good humour because of the Kirsch
Bridge bombing. So I'm just putting this one up
as a as an image to reflect the type of things that the Times
and other Western media is putting across.
But of course, the reality for the reality of what's happening
on the battlefield. We can't rely on mainstream
media, but we can rely on some very hard working amateurs.
And I'm just going to bring up defence.
Let's bring it up here, Defence, politics, Asia.
I've mentioned before there's a number of these people and I'm
trying to give them all credit for what they're doing.
But the reality on the battlefield, of course is
Russian advances. Yes, very slow, but this is the
whole point of the Russian tactics.
It's a creeping advance. It's like lava moving.
And the reality is that Ukraine is losing on the battlefield.
And at the time we start to piece surprise, surprise, we get
these attacks on Russia, mainland Russia.
So Sandy, you were really quite taken, I think a little bit
shocked by the attacks that took place over the over recent days.
So tell us what what you feel. We've had, we know we had the
drone attacks. Was it last week?
And, you know, just in, in the last 24 hours, we've had the
bombing of the Koch Bridge in Crimea, which is a vital link
between Crimea and the Russian mainland.
And I've got a video of of that, of that bombing.
And it's quite shocking really, that it's a third attempt on
this bridge, which is a vital lifeline.
And it's it's held dear by by Putin to actually, yeah.
I mean, it really it was his. It was more than a bridge.
It was a symbol of Russia's restoration of the Crimea, you
know, after the people after the people voted to rejoin the
Russian Federation in 2014. So let's see that that video.
Thank you. Yeah.
It said, you know, there is being blown up.
It was apparently the the Ukrainian USB has has admitted
it. Here's one of their lieutenants,
you know, saying this is a Trinity.
It's the third attempt on, on, on Ukraine and on, on Russia.
And he, you know, he says, you know, God loves the Trinity And,
and we're going to continue to do it.
Basically, you know, this is this is really baiting, baiting
the Russians and, you know, baiting Putin.
And this is the drone attack obviously from last week.
And it just, it, it just shows you, I mean, 41 of, of, of
Putin's planes were bombed. And this is, you know, this is,
this is what that we're looking at.
We're looking at a real baiting of, of the bear.
You know, I mean, it's absolutely blatant and, and
it's, it's significant because this bridge really is a symbol
of Russia's, you know, Russia's referendum, which the West
continues to deny because they deny the right people's self
determination when it suits their agenda.
And you know, if, if we keep pushing, if they keep pushing
this, sooner or later the response will escalate because
if you keep kicking the bear, eventually the bear turns round.
And the tragedy is the people of Europe and America are being
lied to. They're being told this war is a
war for democracy, when in truth it's a war for global, global
hegemony. As we know they're they're
being, I told Russia is the aggressor and NATO has expanded
to Russia's doorstep. They've broken every promise,
armed every hostile neighbour and now sponsors attacks on
Russian soil. So let's be clear.
The bombing of the Crimean bridge was a message and now
Russia will send its own. I'm sure our governments are
marching us into a war, and they've already committed acts
of war in our name. So because of this madness, you
know, if it continues, you know, we we literally are, you know,
that Russia is forced to respond as any great nation would.
And the next bridge to fall might not be Crimea.
It might be the bridge between peace and annihilation.
So yeah, that's it really. Sandy, thank.
Thank you very much for that. You indicated to me earlier this
morning that the people we're going to say in local
communities, you've got good connectivity with with the
community. And you were saying to me that
people are now starting to see through this.
They're not treating the mainstream media reports as if
they are the absolute truth. I find that extremely
encouraging. The other thing I just wanted to
add to your commentary is that the idea that the the drone
attacks across Russia on strategic Russian strategic
nuclear assets, the idea that that was simply carried out by
Ukraine is laughable. There would have been UK and
possibly the the US behind, but for Ukrainians to do it on their
own, I don't think so. And I think we can say the same
with these attacks on the cursed bridge because they would have
needed Western expertise to help them carry out these attacks.
And this is the reality. This is not a war of Ukraine
versus Russia. It is NATO and Ukraine versus
Russia. And we need to be accurate in in
how how we describe this. People need to understand this.
But Sandy, thank you very much. I'm encouraged that people are
starting to see through what's happening, the reality of the
war. Now this is when it's difficult
for UK column news because. People do say some of the
information that we put across is very hard.
It's very disturbing. But if we don't report the facts
and the truth, what are we to do?
Many people, as I've shown earlier in the news today, seem
to think that war in Ukraine is a joke.
It's something to be laughing and smiling about.
Let's just hear commentary from the Russian diplomatic team who
were commenting a few days ago about dead bodies.
Truly transfer 6000 frozen bodies of Ukrainian soldiers,
which are on storage with us. We've conducted all possible
identification procedures and we have organised special transport
and those bodies will be transferred to the Ukrainian
side next week so that they can give them a decent burial.
I don't know if there are any bodies that they want to give to
us. We would accept them, but that
is yet unknown. We also agreed on the most large
scale and prisoner exchange, those who are gravely wounded or
gravely ill. That will be a humanitarian
gesture on our side, as the Ukrainian side often speaks
about the general need for a ceasefire.
We proposed a specific ceasefire for two or three days on certain
parts of the front and it will now be worked out by our
specialists and this will include the cessation of drone
operations and other things so that the bodies can be collected
by commanders. It is a hot time of the year and
there is a danger of epidemics, so we want to create the
possibility, especially since the Russian army is advancing.
So we're into the real horrible truth about this battlefield.
The scale of the violence is on a par with the worst of the
violence in the Second World War.
Massive losses. We still don't know the true
figures, but between Russian and Ukrainian losses, we are
certainly talking a million men, and the bulk of the bulk of the
casualties has fallen on the Ukrainian side.
There is no doubt about this. And of course, what is being
said in this little clip is that the Russians moving forward are
having problems because they're moving into areas previously
defended by Ukraine where there are so many bodies.
It is, it's presenting a health hazard.
And remember that Leader of the opposition, Kemi Bananock, Mike
has shown this clip a couple of times, is very happy to say,
well, we, we, the UK, are fighting a proxy war against the
Russians. But of course, it's the
Ukrainians that are taking the brunt of the of the casualties,
the dead and the wounded. So this is a vicious war carried
out by the West, but the UK is there at the forefront and the
Russians talking in terms of handing back 6000 bodies.
This is just one incident that they hold on ice.
It's truly despicable. And of course, the British
government and Stormer and those who voted for him should be
ashamed. Now, there's something else that
was reported by those Russian diplomats.
So Vladimir Medinsky, who was the main man speaking.
Let's listen to something else he talked about.
Now it's regarding children. So what did we hear recently at
the United Nations, at other platforms?
We heard about 1.5 million Ukrainian children being
abducted. Then we had about 200,000
Ukrainian children. Now the official figure is
20,000 children. And we tried to get any
documentary evidence, any corroboration statements from
parents, but there was nothing, no, no lists.
And we have a permanently operating children's ombudsman.
And children who found themselves in a difficult
situation in the battle zone, they're evacuated.
And if their families are found, the children are reunited with
their families, they're given back to those families.
So what are the actual numbers? We finally received the full
list. As you see, it's not 1.5 million
and not 20,339 names. So this number is a very visual
indication of the fact that the entire story with abducted
children is just a media operation aiming to impress the
Europeans. There is not a single child who
was abducted, but there were children who were saved by our
soldiers risking their lives, who risked their lives to carry
out those children from the battle zone.
And we are now looking for their parents.
And if we find those parents, we give the children back to the
family. And there are dozens such cases.
Well, there we are. Very interesting testimony
compared to the propaganda that we've seen from Western media.
Do I believe that the Russians are squeaky clean on this?
I suspect not entirely because we're in a battlefield
situation, but there are a number of extremely harrowing
videos which you can watch on social media, which are from the
battlefield, showing Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian
soldiers trying to evacuate civilians, elderly men, women,
children, from the battlefield zones or the zones which are
under fire from both sides. And those Russian soldiers being
targeted by drones, many of which of course will have been
supplied by the West. Now, on the subject of children,
back in 2016 Mike Robinson produced a couple of articles
talking about the basically the lies of the British government
around unaccompanied children and the children disappearing at
the time, some 400 children from Syria who'd come to the UK
unaccompanied by their parents. Those children disappeared.
There was no major commentary from the BBC or the government
on that. So that was one particular
article. But Mike Robinson wrote a second
one here on the 6th of October 2016 when he was talking about
having tried to get an answer from Tim Farron about these dis
the Syrian children that had disappeared.
But again, a wall of silence. So I'm going to say to our
audience today, utter, utter hypocrisy by the UK government
over the subject of missing children.
And if I can reinforce this statement and this document was
brought to my attention from 2024, eroding the right to
family life, human rights violations in Britain's child
protection systems. It was written by the Children
and Families Truth Commission. And if you get in some of the
detail, I won't give it all, but you can see this in your own
time. Essentially the report is saying
that the findings demonstrate that the children's social care
system is profoundly harmful and unsupportive for families and
children and it's clearly incompatible with human rights
legislation in the UK. In this section here of key
findings, you will see the comments from families who've
been affected by the system and essentially they're saying no
support, grossly unfair, inaccurate reports, nothing is
independent and the whole system is unjust as children are taken
away from parents. So we'll have more on that in
due course, but Vanessa has probably a very good Segway to
bring you in because of course, Syrian children have suffered on
a massive scale, not only in the war zone, but outside of the war
zone. Yeah, absolutely.
And not forgetting, of course, the MI 6 incubated White Helmet
organisation that stands accused by the Syrian people of child
abduction, organ trafficking and child abuse, of course, in the
staging of the chemical weapon attacks that were used to
criminalise the former Syrian government.
So Britain has its hand behind many of these most nefarious
harvests, as they're known of war.
So I'm going to come back to Syria now and try to unravel
some of the complications surrounding what's actually
going on. And, and people may sometimes
think I'm contradicting myself from previous reports, but it's
a very fluid situation. There's huge power plays going
on between a number of players in the region, some allies, some
not. And even within the Jelani are
elected regime itself, there are things are not all looking good
for him. So most recently, Trump was
talking about some of the concessions he was prepared to
make if Jelani would give him assurances.
And first of all, if we have a look at this article a few days
ago in the Washington Post, Syrian leader faces the
challenge of foreign militants who helped him win power.
And of course, Trump is basically saying, or he was
saying that all the foreign militants must get out of Syria.
So let's just have a look at some of the, or at least one of
the main reasons that that's an issue for Jelani.
The most hard line of these fighters are already turning
their eye on Sharar, or Jelani as we know him, angry that he
has not yet improved Islamic Sharia law and alleging that
he's cooperated with the US and Turkish forces to target
extremist factions. Jelani is attacking us from the
ground, America from the sky. And of course, this is nothing
new. This is effectively what was
happening when Jelani had dominance over Idlib and the US
was helping him eliminate his challenges for power in Idlib
itself by by drain strikes having been given the
coordinates by Gilani and his loyal militia.
However, America, just as you said, Brian, with the talk from
Rubio, America seems to be, let's say chameleon like
changing its policy. So in the last 48 hours, Trump
has said through his special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, US
gives the nod to Syria to bring foreign jihadists and ex rebels
into the army. So a complete flip there by the
United States. Tom Barrack basically pointed
out that I would say there is an understanding with transparency.
Me personally, I would say this is an understanding from the US,
probably fed to them through the UK elements that are now
operating in Damascus, that Jolani will not survive without
the foreign elements in his militia.
And Barrett goes on, and this is paraphrasing, it is better to
keep the fighters, many of whom are very loyal to Syria's new
administration, within a state project rather than exclude
them. Because of course, if they were
to exclude them, what has been happening is those fighters who
believe that Jolani has betrayed their extremist Takfiri roots
and vision for Syria are now joining ISIS in Syria and
turning against Jolani. Secondly, Tom Barrack also made
comments that the US policy in Syria hasn't worked for 100
years and that it's time to change that policy.
Of course, Trump tried this previously in his 2016
presidency and this has been reported in Reuters.
US to scale down its military bases in Syria, the envoy says.
So Tom Barrick is basically saying they'll scale down from 8
bases to 1 and move further to the east.
Now coming back to the incorporation of foreign
jihadists into the Syrian Army, which raises certain questions,
particularly with relation to China.
This is an article from a Lebanese media outlet.
The integration of 3500 Uyghur jihadists.
Now, that's slightly misleading because while the Uyghur
jihadists are probably the majority of the foreigners
joining Jolani's official new Syrian Army, they number about
4000 to 5000 in Syria, but they are outnumbered by the Chechens
and the Tunisians. So a little bit misleading.
But however, what is not misleading is, I believe, the
reasons behind allowing the Uyghurs to remain in Syria,
which is all about curbing China's influence on the new
Syrian government. This was a report from the
Washington Institute and if we have a look at what they
actually said in the report, there are fears that China is
making steps to to get close to Jolani's government.
A week after Assad fell, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated
that he was deeply concerned and called for urgent efforts to
prevent terrorists and extremist forces taking advantage of the
chaos. Two months later, however,
Chinese Ambassador XI Hongwei met with interim President
Geolani and Damascus. So clearly from America's
perspective, they want to prevent Chinese influence again
in Syria. And coming back to what we
talked about last week, of course, all of this is happening
also after the British have very much entered Damascus and are
heavily influencing decisions that are taken in the Syrian
capital and by Jolani. So if we just have a quick look
at the article that's up at the UK column website, The Blair
Bush Project in Syria that brought al Qaeda to power, which
goes into detail about the role of Jonathan Powell connected to
MI Six, former chief of staff for Tony Blair and now, of
course, national security adviser to Kerr Starmer and
who's actually running operations in Damascus.
It appears to be this lady, Lucy Stewart.
This has been confirmed to me by a number of people in Syria and
in Damascus in particular. She's embedded in the new Syria
Foreign Affairs Ministry and is helping to groom the members of
Jolani's al Qaeda government. She spent five years working for
Saudi Arabia Media. She's a graduate from the School
of Oriental African Studies of Arabic and Farsi, a joint
intermediate Jonathan Powell's organisation, in June 2015, and
has been there ever since. And this is her job to basically
groom Jelani or to transform Jelani from the terrorists that
he was, Mohammed Al Jelani, into the president of Syria, if we
can just see that. And so so basically the British
involvement is having a huge effect, in my opinion, on U.S.
policy, but not only U.S. policy.
Israel also feels emboldened. There were reports yesterday of
so called resistance strikes against the occupied Golan
Heights occupied by Israel and that led to blanket bombing by
Israel yesterday of a number of sites in Syria.
So Britain seems to have triggered a change in policy in
the US and empowerment of the Jolani regime.
Vanessa, thank you very much indeed.
And it's something we'll certainly come back to in extra.
But for now, Law and Order and published at the end of last
month is the independent sentencing review from Ministry
of Justice. There's just time to look at two
of the provisions, the first being a measure which would set
a very dangerous precedent indeed, so called pharmaceutical
interventions for those subject to criminal sanctions.
And this is what the Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmud had to
say about it. And does that last forever?
Is it permanent? You, you, you have to keep
taking the medication, the evidence.
And you know, these studies are quite small in number.
There's not huge evidence base here in in terms of what we've
got available to us in this country, but the evidence
suggests that the combination of the drugs with psychological
interventions is actually the best combination for ultimately
reducing reoffending. What I've inherited from
previous administrations is a very, very small scale pilot
that's been running for some years in the Southwest.
What I've decided is I think that this is a combination of
medicine and psychological interventions that other
countries are using to good effect.
So more and more countries are taking this up.
I'm not squeamish, squeamish about doing this here.
So I would like to see a national roll out of the current
programme that we have. We're going to start with two
regions and then and then progress to national roll out.
It's a voluntary programme to start with.
But I'm also exploring, you know, where the mandation might
be a way forward for us as to force people to do.
Chemical castration, something she's apparently not squeamish
about and in many ways an extraordinary thing to listen
to, especially when treated in such a bland manner.
But you will have heard at the end of the clip she referred to
mandatory castration, which takes us back some decades.
From the Auschwitz travelling exhibition.
It is stated that the pseudo medical experiments carried out
included, sorry, including for example, tests on sterilisation
using iodine X rays or silver nitrate castration of the
subhumans. Now not only that, but there's
the extremely problematic issue of consent.
And this is what the NHS has to say about that, which is that
consent from a patient is needed regardless of the procedure.
The principle of consent is an important part of medical ethics
and international human rights law, something everybody will
have a particular view on from what's happened over the last
five years. But of course, put the other way
around the the obstacle, or at least the way around this
particular obstacle concerns capacity.
And the health service goes on to say that the requirement for
consent disappears with what they call a severe mental health
condition such as schizophrenia, bipolar or dementia, and where
the patient lacks the capacity to consent to the treatment of
their mental health. Now, these are referred to as
psychological interventions. And and with regard to that,
there's absolutely no evidence to substantiate the
effectiveness of such as seen here in the rather outdated
scoring profile from the College of Policing where the impact on
crime is scored as low. Now the preface of all this is
an extremely alarmist statement as put out by the Home Office
that we are facing a total breakdown of law and order.
And as part of this narrative, Mood has also declared that she
will sort out the very many issues confronting prisons and
in particular the spaces inside them.
This is dealt with in the sentencing review to an extent.
So the reporting here by the Telegraph is not quite as
thorough as it ought to be. But they say that one way to
reduce pressure on prisons is via what's called punishment in
the community, which will, quote, restrict freedom, impose
structure on an offender's day to day life and require people
to confront the causes and consequences of their actions.
End Quote. This follows the increasing
trend towards the imposition of various orders, many of which
who do not even require involvement in a criminal
offence. And then alongside all of this
is the announcement that there's to be a Prevent commissioner
charged with, quote, stopping people from becoming terrorists
or or supporting terrorism. It's likely that any reports
produced by the interim commissioner will inform public
policy around how counterterrorism interacts with
integration, public health, faith and communities, and how
these policy areas can support counterterrorism efforts in the
coming years. So the first agenda item no
doubt will be to look at the review into the actions of
Prevent with regard to Axel Rudiqabana, currently serving a
prison sentence in relation to the Southport killings of last
year, who was of course well known to Prevent.
Finally, on on this subject, with the Liverpool traffic
attack in mind, it's worth considering the government's
push for self driving vehicles which was meant to take effect
this year, 2025. Now the Connected and Automated
Mobility Report 2022 predicated the transition on the theory of
change, another instance of nudge or applied behavioural
psychology. So it's not hard to see how the
actions of Paul Doyle and the associated fanfare of attention
could be used to engender public acceptance for automated
vehicles. So this would be something that
we keep an eye on. They say here the public trust
and acceptance of any new technology is key to its success
and this is identified as a critical factor in our theory of
change modelling. One particularly important
factor in public acceptance is safety.
So as I say, we'll see where that goes.
Now finally to end on a positive, we've heard reports in
from those that distribute the Lights newspaper out in the
Cheltenham area. They've had a really good
response in recent times to what they're doing and indeed to
what's contained within the Light, which is of course an
excellent read. And I would encourage you to get
a copy of the most recent edition, not least because it
deals with our UK column on location event back in April in
Cheltenham. So, so great work and please do
keep in touch with stories like that because it's very important
to reflect that back to the audience that all of this does
actually make different. Now that's all we've got time
for in the programme today. So I'll just leave you with a
few reminders. First of all, don't forget to
tune in to Diane's interview with Vicki Baggett tomorrow.
And of course at 7:00 every evening during the week, at
least Monday to Friday, we have the Germ Warfare podcast going
out and then starting in a few minutes we will have news extra.
So do TuneIn to that. If you're not yet a member and
therefore don't have access to extra, please consider joining
us as a member. And it just remains for me to
thank Brian very much for joining me in the studio and
Vanessa and Sandy remotely. We will see you again on Friday
or indeed in a few minutes for extra.
Thank you very much. Bye bye.