Hello, it's Wednesday the 14th of May 2025, just after 1:00.
And welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson.
Joining me in the studio today is Charles Mallett.
Welcome to program, Charles. Thank you, Mike.
And by video link, we have Vanessa Bailey and Sandy Adams.
Now, later in the program, we're going to be covering the victory
in the High Court over low traffic neighborhoods, online
safety, the Middle East and water scarcity.
But let's begin, Charles, with allegations of war crimes by the
British military. We will, and in doing so, we'll
examine what BBC Panorama's latest offering, I Saw War
Crimes has to say about itself in this short clip from their
advertising promotion. Those who served with UK special
forces are about to break a code of silence.
They don't want to be identified.
We've used actors to speak their words but they want the world to
know what they saw. Everyone knew what was going on.
It's not scout camp. Everyone knew what was
happening. People were murdered.
The government has set up a public inquiry but it's only
looking at operations between 2010 and 2013.
We've been told the unlawful killings started much earlier,
so that's been produced by Hannah O'Grady, who's been the
journalist at the centre of much of this type of investigating.
And of course the critical part here really in so far as
credibility is concerned, is that they are using actors.
So whilst on the face of it, it might seem significant that
Special Forces veterans have stepped forward, they've done so
in an anonymous sense, so it is in that respect hard to know
what to make of it. I should say that I reported on
this last on the 25th of September last year, so there's
not enough time to go into all that detail today.
So please look back at that news programme for further detail.
I'm now just going to show a little bit of video from what
the BBC is describing as being from the Special Forces taken in
Iraq. And the claims by the Panorama
programme are that these sorts of videos were produced by
troops and squadrons deployed in order to effectively promote
competition between units, most particularly in relation to what
they call the kill counts. And so the statistics here being
shown on screen that over a six month tour, 424 detainees and 19
enemy killed, just as an example.
Now this there's no suggestion here that this was an isolated
incident, isolated either to the UK or indeed to Afghanistan or
Iraq. And therefore it's relevant to
look to Australia, which has investigated this in a more
official and perhaps comprehensive sense.
And going back to 2020, the Britain report which states that
credible information existed in 23 incidents in which one or
more non combatants were unlawfully killed by or at the
direction of Australian Special Forces, which may constitute the
war crime of murder. Now the Chief of the Australian
Defence Forces, Angus Campbell spoke in 2020 and it's
interesting to note contrast between what he said and what
has come from Ministry of Defence in the UK.
What the Inspector General finds is greatly at odds with that
good effort and damaging to our moral authority as a military
force. His report details credible
information regarding deeply disturbing allegations of
unlawful killings by some. I would respectfully ask
Australians to remember and have faith in the many.
I assure you I do. To the people of Afghanistan, on
behalf of the Australian Defence Force, I sincerely and
unreservedly apologize for any wrongdoing by Australian
soldiers. The defence chief pointed to a
culture of what he said was toxic competitiveness between an
SAS unit and a commando unit. The allegations General Campbell
described as a disgrace to both. He said it was a shameful
record. There were incidents allegedly
involving patrol members who were coerced to shooting a
prisoner in order to achieve what was called a first kill, or
blooding. We also heard details from the
inquiry that found the soldiers sought to cover up their crimes
by using what was called throw downs, those being usually
pistols, ammunition, grenades or handheld radios to be placed on
the bodies of victims. So that was a Channel 9 report
which becomes relevant because all of this led to a man named
Ben Roberts Smith, who was then a corporal in The Australian
Special Air Service. And we'll just pop him on screen
now because he is crucial to what happened in Australia.
And there are enormous parallels with what the BBC programme has
articulated. But it should be pointed out
that that Robert Smith found himself at the centre of a
defamation case because back in 2018 articles were written by
journalist Nick McKenzie in particular suggesting that he
had been responsible for a number of extrajudicial killings
whilst in Afghanistan. And in 2023 this he he he sued
for defamation against Mackenzie but it was chucked out on the
balance of probability that he had in fact committed such
murders. Now at the time Robert Smith was
working for Channel 7A, rival Channel in Australia owned by
Kerry Stokes, who has bankrolled his appeal, which the decision
for which is due to be announced on Friday.
So it seems beyond coincidence that this could be happening at
the same time as the Panorama programme.
Now for much more information on this, I'd point you towards the
60 Minutes programme in Australia Theatre of War, a link
to which will be in the show notes.
And indeed this now brings us back to the UK because the other
thing reported by the BBC is that this man shown on screen
now, General Gwyn Jenkins, who's the strategic adviser to the
Defence Secretary, was at the heart of this at the time in
Afghanistan. And that he had knowledge by by
way of a report back in 2011 when he was commanding UK
Special forces in Afghanistan, Afghanistan.
And he sent that report up the chain of command to the then
Director Special Forces, who was Mark Carlton Smith, who went on
to become Chief of the Defence Staff here in the UK.
What Jenkins is accused of not doing is passing that report to
the Royal Military Police. Further investigation.
And again, I refer you back to my report of the 25th of
September last year. Now Jenkins has subsequently
gone on to be Director Special Forces himself and is accused
there of overseeing the blocking of Afghan than attendees at the
inquiry into events in Afghanistan, which has been
going on for some considerable period of time now.
Now added to that, he is also tipped to be the next First Sea
Lord, which of course is pertinent in so far as Ben Key,
the current incumbent, has just stepped down over an affair with
a female subordinate, which Brian will talk a bit more about
on Monday. And what this brings to mind is
the government's decision to repeal and replace the Northern
Ireland Troubles Legacy and Reconciliation and Act in 2023.
So there's an awful lot more to this story than meets the eye
and it's not entirely certain why the BBC would be putting it
out now and what there is to to it.
That one possibility is that it does certainly seem to obscure
much of what's been going on in Gaza.
There is a sort of normalisation of war crimes because there's
been a considerable reaction against this, as though this is
all part and parcel of the job. So I think there's going to be
much more to talk about this in Extra.
Thanks, Charles. Vanessa, let's come to you then.
And of course, Trump has been in Saudi Arabia.
So what has he been up to? Yeah, well, apparently Trump has
been arranging to meet with Jolani, the head of the Syrian
hunter, which of course is basically Al Qaeda that came to
power after the international coup of December 2024.
I don't know if their slides are a bit mixed up because this one
is a little bit further on, but I'll just keep going.
So this is basically the first meeting of AUS president with a
Syrian President in 25 years. Of course, unfortunately, this
is a meeting with the leader of al Qaeda.
And we hear, of course, that Trump has had the meeting this
morning in Saudi Arabia before he headed off to Qatar.
And this is basically following a meeting in Damascus between a
Trump, let's say one of the Trump management, Jonathan Bass,
who was reported by Syrian media to have gone to Damascus to meet
with Jolani in order to lay the ground for the meeting with
Trump. Jonathan Bass is someone who on
his ex account talks about respect for religious freedom
and coexistence, without of course mentioning the fact that
Israel itself has no respect for the coexistence with
Palestinians and is currently genociding Palestinians in the
occupied territories and in Gaza.
Now as a result of Basses meeting, apparently Jolani
basically agreed to give America access to oil reserves in Syria
and to further and expand trade with the United States, which of
course means occupation by the likes of the International
Monetary Fund and overall control by the US and Israel of
the the Syrian economy going forward.
He also promised Trump a Trump Tower to be built in the middle
of Damascus. And so so all of these
sweeteners were basically to give him the opportunity to meet
with Trump. And that in fact led to Trump
lifting the sanctions on Al Qaeda, which had been in place
or the sanctions rather had been in place since 1979 onwards.
So let's just listen to Trump addressing the Gulf state
regarding the lifting of sanctions on Syria.
And also with President Erdogan of Turkey, who called me the
other day and asked for a very similar thing, among others and
friends of mine, people that I have a lot of respect for in the
Middle East. I will be ordering the cessation
of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at
great this. Oh, what I do for the Crown
Prince. But of course, you know, part of
this deal was effectively the normalization between Syria and
of normalization of relations between Syria and Israel, which
apparently has been achieved. And Trump is not lifting all the
sanctions. I'm told by sources in Syria
that around 30% have actually been lifted.
So this seems to be a bit more of a gesture than anything else.
And I don't know if we can go back to the slide from Marwa
because she basically went on her Telegram channel to talk
about the, you know, what has not been affected basically by
Trump's grand gesture in front of Saudi Arabia in particular.
And I've very much paraphrased what she said, but basically, it
doesn't mean an end to US illegal occupation of Syrian
resources, either directly or by proxy.
No end to Israeli aggression against Syria, the bombing of
multiple sites across Syria since December 2024.
No reversal of the Turkish theft of Aleppo industry which began
in 2011. No trade without US or Israeli
approval. And of course, basically the
embedding of US and EU and UK banking facilities in Syria to
ensure future control. No military or defence, much of
which was destroyed by Israel from December last year onwards.
No unity of the Syrian minorities because we're heading
towards partitioning. No end of course to the ethnic
cleansing by I'm sorry, I think that's typo correction in the
the system by Jolani's gangs. Because of course what what
they're effectively doing is normalizing Al Qaeda as a
leadership for Syria and effectively it also normalizing
the ethnic cleansing programs that have been carried out by
the forces under the control of Jolani.
And in fact, of course, what did Trump get from Saudi Arabia in
return? The biggest arms deal in
history. Dozens of U.S. defence
companies, so-called defence companies providing 142 billion
arms package also reported to to probably expand beyond that,
including air and missile defence, Air Force capability,
space advancement and maritime security.
And of course, we have to bear in mind that none of that would
be done unless Saudi Arabia had agreed to normalize with Israel
because Israel would not allow Saudi Arabia to develop any kind
of offence or serious defence capability unless it was
approved by Israel and to Israel's advantage.
And looking at the fact that maritime security as part of the
deal, of course, that would also impact on Iran.
And if we remember what Jonathan Bass also said, that he agreed
with Jolani that there would be cooperation between Jolani,
Syria and the US to basically go against Iran in the future.
This is all while, of course, the US is allegedly conducting
negotiations with Iran. And then finally, the video
shows Trump talking about the sanctions that he's very
recently imposed upon Iran. So let's have a look at that.
I want to make a deal with Iran. I want to do something if it's
possible. But for that to happen, it must
stop sponsoring terror, halt its bloody proxy wars, and
permanently and verifiably cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
They cannot have a nuclear weapon.
I don't imagine there's anybody at this table or anybody in this
room that would say they can't. I'm strongly urging all nations
to join us in fully and totally enforcing the sanctions that I
just placed on Iran. And we also placed secondary
sanctions, which are in certain ways even more devastating.
So secondary devastating sanctions and as I said, all
this literally a couple of days after the negotiations in Oman
between Stephen Witcroft and the Iranian representatives.
Thank you for that Vanessa. Thank you.
Now let's come back to the UK and still talking military
matters and well, Brexit without the exit continues and Nigel is
silent. The Times here claims that they
have had sight of leaked documents.
Now being an organ of the deep state, I'm sure it was a leak.
Sarcasm over the times says that and I quote leaked defense deal
warns that Europe faces the greatest threat in the
generation from Russia. Sorry I've put the wrong graphic
on. I do apologise.
That was Vanessa the greatest threat in a generation from
Russia as it pledges closer cooperation on military matters
with the with the with the EU. And the Times goes on to report
that the UK and the EU will unveil A defence and security
pact next week as part of a wide-ranging deal that will
bring Britain into the closest alignment it has had with the EU
since Brexit. Now they say that the security
pact says that the UK and the EU face a decisive moment and the
greatest threat in a generation because of Russia's invasion of
Ukraine and a campaign of espionage and sabotage in the
West. It says the seriousness of the
challenge requires a unique and ambitious new agreement on
security. And they point to the threat
from Trump as another cause. And they say it also provides A
mechanism for joint work working of the US.
Sorry if the US refused to allow action under NATO's auspices.
In this context, they say the EU and the UK have decided to
establish and implement A tailor made mutually beneficial
security and defence partnership that will frame their overall
cooperation across security and defence spectrum.
Now for the E US part, they say they're happy for the UK to join
the common security and defence policy which enables Ursula to
deploy European troops succounted from member states in
peacekeeping missions and get like at this, the collective
self defence of European states. And I'm going to say isn't this
the role of NATO And actually what does collective self
defence mean anyway? And hasn't all of NATO's
aggressions over the last few decades been in the name of
selective self defence? So this is exactly what the UK
column has been warning about since 2011.
In fact, no other media organization has been covering
this at all. The Express has given it some
brief mentions from time to time, but never in massive
detail. And this is a topic which Nigel
Farage and all the parties which he has LED have steadfastly
refused to engage with. We've also been warning since
the day after the referendum that Brexit was and is without
the exit. We were heavily criticised for
saying that at the time. Despite all the Hoo ha over the
Great Repeal Bill, successful successive British Prime
Ministers have kept the UK more or less aligned with EU
regulations and standards to make it as easy as possible to
bring the country back into as close an arrangement with the EU
as possible. And there could be no doubt that
the reason the British government signed up that to
such a bad deal following Brexit was specifically to make it as
painful as possible for ordinary people, and therefore to drive
support for exactly this now. The Times, then, and their
article goes on to point out that the defence pact will be
the centrepiece of a summit. This month that will what they
describe as open the way for the UK to restart selling food and
agricultural policy products to the EU without customs checks.
It will also commit both sides to working together to agree a
separate deal such as issues around youth mobility scheme,
the energy and energy market cooperation.
So that is a Brexit without the exit.
And we told you that this was the situation when no one else
was, including Nigel Farage. So you can take from that what
you wish. Any thoughts?
Plenty, yes, I mean, I, I think well we spoke about it last
week. And as you say, consistently,
you know, the, the, the defence union side of it is a sort of a
case in point that, that we see across the board where if you,
if you Chuck enough paperwork out there and you make enough
sort of formal and informal relationships with other
countries or other armed forces or something along that line,
you, you're paving the way to be able to just do anything at any
point. You, you can always relate back
to something that you have committed to in the past that
enables what's happening now. And also, I would just say that
quite like you point out, you know, as far as NATO is
concerned, is it really acting within the specific scope of its
articles? I, I, I don't think so at all.
I don't think 1 can take that judgement, certainly not since
early 2022. So there's an awful lot of
hypocrisy in this, and it'd certainly be very interesting to
see where this sort of, you know, undoing Brexit meeting
takes us. Yes, Vanessa, very briefly, what
are your thoughts on the idea of Hershey Lavander Lehn having the
ability to deploy troops in collective self defence?
Well, as you said, we've talked about it multiple times on UK
column. Not a surprise, but obviously
there does seem to be a sort of a DE linkage between the US and
the EU, but also apparently at the moment between the US and
Israel to some degree. So I do wonder whether it is a
true DE linking or whether it's a way of enabling certain
elements within the Alliance to operate alone.
Yes, good point. OK, thank you for that, Sandy.
Let's come on to you then. And well, perhaps we could
consider this to be a good news story with the recent activity
in the High Court over low traffic zones.
Yes and, and don't we need cheering up a bit to be honest,
Yes. On on the 9th of of May, a South
London local campaign group, the West Dulwich Action Group, won a
High Court victory against Lambeth Council in a judicial
review to scrap low traffic neighborhood schemes in the
area. Now this is this potentially
could overturn, it's the first time it's, it's happened that
these schemes have been lawfully challenged in the high Courts
and this could potentially overturn LTN 15 minute cities
and, um, and, and, and low traffic neighborhoods.
Uh, sorry, what, what do they call them?
Livable neighborhoods? Sorry, they've got so many words
for them. Anyway, the, these schemes are
very flawed and this all came, came to light in this particular
case, um, prior to seeking the judicial review, as it was done
under a judicial judicial review.
And these are the people that the, the main people that
challenged it, the, the group. And they prior to seeking this
judicial review, the West Knowledge Campaign group has
submitted a 53 page dossier to the council highlighting it
what, what he's, what they saw as flaws in the process.
This included concerns about the LTN worsening air pollution,
displacing traffic into boundary roads, increasing Rd. danger to
residential streets. There was also concerns that the
overwhelming levels of opposition about 65 No 67.5%
were literally being ignored and the High Court ruled that
Lambeth Council acted unlawfully in implementing the LTN.
The court found that the Council failed to properly consider
this, this 53 page report, which is a massive flaw and the
failure to, to have done this was a serious failing, rendering
the decision to make the court the orders unlawful.
So this is really quite big and the, the, the, the councillors
who, who, who challenged it, I mean the, the, the sorry, the,
the, the activists that can't, that, that challenged it.
They said Lambeth Council chose to spend public funds fighting
the very community exists to serve rather than sitting down
with us to find a workable, locally supported solution.
Meanwhile, over 700 residents and businesses had no choice but
to raise more than £50,000 to just have their voices heard.
It's a shameful misuse of resources that could have been
avoided through genuine, genuine engagement.
So, and, and the, the, the, the judge who, who presided over
this, his name is Tim Smith, said the council was guilty of a
master class in selective partial reporting in how it
reported the outcome of a library consultation.
Now these consultations we know are flawed because they,
they're, they're not done in a, in a, in any way that's
representative of the, of the community that they're, that
they're, they're trying to push this consensus on.
So this is another example of councils acting ultra virus,
which really means serious overreach beyond the scope of
their authority or the power granted to them by law.
And we're seeing this across the board, particularly where I am,
where freedom of speech is, is, is in the balance.
Where you've got, you've got councillors all going off sick
and apparently this is, this is what happened in this case.
A lot of them actually couldn't cope and in two years ago when
they had a a meeting in 2023 over this Lambeth Council, LTNA,
lot of them were in tears. A lot of the councillors were in
tears and the staff were offered well-being leave.
We're seeing this. So they're really getting upset
about being challenged. Well, boohoo, you know, this is
what this is what we're finding. So in the broader sense, this is
this really does give us some kind of decent president to
challenge all of this. And Councillor Rosina Chowdhury,
deputy leader of Lambeth Council, said the authority was
considering the implications of the judgement, but the LTN would
remain in place for now. And this is again a kind of
example of, of, of their, their hubris.
So maybe the council will try and challenge it, I don't know.
But for now, it's a definite victory and hopefully the
people, those voices, will be heard.
Do you think, Sandy, do you think the reason they're they
get so upset when they're challenged on this is that
they're so ideologically bought into their own narrative that
they can't, that they've lost the ability to represent
anybody. They're only there to represent
the policy itself. Absolutely.
I mean, I've, I've seen it, you know, our town clerk has gone
off and he's not likely to come back because he's been
challenged about having actually, you know, lawfully.
We're, we're looking into the lawful challenge against them
for, for what they've done and they can't cope with it.
They actually have this hubris that they believe that they are
above the law. That's it.
Yeah. Well, on that topic, I'll just
mention that the, the, the legal precedent for this is, comes
from the, I believe the 18th century.
It's antic versus Carrington. It's, it's the case law.
And what that law basically says is that us as individuals have
the right to do anything except what is expressly denied to us
by law. Whereas corporate entities,
governments, these types of people have the right to do
nothing except what is permitted by law.
Now, what became clear a number of years ago was that councils
were increasingly reversing that position and we're attempting to
take upon themselves the right to do anything that they chose.
And this is something that we've seen time and time again and we
absolutely need to keep in mind the the legal precedent in this
country is it's only us as human beings, as individuals that have
the right to do what we like, unless it's prevented by some
kind of restriction, legal restriction.
Otherwise, they have the right to do nothing.
And so, you know, I think that should be borne in mind.
Thank you for that, Sandy. Let's let's move on.
If you like what the UK column does, you'd like to support us.
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Now, tonight at 7:00 PM, Germ Warfare's going to be speaking
to Jeremy's, going to be speaking to Michelle Wilkins
about Kurt Cobain. And he did not kill himself, she
says. So join Jeremy for that at 7:00
PM. On the live stream tomorrow at
1:00 PM, Brian will be speaking to another resident of Fernethi
Residential School in Scotland. This is Debs.
And so that will be at 1:00 PM tomorrow.
Join Brian and Debs for that. And then just to let you know
that the On demand version of The Truth About Me with
Catherine Van Dom and Doctor Liz Evans is on the website at the
moment. Stand in the Light.
Let's have another reminder for that.
That's happening. May the 23rd, the 26th.
That's the bank holiday weekend, Karen and Cumbria, if you're not
going to that, we strongly, if you're in the area, at least we
strongly recommend you do. They're looking forward to a
good turn out for that. And we're delighted to say,
Charles, that The Light newspaper has covered our recent
live event. Absolutely, yes.
Very Many thanks to Serena Wilde, who was at the event with
us, and she's written a great piece in the most recent edition
of The Light. So there we go, highlighting the
important and symbiotic relationship between The Light
and UK column. And we'll look forward to seeing
Serena at the next event. But there's also a part, sorry,
she spoke to Catherine Gunn, who was one of our speakers, and
that's also contained within this edition.
So do get your copy. Thank you and a reminder of
Sounds Beautiful taking place in Wimborne and Dorset June the
26th to 29th and well go basically we will be there.
We can't make it to the standard of light this year.
We will be there next year I'm quite sure, but we will be.
It sounds beautiful and if anybody hasn't entered the
giveaway for two free tickets on the UK Called Facebook page, the
opportunity is there. So please do head over to the UK
Called Facebook page and enter that if you would like to get 2
free tickets to Sounds Beautiful.
Now let's move on to online safety of a kind because Ofcom
has released their latest edition of the Children and
parents Media Use and Attitudes report.
And I just wanted to go through this a little bit.
Media literacy, they say, enables people to have the
skills, knowledge and understanding they need to make
full use of the opportunities presented both by traditional
and the new communication services.
Is this making you I'll yet Charles?
Media literacy also helps people to manage content and
communications and protect themselves and their families
from the potential risks associated with using these
services. So the question is, what are
these potential risks and dangers?
And just to to sort of highlight that some of the statistics from
this, first of all, let's have a look at children's media use.
So what have we got here? There's been an increase in
three to five year olds using social media platforms, 3 to 5
year olds. Let's look at some of the
statistics. 19% of 3 to 5 year olds, according to this report,
have their own mobile phone. 85% use a device of some kind to go
online. Three to five year olds we're
talking about here, 56% use messaging apps, 91% of the
people that this is, these are of course the people that are
using social media, are using the Internet, 91% use video
sharing platforms, 37% use social media.
And of those, 60% have their own profile.
So 60% of the 31% of the three to five year olds that are using
the Internet have their own social media plat profiles.
The three main platforms for three to five year olds are
YouTube, WhatsApp and Snapchat. Let's see what else they're
saying here of the 8:00 and 2:50 to 17 year olds.
So 79% of 3 to 17 year olds who have their own profile on social
media, messaging, VSP or live streaming sites, 16% include a
photo, photo of themselves which anyone can see.
Let's go on. The majority of parents do not
think the benefits outweigh the risks of their children being on
social media, messaging and video sharing apps.
But they still give them a mobile phone.
They still give them a tablet. Excellent.
More than 7 and 1072% of parents are concerned that their child
would be unable to distinguish between real and fake online
content. But they still give them a
phone. Let's see what else we've got
here. Viewing of broadcast TV
continues to decline among children aged 4 to 15.
So maybe that's a good thing. But more children are watching
live stream videos, a growing trend over the past three years.
And they go on to say that the three most common online safety
topics taught in schools are how to recognize harmful content,
how to keep personal information safe, and being kind and
respective to respectful to others online.
Well, I'm going to suggest that whatever they're learning on
those topics in school is probably nonsense in all three
cases. Now, by the age of 6 to 730% of
children have their own phones. By the age of 8 to 942% have
their own phones. There's little or no difference
between those those statistics by the way across the
demographic categories. In other words, education and
job role plays no part on this. And just to put a put a couple
of graphics on this, let's just look at this one first of all.
So that's showing the proportion of children that go online by
age 85% three to five, up to 100% by 16.
And then if we look at the top five communication apps and
sites used by age group, clearly YouTube is well ahead from the
age of 3. So what do we say about that?
I'm just going to mention a comment here that for this is
unrelated, but came out at roughly the same time.
This is from Rachel de Souza, the children's commissioner,
saying children have told me this harmful content often finds
them rather than them actively seeking it out.
Girls and young as young as 9 have told my team about
strangers asking for their home address online and in a room of
15 and 16 year olds 3/4 had been sent a video of someone being
beheaded. Then she goes on to say content
like this is often promoted and offered to children by complex
recommendation algorithms designed to capture retain their
attention. That's her typographical error,
by the way. Designed for business purposes,
not the interests of users. Well, I'm sorry you're going to
have a hard job Rachel, convincing me that any online
service provider is providing through an algorithm, videos of
beheadings for business purposes.
This doesn't make sense. So you are misrepresenting the
situation. The situation is pretty dire
with respect to children and the how young they are and being
given the access to this content.
But of course, you will take advantage of that to suggest
that that results in the requirement for more regulation
of the Internet. We'll talk a bit more about this
in extra, but three-year olds, yes, what can we say?
Vanessa, let's come back to you then and well, Yemen.
Yep. So let's have a look at an
article in the New York Times which basically confirms
everything that I reported last week on UK Column News
reference, Trump's sudden ceasefire with the Yemenis.
So this is a New York Times article from yesterday.
Why did Trump suddenly backpedal on the war against Ansarullah in
Yemen? So from the article itself, in
the 1st 30 days, Ansarullah, they actually of course said the
Houthis, but I've amended that. Shot down 7 American MQ, 9
drones, 30 million each, hampering Central Command's
ability to track and strike the group.
Several USF Sixteens and an F35 fighter jet were nearly struck
by the Yemeni air defence, making real the possibility of
American casualties. And of course, we shouldn't
forget the drama of the leaked WhatsApp conversation, which
apparently, according to the article, put the lives of U.S.
military and particularly pilots at risk.
And then of course there was a huge US deployment to
effectively support Israel by sustaining the genocide of
Palestinians and preventing the prevention of the genocide by
the Yemenis. 2 aircraft carriers, additional B2 bombers,
which of course are nuclear capable, and fighter jets as
well as Patriot and 3rd Air defence were sent to the Middle
East. But in fact, the article admits
that there was very little degradation of the Yemeni
capability of hitting both US vessels in particular, but also
continuing the air strikes or the missile strikes against the
occupied territories and basically enabling not only the
blockade of Israeli shipping, but also an effective no fly
zone in the Ben Gurion airport. Because International Airlines
are still cancelling flights into Ben Gurion after the
Yemenis attacked. Again, since the US ceasefire,
which didn't incorporate Israel, the Pentagon is concerned.
Again, this is something that we mentioned last week and if we
can just have that up on screen. So many precision munitions were
being used, especially advanced long range ones, that some
Pentagon contingency planners were growing increasingly
concerned about overall stocks and the implications if the US
might have to ward off an attempted invasion of Taiwan by
China. So exactly as we said, pretty
much has been confirmed by the New York Times, is that Trump
had no choice but to withdraw from any kind of aggression
against Yemen in order to conserve stocks and prevent the
loss of life and loss of equipment, which has reached
over $1 billion. Yes, amazing.
Thank you Vanessa, that was you heard it here first of course.
But anyway, Charles, let's come back to the UK and, well, we
haven't had any rain for quite some time.
We haven't, no. And uh, not just the government,
but the BBC is wanting to make much of this.
Um, the strength of the climate change narrative, uh, for its
purveyors is such that, um, almost any kind of weather, and
obviously we're talking mostly about dry weather, but almost
any kind of weather can be attributed to it. 2025, this
year in that regard, has been a gift for the fearmongers.
So hot off the back of flood warnings, here is the BBC
declaring a record drought, something which the government
has been reporting in a slightly less melodramatic manner, and
certainly is the case that March was a very dry month.
April 2 has been drier than usual, so they say, which has
left several reservoirs described as exceptionally low.
So in positing that virtually everything we do with water is
wrong, that means that the door is open for solutions.
And as usual, the World Economic Forum is on hand with a few
recommendations. Most of these of course concern
public private partnerships, which are of no benefit to the
end user, or the assertion assertion that artificial
intelligence is the answer to everything.
Now all of this points to investment at the corporate
level, which means the expectation of a return.
The Environment Agency points to the further commoditisation of
water and not just that which is used for washing and drinking,
but water which constitutes what is called blue space.
Now. Essentially this means putting a
value on large bodies of water, which is precisely why
increasing increasing initiatives now focus on the use
of water for in particular health and well-being reasons
shown here again by the BBC. This cold water swimming
programme is run out of Derford Hospital in Plymouth and it's
exactly a case in point. Just last week the National
Audit Office released a report about the state of managed water
in the UK and what they think needs to be done about it.
Now this is one of their auditors setting it out.
The scale of the challenge facing water regulators is huge.
The shortfall of nearly 5 billion litres of water per day
is expected by 2050 and government has set the sector
statutory targets to reduce its environmental impact.
But at the same time, consumer trust has fallen to its lowest
level since 2011. To address these challenges, the
water sector needs to attract an unprecedented amount of
investment. There are three regulators for
the sector of what the Environment Agency and the
Drinking Water Inspectorate. They all have different
responsibilities which sometimes overlap, but no one has
responsibility to inspect wastewater assets off what?
The Water Sectors Economic Regulator expects spending on
infrastructure improvements to rise to £47 billion in the next
5 years as part of at least £290 billion of enhancements needed
to meet government's targets over the next 25 years.
At the current rate, it would take 700 years to replace the
entire existing water main network.
Plans are also currently in development for 30 large water
supply projects, including nine reservoirs, which of what
estimate will cost an extra £52 billion to build.
The need for investment coincides with a period of
weakening financial performance and reduced investor confidence
in the water sector. Defra must understand both the
cost and deliverability of its plans and the impact these plans
will have on customers bills. Indeed, the impact on customers
bills, so the take away message there is unambiguous despite the
failings of all those directly associated.
Sorry, can we just sorry, sorry directly responsible.
The burden of the cost will fall upon those indirectly affected
IEU. Now this is at least consistent
with the message from the Environment Agency and this is
what the former chair Alan Lovell said back in 2023.
He made it clear that to grip the existential risk of supply
and demand, we will need to ask the public to save water and pay
more for it. Now, for this government, one
might think this presented an opportunity to go some way to
sorting things out with their much vaunted planning and
infrastructure bill. But in fact, there's absolutely
no regard given to the improvement of the water
infrastructure or any mention of it being a new consideration,
sorry, consideration in in new housing developments.
And now it should not be forgotten though, that the bill
does give enormous powers of compulsory purchase of land and
that in the case of agricultural land, any development premium is
removed and the landowner may only receive the base
agricultural price for the purchase.
One very obvious mitigation exercise would be rainwater
harvesting. And it's most indicative to note
that the Environment Agency actually has a regulatory
position on this, which clarifies, sorry, which
clarifies when you can use harvested rainwater without a
water abstraction licence. Given that many colonial
administrations forbade the harvesting of rainwater in an
apparent attempt to stop mosquitoes breeding, it's not
too much of A stretch to see that this regulation might
change. However, in terms of practical
application, it's worth taking a quick look at rainwater
harvesting Auk website, which puts average water consumption
per head per year at around 55,000 litres and a house with a
roof space of just 50 square metres will collect on average
40,000 litres in the UK. But you won't find the
government, the Environment Agency or the National Audit
Office or indeed the World Economic Forum and certainly not
only of the water companies suggesting that you think about
that and announced just late last month the government
suggesting that water bosses might face up to two years in
prison. This when 1 looks into the
detail actually really just concerns non compliance with an
investigation so unlikely to have much of an effect.
But I would draw your attention to the Police Crime Sentencing
Courts Act of 2022 and the offence under section 78 of
intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance and
the offence is committed by somebody who doesn't act or
admits to do an act they are required to do by an enactment
or a rule of law. Now of course this, what this
does do is to take away the offence, the common law offence
of causing public nuisance and it's just yet another sort of
nail in the coffin of the common law.
So that is there to be considered with regard to the
water companies and indeed holding them to account.
And of course, we've heard a story from Sandy just now about
the merits of the challenge, and this piece of legislation could
be used as such a tool. Thank you, Charles.
OK, Sandy, let's come back to you then.
And we've been talking about the dimming of the sun in recent
news programmes. What's the latest?
Well, I mean, bearing in mind, obviously we, I know we've
spoken about it before, you know, 60, I think it's 56.8
million has been allocated by the governments who fund
experiments aiming at dimming the sun as if they weren't doing
it before anyway. And you know, on, on, they
brought this in on April the 25th, which involves the use of
atmospherics aerosol technology, technology known as Satan,
stratospheric aerosol transport and nucleation.
I mean, it sounds extraordinary, doesn't it?
But anyway, and how, how, how silly is that when you've got,
when you've got Ed Miliband led by net zero, you know, he's,
he's, he's in charge of all the net zero Ed Miliband.
And he's come under scrutiny for his energy policies,
particularly the apparent contradictions between investing
billions in solar panel installations across the country
and allocate 1850 + 1,000,000 to protect, you know, to, to aimed
at, you know, when we've put all that towards it, you know,
blocking the sun. I mean, it just doesn't make
sense. So armed with that information,
we, we sent a letter to our local MP to see what she would
think about it. Sarah Dichardt, Lib Dem and I
know it's almost pointless asking them, but she, she came
up with a, quite a long, quite a long answer.
And, and part of it is here on on the screen there was
response. So you know, this is the
response we received. Thank you for contacting us
about the government supporting this endeavour to explore the
use of geoengineering, including using limited funds from the
taxpayer. It's understandable that there
are concerns about such technologies and ventures into
areas of alternate actions to reduce temperatures and
stabilise the global challenges in the climate.
However, climate change is an existential threat, an
existential threat. Soaring temperatures leading to
wildfires, floods, droughts, rising sea levels are affecting
millions of people directly and billions more through falling
food production. That this is quite interesting,
the falling food production. Well, why?
Because we're covering our, our land in, in solar panels and,
and and wind farms as well as housing, which they are
allowing. I mean it, none of it makes
sense. And she's saying urgent action
is needed in the UK and around the world to achieve net zero
and avert catastrophe. They are causing it.
We only have to look at the recent and more regular heavy
rainfall causing repeated flooding.
You know, we've already addressed that because they're
breaking down the infrastructure for draining the Somerset
Levels. So that's rubbish.
Anyway, it goes on and on and on.
And she talks about, you know, sort of the, these data centres
and, and, and that they're trying to create, create ways
of, of, of upping the renewables.
But what they don't understand is that food security is being
threatened here. And I just want to just remind
everyone about the the 16 critical infrastructure sectors
that must be protected. And this is what the government
have published themselves. There's sixteen of them and and
you've got I can't sort of read some of them on that.
It's not very good visual. But anyway, it's the 13th 1 is
Food and Agriculture. So it is one of the the 13th 1
is yeah, Food and Agriculture. And it's these are the
governments own protected infrastructures.
And yet all of this is not protecting our food.
And we have, and I'm going to follow this up with Sarah Dyke.
She's going to get quite a lengthy letter from me
explaining that food security is not being taken into
consideration at all. These people are just plain
bonkers. Yeah, the only thing I would
challenge you on there, Sandy, is, is to suggest that that this
is in any way unintentional. And you know, we'll talk a lot
more about this an extra. I'm quite sure it's it's not by
accident that we're busy shutting down our farming
industry in this country while apparently making deals with
other countries to import more and more food from from other
countries. So, you know, we we will talk
more about this an extra. So thank you very much for that.
Now back to you, Vanessa then and Vanessa, you were talking
earlier about the, the breaking up of of Syria.
So what's the latest on Syria? Yeah, I just wanted to do a
quick catch up, but I think the slides have been misaligned.
So I don't know if we can go forward to the French court deal
and go past the nice pictures of President Trump and Al Geelani,
and then I can sort of get started on what's actually
happening in Syria at the moment.
Sorry, we don't have them, no. We're.
Going to, we're going to have to just OK, all right, That's a
shame. We don't even have them out.
You keep talking. About don't worry.
OK, so basically I just wanted to do a catch up on Syria and
the Cava of Syrian territory, which is ongoing.
First of all, in recent news, the French have renewed or
extended their deal for the control of Latakia port on the
coast, which of course is very close to the Russian military
base in Haimamim and Tartus. The French shipping giant CMAGGM
has extended its contract to a further 30 years to develop and
run the Port of Latakia with a view to investing €230 million
into the port, which of course gives France control to some
degree in that area again, which formerly was and Alawite
protectorate under the French mandate.
And to some degree brings it into competition with Russia
that is also consolidating its military presence in the same
area. And then basically we've
recently had talks between Turkey and Israel in Azerbaijan
to ease the tensions over Syria, because we've talked about on UK
column the fact that Israel has been preventing any serious
expansionism from Erdogan into the depths of Syria by bombing
potential military bases and air defence bases that would be
under the control of the Turkish state.
And then recently also the PKK has declared its dissolution and
an end to the armed struggle, which in my opinion is very much
about giving legitimacy to the Kurdish factions, separatists
under the control of the US and also, of course, supported by
Israel. And I just wanted to have a look
at this map and then go through everything I've just said and
give an idea of how Syria is heading towards partitioning and
if we can just keep the map on for a few seconds.
So on the coast, although that circle should be a little bit
closer to the Latakia area, you will have France and Russia
potentially forming some form of protectorate, driving out the Al
Qaeda and affiliated forces and potentially bringing it under
the control of Russia, with France there as a sort of buffer
against Russian expansionism. I would speculate.
In the South, of course, you have Israeli expansion creating
what it calls a security perimeter.
You have the Druze forming a separatist movement.
I'm very much simplifying things because they are a little bit
more complicated than this, but Israel is eyeing up the Druze
factions as a means to occupying further to the east, in the
South. And then that would give it
access to what it is called the David Corridor, which is the
blue arrow, which would take it up the eastern flank of Syria,
the border with Jordan and Iraq, and give them entry into Iraq
and towards the Euphrates in the northeast.
The Kurds would be given some kind of autonomous region or
federal system under the auspices of the US Turkish
territory. As you can see that they've been
allowed to keep IS in the blue sections in the north.
They have advanced very slightly.
But as I said, Israel is preventing any further
expansionism from Erdogan and with Al Qaeda or Jelani, as long
as he lasts, of course, in the green area, which end up being a
relatively centralized area surrounded by competing regional
powers who all have in their interest to keep Iran out of the
region. So that's where we're heading.
It doesn't mean that that is actually going to be achieved
because there are other variables involved, of course,
including the resistance and Syrian political movements that
are now coming forward. You say if for as long as Gilani
lasts. I mean, what are your thoughts
on church? Just very briefly, if if Trump
is meeting Gilani today, does that give him any kind of extra
underpinning? Yeah, it does.
I mean, it remains to be seen what happens with the sanctions,
whether they do actually enable him to flourish as a state.
There is some degree of of skepticism over that.
And of course, he's under pressure internally from other
armed factions who don't consider him to be extremist
enough. So it remains to be seen whether
he does stay in place for the time being or he eventually is
pushed out. Thank you.
Thank you for that, Vanessa. OK, let's just finish off with
with this piece of great news because the UK government has
implemented a cutting edge AI tool.
So the UK regime has announced Consult which is part of a suite
of AI tools which they call Humphrey.
Humphrey is a suite of AI tools which allows civil servants to
what they This is, according to the government, speed up
analysis of what the public and experts tell them during
consultations. And the one that they tested
this on was a consultation for the Scottish Government.
They say that nearly identical results were found by AI after
this, after an expert review, which ranked themes that were
important for policymakers to take on board.
This is their words. While currently in trial with
more development taking place, AI will analyze other
consultations responses in a bid to save officials from 75,000
days of manual analysis every year, which costs £20 million in
staffing costs. So they're going to make people
unemployed basically is what they seem to be saying.
And this is going to help create a quote more agile, effective
state refocused on delivering the plan for change.
Does this make you feel good? Not yet, not yet.
OK, well it it gets better because, well, let's bring the
Tech SEC secretary Peter Kyle on screen and he's saying no one
should be wasting time on something AI can do it quicker
and better, let alone wasting millions of taxpayers pounds and
outsourcing such work to contractors.
After demonstrating such promising results, Humphrey will
help us cut the costs of governing and make it easier to
collect and can't relatively review what experts and the
public are telling us on a range of crucial issues.
And they're saying, and he's saying that the Scottish
Government is taking the first step.
And very soon I'll be using consult within Humphrey in my
own department and others in Whitehall will be using a two
speeding up our our work to deliver the plan for change.
I can't imagine what could possibly go wrong with that.
Well, I think given time, you might come up with one or two
things, but I would say that the critical bit there, one of them
is for it to be described as doing something that's almost
right. And of course, if it's almost
right, then it's wrong. And that's the bit they never
want to talk about. Indeed.
OK, well, we're going to leave you with that thought for today
and I'm going to say thank you very much to Vanessa and Sandy
for joining us. And thank you all for joining
us. We'll be back in a few minutes
for some extra if you're AUK column member.
If you're not, we do need your support.
Please consider joining us and then you can join us on UK
Column News Extra as well. We'll see you in a few minutes.
Otherwise, enjoy Germ tonight and Brian's interview tomorrow
and we'll see you on Friday for another news programme.
Bye bye. Bye bye.