Good afternoon. It's just gone 1:00 on Wednesday
the 26th of March 2025. Welcome to UK Column News.
I'm your host, Charles Mallett, and joining me in the studio
today is Mike Robinson. Welcome to the programme, Mike.
I've also got Vanessa Beeley and Carl Zarr joining by videolink.
Now, later in the programme we'll be looking at the Israel
Turkey situation, kicking China out of Panama and also
Palantir's latest adventures. But we're going to begin with
what I would describe perhaps as an attack on both sea and air.
And this is because the Department for Transport
published yesterday the latest assault on systems which work
relatively well. This time seafaring is the
victim with the release of the Maritime Decarbonisation
Strategy. It sets off on the same foot as
the majority of such government output by creating a solution to
a problem for which there is scant or no evidence.
The strategy grandly claims to be setting out.
Quote the best evidence and pathways towards maritime
emission reduction goal of 0. Fuel, lifestyle, sorry, life
cycle, greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 with at least a 30%
reduction by 20-30 and an 80% reduction by 2040 relative to
2008 levels. So a lot of jargon gobbledygook
and rather confusing language there.
Now they're fairly thin on commitment.
Indeed, they belie the fact that the entire premise of the
document and its proposed outcomes rest on modelling,
which may need to be updated on a regular basis.
Among the subjects raised, and this really is not an early
April Fool, is the assistance that wind may give to a vessel
at sea. Indeed, here is the BBC
apparently reinventing the sale just last year.
Now the document does concede that the maritime contribution
to transport emissions is just 5%, but this is considered
enough to completely destroy the system based, as I say, on
modelling. Now, given the pregarious
position position in which we find ourselves with regard to
food security, and the fact that over 90% of imported food comes
by sea, tinkering with the delivery mechanism would appear
to be reckless in the extreme. Or deliberately destructive.
Now other points to note are the relationship with the rebranded
Infrastructure Bank, now referred to as the National
Wealth Fund, and the tie in with the nascent and seemingly
pointless GB Energy which I spoke about last week.
GB Energy reckons on delivering a possible 5% contribution of
grid energy, but only if the sun shines and the wind blows, and
with an 8.3 billion ticket attached to it.
So it's no surprise to see it enmeshed with this scheme to
dismantle the effectiveness of the sea lines of communication.
On that note, there's no reference to the Royal Navy yet,
but presumably it can only be a matter of time.
Now to illustrate the absurdity of the strategy, this graph
shows the projected decline of the use of so called fossil
fuels to almost 0 by 2050. But as usual, the devil is to be
found in the detail. Now.
This fancy diagram shows all the many convoluted ways in which
technology and innovation will deliver some sort of magic
outcome. But I suspect we're not meant to
look too closely, for if we do, we will see that it does not
quite stack up in the attempt to remove carbon dioxide from
maritime activity. The strategy is unequivocal that
there will be a massive increase in dangerous pollutants such as
nitrous oxide and some sulphur oxides.
The document states that nitrous oxide and ammonia are
particularly harmful for human and animal health and we may
require policies that ensure solutions are implemented.
End Quote. Before going on to state that
quote. These processes could have
further harmful effects on health and the environment.
For example, ammonia can cause eutrophication, acidification,
and stratospheric ozone depletion.
End Quote. Added to this of course is the
ever present caveat that carbon may be offset either by paying
more or by involvement in some sort of auction process, which
would appear to undermine the entire pretext of the scheme.
So we should expect considerable pushback and I would say if you
are involved in maritime trade then this is a heads up for you,
but it would be excellent to hear your views.
So please do get in touch. Now aligned with this and as
reported back in November, is the increase in air passenger
duty slated to change next month.
And we can see that costs for the passenger will go up across
the board. And it must not be forgotten
that it's the government which says that we expect the measure
to have a negligible impact on the environment.
So this is really the agenda being delivered in plain sight.
And as always, the taxpayer is set to pick up the tab.
There's been plenty of focus on 15 minute cities and low traffic
neighbourhoods. But the reality I think is that
this will go far further. And certainly something we can
talk about more in Extra will also become relevant, I think in
in the next report, although I won't go on to talk about that
now. Mike, you're going to be flying
next month. Have you got any thoughts on on
this and indeed sort of see travel and the threat to it?
It is incredible that we are seriously in the 21st century
looking at sticking sale and appreciate they're not cloth
sales, but nonetheless effectively sales on on cargo
vessels replacing diesel with biofuel.
Well, you're talking about food security, the using food product
to produce fuel to transport food seems like.
I mean, I don't even know where to go with that.
It's absolutely unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, I suppose there's
a little bit of efficiency in that the that that photograph
shown of the BBC with the with the new vessel enhanced with its
sails. It turns out those sails are in
fact made from wind turbine materials.
So not a not a total waste perhaps.
But otherwise, they'll be going into landfill, right?
Yeah. Well, exactly.
And and we'll presumably at some point now as I say, we'll, we'll
talk about this more next year. You've run a couple of
interviews with Carl Zar recently and it's no time to
introduce Carl to the programme, but might you've got a few words
to say first. Well, over the last few weeks,
Mark Anderson has been reporting Donald Trump's comments about
the Panama Canal. So let's just bring this on
screen and just so that everybody knows where Panama is,
of course he's been talking about making the point that
Panama, he said he did not sell to China.
He had sold the Panama Canal to Panama, not to China.
And so he was pretty upset with the the fact at least that was
his rhetoric that China had so much influence in the area.
So apparently then out of nowhere, out of out of the blue,
at the beginning of March, CK Hutchinson Holdings, which is
based in Hong Kong, announced that it had agreed to sell
control of a unit operating ports associated with the Panama
Canal to a consortium including BlackRock Global Infrastructure
Partners and Terminal Investment Limited.
So let me say hello to Carl and welcome you to the programme.
What's, what's the detail on this, Carl?
And how has how has China responded to it?
Yeah, Mike, this is good to see you.
And right now this is a big deal.
CK Hutchinson is one of the biggest multinational company
based in Hong Kong and since 1997, it has controlled both
ports at both ends of Panama Canal.
This is has been a talking point by many in the United States
national security circles as China's influence in Panama.
Now Chinese government is actually very upset at this
surprising deal that was announced the the pro Beijing
newspaper Da Gongbao based in Hong Kong has lashed out at the
steel and calling the Kaixin. The Hong Kong billionaire who
owns CK Hutchinson has been has been spinelessly grovelling to
the Trump administration. But in in a way this also show
that China in fact do not control CK Hutchinson as a
company. Because if they do, they could
have just told them no deal or the deal is off, that the the
current deal is structure. CK Hutchinson is going to sell
43 ports in 23 countries, including two ports in Panama,
but also their ports on Suez Canal.
Various strategic vital geopolitical strangleholds to a
BlackRock group consort LED consortium and the deal is
brokered by Goldman Sachs. So this is a big great PR
victory for the Trump administration because Trump
claimed that he has reclaimed Panama Canal from China and in
doing so he's handing a very sweet deal sweetheart deal to
his buddies in the Wall Street to the Goldman people in the
Goldman Sachs and BlackRock. Now China is upset because this
would set a bad precedence for Chinese companies bending under
pressure by from U.S. government decree especially coming up in
April, there is a for sale of TikTok.
U.S. Congress passed a law that
TikTok must sell to American company by April or cease to
operate on American soil. So if with the CK Hutchinson
deal goes through, this set a very bad example for other
Chinese companies to follow. You know, especially with TikTok
for sale date that's coming up. This is why, you know, Chinese
government is voicing its displeasure at CK Hutchinson,
probably for not informing them of the deal beforehand and but
also structure the deal in such a way it does not allow enough
time for a third party to come in with a bid.
So Chinese government actually don't have the time to organise
a counter bid to this right now. And and This is why they're
understandably upset. But for Trump, this shows
demonstrate another one of his great victory.
You know, to reclaim American greatness.
The South China Morning Post here is saying that China has
now sent a delegation to Panama after the the port deal and the
in the headline here it's saying Belton Rd exit.
And Mike, I suppose my next question is what is the likely
outcome of this for the Belton Roads initiative?
That's a great question. Well, another Trump claim
victory is that you force Panama government to withdraw from the
Belgian Rd initiative with China.
Again, this is a PR victory because Panama, since its last
president, has cancelled all the Belt and Road Initiative project
with China, most importantly a $4 billion high speed rail
project. So currently there's actually no
Belt and Road Initiative project in Panama.
So it's very easy for Panamanian government to claim that they
are withdrawing from Bri when in fact there's nothing going on.
And it's a, it's a easy PR victory for, for the Trump
administration also because they can claim another victory over
China, another victory of America reclaiming the Panama
Canal and for the Panamanian government to Curry favour with
the Trump administration saying, OK, we're doing as you're, we're
doing as we have been told. We we are telling your line.
Some of the coverage that I saw in Chinese language media and
the translation services do a very good job of translating it.
The language that was being used was really aggressive.
I mean, you know, betrayal, treason, this kind of thing.
What, what are the are there going to be any repercussions
for Hutchison and and it's chief executive?
Well, this is interesting part because Hutchinson sold all its
oversea ports except, but they're retaining all the ports
that they operate in China and Hong Kong.
So they're actually, what they're doing is from purely
business standpoint, they're reducing their geopolitical
risk. They didn't want to get caught
in between a geopolitical competition between China and
United States and all its oversea ports both in Suez Canal
and Panama Canal could be subject to possible U.S.
sanctions and, and and, and, and.
China has chose to not publicly attack CK Hutchinson through his
official state media. I'm talking about Xinhua.
I'm talking about People's Daily or CCTV.
Instead it use a kind of the proxy media.
It's a pro Beijing newspaper in Hong Kong by voicing its
concerns and then having China's top liaison office in Hong Kong
reposting this article. While the Chinese government
itself have framed from publicly naming the the owner of CK
Hutchinson, which is the Hong Kong billionaire Li Kai Shin.
And the Kai Shin's youngest son actually is recently in Hong in
Beijing, attending a business forum that tended by many global
leaders, including American Tim Cook, who get to meet with Xi
Jinping. So I'm sure there's some kind of
backroom deal that's being worked out.
And so far, a lot of the blame that the the Beijing official
media had placed on the Trump administration for unilaterally
pressuring private business to conform to unreasonable American
demands. Carl, obviously I've just given
a report on shipping, or at least the effect that this
ridiculous strategy that the UK Government's proposing, but of
course not just the UK, that the whole of Europe is very much
dependent upon freight coming into it from other parts of the
world. The Panama Canal will be
therefore very strategically important.
But the but Western governments and indeed their media are
predisposed to be in opposition to both Donald Trump and China.
What's your sense of the response from Europe, the
governments of Europe, the European Union and the media?
I mean, right now with the new Trump administration, the
European foreign policy is in shambles.
It's a lot of the European leaders are kind of running
around like headless chickens. They're, they're talking about,
you know, continuing the proxy war in Ukraine without United
States. They're, they're, they're
talking about, you know, possibly forming a security pact
without us. I mean, this is very ridiculous
talk. And the fact that they are now
being placed under tariffs by the Trump administration on one
hand, on other, on other hand, they want to continue the the
the same policy they follow under the Biden administration,
which is to be aggressive toward China in terms of trade.
It just does not make sense. I mean, Europe is not really
piloting a, a third way here. There's a real opportunity for
you for Europe to form have its own independent foreign policy
that serves European interests. Yet for for some odd reasons
that European leaders decide not to do that but follow the same
failed neoliberal foreign policy that was under the Biden
administration. Even though the tune has changed
in Washington. You know I, I this is something
maybe you can help me to understand why is the European
leader persist in in such self defeating ways?
Because they're off their heads, Carl.
But we'll talk about that and. Try to get to the bottom of that
extra if we perhaps extend it somewhat.
Carl, thanks very much indeed. And Vanessa will now move across
to the Middle East and to Yemen. Yes, well, of course, Yemen and
Iran, where Trump has reignited the war against Yemen in defence
of the security of Israel, while it's committing recommitting a
slightly paused genocide against Palestinians and Gaza and the
West Bank. And effectively, you know, under
the first Trump administration, Trump scuppered the nuclear
deal. He's now threatening Iran.
With war. Effectively, if they don't
rejoin negotiations for the nuclear deal that he effectively
got rid of under his first administration.
And of course, the supreme leadership in Iran is is pushing
back very hard and saying that they don't agree to negotiations
with what is effectively a bully in the United States,
particularly under President Trump.
So what's actually happening? We're seeing a massive build up
of U.S. military assets both in West Asia or the Middle East,
but also in Diego Garcia base, which I'll talk about more and
explain exactly where it is. So first of all, we've got
second aircraft carrier to the Middle East.
Basically there's already the USS Harry Truman, which will
extend its deployment in the Red Sea for the war against Yemen.
Now the USS Carl Vinson and accompanying destroyers will
join in the coming weeks. But not only this, there are F35
fighters heading towards Israel. The Gold Refuelling Group has
confirmed that they're trying a pair of F35 fighters into Israel
and further deployments in the Middle East continue.
That's being reported across the board from the various open
source intelligence agencies on social media.
But then in particular, we've seen USC 17 cargo carriers.
We can just have a look at that cargo planes flying into the
Diego Garcia bases. Now the C7 teams are troop
carriers and will be used to carry cargo to operating bases.
Then finally, and this is probably the most sinister move
by the United States, which is the bringing in of B2 spirit or
stealth bombers. If we can just have a look at
that. Again, these are coming into
Diego Garcia and we're hearing numbers between 4:00 to 7:00, B2
Spirit bombers. Now, what's interesting, these
bombers in particular have been used to deploy bunker Buster
bombs that, of course, are designed to target the
underground weapon facilities, potentially in this case in
Iran, but they also have the capability to carry nuclear
weapons. So this is where this becomes
extremely dangerous. As regards escalation, where is
Diego Garcia? Well, it's in the middle of the
Indiana Ocean. It's actually a British base
that has been leased to the United States for 99 years.
It's it's a base which is shrouded in secrecy.
I'll come on to that at the end. But if we have a quick look at
the tag, so the Indian Ocean island was notably used as a
primary launchpad for bomber strikes in the opening phases of
Operation Enduring Freedom Afghanistan 2001, Operation
Iraqi Freedom. I love this use of the word
freedom by the United States in 2003 and actually against Serbia
by NATO in 1999. It's very important to note
here, this is from the article that Diego Garcia, unlike bases
in the Middle East or aircraft carriers operating in the
region, is largely out of the reach of the missiles and drones
available now to either and Shruba or Iran.
Iran's current longest range ballistic missiles are generally
assessed to have maximum ranges around 1242 miles.
However, I have to say in the last 48 hours, Iran has unveiled
missiles that have a range of 1700 miles, and they've also
unveiled new underground military development centres and
bases and missile launch centres and the three disputed islands.
At the mouth. Of the Strait of Hormuz, which
directly threaten actually the Gulf state.
So. So clearly Iran is responding to
Trump's military escalation with their own version of a military
escalation against what Trump is progressing with.
This is actually back in 2015, April 2015, a bombing of the fat
mountain in Yemen using the B2 bombers, just to give people an
idea of the bombs that will be deployed by these bombers and
the bomber itself. The B2 bomber costs $1 billion
to make. So the fact that seven of those
bombers, I think there's only 22 in existence and now being moved
to Diego Garcia is is a, is a strong signal from Trump.
Now coming on to ABBC article that I that I found this
morning, which was kind of interesting.
This was what I found on the secretive tropical island.
They don't want you to see now why I say this is interesting.
What does the BBC talk about? It talks about the fact that, of
course, Mauritius, which won independence from the UK in 68,
maintains that the islands are its own and the UN's highest
court has ruled in an advisory opinion that the UK's
administration of the territory is unlawful and must end.
It is said that the Chagos island should be handed over to
Mauritius in order to complete the UK's decolonization by
Baldwin's senior legal advisory Humans.
White Watch says the forced displacement of the Tragossians
by the UK and US, the persecution on the grounds of
race and the ongoing prevention of their return to their
homeland amounts to crimes against humanity.
So while explaining that this island is shrouded in secrecy,
media is forbidden entry, the BBC apparently had to go through
a huge number of hoops to be able to actually get onto the
island and be given a very much guided tour around.
Interesting that the security company G4S was sent to
accompany them and all they mentioned are this basically
colonisation issue which is a major issue.
But they also talk about the fact that potentially the CIA
has black sites on a Diego Garcia.
But for me, this doesn't explain the extreme secrecy over the
military bases on this island, and one wonders what else is
being developed there. Some good questions, thank you,
Vanessa. OK, well, it's sticking with
defence then. The Treasury was tweeting out
this message today that national security is the first
responsibility of any government and through boosting our defence
sector, we can protect the UK and help grow the economy.
Now Rachel Reeves, of course, today is giving her a spring
statement and many, many cuts expected.
But let's have a listen to what Rachel Reeves had to say about
defence and war this morning. I'm going to set out in the
Spring statement increases in defence spending for next year
worth £2.2 billion as we take defence spending as a share of
our economy to 2 1/2 percent. The world is changing, we can
see that before our eyes. But we're not a passive
government, we're an active one, stepping up our defence
capability to keep our country safe and secure because a strong
economy depends on strong defence.
But as we invest in our defence, we can also bring more good
quality jobs, paying decent wages to communities across our
country. Now, so as Rachel Reeves is busy
cutting the heart out of government budgets, and I'm not
suggesting that that isn't a good thing in it in and of
itself, but the question is we can be pretty well assured that
the money saved is going straight into bullets and bombs.
So maybe that's not such a great thing.
In the meantime, King Charles was welcoming British and French
war chiefs to Windsor Castle on Monday.
And this was all about continuing efforts to build the
coalition of the willing. Here's another delightful image
with Radican meeting his French counterpart.
So they were discussing UK and French efforts to build a
European defence union, as we've talked about over the last
number of weeks and in fact over the last number of years, as
well as the growing defence partnership between Britain and
France. They're desperate to keep
momentum in this EU defence union process at the moment.
And I just sort of get the feeling that momentum's come out
a little bit in the last couple of weeks.
But nonetheless, if you remember last week following the so
called high level meetings in London and Paris, there was an
operational planning meeting held at the UK's permanent joint
headquarters at Northwood. Now there's going to be more of
these joint planning meetings at Northwood this week where
intensive discussions will continue over several days.
And just as an aside, an aside here, the the Svanska contract
of £196 million, you can see on this graphic here, it was
initially £196 million. That contract's now been
extended to 2031. So I'm not quite sure what the
total value of that contract is. Skanska Swedish company
provides, although it's the UK arm of the Swedish company
provides all the non military facilities management at
Northwood, which we would remind you contains UK military
headquarters, NATO maritime headquarters and until 2019 EU
operations headquarters for EU NAV for and, and other EU
projects that we were involved with.
Maybe because that was maybe until 2019, because we all know
Brexit's not really real in any practical sense.
And I don't know whether you've got any thoughts on whether
they've actually pulled the infrastructure out of Northwood
or whether we still have hotlines and encryption to
Brussels. I think, I think it would be
hard to see that it would be destroyed altogether.
That would seem reckless, I think, even if it would be the
appropriate thing to do. And actually that yesterday,
Mike Martin MP, who is Exxon, he was asking Luke Pollard, Armed
Forces minister in the Defence committee, about not not
specifically about this, but concerning government policy
around operational security, specifically with regard to the
leak in the United States. And it was just interesting to
note that Pollard was very, he was very vague on exactly what
government would do. Mike Martin was talking about a
staff Sergeant of his in Afghanistan who was sacked for
incorrectly changing something from being top secret to secret.
And he he was just making the analogy and just with with this
in mind and this capability, it was, it was just interesting to
note that Pollard was very, very evasive on the issue of what
exactly would the government policy be.
And he was effectively suggesting that, well, it would
just be taken on its own merits depending on who it was and what
sort of information. So when you when you consider
that in, in light of of this, I would say, yeah, that very
opaque. Yes, indeed.
So look, these meetings will also provide an opportunity, the
government says, ahead of the UK France summit later in 2025 for
further discussion. And this summit is going to
enhance the 2010 Lancaster House Treaties on security and
defence, which the Ministry of Defence says already provide the
UK and France with quote, a firm foundation of in depth military
cooperation unmatched between European partner partners.
It's unclear how the Lancaster House treaties could be enhanced
because then Prime Minister David Cameron and French
President Nicolas Sarkozy signed 2 so called defence treaties at
10 Downing St Following the summit held at Lancaster House.
No debate was held in parliament.
And these treaties took us into a 50 year defence pact with
France. Now why is this important?
Well, one reason is that the Franco British access has been
access has been driving this EU defence union policy since 19,
1884. And we can imagine an EU nuclear
button or well, can we imagine an EU nuclear button in the
hands of Ursula von der Leyen? We can probably, if we can, we
can probably appreciate the problem that that might cause.
Now The Wall Street Journal, and thanks to Vanessa for popping
this through to me, published this article yesterday.
Trump prompts European calls for a homegrown nuclear umbrella and
they're pointing out that Macron has, you know, held already held
a nuclear drill on under the streets of Paris in 2022, which
is supposed to send a message to Moscow.
They're highlighting the Trump's alleged cooling on NATO is the
excuse for driving this a European deterrent.
Nuclear deterrent they're talking about led by France and
the UK could be problematic because of legal, political and
technical difficulties that Germany, Poland and Denmark are
already showing interest. But that sharing nuclear weapons
means sharing sovereignty. Well, that's the sovereignty
issue is something we've highlighted with European
Defence Union for for a long time.
And that they're pointing out again that Britain's arsenal and
nuclear arsenal failed tests, the dependence on the United
States for maintenance and even for the missiles in the 1st
place and so on. So, you know, the the huge cost
of this to provide this so called nuclear blanket over
Europe is is nuts. And the other the final point
was compliance with the non prolifer non proliferation
treaty. Well, at the moment they're
already setting us up for that because they're accusing Russia
of being in breach to the non proliferation treaty already.
So, so maybe they don't need to worry about that, but we'll keep
you posted on this. But you know, it is it is a
developing story. We'll see whether the momentum
momentum has actually come out of it or whether they can keep
it going for the foreseeable future.
Yeah, just quickly on Russia, I think it does Telegraph a couple
of things. First of all, that there is a
high state of unreadiness for war.
And secondly, if there really is a threat, then what on earth is
Putin waiting for? I mean, if he really is to
invade the entirety of Western Europe, then surely we would
have done it by now, before there has been a chance to put
all this in place. Indeed.
Good, good point. OK, let's move on.
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And tomorrow at 1:00 PM Ben is speaking to Rajamaya and he is
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Goldham Council is galvanising local support and local
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And Raja will be speaking at the conference as well.
So he'll be talking about how they are unseating Labour
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And so join Ben and Raja at 1:00 PM tomorrow, if you can.
Now let's move on then to Palantir.
Well, just before we get to that, let's just talk about the
Data Use and Access Bill because this is continues its way
through Parliament at the moment.
It's gone through the committee stage and it's about to go for
to the report stage, although there's no firm date for that
just yet. In the meantime, the COVID
inquiry also rumbles on. And just over a week ago, it
entered into evidence a statement, a written statement
made by Lewis Mosley, who's executive vice president of
Palantir. And he wrote this statement in
January, But it's been published this, as I say, about a week ago
on the on the website and in this statement mostly had this
to say, common operating system. The UK Government needs to
invest in a common operating system solution that would sit
on top of and be able to integrate with the multitude of
source systems across government, in fact across local
and central government, healthcare and bodies of
national strategic importance In peacetime, he said.
The system will be used to improve collaboration between
these organisations and to optimise procurement, amongst
other things. But in an emergency, the common
operating system would be rapidly reconfigured to respond
to the crisis at hand, he said. HM Government must be able to
respond to the Black Swan events.
COVID-19 was an airborne disease pandemic, he claimed, but the
next national emergency could take a different form.
For example, a contact disease, a widespread energy outage, a
global supply chain disruption, a nuclear disaster or a war, for
example. What does he know?
So this so called evidence was basically a sale sales pitch for
Palantir, a company which is already way too embedded in the
UK national infrastructure and our personal data.
So particularly because they're trying very hard to worm their
way into the Stargate project in the United States and will be
with the equivalent AI project here in the UKI think this is
something that we need to be very much aware of and I think
we should be absolutely calling to get Palantir out of the UK
completely. I think that would be my advice.
So look, this is the kind of data sharing which the Data Use
and Access Bill enables. This piece of legislation is a
critical part of the technocracy infrastructure that's being
built at the moment, and it needs to be resisted.
So I think I would urge that anyone who's not speaking out on
this topic really needs to start very, very soon.
Yeah, I would quite agree and I think the sort of kicking out
process should not be limited to Palantir.
There are a number of organisations now which
presumably in a fairly short space of time, will have to
start competing with one another for control of the data that the
government is prepared to hand over to them.
You know, I think we can talk about that more in extra but,
but obviously we've covered many, many organisations that
are now very much integrated with government and our data and
therefore de facto control over our lives.
But but it's interesting to see how he will weaponise the the
emergency be whatever type of emergency it needs to be to to
to push his particular product over the line, exactly like the
government and indeed the media might do.
Yeah, and the problem is that government civil servants,
they're not technically literate actually in most cases, and so
they can be drawn into contracts and perhaps the British taxpayer
doesn't need to be paying for. Absolutely.
And you know, when we think about your report last week
about the, you know, you called it the UK Doge that the
abandonment of the credit cards presumably to either be replaced
but by fewer credit cards or some other perhaps the digital
method of paying for stuff, who knows.
But this all seems to be aligned with that, you know, in in so
far as reform will be to create efficiencies, but also that will
bring in organisations exactly like Palantir to be able to
claim that very efficiency. Anyway, yes, carry on more an
extra, I would think Absolutely. Now we will move on to domestic
and agricultural and land affairs.
Now with the news that Angela Rayner put the Planning and
Infrastructure bill before Parliament on Monday for its
second reading. Now, her rhetoric has not abated
since the first reading. And it's the very clearest of
indicators that the government gives absolutely no regard to
the considerations of the public that they're supposed to serve.
As an example, Rainer stated that EV electric vehicle charge
points will have regulations stripped away with just a
permit, rather than a licence needed.
This is because they count as a critical infrastructure, a term
upon which so much has been hung in the past few years.
She reinforced the point that any challenges to proposed
government infrastructure projects or large developments
will be neutered by amendments to the process, giving only one
appeal as opposed to three. In saying that it will slice
through the bureaucracy and speed up transport projects, she
spoke very dismissively about the meritless cases being
dragged through the courts. So there was some pushback, but
really only from Conservative MPs.
And that makes it abundantly clear that the requirement to
represent the views of constituents has evaporated
altogether in the House of Commons It it emerged with the
result of 330 votes versus 74 for the bill to progress and not
a single Labour vote against. A few contributions are
noteworthy, though none was given any consideration by the
Deputy Prime Minister. Bradley Thomas.
Conservative MP asked whether 225,000 homes have yet been
built because the Labour government pledged that they
would construct one and a half million of them during this
parliament that went unanswered. Sir Geoffrey Clifton Brown said
if we are to override local people, we might just as well
have a nationally directed planning system rather than a
local planning system. Will she think carefully about
that balance? No, of course she did not commit
to thinking about that balance. But the question in itself did
indicate that the government can of course just override the
wishes of the population. Now as to Rayner herself, I
think we would just consider her words here.
She said make no mistake, the bill will transform the lives of
working people and Britain's prospects for years to come.
Yes indeed. But I think we'd be minded to
interpret her message in a different manner from the one
she may have intended. Now another contributor to the
debate was Ashley Fox and he made an obvious statement, but
one that is worth repeating. He said.
I'm concerned about the abuse of power, particularly in relation
to agricultural land and green spaces.
By simplifying land acquisitions and reducing protections for
affected land owners, the bill could pave the way for large
scale developments that displace communities, damage the
environment and undermine agricultural interests.
I think the only thing I'd fall out with is by saying could pave
the way. I should think it would be
absolutely certain that it will pave the way.
Now, following on from this, we had specific references to
compulsory purchase, which brings us on to Natural England,
because of course, reported after the first reading of the
Bill, it was Natural England that were going to be given
power to seize land by compulsory purchase if they
Natural England required it. So here we see that Tony
Juniper, the chair of Natural England for a very long period
of time has just been reappointed, which is
significant, not least because he's presided over the
unaccountable land grabbing that's been going on, especially
via designation of sites of special scientific interest,
which Sandy spoke about recently.
But also because of his close friendship and working
relationship with the king with whom he has Co authored books
and of course actively promoted the drive towards 50% of land
and sea to be in nature recovery by 2050 under the terror Carter.
Now from Natural England we moved to the Animal and Plant
Health Agency and inevitably Bio security, the marketing of which
reaches new bounds every day. Here's a reference to what is
being described as an emergency response to reports of foot and
mouth in Germany. Now, regardless of what you
think about any diagnosis of such a disease, there is no
debate about whether animals recover from it.
They do recover and it is well documented.
As the government says, foot and mouth disease poses no risk to
human or food safety, but is a highly contagious viral disease
of cattle, sheep, pigs and other cloven hoofed animals.
So we're obviously still supposed to be in fear and we're
still supposed to consider it is proportionate to slaughter on
suspicion. And that leads us back to bird
flu, but this time in sheep. This is the Australian
broadcaster ABC reporting here that the news has sparked bio
security warning even in Australia.
And this of course links back to the chief vet, Christine
Middlemiss, whose last job was in NSW where she led the charge
for a new and very stringent bio security regime which critically
preferred responsibility for it onto the population at large,
saying it was effectively a community issue and everybody
bore some sort of responsibility for it.
Now here is Christine Middleness speaking on BBC Farming Today
this morning about the peril that we're in.
We don't think there's increased risk if there's not a clear
pathway. So I wouldn't be worrying about
necessarily being in a poultry farm, but don't leave open sheep
feed if you can avoid it. Where wild birds can come along
and they have bird droppings in the feed and then the sheep eats
them. These sorts of things are
important to be be aware of How? Worried are you?
That there has been a case in sheep, full stop.
Well this is our surveillance working.
You know, we we have a risk based programme and it said well
there is risk and we found one sheep and the other sheep are
negative. So that actually is quite
comforting that we have a programme in place and it's
doing what we asked it to do. And they say the risk to general
public remains as low. And additionally, Food Standards
Agency say the risk to the general public is very low.
So at the same time, the risk of the public is low, but we should
be worried. And it cannot affect you, but it
can at the same time. Or very confusing.
And of course, given what she said, is it in fact just
possible that sheep could come into contact with wild bird
droppings? They're not necessarily in
stocks of feed like those that might be found in the middle of
field. So that the whole narrative is
of course pregnantly absurd certainly seems to have set Mike
off. But it does illustrate the part
that confirmation bias will be allowed to play now that this so
called surveillance will moved to species in proximity to
poultry, birds. And it's beyond question that if
you want to find it, you only need to test for it.
And then it's of no consequence at all whether there is any
discernible or observable disease.
Now, to round off this report, we're going to look at
pesticides and the the the way in which language is manipulated
by the government at every turn. So this is the recently
announced and much vaunted Pesticides National Action Plan
referred to here by the Fresh Produce Journal.
Sorry, I've skipped ahead, but we're supposed to take away the
message that pesticides, pesticide use will be reduced by
10% by, of course, none other than 20-30.
But if you look closely, you'll see that this is not what's
being said at all. And the the text highlighted
there in the red box on screen says that UK governments will
support farmers to increase their use of sustainable farming
practises to reduce the potential harm from pesticides
by 10% by 2030. So in fact, it's not a reduction
of pesticide use. It is exactly like carbon
offsetting. It's a form of stated mitigation
based on modelling, no doubt, which doesn't do what we're
supposed to believe it does. Now, of course, the other thing
to note is it doesn't make any mention of herbicides or
fungicides or of their consequences on the environment
and the food chain. And I should point out now for
some time today, but I will be dealing specifically with
glyphosate herbicide in in the coming weeks.
So that takes us back to Vanessa and what's been going on in
Turkey. Well, actually it's more.
About the. Potential for Israeli Turkey
conflict inside Syria for influence inside Syria So first
of all we'll look at what the two countries perceive as their
agenda or their rights in Syria First of all, Erdogan Turkey
very much a backer of the. If we can just tap the slides of
the HTS, Al Qaeda factions inside Syria that have taken
control of Damascus since the 8th of December are conducting
ethnic cleansing programmes in pretty much all of Syria.
But other one advocates for a unified and stable nation
inclusive of all societal groups.
Which of course means that he has control of or of Syria
because Syria will be controlled by HTTPS and the Syrian National
Army, which is the former Free Syrian Army, all under control
of Turkey and of course aligned also with Qatar, another
controller of the Muslim Brotherhood factions inside
Syria. But let's have a look now at
what Israel perceives as it's agenda in Syria.
And of course, Israel is very much along the lines of the
Clean Break doctrine from 1997, which talks about the
fragmentation of the region into smaller states.
And basically Israel is using the persecution of the Alawites,
the Druze sects and the Kurds in Syria to create stateless which
will effectively still be under the control of Israel acting as
proxies of Israel. And of course, we know now that
Russia is effectively in discussions with Israel over
Russia consolidating its military bases in the coastal
area, red area there and potentially taking control of
that petition segment which would in commerce give otherwise
that are currently being slaughtered by the tech fairy
project. Very much of Turkey, although
it's a little bit more complex than that.
Now, what has been happening recently, we've talked about the
fact that Russia and Israel might align to push back against
Turkish expansionism in Syria and in the region.
But what's happening more recently is that it's actually
escalate beyond that. So we've seen this is a report
in my Zionist Syria Turkish. Sorry, in Syria, Turkish.
Presence in military airports and aerial friction with Israel.
So what does this actually? Mean yesterday Israel bombed an
area of Syria to the east of Hans Palmira and the T4 military
base, which were former Syrian Arab Army Air bases and military
bases. But the red line there shows
Israel's potential David Corbable, which will extend from
the Syria. We've talked about it before,
the east border with Jordan and and eventually with the Kurdish
settlement in the and the Euphrates in plan certainly on
these two military bases. Now, what is more technique to
its own bases? All right, Vanessa.
Vanessa, I'm really sorry, but your connection is just breaking
up so badly that we can't actually just give us a quick
sign check. OK.
Can you hear me OK? Yeah, no, we can't.
So look, why don't you, why don't you try to restart the
connection and we will, we'll cover another topic and then
we'll come back to this. Right.
Thanks for being with us. We'll see if we can get Vanessa
later. Sorry, hold on a second.
Let's let's Vanessa say something that.
Are you? Better.
That is better, yes. OK, so so where?
Were we sorry we're back to Internet problems?
Yes, sorry about. That.
So no, it's fine. So, yeah, what is interesting is
that Turkey has been moving its own military advisors into these
bases to develop military capability for HTS for the
factions. It IS should have control of a
unified Syria. And then if we look at another
article that has been published recently, Israel and Turkey on
collision course in Syria after Palmyra air strikes.
So again, this points out, but that Israel was effectively
potentially targeting Turkish military in former Syrian Arab
Army bases in this area. And then from the article, a
quote from Nimrods from the Mitvin Institute.
Unlike Turkey, which supports a strong, centralised and stable
Syria, Israel at the moment appears to prefer Syria
fragmented with the belief that it could better bolster Israel's
security. So confirmation there.
And Netanyahu today put out an announcement that he was to
convene a security meeting over Turkish involvement in Syria.
So as I said, we seem to be heading to at least some degree
of contestation over Syrian territory between Israel and
Turkey. And I'm quite sure that the
destabilisation currently ongoing in Turkey is no
coincidence on that basis also. And then in the South, what has
Israel been doing again? It's been expanding and
advancing. This is a headline in the
Jerusalem Post today. The IDF engages in firefight
with so called terrorists in southern Syria.
In reality, Israel is trying to expand its land grab in the
South, and it was pushed back by local fighters in the areas
where it's trying to advance. They are now, of course, termed
terrorists. And if we have a quick look at
the map, you can see the two areas that I'm talking about
that were under attack. First of all, in the South,
there in a village called Zawiya's, West of Dada, That is
where Israel is advancing and entrenching and the bombing of
those bases, as I said. In.
Central Syria, which again also demonstrates the extent to which
Turkey is also trying to expand into central Syria and at the
same time in Haimamim, Russia is moving greater numbers of troops
into Haimamim under the pretext of protecting its own convoys.
There are more than 7000 Syrian Alawites that have gathered in
the Haimamim base for protection.
And in fact the the the military hardware is being built up
around the base now. Yes, it could be protection for
Russian convoys. It could also be the start of
that consolidation of Russian military presence in the coastal
area and the providing of that pretext of protection for the
Alawites and the Christians and even the Sunnis that are opposed
to the Takferi project. So very fluid, a lot of swapping
and changing of alliances in order to consolidate power
inside Syria. Within my opinion.
Very little regard for the actual Syrian people, which I
guess is pretty normal. And do you think Israel will
have been involved in some way in this destabilisation within
Turkey itself? I, I think it's too much of A
coincidence that it's been kicked off.
Now. I do also think that there's
potential that Erdogan is playing a part in this because
by creating the instability, he can bring in emergency law,
which then potentially would allow him to make changes in the
constitution to extend his presidency beyond the next three
years, which he's currently not able to do.
And also it scuppers the deal with the PKK, the Kurdish so
called terrorist factions that he was in the process of
negotiating. He may well not want that to go
through because of course it's the Kurd Kurdish separatist
factions that are under the control of Israel and the US and
the North East that potentially would become that autonomous
region linked with Israel. So it's, it's very messy at the
moment and I think a lot of things don't add up.
A lot of things are not as they appear initially.
So I do think that destabilisation that is ongoing
in Turkey has a lot to do with what is going on in Syria, yes.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Vanessa.
Now we'll just move to free speech, or at least something
that's being hailed as the case about free speech.
And this is the news that the Office for Students has handed
down a fine of £585,000 to the University of Sussex for
apparently infringing free speech.
Now they said back in 2021 when the investigation began, that
the investigation is focused on whether or not the university
has met its obligations for academic freedom and freedom of
speech within the law for all students and staff, whatever
their views. And they go on to say that
students are entitled to be taught by academic staff with a
wide range of views and who can freely express lawful views no
matter how controversial they are, without fear of losing
their jobs or privileges. All students and staff are also
entitled to the protections offered by equality legislation
and these must extend to all protected characteristics,
including philosophical beliefs. Well, the range of interviews
that Diane has been running, I think would contradict that
statement in in so far as academics who've spoken out are
actually concerned. But at the heart of this is that
the University of Sussex was said to have promoted
transgender ideology with a policy requirement to quote
positively represent trans people, End Quote.
And a prohibition on what was described as transphobic
propaganda. Now the this has been
effectively rebutted to a certain extent by Sasha Rosnell,
the Vice Chancellor, who has written an article here at
Politics Home. And her point is that the
university in actual fact itself was backing Kathleen Stock, who
is the professor at the heart of this.
And indeed that there is much more to it than meets the eye.
And she's describing it as being a an exercise in political
scapegoating. So I think there's definitely
more to come out there with regard to how this has actually
affected the the university itself, or indeed what the what
the mood is there. This is taken from the student
union website and their gender inclusive language policy and
they say it's to quote from their policy.
Pronouns must be stated at the beginning of every meeting, even
if they've been stated at previous meetings.
General, sorry, gender neutral language must be used where an
individual's pronouns are not known.
So the student body very much minded towards a position that
meant that Kathleen Stock and indeed her views and indeed her
writings were not going to be tolerated.
And Kathleen Stock herself, a tweet or her Twitter account
shown on screen there, who's also a contributing editor to
Unheard, has said that she will be writing about this in due
course, in effect to set the record straight.
But there seems to be much more to it than than meets the eye,
not least because the investigation took over three
years and a lot of the process that should have been followed
wasn't. So this will be one to follow.
So whilst on the surface this does appear to be about free
speech, that there may well be other issues at play.
So it might not be. Or, or rather, it could be a
little bit too early to to chalk it up as a victory for free
speech. Now that brings us to the end of
the news programme today. So thank you to Vanessa and Carl
for joining and of course for Mike Bing studio with me today.
Now don't forget the interview with Roger Meir going out
tomorrow at 1:00. Also, please do buy a ticket to
the live stream for our UK Column on Location event on
Saturday the 5th of April and tell your friends and indeed
anybody else that you bump into and otherwise we will look
forward to seeing you at 1:00 on Friday.
Unless you're a UK column member, in which case please
hang around for extra in 10 minutes or so.
Thank you very much. Bye.
Bye bye.