Good afternoon. It's Monday the 5th of January
2026, just after 1:00. And welcome to UK Column News
Happy New Year to everyone watching and listening.
I'm your host, Mike Robinson, joining me in the studio today,
Ben Rubin. Welcome to the program, Ben.
Thank you, Mike. And by video link we have Brian
Gerrish. Later in the programme, Brian's
going to be looking at Starmer's moves to bring Britain back into
the EU and I'm going to be looking at Cambridge
University's International Security and Intelligence
programme. But we're going to begin today
with Venezuela. And of course, for those that
watch UK column and have used the term Trump Derangement
Syndrome to describe how we've been covering his behaviour over
the last little while, maybe the events of the past few days,
I've encouraged some to reconsider at least.
But as everyone will know by now, the US invaded A sovereign
country and lifted its president and his wife and brought them to
New York for trial on drugs charges, apparently drugs
related charges. And Maduro was marched around
the place, as you've just seen on screen for the inevitable PR
video video. But let's just begin by
listening to the beginning of Trump's remarks from the press
conference a couple of days ago. Late last night and early today,
at my direction, the United States Armed Forces conducted an
extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela,
overwhelming American military power.
Air, land and sea was used to launch a spectacular assault,
and it was a an assault like people have not seen since World
War 2. It was a force against a heavily
fortified military fortress in the heart of Caracas to bring
outlaw dictator Nicolas Maduro to justice.
This was one of the most stunning, effective, and
powerful displays of American military might and competence in
American history. So what are your thoughts on
that? My immediate thought is that he
sounds like he was slurring his words a little bit.
He didn't sound well at all. Absolutely, absolutely.
What was he on? What's the question?
What's coming on to my my lips, Brian?
What what are your thoughts? Because you know, the suggestion
that that this was the most impressive military operation
since World War 2 with words to that effect.
It's quite, quite a statement. Quite a statement, Mike.
First of all, happy New Year to all our viewers and listeners.
Yeah, it's quite incredible to see these events unfold and
deeply concerning I think it should be for most people
because is America really under control at the moment?
Is America really the land of freedom and a proper running
democracy, or have we got a sort of dictatorship?
Now in operation under Trump. And does it mean that he can
simply walk into any country in the world if he so chooses?
And he doesn't like the the existing incumbent politicians
and their policies. There's so many questions to ask
here, but really, really dangerous events in my opinion.
And indeed, well, during the press conference, Trump was very
clear that this was effectively about stealing Venezuela's oil.
But to set everybody's mind at rest, he said this.
I thought that would be so I settled 8 and one quarter war.
You know what the 1/4 was? Thailand and Cambodia, I did it
again. They were, they broke out and I
did it in about 5 hours and I settled it.
I'm giving myself 1/4. So I'm up to now 8 and 1/4.
In other words, I settled the war, but then they broke out.
They had a pretty bad breakout over the last four days.
I got them to go back to peace. So I only give one quarter.
So he solved it 8 and a quarter wars while he's busy creating
new ones in Africa and South America.
And many people are justifying the attack by setting the Monroe
Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, for anybody
who doesn't know, was created in 1823 and established a what they
described as AUS sphere of influence in the Western
Hemisphere and this was an opposition to European
interference in the Americas. There've been lots of references
in the Trump administration rhetoric over the last number of
weeks to this idea of AUS sphere of influence in US Western or US
hemisphere and so on. If you listen to to the various
comments, the the justification suggests that Maduro's ties to
Russia, China and Iran represent the kind of foreign influence
that this doctrine was meant to counter.
But the problem, of course, is that Russia, China and Iran are
not European in the original sense.
The argument is also that the US has a legitimate interest in
what they describe as hemispheric stability and
democratic governance. It's quite incredible how they
can take this position while they behave in this way.
They say that humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and refugee
flows affect the entire region, and that justifies what they
were doing, and also the fact that the United States had an
existing indictment against Maduro for drug trafficking,
which they seem to be suggesting is giving some kind of legal
basis for the arrest. All of that, of course, is utter
nonsense because the Monroe Doctrine was a unilateral U.S.
policy statement, not international law.
It doesn't authorise military operations to capture foreign
leaders. And of course, he completely
ignored the requirement for Congress to authorise this type
of action. And that's a constitutional
requirement. So also modern international
law, whether that you consider that embodied by the UN Charter,
but also also other sovereignty principles, supersedes the 19th
century doctrine. And we've got to say that this
action violates Venezuelan sovereignty.
That was, as I said, supposed to be in response to European
colonialism. Which makes Trump's actions all
the more ironic because over the weekend he was claiming that the
US would be running Venezuela until such times as there was
some kind of new government there.
And so you got to ask, is that not United States colonialism?
The hypocrisy seems to be off the charts to me.
And of course, using force to remove the head of state, even
an unpopular 1, at least from America's point of view, sets an
extremely dangerous precedent. And it demonstrates yet more
hypocrisy because Trump and also all the supporting Western
leaders continue to criticize Russia and China.
And despite the fact China hasn't actually done anything
yet, you know, this suggestion that they're going to invade,
where does that leave the suggestion that they're going to
invade Taiwan? Does that give China in fact
free rein to go ahead with that operation, if that, if that's in
their mind, I don't know so. If you're following that logic,
then that would make sense, wouldn't it?
Absolutely does, no. He was asked at the press
conference whether there would be boots on the ground in
Venezuela. And Trump said, well, we're not
afraid of boots on the ground. We're not afraid of it.
We don't mind saying it. And we're going to make sure
that the country is run properly.
We're not doing this in vain. And then in yesterday's
interview with The Atlantic, they are reporting him.
Well, they say that Trump delivered a direct threat to
Venezuela's new leader, Rodriguez.
If she doesn't do what's right, she's going to pay a very big
price, is what they're quoting him as saying.
Probably bigger than Maduro. And he made clear that he would
not stand for any defiant rejection of the armed
intervention in the United by the United States that resulted
in Maduras capture. He was asked how regime change
in Venezuela is different from the regime change that he
himself had opposed in Iraq. And he sort of rushed that off.
He said, I didn't do Iraq. That was George W Bush.
That's. The difference I've.
Asked Bush that question. Because we should never have
gone into Iraq. That started the Middle East
disaster. So you know.
Is he just a neo con now then Trump?
Is that what's happened? Well, this, this is something
that quite a number of people are saying is, is MAGA going to
turn into a neo con, you know, movement at this point, right?
It's quite incredible. And then he was asked about
taking over Greenland and he continued, We do need Greenland,
absolutely. We need it for defence.
And he said that this was because it was surrounded by
Russian and Chinese ships. So the question then is what's
the international response between one of the UN Security
Council has scheduled an emergency session for today.
I believe that's taking place 10 Amus Eastern Time.
So here's the the report from that from the Security Council
report and they're talking about the United States's snatch and
grab operation. They're saying that, well,
basically this, this report here from Security Council report
saying that this session has been brought about by Colombia
with the support of Russia and China.
The Kelly, Kelly, sorry, Kya Callas, the foreign security
policy administrator for the European Commission, was
tweeting out on Saturday. I've spoken with Secretary of
State Marco Rubio and our ambassador in Caracas.
The EU is closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela.
The EU has repeatedly stated that Mister Maduro lacks
legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition, defended a
peaceful transition under all circumstances.
The principles of international law and the UN Charter must be
respected. We call for restraint.
The safety of EU citizens in the country is our top priority.
So she's basically, basically saying, yeah, it's fine that
they went ahead and did this, but but I'm going to defend
international law. So break international law, but
we're going to defend. It to the UN.
Yeah, Ursula von der Leyen then called for a peaceful transition
and she said following very closely the situation in
Venezuela, we stand by the people of Venezuela and support
a peaceful and democratic transition.
Any solution must respect international law and the UN
Charter. So there you go.
That was pretty much that. And then Friedrich Merckx called
the situation complex. He said the legal assessment of
the US intervention is complex and requires careful
consideration. International law remains the
guiding framework. So you start to see the theme,
the common narrative between all these people here and well,
let's see, what did Farage say here in the UK?
Well, here he is. The American actions in
Venezuela overnight or unorthodox and contrary to
international law. But they make China.
But if they make China and Russia think twice, it may be a
good thing. So don't worry, international
law's there and it is in breach of that.
But don't worry about that. So long as it has the outcome of
making China and Russia, I think it's a good thing.
So let's finish this little segment with the wonderful Keir
Starmer and his comments, because this is what he had to
say. The UK has long supported the
transition of power in Venezuela.
We regarded Maduro, Maduro as an illegitimate president.
We shed no tears about the end of his regime.
But here we go. I reiterated my support for
international law this morning. The UK government will discuss
the evolving situation with the US counterparts in the days
ahead as we seek a safe, safe and peaceful transition to
legitimate government. So clearly all the Western
powers reacting in exactly the same way to what the United
States has done. Yeah, we don't.
We didn't like Maduro. We're glad to see the back of
him. But of course we got to support
international. Law got to wag our finger a
little bit and say how disapproving we are.
Precisely. Yeah, right.
But the whole thing just rumbles on.
Quite incredible. Isn't it just?
But it doesn't end there, Ben.
It certainly doesn't end there. No, let's just let's just talk
about Trump very quickly, Rob, because this is we're right into
the, we're getting into the business end of the second term.
And the thing that always jumps out at me, you started your
segment by saying we're accused of TDs, right?
Well, I remember Trump 1.0. So 2016 to 20 is a completely
different proposition to what we're looking at now, right?
So he was very famously putting himself forward as being anti
foreign war. We're not sending blood and
treasure overseas to overthrow foreign dictators or whatever it
might be. Even though he was actually
running quite a lot of military operations in the background.
He didn't start any new conflicts.
Absolutely. But now it's sort of just though
not even a year into his second term, he was he's kicking off in
Nigeria over Christmas. We've got this operation special
operation that's kicked off now. When somebody else used the term
special military operation. Yes, they said.
Yeah. That that had a different.
Result he's on the different side, you see, so it's different
for them, but this is it's, it's amazing.
And actually that his base is kind of going along with it.
And it strikes me that this, the, the Biden term, that single
term was basically nearly four years of ritual humiliation to
enrage the MAGA base so that Trump can now be let off the
leash and go and stamp his mark across.
Well, wherever he's been in Nigeria, he's been in Venezuela.
They're talking about maybe taking Greenland at some point.
I mean, who knows, right? I mean, this is this is
intercontinental grand strategy of the The Kissinger Playbook.
And we'll come on to Henry Kissinger again in a moment.
I actually ended my last Monday news segment of 2025 with this
story of Rothschild and Co. We can just get that up on
screen where we had the the great and the good of NATO and
civil service establishment here in the UK, convening at the
Rothschild and Care offices in the City of London to talk about
the opportunity for investors throughout the capital stack of
investing in weapons and death, basically the military
industrial complex. So that's how we ended last
year. And then this year it all kicked
off with Lord Rothschild himself congratulating Donald J Trump on
the liberation of Venezuela, Venezuela Libre over on X.
But this couldn't really have been a celebration of making
lots of money out of kinetic warfare because, well, I was
going to say, it seems like not a single shot was fired.
He's described it as the biggest or best military operation since
World War 2. But we've not actually seen
anything. You know, in this day and age
where you see almost live streamed military activities, it
happens. Like in this instance, we've not
seen anything at all, have we? But that is, that in itself is
quite remarkable. Well, he was suggesting that
there were quite a number of deaths on the Venezuelan side,
No deaths on the United States side.
That's what he was saying more or less during his press
conference. Yeah, but it was quick.
Whatever we can say about it, it happened pretty quickly.
So they're not going to be making loads of money in the
military industrial complex on this particular conflict.
So what was it about then for for Lord Rothschild?
Was it about oil potentially? They're sitting on a lot of oil.
David Miller doesn't think so. So actually David was over on X
opining about the fact that this is actually a message from what
he calls Pax Judaica to the rest of the world.
We own Trump and so we own you. It was a dry run for a new type
of regime change mission, low cost, lower risk, lighter
footprint, which Netanyahu was imposed on the US as a
replacement for his and Pax Judaica's previous model, which
used American troops and treasure to impose ground
invasions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and elsewhere.
So actually, this is a move by Hax Judaica, the, the, the, the
Jewish empire ultimately, which is what Miller's referring to
and that we've seen in operation across Latin America, the South
American continent over the past 12 months and of course, before
that. But it's really coming to a head
now. We had this announcement back in
November. This is the Isaac Chords, which
was signed by Javier Miley, the Uber Zionist president of
Argentina, often seen crying his eyes out at the Wailing Wall in
Jerusalem. He signed the Isaac Accords.
This is basically a version of the Abraham Accords for Latin
America, whereas the Abraham Accords focused on the Middle
East and includes Saudi Arabia, the UAE, as well as Israel.
And this is based on establishing free trade
agreements between Israel and countries that sign up to it.
Those countries will agree to move their embassy to Jerusalem
in the same way that the US did during Trump's first term.
Actually, these participants will sign the an official
declaration that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist groups,
of course, and they will adopt the IHRA definition of
anti-Semitism in order to be part of this club essentially.
All right. And this is from November.
And now we see this happening in Venezuela.
It seems to me that this is part of part of the deal, ultimately.
It's also a massive, massive, massive, just another
distraction from the Epstein files.
So these have been dripping out over the past few weeks and
months. Trump seems to figure pretty
heavily in them, as well as most of the rest of the US political
establishment the past 30 or 40 years.
So what are we going to do? We'll start a war so we don't
have to talk about this. And a lot of this is being
promoted and aided by the the right wing commentariat, the the
MAGA patriot Instagram types, not least this guy.
This is BC Drano Rogan O Handley who popped up during COVID as a
freedom protester. But actually it's turned out to
be a Slavist Zionist regime propagandist.
Basically he's got 3,000,000 followers on Instagram.
And it really caught my attention how he was talking
about this, this Venezuelan situation over the weekend.
Just have a look at this, right? Look at the language and look at
how it's been presented. So they're saying that Trump has
just captured Venezuela's communist president and sees
17.3 trillion in oil reserves. This is going to deliver an
economic boom, the biggest economic boom in American
history. Win, win for Trump here.
It's what it looks like. They've got 303 billion barrels
of crude oil, which the US now controls.
And according to this analysis, if they just sold all of that,
then we'd wipe out a third of the national debt in just 12
hours. Trump, what a deal, what a guy.
Trump's managed to to to execute this.
And it wasn't just about oil. It was about protecting the US
dollar. You see over there on the right
hand side, which is the world's reserve currency.
And that was down to an agreement made between Kissinger
and Saudi Arabia in 1974. All oil sold globally must be
priced in U.S. dollars. So they're validating Kissinger.
They're saying Kissinger was a good guy, it was good for
America. And Trump is protecting this
legacy ultimately. And apparently, according to
this guy, China was hours away from ending dollar supremacy.
And then we're going to do that in a number of ways.
And make the kuan the the, the new world currency through these
new payment systems, relationships between the BRICS
countries. And Trump stops it just in time.
Thank goodness me for Trump. Isn't he incredible?
And if you mess with the dollar, you disappear every single time.
It's amazing language. This isn't it.
And this is this. And this is the the, the mindset
that is being pushed into the American patriot right at the
moment. This is America first,
essentially. Yeah.
And that means American basically means America can do
whatever it wants and the rest of the world can go swing.
And that was American foreign policy, well, for decades.
And and we thought that was coming to an end, but it isn't.
And Trump is fully embracing it. And actually you can.
We can get that back on screen quickly.
We can see that one of the big bonuses apparently is that
America has just secured fuel for the $10 trillion AI and EV
boom. So apparently this oil windfall
is going to help with the AI and electric vehicles.
Again, It's all about. The other thing we've got to
remember is that Venezuela has quite a bit of quite a lot of
rare earths as. Well, does it?
Absolutely. Well, that's a happy accident,
isn't it? Goodness, fantastic.
And and this is all presented in the language of the kind of
start up Silicon Valley, 10X your investment type worldview.
And they talk about this idea of smart money.
He's paying attention to what Trump's done.
But now you can do this too, right?
So nations do it on a global scale, but you can do this at a
local scale. And this is all about building
Internet businesses and owning deal flow across digital
platforms. You can make loads of money, 50
grand a month, mostly passive. This is all from the same
statement, by the way. This is just one thing.
I think This is why I think it's particularly interesting to put
this stuff together. And this is all being positioned
towards these people. Blonde haired, blue eyed white
American patriots who are supposedly Trump's people and
that they should be buying into this whole, this whole agenda
for. It's just amazing.
It's all presented like this. So it's the strong man, the
strong, rugged individual leader taking control.
Faffo. You know what faffo means.
Tell me. Faff around and find out.
Really. Yes, yeah, yeah.
So no games faffo and Tommy Robinson loves it.
So this is obviously lit up the UK the the the supposed patriot
right in the UK literally calling for him to go to Downing
St. and to kidnap Keir Starmer, Lawrence Fox doing more or less
the same thing and saying there we go.
Could you send over some rugged individualists to free us from
the warm embrace of collectivism?
And that's a a direct reference to the inaugural address just
three or four days ago by Zara Mandami in New York, the new
mayor of New York saying that we will replace the fragility of
rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.
So the rugged individualism is Trump and his faffo meme and
kidnapping communist leaders as, as Mandami would put it, he
probably wouldn't call him a dictator, call him a communist
leader. And, and, and that is he's
basically Trump's become a bogeyman.
And it's deliberate, right? They're doing this deliberately
in order to provoke a reaction and to drive parts of the
population into collectivism and and and ultimately into
communism because actually, if you go far enough up chain,
these things begin to coalesce, come back together, not least
through people. ISO ran Mandami and this is one
of the the images that we shared when he was voted in just a few
months ago. That's him with Alex Soros, son
of George Soros, who is now the the chair of Open Societies
Foundation, which is supposedly a liberal progressive NGO
promoting better future for the whole humanity.
But she's also a strategic partner of the World Economic
Forum. So now you can see that
socialism and capitalism, collectivism and collectivism
and individualism all kind of coalesce together into this
totalitarian system. It's been built around us.
And that situation in Venezuela is just one great example of how
it's all playing out. We'll keep you posted on this as
it goes. Vanessa is going to have more on
this on Wednesday. And I've no doubt.
But Brian, let's, let's welcome you back to the program and
well, Starmer and the European Union because of course, part
and parcel of everything that's going on, going on at the moment
is the threat to the nation itself.
Thank you, Mike. Well, of course, that's
absolutely right. I just felt that while we had
these momentous world events happening, it was a good thing
to keep an eye on what was happening with Keir Starmer and
as you say, the European Union. And fascinating for me that my
interpretation of what he's up to at the moment Reawoke work
that UK. Column did back in 2006.
When we were warning about certain things happening with
young people in the UK. But let's open up with the way
the papers have been reporting. So I've just chosen a couple
here. We've got the OA paper.
It's talking about a softer course for Brexit.
It's interesting that title because it's almost as though.
We haven't come out and we're doing a softer course to get out
of the EU. You came up with a wonderful UK
column expression of Brexit without the exit and that's
stayed out of position. So we've never fully left the
EU. But here's the Daily Express
going much stronger and saying full blown Brexit betrayal.
And if that was the two of the newspaper headlines, then for me
it was also important to keep my eye on what the BBC was saying.
So let's bring in this one. So this headline is what's
behind the PMS notable shift on closer ties to Europe.
And in the article, really the message is very strongly.
Well, it's just a little bit of manipulation around the single
market helping get trade flow. It's about food in particular
and farm exports. They need some help.
Electricity comes into it. But of course, of course, as a
nation state we can't even power the country.
We need to draw on the European grid.
So it wasn't only electricity, but it's also trading in power.
I thought that was interesting. Let's have a look at another
headline here because here we should release.
They want to pay attention because in this BBC report on a
notable shift to closer ties with Europe, we see that in the
text Stormer is acknowledging that what he's doing is a
sovereign decision. And I thought this was a very,
very important line. OK, he's saying we've got the
best relationship with the EU for 10 years, but I think in
this article he's having to recognise that what he is doing
is absolutely touching on and abusing constitutional issues
and he absolutely needs to be called out for it.
Let's go on to another headline and see what we get from that.
And this time we've got Rachel Reeves.
And in this BBC headline, it's talking about her having pushed
for an ambitious youth migration deal and saying that the UK
agreed to work towards a. Youth experience visa Now many
people would just think this is sort of fluff and nonsense it's
just to do with. Is to do with youth and students
and it's it's a few thousand students coming into the UK for
Europe but is that really what's happening let's have a look at
the background to this and this is the meat of it which has come
out in another article here by the Independent.
I think it is where it it actually says that the UK is
going to rejoin the EU. Erasmus student exchange scheme.
Now people have never heard of this before.
You need to really know about it and understand it.
Erasmus, if I remember correctly, a Dutch Renaissance
thinker, also a priest and a humanist, but he has been taken
up by the European Union as the. Model.
For young people. So where does this leave us?
Well, let's actually have a look at the scheme itself.
And I've just got a headline here to to bring up on screen.
So this is the Erasmus literature from the EU itself.
It's talking 2021 through to 2027.
And this is all about engaging youth.
So if we have a look at the actual costs involved here, this
is no small program because we're talking about €26.2
billion in order to gauge engage youth.
And why do they want to do this? Well, the blue arrow there is
highlighting that this is all about reframing the minds of
thousands and thousands of young people in order to get them to
believe that they're not German or British or French or Dutch.
They're actually part of the European project and they're
going to think in terms of no borders, never mind Brexit, no
borders. They're going to move between
countries and they're going to be an internationalist in their
whole spirit. Here's a little video clip which
probably spells it out better than me.
This isn't about your Erasmus in the first instance, it's about
the EU's youth project, but nevertheless this is about.
As young people, we have the power to shape the European
Union's future. The EU Youth Dialogue is all
about bridging the gap between young people and policy makers.
It offers us a unique opportunity to make political
decision makers aware of what truly matters to us.
Every EU Youth Dialogue takes place under a trio presidency,
with three countries chairing the Council of the European
Union. Over an 18 month cycle, these
countries take it in turns to organize our EU Youth
Conference, where we meet and debate on the chosen topics from
the EU Youth Dialogue. During each cycle, we young
Europeans are first consulted, making sure there is a wide
range of perspectives. Next, we discuss the results and
make recommendations for European Union and Member State
policies. So let's take the opportunity to
voice our views and help shape European societies, because the
best future for Europe is 1 in which we can engage, connect and
empower youth. So that's it in a nutshell.
This is about grooming, reframing, training young people
to believe in the European mind, to believe in the European
project. And of course, once they've been
trained and reframed, they're put in positions of making
policy. So if they can come into
politics, all the better. But also NGOs and other agencies
and these are the people that help drive European policy
within their own country of origin or the host country in
which they now reside. So this is very, very dangerous
stuff. Let's just put up a little bit
of a label over the top of this because the key point here for
people, if we pop this one on the screen, screen Mike, and
this is about reframing you. So if we so if we bring in the
ad on there and to that slide, this is all about reframing
youth to believe in Europe and the European project over and
above their own nation state. So this is a Trojan horse to
bring in European policy into the UK.
Starmer absolutely knows what it's about.
And I just want to remind viewers that way back in 2006,
the UK column was alone in warning about the highly pro EU
charity Common Purpose and what it was doing in order to adopt
the same European reframing of children, not of teenagers
university age, but children from about the age of 12 onwards
in UK schools. So I think this is very
dangerous and it says to me that Starmer is absolutely wanting to
continue the EU. He's no intention of making any
form of Brexit hard or soft. As as we have been suggesting
for a long time, this of course this is a unit party policy, not
just not just Starmer. He's just the latest step along
the way. Now let's just remind everybody
that we can't do what we do without your help.
And I want to say thank you very much to everybody that helped us
in 20252026 is a new year and we're going to have lots going
on this year. If you can't support us
financially, please click on the Click here button on the front
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to share that helps us defeat the the censorship regime.
The more of you that take part in that the better and is
equally appreciated. Now tonight at 7:00 PM, Jeremy's
back building a social contract to dismantle the base system.
This is discussion with James Roguski about the failure of
governments and public health systems.
So join us at 7:00 PM for that. And at 1:00 PM tomorrow, Diane
is talking to Chris Allen and Brent Holloway of the Cumbria of
Cumbria Action about their outreach work towards the
raising towards raising public awareness of globalist agendas.
So join us for that as well. And then on Sunday at 7:00 PM,
we will have the latest 1000 Words podcast.
Let's have a look at a short trailer.
We're going to be chastised by the by the truther slash freedom
slash cult, I said. Terry's dead.
And then I laughed. But you know, rabbit holes are
underground. You know, they're, they're,
they're, they're the opposite way to.
And that woman behind me was crying.
So I just without sounding like I'm, I'm not Mother Teresa,
thank God, because he's. Right TuneIn this Sunday at 7:00
PM for 1000 Words with comedian Abby Roberts.
So I'll be I'll be Roberts. This is the next portrait to be
pitted by Jake Ferns to join us at 7:00 PM for the first of the
podcasts on the on that. And that should be a bit of fun.
OK, now let's move back to the UK and the 2026 International
Security and Intelligence Program.
So let's bring it on screen. This is Cambridge University.
It's going to be hosted once again at Emmanuel College at
Cambridge University. This is a residential program.
It's going to run from the Sunday the 5th of July to
Saturday the 1st of August. So basically a whole month is
going to be chaired by Richard Dearlove, the former chief of MI
6. And well, the Cambridge Security
Initiative was launched the International Security and
Intelligence Program in 2016. And they said that the aim of
what they describe as a unique program is to provide an
opportunity for participants to engage with leading academics
and practitioners from the intelligence and security
communities in the historic setting of one of the world's
foremost universities. I believe it's also probably one
of the most common sources of traitorous behaviour in in this
in the country as well, but maybe that may may be a
misunderstanding of history. I don't.
Well, they did. They say that Cambridge produces
the heretics and Oxford burns them.
Really. Yes.
Anyway, the teaching program, because this is a teaching
program, closely follows that of Cambridge University with
lecture, seminars and supervisions, which, well, we
can decide what those are later. All the instruction is is
conducted under Chatham House rules.
And So what they say is that that means that when a meeting
is held under Chatham House rules, participants are free to
use the information received, but neither the identity nor the
affiliation of the speaker nor that of any other participant
may be revealed. So applicants applications are
invited from undergraduates have completed at least a year of
university UH and sometimes more.
UH, also graduates and early career professionals with an
intellectual or professional interest in statecraft and the
interlocking themes of intelligence, security,
strategy, defence and in foreign policy.
And so, Ben, my question is, is this about education or is this
in fact a recruitment programme? Brian, I don't know if you've
got any thoughts on that. Is this about recruitment?
I've I've I've asked one or two other people about this and and
their view is that it could very well be more about recruitment
than anything else, but I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Well, my, my immediate response, Mike, is it's so difficult to
tell now what's going on. Are we dealing with the state?
Are we dealing with the government?
We're dealing with agents of the state.
It's become increasingly difficult to tell whether thing
whether people are running the country in line with the
Constitution. Or they are a cabal that's
running to their, you know, to their own agenda.
What are you reporting on Venezuela?
Just to jump back to that subject, I thought to myself,
well, here we are with. America totally out of control,
ignoring the rules based international order just to
throw the rock in the pond. But of course we've got Auk
government that's voted. In a whole load of legislation
to allow it to break the law, we shouldn't be surprised.
To allow it to break the law itself or its agents to break
the law, we shouldn't be surprised.
Now whether we see increasingly murky groups set up, we've no
idea what they're really there or doing.
And we need to ask that question.
Certainly we need to lift the stones to find out.
Indeed. Well, the program directors.
Here's the first one. Professor Michael Goodman, and
he formerly head of War Studies and now Professor of
Intelligence and International Affairs at King's College
London. He's the official historian of
the historian of the British Joint Intelligence Committee and
a visiting professor at the Norwegian Defence Intelligence
School. He's a British Army reservist.
They're not clear as to who he's a reservist for.
Is it 77 Brigade perhaps? And has spent many years
seconded to the Cabinet Office in the Ministry of Defence.
And then Professor David Glow, who's visiting Professor of the
Department of War Studies, King's College London.
Recently British Academy Global Professor at the Department of
War Studies and formerly Associate Professor of History
at U.S. Military Academy in West Point.
And well, the little synopsis says that he brings 25 years of
combined active and reserve service working in the US
intelligence community, including analytical and
operational roles in the FBI, CIA, DIA and Office of Naval
Intelligence. So as I say, the teaching format
closely follows that of Cambridge University and so on.
But look, the connections here into the whole Russia Gate thing
in the United States. We've, we look at Russia Gate to
start off with Christopher Steele, he's involved with this
organization. Stefan Halper absolutely.
Richard Dearlove is chairing this event.
Christopher Andrew, the official historian of MI Five.
Well, he's not directly connected to this particular
event, but his his, his work, his academic work, his
historical work on MI 5 is absolutely part and parcel of
the curriculum for this. So that's the Cambridge four
that we talked about with respect to Russia Gate.
But then also we've got the same types of people involved with
the Skripal case as well, which is all about building narratives
against Russia. In fact, Russia Gate, the attack
on Trump was also really about a narrative against Russia
interfering and so on. And then if we just focus on
Christopher Steele for a second, of course, he produced to Trump
dossier also produced or contributed to the Russia report
for the British government and also the Huawei dossier for the
British government. So you know, this, this is these
are the types of people that we have operational here and so on.
But just to to move on to another Cambridge person, of
course, the lovely Blaze Metro Welle, who was giving her
inaugural speech as the new head of MI 6 just before Christmas
was she of course, was outed as the granddaughter of the
infamous, shall we say, Ukrainian Nazi collaborator
Konstantin Dobrovolski, known to the Abver as the butcher.
And that was from 1941 to 1943. And he was accused of rounding
up Ukrainian Jews for slaughter and bragging about the
extermination his his part in the extermination of the Jews,
now Blaise Metro. Eli's response was to deny any
knowledge or contact with him. And then the Foreign Office and
MI 6 issued statements that the BBC was happy to to promote,
saying that Blaise's ancestry is characterized by conflict and
division, and as is the case for many with Eastern European
heritage, only partially understood.
It's precisely this complex heritage which has contributed
to our commitment to prevent conflict and protect the British
public from modern threats from today's hostile states.
As the next chief of MI 6:00 Well, it turns out that
Metrovelli's father, Constantine Dobrovolski Junior was was
raised by another Nazi collaborator.
Collaborator. That was his stepfather, David
Metrovelli, who worked at an Abfair run special preliminary
camp at Auschwitz. The camp was in the town of
Auschwitz, but it wasn't the same as the concentration camp
that's known by that name now. He was apparently teaching radio
technology to radio operatives for the Abfair, and it's also
noted that he's obviously Georgian.
As we've mentioned from the name, he was also providing
instruction to members of the Georgian Legion, which was also
collaborating with the Nazis. Brian, MI 6 must have understood
enough about her family history before they recruited her.
And now she's following her career in MI 6.
MI 6 is now under her command. And so I wonder, you know,
obviously, having a grandfather who was known as the butcher and
a Nazi collaborator, and also therefore her father being
brought up by another Nazi collaborator, that doesn't make
her a Nazi necessarily. But, you know, what were MI 6
thinking in the recruitment process, do you think?
I mean, why would they choose someone with this kind of family
background? Because, as I understand it,
intelligence operatives are fairly well vetted.
Well, very good question, Mike. And my immediate response is
that if you're involved in murky dirty business, you want to
recruit somebody for who come from comes from a murky dirty
background. So in some ways I could look at
her and say, yeah, OK, this is exactly the lady they want
because The Dirty work that's going on in Ukraine in
particular. Is clearly going to continue
throughout this year and many forecast into into next year.
UK is heavily involved in a war, although it's denying that it
is. So whether we've got troops on
the ground or we've got special intelligence services active in
the background, do you want somebody who's capable of of
operating in that murky way. So my my initial impression is
this woman would have been specially chosen.
Because of her connections and murky pass, she's acceptable to
both sides of the Presumably she's acceptable to both sides
of the Ukrainian political divide, those that are on the
extreme right wing in Ukraine, which of course nobody,
including the BBC wants to talk about anymore, or whether she's
connected into the cleaner, more modern Ukrainian political
circles. But they absolutely.
Absolutely would have known what this woman's background is.
My opinion is she's been chosen because of that murky
background. Thanks, Brian.
Now let's let's come on back on to other UK topics and something
that we've been, well, it's been a topic of conversation for
many, many years. And that is the question of the
House of Commons and, and the the Palace of Westminster and
whether it's actually capable of hosting the House of Commons and
the House of Lords anymore. I mean, obviously we've just
seen Big Ben refurbished and it's looking spectacularly good
at the moment, it has to be said.
But that's the outside. What about the inside?
Well, this is a good question. Perhaps we're going into another
dirty, murky subject, but I wanted to flag this up because
again, the UK column was. Talking about the the whole
concept of a major refurbishment to the Parliament in UK, this
was being discussed 50, least 15 years ago and we said that at a
time when we've got the sort of iron fist of the EU around our
throats as a nation state. It was very worrying if we were
going to see Parliament broken up for refurbishment, recited
possibly in another city, a time of great turbulence when there
was another political power clearly attempting to take full
control of the country. We're in a time of turbulence
again and what is now cropped up is that we are to have a major
refurbishment of Parliament. So I'm very wary as to what's
going on here in a political sense.
But also many years ago I had experience of working in a
company undertaking major conditions surveys for very,
very big properties and so including some of the EU's own
buildings in Brussels. And so I've got a little bit of
professional knowledge about how this system works.
And when I look at what we're being told in the media about
what's to happen with Westminster, some of it does not
stack up. So let's have a look at how this
is being reported. No apologies for picking the BBC
because the BB CS, the biggest propaganda outlet in the
country, so many people being affected.
But the picture I'll just describe first of all, because I
suspect some people have trouble seeing what it is.
It's the BB CS picture of part of the problem with Westminster.
So you're down in the bowels of the the building and what you're
looking at isn't a rat's nest, which you might expect to find
in Parliament. No, what you're looking at is a
massive mess of data cables. And my immediate response is if
that is indeed the condition of those cables, somebody needs to
be on a health and safety charge because it's outrageous.
No other company would be allowed that.
But underneath we've got some of the the meat of what this
report's talking about. So it's talking about these
works taking 19 to 28 years to complete with Parliament vacated
or partly vacated or partly relocated for some 12 to 20
years. And I've added a question mark
after that because this time scale is not set.
Now. There's more pictures here from
the BBC now. They tried to make out as though
this is an absolute disaster, but many people in the
professional world of building can of, of buildings and their
condition will say, well, this looks pretty neat and tidy
compared to many. But I can accept that the
system's rolled. So we've got all sorts of
heating, pipe work, ventilation, which is down under the building
if we just bring you over the overlay.
This is what the BBC says, a hot and fusty corridor in the
basement, the Houses of Parliament which carries
hundreds of tangled gas pipes, water mains and electrical
wires, some of which are redundant, dangerous and need
replacing. Well, this would be what you
would see in most older commercial properties,
particularly up in London. But for some reason, now we're
onto the subject of Westminster. My goodness, this is a nightmare
that nobody's capable of sorting out.
So if we go to the next one, we got another picture.
This is a 1945 pipe that was leaking at the flange at one
point. So there's a little bit of a
rust stain on it. But what does the BBC say?
Well, it says that this pipe has been decommissioned and needs to
be removed. However, getting it out requires
removing the otherwise entwined around it.
They can't. They can't be isolated, meaning
the whole system would have to be shut off.
This is completely normal. No commercial operation would be
batting an eyelid at this is what happens in big and small
commercial properties right the way across UK and indeed
worldwide. But suddenly for Parliament it's
a huge problem. We've had to create a specialist
company. Let's have a look at it.
It's it's the restoration and renewal company that's already
spending about 79 million a year in order to think about and plan
what this refurbishment is, is, is going to be and how it's
going to work and what is the cost.
Well, this is where my eyes really started to to bulge
because apparently to refurbish this building is going to cost
between 7:00 and £13 billion and this is Conservative estimate.
And I'm thinking to myself, my goodness, what commercial
operation would be looking at the possibility of non inability
to use a building over 20 years and possibly spending £13
billion to refurbishment, refurbish it.
It sounds incredible. So if we get into a little bit
more of the detail, this is from that company's own reports.
This is just a very simplistic list of what's going to take
place. So the top one which I've
highlighted is it says save the building and renew failing
building services. And the top subject is building
services such as heating, ventilation and cooling.
And apparently that is going to swallow out 51% of those
billions, which we've already identified.
This to me seems completely unbelievable, but you can see
some of the other problems underneath because they're
talking about the need to to conserve the building fabric.
That makes sense, but that's a mere 16% to the cost.
We've also got asbestos removal at 8%.
Asbestos still a big problem in many older buildings, but the
procedures for getting it out are very well established and 8%
of the overall cost sounds to me probably about right for for a
building of that age. If we go on and have a look at
the next table here, we suddenly start to see something different
because now we're looking at a working, creating a working home
for members and Parliament itself.
And that is only going to take 3% of the budget.
So we've got 51% to those billions simply on the
engineering systems and a mere 3% on achieving the reason.
I would have thought you're trying to refurbish the
building. And if we go on to the last one,
there's a lot more to this, but to give people an overview, what
are we looking at in this last one?
Well, it's a building that's got to be accessible.
And what do they mean? It means that anybody who can't
walk, they're in a wheelchair, they can have full access to the
building. And that alone is going to take
6% of those billion pounds in budget.
So some quite extraordinary things taking place here.
But if we get to the meat of my concerns in the next slide, here
is what's actually happening, because is this a simple
restoration and renewal or is it a project which is to be dragged
out over so many years? You have the opportunity to
completely disrupt and reset the UK's constitutional government.
And if you're wondering what the 48 years is that's appeared on
screen, yes, in the report by that renewal company, at one
stage they casually suggest in one of the sentences that maybe
this whole project could disrupt Parliament for 48 years.
I'm going to say as part of my prediction for 2026, what we're
looking at is now a deliberate attempt to completely undermine
and destroy stability within our political process.
And the idea that we're going to spend 13 billion on, on renewing
parliament is a complete, it's not only a nonsense, but it's so
outrageous. We we've got to ask questions as
to what's happening here. So we've got Starmer re
educating youth to believe in the European Union, and at the
same time we've got a perfect opportunity to destroy the
workings of Parliament as we know it.
So perhaps I can throw that back to you, Mike, and say there's
something at work here and I think we really need to pay
attention to it. But we've got nothing to worry
about, Ben, the Citizens Assembly.
So we're going to save the day. I don't.
Do you know what I was just going to say?
Sadiq Khan has just built a new City Hall up in East London.
Maybe they could move in there instead, if that'd be OK,
wouldn't it? Yeah.
Well, well, if the question then to to finish then is are they
intending to sell Britain? I mean, they've been flogging it
off for years, haven't they? Yes.
I mean, basically I've been doing the route.
I mean, it's, it's quite nicely LinkedIn from what Brian's just
been talking about, Right. Like I've been doing a bit of it
for the first time in a few years.
I've been going around the country on various different
trips. Went up to York for the UK
column conference. Was in Stroud with Sandy just
before Christmas. I've been exploring Devon over
the past few weeks, has been fantastic.
And I was up in my mum's over Christmas just outside of
Nottingham, small town called Bingham.
And the thing that you can't help but notice is, well the
first thing, that half the country is now covered in solar
panels, which is awful and it makes me sick to my stomach when
I see that. Then the other one that's really
getting me, and it was particularly related to seeing
my mum over Christmas, is that Bingham is this beautiful, not
quite a village. It's a little bit bigger than
that, right? But it's, it's been there for
hundreds of years. It's got a very particular feel
to it, a very particular architectural style, these
lovely red brick buildings. And it was in the middle of
fields and farmland. And you know, there's huge
swathes of the country that are like that, like these little
small villages, small Hamlets, and they're surrounded by by the
countryside by nature. And that, and that essentially
that is what the country is. And Bing urban.
And this is a good example that can be seen across the whole of
the country is now surrounded by these things.
We can get this up on screen. Are these these building sites
and these new housing estates that are going in.
And this is destroying the the soul of the nation.
Yeah, like the fabric of the country, like what it was, how
it feels, how it looks. And this is just the perfect
example for me of, of what's going on in wrong in the
country. Like where you can essentially
look at a, a field, a Meadow, you know, the surrounding of
something that is ancient and beautiful that's been there for
centuries and say, do you know what that really needs and need?
Some, you know, toy houses made by Taylor Wimpey or some other
FTSE listed house builder to come in and bulldoze over it,
overload the local infrastructure, basically fob
people off with, you know, like this is not a particular comment
about Taylor Wimpey. It's just a comment about
modern, modern construction. So we say these things are not
built to last. So there's no sympathy with the
local area. It's not an asset that you're
going to hand down through generations over potentially
centuries. It's something that you're going
to have to tear down and rebuild in 30 years or 40 years
potentially maybe even before you get to the end of the
mortgage. It's going to run out of it's
going to run out of usefulness. And this is the front line of
the the struggle that we're in at the moment.
You know, if you think about those building sites, the solar
panels going up, you know, we talk a lot about what's
happening in terms of global agenda and global policy here on
the UK column. But it manifests at a local
level, right? And so when you see these things
popping up, understand that that's being driven from these
great macroeconomic and political forces in places like
the City of London or Davros or wherever it might be.
Yeah. So that's the country
transforming as a consequence of these policies.
And the other thing that it really flagged up to me is the
enormous importance of independent local media, because
if the newspapers in those towns were doing their job properly
then. Some of this would be happening.
Yeah, indeed. Well, look, Brian, we're out of
time, but let's just finish with something slightly lighter
hearted, shall we say? Because of course we're all
going to die because of the snow.
Well, this is true. Snow's the problem, and we're
all to become snowflakes, to not be able to deal with those snow
snowflakes as they come down. But I've got to say thank you to
Mrs. Garish for this one because I found a laughing one morning
while she was looking at some reports online.
What? What's the whole thing about?
Well, of course it's the government ramping up fear of a
snow hitting the Uki remember the winter of 1963 as a very
small child when we really did have a problem with snow, but we
still managed to to survive as a nation.
The trains were able to start running again, roads were
cleared and people just dealt with it.
But now of. Course, the government says.
That snow, as we can see in this one, is, is a risk to life.
And this is the thing. It's all about fear.
Now who's driving the fear? Well, in these articles they
start talking about the extreme events and.
Health Protection, Health UK. Health Security Agency and
there's a. Particular individual who's
who's actually Portuguese Agostino D'souza and he's
interesting man. He's got a very European career,
but he. Said as the cold weather sets
in, it's vital to check in on friends, family and neighbors
that are the most vulnerable. And if we press the magic button
again, he added this, the forecasted temperatures can have
a serious. Impact on the health of some
people. Leading to increased risk of
heart attacks, strokes and chest infections, particularly for
individuals over the age of 65 and those with pre-existing
health conditions. So I I think we should thank
Agostino. For thinking for us and keeping
us safe from those snowflakes. Because before he got involved,
no adult in the company in the country was capable of doing
this. But the the thing that really
brought a smile to our faces as a family was the fact that these
agencies were having yellow snow warnings.
And this brought into my head a Frank Zappa track from some
years ago because he was also warning about yellow snow
because that's where the doggies might go.
So yellow snow warnings in UK, does that mean watch out where
you're treading or does it mean something else?
I don't know. But for goodness sake, snow is
snow. We can survive.
Let's not let these people make us anxious and fearful of
something which is quite normal for any country, certainly in in
Europe or America, wherever we go, where there's cold weather.
Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for
that. Yes, we all recommend Frank's
office satire from time to time. It's it's good stuff.
OK, well, look, we got to leave it there for now.
Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Ben.
Thanks to everybody that's watching.
We'll be back in a couple of minutes.
If you UK call UK column member for some news extra.
Otherwise, don't forget Germ tonight.
Interview at 1:00 PM. Tomorrow, we'll be back from
another news program, 1:00 PM as usual on Wednesday.
We'll see you then. Thanks for joining us.
Bye. Bye.