Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, the 4th of March
2020, Sixth, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your host, Mike Robinson. Joining me in the studio today
is Charles Mallett. Welcome to the program, Charles.
Thank you, Mike. And by video link from Lebanon
is Vanessa Bailey. Now, later in the program, I'm
going to be reporting on the economic effect for us all of
the ongoing war in Iran and also the Clintons giving evidence to
the House Oversight Committee on their alleged links to Jeffrey
Epstein. Charles is going to be reporting
on the ongoing plight of Imran Khan in Pakistan and also taking
a look at Rich Rachel Rhee's plan for the spring.
Well, we might call it a budget, but I'm not sure what they call
it these days. But anyway, we'll begin.
We're going to begin today, of course, with with Iran, the Iran
war itself. So let me welcome Vanessa to the
program. Bring us up to date with with
what the latest is. Well, yeah, good afternoon,
everyone. It's a bit difficult to cover
absolutely everything, but hopefully we can continue the
discussion in extra. So first of all, basically, I'm
just going to do an overview, a very limited overview of what
has actually happened in the last four days.
I would direct everybody to an interview on neutrality studies.
The link is going to be in the show notes, an interview with
Stephen Starr, who's a nuclear weapons specialist, if we can
just have that up on screen. So basically what he's saying
is, and this is also being reiterated even in American
media, the US has fired 1200 to 1800 interceptor missiles in the
last two days. That so that was the first two
days of the conflict. The US cannot make enough
missiles. The they manufacture only 400
THAAD missiles per year and 750 PAC 3 Patriot air defence
missiles. In 2025 the US fired 25% of all
of its third missiles in a few days.
The 12 days fighting Iran. This, as I said, is also being
picked up by American media. This is the Wall Street Journal.
US races to accomplish Iran mission before munitions run
out. And of course, remembering back
to the 12 day. War.
It is believed that America pressured or or literally
requested that Iran accept a a ceasefire because Israel was
running out of interceptor missiles.
And then I basically this is the main and in my view the most
important strategy of Iran, Operation Grape blinding.
This is in fact a tactic taken from Hezbollah, which is
effectively you can freeze frame after and read what is actually
written on the on the infograph. But this was a tactic actually
originating with Hezbollah of taking out all of the radar and
early warning structures. And for Iran, of course, that's
why they've been heavily targeting the Gulf states in
particular. And this was released this
morning, official figures from the IRGC accompanied by
satellite images basically proving the damage to these
radar and early warning systems. So I'm not going to read out the
names of the systems, but basically 2IN Bahrain, 3IN
Kuwait, one in the UAE, one in Jordan and most importantly the
AN FBS132 in Qatar, which is known as the all seeing eye.
It has a 5000 kilometre range and it can detect ballistic
missile launch in Iran, China and Russia.
So effectively, the US has lost its early warning sister system.
And this morning, Senator Murphy, who'd attended a closed
session at the White House, reiterated the fact that the US
now has an inability to intercept Iranian drones and
missiles. And it also appears from the
Hezbollah launch of missiles and drones in the last few days that
Israel is also unable right now to intercept those drones and
missiles. And that of course, is
deliberate that that Hezbollah is coordinating with Iran to
flood the air defence missile systems.
There are even reports that the US is going to relocate air
defence systems from South Korea to the Middle East to try and
make up for the deficit. And then of course, part of what
has been ongoing is that Iran has shut down the Hormuz Strait.
If we can have the next slide up, which of course incorporates
20% of the world's oil and LNG. And if you look at any of the
satellite images or maps available on social media,
you'll see the backlog of ships. But there are also so multiple
ships, I think we're up to six ships now that have been
targeted by Iran for trying to break the blockade and have
either been severely damaged. I think 1:00 this morning, the
crew has actually abandoned ship.
Then if we come back to Stephen Starr in this interview on
neutrality studies, he's talking then about the possible outcomes
of the US Israeli attack on Iran.
First of all, he's saying, obviously their objective is
regime change, the fragmentation of Iran, the end of Iranian
power and containment, which of course, also relates to the
Brookings Institute document Path to Persia, where the final
strategy is to, in the end, prevent Iran from expanding,
although I would argue that they haven't expanded at all into the
region. And to contain Iran at the same
time, to present US losses as a victory.
Of course, this is very important for Trump.
Mike, you and I were discussing this yesterday.
And then, of course, the second option, of course, is that US
and Israel can't defend itself or destroy the missile cities.
Now, it's interesting when he talks about the Iranian missile
cities being deeply underground, the fact, sorry, can I just have
the slide back on the screen for a second?
And that effectively they're built out of granite.
And the only thing according to Stephen Starr, that will
effectively destroy these missile cities that are
dispersed across all of Iranian territory.
And of course, that's pretty vast, our nuclear weapons.
And he argues that in order to destroy those missile cities,
they're not going to need one nuclear bomb.
They're going to need a series of nuclear bombs to destroy all
of the missile cities across Iran.
And so the chances are extremely high as the US does suffer major
losses. Both ships aircraft, I think
another aircraft was shot down today over to Iranian airspace,
but we know that three have been lost. the US is trying to claim
its friendly fire. It's also trying to claim that
the targeting of Aramco in Saudi Arabia was a false flag by
Israel. To bring Saudi Arabia into the
war. I think you'd have to drag Saudi
Arabia into the war in in the current state of affairs because
of. Course.
The Gulf states now perceived that the US does not have their
back and they're defending only Israel.
But coming back to the, the idea of the use of umm, nuclear
weapons, I just want to have a quick look at the map.
And China, Russia and Iran are marked in red on this map.
So if nuclear weapons are used in Iran, you can see that not
only this entire region, but one would assume that definitely
Russia, which is on the northern border of Iran and and divided
by the South Caucasus. But even China is going to be
affected by whatever fallout there is from mass use of
nuclear weapons because as we've said, 1 weapon is not going to
achieve the presumed objectives of Israel and the United States.
And then basically last week on UK column, we talked about the
potential of a ground invasion or an attempted ground invasion.
We talked about the various proxies that might be used by
the US and Israel, including the Kurdish separatist groups.
Well, today, apparently, Trump is open to arming the Kurdish
separatist groups to serve as boots on the ground in Iran.
So surprise, surprise that appears to be going ahead.
And if we look at the map of the attacks on the border of Iran,
you can see there that the Kurdish separatists have
attacked at the various stages that are shown on that map.
So on the western border of Iran, the IRGC has been
responding. If we can just have the next
slide up, because I want to demonstrate here that Israel is
effectively bombing all of that western border area.
And that is clearly to to weaken the defences in in order to
allow for a ground invasion by the Kurdish separatists that
Israel has effectively been training and arming.
And now Trump is saying that he's going to support them.
And that of course, is despite the alleged betrayal of the
Kurdish factions in Syria. The IRGC has put out a number of
statements, but I'm just going to pull this one up.
They say that they've struck the Mossad backed Kurdish opposition
bases in Iraqi Kurdistan. And an interesting point here,
at one point they were using war jets, the Mig 29 that was
delivered from Russia and a couple of their older aircraft
to actually bomb inside the Iraqi Kurdistan area.
Now, this is interesting because this proves the point that they
have blinded the US. the US is unable to take the Iranian
aircraft out of the sky. And the fact that those aircraft
are still flying right now over Tehran and able to take down
other jets. Sorry, could I just go back to
the IRGC very quickly to finish that off?
So effectively, they've reportedly launched drone and
missile attacks on multiple headquarters and camps of
Iranian Kurdish opposition parties, including the
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Freedom
Party and Kamala in the Kurdistan region of Iraq's Erbil
and Koya districts. And of course, at the same time,
the Iraqi resistance factions have been heavily hitting the US
base in Erbil. And actually to date, we
understand that that much of it has been destroyed.
And then coming back to the idea of a ground invasion, I just
want to show people to to get an idea of the terrain that a
ground invasion is going to face.
So that's the western border where effectively you can see
how mount well, how mountainous much of Iran is.
It's going to be a very difficult country to wage a
ground war on. So in my opinion, they might
sacrifice proxies, but Americans themselves are not going to put
boots on the ground, which of course, is a very familiar
aspect to US strategy. And then finally, for people to
get an understanding of, um, the factions in the region, even
within the Gulf States who are now, um, rising up against the
regimes in those states, Iran and its Ring of Fire.
I go into a lot of detail about the potential resistance and
alliances in the region that will come to Iran's defence in
the case of the war that we're now witnessing.
So if people want a bit more information on that and a bit
more understanding then please go to UK column and read that.
Article. Thank you for that, Vanessa.
We will undoubtedly be talking more on this in extra, but I
just wanted to very briefly get a comment from you on the
comments by Marco Rubio. So let's just bring Marco Rubio
on screen here for a second, if we can, please, Chris, and let's
just bring him on. We knew that there was going to
be an Israeli action. We knew that that that would
precipitate an attack against American forces and we knew that
if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched
those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
I just, I, I have to admit, I nearly fell over when I, when I
heard him say these words. Because Vanessa, this is the,
the hypocrisy is, is off the charts.
But but really, they just did it because they had to do it.
Yes, basically. And, and again, go to the path,
path to pressure document and and you'll see that this entire
ploy let Israel go in first and then make the US look as if it
has to go in to to help its ally, blah blah blah.
It's nonsense. Yes, utter it.
Is how many how many different ways can you say exactly the
same thing? Well.
Indeed, Yeah. OK, Well, Charles then in the
meantime, of course, the question is what's Britain's
reaction to all this being? Yes.
Exactly. Are are we or aren't we?
And as we saw on Monday's news programme, there was some
excruciatingly awkward press interviews, particularly with
John Healey over the weekend, where no answers really were
found. After Monday's news, the Prime
Minister made a statement to the House of Commons and took
questions for a period of a couple of hours, which was
largely repetitive. There were many questions about
the echoes of Iraq 2003 and the lawfulness of any action.
We will look now at how he began his statement.
Mr. Speaker, the United Kingdom was not involved in the initial
strikes on Iran by the US and Israel.
That decision was deliberate. We believe that the best way
forward for the region and for the world is a negotiated
settlement in which Iran agrees to give up any aspirations to
develop a nuclear weapon and ceases its destabilising
activity across the region. President Trump has expressed
his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in
the initial strikes, but it is my duty to judge what is in
Britain's national interest. That is what I've done and I
stand by it. But, Mr. Speaker, it is clear
that Iran's outrageous response has become a threat to our
people, our interests and our allies, and it cannot be
ignored. Iran has lashed out across the
region. They've launched hundreds of
missiles and thousands of drones at countries which did not
attack them. And countries which did not
attack them sort of relates back to Rubio's words and somehow the
rules being somewhat different for Israel and the United States
at least. So he is playing fairly fast and
loose with his words and indicating that United Kingdom
was not involved might be said to be extremely misleading.
And at Exhibit A, we have RAF Lake and Heath which we'll just
put on screen. Now.
This has been used by both F15 and F22 fighter aircraft.
Of course, 3F fifteens have now been shot down by the Kuwaitis
in what's being described as a friendly fire incident.
But of course, CENTCOM confirmed that they were engaged in active
combat. Now, as to Starmer's Love
Actually moment in appearing to stand up to a United States
president, this is what was said of his stance.
And I'm not, by the way, I'm not happy with the UK either.
That island that you read about, the lease, OK, he made it.
For whatever reason, he made a lease of the island.
Somebody came and took it away from him and it's taken 3-4 days
for us to work out where we can land.
There would have been much more convenient landing there as
opposed to flying many extra hours.
So we are very surprised. This is not Winston Churchill
that we're dealing with. Well, there we are now.
Just for that particular part of his rant, Trump had said that he
was cutting all ties for Spain for approximately the same
reason. And it's at this point
reasonable to wonder how much longer nations will put up with
this sort of unpredictability and volatility.
And since the balloon went up effectively over the weekend,
this has been pointed out by Douglas McGregor and others.
But this sort of behaviour makes the Americans look increasingly
vulnerable and isolated. Now as to Keir Starmer, he went
on to lay the ground for a so-called defensive posture,
which looks very much like it's going to morph into an offensive
1. So we'll look at the next
installment from his statement. And Mr. Speaker, our armed
forces are also being put at risk by Iran's actions.
On Saturday, Iran hit a military base in Bahrain with missiles
and drones. There were 300 British personnel
on the base, some within a few 100 yards of the stripe.
Last night, a drone hit RF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
There were no casualties in this strike.
Mr. Speaker, it is important for me to say that our bases in
Cyprus are not being used by US bombers.
I want to be clear of a strike on RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus was
not in response to any decision that we have taken in our
assessment. In our assessment, the drone was
launched prior to our announcement.
Iran's aggression towards Britain and our interests is
long standing and that's why we've always ensured that
protections for British bases and personnel are at their
highest level. Words chosen very cautiously
there and again by saying that Cyprus has not been used by
bombers is of course to obfuscate to quite some extent
and this has been pointed out by the Middle East I which will
just stick on screen. Now it's exposed that the
Cypriot point of view on the wider issue is 1 of unhappiness.
And there's a quote in this piece entitled Cyprus condemns
the UK after RAF base that launched Gaza fights is hit by
drone. And they quote a Cypriot
minister saying despite the assurances given in yesterday's
address by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, there was no
clear clarification that the British bases in Cyprus would
not under any circumstances be used for any reason other than
humanitarian. And of course, this then links
back to an article written by Ian Overton for his organization
Action on Armed Violence, entitled Did Britain fly at
least 623 Spy flights over Gaza? And that the data he has
suggests so. And, and I quote, the Ministry
of Defence maintains that these flights were solely to locate
hostages. Yet the scale, timing and
persistence of the sorties raises questions as to how much
they aided Israel's military operations despite being
conducted under the banner of humanitarian intent.
Of course, the other big issue is indeed the intelligence
sharing between the United Kingdom and Israel and the
United States, making it extremely implausible that the
United Kingdom has not played a far bigger part in all of this
than is being described. Also, we have a map drawn up by
Declassified UK with data that is admittedly now a few years
old, but this shows all the locations of the United States
Armed Forces personnel in the United Kingdom at the moment,
with Lagan Heath shown in boxed text about halfway down on the
right and side. Now, the other thing I want to
make mention of is that given all the Sabre rattling from
within NATO for the last four years and the action that's sort
of unrolling right now up in the high N, it's got to be noted
that Article 6 has been completely ignored.
Now I've mentioned this before and the Cyprus attack really
with regards to Article 6, it pertains very much to Article 5
of course, because it Article 6 states that for the purpose of
Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the parties is
deemed to include an armed attack on the forces, vessels or
aircraft of any of the parties when in or over these
territories. RAF Akritiri being one such
territory, of course staffed by those personnel.
But on the subject of an Article five response, absolutely
nothing, which I think is a very interesting outcome,
particularly given the rhetoric in, as I say, in inside and
outside NATO the last four years.
Now Sama went on to talk about how he must protect British
lives and he describing what defensive operations must look
like. So we will just look at the next
video of him speaking about this issue.
Moreover, it is my duty, the highest duty of my office, to
protect British lives. That is why we put British jets
in the air, Typhoons and F-30 fives as part of coordinated
defensive operations which have already successfully intercepted
Iranian strikes, including, Mr. Speaker, taking out one drone
that was heading towards a coalition base in Iraq housing
UK service personnel. I want to pay tribute to our
brilliant servicemen and women putting themselves in harm's way
to keep others safe, and I know the whole House will join me in
expressing our gratitude and our respect.
But, Mr. Speaker, it is simply not possible to shoot down every
Iranian missile and every drone after they've been launched.
The only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at
source, in their storage depots or at the launchers. the US
requested permission to use British bases for that specific
and limited defensive purpose because they have the
capabilities to do so. Yesterday evening we took the
decision to accept that new request in order to prevent Iran
firing missiles across the region, killing innocent
civilians, putting British lives at risk and hitting countries
that have not been involved. To be clear, the use of British
bases is limited to the agreed defensive purposes.
We are not joining the US and Israeli offensive strikes.
The basis for our decision is the collective self defence of
long standing friends and allies and protecting British lives.
It is in accordance with international law and we
produced a summary of our legal advice which clearly sets this
out. We will keep the decision under
review. And that last bit seems to be
the key phrase. It does, and we'll just come to
the back of that in a second. But so they're boasting
obviously about what defensive operations look like, the
Ministry of Defence putting out an intelligence brief, an update
about munitions being shot down with some footage to accompany
it. And of course, then the other
thing, again, defensive for defensive purposes only.
But the Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon has now been deployed up
to the eastern Mediterranean. And this course is at the same
time the aircraft carrier has gone up to the high N.
This has also got a couple of Wildcat helicopters on board.
So I hope that they don't tip over the side.
Now on the on the legal front, we, I, I would just like to
reinforce the words that Starmer has used.
As I say, Iraq having been cited many times and he says it is
important that we all learn the lessons of Iraq and that there
and they are, that there needs to be a lawful basis for action
if it is taken and that there needs to be a viable case.
Now he seems very much to be inferring that Iraq in 2003 did
not meet either of those criteria.
And I think the important point now is to look at what next, if
there is indeed to be some sort of legal question and indeed
request for for legal advice, of course, because that falls to
the attorney general who's on screen now, Richard Hermer, who
makes no secret of the fact that he is Jewish and has a close
affinity to Israel. So he's made a recent speech in
Australia, ostensibly about the events in Bondi Beach.
At the start of his speech he said, I spent my year off in
Israel and on my very first night there met up with a group
of Aussies from the same Jewish youth movement.
Now, of course that doesn't tell the whole story, of course, but
it is a significant detail and I think one that can't be ignored.
If we are going to consider what happens next, we'll just look
quickly at a last clip from Starmer in an attempt to sort of
clarify his overall position. Mr. Speaker, we all remember the
mistakes of Iraq and we have learned those lessons.
Any UK actions must always have a lawful basis and a viable
thought through plan. I say again, we were not
involved in the initial strikes on Iran and we will not join
offensive action now, but in the face of Iran's barrage of
missiles and drones, we will protect our people in the region
and support the collective self defence of our allies because
that is our duty to the British people.
It is the best way to eliminate the urgent threat, to prevent
the situation spiralling 3rd and support return to diplomacy.
It is the best way to protect British interests and British
lives. Keyword there being now, we will
not join offensive action now. Very much suggestive that this
will happen in future. He's very much taken from the
Israel playbook now in terms of what Israel is up to.
Just a tweet from the IDF, illustrative of the way, the
sort of attitude that they have towards the whole process.
They've set this little video to music with sort of glorious
images of Iranian hierarchy being eliminated in in their
words. And we go on the subject of
British interests to another declassified report from two
years ago in which they refer to GCHQ expanding their presence
near Iran and rather presciently referring to a potentially
devastating new war with Iran over Israel.
Excellent reporting back there, which has stood the test of
time. Now to look into this further.
I would recommend Vanessa did not mention this, but there she
has just spoken to Jerm about exactly this subject.
So please do look at that. And for other UK column content,
the most recent published episode of Military Matters,
Brian and I talking about this subject.
And in fact we've just recorded a another discussion on this
which will be out soon. OK, so let's let's look at the
economic implications of the Iran war because those continue
are continuing and of course they're they're pretty stark.
So first of all, here we have this article from G Captain
Daily. They are reporting of this.
The headline here is ship war risk insurance cancelled after
Iran strikes. And so they're talking about
Lloyd's and other insurance companies having cancelled the
war risk insurance for shipping in the region.
And 1st question is, how is that even possible?
Because of course, you know, you've taken out an insurance
policy and suddenly the next thing you know, they've just
decided that you're not insured. Well, you've paid for it.
But anyway, look, the, the, the, this is, this is what they went
on to say. Machine marine insurers are
cancelling war risk coverage for vessels and oil shipping rates
are set to search further after the widening Iran conflict left
at least three tankers damaged to seafarer killed and 150 ships
stranded around the Strait of Hormuz.
As Finesse has already mentioned
now, the response from Trump was immediate.
He posted on Truth Social saying effective immediately, I've
ordered the United States Development Finance Corporation
to provide at a very reasonable price, political risk assurance.
Political risk assurance What? What does that mean and
guarantees for the financial security of all maritime trade,
especially energy travelling through the Gulf.
Now, the response in the markets was pretty immediate as well,
with the prices of crude oil and gas rising yesterday.
Prices settled back a bit today. And if we look at what happened
based on the graph for the past month, it looks pretty, you
know, a significant rise over the last few days.
But if we expand to the past 10 years, what we find, we're
nowhere even close yet to historic highs.
So the main reason is that that there's a reserve of oil, I
believe about 3 weeks or so, and prices will really only start to
rise properly as that reserve is drawn down.
And the implications for us all are huge because of course, the
price of energy feeds into the price of everything, as we all
discovered during COVID when we got a taster of that.
And, and at that time, the British government stepped in to
put a cap on retail energy prices, which were still
horrendously expensive for just about everybody.
But this is going to affect everybody globally if this war
continues. So and the other point there is
that of course the British government is not going to be
stepping in to put any cap on this I would imagine this time
round. But let's just have a look at
John Conrad here because he's one of the owners of G Captain
Daily. He posted this on X quite an
extensive article on X link will be in the show notes for you to
read the whole thing. But I got some excerpts from
this because he's saying this is potentially the biggest Iran
story. Nobody is talking about the
global insurance market may be heading towards the systemic
crisis and here's why Now he's talk not talking about the price
rises of oil here. He's saying that most people
don't realize London is just isn't just the financial center,
it's the global center. Sorry, the Center for global
insurance. Lloyd's underwrites around 40%
of the world's maritime marine cargo ship sinks, port gets
bombed, canal gets blocked, and the bell lands in London.
That's why the UK punches above its weight, not the Royal Navy.
Absolutely not. Not diplomacy.
It's insurance control. Insurance control trade.
And London doesn't just control the 90% of global trade that
moves. See Lloyds.
And the London markets are major insurers of almost everything.
Skyscrapers, factories, ports, satellites, entire supply
chains. You can't participate in public
markets or raise large amounts of capital without insurance.
And he says that London has maintained a stranglehold on
global insurance while losing nearly every sub market related
to ships. The answer?
Better intelligence. It's no coincidence, he says,
that MI Six headquarters sit directly across the Thames from
the IMOHQ, the marine, the world marine, sorry, the world's
maritime regulator and a short distance from Lloyds itself.
And I said I have no proof of direct pipeline, but it's long
been speculated in the insurance intelligence flows from MI 6 to
Lloyd's. Most large insurers worldwide
don't do independent intelligence work.
The index of Lloyd's rates. Other insurers see Lloyd's
numbers and assume the diligence was done.
They price accordingly. And he said that most large
insurers worldwide don't do independent intelligence.
Oh, sorry, that's a duplication. Sorry.
That means if London is suddenly flying blind, it's not just
Lloyd's policy holders at risk, it's the entire reinsurance
chain. The cancellation of war or risk
coverage on ships isn't the crisis, it's the Canary.
And that I think is a very astute statement and something
that we should all be paying attention to.
The implications for this are huge and really I think most of
us, if not all of us, should be pushing back hard against any
further escalation of this. In fact, we should be making
sure that the politicians are de escalating the situation as
quickly as we possibly can. Yeah, absolutely agree.
Now, on a related note, Rachel Reeves was addressing the House
Commons yesterday, giving her spring forecast in
collaboration, of course, with the Office for Budget
Responsibility. And as with all things
governmental, they're putting a a positive spin on the situation
and just one of the sort of good claims to draw out.
The OBR's forecast shows GDP per person is now set to grow more
than was expected in the budget, with a growth of 5.6% over the
parliament. Now of course, that's a
projection. We go to the OBR report,
Economic and Fiscal Outlook for March 2026, and I think what's
worth pointing to is a couple of the graphs that they show now.
The first is real GDP growth, which shows enormous just spikes
and troughs, particularly 2008 and 2020-2021.
But also at the right hand side of the graph, the shaded areas
to the right to the above and below the line show the degree
to which they may or may not be right.
So it's very much worth bearing in mind that these are estimated
figures and effectively can be manipulated to give an idea that
the government is doing good job or not.
And of course, the other thing to point out is that on the real
GDP per person projection, the going back to 2007, the, the
forecast, the upward trajectory was completely knocked off
course there by what was described as the, the financial
crash of that particular period. And of course, the again, the
the shutdown during the COVID period in 2020, similar sort of
deviation that the point of this is to suggest, as they did in
their opening statement, that we are of course subject to all
kinds of shocks. And This is why we go back to
documents like the just in case report from the National
Preparedness Commission. And in effect, the the teeing up
of there being a massive economic downturn, as though the
government has absolutely no control over this.
But of course, exactly like Mike's just talking about that
we absolutely are in control because of what we do or do not
do in relation to issues, issues such as the conflict in Iran.
And this relates directly back to the National Security
Strategy 2025 and indeed the Strategic Defence Review, where
there was the push for a whole of nation response to exactly
these sorts of shocks to the supply chain, shocks to the
economy. And guess what?
The idea is that the next step is to be conscription and
national service as we meet these threats that are coming
from all different directions, whilst the government apparently
has no control over them. Yes, indeed.
OK, let's move on and say if you like what the UK column does, we
do need your continuing support. Please if you are not currently
a member or not making any kind of financial contribution, we
really would appreciate it if you could consider that.
Thank you very much once again, everybody that is doing that.
If you can't make a contribution financially, please do share
this program and anything else that you see that you like
because that helps us get around to various limitations with with
respect to censorship. Now, Jerem tonight is speaking
to Terra Sadecki on why America won't defeat Iran.
That's at 7:00 PM this evening. Tomorrow at 1:00 PM, Mark
Anderson is speaking to Doctor Ollian Kula on the on weather
events in the United States. And so that's it.
That is an absolute typo on that graphic.
So I do apologize about that. That's 1:00 PM tomorrow.
So join us for that. OK, Now, Imran Khan, Charles,
this has had almost no coverage whatsoever in the in the
mainstream press, but what has he been facing?
Well, indeed, very, very little coverage and we'll come on to
possible reasons as to why. But recently the Supreme Court,
in fact, going back to last year, the Supreme Court in
Pakistan have published a report highlighting the conditions
under which he's been imprisoned and making specific reference to
his deteriorating health, in particular his eyesight, the
fact that he's been deprived visits from either family or
legal support. Now going back, he was Prime
Minister in in that country between 2018 and 2022 and
arrested in 2023. Now again, the Supreme Court at
that time deemed that his original request was unlawful
and the situation has moved on very much since then.
Obviously the the the underlying suggestion more than is that
this is all entirely a political charge and the further
imprisonment for 17 years. It relates to the allegation at
least that he was buying and selling property that was gifted
to him whilst he was in office as Prime Minister and therefore
seeking to make money out of it. Now the situation was discussed
or debated in the House of Lords last week and this is what his
former brother-in-law Zach, Lord Goldsmith, had to say about it.
We have, we understand, I think anyone who's paying attention,
we understand that that Imran Khan has been denied access to
lawyers. He's been denied access to his
family, including his two sons who are my nephews.
He's been denied access even to doctors.
And we understand that he's spent much of his time in prison
in in solitary confinement and his health is deteriorating
rapidly. So I asked the noble lady
whether or not she agrees that this is now the time for us to
reconsider our aid contributions to Pakistan.
Pakistan's often at the top of the list in terms of recipients
of UK aid until that country's government demonstrates a clear,
unambiguous commitment to the charter, the Commonwealth
Charter that it's signed up to, which commits it to an
independent judiciary and to the rule of law.
As you might imagine, the the government response was rather
underwhelming and certainly not suggestive that they were going
to do anything about it. Now.
There had been an earlier question asked about the
comparability, if there was any, between the situation, or at
least the outcry concerning the trial and the sentencing of
Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong. And of course the rather glib
response was that Jimmy Lai is British, completely ignoring the
fact that Imran Khan was previously married to Jemima
Goldsmith who is British and indeed has 2 British sons who
have been denied not just access to their father in Pakistan but
also by their report they have also been prevented from
visiting Pakistan itself. And the inaction of the British
government and indeed the moral contradictions in their
approaches to human rights affairs were highlighted in a
later question by Lord Sikka, who said this.
My Lords, successive government shows selective outrage at
repression by authoritarian states such as China, Iran,
Russia and North Korea, but a very soft criticism when
identical acts are committed by trade and defence partners.
The government has the tools it can exert pressure on the army
generals controlling Pakistan by ending aid and imposing trade
sanctions. But it hasn't.
So my question for the minister is, can't you refer me to any
moral principle which is guiding the government's foreign policy?
I, I, I don't think it would be the right thing to do to end all
aid to Pakistan. The government, that is not the
government's position. And that is that, that's my
view. And I I say that because the the
need is there, because the British interests are there,
because the climate impact is there because of counter
terrorism issues that we work alongside the Pakistani
government and to tackle which I would say is absolutely in the
interest of this country. Pathetic.
Let's talk about clashing at straws.
That was That was an extremely unconvincing response by the
minister there, who appeared not just very poorly brief but
utterly prejudice against the the situation not not just of
Imran Khan, but the the wider picture in Pakistan and indeed
the relationship between Pakistan and the United Kingdom
and plenty more besides. Now, whilst very little appears
to have been done and very little interest taken in this
country. It is therefore an
embarrassment, effectively that in Congress, a letter has been
written by several Congress men and women highlighting this
issue. This goes back to December of
last year and I, quote, sent to Marco Rubio, Secretary of State.
Such steps, alongside calls for the release of former Prime
Minister Imran Khan and other political prisoners, would
reinforce US commitment to human rights, protect American
citizens from transnational repression and promote regional
stability. But of course, no action on this
score on this side of the Atlantic.
Now, in questioning why that might be or might not be the
case, I think it's pertinent point back to February the 24th,
2022, which was of course the day that Russian incursion into
Ukraine began. But it was also the day that
Imran Khan met Putin in Moscow and the position he took as
Prime Minister was one of support for strong economic ties
to both Russia and China. And that does seem, given what's
transpired, since that does seem to be a relevant point
concerning the attitude and the flippancy of the British
establishment towards this particular situation.
Also, they should feel embarrassed because of course
it's taken a number of former Test cricket captains to call
out the situation, reported here by ESPN Cricinfo.
Amongst them Samuel Gavaskar and Ian Chapel, both Chapel
brothers, and several others getting into that.
And of course his former wife Jemima Goldsmith, who realised
that not just was the establishment shutting down this
debate and suppressing it, but also Twitter as well, which she
perceived to be suppressing her tweets on this very issue and
not just hers. And I quote from her tweet sent
to Elon Musk in December. Every time I post about him,
about Imran Khan, the reach inside Pakistan and often
globally is throttled to almost 0.
So that is how the situation seems to be unfolding at the
moment. Very little hope offered,
certainly in Pakistan. And as far as the British
establishment is concerned, there doesn't seem to be much
concern or suggestion there's going to be any action about
that. I mean, that'd be something that
perhaps we talk about more in in Extra, unless you had anything
to comment on. That Vanessa, let's welcome you
back. And of course, you're in Lebanon
at the moment. What is the situation between
Lebanon and Israel? Extremely tense, of course,
after the assassination of Imam Mali in Iran was considered the
second most important spiritual leader to Shia Muslim
communities across the world, 260 million worldwide.
Hezbollah after 15 months of putting up with Israeli
violations of the ceasefire, which are daily murders of
civilians both by drone and by bombing incursions into Lebanese
territory, the spraying of chemical glyphosate on
agricultural lands in the South, etcetera, etcetera.
So now the government in Lebanon, which is very much, or
let's say factions within the government, because it's very
much a coalition government, after the TAFE agreement of
1989, factions within the government that are aligned with
Israel and Washington have basically said they will ban
Hezbollah's military activities. So in other words, they're
trying to throttle any response against Israeli violations by
the resistance, whose people in the South are suffering the most
from the Israeli violations, bombings, drone strikes,
incursions, machine gunfire, etcetera, etcetera.
And the president himself, President Joseph Allen, stresses
that Beirut's decision to ban Hezbollah's military activity is
a sovereign and final decision. Of course it isn't.
It's an Israeli and Washington decision.
And so basically, he says the decision taken by the Council of
Ministers yesterday, preserving the Lebanese state's sole right
to control decisions of war and peace and banning military and
security activities outside the law, is a sovereign and final
decision from which there's no turning back.
And of course, that anger is rising in Lebanon because
effectively, what the government is saying is that 50% of the
population doesn't have the right to defend itself.
And at the meantime, if we just move on to the next slide, also
sent a written command to the Lebanese Forces, so the army on
the border with Israel to withdraw from their positions
and actually enabled an Israeli ground invasion a couple of days
ago. So effectively, the government
is not a sovereign government. It's working to further the
Israeli and Washingtons agenda inside Lebanon.
At the same time, Hezbollah has not backed down and in fact much
of its missiles and drone activity is evading the
interceptor missiles As we discussed into inside Israel, If
we can just put this up on the screen, in the last two days
they've destroyed actually former Karva tanks, the Israeli
tanks during the attempted ground incursion.
And there have. Been multiple ambushes of
Zionist forces in the South and in fact even the IDF is putting
out statements saying we don't know what to do because
Hezbollah just appears out of the ground.
Of course they do. They have an entire tunnel
system in the South, and they're using it to their advantage
against the ground deployment by the Israelis.
And at the same time, there are reports that Jolani is deploying
thousands more troops because, of course, since December 2024,
he's been building up military presence or terrorist presence
on the eastern borders with Lebanon.
And the red stars there show, just as with Iran, that Israel
in the last few days has been heavily bombing the border
areas, one assumes to weaken any defence along that borderline
and potentially to allow an invasion by Jalani's ISIS and al
Qaeda forces into Lebanon. We can talk a bit bit more about
that an extra. At the same time, there are
reports today, just before I came on that Israel has demanded
the full evacuation of the southern territories of Lebanon,
which is insane. Those people have nowhere to go.
They're supposed to move from the South to north of the Litani
River. The bombing hasn't started yet,
but the roads are absolutely packed.
And any of those people now stuck in jams on the one or two
roads out of the South to the north are incredibly vulnerable
for any mass bombing campaign that Israel is now going to
launch. OK, Vanessa.
Well, you can keep us posted on this.
We'll talk more about this an extra as well.
I've got a couple of additional questions on it, but let's move
on to the issue of nuclear proliferation.
Now. This is a tweet from Assistant
Secretary General for Political Affairs and Secretary and
security Policy at NATO, Boris Ruja, who he's claiming that
NATO was fully committed to the Non Proliferation Treaty, which
remains the cornerstone, he says, of global non
proliferation regime. Of course, that's a total
misrepresentation could even be described as a lie.
Now the Starmer government announced on Friday last week
that they had convened NATO's leading political and military
officials quotes to discuss the crucial role of nuclear
deterrence in keeping the alliances 1 billion citizens
safe. And he claimed that this was
demonstrating the unity of the alliance.
The UK is unwavering commitment to NATO try not to laugh and the
credibility of its nuclear deterrence mission.
Now, this brought together NATO ambassadors, Supreme Allied
Commander Europe, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and the
deputy chair of the military committee.
But around the same time, or at least within a day or so of
that, then Emmanuel Macron announced that France is going
to increase its nuclear arsenal and for the first time allow
temporary deployment of its nuclear armed aircraft to allied
countries. This is a new strategy, he said,
aimed at strengthening Europe's independence.
He said that France will expand its nuclear warhead stockpile
beyond the current ceiling of around 300, and this is the
first increase since 1992. Media reports are saying that
talks have already begun with Britain, Germany, Poland, the
Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark to host these
nuclear armed aircraft. And Macron stressed that the
sole authority over weapons would remain with the French
President. And he said to be free, 1 needs
to be feared. So that that was his statement.
I note the image there. He's looking a bit stressed when
he when he seems to be saying this.
But anyway, that that's the situation that this of course
has to be seen in the context of the end of the New START treaty,
which is due to happen in the next couple of weeks and or the
next few weeks. And of course, The upshot of all
this is that Russia and China are also expanding their nuclear
arsenals. Now the last the sorry, the
there's no replacement insight for the New START treaty and
absolutely noises from the US saying that they've no intention
of even considering any such replacement treaty.
The Trumpet regime is absolutely encouraging the spread of
uranium enrichment around the world and both South Korea and
Saudi Arabia are planning to move forward in acquiring
fissile material. This is at the same time that
Iran of course, is not allowed to acquire fissile material and
so on. Now against all this then the
11th Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference is scheduled
to take place in New York from the 27th of April to the 22nd of
May this year. And we will of course report on
that at the time. In fact, back to Vanessa now
because Marco Rubio, sorry, it wasn't Marco Rubio.
It was. It was.
Hexif was making some pretty, shall we say, inciting comments
recently with respect to religion.
Yes, well, I mean, first of all, he claimed that only four
American soldiers had been killed in the last few days of
conflict, which. I.
Think anybody with a brain will challenge vociferously, But this
I just wanted to cover very quickly.
And we can talk about it more in Extra, because I do find it both
terrifying and fascinating. So let's just roll part of
Hagseth's weird statement regarding the military situation
against Iran. President Trump and I have your
back. Always.
Through fire, through criticism, through fake news, through
everything. We unleash you because you are
the best, most powerful, most lethal fighting force the world
has ever seen. May Almighty God watch over you.
And his providential arms of protection extend over you.
Godspeed warriors, and keep going.
And I mean, this entire speech was was just quite
extraordinary. A lot of people are actually
saying that maybe Egg Surf is the Antichrist rather than
Trump. Very odd character.
But this bit of information has been circulating all across
social media quite extraordinary.
U.S. troops were told Iran war is for Armageddon and the return
of Jesus. So let's actually say see what
they say. A combat unit commander told non
commissioned officers at a briefing on Monday that the Iran
war is part of God's plan and that President Donald Trump was
anointed by Jesus. So like the signal fire in Iran
to cause Armageddon and mark his return to earth, presuming they
mean Jesus. According to a complaint by a
non commissioned officer, from Saturday morning through Monday
night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders and
every branch of the military had been logged by the Military
Religious Freedom Foundation. The complaints came from more
than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military
installations, the MRFF told me Monday night.
I mean this, you know, we all are fully aware of the fanatical
Christian Zionist and Jewish Zionist vision of Armageddon
bringing in the second coming. But you know, heck, Suss
mentions the fact that he and Trump have the backs of their
soldiers in this war against Iran to herald Armageddon and
and the second coming. But let's just have a listen to
Trump and see how sincerely he has the backs of the young
Americans that are are going to be giving their lives in this
conflict. We pray for the full recovery of
the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to
the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be
more before it ends. That's the way it is likely be
more, but we'll do everything possible where that won't be the
case. I don't think there's any need
to comment further on that. No, indeed.
I mean, it's very hard not to not to just burst out laughing
at that. But if it wasn't so serious, you
know, I mean, this is this is the thing.
No doubt we will speak more about that an extra as well.
Now, look, let's move on to the Epstein situation because it's
taken six months for the House Oversight Committee to get hold
of depositions from Bill and Hillary Clinton over their
alleged connections to Jeffrey Epstein.
The committee released videos of the depositions on Monday this
week. Now, at the end, perhaps
unsurprisingly, it it turned out to be somewhat of a farce as the
questioning diverted into Pizzagate and UFOs.
Now, the use of the term pizza in the Epstein files is
undeniable, and it's clearly code for something, although
what it's is, what that something is, is not yet
definitive. However, all the evidence that
I've seen strongly suggest that the Pizzagate story itself, in
in and of itself, was designed to be there to discredit and
divert attention away from any use of that term by those
involved with Epstein. But anyway, Bill Clinton, for
his part, said he first met Epstein in 2002 when he flew in
Epstein's private jet for humanitarian work.
He described the relationship as cordial, but not a close
friendship. He said that Epstein provided
Jet in exchange for Clinton discussing politics and
economics. And Clinton said that he had
visited Epstein's New York townhouse but denied ever
visiting his private island. And denied that he and Epstein
ever discussed young women or girl on or girls.
Which on the face of it, seems completely unlikely and
ridiculous actually, bearing in mind the images Epstein chose to
hang on the walls of his townhouse in New York, which
Brian has already shown on a on previous UK column news program.
Now, Bill Clinton said that he and Trump had briefly discussed
Epstein at a charity golf tournament over 20 years ago,
and that Trump had never said anything to suggest he was
involved in anything improper with Epstein.
But the main take away from Bill's testimony was the need
for him to be flanked by two lawyers.
His job was clearly to divert the questioners and also to let
Bill know which questions he should answer and which he
shouldn't. Let's just have a brief look.
How many dinners did you have with Glenn Maxwell or Jeffrey
Epstein in attendance? She's asking to do the best of
your recollections. I have no idea.
OK, Did you ever discuss sexual misconduct allegations made
against you with Epstein or Maxwell?
Never. Did Epstein or Maxwell ever
offer to help manager silence women who made sexual misconduct
allegations against you? No.
Did Epstein or Maxwell ever offer financial support,
directly or indirectly, to legal defense funds related to
impeachment proceedings or civil actions against you?
Not to my knowledge. Do you think a young girl
massaging a president is unusual?
So are you asking his opinion? Well, he is massage by a young
woman. I'm asking if he thinks it's
unusual that a president, sitting president of the United
States, leader of the free world.
That it's, I'm sorry, are you speaking to?
Are you talking to the the instance of the?
Yes. Is it unusual the.
Back massage that occurred while he was not president.
I'm just trying to understand you said a president of the
United States one more president.
Thank you. Just trying to make sure we're
correcting the time frame. No, I don't need to.
I'm actually trying to make sure that as you.
Pretty clear, he he said. He said he was a sitting
president. Excuse me?
Could we just please go one at a time?
Thank you, you said a sitting president.
I want you to be clear so that when he answers your sitting
president. Is it unusual?
I have no idea, but it's on you. Objection calls for speculation.
I figured, do you ever, did you ever think that all these women
around Jeffrey Epstein or Gillane Maxwell was odd,
unusual, weird or creepy? There weren't all that many
around when I was there. How many?
Would you say is all not all that many?
That was working long hours, having two to four people on
there, I thought was as far as I knew they were all helping
flight attendants in tank tops and jeans, right?
No. Do you believe you were a
victim? Of a Jeffrey Epstein.
Intel operation. Do you think that you might have
been like? Caught up in some of what he
was. Maybe potentially doing so that
was. That was Bill.
If you watch the whole thing and, and it will be LinkedIn,
the show notes, he he absolutely, it came across that
he was totally out his out of his depth and he needed the
people either side of him to, to, to keep him on the straight
and narrow. Hillary, for her part,
repeatedly told the committee she never even recalled meeting
Epstein. She flew into an absolute rage
as the questioning went on, particularly following questions
about her connections to Commerce Secretary Hard Lutnick.
So let's just have a brief look at at her behaviour.
You asked the question I'm going to.
Answer your question now you're going to this was.
What I spent my time doing, I I've been trying to look out for
others. Well, I was trying to and I was
taking care of the people who lost 3000 lives.
So her. Her definite.
Strategy was tack as the best form of defence now hard.
Lutnick, by the way, has now decided to testify before the
committee now that it's become clear that there's zero risk in
doing so since no one appearing is being seriously challenged on
any of the potential lies that have been told.
It does come across as an absolute cover up.
It really does. Yeah.
OK, well, look, let's end Charles with an and finally,
yeah, we will. We we take that offs where we
can and I was absolutely. Delighted therefore, on a recent
trip to encounter this sign in Aberdeen Airport which, if you
can't see it, was positioned directly above a radiator and it
reads attention, these radiators can become very hot.
Now I wasn't sure whether this was a reflection on the
intelligence of airport staff or indeed the expected intelligence
of passengers, or just a compliment to the heating
engineer, but either way it made me laugh.
Huge man. I hope it's done the same for
you. And on that note, we have to
leave it for today, so. Thank you, Vanessa and Charles,
and for everybody that's been watching for UK column members,
stick around on the live stream and we'll have some more in UK
Column news extra. If you're not a member, maybe
you'd like to join us and join us for extra each time we do a
news program. But nonetheless, Germ tonight,
7:00 PM Mark Anderson tomorrow, 1:00 PM.
We'll be back for the news on Friday at 1:00 PM.
As usual, you'll see you then. Bye, bye, bye bye.