Good afternoon. It's just gone 1:00 on Wednesday
the 20th of August 2025. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your host, Charles Mallett and I'm joined in the studio
today by Mike Robinson. Welcome to the programme, Mike.
Thank you, Charles. Good and by live link by Vanessa
Bailey from Lebanon and Sandy Adams from Somerset.
Now in today's programme we'll be covering a great range of
topics from JD Vance's visit to the UK, including a look into
his past and how that relates to his relationship with Peter
Thiel and Palantir. A further look at online safety
and in particular how it's being used as a pretext for pushing to
get rid of VPNs, as of course was predicted by UK column.
A further look into the fallout from the Alaska meeting between
Trump and Putin and how that bears relation to what's
happening in Syria. News from Australia concerning
the suggestion of financial motivation for abortion and
cybersecurity in the wake of the Bayesian disaster of a year ago.
Also an on the ground update from the precarious situation in
Lebanon and the ever increasing reach of the bio security state.
Now, before all of that, we will go to Mike for his take and
indeed a report on the Coalition of the willing.
Well, I think, well, we can't really call it that because it
wasn't the whole coalition of the willing.
They're now claiming that the coalition of the willing is 30
heads of state. And but nonetheless, several of
them headed off to the United States.
On Wednesday, Starmer, the EU leaders and Zelensky landed in
Washington on Wednesday to try and keep the Ukraine war going.
Now, determined not to be left out, they worked on Trump to try
to get boots on the ground, otherwise known as security
guarantees. Trump has apparently not ruled
out the possibility of US boots on the ground, but the main aim
is to deploy EU troops and I include the UK and that as one
of the leaders of European Defence Union.
Now, Trump said there'll be a lot of help when it comes to
security. It's going to be good.
They meaning Europe are first in line, first line of defence
because they're there. But we're going to help them out
also will be involved when it comes, he said.
And as I mentioned, he also refused 3 times to rule out
sending U.S. troops to Ukraine, despite previously saying that
they would, that he would not put American boots on the
ground. We'll let you know that maybe
later today, he said. Now, Starmer said, when we talk
about security, we're talking about security not just in
Ukraine. We're talking about the security
of Europe and the United Kingdom as well, which is why this is
such an important issue. But your indication of security
guarantees speaking to Trump of some sort of Article 5 style
guarantees, I think we could take a really this could take a
really important step forward today, a historic step actually
could come out of this meeting in terms of security for Ukraine
and security in Europe. I will come back to that in a
moment. But asked about sorry, asked
what security guarantees he needed to agree to peace,
Zelensky. Zelensky said everything.
It includes 2 parts. 1st, a strong Ukrainian army.
It's a lot about weapons and people and training missions and
intelligence. And 2nd, it depends on big
countries, on the United States, on a lot of our friends.
Trump suggested a permanent peace could be negotiated
without a ceasefire. Mertz said no to that.
I can't imagine. He said the next meeting would
take place without a ceasefire. Let's try to put pressure on
Russia because the credibility of these efforts depends on a
ceasefire. And he went on to say the
question of who will participate in the security guarantees and
to what extent. Some.
It is something we must of course discuss between our
European partners and with the US administration.
It's absolutely clear that the whole of Europe should
participate. After all, it's not just about
the territory of Ukraine, it is about Europe's political order.
And that is an absolutely incredible statement, Charles,
because as you know, he is arguing for a real EU level
military deployment as being key to the development of the EU
itself. And that's exactly what we've
been warning about for a decade or more.
So anyway, later yesterday evening, NATO or sorry, on
Wednesday evening, NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta
spoke to Fox News and this is what he had.
This he, this is reported by Reuters here.
But let's have a look at what he had to say.
He said the situation is this, that the US and some other
countries have said that they are against NATO membership for
Ukraine. The official NATO position is
that there is an irreversible path for Ukraine and NATO.
But what we're discussing here is not NATO membership.
What we're discussing here is Article 5 type of security
guarantees for Ukraine and what exactly they will entail will
now be more specifically discussed.
So clearly they are expecting that while Russia considers NATO
membership for Ukraine to be a bad, to be a red line, sorry,
that they'll somehow, that Russia will somehow capitulate
to an alternative which is tantamount to debt to NATO
membership. So we'll see how that goes.
And, well, because I can't possibly let this report
conclude without some degree of sadomastochistic torture, here's
a little of what Keir Starmer said following the meeting.
So back at the British Embassy now after a long day, but a good
day and a productive day because both of the outcomes that we,
the United Kingdom, most wanted, we've moved forward in a
material way. And there was a real sense of
unity between the European leaders that were here today and
President Trump and President Zelensky.
And two big outcomes, A breakthrough when it comes to
security guarantees with now the coalitional willing countries.
That's the 30 or so countries that we've been coordinating for
some months on security guarantees.
Now working with the US at pace to work up those security
guarantees, these guarantees will ensure that if there is a
peace, if there is a deal, then we hold to it and there isn't
further conflict. So really important for Ukraine,
really important for Europe and really important for the United
Kingdom as well. That's why it was an outcome we
really wanted to achieve today. The second is that there will
now be a bilateral meeting between President Putin and
President Zelensky after a phone call by President Trump during
the course of this afternoon to President Putin, followed by a
trilateral meeting with President Trump as well.
Now, that's really important because it's a real recognition
of the principle that no decisions about Ukraine can be
taken without Ukraine. Ukraine must be at the table.
So whether it's territorial issues, whether it's prisoners,
whether it's the missing children, a really important
step forward there. Now, these were both the
outcomes that we planned for and wanted from today, because with
that sense of unity, we're able to make real progress.
So hopefully that wasn't too painless but painful.
Sorry to apologise now. All of this was followed up with
a virtual meeting yesterday of the so-called coalition, the
Willing that Starmer mentioned there.
And according to the readout, the coalition of the willing is,
is planning that teams will meet with their US counterparts in
the next few days to quote, further strengthen plans to
deliver robust security guarantees and prepare for the
deployment of a reassurance force if the if the hostilities
are ended. So apparently there will be, as
Starmer mentioned there, there's got to be this bilateral
Zelensky Putin meeting followed by a trilateral adding Trump
back into the mix with the aim of an Article 5 style guarantee
for Ukraine with EU defence union boots on the ground,
so-called reassurance force. This is all setting up a
scenario for some kind of incident, I would argue blamed
on Russia which enables permanent conflict.
Perhaps Russia would be mad to accept this in my opinion.
Although it has to be stressed that nothing has been said yet
about Russia, about what Russia is being offered.
It's going to have to be something big, probably an offer
they can't refuse, so to speak. So, you know, I don't know,
Charles, what you make of it, But you know, you notice when
Starmer was speaking there, the coalition that we are
coordinating, this is a British effort.
Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think there are
certainly points to draw out of this and I dare say we won't
have time now. So we'll go on into into extra
with this. But I think that one of the
first things, just finishing on what you were saying there in
terms of reassurance, I think it would really only be the defence
industry that takes reassurance for anything that's being
proposed so far. And the, the, it's interesting
to see how the narrative has moved on over the last few
months because of course, when we were discussing this several
months ago, this coincided with the the supposed deal for rare
earth minerals that Donald Trump had apparently struck with
Ukraine. And that was when there was
suggestion of a peacekeeping force.
And that's of course, being pushed quietly to one side
because certainly if one is to follow what the United Nations
sets out, a peacekeeping force specifically requires the
consent of all parties to a conflict.
And of course, Russia had been very clear to state that they
were not going to, to guarantee that they would go along with
any such thing. So I think that's an important
point. I think the other thing really
is just the, the, you know, you've brought a lot of the, the
sort of narrative points out of this and I've printed out a
little bit of it. But, but it's, you know, the
language used is just completely suggestive of, of, of war.
I mean, you're talking about peace and then talking about a
force that can deploy in the days following the cessation of
hostilities. Of course we've got 4.5 billion
pinesworth of military support going to Ukraine this year
talking about drone, the, the drone industry and, and all the
rest of it. And the other thing I think is
Radican chief of defence staff, who should be regarded
absolutely as a politician and a propagandist in all of this.
And to, to consider that he has any other part to play, I think
is, is wilfully naive. But he, he spoke last week in
Washington to the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies, and he said his his sort of opening gambit was to
say that we're in a new, more dangerous era, but Britain
remains safe, NATO is stronger, Russia is weak.
And that that was the line of what he had to say.
He, he went on to talk about the sort of advent of the conflict.
And again, I think the point to be made there is we're right
back to the beginning in terms of suggesting that we must be
next rather than listening to anything that Putin or, or the
Russian administration has actually said about their
objectives. This insistence that Kiev should
have fallen because that's what they were setting out to do.
And in actual fact, there's no substantive evidence of that
point being pursued at all. So I mean, a huge amount to come
out of this. But, but as I say, it's all
pointing towards re the reconstruction and, and the, the
seizing of, I mean ironically, the seizing of all things
Ukrainian by this supposed coalition of the willing to the
benefit of the, of the defence industry, I would say.
Vanessa, before we move on to your segment here, do you have
any thoughts on on that meeting? No, except as I'll try to
demonstrate in my segment that I don't think you can divorce
whatever conversations were ongoing even before Trump's
inauguration about the Ukraine deal and how Syria in particular
was involved in those conversations and potential
concessions made by Russia to allow the toppling of the Syrian
government after 14 years of resistance against a regime
change war. And so I think while we're sort
of being tunnelled, visioned towards only looking at Ukraine
in this instance, in my opinion, it also incorporates other deals
that are going on globally between Russia and the US.
OK, well, why don't we move on to the potential other deals and
I mean, what are your thoughts on this whole exercise right
from the from the Alaskan meeting?
Yeah. Well, I mean, what we've
actually seen, of course, and we have to remember timing is
always incredibly important. And the timing has been just as
Israel is ramping up its final solution against the Gaza's
Gazans in, sorry, the Palestinians in Gaza and in the
occupied territories and also increasing pressure on Lebanon
for the resistance to disarm. So all of this is going on at
the same time as the Alaska summit and not if we look at
what's going on in Syria. And this is very much why I
think it's intrinsically connected to discussions over
Ukraine and concessions potentially being made by the US
and Russia. And you will remember that
earlier this year on UK column, we mentioned quite a few times
that Tel Aviv or Israel has been lobbying for keeping the Russian
military bases in Syria effectively to contain Turkey,
prevent Erdogan's near Ottoman expansionism, but also
effectively to keep Iran or Iranian influence out of Syria.
And then leading up to the Alaska summit, it's very
interesting because we then had discussions between the Syrian
Al Qaeda regime, of course, put in place by the the Washington
Alliance meeting with Russia and then suddenly Russia having
access again to the South in Syria.
In other words, restoring the patrols that it used to do under
the Assad government to one, prevent Iran or, or any
organisations affiliated with Iran reaching the border of the
occupied Golan territory. But also I think in this
instance, what's what is effectively happening is Russia
is collaborating with Israel to police the South and to allow
Israel to expand towards the David Corridor going up the
eastern border with Jordan and Iraq in Syria.
At the same time, Russia is expanding since March isn't in
northeast Syria, which of course is currently held by the Kurdish
factions under the control of the United States, but also
supported by Israel, because the David corridor will effectively
link with the Kurdish held territory in the northeast.
Israeli think tanks have also been reporting on this quite
happily without any criticism. So this is from Alma Research
and Education Centre renewed Russian entrenchment
northeastern Syria in Karmishli. And so, as I said, since March,
Russia has been building not only its military reinforcements
in Komishly, and this is a map showing exactly where Komishly
is and how it's dead centre in the middle of the area which is
effectively controlled by the Kurds.
Now, this comes at a time that the US is reducing its military
footprint in the North East, which effectively has the
potential to leave the Kurds relatively defenseless.
So that could be that Washington sees Russia as a tool for
tactical stability and to replace their role supporting
the Kurds again against Turkey. And also, there has been talk of
Russia supplying weapons to Jolani because Trump has
effectively washed his hands of them and has said that he's not
going to be supplying weapons in the future and that they should
go to Turkey and Russia. So in my opinion, what we're
seeing is a kind of rebalancing of Russia's role in Syria and if
you like a strategic move from Russia, which I'll talk about
now, to secure the oil and gas hydrocarbon resources that it
had control of under the Assad government.
So of course, what we've seen recently is the so-called peace
talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the effective
occupation of the Zhangazur corridor on the border with
northwestern Iran by US corporate interests, which
means, of course, they're military contractors, which
opens the door to Israel on the border with Iran.
And Turkey has effectively put itself at the bridgehead of
supplying gas from Baku via Gillis Aleppo pipeline Killis in
southern Turkey with the support of Qatar.
And of course, the war began back in 2009 when when Assad
basically refused or turned down the Qatari Turkish pipeline in
favor of the Russian Iranian 1. But if we actually look at this
corridor, so this is going from Baku and Azerbaijan to Kailash.
There, as you can see in southern Turkey now that
pipeline, there is some controversy over whether it is
actually now open or not. But I want you to look at the
green line. So basically it's coming down
from southern Turkey, coming from Azerbaijan to southern
Turkey, through northern Syria, down through Jordan and then to
Israel, which is the primary target, of course, of of the
Baku oil. And it's being supplied through
to Turkey throughout the genocide of the Palestinians in
Gaza. But also look at the corridor
that goes into Banyas and Tripoli and Lebanon.
And that's what we've talked about, the importance of
Tripoli, why the Americans are pushing Jolani to effectively
annex northern Lebanon and take control of Tripoli.
Turkey is also competing for influence over Tripoli.
So as I've said before, what we're now seeing in the world
today is this new type of multi spectrum conflict taking control
of all economic and resource corridors, trade corridors,
military routes and so on. And again, let's have a look at
the Kirkuk Banyas pipeline. So again, remember this is going
into territory that Russia has been allowed to keep control of.
So going from Kirkuk in Iraq through Syria, central Syria
into Banyas controlled by Russia, preventing Turkey from
extending its control into the the coastal area.
And then finally, I just want to have a quick look at this map
which incorporates all of it, which I think is going to be
clear. So you have on the coast Russian
influence maintained with the approval of Washington in the
South. Now they're going to extend
their patrols and their military bases, which they already had
under the Assad government. And then that triangulates up to
Commishli in the northeast. So what does that do?
That actually traverses the two main corridors that are going to
come in from Azerbaijan, through Syria to Israel and from Kirkuk
to Banyas. And remembering that the
Azerbaijan corridor also has, if you like, a mini corridor going
off to Banyas, which is under the control of the Russians.
So I think what you're seeing right now, and particularly with
the the the Alaska summit is the manoeuvring between Russia,
Washington and Israel to enable Israeli expansion, but also to
enable, as I said, tactical stability for Washington's
interests in Syria, particularly the resources, but for Russia
potentially to be able to protect its interests in South
Caucasus. By having a foothold in the
Sangazur corridor and in Azerbaijan.
Now of course, this this potentially brings it into
conflict with Iran and the north-south Trade Corridor,
which is part of their strategic partnership.
And that is potentially why Russia is now making overtures
towards Afghanistan to divert the north-south Corridor through
Afghanistan rather than through Azerbaijan.
So we're seeing a very different kind of war right now, a lot of
manoeuvring, a lot of very interesting alliances and
potential disruptions of of existing strategic partnerships.
Absolutely, Vanessa, thanks very much.
And of course, as you say, control being absolutely at the
heart of it. And I hope we'll have more time
to talk about that and extra specifically with regard to
Iran, which of course must be mentioned in a more full
context. I think no, we will have to move
on. But going continuing on in a
way, the theme of sort of control of everything.
We're going to go to Sandy now, who's going to talk about JD
Vance and indeed some of the relationships that he has with a
certain set of influential people.
Yes, thanks. Thanks very much, Charles.
Well, I've been looking at JD Vance this week because
obviously he, he took his working summer holiday in the UK
last week and his first stop was, well his second stop was
Schevening was was sorry, the Matt Dean Manor where he, he
hired a house. It wasn't him that organised it,
it was George Osborne. But I'll get on to that.
And so his, his first stop was in, in, in Shevening House in,
in Seven Oaks in Kent where he went fishing with David Lammy.
Apparently they bonded quite well on their deprived
backgrounds and, and Christianity.
Apparently so. The logistics of this trip was
organised by former Chancellor George Osborne.
He, along with David Cameron, apparently lived nearby.
So it's interesting that that Cameron, sorry Osborne, also
organised the meeting at Dean House, Dean Manor with shadow
ministers Robert Jenrick, Chris Phelp, Laura Trott and Sir Paul
Marshall at a drinks party reception hosted by Vance.
Now George Osborne's involvement in Vance's trip showcases his
skill at transforming old political ties into ongoing
current scenarios. And his role as holiday planner
was really more than a personal favour.
It was an example of how a retired politicians managed to
remain in power brokers basically in shaping connections
and narratives long after leaving office.
So the tiny village of Dean Chipping Norton was thrown into
chaos with motorcades and police and security staff taking over.
And of course there was a good deal of anti Trump protesters
there. And I think we've got a slide of
anti Trump protesters there we are.
They they didn't like it at all. And of course, I'm sure some of
them were, were organised, but the, the locals really did
didn't really enjoy the fact that JD Vance took up all the
disabled bays in a, in a, in a, at the local shop, the local
farm shop and nobody could get in there where he, he saw he, he
had a meeting with Lord and lady.
I think it was, yeah. Bamford of the JCB fame.
Anyway, so who is JD Vance? Has he been cherry picked for
success? And I I believe he has.
He wrote this book, Hillbilly Ilgy in 2016.
He, it was published, which then became a Hollywood film.
And in this book, he, he, he talks about his, his awful, you
know, dysfunctional childhood as a hillbilly in the Appalachian
Mountains in the US and how he ever elevated himself for this,
from this, this, this life by joining the Marines and then
attending Yale Law School and eventually being he was
catapulted really into the political arena at great speed.
And everyone loves the rags to riches story.
Hillbilly boy overcomes adversity and and becomes vice
president of the USA. People love all that, don't
they? So is, is this what he's there
for? And I think it is.
So when did he form a a close working relationship with Peter
Thiel? Vance's connection with Peter
Thiel began during his post law school years.
After his Yale Law graduation in 2013, he briefly practised law
and then moved into tech and venture capital.
And from then he joined he, he, he teamed up with obviously
with, with Peter Thiel from Palantir.
And I think we've got a slide of Palantir as we know it's a tech
giant. You know, they, they are really
behind an awful lot of the, the rather transhumanist stuff
that's going on with gene editing and what have you Now,
Vance, first of all, in 2016 and 2017, he worked for Mithril
Capital, which was Peter Thiel's venture firm as some.
And all the while he continued to work on his memoir, Hillbilly
Elegy. And then he, which was always,
always financed really by Teal. Teal was his bankroll basically.
And he had a lasting relationship with him.
But he he then was was donated £10,000,000 by Teal to to back
his Senate bid in March 2021 and helped shape and fund his
political career. Now Vance had been transformed
really from a Trump critic to a Trump supporter.
He once called Trump an American Hitler, and now he's one of his
his most effective defenders and fundraisers.
Teal brought Vance to this, his very first meeting with Trump at
Mar a Lago in February 2021, according to the New York Times.
Now, thanks to Teal's financial and strategic support, Vance has
surged really from being an underdog to winning the Ohio
primary in 2022. So, you know, it's it's he's
really had this meteoric, you know, sort of rise to fame.
And so, you know, you've got to ask yourself why he fulfills a
very important role. He's a brand ambassador for
populism, giving ordinary Americans hope that they're
being defended, I think. But the policies and
corporations tied to his network, Palantir, Black Rock,
AI driven governance, surveillance capitalism, they
point to to the polar opposite of sovereignty.
So it's really interesting the way that this narrative is
playing out. And it might be a deception
strategy in my view. I mean, Vance functions as
supposed to boy for populism, Catholic, patriotic working
class, while behind the scenes, teals companies and allies build
a very globalist, technocratic system that populists think that
they're resisting. So it's, it's it's all very
interesting. His meeting with in the UK with
Farage, Jenrick and others under the control of David Cameron and
George Osborne, who, let's face it, work for Black Rock for one
day a week for £500 per annum. You know, five, Yeah, I mean,
you need 500,000 per annum. So this is a little bit
unsettling really, because there's this whole other other
thing working behind in the background.
And then there's the Catholicism.
I mean, Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019, having been
an atheist to please Teal. And there's Catholicism in
Silicon Valley, which is really, really odd.
I mean, it's it's actually, it apparently was this is from
Vanity Fair, an article in Vanity Fair, which is, is
Christianity was borderline illegal in Silicon Valley and
now it's the new religion. So what what is going on here is
all very odd. And Peter Thiel said he's got a
quote here. One part of the Christian faith
that I believe more strongly than anything is that death is
evil and we should not accept it and fight it all any way we can.
Now that is really a transhumanists for way of
talking about religion and it's his religion.
He's playing God. So what we're looking out really
is a, you know, this dichotomy between the spiritual death and
the, and a physical death. So they're buying into
transhumanism. And the whole thing is, is, is
really playing, playing with our minds, messing with our minds.
Now we have to remember that Pope Francis did launch the 17
sustainable goals in 20-30 with Obama in 20/20/15 at the
Vatican. So there is a whole story
playing out here. So it's just interesting what
what's really going on with with the whole Christian Catholic
narrative. Yeah.
Indeed, Sandy, thank you very much.
Indeed. I think Peter Thiel, they're
probably taking some fairly large liberties with the
Christian Scripture as other people might consider it, but
but nonetheless, as you say, a series of murky relationships
and it would be interesting to know about some of the
conversations that Vance did have whilst he was holidaying in
large inverted commas over here. Now, whether or not you're Auk
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So please do take a look at that on the website this evening.
John will be speaking to Celia Farber, who has been described
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That'll be a good lesson this evening.
And then tomorrow, Thursday at 1:00, Brian Gerrish and Gemma
Cooper in conversation specifically about the Sounds
Beautiful event we attended a couple of months ago.
And you'll note that that's taking place in our Studio 2,
which of course wouldn't have been possible without the very
memberships and donations that I've just been referring to.
But really a look at the events and the importance of getting
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Upon which note, I must remind you that the Hope Freedom Music
Festival is happening over this August bank holiday weekend and
we will be there. So please do make a beeline for
it if you're able. And by using the code Freedom
50, you will get 50% discount off your ticket which takes us
to October and our on location event which we're very pleased
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October in York. And as announced, our first
speaker that we've given details for is Andy Wakefield.
And indeed anyone buying a ticket either in person or on
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7. And this week we've also
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line up, a proper in person event and indeed a social in the
evening. So please do join us if you can.
And if you can't, as I say, the live stream is there for you.
Now we're going to move on to well, or at least cast our minds
back, in fact, to last year. And a recap of a set of
apparently extraordinary events which did take place a year ago.
Now, on the 19th of August, the yacht belonging to Mike Lynch,
the cyber tycoon, capsized and off the coast of Sicily during a
storm. Now almost exactly the same
moment a runner with a head injury died in hospital in
Cambridgeshire. First I shown on screen this was
the death of Stephen Chamberlain and there were no witnesses he
he was on a regular running route.
This was deemed not suspicious and the inquest report says
Stephen Chamberlain was a highly experienced and safety conscious
ultra runner but simply noted down the cause of death as a
road traffic collision. Now if you're wondering why any
of this is relevant, we'll see where we get to by the end of
the report and then I think it might make sense to you.
But as stories emerged from the capsize of the Bayesian itself,
it became clear that Mike Lynch, the Co founder of Autonomy and
indeed defendant in a case brought by Hewlett Packard
concerning fraud. In that Hewlett Packard argued
that Lynch and Chamberlain had inflated value of Autonomy their
company, in order to sell it to Hewlett Packard.
This timing of course, is of great significance.
Also on board we had Jonathan Bloomer, who was a witness
during the protracted legal proceedings, also dead, and
indeed Chris Morvillo who represented Lynch and
Chamberlain in the ongoing legal battle.
Now in 2022, there was a ruling that the fraud had occurred.
This involved Lynch being extradited to the to the United
States, being exonerated, and then indeed a celebration trip
on the Bayesian, which we've just shown.
Now for more detail on the curious circumstances of the
specific cap size, I would point you towards New Lines magazine,
an excellent article written earlier this year by Floriano
Balfon. Link will be in the show notes.
Now the, the, what I would say with regard to the, the name of
the yacht as a, as a curiosity, of course, Bayesian mathematics
being concerning probability in relation, relation to the
balance between previously held data and new evidence.
So sort of bizarre echoes there. With regard to the accident
itself, the Marine Accident Investigation Board have only
managed to get as far as an interim report which was
published in May of this year. Very scant on detail and the
only substantive point really is to say that the findings
indicate that the extreme wind experienced by the Bayesian was
sufficient to knock the yacht over further.
Once the yacht had healed beyond an angle of 70°, the situation
was irrecoverable. Now as a stand alone point that
that might be reasonable but interesting to note that moored
very nearby was the Sir Robert Baden Powell which was had a
hull built in the 1950s only a couple of 100 yards away, owned
and skippered by a man called Caston Borner and it rode out
the storm by engaging its engines and turning into the
wind. Now the was equipped with far
superior instrumentation and indeed mechanical capabilities,
but didn't take any such action, which again raises a large
number of questions. One would imagine that will be
covered by the Marine Accident Investigation Board now just a
few weeks ago. Which is what really brings us
to the relevance of all of this is that the High Court issued a
judgement on Hewlett Packard's claim against the estate of Mike
Lynch. Now the initial claim was for £3
billion and Mr. Justice Hildyard, in summing up,
described the death of Lynch as being tragically and almost
unbelievably coincident with that of Chamberlain, but didn't
give any further comment. Now the ruling is that the Lynch
estate must pay at least 700 million to Hewlett Packard and
this is as the main Financial Services and Markets Claim Act
with the other sums attached takes it to to over 700 million
which is believed to be a sum that will bankrupt the estate of
Mike Lynch. Now concurrent with all of this
have been the activities of Dark Trace, the cybersecurity
business, which of course was set up by Lynch with the
proceeds of the sale of autonomy via Invoke Capital.
And just shown on screen here is the former Chief executive Poppy
Gustafson with Anne Keith Butler, the current director of
GCHQ, who turned down my invitation to join our On
Location event in Cheltenham earlier this year.
But nonetheless, very interesting to see the
relationship that Dark Trace does have with the the
intelligence services. So one must ask, is it any
coincidence that Kustafson was ennobled in the autumn and is
now the Minister for Investment from her position in the House
of Lords? Now she still shares, sorry, she
still holds shares in Dark Trace and has been central to a raft
of very significant investments into the United Kingdom,
described of course by the government as being advantageous
to the United Kingdom, which I might say is questionable at
best. Now coincident with the with all
of this was the sale of Dark Trace to Tomo Bravo, which has
one of the largest portfolios of cybersecurity businesses in the
world and it sponsors what's shown on screen, which is called
the Cyber Consortium. And it should be of note that
since Gustafson came into government, Dark Trace has
secured its largest ever contract with that same
government at 2.7 million, which might not sound like a huge
amount of money, but given the explosion of entities that are
described as being in need of autonomous cyber protection,
it's fair to speculate that this is likely to represent the thin
end of the wedge. And again, just to illustrate
sort of where this appears to be going, two of the recent
investments that Gustafson is said to have facilitated are the
£1 billion commitment from DP World.
Now Ben was speaking about this very thing on Monday, but but
just to make the point that the Freeport that he was talking
about is in fact owned and managed by DP World, which of
course is based in United Arab Emirates and has been involved
in the very controversial port of Berbara in the Horn of
Africa. Concerning the sovereignty of
Somaliland and indeed relations with Ethiopia.
So wheels within wheels, one might say, and certainly nothing
free about this Freeport, but also £5 billion investment from
Oracle, again orchestrated it would seem by Baroness Gustafson
formerly or perhaps presently of Dark Trace.
And I would just conclude by mentioning that the BBC this
morning talking about 94 new data centres.
And the idea here is that whilst concerns are recognised that
they're going to use all the water and all the energy that we
can possibly produce. Don't worry because they're
going to recycle some of the heat and warm up all those
swimming pools that haven't quite yet been built or indeed
may not have any water to put in them.
So all of these things, one might say, do point back to some
very strange circumstances at this time last year.
But the direction of travel, I would say seems fairly obvious
or becoming more and more obvious.
Yeah. Now that takes us into very much
related issue, which is online safety.
Yes, well, the Children's Commissioner, Dame Rachel
D'souza was on BBC News Night on Wednesday evening demanding that
Ofcom age verification, or the Ofcom age verification regime is
expanded to include providers of virtual private networks.
Because since the age verification regime came into
force, the number of downloads of VPN software is off the
charts. Let's just have a quick listen
to what she had to say. If you of course, we need age
verification on VPNs. It's absolutely a loophole that
needs closing, and that's one of my major recommendations.
And do you think the government's got the tone of
this wrong because there are some people who don't agree with
the Online Safety Bill on grounds of free speech and
giving my data to the government?
Do you think it's a mistake to call people who oppose the bill
akin to Jimmy Savile? Do you think that shouldn't they
shouldn't have said that? Look, I think there is not,
there is not one person in this country, not one adult who if I
said to them should we keep children safe online, wouldn't
would say of course we should keep children, but of course.
Children don't, don't don't bring up this S word.
Well, I mean, I think, look, I think, I think tone is
everything we need to talk to at the adults of this country.
Like they as they, that they as they are adults and all of us
should be in agreement that we keep children safe.
The Online Safety Act is a big beast and there might be it's a
bit that people don't like, but keeping children safe has got to
be the search of it. So Rachel D'souza, representing
children and claiming concern for child safety, joins the
hordes of other government shills who claim that the
biggest threat to the well-being of children is the possibility
that they access pornography. Ignoring the massive elephant in
the room which is adults grooming children by posing as
children on child oriented websites.
As I highlighted a week ago when I reported that the US based
National Centre. Of course.
Sorry US based National Centre for Missing and Exploded
Children published their their latest Getting this mixed up
today. I do apologise.
Their latest cyber tip line report showing that last year
they received 546,000 reports from tech firms of adults across
the world soliciting children and that they said was 192%
increase from 2023. Now around 99,600 of these
reports came from the UK in the first six months of 2024 with
Snapchat reporting far more concerning material than any
other platform in that period. So look, this is the tip of the
iceberg since this these are only incidents, as we mentioned
last week, reported by the platforms themselves.
But you got a quick sight of what the BBC was saying here.
So the BBC of course, wanting to maintain that the focus is on
pornography. So, you know, VPNs, most
downloaded apps in Apple's App Store in the UK after sites such
as Pornhub, Pornhub requiring age verification.
You know, we we got to keep this massively in the forefront of
everybody's minds that anybody that criticizes is tantamount to
Jimmy Savile. And the other thing to say here
is of course, that, you know, that the fact is that people are
not objecting to this on the basis of children not getting
access to pornography. They're objecting to it because
of the massive totalitarian overreach by the Starmer regime.
But we have to keep in mind, of course, that this was Tory
legislation in the 1st place, although it was supported by
Starmer's Labour Party all the way through.
This is a unit party issue. And then just very briefly, just
to make the point that the petitions now around 527,000,
this issue is something that I think people need to get
organised around and see this up to 2 million at the least.
I think that's what we need to be aiming for, Charles.
I would absolutely agree, yes, indeed.
And I think we well we would hope that you as members of the
audience and concerned about the future of not just UK column,
but of course any organization putting content out, it has its
future preserved. So.
So please do spread the word on that.
No, very much The other side of the same coin is the issue of
cybersecurity and indeed how that gets explained in a
narrative context. And we've got the National
Cybersecurity Centre subset of GCHQ being pushed out of the
shadows in order to remind us how dangerous the cyber sphere
really is. And as I say, this is this is
sort of wrapped up with online safety, but a but a sort of a
branch off it. But we're constantly being
reminded both on an individual and corporate basis, what it is
we need to do about it. Now this is reinforced by a
recent announcement announcement, first of all, hear
from America's cyber defence industry.
This was just a couple of weeks ago, end of July about what's
been called Scattered Spider. Now the Joint Cybersecurity
advisory has indeed taken this on.
So you can see, well at least if you can't see this represented
by various cybersecurity organisations across the
Commonwealth, across the world, who are effectively joining up
the same narrative in which they're suggesting that they've
identified, or at least this scattered spider organization,
have identified new techniques, tactics and procedures
associated with this cybercriminal group.
And in addition, they're using more sophisticated social
engineering techniques. And the advisory describes
there's malware and ransomware variants which are being used to
great effect. Now essentially this is the sort
of thing that befell Marks and Spencer earlier in the year.
And and indeed, we're constantly told that we need to to find a
solution for it. So of course, these sorts of
announcements and PR exercises look very much more like
marketing exercises for the AI and cybersecurity industries
rather than anything else. Now, I've spoken about Dark
Trace just a few minutes ago. Dark Trace, which of course
purports to learn you through surveilling every single part of
your digital signature in order to predict what's happening or
what's going to happen next, which relates back to the sort
of Bayesian strand of mathematics.
But interestingly, Dark Trace have themselves commented on
this scattered spider effect, difficult as it has been to
describe, because nobody seems to be quite sure who they are
except that they might be British, they might be American,
and they're probably very young. But Dark Trace had said in their
failings to deal with this, which of course is supposed to
be autonomous and shouldn't be need, shouldn't need to be told
what to do. But it was.
It was not in autonomous response mode at the time,
unfortunately, So the attack was able to proceed without
interruption, they say. And indeed they went on to
suggest that with Dark Trace's self learning AI, anomaly based
detection and autonomous response inhibitors, businesses
can halt malicious activities in real time.
Now I think you get the picture. But the what this points
towards, and this of course is only speculation, but since it's
widely known, of course, that cybersecurity, the cybersecurity
industry does indeed pay people to test platforms and indeed
hack in what's described as sort of benevolent sense, 1 can only
wonder whether these sorts of interferences from organisations
like Scattered Spider are indeed in some way connected to the
industry itself, which seems to benefit enormously from the
outcomes. Now we're going to go back to
Vanessa, who of course been speaking a little bit about
Lebanon in the last report. But Vanessa, a further update
specifically on the situation in Lebanon from you.
Yeah, obviously just an update on what's going on.
The the agenda is to effectively weaken Lebanon generally, not
only to disarm the resistance, but also to cause division and
fractures within the Lebanese army itself, reduce it down to
nothing more than a national security or police force rather
than a force that can actually defend Lebanon against Israeli
expansionism, of course. And so one of the first tactics
that they used, and I think this is very interesting, this is the
crossover between what is happening in the West and what's
happening in the West Asia region generally, is that, first
of all, Lebanese banks, most of which are franchises of European
and foreign banks, have been banned from dealing with
Hezbollah's financial networks. Now we've talked before about
the independence of the Hezbollah banking systems that
are available to all Lebanese, not only to members of the
resistance communities and that are based upon interest free
loans basically. And then of course there's been
taught very recently the Trump administration has been talking
particularly Mark Marco Rubio about ending the UN peacekeeping
in Lebanon, Europe pushing back. I think this is more to do with
Trump basically trying to foist the funding of UNIFL in Lebanon
onto particularly France and Italy, and to disentangle the US
from having to shell out any funding for them.
Because in fact, when Tom Barrack, the Trump envoy to the
region and his very close business associate was in
Lebanon, he's part, he's pushing for Chapter 7 to be imposed on
southern Lebanon using UNIFL effectively, if we have a look
at what it actually says in the article, using UNIFL as an
occupational force on behalf of Israel.
So the renewal decision for UNIFIL will carry an escalatory
and highly trudged tone. Basically under Chapter 7 of the
UN Charter, which allows it to disarm by force the resistance
by conducting raids, arresting citizens and setting up
checkpoints. Of course, until now, UNIFIL has
only been able to operate in collaboration with the Lebanese
Army. And So what they're effectively
saying is they will restore the funding to UNIFL for one year
and they will increase UNIFL rights to intervene on behalf of
the state, in other words, on behalf of Israel and Washington
in southern Lebanon. And then almost immediately
after the meeting of the two envoys, including Morgan or
Morgano Ortagus, who came with Tom Barrack, he went immediately
to Tel Aviv, allegedly to put Israel under pressure to
withdraw from the five points that it's still occupying in the
South. But of course, even during these
meetings, Israel continued to bomb southern Lebanon and to
assassinate what they claim are resistance members, but in fact,
in many cases are nothing more than the civilians and citizens
living in the South or trying to repair or reconstruct property
that was destroyed by the last war that ended in November 2024.
Saudi Arabia, of course, is coming in on behalf of Israel
and Washington, Washington to put its own pressure on the
resistance faction, saying that basically there will be no
investment in Lebanon from the Gulf states without Hezbollah's
disarmament. So they're withholding
investment, withholding reconstruction funds.
And at the same time, of course, what we've seen and what we've
been talking about is a build up on the eastern border and the
northern borders from Jolani's al Qaeda takfiri elements,
particularly the Chechen, Uyghur and other foreign groups on the
northeastern borders in the vicinity of Hemel city.
And there have been sporadic incursions into Lebanese
territory for some time now, since about March of this year.
But what we've seen in the last few days is a definite build up
of heavy artillery, tanks and machinery to the area in Syria
that is close to the border with Hermel.
So what they're obviously angling for is to put pressure
on the Lebanese government, with the threat of a Tekfiri invasion
and an increase in Israeli incursions into southern
Lebanon, to enforce the disarmament of the resistance.
Melissa, thank you very much indeed.
Any comment on on that? Now wait for wait for extra,
right. OK, no, just when you think
you've heard it all, a report comes out of Australia
suggesting that it might be possible to make money out of
having an abortion. Sandy, what have you got for us
on on this? Yeah, I mean, it's it's quite
concerning really. Revelations have surfaced that
the Australian Government is paying a baby bonus of more than
$4200 to women who choose late term abortion to end the life of
their healthy unborn child. This was first reported by
pro-life Act advocate Joanna Howe and later covered by the
Daily Declaration. Who's Who found that these
disturbing welfare payments were thanks to a loophole in the
government's Centrelink's definition of a stillborn baby.
Now, stillborn babies don't have rights because they have never
taken a breath. And if a baby has never taken a
breath, it's not deemed human. So this is this is the way
they're doing it. Even worse, the payments of over
20,000 lbs are available to mothers who opt instead for
parental leave pay on the premise that their aborted baby
was stillborn. Now this is very good.
You know, this is a good thing. If a woman has genuinely had a,
a still birth, you know, and, and needs parental leave for up
to a year or maybe 18 months afterwards because of her
trauma. But this is this is different.
This is they're, they're incentivising women to actually
have an injection to kill their babies first before the
stillbirth. So, I mean, with the exception
of a single article in the Advertiser last year, the
mainstream press is refusing to touch this story.
In Australia, a curious silence given the overwhelming public
interest in the scandal. And next Threat has almost
reached 1 million views. And the lone article was
authored by a courageous journalist, a lady called
Catherine Bingham. Birmingham.
Sorry. Unsurprisingly, you know,
there's detractors who've rushed to dismiss the revelations as
fake news. However, Doctor Howe's evidence
is compelling. There are four reasons to
believe her claims. And, you know, are, are real.
And it's all about the, the, you know, Centrelink's definition of
still birth, you know, to be eligible for our payments.
It says, you know, oh, sorry. I think it's the next slide.
You you know so to be eligible for our payments a still birth
needs to meet our definition. A stillborn baby is 1 who's not
breathed since delivery and has had no heartbeat after birth.
To be considered stillborn a baby a baby also has to have a
gestation period of at least 20 weeks.
So this is encouraging late term abortions and weighs at least
400 grams at their birth. So you know, this is this, they
all of this meets their criteria basically for, for these
payments. And Doctor Howe's key
concentration is that Services Australia has to carve out to
say that the still birth has to be natural as opposed to
intentional. And all that's required is a
letter from the hospital confirming that the baby was
delivered stillborn. So there's no, there's no
scrutiny here at all, even from the hospital and the the doctors
and midwives at the hospital. The medical eligibility
component of still birth is determined, declared and
declared by a medical professional.
The spokesman said that Services Australia does not receive any
detail on the nature of this determination.
So there's, there's definitely something going on here.
Um, and in 2013, a Catholic pro-life advocate, Bernard
Gaynor, published a disturbing medical, um, form, um, by family
that was hurt by abortion and, and, and, and that's been
withdrawn. And I'll flag that up later, but
certainly, you know, it's got, they've got forms here.
If we can flag this one up of have you registered, you know,
you, it's free to register a child's birth.
You know, you cannot be paid parental leave pay and be paid
by newborn supplement with your family benefit.
So it's, it's, it's all the paperwork.
So you just have to fill in a form.
It's all very, very blase to be honest.
And yeah, there was this, this form which a medical form which
this pro-life advocate Bernard Gainer flagged up and it was
issued by the South Australian Department of Health.
And it was a yellow A4 document provided detailed instructions
for post abortive women on how to apply for the stillborn baby
payment, then known as the bereavement payment or paid
parental leave by registering their their abortion as, as a a
still birth. Now that form was withdrawn 12
years ago and instead it appears now to have gone underground.
So it's, it's all very, very concerning The, the, the, the,
the, the, the doctor. Howe said that she was contacted
by midwives who are traumatized and shocked by the rise in late
term abortions of healthy babies.
She revealed staff are being effectively forced to sign off
Centrelink's forms so women can claim payments, a process
leading to a double level of trauma.
And 111 midwife was was really traumatised because the mother
stated she would use her aborted baby bonus to fund a holiday to
Bali. I mean, this is absolutely
unbelievable. So a late term abortion in
Australia is most often performed by injecting the
baby's heart with potassium chloride or digoxin, followed by
the induction of labour and the delivery of the dead infant.
Now the, the other thing is that the, the, the, there's no
provision for a funeral. If you want 1, you can have one,
but if you, if you're willingly taking your baby's life, you're
not going to want that. So I think the, the, the
midwives are of a trauma fight, traumatized further by the fact
that the baby then goes into waste, which is not, is not
good. And we know that there's there
is an issue there with harvesting.
So I'm going to, I'm going to show you an animation video,
which you may find distressing. Please turn it off if you don't
want to watch it. It's a it's an animation and it
shows you exactly how this is playing out.
Thank you. So you might be wondering how is
the stillborn parenting payment available for a late term
abortion Here? I need to do just a quick recap
of the method for a late term abortion and I'll pull up the
policy from a NSW hospital. And it's the same process
everywhere. So what occurs is the mother
goes into the hospital, she goes under general anesthetic, but a
abortionist will inject the baby's heart in utero with
poison. So it's either digoxin or
potassium chloride. The baby then goes into cardiac
arrest and dies in utero. So they die in the mother's
womb. Now they have to get that baby
out some way, and the way they do it is they induce labour in
the mother. So she takes pills that lie to
her body and make her think that she's going into labour early.
She then delivers that baby vaginally, but she's not
delivering a live baby, she's delivering A stillborn child.
So it's a forced birth of a stillborn baby.
Now, because that baby is stillborn, this is what then
makes her eligible. I mean, it's, it's, it's
shocking really. I mean, we've got genocide by
war and genocide everywhere. And you know, we've just relaxed
the, the, the laws in the UK for full term abortions and let's
hope we don't go down the same route as South Australia.
Shocking. It absolutely is, Sandy, but
nonetheless, thank you very much for looking into that.
Now, on the subject of controversial medical
procedures, Vanessa, you have unearthed something in Lebanon.
Yeah. I mean, I was basically having a
conversation with someone the other night who did take, I
think at least the first vaccine and then didn't take the
booster. But they were laughingly telling
me that there are some advantages to the corruption
that exists in Lebanon because in reality, the Pfizer vaccine,
and this is translated from an article in Arabic that they sent
me to prove that what they were saying is true.
The Pfizer vaccine in particular was replaced by Lebanese
hospitals and doctors with a mixture, with a saline mixture,
basically. So the people that thought they
were getting the Pfizer vaccine in Lebanon didn't actually get
the vaccine and therefore haven't suffered any of the
adverse effects that people are in other countries that did take
the real Pfizer vaccine suffered from.
So, you know, there are some advantages to living here, I
guess. Indeed, a good news story, but
not for Pfizer. Thank you very much, Vanessa.
Now on a related theme, Indeed Bio security, I spoke last week
about Blue Tongue and the continued push for vaccination,
particularly with regard to sales along the English Welsh
border and access to markets means that there is a huge push
for vaccination. Although reports suggest that
only 1% of sheep and 5% of cattle in whales have actually
been vaccinated. So there seems to be some
resistance for a number of reasons.
But of course, alongside this is really the inference that there
will be a regime of complete testing, tracking, injecting and
surveillance under this heading of bio Security and indeed the
inference that this is all part of a convenient and safe
approach. Now bird flu again, never far
from the headlines and indeed the vigilance and bio security
we are reminded of regularly, this time by APHA today.
And this is set to continue of course.
But this is set alongside an announcement from the government
on Monday about the deal between the UK and the EU on sanitary
and phytosanitary dealings. Essentially to establish a UKEU
zone, which will cut costs and red tape for businesses that
export and import from the EU, reducing delays at the border
and making food trade with the Uks biggest market cheaper and
easier. So this is really to do away
with border checks. Now, the significant point to
draw out of here, given the incredible focus on bio
security, is to say that that these checks on border crossings
will not be required as their implementation is, quote,
disproportionate. So as with all these things, bio
security matters until it's considered disproportionate or
there's another factor which Trump's it.
Yeah, So how about that? Now we have a different note
upon which to finish. We've spoken a lot about the way
in which Palestine action has been treated over the last few
months, of course, resulting in their recent prescription.
But we will now take a look at how plaster scene action has
been dealt with. Now this video will be running
in the background. It has no sound to it, but
actually no sound is necessary because what this shows, and I,
I will invite Mike to comment in a second, is the way in which
the terrorism law is first of all, absolutely wide open in
order that it can capture anybody.
So here the article being dealt with is Section 13 of Terrorism
Act 2000, which says a person in a public place commits an
offence if he wears an item of clothing or carries an article
in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse
reasonable suspicion that he is a member or a supporter of a
prescribed organization. Now this chap is clearly wearing
a plasticine action T-shirt which concerns AI generated
images, so there's absolutely no overt reference to anything
other than pastor seen action. And I think the important point
to draw out of this is first of all that members of the public
will not be carried into some ambition into not taking actions
like these. I think we can all guess in a
way what what 1 is perhaps supposed to consider, but also
that the authorities that are supposed to deal with this have
absolutely no idea what to do when confronted with it.
And this absolutely nullifies in a way the the role of the police
in this kind of circumstance because they can't even decide.
And this is exactly where the independence of a constable
should come into play. But but doesn't like.
Right. Indeed.
You know, they're supposed to make up their own minds about
these things, and they're increasingly unable to do that
without getting a yes or a no from the authorities.
They are and, and I think ridiculous as it seems, and of
course it does drive to the heart of a very, very serious
point. I should, I think we should take
this as a positive in that the the system is in effect being
thwarted and indeed there is considerable pushback concerning
Palestine action, of course. And just to finish, Patrick will
have some pretty spectacular news on this on Friday's
programme as well, so keep an eye out for that.
Excellent. Yes, Now that brings us to the
close of the programme. So Mike, thank you very much for
joining me in the studio. Thanks to Vanessa and Sandy,
Thank you for tuning in, of course.
And don't forget we've got Germ going out this evening speaking
to Celia Farber and the discussion between Brian and
Gemma going out at 1:00 tomorrow.
If you are a member, please stay on the line and join us for
extra. And if you're not, please
consider it. Otherwise, we will look forward
to seeing you at 1:00 on Friday. Bye, bye, bye bye.