Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 29th of
October just after 1:00. Welcome to UK Call News.
I'm your host Mike Robinson and my Co host today is Charles
Ballot. Welcome to the programme,
Charles. Thank you, Mike.
And joining us via Live Link is journalist and peace campaigner
Vanessa Bailey. And later in the programme, I'm
going to be covering the latest on the regime change operation
against Venezuela. Charles will be reporting on the
new digital ID for veterans and also on the D prescription of
the terrorist organisation currently occupying Syria.
And Vanessa is going to have the latest from Lebanon.
But we're going to begin with Gaza because, well, apparently,
surprise surprise, Israel has started bombing again.
Vanessa. Yep, the so called ceasefire
didn't really last very long, not that we honestly expected it
to. And, and we need to remember
this is not Trump's peace scam. This is only a ceasefire that
we're monitoring at the moment. The Israeli forces have
withdrawn to what is known as the Yellow Line, which is the
first step of the withdrawal from Gaza.
But of course, what are they doing?
If we have a look at the map of Gaza, you can see that they're
still occupying something like 58% of the Gaza Strip.
So that means that effectively around 2 million of the
Palestinian population, although of course numbers of dead are
rising rapidly and there are reports of around 500,000 having
been killed to date. You will see that those people
are being pushed into an ever decreasing area of land.
And when we talk about the staggered withdrawal, if we look
at the next map, you can see that the yellow line is supposed
to be the first withdrawal point.
But you can also see that the red dots are the bases or the
dig insurance that the Israeli forces have already started
putting in place there. And also worth pointing out that
the extremist factions that are very much affiliated to ISIS,
that are being backed by Israel and Netanyahu to lead attacks
against Hamas inside Gaza are being sheltered within that
section that is still under the control of the Israeli forces.
And I have to say in I think around 9:00 PM last night, the
reports of massive US Israeli bombing started coming in.
At the same time Trump is putting out statements such as
this one on the basis of an Israeli report that the reason
for the bombing is that there was an Israeli reservist soldier
killed by Hamas in the yellow zone.
So what is Trump saying? He's saying Hamas is a very
small part of peace in the Middle East and they have to
behave. Not that the Israelis have to
behave. Of course.
If they are good, they're going to be happy.
If they're not good, they're going to be terminated.
Their lives will be terminated. So again, we see the usual reset
position of the United States in support of anything that Israel
does, even if it's basically continuing the genocide
unimpeded. Rubio, Marco Rubio came out
pretty much with the same thing a couple of days ago, Says that
Israeli airstrike and Gaza is not a violation of the
ceasefire. Of course, total hypocrisy here.
And then if we actually have a look at what has been happening
since 9:00 PM last night, as I said, I noted it beginning
around 9 PMI woke up multiple times during the night and it
was still ongoing and it's still ongoing now.
So this is from the 28th to the 29th of October, massive US,
Israel strikes in Gaza, over 100 injured, 46 confirmed deaths.
That's now up to around 100 with the ongoing bombing.
Many children, I think up to 20 children have been killed in
these attacks. Entire families have been wiped
out. Very important.
This is always part of the Israeli genocidal tactic in
Gaza. Targeted densely populated
areas, tent camps sheltering internally displaced civilians
and children. More apartment blocks were
destroyed, killing anyone still inside.
And strikes across central Gaza are still ongoing as I'm
speaking now. Now, among the victims, I'm not
going to show many of the awful videos that are, as always,
coming out of Gaza, but just to put some human face on the
massacre that Israel is perpetrating still both in West
Bank and in Gaza. These are the twins, Sham and
Yahya, I mean Abu Dhal. And in fact, they're entire
family were wiped out. Their parents and the rest of
their family were wiped out in one strike.
And yet again, another journalist was also murdered in
the latest strikes. This is journalist Mohammed al
Manirawi who worked for Palestine News.
He and his wife and members of his family were killed in one
strike. Now, very recently, Peter Oborn,
who's a British journalist, who in my opinion was one of the few
that did a decent job alongside Robert Fisk in in his Syria
reporting during the regime change war that began in 2011,
particularly when he went to Aleppo, when really Western
media was running a criminal campaign to demonise President
Assad and the Syrian Army. Peter Oborn went to Aleppo and
came back and was heavily smeared actually for his
reporting on what was really happening in Aleppo.
He's now published a book called Complicit.
You will find the link to that in the show notes in which he
accuses the British government of being complicit with
genocide. And this is an interview on
Channel 4 with the former ambassador to Yemen, although,
as he points out, he was based in Saudi Arabia that was bombing
Yemen. He wasn't actually in Yemen.
Edmund Fitton Brown, and this is Peter Oborn, basically taking
the British government to task for their involvement in
genocide both in Yemen and in Gaza.
And please listen to Fit and Brown's response to it.
And when you were ambassador, I dare say you were in Riyadh, no.
I was in Jeddah. Jeddah.
I saw a humanitarian catastrophe visited on Yemen by a gay
British backed bombing. I saw the bombing of hospitals,
I saw the slaughter of civilians.
There you are in Jeddah and I and I also because I'm in a part
of an investigative journalist, I learned of the deep concern
inside the Foreign Office then as now that the Britain was
party to war crimes. What is your You have a record
here of supporting the mass slaughter of Arabs and you did
this in Yemen as British. I'm sorry, it's a very serious
matter. It isn't something you should
laugh about. No, it's a laugh of accusation.
It is the slaughter of of Arabs in the Yemen and now the
slaughter of Arabs in Gaza. These are these are two.
You have defended British government policies in each case
reduce of and I I find it very troubling and morally wrong and
morally atrocious and deeply shaming for our country that we
should support that, that that kind of hand, that kind of
contact. I I highly recommend watching
the whole interview. I have to say that Fred and
Brown represents the really unpleasant face of British
orientalism and neo colonialism throughout the entire interview.
But I just wanted to play one last excerpt from the interview
where basically Fit and Brown as supporting the concept or the
narrative that Iran is the next enemy for the UK.
So let's just play this one. Second, as well, the Houthis are
obstructing commerce in the Red Sea.
Iran has been a consistent enemy of the United Kingdom, has been
conspiring to murder a British author over decades, and has
been trying to kill people on the streets of the United
Kingdom. The Israelis provide preventive
intelligence that has enabled us to stop some of those plots from
going. Ahead, I would simply say here,
the Israelis also carried out a number of illegal
assassinations. The attack on Iran, which they
brought the United States in, was illegal.
There haven't been proper propagation from Iraq.
I mean, this is just extraordinary.
I mean, Iran threatening to kill people on British streets.
Mike, wondering what your comment is on that?
Well, yes, I think we'll talk about that more an extra.
I just wanted to ask you one, one question, Vanessa, and that
was, you know, you talked about US and Israel strikes, what is
the United States role and what's happening today and
yesterday? Well, I mean, they're supplying
the bombs. Sorry.
I think really they're, they're, you know, they're, they're
probably the most complicit in this.
But of course the UK is providing the surveillance.
So between them, they are leading this campaign against
the Palestinians. Yeah, OK.
Any comments? Well, I think, well I've saved
for extra, but there's there is a lot to say about it Vanessa, I
think. Yeah, Yeah.
OK. OK.
Well, look, let's move on to Venezuela then.
And well, in recent weeks, the United States has been making
clear that it intends to launch a new regime change operation in
Venezuela. So if we just put the map on
screen here, you'll just to make sure everybody knows where it
is. Now I appreciate Vanessa covered
some of this last week, but I think it's worth just having a
look again at what's been going on over the last several weeks
because earlier this month the United States began bombing
boats claimed to be involved in Venezuelan drug running.
Now the sixth attack as was being reported in US and I News
talks about drug smuggling semi submersible.
And for the first time since these operations began, the US
Navy said at that time that it had captured 2 survivors out of
four people who were said to be on board that that Reuters
claimed the exclusive here on the survivors story.
And then subsequently one of the survivors was apparently
released. We'll come onto that a little
bit later. Then the flights of B50 twos
over the Caribbean began on Wednesday, October the 15th in
what was clearly a big show intended to panic Venezuelans.
The Pentagon released a bunch of photographs for propaganda
purposes. And this opportunity was grasped
by with both hands by the likes of armyrecognition.com that we
just saw a second ago on screen. And they said the Pentagon said
AUS Air Force B52H Strata Fortress bomber, the side of the
second Bomb wing integrates with two US Marine Corps F35B
Lightning 2 aircraft in the US Southern Command area of
responsibility on October the 15th, 2025.
So that was one of the picture captions.
And then each of the picture captions included a statement
saying bomber attack demonstrations contributed to
the collective defence of the Western Hemisphere and
demonstrated the US commitment to the safety and security of
the region. So that should make everybody
here in Britain and Europe and in the United States feel a lot
better. But here in Britain, we weren't
immune from the propaganda for regime change as highlighted
here in the Daily Mail. And you know, this was Trump
deploys secretive night stalkers regiment as Venezuela mobilises
millions of troops fearing raising fears of all out war was
was their propaganda take. And then Trump announced on his
truth Social account 10 days ago that his interest isn't just
Venezuela, it's also Colombia. Because of course, the narrative
about this is that it's all about drugs and narco states.
And this is really the reinsert the resurgence of the war on
drugs narrative and so on as an excuse for regime change.
Meanwhile, on the 17th of October, NPR here reporting that
Senator Tim Kaine was planning to force a second vote.
There'd been an attempt to get a first vote in the Senate under
the War Powers Act to block Trump from attacking Venezuela.
The previous week, he and Adam Schiff had forced a Senate vote
to limit Trump's war powers, and that vote failed by 48 votes to
51. And two Republicans took part
in. That was mostly a Democrat
thing, but two Republicans took part.
That was Rand Paul and Senator Lisa Murkowski.
So they were supporting that idea.
For the second vote, Kane was joined by Rand Paul as Co
sponsor. And Rand Paul said the American
people do not want to be dragged into endless war with Venezuela
without public debate or vote. We ought to defend what the
Constitution demands, deliberation before war.
And then a few days later, Adam Smith, Representative Adam
Smith, who's the top Democrat in the House Armed Services
Committee, he called for hearings on the Trump regime's
bombing of these so called drug trafficking boats off the coast
of Venezuela. So the political imaginations
continue, quite ineffectually so far. military.com published an
article on the 20th which says while the Venezuelan military
couldn't match the United States military and firepower, it's
still a major threat with 21 Russian made Sukhoi 30 at mark 2
jet fighters delivered in 2008 and 2009 and armed with KH31
anti ship missiles. And they also talk about the
Venezuelan military having positioned older, older air
defence systems. But these could still present
problems for low flying aircraft, especially
helicopters. Now since then they've been
further repeated overflights by the US bombers as the
psychological war continues. So this is UK Defence Journal
talking about this a few days ago.
And Trump says, though, that he will not be going to Congress to
seek authorization for his military campaign.
I don't think we're going to necessarily ask for a
declaration of war, he said, according to the New York Times.
Here. I think we're going to kill
people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK?
We're going to kill them. You know, they're going to be
like, dead. Lovely, That's a very similar in
style of narrative to to what Vanessa was reporting.
Reporting a couple of seconds ago now, Five days ago, then
Secretary for War Pete Hegseth posted this to his ex account
saying that overnight, at the direction of President Trump,
the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on a
vessel operated by a terrorist designated terrorist
organisation trafficking narcotics in the Caribbean Sea.
Six people were killed. But he went on to say this,
which I thought was quite hilarious.
He said if you're a narco terrorist smuggling drugs in our
hemisphere, we'll treat you like al Qaeda.
And Vanessa, I'd be interested in your thoughts on that comment
because this is very interesting statement for Hexif to make
since just like al Qaeda, the drug cartels have the full
support of successful US regimes with the CIA being fully engaged
in the drug running, using drug money to fund black operations.
And this is very similar to what's been going on with al
Qaeda. They do, of course, over the
last number of years. Fascinating from from three
aspects, really. Because they're going to treat
them like they treat Al Qaeda. Does that mean with kid gloves
and a red carpet and take the bounty off their heads and
welcome them back into the fold of the international community
that is led by the United States?
If they're going to kill the people that are responsible for
the drug smuggling, they better start back at home with the
CIAAKA, the cartel of the sons that was run by the CIA and is
now being sort of used to target Maduro.
But also funny how the Captagon trade in Syria has increased
exponentially since Assad left, whereas previously, of course,
Assad was described as the head of a narco state and a drug
Lord. So, yeah, I mean, you know, this
is, this is an ongoing tragic comedy that is produced entirely
by the United States and the CIA.
Absolutely. Now the war of words continues,
with Congress apparently unable to do anything to stop events.
So Rand Paul again, talking about extrajudicial killings.
But it's not really having much bite yet.
So we'll see whether they can actually get any momentum behind
this. And now the United States has
sent an aircraft carrier to the region with threats to bomb
alleged drug cartel targets within Venezuela itself, as
Vanessa just mentioned. Now, as a result of the USS
Gravely docking at the Port of Spain in Trinidad, Venezuela has
suspended energy agreements that it had with Trinidad and Tobago
over what officials have described as hostile actions by
Trinidad and Trinidad. Not terribly impressed with that
situation. I see that they may feel that
they're stuck between a rock and a hard place in the sense that
they're probably equally concerned about what the United
States is capable of at this point.
But anyway, that we can discuss later whether there's any excuse
for that. But then late yesterday, the
news broke via Associated Press that the Trump regime attempted
to bribe Maderos as the Venezuelan president's pilot to
fly Maduro to a suitable location for the United States
to arrest him on drug trafficking charges.
And just to quote the article here, it says the untold saga of
how the agent tried to flip the pilot as all the elements of a
Cold War spy thriller. Luxury private jets, a secret
meeting at an airport hangar, high stakes diplomacy and the
delicate wing of a key Maduro Lieutenant.
There was even a final act of intrigue aimed at rattling the
Venezuelan president about the pilot's true loyalties.
So the question is, why is this happening?
Well, Afshin Ratanzi offers a suggestion in this post on X.
Now let's just have a look at a video he attached to this post
on X. It's a comment from former U.S.
ambassador James Story. This is a very bad actor,
sitting on top of the world's largest known reserves of oil,
plus the critical minerals that will fuel the 21st century
economy, and he's in bed with our strategic competitors.
So that seems to be the position of the United States anyway, and
perhaps we're getting a bit closer to the truth there.
Now. Tomorrow at 1:00 PM, I'm going
to be speaking to Jose Bimorgi. Bimorgi, sorry, who is the
Venezuelan ambassador to Lebanon and Syria, and we're going to be
talking about US actions against Venezuela.
And he certainly has quite a bit more to say on why that
particular action is being taken.
But clearly regime change is what it's all about.
And perhaps Vanessa, just very briefly, perhaps oil, rare
earths and other raw materials may be part of it, but perhaps
the fact that Chavez and Maduro. Are not supporting the drugs
trade in the way that previous Venezuelan governments did.
It may be part of it as well. Yeah, and also Colombia's
President Christophe Petro, who who has made a statement that he
would support Venezuelan militarily if if the US does
invade or declare war. But also it's Venezuela's
connection to the resistance axis, to Iran, to Hezbollah,
formerly to Syria, as you mentioned, Yemen and Iraq.
That's also another important reason for any kind of
destabilisation of Venezuela. Yes, thank you, Charles.
Yeah, well, I was just thinking, Hegseth.
I mean, peace through strength seems to be sort of last week's
news, doesn't it? Absolutely.
Yeah. But yeah, let's move on to
digital ID for veterans. Inevitably, yes, veterans, of
course, there are 2.2 million of them in the country.
So we believe, and the Ministry of Defence has finally announced
that they are going to make the veterans ID card a digital one
which they've inevitably put out on X.
And specifically the text says that veterans can now prove
their status and access benefits at the touch of I'm sorry, I've
let's get back one, prove their status and access benefits at
the touch of a button. A modern way to honour service
and deliver real support. I mean, that is quite the
stretch, but perhaps not so much of A stretch as using Yemen
warders at the Tower of London to try and make it look
exciting. It is perfectly extraordinary
the way in which this is being marketed, but nonetheless,
that's the way they've pushed on with it.
Specific iron there, of course, because the Tower of London is
known to the public at least for its ceremony of the keys with
the use of a physical key. But still they appear to be
trying to appeal to the older generation, perhaps by using the
Yemen warders or indeed tourists, but we'll see which
way this goes. Now the Office for Veterans
Affairs has got in on the ACT and this is how they are
plugging it. The Tower of London has 1000
years of history but today is about modernising government and
bring it right up to date by the launch of the Digital Veterans
Card. The purpose of the Veterans Card
is selling veterans to access charitable services, government
services, but also discounts that available to veterans and
by digitising that they can prove they are a veteran, they
can prove who they are and they can access those services much
more seamlessly and straightforward just from the
smartphone. If you're permanently called for
using a smartphone and you've got that physical card as well,
then I would really urge people to get it downloaded for me.
I've got banking through my phone, I've got my Veterans Rail
card is on my phone as well. And so this just really
complements those, which is this fantastic step in the progress
that we're making to modernise how veterans can access
services. I'm looking forward to all the
discounts that are going to be available to us.
So I think that's a really good idea.
The Tower of London, let's do a veterans discount.
So that's a great way. You've got it in your phone, you
can show you're eligible for that, so.
This government very much values of veterans and wants to make
sure that we can access those services much easier and that's
what digitising the veterans card is all about.
What is the psychological effect of talking about digital ID,
which is a very modern thing, and playing music from the 1500s
in the background? Not quite sure.
I mean, it does belong in a sort of comedy sketch from the 1990s,
but apparently it is true. The the Office for Veterans
Affairs have continued on X. They've, they've of course
tweeted out about it. They have said specifically that
they're, well, that sorry, I'm sharing on screen now an image
of how the card will look so dramatically different from the
thing on the smart screen, the smartphone screen, which is
going to be the digital identity.
But the text that they've drawn out the same line, again, it's
going to be secure and quick. Now, I'd say both of those
things are highly questionable. And to what extent do veterans,
Yemen waters in particular, struggle to actually get an ID
card out if they want to show 1? I mean, they've literally spent
their entire career producing the Mod 90, the military ID
card, with no trouble at all. But in the context of the recent
government government announcements about the wider
plan for digital Idi, think it's worth listening back to what
Johnny Mercer, who was running the Office for Veterans Affairs,
what he said about it a year or so ago?
Well. But the majority of the work
goes into digitising Vets UK, which should have been done 30
or 40 years ago to make sure that we understood where our
veterans are and looked after them properly.
So is it value for money? Absolutely.
Has it been extraordinarily difficult to get it over the
line because of all the working parts?
Yes. And if if it was, if it was
easy, it would have been done by now.
If there were some who who may not want a veterans ID card.
They're not mandatory. But for the vast majority of
people, I think it's going to be a really useful addition to
their lives, not mandatory, where we heard that before.
There we go. Given what Keir Starmer has said
recently, although he seemed to have backtracked on that, but
the the, this idea that a, that an ID card, even at that point a
physical ID card could be mandatory.
Now, why would he have said such thing all the way back then?
Indeed, as part of a Conservative administration, and
I've spoken about the development of this initiative
on a number of occasions, But one thing I did do back in 2022
was to put in a Freedom of Information request to the
Ministry of Defence to make a number of enquiries, but
specifically what a physical card might turn into.
And the Med replied that none of the information was in scope, as
though the things I was asking about had never actually been
considered, such as linking health and financial information
to the card. However, on the specific
questions about the digital context, they said that under
Section 16 of the FOIA advice, you may find it helpful to note
that the areas presented in these questions are not covered
in the scope of the ID project. There is no intention to link
the creation of a physical or digital card.
So we can just pop that back on screen that shows the text
there. And then they go on to say,
regarding your question six, there is no intention to share
any personal identifiable information with other
government, department or corporate bodies.
Now this obviously three years on would appear to be an out and
out lie and I will go on to explain the context of that lie.
But but before we do say, we'll just have a look at where this
has come from at least in recent recent years.
And I'm showing now the 2018 strategy for our veterans in
which they say that data is essential to understand veteran
community, contributing to a robust evidence base which can
inform policy making, enable planning and support service
delivery more effectively and deliver good evaluations.
So they talk about requiring data for the prediction of
needs. They don't specify whose needs,
which seems to be quite an important part of this.
And we go on just pull out another criterion, which are
which is veterans and the law. And really one would take from
this the implicit acknowledgement.
The government appreciates that there is a challenge potentially
presented by the 2.2 million veterans that could be
considered to be motivated, capable and organised and
therefore present a serious problem to government if they
chose to do so. Now they go on to say that
there's a specific challenge concerning legacy
investigations. Of course, Mike was speaking
only on Friday about those very investigations which are of
course being pushed forward by the government itself.
So this is very disingenuous in the way that the language is
being manipulated. Now also just to go forward a
little bit into the Veteran Strategy Action Plan 2022 to
2024, they insist again that they veterans have this sort of
specific problem identifying themselves.
They say it also needs to be easier for veterans to verify
their status in order to access government services.
Now my question is why? And very briefly on a personal
note, I am a veteran and I don't see that it needs to be any
easier for me than it does for anybody else to verify my status
in order to access government services, if I even wanted to
access government services in the 1st place.
But that might be considered slightly by the by this
obsession that veterans having a special problem with it seems to
be somewhat bizarre. Now also the the other issue
going back to the Freedom of Information request is that in
that strategy paper they said that they were going to carry
out a scoping study to design a service which will offer the
digital verification of veteran status.
Now this was published in January 2022, therefore some
months before my Freedom of Information request went in.
So they would have known at that time that there absolutely was
to be a link with the digital, digital version of the identity
card. Now obliquely, but I think very
relevant, there's been a lot in in the news at the moment about
the company's house requirement for directors to identify
themselves by the 18th of November.
You need to prove who you are to set up, run, own or control a
company in the UK, they say. Now there are many issues with
this, but according to the information put out by company
size and Government one login, there is no requirement for
biometrics nor to use photograph ID.
And the choice remains of course for you because they do still
request information which they cannot possibly guarantee the
security of. But this has been wilfully
misrepresented in some quarters. So I think it is worth looking
at what the what Companies House does actually say.
But just quickly as we finish off, we'll just go back to the
military and conflicting notions surrounding the readiness for
war. Of course, thinking back to what
Pete Hagseth was just talking about a moment ago, we've got
Sean Raymond in the Daily Mail yet again story about women in
the Royal Marines and indeed what the Commandant of the
Commando Training Centre Royal Marines actually said about it.
We'll just have a quick listen to him.
Most men can't complete this training and therefore the women
that might be able to do it are are extremely high performing.
They are out there. I wonder if they're out there,
though, already gainfully employed in the sorts of elite
sports that might otherwise, you know, be more appealing to them
than necessarily coming down to be a real Marine commando.
But I'm rocket clear there is, there are women out there that
could come and do this training if they were motivated enough to
do it. And we have had some women
recently who have come close. Unfortunately, they haven't met
all of the standards, but we absolutely want you.
The two questions Commandos always used to ask in World War
2. Are you here to help?
Are you any good? Well, the third question we need
to add is, and we want you if you're different.
We want you if you're different because the cognitive edge is
going to be a game changer for us going forward.
So it's hard to know exactly what he means by that, and if
anyone can be rocket clear on what rocket clear means and do
right in. But the other thing to set this
alongside is what's happened with the selectional recruitment
into the Reserve SAS. And the most recent edition of
Soldier magazine has this piece in it on the Special Forces and
indeed talks about being able to go into the selection process on
resettlement. But also interestingly, they've
got 2 little bits here saying applications are accepted from
men and women across all three services.
And you can join reserve SAS up till the age of 43 and 364 days.
So relevant to this is the most recent episode of Military
Matters, in which Brian and I spoke specifically about the
issues surrounding recruitment and how this is at odds with all
the various defence literature that's being put out, but
especially the commitment to what's being described as a push
for 30% of the armed forces to be made up of women.
Thank you, Charles. OK, let's let's move on then.
If you like what the UK column does, if you'd like to support
us, please go to the front page of the UK column website.
There's a big box there that takes you to a page which gives
you all the various options. We do need ongoing financial
support, so if you can possibly join us as a member or make a
donation, that would be fantastic.
Thank you to everybody that has and does.
But if you can't do that, please do share material you find on
the website or anywhere else related to UK column because
that is key for us to defeat the censorship regime.
Now it's 7:00 tonight. Jerem is speaking to Shannon Joy
on everything being a reality show.
I think the way things are going at the moment, it increasingly
looks like reality TV. It is nuts.
And then at 9:00 PM tonight is Karl Zaz speaking to Pepe
Escobar. Join him for that.
Then yesterday you were speaking to Shahz Khan at 1:00.
Absolutely. Well, she's written an excellent
book called The Ultimate Vaccine Timeline, and she has the
benefit of not being involved in any way in the medical
profession and therefore she looks at things very
objectively. Her father died, she believes,
as a result of a flu jab. And she's gone back into the
history of particularly the safety around vaccinations and
had a whole load of documents released that never been seen
before. So it's a fascinating interview
and I really would encourage you to have a listen.
Another quick reminder that 1:00 PM tomorrow, I'm speaking to
Ambassador Jose Bio Morji, Venezuelan Ambassador to Lebanon
and Syria. Join me at 1:00 for that.
And then a reminder that on Sunday evening, the latest 1000
Words podcast went out featuring James Delanpole.
Yeah, it did indeed. So that's the first first part,
and then the second part will be going out for members this
Sunday at 7:00 PM. So getting into Delano's sort of
transition from a Telegraph journalist into where he's got
to now in terms of his journey down various, it holds.
And finally, Charles a digital another digital idea event.
Yes indeed, this one up in Edinburgh and this is this
Saturday at the Mound just off Prince's Street, so if you are
able to get along up there then please do so.
Fantastic. Now let's move on to assisted
dying Charles. Yeah, indeed, now it's going
back a little bit. The second reading in the House
of Lords on assisted dying was on the 12th of September 2025
and there were many speaking in opposition for a whole host of
reasons. I think a notable comment to
pull out comes from Theresa May, Baroness May, now the former
Prime Minister, say, who said I do not believe that the
safeguards in the bill will prevent people being pressurised
to end their lives, sometimes for the benefit of others.
They worry that, as we have seen in countries where there is such
law, people will feel that they must end their lives simply
because they feel that they are a burden on others.
Now I bring this up because Will Coleshill has a report that he's
put out from the Battle of Ideas, which he attended
recently, and he caught up with Lord Moylan.
I'm Daniel Moylan. I was speaking this morning at
an event and I've got another one to speak out this afternoon
and I've been coming to the battle of ideas as a speaker for
a number of years now and I think it's a great event.
And what about the battle of ideas makes it special?
Well, the fact that it's so many of the events there are people
with an alternative take on on a different perspective on public
events, but also the fact that the audience is normally very
lively and intellectually critical.
May I enquire as to the topics on which you've been speaking?
The one this morning was about the process by which Parliament
has been making law on the assisted suicide legislation and
the one this afternoon, which I'm doing, it's slightly short
notice without very much preparation, is about the steel
industry and the railway industry and what the future is
for them. Do you want to talk a little bit
more about the assisted dying and then maybe the steel
industry? Yeah, well, I'm opposed to this.
It's a dying bill. But the question this morning
really was whether the legislative process we've got is
fit for purpose. And I do agree with people that
I think that the the way the the Commons has gone about this bill
has sort of tested the system very hard at the boundaries.
And this is partly because the government isn't honest or
Claire Starmer isn't honest about the fact that it's really
his bill. And these are a lot of glove
puppets really, that he's trying to move around without accepting
the responsibility for the bill. Don't say it's a government bill
because a lot of people in the government don't want it.
Or if they even if they do want it, they don't think it's a
priority, which should be distracting the government from
its core business, which is what it increasingly is doing, I
think. But Starmer does want it and
he's making that commitment. And, and the way in which the
parliamentary system has been used is really stretching it to
its limits. Comes to the Lords now and we'll
see you know how much scrutiny it can get there.
What is the mood like in the Lords around the assisted dying?
Do you think it could be rejected in the Lords?
I think there's a very, there's a huge amount of deep concern in
the Lords, even amongst people who support the bill or are
sympathetic to the principle about how badly drafted it is,
how many holes it has. It's a sort of skeleton
legislation with all the important stuff to be filled in
later, which people don't like at all, especially on something
as sensitive as this and for the stuff that they're talking about
to be filled in by ministers without proper parliamentary
scrutiny. And that's, that's what the bill
contemplates. So yes, I do think there's a lot
of concern about it even amongst people who might be sympathetic
in principle. Very, very unusual for the House
of Lords to vote down a piece of legislation, vote it down a
piece of legislation that has passed the Commons.
But I think it's likely to be heavily amended in the Lords and
then it would be up to the Commons to see if they can agree
to the amendments or not. So you're talking about the
legislative process, No. Do you think that we've
abrogated too much power away from the Commons and away from
the Lords to the ministers themselves?
And essentially, it's ruled by executive Fiat.
Well, it's it's certainly true that there are powers now in
many bills that give the government the right even to
rewrite other acts of Parliament without coming back to
Parliament. This is what we mean when we
talk about Henry the Eighth clauses, Henry the Eighth
powers, and there are too many bills with Henry the Eighth
powers. And I think we are in danger of
going that way. But it's partly a function of
simply having too much legislation.
We, we pass too much legislation, we try to legislate
for too many things. And I think and governments
trying to do too many things. And I think we would really
think about the scope of government and what it should be
doing because the state is the apparatus of the state is
falling over under the pressure of all the things it's being
asked to do. So is it time for a great repeal
bill? Well, we've tried something like
that before, but yes, there's an awful lot of legislation that's
specifically about the legislation passed by the Blair
government which totally distorted and changed our
constitution. They talked it, they called it
modernising it wasn't it? It's made large parts of it
democratically unworkable. And I think a lot of that does
have to go, yes. So you're looking forward to a
big change in 2029? I certainly think there will not
be a Labour government in 2029 and I rather welcome that.
Yes. Well, thank you.
Very much. Thank you very much.
Very nice and pleasure. Thank.
You. Dangers of modernising Thanks to
Will Colthill there no to Theresa May to go back.
She also suggested that it could be used as a cover up for
mistakes made in hospital or for hospital acquired infections.
And she said cited a friend of hers who calls it the licence to
kill Bill, say as Lord Moylan says there, she says it's not an
assisted dying bill but an assisted suicide bill and will
follow the next stage which will be the committee stage starting
on 14th of November. Thank you, Charles.
Now we talked mentioned earlier on in the programme the group
that is currently occupying Syria and of course many people
will know it by the name of HTS. It has been a prescribed
organisation for obvious reasons.
Is it still? It is not, no.
And Vanessa did actually mention this in Extra last week.
It was, It was sort of unfolding at the time.
And sure enough, the government has now announced its intent to
D prescribe HTS and so we'll just show you the notice from
the Home Office and the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office.
And here it is in English, which says UK removes Hayat tarea al
Sham from terrorist organisation list.
Now in this extraordinary news story they have said that the
government or for the government it will mean closer engagement
with the new Syrian government and support UK foreign and
domestic priorities from counterterrorism to migration
and chemical weapons destruction.
Now one might think that it would be cause for concern that
a terrorist organisation needs to be de prescribed in order for
any of those things to actually happen.
The statement, it also goes on to say something which I'd like
to hear Vanessa's comment on and it is this which is Daesh
remains a significant threat in Syria.
The D prescription of HTS will support this government's
engagement on the counter Daesh mission in Syria, in turn
reducing the threat to UK. Vanessa, how does that work?
And it doesn't work because HDS, which of course is simply a
rebranding of al Qaeda or or Jabat al Nusra, which was
founded by Jolani, now President Ahmad al Sharad in Syria.
But the HDS military are actually effectively reliant
upon ISIS to support them in their ethnic cleansing massacres
of Syrian minorities. So I'm really not quite sure how
that works at all. I think we we conclude that it
absolutely doesn't work much like most of the language that's
contained not just within that statement, but also that the
statement came from Dan Jarvis, the security minister in the
House of Commons on the 2020 second of October, which is
really a master class of euphemism.
He said after capital consideration and following
extensive consultation across government and with operational
partners, he says this decision reflects our unwavering support
for British interests and commitment to the security of
the United Kingdom. Now, as it happens, the Home
Office list of prescribed groups has not been updated.
And so this is what it's said since 2017 just to you in the
picture. So it comes under the AL Qaeda
banner and specifically it refers to Hayat Talia Al Sham
should should be treated as alternative names.
Obviously they've listed a few others should be treated as
alternative names for the organisation, which is already
prescribed under the name al Qaeda.
Now, of course, this links back to what we've just heard in the
news about Venezuela and and all the rest of it and indeed
relates to Hamas. I mean, there's so many things
that are tied into this. And of course, with that in
mind, it is absolutely relevant that this was the exact same
process was gone through in the United States back in July of
this year. We'll just have a look at that
on screen. So this happened in July in the
States. I'd just like to draw your
attention to the banner running across the top of the page which
says federal government shutdown.
Due to the Democrat LED shutdown, website updates will
be limited until full operations resume.
So blaming it on the Democrats, I mean, is this really how the
leaders of the free world are supposed to conduct themselves,
one might ask? Prior to this, even back in
December 2024, Middle East, I illustrated how the process is
very, very obviously simply geopolitical and has absolutely
nothing to do with the spectre or otherwise of terrorism.
And they also make a very good point about the process of the
prescription. Now this is government governed
by the Statutory Instrument number 2299 from 2006 attached
to the Terrorism Act 2000, which states an application under
Section 4 of the ACT must be made in writing and must state
the name of the organisation to which the application relates,
whether the application is being made by the organisation or by a
person affected by the organisation prescription and
the grounds on which the application is made.
Now in neither Dan Jarvis's statement in the House of
Commons or the news story, as I've articulated, is there any
reference to how this has actually come about.
So I I called the Home Office to ask who had put the application
into the Home Secretary and how was this process followed?
Of course the media office had absolutely no idea what I was
talking about but did say they would respond to my email to ask
the question so that they could formally look into it and get
back to me. There has been no response.
I called again immediately before the news programme and
asked that the press release would be sent to me immediately.
That did not come either. So it looks at the moment very
much like government to have written absolutely roughshod
over the due process. And just before asking Mike and
Vanessa for comment on this and with the appeal for the
deprescription of Palestine action in mind, I refer to one
of only four examples of the prescription happening.
And we look at a Guardian article from 2017 making the
connection between the supposed bomber, Salman Abadi of the
Manchester Arena incident and the Libyan Islamic Fighting
Group. Now the Guardian article there
says the 22 year old was influenced in part by the people
who formed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a little known
al Qaeda affiliate outlawed in 2004.
So al Qaeda again, but lo and behold, the same government
which described the events in Manchester as being among the
worst terrorist incidents we have ever experienced, de
prescribed the LIFG just two years later.
So there's an awful lot here that that needs to be made sense
of. But I think, as Vanessa
suggested for earlier, that that's quite because I'm
challenged to make any sense of it.
What are we to think about this? Well, I mean, the question is,
one question I would ask is why was Al Qaeda ever really
prescribed in the 1st place? Because, you know, this was an
organisation which Britain, the United States created in the 1st
place. It has served our purposes for
foreign policy ever since. We've been funding it, we've
been arming it. And so it, it seemed that like
the prescription of that organisation was virtue
signalling or it was an attempt on a domestic platform to
present a different situation that was happening
internationally. And of course they were able to
use the excuse that al Qaeda had carried out 9/11 and atrocities
in the UK and so on to justify certain things going on here.
So, but you know, the, the thing that really I think is striking
about this is that we here, we have HTS, which let's be
accurate about this, are head choppers.
They've been cutting off the heads of people that have been
assassinating people, murdering people.
These are people that have actually taken people's lives.
On the other hand, we have Palestine action.
And no matter what you think about Palestine action and what
they've been doing, they have not actually committed any crime
against a physical body. They've committed criminal
damage at worst in certain circumstances, and how these two
things are considered parity, I have no idea.
Yeah, Vanessa, specifically on that, on that conflict there
between what Palestine action have done in the form of
criminal damage and what HTS have been doing.
Well, in fact, I think the first case for the film 24, the first
three that were actually put before a judge, their sentence
was reduced from criminal damage to to I think just, I can't
remember what it was reduced to. And yet this group is prescribed
terrorists. But I also want to make the
point that Hamas and Hezbollah are prescribed terrorist groups
in the UK. They are not a threat to UK
national security. They're a threat to Israeli
national security. You've now de prescribed Al
Qaeda effectively HTS that is conducting genocidal ethnic
cleansing in Syria of minorities, including
Christians, that is backed by Israel and has a very high
probability of being a threat to the UK population when
particularly British jihadists belonging to Al Qaeda returned
to the UK. So yet again, Israeli national
security is being prioritised over British national security.
Let's come back to you and what's the latest in Lebanon?
Well, I mean, in Lebanon, we're seeing a ramping up of Trump's
administration bully boy tactics.
I don't know any other way to describe how Trump enacts his
foreign policy globally recently.
Well, in fact, yesterday and today, yesterday it was one of
the US envoys arrived in Lebanon.
And today Tom Barrack, Trump's economic hitman, as I describe
him, is going to be in Lebanon and he basically put out a
statement, I think it was yesterday, US envoy warns
Lebanon that they have one last chance to disarm Hezbollah and
of course the Lebanese resistance, which doesn't only
consist of Hezbollah. His full statement.
So basically he said, I will inform the president, the Prime
Minister and the speaker of parliament that they have one
last chance. He then went on in his
basically, what is a a threat to the Lebanese people.
Either they learn their lesson and decide to enter into direct
negotiations with Israel under US auspices to establish a
timetable and mechanism for disarming Hezbollah, or Lebanon
will be left to its fate and will remain so for a long time
with no one to care about it, neither in America nor in the
region. And no one will be able to
pressure Israel to prevent it from doing whatever it deems
appropriate to undertake disarmament by force.
This is quite an extraordinary statement.
He's not mentioned the fact that Israel is still occupying
Lebanese territory and is increasing its occupation of
Lebanese territory. Today an attack by the Israeli
forces inside Lebanon was carried out on a on a Lebanese
army vehicle. Not not a Hezbollah resistance
vehicle, but actually the official Lebanese army bombing
and and suicide drone attacks have, sorry, drone attacks have
been increasing in the last week and none of this is mentioned by
Barrick. In fact, what he actually does
is abrogate responsibility for Israel's action and basically
withdraws the US from the negotiations and Saudi Arabia
from the financing of the essential reconstruction of
civilian infrastructure destroyed by Israel in the last
war, and basically leaves the field open for Israel to do
whatever it wants. So in other words, just as the
British withdrew actually from the the occupied territories of
Palestine and left it to Israel to ethnically cleanse
Palestinians in 1948 with the UN support, right now the US is
doing exactly the same thing and saying to Israel, go ahead,
disarm Hezbollah and bomb the South.
And in fact, that is very much what has been happening.
This is just a very short video from an area known as Balbek
where you have some of the most historic heritage Roman ruins in
the region. And just to show on the map
itself where that is, because it's not in the South, it's
actually very much in the eastern sector on the border
with Syria. Sorry, the cats getting in on
the ACT. And so basically Israel is
increasing the field of its attacks in Lebanon, just as, of
course Barrack has given them green light to do so.
In the last few days there has been a strike on a number of
cars travelling in the South and these strikes are on a daily, if
not two or three times daily basis.
In the image, you can see basically what happens when
these drone strikes occur. They they just basically take
out the car, anyone close to the car, anyone travelling next to
the car and all the people in the car of course simply
obliterated. And on the left is a young man
who was killed in this way in the last couple of days, Issa
Karbala, who was basically assassinated by an Israeli
drone, of course violating the ceasefire, which has been
violated around now I think 6000 times by its by Israel.
And I think a very important factor in this and something
that I was reflecting on, having had a discussion with journalist
Madwa Osman, who of course is Lebanese, last night, over how
these policies are really affecting the human beings in
this region. And it's very difficult to
convey the psychological warfare that is being waged against
these people on an almost daily basis.
This is something that she posted this morning following
our long and detailed conversation last night.
And, and the whole post is in the show notes, but she
basically says there are days when grief feels heavier than
the sky, when silence echoes louder than any bomb and you
start to wonder if the heart can actually break twice in the same
place. People here are absolutely torn
apart by what is happening. Everyone has lost people, family
members, friends, relatives in this war.
And very much they they are, they are being ignored very much
by Western media, by Western regimes that are complicit in
the ongoing aggression by Israel against this region.
But one point that she made at the end, and I think this is
where you get the connection across all borders from the West
to the East to West Asia, that we're all fighting the same
enemy. So she says if you still ache at
injustice, if you still feel love burning under the ashes
when you're not defeated, you are alive.
And that in itself is resistance.
And I think it's a powerful message that even those that are
suffering really the most in in West Asia, from Yemen to to
Gaza, are still able to understand the concept of
resistance. And I think in the West we have
a lot to learn from this, that all the sacrifices that have to
be made to actually defeat the enemy ultimately are worth it
when you can feel that you have upheld your human values and
what it means to be human today. And that, of course, is what is
being attempted to be eroded by those that are enabling what is
happening in this region. Yeah.
And I suppose the other thing that we could say about that,
Vanessa, is if we're looking for inspiration for resistance, it's
the, the longevity and the, the, the, the determination over an
extended period of time to resist.
It's not something that is that they can solve in six months or
a year. It's something that takes years.
And and they're not, they're not running away from the fight.
No, and it doesn't mean that there aren't moments of of
defeatism or or a drop in morale or or even depression,
psychological trauma that exists.
But ultimately, at the core is this refusal to be dehumanised,
to be othered, to be wiped out or exterminated.
Yeah. All right, so I think it's a
very, very good point and and it should be considered in the face
of all of the various things that we talk about.
I mean, even though there is obviously a scale of how much
sort of trauma people are actually subjected to, but but,
but absolutely Vanessa, I think humanity is the main thing to
consider at all times. And in a way that sort of leads
into the final piece for the programme today, which is that
one might think that being autumn, it's the time of year
that you should be absolutely terrified of bird flu.
But thanks to the Purbright Institute, we can give at least
a little bit of our fear to mosquitoes.
Purbright Institute, which of course is largely funded by Bill
Gates and more or less has a direct connection with the
Animal and Plant Health Agency and therefore Defra.
But the Purbright researchers have said that they've helped to
uncover the origins of the London Underground mosquito.
Quite why this has assumed such significance at the moment, I
will leave for you to decide. But you might make your mind up
and I show you the next piece of information.
But basically there had been the supposition that a mosquito had
evolved in underground chambers and in the tunnels of the London
Underground over the last 200 years.
And apparently, per Bright scientists, presumably great
expense, have decided that in actual fact, it's come from
somewhere else. So now we know.
And the next thing is that this is coincident.
This month, surprise, surprise, with a grant of nearly $17
million from the Gates Foundation to Oxitec, who are
going to conduct field trials to measure the impact of a
biocontrol approach on mosquito populations and malaria
transmission. Now, this is specific to America
and Africa, but of course, talk about mosquitoes in the United
Kingdom means that we get to consider malaria and chikungunya
and always sorts of things that frankly, if you really haven't
the time to think about bird flu can occupy that space for you.
So this is where it looks like it's going with the the fear
narrative, and we will of course keep an eye on it.
But I think to Vanessa's point about humanity, all of this does
in fact come down to that. And the relationship between so
called sort of zoonotic diseases and public scaremongering is
something that should be taken very seriously.
And we've seen how it's been inflicted upon the human
population in the last five years.
And now, of course, the great push to make the natural world
seem frightening and something that we should be wary of.
So I think that's something very much that we should in mind as
we finished the programme and I'm sure we'll talk about it
more in extra. We, we will indeed.
So we will be back in a few minutes for UK column news Extra
if you're a UK column member. If you're not a member, maybe
you'd consider joining and then you could join us for that.
And for every UK called News Extra that's coming up in the
not too distant future. Don't forget Jerem and Carl
tonight and the interview with Jose and myself tomorrow.
Join us for that as well. But we'll see you on Friday at
1:00 PM as usual. See you then.
Bye, bye, bye.