Good afternoon. It's Friday the 14th of November
2025, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your host Mike Robinson, my Co host in studio today, Patrick
Hennigson. Welcome to the program, Patrick.
It's great to be with you, Mike. And we're joined today by Mark
Anderson. Now, later in the program, we're
going to be covering tensions in the Baltic, the Arctic and
Ukraine. More on Trump and the BBC and
Trump and Epstein and what looks like preparations for for
banning VPN use in the United Kingdom and also smart cities.
But we're going to begin today, Patrick, with MP Rupert Lowe's
comments on Gaza. Well, it's much more than that,
in fact, but that's the jumping off point.
But here is the topic at hand and this is really focusing on I
think, Britain's role in the war on Gaza.
And so we'll get into this. And this was a comment which was
posted on X by the British politician Rupert Lowe.
We'll bring this up on screen here.
This is what he had to say. And this is interesting where
this story goes. He is saying Rupert Lowe, MPI
want to know how many Gazans? He doesn't say Palestinians
here. He says Gazan.
Gazan migrants are being treated on the NHS and at what cost?
How many British people have been pushed aside?
What number of Gazans dependents have come to, In other words,
family members that have come with children to be treated as
will show how many have already claimed asylum.
Not a single Gazan migrant should be allowed on British
soil. I mean, it's quite a statement,
isn't it, Mike? Not.
Palestinian. Palestinian even it's, it's from
a British politician, so a lot of aggression here.
And where's the where's the empathy with the injured?
Well, we'll, we'll get to that in a moment.
So we, we did a little digging on this and this is the
government's official position on this here and we'll bring
this up on screen. This is from uk.gov, the
government website. First group of Gazan children
arrive for specialist NHS treatment.
Now this is from September, so it's very recent, by the way,
many children have come already and have been treated privately
and that's been organized through a charity that deals
with this sort of thing. But we'll bring this up back up
on screen and this is what they say.
The healthcare situation in Gaza remains incredibly difficult
with many unable to access even basic levels of care and
increase difficulties of those who require specialist treatment
and support. And so this this brings us to,
you know, the, the policy here, where did this come from?
Where did this government directive come from?
Bring the sick and injured home. And this basically is the result
of a cross party effort here, cross party group of 96 MPs and
senior ministers who wrote to the government urging it to
bring sick and injured children from Gaza to the UK, quote,
without delay for treatment, children at the risk of imminent
death. Any barriers to their evacuation
should be lifted. OK, very specific.
It's a cross party effort on this.
So let's look at what the Labor ministers are saying on this
issue here will bring on screen. This is Wes Streeting, the Labor
Health and social care secretary, and this is what he
has to say on the issue. No one can fail to be distressed
by the devastating impact of war is as it's had on the children
of Gaza and I cannot imagine the fear and anguish their families
have endured. It is soul destroying situation
that compels us to act. And he continues saying this
reflects the very best of our NHS values, compassion, care and
expertise when it matters most. I mean most British people I
think generally Mike would agree with that statement.
That is it comports with British values one would think,
traditionally anyway. So that's what Streeting says.
And here is Yvette Cooper. She is the foreign secretary,
and she says we continue to call for the protection of medical
infrastructure and healthcare workers in Gaza for a huge
increase in medicines and supplies to be allowed in.
So, I mean, I would agree with that.
But is that what the British government are actually doing?
That's another question. But anyway, the government is
grateful to all its partners who have assisted this operation,
including the World Health Organization for the support
with the evacuation process and the government of Jordan, the
Royal Jordanian Hospital organizations as well for
facilitating the safe transit and of UK emergency medical team
and NHS clinical team for their dedication in providing life
saving medical care for these young patients.
So, and obviously the World Health Organization's name pops
up there. So I'm some of our viewers are
saying, Oh my God, it's, it's The Who, It's, it's Bill Gates
or whatever. The World Health Organization is
the intermediary that deals with the visas, the logistics and the
transport. And so before you pass judgment,
I would say if this was your children that was trapped in
Gaza and needed to get life saving care in the UK and the
and the World Health Organization was providing the
intermediary assistance. Would you say no on the basis of
you don't like Bill Gates? I'm just throwing that out to
the chat box trying to preempt some of the lewd comments that
are likely to arrive to land in our chat box as a result.
But so I agree with all these, Mike, I agree with W Streeting
and Yvette Cooper in principle. What they're saying is correct.
But is that the British government's actual position?
These are good words and we can agree with them, but is what is
the British government actually doing?
The hospitals have been bombed, you know, a 40 something
hospitals and healthcare facilities have been destroyed.
Doctors have been murdered and tortured.
OK, British volunteers are also included in that, and healthcare
and people. Aid Aid workers killed by the
IDF. British aid workers killed by
the IDF. So what's the British role in
all of this? Are are they somehow involved in
the actual? Providing of weapons, for
example. Providing of weapons,
intelligence assistance. Well, let's look at this here.
And this is the problem, Mike. And this is from Declassified UK
This week, British military made at least 49 trips to Israel
during the Gaza war, which is ongoing.
OK, let's look at who made those visits.
A number of visits. This is what they've uncovered,
4 times higher than what was previously disclosed.
They only disclosed 12 visits by senior officials, including
Admiral Sir Tony Radikin, General Sir James Hulkenhall and
Air Chief Marshall Sir Richard Knighton.
OK, those officials have gone back and forth to Israel along
with others, and we can't leave out, of course, this man, Labor
Defense Secretary John Healey, also traveled to Israel during
the war, meeting his counterpart, yo of gallant
months before he was indicted by the International Criminal Court
for alleged war crimes. OK, so John Healey, what?
So what? What were the British rank and
file Mike doing in Israel? But I guess what it's like this
colonial inspection of the genocide.
Let's see how they're doing the Israelis.
Let's look at the Intel. Let's watch the footage of the
buildings being destroyed and so forth.
But it doesn't end there. We'll bring this up on screen as
well. And this is Matt Kennard, who's
been tracking this for quite a while.
UK participation in the Gaza genocide is not slowing down.
This is from December 2024. He's continued to report on
these flights from RAF Equatori, the space in Cyprus.
OK. And he's showing British spy
planes here returning to Cyprus and back and forth.
In other words, they claim the British government, that they're
providing intelligence about finding hostages in Gaza.
But if you consider the fact that Israel's killed many of its
own hostages, that's really providing Intel about targeting
Palestinians, including 200 plus journalists who've been targeted
and killed. Is that the sort of data that
Israel's processing from the Israeli surveillance or sorry,
the British surveillance flights from the RAF that are taking off
from RAF Equatori? I mean, these are fair
questions. So this is what the British
government is doing. On one side is assisting Israel
in destroying Gaza, and on the other side ministers are saying
we need to, we need to Save the Children.
Now we're all for saving the children, but wouldn't it be
simpler, Mike, just to? Stop the war.
Just to stop enabling and facilitating Israel's slaughter
against the native Palestinian population in Gaza.
I, I, I don't know. It's, it's to me, it's not a
difficult one. But let's see what the, what
now? What does the Prime Minister
have to say about all this? Well, let's bring this up on
screen. The Prime Minister has to say
this. Israel has a right to defend
itself. That is the party line.
And no matter what's going on in Gaza, Kier Starmer maintains
that stern line. Israel has a right to defend
itself, even it means the total desolation.
Look, look at the background images here.
Just sit. Everything's just been desolate.
No one's seen annihilation like this in modern times.
And that's Kier Starmer's position.
Israel has a right to defend itself.
So you know that I'm just making the argument, Mike, that I
support the rhetoric of the ministers on this issue, but I
do not see it being backed up by actual policy.
And in terms of dealing with the cause of the problem, that's
where the disconnect is. Yes, indeed.
Well, this is an ongoing issue. People are dying.
Rupert Lowe, by the way, was asking Prime Minister's
Questions on on Wednesday. Should the death penalty be
brought back for all the domestic and immigrant criminals
that are causing, you know, severe problems in the UK?
He did that more or less on the day that, or at least in
parallel with the same kind of an effort in Israel to bring the
death penalty back there. I just find that quite
interesting. Clearly from the language that
he's using, calling them Gazans and not Palestinians, we sort of
see what side of this argument he's on.
Well, the press. He died.
If the press or politicians use the word Gazans, OK, this is a
way of delegitimizing and dehumanizing Palestinians.
Definitely a way of delegitimizing their identity
for the Palestinian nation, which has been recognized by
almost every country in the world bar a few.
I do. Even Britain has recognized
officially a Palestinian state. So where is Rupert Lowe coming
from on this? It just seems a bit mendacious
and a bit too pro, I think pro Zionist or pro Israeli in the
absolute extreme. And it this is extremism we're
talking about, make no mistake about it.
OK, well, NATO in the meantime has announced that the United
States Air Force B52 Strata Fortress bombers from Berksdale
Air Force Base, Louisiana have arrived in Moron Air Force Base
in Spain. That happened on the 8th of
November this year. This is to begin multilateral
training under Bomber Task Force Europe.
And the quote is that the deployment strengthens
coordination, cohesion with Allied and partner air forces
including Finland, Lithuania and Sweden.
And they say that operating from Moron, the aircraft will fly
training missions across Europe, supporting deterrence and
defence operations along NATO's eastern flank.
And the High N missions in northern regions are starting to
integrate under NATO's new Combined Air Operations centre
in which is based in Norway, which was inaugurated in October
2025. The new command node enhances,
they say, NATO's ability to oversee and coordinate air
operations across the Nordic and Arctic regions, complementing
existing places in Germany and in Spain.
So what's this all about? Well, the Arctic is certainly
part of it and particularly following the much non reported
inaugural voyage of a container ship along the Arctic Silk Road
which arrived in Felixstowe in the UK on the 14th of October.
So clearly you know that is an ongoing pressure point as far as
NATO is concerned. But it's also about the Baltic
and Russian shipping. We had the annual Operation
Boltops Boltops exercises a few months ago, and this week it was
the turn of NATO's Playbook Merlin 2025, hosted by Sweden
and led by NATO's Allied Maritime Command.
Now Playback Play Playbook Merlin 25 brings together what
they described as cutting edge tactics, technology and
teamwork. This is really exciting
language, isn't it? Teamwork, like maybe team up to
blow up pipelines or something like that.
We may be coming on to that in a second.
But anyway, the this was an anti submarine warfare exercise in
the Baltic Sea and it included Germany, Sweden, United States,
France, the Netherlands and at least one B52, which is as we've
just mentioned, is now based in Spain, flew a mission into the
Baltic region alongside Playbook Merlin.
At one point that B52 was over Estonia, having flown over
southern Sweden and Finland, practicing simulated bombing
runs with Swedish and Finnish fighter jets is reported to have
flown within 50 miles of the Russian border.
And you know it's. It's a pretty clear provocation.
What, what are they hoping to achieve by that?
I mean, besides the flex operationally, do they really
think it's a viable actual operation?
They're just, I mean. Poking the bears all their
attention. That's all.
Yeah, it's just a provocation. Now Military Watch online
magazine reported on the 10th of November that Britain's armed
forces are in Estonia practicing military exercises to capture
and board Russian ships, as well as to prepare amphibious
landings and Russian coastal facilities should quote hostiles
for sorry hostilities further escalate, they say.
The British Armed Forces have deployed Royal Marine Special
Forces from the 42 and 47 Commando units as part of a
Special Operations Maritime task group to simulate covert
boarding operations against enemy ships, coastal raids and
the seizure of oil rigs. Exercises are taking place in
the eastern Baltic Sea, close to the Ukrainian Theatre, where
Royal Marines have also been involved in open hostilities
with Russian forces. They say exercises saw the
Marines rehearse rapid interdiction and coastal raiding
in coordination with the British Army's 3rd Ranger Battalion, and
under which they deployed to capture ships and oil
installations and so on. So I mean, this is also
absolutely nuts. Was about interdicting.
It's what Starmer said. And we need to stop Russia's
shadow fleet. We can't allow Russia to, you
know, transport energy or do trade in the Baltic.
I mean, this is the prelude to absolute war.
The wars have been started over this very behavior, over these
very policies. They're really playing with fire
here. And I wonder what is the end
game other than World War three? I mean, because that's where
this type of thing leads. And is this what the British
government want? Is this what NATO wants?
Is that what Brussels wants? Is that what Finland?
Wants. It's how it looks.
It's absolutely how it looks. It's crazy that the frontline
countries like Sweden and Finland knew NATO members that
were basically coerced into NATO under a whole lot of hype and
hysteria in in April and May of 2022.
And these were previously neutral countries and now
they're the West, of course, are using Sweden and Finland as a
cudgel against Russia in the same way they've been using
Ukraine against Russia as well. So I, I, people in the, in the
Nordic countries, I just, I can't believe how absolutely
insane and stupid their governments and their society
are to have gone along with this and not realizing the
implications of it. The fact that they were safe
before and now they are now at risk.
I find that to be breathtaking. But let's come on to Nord Stream
then. Well, but the background of
this, of course, is Nordstrom. They're talking about submarine
drills in in the Baltic. I wonder if they'll interdict
NATO submarines that are involved in sabotage of major
European energy infrastructure projects.
Who knows, but in the background is the Nordstrom.
I'm sorry, we'll go back to the previous slide.
We'll bring this up on screen right now.
And so the Italian court, it's starting to get a little bit
interesting. But this is part of the red
herring operation. The Italian court approves the
extradition of Nordstrom suspect to Germany.
They're talking about one of these crack Ukrainian super
soldiers that allegedly used this sailboat.
Don't laugh everybody. It's not us, it's the Wall
Street Journal. They use this 50 foot sailboat
to supposedly hit 3 pipelines that are, you know, in the
bottom of the Baltic, impossible to locate.
And with the amount of equipment and so forth, they did.
They did it all out of a 50 foot pleasure craft.
OK, believe it or not, so that they're still using, but they're
using this Ukrainian Nordstrom story, Mike, to basically divert
attention away from the Western countries and NATO.
And what more likely is that these pipelines were prepped
during ball tops, 22 in June and July of 2022 and detonated in
September 2022 with the other NATO drill that was going on at
that time. So the Ukrainian red herring
story is just a convenient distraction.
And so this is going on. It's also being used to create
tension between Poland and Germany.
And the United States is quietly pushing that, as are the
British. So, and the reason they're doing
that is they're trying to maneuver Poland and Germany
strategically in order to do certain things vis A vis Ukraine
and also manipulate the politics in Poland.
It's very clear that's what's going on, including the claims
of reparations. Polar is asking for reparations
now for World War 2, imagine from Germany after 80 years and
the United States is egging them on.
At the same time, they're also claiming to, you know, want to
support Germany as well, but they're trying to the, the, the
US want to move a lot of their assets from Germany into Poland.
In terms of moving the Iron Curtain, the new Iron Curtain,
further eastward, That's the bigger picture.
And the other thing that's going on between Germany and the
Poland and Poland at the moment, which isn't getting very much
coverage over here is that Poland is accusing Germany of
dumping migrants that are in Germany across the border into
Poland. And so this is another sort of
tension inflection point. So it's it's the relationship
between those two countries is quite shaky it seems.
Yeah. And the migrant issue of course,
again being used as a little bit of a tool as it was between
Poland and Belarus, which I I might report more on as I learn
more about that story recently by doing on the ground
investigation. Right.
OK, Well, well, if we think that what we've heard so far in this
segment is insane, let's have a look at this because this is
task, the Russian media outlet and they're reporting that the
Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, has issued a
statement claiming that Ukraine has been planning the false flag
of all false flags. According to the statement
quotes, the Federal Security Service has uncovered and
thwarted in operation by the Ukrainian Defence Ministry's
Main Intelligence Directorate. And it's UK supervisors to
hijack a Russian Big 31 supersonic fighter jet, which is
equipped with a hypersonic missile and flight abroad.
In order to hijack the aircraft of Ukrainian military,
intelligence officers tried to recruit Russian pilots, offering
$3,000,000. The special services then plan
to send the jet with the missile to an area where NATO's largest
air base in the Southeastern Europe is located in the
Romanian city of Constanta, where it could be shot down by
air defences. And they're saying that the the
measures taken have thwarted the plans of the Ukrainian and UK
intelligence services to carry out a large scale provocation.
So that that is quite a staggering claim by the by the
Russian FSB here. But let's see what Sergei Lavrov
had to say about it if we bring him on screen, he said.
London's Honshon for provoking situations is, of course,
notorious. Take the recent recent case
where Russia's Russian FSB exposed the plot to trick a
Russian pilot flying a fighter jet armed with the Kaizal
missile into flying into flying to a base in Constanta, Romania,
with a fake order. The obvious intent was for the
plane to be shot down, creating the pretext to accuse Russia of
attacking NATO. But I'll set that aside for now.
The FSB has already laid out the details.
I don't know how the British will wash away the stain, but
they've always had a remarkable talent for this, like a duck
that waddles away from a shower without a drop of water on its
back. He, he is, he is, he is good
crack in some ways, Patrick. Now, of course, the way that the
British are going to wash away the stains.
So they claim that this is just merely Russian disinformation
and that there's nothing to see here.
What are your thoughts? Well.
First of all, if this false flag was allowed to happen, just
imagine, OK, just imagine it went through and the NATO then
shot down this false flag Mig jet and what, how would the
Western press react? I mean, let's in reality, what
would Russia gain from sending an old Megan with a Kinshaw
missile to hit, to fire a single to fire in a NATO base when
obviously that's going to open up a whole sort of Pandora's box
in, in terms of Article 5 madness.
And you know what the Western reaction is?
I know the propaganda line so well.
They'll say Putin is emboldened because we have not been tough
enough against the Russians and he's so emboldened and now he's
really shoving it in our face. He's really taking the piss by
sending an old Mig to to send a Kinshaw missile.
You think we're joking? That's exactly the media line
and that's exactly what our ministers would stand up in
government and say. They'd say it's because we're
not. We haven't been tough enough on
these Russians and now they're emboldened.
They're sending, you know, dilapidated air aircraft in to
hit to hit our biggest NATO bases.
I mean, this is just insane. But yet I I believe this is
these types of plots are being hatched, hatched and you know
there's more of them. OK.
Well, let's then move to the question of the Caribbean.
And the question is, well, first of all, the question is, where
is the USS Gerald R Ford? Because it may be there or maybe
actually in the Atlantic somewhere.
It's not really clear. But the other question is why
has Britain stopped sharing some intelligence with the United
States on drug trafficking activities in the region?
Now the New York Times here is saying it's because Britain
doesn't want to be complicit in U.S. military strikes on the
drug boats because Britain believes the attacks are
illegal. I'm just going to say, like
Britain worried about that at any time in the past, they
haven't worried too much about getting involved in illegal
operations with the United States before, have they?
And we're sure there's no British assets on the ground in
Central America running around the jungles posing as a Nature
Photographers and things like that.
I'm sure that's not happening. I'm sure it's not happening at
all. But look, none of this is
stopping Secretary of War Pete Exith, who's announced Southern
Spear. And I wonder, will Gerald Ford
be part of this? It's clear that it's clear, at
least to me, that the US is wrapping things up here on a
Wednesday. Then speaking in Indiana, Hexif
had this to say. So let's have a look at this
video clip. We are deterring China's
influence around the world, not to mention the Panama Canal.
Where we are. Freeing that canal from malign
Chinese influence. Ensuring that American ships can
sail freely. So we're opening up on all
fronts, it seems, but. What was the Panama do you say
Panama. Panama Canal so.
I didn't realize China took over the Panama Canal.
Is this? No, this is Trump's allegation
going back this. Is new news.
This is breaking. But but look, well, if you
remember Patrick, back in April, Hexes announced deeper security
cooperation with Panama because of this, including joint
training, more frequent US, Panama military exercises and
even AUS an increased US presence.
So my question is, is, is this is the Venezuela thing a front
for actually, is Panama actually the target here at the end of
the day or it are they just taking advantage of of, you
know, all, you know, two birds, one stone sort of thing.
But certainly the the the military presence in the region
is being wrapped up. That said, there could be some
credence to Pete had sex allegations there because we
have detected a high sharp increase of China Chinese take
away restaurants in Panama City just in the last 24 months.
So there might be some legs to this.
But all jokes aside, Mike, you're absolutely correct.
Geopolitically, those are the big choke points.
It's not just the Panama Canal, but the other competing canals
through the the massive lake in Nicaragua.
But also they have other projects China is involved in
vis A vis southern Mexico that would bypass the Panama Canal by
a combination of ports and high speed rail and and with
industrial bases built around that.
So in other words, the Chinese and the Mexicans are way ahead
in terms of their own economic interests.
And the Panama Canal is 120 year old relic.
Relic. Yeah.
So I mean, America's not happy about it, but I'm sorry you guys
are. I don't know.
They've been messing around in the Middle East maybe for the
last 40 years. Maybe if you had focused on your
own hemisphere Washington, you wouldn't be having this
conversation now. Well, let's let's move on then
to Ukraine. And, well, it's not corrupt at
all. Well, this is well, this is
nothing new, but it's what's what's new about this is the
fact that this story is being put front and center in the
global media. Normally it'd be about
protecting the Zelensky regime here.
Ukraine corruption scandal, $100 million plot which is rocking
Zelensky. That's the correct spelling
there with two Y's. So this is through NABU, the
national Anti Corruption Bureau. This was set up by Victoria
Nuland and her gang in 2014. And why did the US set up an
anti corruption Bureau in Ukraine?
It wasn't to stop corruption. It was to stop any potential
whistleblowers and to protect the corruption that the US was
favoring. And if you think about what Joe
Biden got up to throughout his tenure as vice president, then
you you understand why Naboo was put into place.
So the fact that this is being the scandal is being highlighted
and put out by Naboo, which is a pretrial investigation unit,
tells me. And in fact, that it hits the
Zelensky's inner circle, which we'll show you in a minute, that
this is bad news for Zelensky, really bad news.
It means the US have taken the protection off of Zelensky.
Let's take a closer look at this scandal here.
And so who is Tamir Minditch? This is Zelensky's business
partner basically here. And how is he involved in this?
Yes, there are piles of cash and photos of these circulating
online. And this is the in and out of
this is reportedly has links to Israel.
This is from the Ukrainian press, by the way.
Mintage celebrated his birthday in Israel in September, returned
to Ukraine in mid-october and then went to Israel again.
According to Ukrainian sources. He's also a longtime friend of
Zelensky, not just a friend, co-owner of Cavartol 95.
That's Zelensky's media production outfit that was
bankrolled by Igor Kolomoisky, that created Servant of the
People. That was the sort of covert
influence operation to prepare the public for him running for
president. So that so this is a big
scandal. And so it looks like this is
Zelensky's inner circle being pinched here.
It's funny, Mike, how this tracks back to Israeli organized
crime. It's just unbelievable, but it
shouldn't really surprise anybody here.
So all this is happening at the same time Zelensky is begging
for, well, arms. 27 Patriot missile systems from the US.
But in the meantime, it's going to take years to fulfill those
orders. So Zelensky says he wants to
borrow the European allies systems.
So Ukraine's going to empty Europe of its air defenses.
It doesn't get any better than this, does it?
And so this is what he said to the Guardian recently here.
So from AUK perspective, you know, why would you be pouring
money into Ukraine? And Keir Starmer says we're
standing shoulder to shoulder with Zelensky.
We're going to keep, I think they just okayed another big
Christmas aid package for Ukraine here.
Let's look at the total spend, though, from the UK government
and we'll go to the House of Commons library here.
And we did the math or they did the math for us actually on this
and very close the relationship. I mean if if we did a slideshow
of how many photos we have of them hugging in different
locations. I counted at least 20 before the
program. The public photos.
Yes, indeed. 21.8 billion since February 2022.
Mike, think of how many track and trace apps the British
government could have made with that 21.8 billion.
I mean, so where is all that money going?
Think of all these corruption and graph scandals.
The thing about this latest one, it involves the protection of
Ukraine's energy infrastructure from Russian attacks.
So they're talking about protecting Ukraine's nuclear
facilities. Why would Russia ever attack a
Ukrainian nuclear facility? Of course it wouldn't.
But the electronic warfare systems and some of these
defense systems, all the stuff is going out the back door
kickbacks for government contracts, All of this stuff is
been going. This is just what's been caught,
OK? This has been happening
continuously for years. So if you're, if you're UK
government and other European countries, they're throwing
money away because very, I, I, I would say very little of this is
being used and actually on the ground for what's intended for
in terms of, in terms of aid here.
So, and, and the context of this is here and we'll look at this
UK pledges. Remember this story 100 year
pact, this was from last year or beginning of the year, January
2025. So this was this grand 100 year
commitment for Ukraine. This was the government's
pledge. So what I'm saying, Mike, here
is that this is not a good investment, Ukraine.
I mean, think of how how much austerity is going on right now
in the UK And since 2022, they've thrown away over $20
billion for what? Are they winning the war?
Are they doing better or is this a losing gambit?
Is this or are we, are we in the sunk cost fallacy type zone
here? It's incredible.
People need to ask these questions.
The numbers certainly aren't looking good.
So in the meanwhile in Europe, and this is the other thing,
this is not a popular war in Ukraine.
And, and this story is just so emblematic.
Moscow is mocking Zelensky after Berlin asks Kiev to keep its
fighting aged males. So basically Ukraine is having
problems with conscription. They're having problems getting
able bodied males to populate the frontline positions.
And Germany's saying that's enough with your, you know,
migrants and so forth. You can keep your fighting aged
males. We don't want them anymore.
I would think Germany might want them for for conscription
themselves because they'll have problems conscripting or getting
people to at least volunteer to join the German armed forces to
meet the levels that we talked about on Wednesday.
But just to show you how, again, to underline how unpopular and
how incredibly crazy the government in Kiev is in trying
to abduct people off the street to serve in Ukrainian armed
forces, there are literally thousands of these videos
circulating online the last couple of years.
This one is particularly harrowing of watch this.
This is in Ukraine. This is Zelensky's press gangs
trying to pick up people for the front lines.
Watch this. None.
I. And another one for the meat
grinder. I mean, remember Defense
Secretary John Healy, Britains effort to support Ukraine, much
must match the defiance of the Ukrainians, the defiance of the
Ukrainians. You just saw the defiance of the
Ukrainians. So they're abducting what was
the son, maybe the husband of that poor woman screaming
because the Ukrainians know it's a death sentence.
It's a very unpopular war. And yet our European governments
are saying, oh, this is a great noble effort.
It's not. And the president of Ukraine
doesn't want to have elections. He is a dictator.
Let that one sink in, yes? OK, let's move on then.
And well, as we can see from NBC News here, their headline is
Jeffrey Epstein wrote Trump knew about the girls and referenced
Mar a Lago in newly released emails.
Mark, let me welcome you to the program and just bring us up to
date with with what has happened yesterday in particular.
Yeah, I like to say this just in and that applies this time.
Good day, gentlemen, and UK viewers and members.
Over the last 48 hours, the US House Committee on Oversight has
been the main source of a tranche of correspondence
raising questions about Trump and Epstein's relationship.
This is according to the Democratic side, on the left
part of the slide, the Democratic members of that House
Oversight Committee and they're talking about Trump's apparent
or alleged knowledge means crimes and relationship to the
victims. The other slide to the right,
The other item to the right of this slide is a more general
House Oversight Committee release.
Oversight Committee releases additional Epstein estate
documents. This has to do with lawyers and
the estate of the late Jeffrey Epstein.
And so there's been a release in total of about 20,000 pages,
they're saying. And the Democrats have released
what they think are the more salacious items, select emails.
And the Republicans have countered that the Democrats are
cherry picking this. And Trump is maintaining that
this is a conspiracy and a hoax, as he pretty much has always
maintained. Some point to a couple of months
ago when Ghislaine Maxwell, who's now in prison, spoke to
there was a recorded testimony to A to the Department of
Justice. And she said that, you know,
Trump really didn't have any direct involvement.
And some people point to that. However, this latest release
could, could change the landscape considerably, though
we'll know a lot more in the days, weeks and even months
ahead. Maybe we can talk about it more
in, in, in extra. The BBC has noted that within
hours, House Republicans released a massive tranche of
documents to counter the Democratic effort to to cherry
pick this. In other words, the the large
amount of documents seems to be just sort of a deliberate
avalanche of information to sort of water down what the Democrats
are allegedly cherry picking to what they're asserting that
Trump was more involved with girls at Epstein's, you know, a
fantasy island, that sort of thing.
So the history of this is also quite interesting.
I'm looking back to American Free Press to refresh my memory
on this in an article that I proofread sometime back back in
August. And a lot of this goes to the
efforts of Representative Thomas Massie, arguably the biggest
renegade in Congress and in the Republican Party, who's willing
to speak out against the party line on a number of issues,
especially a salacious and sensitive 1 like this.
And Massey and a Democrat, Representative ROH Khanna of
California. Massey, of course, is a Kentucky
Republican. They held a press conference
back in August, I believe it was, with many of the young
victims of Epstein's sexual trafficking.
And those victims spoke out. And Marjorie Taylor Green, the
Georgia Republican, who's also a bit of a rebel, was alongside
Massey at that time. And they stood with the victims,
and the victim spoke out and gave what looked to be
convincing testimony about their harrowing experiences with the
Epstein sex trafficking racket. And so it's an interesting
thing. Massey blasted at the Times
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has tried to resist this
avalanche of information. And what Massey said at the time
about House Speaker Johnson was as follows.
What the speaker is asking you to believe when this is all over
is that Epstein and Maxwell have 1000 victims themselves and
nobody else was involved. And the day DOJ has no idea who
else might have been involved in that sex trafficking ring,
that's obviously false. And then there was also talk at
that press conference about alleged victims that
mysteriously died that maybe knew considerable, considerable
information about what was really going on in Epstein's
venue. So that's that's the essentials
of it. So hats off to Massey for having
the guts on the Republican side and Marjorie Taylor Green to
stand their ground and get more objectivity and a deeper look at
this. But that's the latest.
Maybe you guys would want to comment.
And of course, we can extrapolate an extra if you'd
like. Yeah, just a quick comment.
Look, Massey was also attacked by Trump and the Israeli lobby.
And one of the reasons he's been attacked and threatened to be
primaried in the next election is because of this issue.
I think what this proves is that Trump lied about his
relationship with Jeff Epstein, he says.
I hardly knew the guy. Clearly he more than knew him.
They were very close friends, spent a lot.
A lot of time together. So this really cuts at the
credibility of Trump and the president.
And I think it shows that the president is compromised because
at the same time this release comes, we find out confirmation
that Jeff Epstein was an Israeli intelligence operative, clearly.
So that means Donald Trump, if you consider all of his Israel
policies, how slavishly gushingly pro Israel he is.
And now we, we put this into the frame, it's clear that this this
is a president who is deeply compromised.
And that's really disturbing. It should be a disturbing from
an American point of view. And not only that, Trump is
covering up the Epstein scandal with his DOJ and his FBI.
They're completely covering it up.
So he's lying to the public and he's running a cover up to me.
And This is why MAGA is falling apart.
And ultimately this will be the issue that basically brands MAGA
as a complete fraud. And now we're we're we're
beginning to see what an absolute fraud this whole
movement was. It is basically a branding
exercise, a bunch of red hats made in China.
And this level of corruption should be unacceptable to all
Americans. But yet there is still a
hardcore that are hanging on to defend this president.
I think it's unbelievable. Well, undoubtedly we'll talk
more about that in extra. Thank you very much both of you
for that. Now, if you like what the UK
column does, you would like to support us, head over to the
website, the front page. There you'll find a link to take
you to page which shows how you can support us.
We absolutely do need your financial support if you can
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make a donation. If you can't do that, then share
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that helps us beat the censorship regime that we're
going to be talking about in a minute.
Weekly banter with Charles, myself and Jerem will be at 7:00
PM tonight and and we will have a a sorry, that is the wrong
graphic because that's from Wednesday's programme.
But we will have a Silk of Steel podcast going out tonight at
9:00. So so join Carl for that.
And well, also tonight is Andrew bridging in the Seven Stars and
taught Ness. It is.
This is going to be a great
event. This is sold out, by the way, I
just found out. The organizers just told us it's
sold out. There might be a few tickets, I
say a handful of tickets for cash at the door.
It's totally sold out. It's going to be a full house.
Andrew Bridgen, of course, is a fantastic public speaker.
So a lot of people are looking forward to this.
Certainly I am as well and some of our supporters will be
attending this tonight in Totnes.
OK. And a reminder of a couple of
digital ID events, the Cumbria Against Government portrayal
event happening at Carlisle Market Square and that's
tomorrow at 1:00 PM. Diane is going to be speaking at
that and the once again the guys in Glasgow will be out at the
bottom of Jamaica St. by the River Clyde near the Crystal
Palace pub to go and help them. If you'd like to support them in
getting the word out on digital ID, brilliant T-shirt there.
It's an interesting T-shirt. Absolutely.
OK, let's let's move on to this online safety related news
because Ofcom, at least tech Radar here is is talking about
this being an exclusive. Ofcom has told Tech Radar that
it's using an unnamed third party tool to monitor VPN use
that's virtual private network use in the UK.
Ofcom is refusing to name the platform that they're using,
though, but it seems to have some kind of artificial
intelligence capabilities and Tech Radar, saying that despite
assurances that personal information isn't being
accessed, privacy concerns remain now.
Do you think that third party starts with AP by the way?
It may well do I I couldn't possibly comment, but anyway,
Tech Radar contacted Ofcom and asked them to clarify how it's
accessing information about VPN use in the UK and Ofcom said
we're using a leading third party provider which is widely
used in the industry to get gather information on VPN usage.
The provider combines multiple data sources to train its models
and generate usage estimates. The data we access and use in
our analysis is fully aggregated at the app level and no
personally identifiable or user level information is included.
And Tech Radar. Tech Radar is saying that
although Ofcom has been transparent about the existence
of the of VPN monitoring, this is the first time it's provided
any information outlining the methods it's using.
They also say that VPN's pose a problem to the UK government and
Ofcom specifically with regard to the controversial Online
Safety Act. Well, I'm going going to add to
that and say that it's not only that.
The bigger problem for the regime is the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act or the Investigatory Powers Act, which
requires Internet service providers to collect metadata on
their customers Internet activity and provide it to the
government if there's if there's a court order made.
Now this is not possible with widespread use of VPNs.
So the British government does not want to see the any kind of
driver for VPN use in this country.
So Baroness Lloyd was telling the House of Lords a day or two
ago that nothing's off the table when it comes to protecting
children online. She also said that there are no
current plans to ban the use of VPNSII think the the word
current there is extremely telling and that's probably the
keyword. But what what we do know is that
Ofcom is building the case at the moment.
This is, these are the types of tools that authoritarian regimes
in the Gulf, for instance, use to stop people from, you know,
using VPNs or etcetera. So what, you know what, what is
the real motivation by the state behind this?
And you can see it's really about control, total and
censorship. Absolutely, absolutely.
Mark back to you then and what have you got on Smart Cities?
Well, as you may recall, gentlemen, I reported in advance
on Smart Cities in one of two reports I did in the UK column
studio during my recent visit for the on Location event in
York. And I found a particular thread
of information that was interesting.
It's a, it's a barrage of stuff going on projects and, and pipe
dreams and, and you know, very highfalutin kind of stuff, some
of it realistic and may be helpful and may be constructive
in some ways, but a lot of it very ambiguous.
So I, I found things that are a little bit more tangible and
provide some interesting terminology and interesting
projects that we can think about here on this first slide.
It gets into the basics of IT. Making urban government open,
participatory and accountable. Well, that's questionable.
Advancing smart city developments while pushing the
boundaries of technology and handling the double edged sword
of data collection, which has to do with security, online
security, things like that requires a careful and
deliberate equilibrium involving good governance and cooperation
as well as new partnerships, business models.
What are the tools local governments can use to enable
products and services with a comprehensive approach to
emphasis again, data governance and privacy concerns.
Data governance is significant here.
Let's move on and I'll explain key smart city Expo planks.
The the whole event is Art City Expo that that kind of, that's
the full name of it, Digital government and Blue economy
along with the World Ocean Council, which is connected to
the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Those were the main things that jumped out.
Other things, AI regulation and algorithmic transparency and
data ethics, not quite as as prominent, but also quite
prominent. Now, getting into a little bit
more about what digital government actually means, we'll
move on from there. Digital government, A main or
major company that comes up when you look into digital government
is Granicus, based in Denver, Co.
I think they were formed in 1999.
Well, this Reuters item mentions A miscellaneous thing.
Granicus owners exploring a $4 billion sale of the software
maker, sources say. So this is going on in the
background. The private equity owners of
Granicus are preparing to explore a sale of the government
services software maker that could make it that could value
it at about four billion including its debt.
But to get more specific, we'll go on from there on the next
slide. And privatizing government seems
to be a la Bilderberg, the main goal here.
Founded in 1999, as I mentioned, Granicus provides cloud based
software and other technology tools to federal, state and
local governments across the world, not just in the US to
increase efficiency and transparency.
They say the company designs and maintains government websites,
manages public records so that they're privatizing the
management of public records, and helps upgrade technology,
they say to make it easier for citizens to contact public
officials. The Granica CEO is Mark Hynes.
Hynes. Now I talked to a one of the top
experts in Michigan, indeed in the Midwest about a data
governance. I'll mention this briefly before
we go on with the slides. And he manages or overseas a,
the digital systems, the phone systems, the computer systems,
you name it, for a major hospital, Bronson Hospital in
Kalamazoo, MI. And he believes that what
Granicus is getting AT, and that's getting people involved
in their government, but almost more or almost strictly on an
online basis. In other words, there's less
stress on attending government meetings.
There's less stress on getting together under one roof and more
stress about public involvement being strictly through the
Internet, strictly through filling out forms online, filing
complaints online to where most of your contact with your
government is simply online. And the the guy that I talked
to, the the systems expert said he believes that would actually
reduce citizen participation and make government more distant and
in many ways unaccessible for the people, although it would be
more efficient for certain things like filling out basic
forms and some of that basic correspondence.
Maybe that would be an improvement in and of itself
just in that area. And so going on from there, as
we consider the questionable aspects of what Granicus is
doing, there was also the talk at the Smart City Expo about the
blue economy. And this is not a very widely
known concept. It's certainly not household
words by any stretch. As political, economic and
climate challenges reshape our world, the need to accelerate a
sustainable and resilient blue economy has never been more
urgent, they're saying. The blue economy is built on the
vast yet vulnerable oceans and it must undergo A profound
transformation, they say, to remain viable and deliver long
term. Value of the blue economy unites
entrepreneurs, corporate entities, investors and experts
leading this transformation. Lots of contracts, lots of money
exchanging hands for the private sector being moored or connected
with government, lots of public private partnerships here, not
not unlike what's going on with big pharma and government in
that in that sense. So moving on from there, the
blue economy also we can put this up just briefly, is led by
a strategic coalition of partners hosted by the city of
Barcelona. So cities are involved in the,
the, the global cities movement is becoming much more pronounced
in terms of smart cities. You don't hear about global
cities by name much anymore, not as much.
So they're really funneling it into the smart cities concept.
So the Port of Barcelona is involved as a global partner,
and we have the World Ocean Council and Ocean Innovation as
strategic partners in the blue economy.
So some other interesting and not altogether common concepts
there. Moving on, I found that the
World Ocean Council is AUN partner in the Sustainable
Development Goals and the WOCWOC as it's known as a non
governmental non for profit organization, AUN sustainable
goals partner established as an international multi industry
business leadership alliance on ocean sustainability, science
and stewardship, those sorts of things.
And then when it comes to ocean innovation, we have a slide on
that and we can skip the world, World Ocean Council stated
mission that's fairly self-evident.
Moving on to ocean innovation, that's connected as it turns
out, we'll show this to the European Commission.
One thing's connected to the UN. Now this is oriented around the
European Commission and this just shows some ocean innovation
events, innovation in terms of investments in ocean assets,
that sort of thing. But one of those says, let's go
back to that slide very briefly. There's one item I wanted to
point out. The one to the upper right is
AEU wide implementation, developing national restoration
plans under the EU's nature restoration regulation of marine
ecosystems. And they say unrealistically I
would think, they say they want to restore habitats and restore
ecosystems to their original status.
And they literally mean original ecosystems, original habitats,
possibly as they might have been thousands of years ago, which
really sounds like playing God, which really sounds like a
presumptuous thing to say. How would they know precisely
what the original habitat was? And they talked about
renaturing, the concept of renaturing, restoring things in
a very profound way in that sense.
And so there was some breakout sessions we can mention.
I I won't go into these. The rise of private smart
cities, promise practice and public impact, how to create a
greener urban economy, the five up approach, urban planning for
systemic climate action, democratic innovation in
European cities. That's just to give this report
a little more breadth as to what all was covered.
And I believe I have one more slide that shows a Norman
Rockwell, a piece of the artwork of the well known American
artist Norman Rockfell out of his four freedoms and the town
hall meeting. The the concept where people get
together under one roof to influence their government to
have their say, where they where the citizens can hear what each
other has to say. The the democratic ideal,
especially in in New England and and across the US, the town hall
meeting was a long tradition that seems to be getting buried
under this Granicus concept that your only, your only
relationship with your government will be a digital one
digital government. So that that democratic ideal
might be lost despite all the rhetoric of these globalist
about wanting democracy and greater democracy.
So a lot going on there. And that was just a small slice
of it, guys. There was much more that that
could be said, but those were the most relevant topics.
Thank you Mark. So let's move on then to media
and well, you'll be glad to know that the BBC has apologised to
U.S. President Donald Trump for their
Panorama episode that spliced parts of their of his speech
from the 6th of January 2021 together.
But the BBC says that they have rejected his demands for
compensation. So he was basically saying that
he was going to sue them for a billion unless they provided A
retraction, apologised and gave him compensation.
He didn't specify how much compensation.
Oh, so this would be an out of court settlement?
An out of court settlement? Yeah.
Interesting. So the BBC said that the edit
had given the mistaken impression that President Trump
had made a direct call for violent action.
And they said that they would not show the 2024 programme
again. That's, that's, that's very
interesting. What about the 2021 Newsnight
programme? Because people were talking
about that yesterday that we're going to come on to in a second
where? And the people that we're
talking about was suggesting that the 2021 edit was even
worse. But anyway, as I say, lawyers
for Trump had threatened to sue the BBC for a billion dollars.
And well, Lisa Nandy, of course, was sent to Parliament or sent
to the the media this morning to sort of justify everything
that's going on. And she said that she's
confident that the BBC is gripping this with the
seriousness that it demands. Do you think that's likely?
Well, jeez, I don't know the meddling in the US political
system the BBC was caught doing so.
Yeah, I mean, I can recommend the BBC to call Alex Jones's
lawyers. Well, if they need some some
help, some Spartan legal assistance.
Yeah, well look, it's the Telegraph which has been leading
the charge against the BBC. As we were discussing on Monday
and on Wednesday, The Telegraph seems to be financially stable
at the moment with 842,000 digital subscribers.
In December 2024, digital subscriptions were up 11% in a
year. That's perhaps disappointing
news. But anyway, that's that's the
situation. But they've been trying to sell
themselves. I don't mean sell themselves as
APR exercise have been literally sell the business now for
something like 2 years. Flog it.
Yes, flog it. Yeah, because the Telegraph has
been in limbo for the last couple of years after the
company was taken to Lloyds, taken by Lloyds Bank because of
unpaid debts to the Barclays family.
So in November 2023, the Abu Dhabi state backed investment
group Redbird IMI took control of Telegraph Media Group after
agreeing a deal to pay off 1.2 billion pounds in Barclay family
debts. The UK government then issued
pre emptive orders restricting any transfer of ownership or
changes to the Telegraph's board, or no changes to to key
staff or to management responsibilities and so on.
So the red bird IM ideal was stopped in March of 2024 when
the government announced plans to prevent any foreign
government backed entities owning more than 15% of UK
newspapers and magazines. So in May this year, Redbird
announced a new bid with with within which the the Abu Dhabi
money was limited to 15% because that was what they were
basically told by the government that they should do.
And that's where the situation lies.
It's been stalled for a long time now.
Redbirds Jerry Cardinal, who is the the head of Redbird, made a
public plea just a few days ago asking the Starboard, begging
the Starmer regime in fact, to just get out of the way because
this deal needs to be done. But unfortunately, as the
Guardian is reporting here, the independent directors of The
Telegraph who are there while this process continues, while
the sale process continues, they've reported to the
government alleged comments made by Cardinal.
To Telegraph editor Chris Evans that are in breach of the of the
rules protecting editorial independence.
So what we're seeing here, aside from any other motivations as
discussed in Wendy's witnesses programmes, are two of the
biggest media organisations in the UK fighting with themselves
effectively over who's going to control them.
So that the BB CS in a fight over the Royal Charter and the
licence fee, The Telegraph's in a fight over ownership and
editorial independence. And so the question is, you
know, where, where does this end?
Well, I find it incredible. It's not just that, Mike, the
Telegraph is is attacking the BBC and provoking them over the
license, the upcoming review of the license fee.
So it's and it's a bit rich considering, you know, there's
supposed to be a Tory aligned, you know, Brit Britain first
media outlet, but they're basically bankrolled with Arab
money, you know, so I think that's funny.
Like why are these, why are these outlets skin in the 1st
place is because they've lost huge shares of audience and huge
shares of advertising because what they've been putting out is
absolute tripe for years. That's why people flee the
mainstream media and now they're, they have to go and beg
to the Arabs or beg to whatever other, you know, despotic
regimes internationally or to the Americans who've also sought
to buy in and take over through proxies, by the way.
And we're talking about private equity firms, hedge funds and so
forth. That's what that's what you're
going to see more of when the government comes in with
restrictions on this in terms of foreign money, The, the foreign
funds will be able to erect proxies within the UK as shells
or individuals that will do the bidding of the foreign powers.
So that's what we that's a new trend that's certain to happen
now. Well, we're going to be talking
a lot more about this an extra because I know Mark has has
thoughts on on it as well. But unfortunately we're
absolutely out of time for today.
We're going to leave it there. If you are UK column member,
stay on the live stream for UK column News extra.
We'd be back in a few minutes. Otherwise, don't forget Jerem
tonight at 7, Karza at 9:00 and we will be back at 1:00 PM as
usual for another news programme on Monday.
We'll see you then. Bye bye.