July 16, 2025 • 60 mins
Mike Robinson, Charles Malet Vanessa Beeley and Sandi Adams with Wednesday's UK Column News.
If you would like to support our independent journalism, please join the community: https://community.ukcolumn.org/
Sources: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-16th-july-2025
00:00 July Propaganda Drop: British Intel Committee Unleashes Iran Report Right on Schedule
10:26 Tony Blair’s Role in the Abraham Accords: Diplomacy or Digital Dominion?
22:40 Darfur: The Forgotten War – Ethnic Cleansing, Humanitarian Blockades, and International Inaction
32:20 We Can Only Do What We Do With Your Support - Please Join Us
35:11 Devolution Deception: Local Mayors or Global Players?
46:01 Warm Weather, Hosepipe Bans, Finger-pointing, Climate Alarmism - It Must Be Summer
51:11 From Cradles to Cash: The Prince and Princess’s Early Years Enterprise
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 16th of July
just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your host Mike Robinson. My Co host in the studio today
is Charles Mallett. Welcome to the program, Charles.
Thank you, Mike. And joining us via Live Link, we
have researcher and activist Sandy Adams and journalist and
peace campaigner Vanessa Bailey.Now, later in the program,
Vanessa is going to be talking about Tony Blair's connection to
(00:29):
the Ham Accords. Charles's going to be covering
the situation in Darfur, which is a forgotten war mainly, and
and famine also, and also the ongoing drought situation here
in the UK. And Sandy will be bringing us
more on the devolution agenda and also the Royal Foundation.
But we're going to begin today with the month of July, because
July is an auspicious month, month for the Intelligence and
(00:52):
Security Committee of the British Parliament.
July is the month that they released their most important
reports. And by important, I mean
propagandist. The Intelligence and Security
Committee says it overseas the policies, expenditure,
administration and operations atMI5MI6, GCHQ, Defence
Intelligence, the National CyberForce, the Joint Intelligence
(01:14):
Organization, the National Security, Security at Sorry
Secretariat and Homeland Security Group.
That's quite a a security and intelligence infrastructure
there, Charles it. Absolutely is.
Isn't it? Anyway, why is July important?
Well, if we put this on screen, July 2020 they released their
report entitled Russia. In July 2023 it was China and
(01:39):
just a few days ago it was Iran.Now, to get an idea of the
standard of these reports, let'sjust remind ourselves of the
Russia report. Uh, the main thrust of the
report was the claim that Russiahas been interfering in British
democratic processes, uh, and that as a result, social media
companies needed to remove covert hostile state material
(01:59):
from their platforms and said, and they said the government
must name and shame those platforms that failed act, uh,
to quote them, they said at the time, the government must now
seek to establish a protocol with the social media companies
to ensure that they take covert hostile state use of their
platform seriously and have clear time skills within which
(02:20):
they commit to removing such material.
Now, Intelligence and Security Committee member Stuart Hosey
said the committee found it astonishing that no one in
government had sought beforehandto protect the referendum.
That's the EU referendum that hewas referring to because Britain
left the EU because of Russia. So the narrative goes now they
(02:42):
the report itself went on to sayopen source studies have pointed
to the preponderance of pro Brexit or anti EU stories on RT
and Sputnik and the use of bots and trolls as evidence of
Russian attempts to influence the process.
It went on to say the written evidence provided to us, that's
the committee appeared, appearedto suggest that Her Majesty's
(03:04):
Government had not seen or sought evidence of successful
interference in UK democratic processes or any activity that's
had a material impact on an election, for example,
influencing results. The report also said that GCHQ
has also said that Russian intelligence service actors have
orchestrated phishing attempts against government departments.
(03:26):
To take one example, there were attempts against redacted.
That's the, the, the name was redacted.
So we've no idea of knowing who it was actually against.
But also against, they said, theForeign and Commonwealth Office
and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory during the
early stages of the investigation into the Salisbury
attacks. They also claimed that the
(03:49):
Scottish independence referendumwas a Russian target.
And they cited Ben Nemo. And of course Ben Nemo, if we
remember, was an agent of the Integrity Initiative, which was
a program to run this information campaigns against
Russia. And that wasn't the only
integrity in the report, becausethe report went on to say we're
(04:10):
grateful to those outside the intelligence community in
particular, who did they name Anne Applebaum?
Edward Lucas? Well, not Edward Lucas, of
course, always denied involvement with the Integrity
Integrity Initiative, but that was hiddenly false.
William Browder, Christopher Donnelly, who ran the thing, and
(04:32):
Christopher Steele for volunteering, they're very
substantially. So they were thanking these
people all for volunteering their very substantial expertise
on Russia, which they said provided them with an invaluable
foundation for the classified evidence sessions.
Uh, so this was absolutely plenty of integrity initiatives.
There wasn't an intelligence committee report.
(04:52):
In fact, it was an integrity initiative report.
Uh, so coming back to the Iran report, the newest uh, report,
let's have a look and see what Lord Beamish, the current chair
of the committee, had to say. He said Iran poses a
wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UKUK
nationals and UK interests. Iran has a high appetite for
(05:14):
risk when conducting offensive activity and it's intelligence
services are ferociously well resourced with significant areas
of asymmetric strength. It supplements this with it's
use of proxy groups including criminal networks, militants and
terrorist organizations and private cyber actors to provide
it with deniable means of attacking its adversaries with
(05:34):
minimal risk of retaliation. We highlight in particular, he
said are concerned that at the sharp increase in the physical
threat posed to dissidents and other opponents of the regime
who are in the UK. Given Iran's willingness to use
assassination as an instrument of state policy.
The significant threat of Iranian espionage in support of
(05:56):
potential future lethal activity.
The importance of negotiating a form of de escalation between
Iran and the international community to deal with the
Iranian nuclear threat. And the need to both raise the
resilience bar and improve cybersecurity in the UK and to
raise the cost to Iran of launching cyber attacks on the
(06:17):
UK so as to deter them from doing so.
Uh, so my question then is, is this some grand conspiracy to
take us to war? Well, in my opinion, the answer
to that is yes and no. Uh, the committee claims that it
sets it's own agenda and work programme, but to suggest that
there's no steering by the intelligence agency is just not
credible. And of course they choose their
(06:40):
experts very carefully. As they say, they take evidence
from ministers, the heads of theintelligence and security
agencies, senior officials, experts and academics as it
considers necessary. So the evidence they receive is
potentially highly biased. And so it's inevitable that this
group of useful idiots will end up producing suitable
(07:03):
propaganda, which then informs the media agenda where other
useful idiots idiots unquestionably regurgitate the
same propaganda. And here's a perfect example of
what I mean. The Times claim that Iran poses
a higher risk to our security than Russia.
And if you see the highlighted quote there, it says the threat
of assassination and other violence from Iran is now at the
(07:24):
level posed by Russia, which is exactly the narrative straight
out of the report itself uncritically repeated.
Charles, I don't where do we start with this?
It they have a history of producing these reports and we
now have all three of the main targets of warfare that we've
been hearing about for so long from the from the one
(07:46):
organization. Yeah.
Well, I think that's it. I think predominantly it's the
note of incredible familiarity that this is the tactic deployed
and simply the name of the country is changed.
But also it sets up two things. First of all, in terms of the
game batch of Russia, you know, election interference or all the
rest of it, it provides A smokescreen and covers or
obscures the activities of the state, the British state, in
(08:09):
terms of meddling in areas that frankly it shouldn't.
And also it is absolutely queuing up the possibility of a
false flag and therefore turningthis into what might be regarded
as a a self fulfilling prophecy.So I think this is, you know,
it, it harks back to sort of 2005, six period where the line
from the Minister of Defence waschanged from dealing with
(08:33):
matters overseas to keeping our streets safer and and that
continued narrative and you see exactly that this is the same
thing happening now. So Vanessa, lots of integrity
there, but the the sort of MO doesn't change.
They don't really have any any new way of approaching these
problems. No, absolutely not.
And I would say one of the steering factors in this report
(08:55):
is of course, Israel and the Zionist movement lobby in the
UK, which we know increasingly how powerful it is and how many
sectors of British governance, it's infiltrated from all
directions. Quite extraordinary.
I mean, they don't talk about the threat to British democracy
(09:16):
from the state capture by Israel.
And it's it's similar to before when they were raising alarms
about Huawei interfering with mobile phone technology in the
UK, but failing to point out theIsraeli infiltration of cyber
surveillance, etcetera in the UK.
(09:36):
It's, it's just, it's extraordinary, really.
And just to finish Charles, theyalways do this with a straight
face. How is that possible?
I don't know. We can be but continually amazed
and the the but the regrettable truth is that this will be
absolutely absorbed and taken asfact by by people who read
(09:56):
publications like the Times. And if you cast your mind back
to late 2024 when as if reading off exactly the same script,
Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and indeed
Ken McCullum, chief of MI five were from nowhere plucking out
the state threat from Iran story.
And it was never substantiated and they were never they were
never asked where they had got that specific intelligence from.
(10:19):
And of course that there is no evidence of any being there, but
it doesn't stop them from sayingit.
Indeed. OK, well, Vanessa, let's move to
Tony Blair then another British.Well, not quite sure what
whether I should say any more about Tony Blair, but but what?
What have you got? Because you've discovered
connections to the Abraham Accords.
(10:42):
Yeah, of course. I mean, Tony Blair's influence
in in events in the Middle East has been ongoing for decades,
including, of course, most notoriously the war against
Iraq, which set up the regime change war against Syria, which
we've discussed many times on UKcolumn.
But I want to start with this very short clip, which
demonstrates exactly the agenda behind Tony Blair and and the
(11:05):
the collective that he represents in the summer Davos
in China, when he's asked the following question by the
interviewer. 1st for hearing your perspective on the
geopolitical and Geo economic situation, could it have been
(11:25):
more complicated the geopolitical situation that
we're seeing today? Well, we'd be kind of out of
business if it if it wasn't so. I mean, I have to say the, the
interviewer also asked him aboutthe complex situation in the
Middle East. And again, he, he giggles.
(11:47):
I, I really, it's very hard to, to watch this guy now.
But interestingly, yes, I did find out in the last few days
that actually Tony Blair was largely responsible for setting
off or initiating the Abraham Accords discussions.
This is in the Jewish News, which is based in London, the
(12:08):
London genesis of the Abraham Accords.
And what does it actually say that in 2015 in an interview?
Sorry, interview in the Israeli media last weekend.
It was Tony Blair who revealed that back in 2015.
So this was before President Trump was elected for his first
term. He first introduced Prime
Minister Netanyahu's trusted conciliary Yitzhak Molcho to an
(12:32):
Emirati cabinet minister in London.
It then goes on to show that by the end of 2016.
So that was the very beginning of Trump's first administration.
The same UAE minister met Netanyahu who was then
introduced to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. 2018.
Netanyahu visited Abu Dhabi twice on an Israeli flight that
(12:55):
crossed Saudi airspace. So it does appear that Tony
Blair set the OR or created the groundwork ready for Trump's
first administration that brought in the Abraham Accords
through Trump's son-in-law JaredKushner.
Blair also in the same article, points out that bin Zayed, in
his opinion, showed exceptional political and leadership talent.
(13:19):
And Netanyahu is a remarkable politician, of course,
conducting genocide in Gaza and the West Bank as we speak.
So in 2020, basically the UAE, which was a former British
protectorate. Protectorate, which perhaps
explains Tony Blair's focus on the UAE, the Abraham Accords
unlocking a sustainable and inclusive growth across the
(13:43):
Middle East. But what does this actually
mean? This is Tony Blair's statement
on the actual signing, which waspublished up at his Tony Blair
Institute for Global Change. And if we actually look at what
his statement said, for many years I and my institute team
(14:04):
have worked on deepening relationships between Israel and
the Arab world. Of course, the Arab world
basically means the Arab Gulf state, Jordan and Egypt.
I had long come to the conclusion that if we want to
see a fair resolution of the Israeli Palestinian issue on the
basis of two states, there had to be a complete reversal of the
idea that the Arab world should refuse contact with Israel until
(14:27):
the peace agreement was made. So apparently the the resistance
should desist and boycotting, boycotts and divestment should
also not be allowed. He then goes on in the again
published up at the Tony Blair Institute, how the Abraham
Accords are shaping a new technological covenant.
(14:48):
Now this is where it does get slightly interesting.
It's very clear that the collaboration with UAE in
particular is focused very much on on a digital authoritarian
global dictatorship. So UAE is concentrating on
becoming a front runner in more secure smart cities, driverless
(15:10):
taxis, smart pods and eco houses, networks of sensors and
camera data gathering services and in very strong
cybersecurity. All of this, of course, created
in collaboration with Israel butalso with China, He then goes on
(15:31):
to point out again in the same statement or article up at the
Tony Blair Institute. So the next chapters will tell
stories of the possibilities of turning the region into a global
powerhouse of fintech capabilitythrough uniting Israeli tech
innovation with the UAE financial expertise.
I'll leave you to translate thatleading the way in a new
(15:52):
Abrahamic Covenant for the technological area.
So of course that means central bank, digital currency,
etcetera. But let's have another look at
the UAE that was involved in theSaudi, Israeli, US and UK war
against Yemen since 2015. And in fact, I've written
numerous times about the UAE black sites in southern Yemen
(16:15):
using US style torture against Yemeni civilians, quite horrific
reports from that for at least the last five years.
And of course they were involvedin the targeting of the Yemeni
civilians in in partnership withIsrael and Saudi Arabia.
But then also I, I looked into the digital authoritarianism in
(16:40):
the UAE and across the board. This is an article linked to
Chatham House, but almost all ofthe Western elite linked think
tanks have written about the thedanger of UAE's digital
authoritarianism, which includesof course, the use of elements
(17:01):
like the Pegasus spyware which was developed by Israel and the
spy unit 8200 to spy on dissidents, gather information,
which of course in the UAE then immediately leads to their
arrest. There's a lot of information
about this online, but the Abraham of CORDS, of course,
then led to the Abraham Shield plan, which again, we've covered
(17:23):
here on UK column. It's a coalition basically to
ensure the genocide and the extermination of Palestinians,
the creation of the dystopian state that again, we've talked
about Palestinians being confined to ever reduced land
mass, concentration camps, the sale of their land or, or giving
(17:45):
of their land into a trust and, and then basically their
displacement from Palestinian land into neighboring countries.
And last week, of course, we talked about Tony, Tony Blair's
staff who took part in the Gaza Riviera project with BC GB.
CG, of course, is the company that was managing the Gaza
(18:07):
humanitarian funds, American private military contractors who
were running the humanitarian aid for Palestinians.
That, of course, is being used by Israel to to effectively
massacre more Palestinians coming into smaller and smaller
areas together. And I remind everybody to have a
(18:30):
look at the Blair Bush project in Syria that brought al Qaeda
to power because this connects everything.
So it shows very clearly that what Tony Blair is tasked with
is, is creating a digital surveillance oppressive bloc
using the Gulf countries, the Arab Gulf countries, and
(18:51):
basically harnessing the countries that are prepared to
normalize with Israel to, to create what I think is a very
dangerous development block of all of these concepts to enslave
humanity now and in the future. And of course, who are deeply
connected, as we've said before,to the British state, to the US
and to EU states. So I want to end with another
(19:16):
section, and I apologise for inflicting this upon all of you,
but this is Tony Blair still at the summer Davos China event,
talking about his view of governance.
So let's have a look at this. You know, you do a poll in the
Middle East by the way of of young people across the whole of
(19:37):
the Middle East. And ask them which country do
you want your country to be mostlike?
The answer is I think virtually every year comes back the UAE.
So you know, this is and that's not a coincidence, by the way.
It's because of the way the governance has been.
And one of the reasons why, you know, my institute works in
almost 50 countries across across the world today.
And one of the fascinating things is that everyone always
(19:59):
thinks. Their their situation is unique
and of course in a in a way it is.
But whichever country you go to.Most of all, what people want is
the opportunity to do well, right, if they work hard to have
peace and stability, to raise their family with some chance of
a decent future. And that's the same wherever you
(20:20):
go. And the key to it is good
governance that is open minded itself, that is effective in
providing opportunity for peopleand is connected to the world.
Do we have that kind of governance in the UKI wonder?
But it's also I think very interesting that the UAE is
(20:42):
being set up as the flagship of this new digital
totalitarianism. And the fact that the countries
that are being targeted, which are effectively Iran, Syria, of
course, that we know is already fallen into organised chaos and
Lebanon OR at least the Lebaneseresistance will have or had
(21:04):
independent financial systems, independent from the World Bank,
independent from Western influence and interference.
We've talked about Hezbollah having the non usury bank where
people bring their gold, leave their gold for a period of time
until they pay back the loan andthen they can collect their
gold. Iran has independent banking.
(21:26):
Syria had independent banking. Of course, now it's being sold
by Tom Barrack, the economic hitman for Trump into debt
enslavement through the IMF, etcetera, and various monetary
funds, just as Egypt and Jordan have been sold previously.
So it's for me very interesting.And I think what it demonstrates
very clearly is that the war is not only against the resistance
(21:49):
in the West Asia region and in Iran, it's a, it is literally
against all of us. Because if Tony Blair is
harnessing the Arab Gulf state to to basically bring in this
kind of digital tyranny, then it's certainly going to affect
us. And Israel is already part of of
that complex and is already embedded in our own state
(22:13):
structure. Vanessa, thank you very much for
that. Any thoughts Charles?
Well, I mean, I think it absolutely hits the nail on the
head, but. But I say you're quite right.
And yeah, I mean, in a way, always a difficult person to
talk about. He sort of seems to be
everywhere and people still seemto listen to him, which I think
(22:33):
to anybody who's followed his career over the last 30 or 40
years could be and should be completely mystified by.
OK, well, let's move on then to Africa and Darfur.
Yeah, indeed. And in fact, that we'll link
back to Vanessa's report rather closely.
But we start with the British High Commission who in Nairobi
have been busy tweeting about increasing the exports from
(22:56):
Africa into the UK market with aload of footage here showing the
President of Kenya, William Ruto, smiling in London with
Keir Starmer, presumably becausehe's managed to get away from
the rioting and discontent in his own country.
Now, Ruto himself has used the same surveillance platform to
remind the public of the, quote,areas of mutual interest between
(23:17):
Israel and Kenya. And that links obliquely to the
concurrent reporting from New York on the activities of the
United Nations Security Council.Now, first of all, we have James
Karaoke, the Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, who
made a statement about humanitarian access to those in
need in Sudan. This was back on 27th of June.
(23:39):
He said little of note and absolutely nothing that could
constitute action, action on thematter.
But I would say his remarks are perhaps best characterized by
his encouragement of others to do something.
Quote, we welcome continued efforts by the UN, the African
Union and countries of the region to advance an inclusive
(24:00):
political process. And then on Thursday, 10th of
July, the Council met to discussthe situation in Darfur.
And this was prompted by a report from the Deputy
Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Nazat Khan on.
Now, before considering what it is that she did say, I should
just point out the remit of the ICC, as shown here on the banner
(24:24):
at the top of their website saystrying individuals for genocide,
war crime, crimes against humanity and aggression.
Now, she was keen to begin by thanking the president of Sudan
for attending a point of significance which I'll come
back to. Khan's opening gambit was to
state that, quote, the humanitarian position has
(24:44):
reached an intolerable state, which makes it significant that
her statement, which was nearly 2000 words long, should not
mention a single date. Now, the reference to the
humanitarian position could describe any point over the last
several decades, making this just another demonstration of
the international community's sustained ability to preserve
(25:05):
and protect vested interests. While talking as though
something will happen and to pick out an example with which
to illustrate the point, Nazad Khan said, quote and I wish to
be clear on a key priority in this respect.
We must work together with seriousness and focus to secure
the arrest of those individuals subject to ICC arrest warrants
(25:29):
presently in Sudan, Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir, Ahmad Harun and
Abdel Rahim Mohammad Hussain. Now she's referring here to a
process which has already been going on for 20 years and still
no sanctions have been brought against any of those three men.
UK Column has covered the extraordinarily ineffectual
(25:52):
record of the ICC and I refer back to Khan's opening remarks
about Sudan's President Abdel Fattah Al Bahan in 2008, when
delivering a similar report, thethen ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno
Ocampo said, quote, my office has a duty not to intervene when
(26:13):
national authorities are conducting national proceedings.
This is the principle of complementarity.
The Sudan claimed that it would investigate and prosecute
perpetrators of crimes. Well, obviously it did not.
Now as to whether there is any sincere desire for or
expectation of change. This clip examines the
(26:36):
effectiveness of the UN set alongside the remarks of Kieran
Prendergast, the former Under Secretary for Political Affairs
at the UN, as recorded for PBS Frontline documentary from 2007.
At the summit, world leaders toasted a final agreement that
covered a great deal of ground. Within It was a section on the
(26:59):
responsibility to protect. It was an endorsement of an
emerging legal norm that gave the UN authority to intervene
and, if necessary, even invade acountry to protect the civilian
population. It seemed to offer hope.
(27:21):
But once again, the principles the UN put on paper would not
translate into concrete action to save the people of Darfur.
Veteran UN officials were candidin their skepticism.
We don't mean it when we when wesay that we're not going to
accept other Rwanda's, further Rwanda's.
But I, I never thought we did mean it.
(27:44):
And that's a very, it's a very sad conclusion.
But I don't think there's any evidence to, to sustain the view
that we did mean it. We may have meant it as a kind
of, you know, at a level of generalised, generalised
indignation, but but when it comes to accepting the
consequences of that, we don't pretty girls there, I think,
(28:09):
telling you really everything you need to know.
And of course, it should be pointed out that UNAMID, the UN
mission to Darfur, was shut downin 2020 and there's none running
there currently. Now, of course, given the very
short memory that the public is permitted to have by the
mainstream media and the variousnational and supranational
governments of the world, it's no surprise to see follow up
statements such as that from Colin McIntyre.
(28:32):
The ICC, Sorry. In response to the ICC report,
McIntyre said that he was, quote, gravely concerned and
that there are reasonable grounds to believe that war
crimes and crimes against humanity may have been committed
and indeed are continuing to be committed in Darfur.
He even tried to turn the failedarrests of the three men as a
(28:55):
warning to perpetrators who still believe themselves beyond
the reach of international law. And of course, it is quite the
opposite. Now, as to why and how this
situation is allowed to perpetuate, there is of course
not enough time in this report to go into sufficient detail,
but the activities of the government of the United Arab
(29:16):
Emirates, as Vanessa has just been articulating, should be
scrutinised to a much greater degree.
And under the auspices of humanitarian aid from
neighboring Chad, UAE has been accused of supplying weapons to
the Rapid Support Force RSF, thelatest incarnation of the
Janjaweed militia for the continued conflict in Darfur, as
(29:38):
referenced by this Guardian article from April.
Certainly the UAE is the largestpurchaser of Sudanese gold as
shown here by the OEC statisticsfrom 2023, making them the
largest single contributor to the Sudanese economy and
therefore have a huge amount of influence.
The UAE has made no secret of its plan to control an enormous
(30:00):
number of deep water ports all over the world via the state
controlled DP World. And as reported by UK Column,
the UK itself is partnered by DPWorld via British International
Investment, most notably at the controversial port of Berbra in
Somaliland. And moving on to this piece in
the cradle, which describes thisas a covert empire across the
(30:24):
Red Sea. It's certainly worth reading and
there'll be a link to it in the show notes.
Now the other factor deserving equal consideration, though it's
most certainly not exclusive to the UAE, is the outsourcing of
agriculture to Sudan. And here we have grain, a non
profit, which has examined this reckoning that UAE now controls
more than a million hectares of Sudanese farmland during what is
(30:48):
described as a famine in Sudan by the United Nations.
And perhaps most critically, theUAE is seen as a key strategic
partner in the alliance against Iran, most notably, as Vanessa
has just been describing, via the Abraham Accords and indeed
her relationship with Israel. So sorry, UAE rather than
Vanessa. It is an enduring and complex
(31:11):
picture and one that strongly suggests that none of the actors
involved have any interest in improving.
Now, I don't know if we've got time to have a few thoughts from
Vanessa on on that situation, but perhaps particularly the
role of UAE in Sudan's, you know, degenerate state of
affairs. Well, I mean, it's just
(31:34):
terrific. But I think what is equally
scary is the clear involvement. I mean, I haven't checked on the
Tony Blair Institute of the connections to Sudan, but I'm
sure they will be there because Tony Blair is clearly partnering
with the UAE in this Israel linked expansionist project.
And of course, it's all related to to water largely for Israel
(31:58):
in particular and UAE that don'thave access to water resources
at all. I think, I think you're hitting
the nail on the head there. Tony Blair, as we've mentioned
many times in this programme, isinterested in the whole Sahel
region, which is that whole region South of the Sahara
Desert. So I think he's absolutely
active in the area. OK.
(32:20):
If you like what the UK column does, you would like to support
us, the link to do that is on the front page of the UK column
website. Click on there and you'll find
all the options. Thank you very much to everybody
that is helping us out financially.
If you can't do that, then please do share anything you see
on the UK column website that takes your fancy.
Now let's have a look at this fact checking the fact sense,
(32:43):
fact censors. This was Diane's discussion with
Doctor Judith Brown went out at 1:00 PM yesterday.
It's now available on demand on the website.
Please do watch that if you haven't seen it.
Judith knows what she's talking about and it's another hugely
interesting conversation. Tonight Jerem will be asking the
question, do we really have freewill with Todd Highen?
(33:05):
So that's 7:00 PM in the usual live stream places.
Ukcolumn.org/live and so on and tomorrow at 1:00 PM Joy Warren
is the guest. So yeah, her third interview
with the UK column talking aboutthe massive concern around fluid
fluoridation of water by water companies and the effectively
(33:27):
indiscriminate medication of thepopulation by doing it.
On demand UK, sorry on location UK Call them on location
Saturday the 18th of October 2025 in New York.
Tickets go on sale on the 20th of July.
We're looking forward to Charles.
Yeah, we are. We're very much looking forward
to it. And there will be tickets
available for both the in personevent and indeed the live stream
(33:49):
from the 28th of July. So we'll be announcing speakers
very soon. And this weekend, then the
Theatford Truth and Festival taking place in the Angel Ills
in Swallow Lane in Larling. And Diane will be speaking at
that. So get along to that if you
possibly can. And the the Question of
Devolution Sunday, which we're about to talk about, we're going
(34:12):
to be speaking on this on Sunday.
Yes, I am indeed. Yeah.
The distance meeting in the southwest at Gough, inland in in
Devon, in Exeter. And yeah, you know, I think
Andrew Bridges speaking as well.I don't know what he's speaking
on, but he usually pulls it out of a hat.
And I'm just going to be really focusing on devolution because
(34:34):
it is really something that I'llbe speaking about later and so
will you. And it's a really important
topic because it it is all aboutour, our democracy, or lack of
at the moment. Yeah.
Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you, Sandy.
And Speaking of Andrew Bridgen, he will be speaking in the Seven
Stars Hotel in Totnes on Friday the 25th of July.
(34:58):
Patrick Anixon will be introducing that and there'll be
AQ and A afterwards. The details for all these events
will be in the show notes. So have a look at the Today's
news programme on the UK column website for more on these
things. Now let's then come straight on
to the question of devolution and the fantastic news that
Plymouth is going to hold a referendum tomorrow on the issue
(35:21):
of whether or not to have a directly elected mayor.
And as is typical for Plymouth, this is a very stupid thing to
do because no matter the outcome, there won't be a
directed electric directly elected mayor.
And this is because three weeks ago the Starmer regime announced
that metro mayors are the only way to go, so there will be no
city mayors. So the outcome of this
(35:41):
referendum makes no difference. Now, the most widely recognized
metro mayors are, of course, Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham, but
there are quite a number of so-called regions which have
elected mayors. Now, according to the Institute
of Governance, sorry, the Institute for Government,
regional mayors are directly elected leaders who chair
(36:02):
mayoral strategic authorities Brackets, also known as combined
authorities, to which specified functions and budgets have been
devolved from Whitehall. Mayoral strategic authorities
are formed by a group of local authorities at a city, regional
or regional level, as the Institute for Government says.
And they go on to say that the specifics of the powers of Msas
(36:24):
vary from place to place, but typically include aspects of
transport skills, housing and local infrastructure investment,
and in some cases special special planning, policing,
health and employment support. Now the government's Devolution
Bill will establish A3 tier devolution framework.
They say that applies by defaultto all places, bringing a
(36:45):
greater consistency of what is devolved each MSA.
Now what they're talking about there is the English Devolution
and Community Empowerment Bill, which Sandy's going to talk
about in a second, introduced a few days ago by Angela Rayner,
and which Ben spoke about on Monday's programme, and which
will bring centralised control to the local level.
But as we've been, we've been highlighting this for years in
(37:06):
article after article. These people are about as
democratic as Stalin and you know, just lots of articles on
this topic. So Sandy, let's hear more from
you on this. Yeah, sure.
I mean, my first, my first slideis really from the, it's, it's
(37:26):
saying, you know, are, are thesemayors, are they, are they going
to fix our regions? Well, uh, no, I don't think they
are. They're going to fix it for
themselves, surely, um, and for the, for global governance, but
they're not going to fix it for the people of the UK.
And, um, and that The thing is that this is, you know, this is
(37:47):
a kind of problem reaction solution thing because, you
know, the regions, if you like, if you want to call them the
regions, the UK has been hollowed out from inside out.
The infrastructure's been decimated.
And so they're coming in, they're flying in as the
saviours. And it's the same thing.
It's problem reaction solution. And, you know, really it's the
(38:08):
remedy for, to bring in the, thefull technocratic control
agenda. And you know, this isn't by
anything, you know, all of this is, is very because it all feeds
into the, the 20-30 sustainable development goals run by, you
know, obviously by the UN and, and the WEF.
So do we really want, you know, that kind of that kind of
(38:32):
fascist fascism actually? And The thing is that what we
have to remember is that this isa, this new bill that we've got
coming in is really about, I'm just going to get actually the
first, the first, the next slideis, is about a short recent
history of, of devolution. I'll just go into that first
(38:53):
because it's been a long term plan.
And I think people have to realise that this is really long
term plan from 1988, I believe. And then, you know, Tony Blair
really tried to push it in the early 2000s and it was voted out
in 2004. And then in 2016, the biggest
shift was the Communities and cities, Cities and Communities
(39:15):
Act that came in, in 2016. And that kind of laid the
pathway really for what we're finding now with the devolution
white papers, the next thing that came up.
And then, of course, we've now got the, the, the, this cities
and communities, um, in power, you know, sort of empowerment
act. But The thing is that it is, it
(39:38):
is not going to empower the people.
It's going to empower the agenda.
And that's, that's the problem. That's the problem, because
under this act, mayors gain really control over trans.
We're talking about the, the smart city mayors or the metro
mayors, whatever you want to call them, the trans, the, the,
(39:59):
the, the shift, the power shift is coming away from Westminster
to these. These people that haven't really
been elected by us and they're being put in positions of
ultimate power. They're being given the power
over transport, housing and planning, net zero
infrastructure, energy systems, economic development, skills and
(40:22):
innovation and police and crime commissioning and fire services
in some in some cases. So this is really quite, I mean,
it's, it's, it's really worrying.
And as much as these, these mayors, their sole aim is to, to
hit the net 0 targets. So they don't really care what
(40:43):
you think. They, they want to hit their net
0 targets. And they're, I mean, as we've
seen with, with Andy Burnham in,in Manchester, you know, he's
completely changed the whole transport system there and he's
got all the electric buses and cycle lanes.
And it is turning into that, youknow, a smart city in, in, in
(41:03):
every single way. And what we need to realise is
that also the system is changingfrom government policy.
The biggest take away from this bill is that the system is
changing from government policy to global framework really.
And so these global frameworks are all integrated with Agenda
(41:25):
2030 and the St. GS.
And so we've, we've just got to realise that this everything is
is influenced. You've got local authorities
under these global covenant of mayors and the Global Covenant
of Mayors are, is, is part of the C40 Cities Plan.
(41:46):
And the C40 Cities plan is the, it's a group, it's a leadership
group of global network of about100 major cities committed to
addressing climate change and advancing the goals of the UN
Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement.
It was founded in 2005. So it's gone, you know, it's
come from quite a way back. And it brings together both
(42:09):
mayors and city leaders to collaborate on cutting urban
carbon emissions and promoting sustainability and implementing
net 0 policies across transportation, energy,
buildings and waste systems. It's heavily backed by the
global institutions like the Bloomberg Philanthropies, World
Bank Italy, which is the International Committee for
(42:29):
Local and Environmental Initiatives that was brought in
from Agenda 21 into every town council in the UK.
And it works closely with the World Economic Forum and the UN
bodies. The C40 Cities pledges to
implement policies that align with global climate targets,
often pushing beyond national governments in ambition.
(42:50):
You see critics argue that it bypasses democratic
accountability, and I think it does.
It's really giving unelected global actors the influence over
our our policies and promotes A technocratic control under the
guise of climate action. And so the climate thing is the
biggest thing because as we know, there are plans for
(43:13):
climate lockdowns. We've got plans for, you know,
our cities are heavily surveilled.
We've got geofencing in place, you know, this could actually
become a, a real worry and that,you know, the fact that we're,
we're bypassing parliament, Parliament is being the powers
of parliament are being literally shifted over to these
(43:36):
global mayors. So I, I really feel that we've
got to somehow understand that the, the, the, the way things
are going, our, our democracy is, is being further eroded
because at least at the moment, I know we, we are town councils,
some of them are pretty bad. Our parliament is bad.
(43:57):
But at least at the moment we can change things.
Once these guys get in, we can't, we don't have any choice.
They will just do what they want.
And at the moment we, we, you know, with the C40 cities, I'm
thinking about the farmers. You've got, can I go back to the
foot the, the last slide, please, which was the yeah,
you've got think tanks like the London, London University and
(44:21):
they're, they're looking at foodand how food could be sort of
woven into devolution. And then on the next slide,
please, we've got the planetary diet that was put forward by the
C40 cities. And really the planetary diet is
about cutting out meat from yourdiet.
And so they want to just controlevery aspect of our lives.
(44:44):
And if we look at the, obviouslyMike put this slide up, This is
the, and this is how devolution is, is progressing throughout
the UK. Then mainly the, the devolved
areas are up north. And what you'll find is in your
local council, you might be first of all going unitary,
which is you, you join up with another couple of councils and
(45:07):
then it goes into a combined authority, which is slightly
bigger. And then after that they want
you to go regional. Now I'm looking here at Tony
Blair's regional federal map of what he, he wanted the, the
federal map to look like by 2020.
And he, he produced this in the early 2000s.
(45:29):
So more and more Tony Blair's idea of how we should be is
playing out now. And, and, and that's, that's
what I'm seeing. And unfortunately, you know,
this the, the, the way things are going, we, we, we've got
these mayors that they're using this as a, as a, as a way.
(45:50):
For. Bringing, yeah, bringing in
global control and we don't havea say at the moment and we need
to. So that's that's kind of it.
Thank you, Sandy. Thank you, Charles.
Let's stick again in the UK. Move on to the question of
drought. Yes.
I mean, all these things are of course related, but we are now
in a situation where we have more warm weather, more hose
(46:13):
pipe bands, more finger pointingand more climate alarmism.
It must be summer. And the Environment Agency,
which behaves as though it has assumed overall responsibility
for all water within the United Kingdom, has announced another
meeting of the National Drought Group.
Their plan it would appear, is to ask everyone to use less
(46:33):
water, but their ability to either influence or monitor this
is seriously compromised. I Just like farmers and other
businesses, water companies are theoretically limited by their
abstraction license as to the amount of water they can take
from natural supplies and this is controlled by the Environment
(46:54):
Agency. As we know, all water companies
have an appalling and well recognised track record of
wasting water through leakage, something which is never
properly addressed and results, as now in farmers and members of
the public, being blamed for theamount or predicted shortages.
Now the National Framework for Water Resources published
(47:17):
recently makes many references to the forthcoming deficit and
to all the various and competingdemands on the water supply.
What they most certainly do not do is make any suggestion that
there should be a hierarchy of priorities when it comes to what
they describe as an increasinglyscarce resource.
There are any references to the burgeoning thirst of data
(47:39):
centres and artificial intelligence hubs, but a
consistent failure to attach anyfigures to this requirement.
The framework does suggest, somewhat hopefully, that data
centres should look to other supplies of water beyond using
public water supply, for exampleusing recycled water.
I submitted a Freedom of Information request to the
(48:01):
Department for Energy Security and Net 0 in order to establish
the current and projected consumption of both water and
electricity where AI and data centres were concerned.
The reply was underwhelming, though predictable.
They have no idea as they do notkeep records and strangely they
do not use modelling to guess what will happen next.
(48:22):
Also claiming not to use modelling is the annual State of
the UK Climate Report 2020 4 published on Monday.
So for the year in retrospect, this is written by the Met
Office and the Royal Meteorological Society.
Merely A lengthy reminder that according to their very
obviously manipulated statisticsand records that the country is
(48:43):
getting warmer and drier and wetter but not windier though,
which may present a problem for the storm loving weather
forecasters in the mainstream. The other key assertion is that
the sea level is rising. And of course all of this is
written with two things in mind.Firstly, it's your fault and
secondly it is all dangerous. Now, though, the report is
(49:05):
explicit in stating that it should not be used to predict
the future. That is precisely what Liz
Bentley, the chief executive of the role Meteorological Society,
has done in her interview about the report with the BBC.
But no challenge was issued by the BBC when she did so.
Concurrent with the doom mongering has been the belief
that this year's harvest will bea disaster, which of course
(49:27):
provides the perfect nudge into consuming lab grown
indigestibles. It's too early to give much of
an indication, but Farmers Weekly suggest that the wheat
harvest so far is actually better than expected.
And on a related note, you may recall that back in April UK
column reported on what appearedto be an I'll considered
encouragement to farmers to withhold milling wheat in order
(49:50):
to create a bread shortage so that the public would be made
aware that the government is notlooking after farmers now.
This initiative, published by Sorry, pushed by Olly Harrison
and Clive Bailey, does not appear to have taken market
forces into account. And the Agricultural and
Horticultural Development Board was already predicting back then
(50:13):
that there would be a 13% increase in wheat imports for
this year, and that was as far back as March.
Agri trade news we've just seen on screen suggesting that this
strike made absolutely no difference, although there may
have been some unintended and negative consequences for any
farmers who were convinced to take this sort of action.
So imagining that the governmentwill ever have farmers interests
(50:34):
at heart is made to look like a fool's errand.
And anyone listening who does produce food, please do go to
the farming section on the UK column website for inspiration
in terms of establishing local markets.
Finally, the Bill which absolutely refuses to die.
There would be a strong chance that the era of global boiling
will have petered out by the time the Climate and Nature Bill
(50:56):
is debated again in Parliament and its second reading already,
which, back to the 11th of July this year, has now been further
deferred to Friday the 29th of May 2026.
That's a shame. Well, yes, I suppose it depends
which way you look at it. OK, back to Sandy then.
And Sandy, tell us about the Royal Foundation.
(51:18):
Well, it, it's really part of the, the, the Royal Foundation
is a, is a, is a mixture of of obviously William and, and Kate
getting together and he's, he's kind of doing the conservation
and the earth shot thing. And she seems to have taken a
very keen interest in, in early years development for children.
(51:38):
And she set up the Royal Foundation Centre for early
childhood. And I, I think I've got a, a
video here of her and how she's,how she's, well, what she's
doing. So listen to this and, and
we'll, we'll go on from there. Earlier this year, we asked you
(52:00):
5 big questions about raising our under fives.
We wanted to hear what you thinkabout the importance of the
earliest years of our children'slives.
More than half a million of you answered that call.
So we've taken your input and combined it with even more
public research to produce the Uks biggest ever study on the
early years. This year has been a hugely
(52:23):
challenging time for us all and there hasn't been a more
important moment to talk about families.
Later on this week we'll share 5big insights that we've
discovered and I will take your questions.
This is just the beginning and Iwant to thank you for starting a
conversation because we're all on this journey together, right?
(52:46):
Well, it's interesting. She, she's the, the, the, the,
the foundation have teamed up with the, the Lego Foundation,
Unilever. And yeah, there's NatWest and
Ernst and Young and Deloitte andthese, these big corporations
are heavily invested in early child development.
(53:10):
Now I wonder why? And we can see now that because
of the AI in schools now they can monitor those children's
outcomes. And as we know, outcomes for
children are being sold, you know, to, to third parties on
the blockchain and sort of like,almost like betted as futures.
(53:30):
And there there's children are being commodified in school and
these early years things. It's really quite, I, I find it
really concerning because, you know, this is a, a, a there is
another video, but it was too long to put on, but on.
Can I have that slide back? Yeah, this slide, umm, it shows
you that it's all about feelingsand empathy and understanding
(53:52):
each other and working alongsideeach other and collaborating and
being in, in children being in community and how all of their
feelings and, and, and everything are very important.
Well, of course they are becausethey are monitoring them with
SEL learning, which is social and emotional learning through
(54:13):
the devices in their schools. And all this information is
being sold onto third parties. It's being harvested and used as
a commodity. And unfortunately, children that
they're, they're saying that, you know, the, the, the teachers
are going along with this because they're saying, Oh well,
isn't it great that the childrenare being, are, are
(54:33):
understanding their own feelings, their own emotions,
their own empathy, their own, the way they, they deal with
their emotions. But all of that is being, being
filtered to use. And it could be that they're
using them because they're, they're trying to work out which
ones are new or diverse, which ones aren't, because money can
be made on children either way, whatever, whatever their,
(54:55):
whatever their cases are. So the Lego group I found quite,
quite, quite weird, really. Well, not weird, but they, they,
they're very, they're very closeto The Who and UNICEF.
They're working in, in conjunction with them.
And, you know, they, they've gotplay futures labs and they've
got global ties with the, with they're an advocate of the SDG
(55:18):
4. They're, they're aligned with
globalist reform initiatives Andthey, they, they've on their
website, they've got policies and it all aligns, it all aligns
with the, with the WEF and all the whole agenda.
And what I thought was really strange is in the next slide,
they actually have a, a policy of snitching in their, in their,
(55:42):
in their corporation that if youfind somebody that is, is not
actually going along with their narrative, then you can snitch
them and get them the sack, which I thought was quite
interesting. So all of this is, is aligned to
a bigger, bigger picture of umm,data harvesting children in the
early years, which is really, really, it's technocratic
(56:04):
framing of childhood. Umm, it promotes, the centre
promotes the idea that early childhood birth to age 5, it's
not just a family or community matter.
So they're taking the responsibility from the families
and the parents because it really is a national investment
issue. They say while supported by
neuroscience, this language is also a gateway to, you know, to
(56:28):
literally sort of reading children's emotions and, and
framing them in into this into this kind of data set that they
can use really for for, for making money.
So yeah, it it, it mirrors a broader global strategy to frame
human beings as assets to be optimised.
(56:49):
Really. Yeah, certainly with sustainable
development. 3. Now I've got an SEL learning
video so we can put that up and you can understand what SEL
learning is. There's a lot of talk these days
about SEL social emotional learning, but what exactly is
it? Social Emotional learning is the
(57:11):
process of learning social and emotional skills, and it's just
as important as learning readingor math.
This learning process is most effective when it begins early
and continues through high school.
Social emotional skills are essential for success in school,
work, and life. With SEL, students learn to
(57:33):
manage their own emotions and behaviors, have empathy and show
caring concern for others, solveproblems effectively, make
responsible decisions, and maintain healthy relationships.
Students learn to recognize what's happening inside them and
to be aware of their emotions, which helps them deal with
(57:53):
strong emotions and impulsive behaviors.
It helps them stop, take a breath, and think about a
situation before acting. Students learn to identify
others emotions and perspectives, which helps them
empathize and show compassion nomatter who they are or what
their background is. It's not difficult to imagine
(58:16):
how this is important in the classroom and in life.
Students learn to solve problemsin peaceful ways and communicate
assertively about what they needor want.
This helps them get along with other students and get the help
they need from adults. Yeah, the adults.
(58:36):
So it just, it just shows you that this supports long term
psychological compliance. Really, they want the perfect
global citizens and you know, itall aligns with the ESG values
and it takes the, the responsibility of the of the
parents away. And I, I think it's a form of
child abuse actually, but that'sprobably going a bit far, but I
(58:59):
don't think so. Any thoughts?
The outsourcing of everything, where, where does it end?
It's it's totally absurd. We have a final video clip.
Charles, why don't you introduceus?
We do. We've taken a bit of a battering
from the climate change narrative today.
So to lighten the boon, the mood, we're going to cast our
(59:19):
eye back to a Foscho sketch from, I think, 2011, where they
imagined the weather forecast inforeign, in the days when you
could still laugh about stuff. Nick Iteros.
Fosso Tipio. Fiteros Weekend.
Meteorological. Smith, Paula.
Hello classy Costa paratos miatrochi a valley Portos
(59:42):
scorchio Miya cuna Tera. Interior scorchio.
Miya cuna Tera Exterior scorchio.
Montablanco scorchio. Costa scorchio.
Metrologic is Manana Oh Scorchio.
(01:00:05):
Scorchio. There we go.
Seems they knew what was coming.Sadly they haven't looked out
the window here, so we're not quite scorching.
Today. Anyway, we're going to leave it
there for today. Thank you very much Sandy and
Vanessa for joining us and Charles, of course everybody
that's watched. If you're a UK column member,
(01:00:26):
stick around on the live stream and we will be back for some UK
column news extra in a few minutes time.
Otherwise, don't forget Germ tonight, the interview tomorrow,
and we'll be back at 1:00 PM as usual on Friday.
See you then. Bye bye.
Bye bye.
Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 16th of July
just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your host Mike Robinson. My Co host in the studio today
is Charles Mallett. Welcome to the program, Charles.
Thank you, Mike. And joining us via Live Link, we
have researcher and activist Sandy Adams and journalist and
peace campaigner Vanessa Bailey.Now, later in the program,
Vanessa is going to be talking about Tony Blair's connection to
(00:29):
the Ham Accords. Charles's going to be covering
the situation in Darfur, which is a forgotten war mainly, and
and famine also, and also the ongoing drought situation here
in the UK. And Sandy will be bringing us
more on the devolution agenda and also the Royal Foundation.
But we're going to begin today with the month of July, because
July is an auspicious month, month for the Intelligence and
(00:52):
Security Committee of the British Parliament.
July is the month that they released their most important
reports. And by important, I mean
propagandist. The Intelligence and Security
Committee says it overseas the policies, expenditure,
administration and operations atMI5MI6, GCHQ, Defence
Intelligence, the National CyberForce, the Joint Intelligence
(01:14):
Organization, the National Security, Security at Sorry
Secretariat and Homeland Security Group.
That's quite a a security and intelligence infrastructure
there, Charles it. Absolutely is.
Isn't it? Anyway, why is July important?
Well, if we put this on screen, July 2020 they released their
report entitled Russia. In July 2023 it was China and
(01:39):
just a few days ago it was Iran.Now, to get an idea of the
standard of these reports, let'sjust remind ourselves of the
Russia report. Uh, the main thrust of the
report was the claim that Russiahas been interfering in British
democratic processes, uh, and that as a result, social media
companies needed to remove covert hostile state material
(01:59):
from their platforms and said, and they said the government
must name and shame those platforms that failed act, uh,
to quote them, they said at the time, the government must now
seek to establish a protocol with the social media companies
to ensure that they take covert hostile state use of their
platform seriously and have clear time skills within which
(02:20):
they commit to removing such material.
Now, Intelligence and Security Committee member Stuart Hosey
said the committee found it astonishing that no one in
government had sought beforehandto protect the referendum.
That's the EU referendum that hewas referring to because Britain
left the EU because of Russia. So the narrative goes now they
(02:42):
the report itself went on to sayopen source studies have pointed
to the preponderance of pro Brexit or anti EU stories on RT
and Sputnik and the use of bots and trolls as evidence of
Russian attempts to influence the process.
It went on to say the written evidence provided to us, that's
the committee appeared, appearedto suggest that Her Majesty's
(03:04):
Government had not seen or sought evidence of successful
interference in UK democratic processes or any activity that's
had a material impact on an election, for example,
influencing results. The report also said that GCHQ
has also said that Russian intelligence service actors have
orchestrated phishing attempts against government departments.
(03:26):
To take one example, there were attempts against redacted.
That's the, the, the name was redacted.
So we've no idea of knowing who it was actually against.
But also against, they said, theForeign and Commonwealth Office
and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory during the
early stages of the investigation into the Salisbury
attacks. They also claimed that the
(03:49):
Scottish independence referendumwas a Russian target.
And they cited Ben Nemo. And of course Ben Nemo, if we
remember, was an agent of the Integrity Initiative, which was
a program to run this information campaigns against
Russia. And that wasn't the only
integrity in the report, becausethe report went on to say we're
(04:10):
grateful to those outside the intelligence community in
particular, who did they name Anne Applebaum?
Edward Lucas? Well, not Edward Lucas, of
course, always denied involvement with the Integrity
Integrity Initiative, but that was hiddenly false.
William Browder, Christopher Donnelly, who ran the thing, and
(04:32):
Christopher Steele for volunteering, they're very
substantially. So they were thanking these
people all for volunteering their very substantial expertise
on Russia, which they said provided them with an invaluable
foundation for the classified evidence sessions.
Uh, so this was absolutely plenty of integrity initiatives.
There wasn't an intelligence committee report.
(04:52):
In fact, it was an integrity initiative report.
Uh, so coming back to the Iran report, the newest uh, report,
let's have a look and see what Lord Beamish, the current chair
of the committee, had to say. He said Iran poses a
wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UKUK
nationals and UK interests. Iran has a high appetite for
(05:14):
risk when conducting offensive activity and it's intelligence
services are ferociously well resourced with significant areas
of asymmetric strength. It supplements this with it's
use of proxy groups including criminal networks, militants and
terrorist organizations and private cyber actors to provide
it with deniable means of attacking its adversaries with
(05:34):
minimal risk of retaliation. We highlight in particular, he
said are concerned that at the sharp increase in the physical
threat posed to dissidents and other opponents of the regime
who are in the UK. Given Iran's willingness to use
assassination as an instrument of state policy.
The significant threat of Iranian espionage in support of
(05:56):
potential future lethal activity.
The importance of negotiating a form of de escalation between
Iran and the international community to deal with the
Iranian nuclear threat. And the need to both raise the
resilience bar and improve cybersecurity in the UK and to
raise the cost to Iran of launching cyber attacks on the
(06:17):
UK so as to deter them from doing so.
Uh, so my question then is, is this some grand conspiracy to
take us to war? Well, in my opinion, the answer
to that is yes and no. Uh, the committee claims that it
sets it's own agenda and work programme, but to suggest that
there's no steering by the intelligence agency is just not
credible. And of course they choose their
(06:40):
experts very carefully. As they say, they take evidence
from ministers, the heads of theintelligence and security
agencies, senior officials, experts and academics as it
considers necessary. So the evidence they receive is
potentially highly biased. And so it's inevitable that this
group of useful idiots will end up producing suitable
(07:03):
propaganda, which then informs the media agenda where other
useful idiots idiots unquestionably regurgitate the
same propaganda. And here's a perfect example of
what I mean. The Times claim that Iran poses
a higher risk to our security than Russia.
And if you see the highlighted quote there, it says the threat
of assassination and other violence from Iran is now at the
(07:24):
level posed by Russia, which is exactly the narrative straight
out of the report itself uncritically repeated.
Charles, I don't where do we start with this?
It they have a history of producing these reports and we
now have all three of the main targets of warfare that we've
been hearing about for so long from the from the one
(07:46):
organization. Yeah.
Well, I think that's it. I think predominantly it's the
note of incredible familiarity that this is the tactic deployed
and simply the name of the country is changed.
But also it sets up two things. First of all, in terms of the
game batch of Russia, you know, election interference or all the
rest of it, it provides A smokescreen and covers or
obscures the activities of the state, the British state, in
(08:09):
terms of meddling in areas that frankly it shouldn't.
And also it is absolutely queuing up the possibility of a
false flag and therefore turningthis into what might be regarded
as a a self fulfilling prophecy.So I think this is, you know,
it, it harks back to sort of 2005, six period where the line
from the Minister of Defence waschanged from dealing with
(08:33):
matters overseas to keeping our streets safer and and that
continued narrative and you see exactly that this is the same
thing happening now. So Vanessa, lots of integrity
there, but the the sort of MO doesn't change.
They don't really have any any new way of approaching these
problems. No, absolutely not.
And I would say one of the steering factors in this report
(08:55):
is of course, Israel and the Zionist movement lobby in the
UK, which we know increasingly how powerful it is and how many
sectors of British governance, it's infiltrated from all
directions. Quite extraordinary.
I mean, they don't talk about the threat to British democracy
(09:16):
from the state capture by Israel.
And it's it's similar to before when they were raising alarms
about Huawei interfering with mobile phone technology in the
UK, but failing to point out theIsraeli infiltration of cyber
surveillance, etcetera in the UK.
(09:36):
It's, it's just, it's extraordinary, really.
And just to finish Charles, theyalways do this with a straight
face. How is that possible?
I don't know. We can be but continually amazed
and the the but the regrettable truth is that this will be
absolutely absorbed and taken asfact by by people who read
(09:56):
publications like the Times. And if you cast your mind back
to late 2024 when as if reading off exactly the same script,
Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and indeed
Ken McCullum, chief of MI five were from nowhere plucking out
the state threat from Iran story.
And it was never substantiated and they were never they were
never asked where they had got that specific intelligence from.
(10:19):
And of course that there is no evidence of any being there, but
it doesn't stop them from sayingit.
Indeed. OK, well, Vanessa, let's move to
Tony Blair then another British.Well, not quite sure what
whether I should say any more about Tony Blair, but but what?
What have you got? Because you've discovered
connections to the Abraham Accords.
(10:42):
Yeah, of course. I mean, Tony Blair's influence
in in events in the Middle East has been ongoing for decades,
including, of course, most notoriously the war against
Iraq, which set up the regime change war against Syria, which
we've discussed many times on UKcolumn.
But I want to start with this very short clip, which
demonstrates exactly the agenda behind Tony Blair and and the
(11:05):
the collective that he represents in the summer Davos
in China, when he's asked the following question by the
interviewer. 1st for hearing your perspective on the
geopolitical and Geo economic situation, could it have been
(11:25):
more complicated the geopolitical situation that
we're seeing today? Well, we'd be kind of out of
business if it if it wasn't so. I mean, I have to say the, the
interviewer also asked him aboutthe complex situation in the
Middle East. And again, he, he giggles.
(11:47):
I, I really, it's very hard to, to watch this guy now.
But interestingly, yes, I did find out in the last few days
that actually Tony Blair was largely responsible for setting
off or initiating the Abraham Accords discussions.
This is in the Jewish News, which is based in London, the
(12:08):
London genesis of the Abraham Accords.
And what does it actually say that in 2015 in an interview?
Sorry, interview in the Israeli media last weekend.
It was Tony Blair who revealed that back in 2015.
So this was before President Trump was elected for his first
term. He first introduced Prime
Minister Netanyahu's trusted conciliary Yitzhak Molcho to an
(12:32):
Emirati cabinet minister in London.
It then goes on to show that by the end of 2016.
So that was the very beginning of Trump's first administration.
The same UAE minister met Netanyahu who was then
introduced to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. 2018.
Netanyahu visited Abu Dhabi twice on an Israeli flight that
(12:55):
crossed Saudi airspace. So it does appear that Tony
Blair set the OR or created the groundwork ready for Trump's
first administration that brought in the Abraham Accords
through Trump's son-in-law JaredKushner.
Blair also in the same article, points out that bin Zayed, in
his opinion, showed exceptional political and leadership talent.
(13:19):
And Netanyahu is a remarkable politician, of course,
conducting genocide in Gaza and the West Bank as we speak.
So in 2020, basically the UAE, which was a former British
protectorate. Protectorate, which perhaps
explains Tony Blair's focus on the UAE, the Abraham Accords
unlocking a sustainable and inclusive growth across the
(13:43):
Middle East. But what does this actually
mean? This is Tony Blair's statement
on the actual signing, which waspublished up at his Tony Blair
Institute for Global Change. And if we actually look at what
his statement said, for many years I and my institute team
(14:04):
have worked on deepening relationships between Israel and
the Arab world. Of course, the Arab world
basically means the Arab Gulf state, Jordan and Egypt.
I had long come to the conclusion that if we want to
see a fair resolution of the Israeli Palestinian issue on the
basis of two states, there had to be a complete reversal of the
idea that the Arab world should refuse contact with Israel until
(14:27):
the peace agreement was made. So apparently the the resistance
should desist and boycotting, boycotts and divestment should
also not be allowed. He then goes on in the again
published up at the Tony Blair Institute, how the Abraham
Accords are shaping a new technological covenant.
(14:48):
Now this is where it does get slightly interesting.
It's very clear that the collaboration with UAE in
particular is focused very much on on a digital authoritarian
global dictatorship. So UAE is concentrating on
becoming a front runner in more secure smart cities, driverless
(15:10):
taxis, smart pods and eco houses, networks of sensors and
camera data gathering services and in very strong
cybersecurity. All of this, of course, created
in collaboration with Israel butalso with China, He then goes on
(15:31):
to point out again in the same statement or article up at the
Tony Blair Institute. So the next chapters will tell
stories of the possibilities of turning the region into a global
powerhouse of fintech capabilitythrough uniting Israeli tech
innovation with the UAE financial expertise.
I'll leave you to translate thatleading the way in a new
(15:52):
Abrahamic Covenant for the technological area.
So of course that means central bank, digital currency,
etcetera. But let's have another look at
the UAE that was involved in theSaudi, Israeli, US and UK war
against Yemen since 2015. And in fact, I've written
numerous times about the UAE black sites in southern Yemen
(16:15):
using US style torture against Yemeni civilians, quite horrific
reports from that for at least the last five years.
And of course they were involvedin the targeting of the Yemeni
civilians in in partnership withIsrael and Saudi Arabia.
But then also I, I looked into the digital authoritarianism in
(16:40):
the UAE and across the board. This is an article linked to
Chatham House, but almost all ofthe Western elite linked think
tanks have written about the thedanger of UAE's digital
authoritarianism, which includesof course, the use of elements
(17:01):
like the Pegasus spyware which was developed by Israel and the
spy unit 8200 to spy on dissidents, gather information,
which of course in the UAE then immediately leads to their
arrest. There's a lot of information
about this online, but the Abraham of CORDS, of course,
then led to the Abraham Shield plan, which again, we've covered
(17:23):
here on UK column. It's a coalition basically to
ensure the genocide and the extermination of Palestinians,
the creation of the dystopian state that again, we've talked
about Palestinians being confined to ever reduced land
mass, concentration camps, the sale of their land or, or giving
(17:45):
of their land into a trust and, and then basically their
displacement from Palestinian land into neighboring countries.
And last week, of course, we talked about Tony, Tony Blair's
staff who took part in the Gaza Riviera project with BC GB.
CG, of course, is the company that was managing the Gaza
(18:07):
humanitarian funds, American private military contractors who
were running the humanitarian aid for Palestinians.
That, of course, is being used by Israel to to effectively
massacre more Palestinians coming into smaller and smaller
areas together. And I remind everybody to have a
(18:30):
look at the Blair Bush project in Syria that brought al Qaeda
to power because this connects everything.
So it shows very clearly that what Tony Blair is tasked with
is, is creating a digital surveillance oppressive bloc
using the Gulf countries, the Arab Gulf countries, and
(18:51):
basically harnessing the countries that are prepared to
normalize with Israel to, to create what I think is a very
dangerous development block of all of these concepts to enslave
humanity now and in the future. And of course, who are deeply
connected, as we've said before,to the British state, to the US
and to EU states. So I want to end with another
(19:16):
section, and I apologise for inflicting this upon all of you,
but this is Tony Blair still at the summer Davos China event,
talking about his view of governance.
So let's have a look at this. You know, you do a poll in the
Middle East by the way of of young people across the whole of
(19:37):
the Middle East. And ask them which country do
you want your country to be mostlike?
The answer is I think virtually every year comes back the UAE.
So you know, this is and that's not a coincidence, by the way.
It's because of the way the governance has been.
And one of the reasons why, you know, my institute works in
almost 50 countries across across the world today.
And one of the fascinating things is that everyone always
(19:59):
thinks. Their their situation is unique
and of course in a in a way it is.
But whichever country you go to.Most of all, what people want is
the opportunity to do well, right, if they work hard to have
peace and stability, to raise their family with some chance of
a decent future. And that's the same wherever you
(20:20):
go. And the key to it is good
governance that is open minded itself, that is effective in
providing opportunity for peopleand is connected to the world.
Do we have that kind of governance in the UKI wonder?
But it's also I think very interesting that the UAE is
(20:42):
being set up as the flagship of this new digital
totalitarianism. And the fact that the countries
that are being targeted, which are effectively Iran, Syria, of
course, that we know is already fallen into organised chaos and
Lebanon OR at least the Lebaneseresistance will have or had
(21:04):
independent financial systems, independent from the World Bank,
independent from Western influence and interference.
We've talked about Hezbollah having the non usury bank where
people bring their gold, leave their gold for a period of time
until they pay back the loan andthen they can collect their
gold. Iran has independent banking.
(21:26):
Syria had independent banking. Of course, now it's being sold
by Tom Barrack, the economic hitman for Trump into debt
enslavement through the IMF, etcetera, and various monetary
funds, just as Egypt and Jordan have been sold previously.
So it's for me very interesting.And I think what it demonstrates
very clearly is that the war is not only against the resistance
(21:49):
in the West Asia region and in Iran, it's a, it is literally
against all of us. Because if Tony Blair is
harnessing the Arab Gulf state to to basically bring in this
kind of digital tyranny, then it's certainly going to affect
us. And Israel is already part of of
that complex and is already embedded in our own state
(22:13):
structure. Vanessa, thank you very much for
that. Any thoughts Charles?
Well, I mean, I think it absolutely hits the nail on the
head, but. But I say you're quite right.
And yeah, I mean, in a way, always a difficult person to
talk about. He sort of seems to be
everywhere and people still seemto listen to him, which I think
(22:33):
to anybody who's followed his career over the last 30 or 40
years could be and should be completely mystified by.
OK, well, let's move on then to Africa and Darfur.
Yeah, indeed. And in fact, that we'll link
back to Vanessa's report rather closely.
But we start with the British High Commission who in Nairobi
have been busy tweeting about increasing the exports from
(22:56):
Africa into the UK market with aload of footage here showing the
President of Kenya, William Ruto, smiling in London with
Keir Starmer, presumably becausehe's managed to get away from
the rioting and discontent in his own country.
Now, Ruto himself has used the same surveillance platform to
remind the public of the, quote,areas of mutual interest between
(23:17):
Israel and Kenya. And that links obliquely to the
concurrent reporting from New York on the activities of the
United Nations Security Council.Now, first of all, we have James
Karaoke, the Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, who
made a statement about humanitarian access to those in
need in Sudan. This was back on 27th of June.
(23:39):
He said little of note and absolutely nothing that could
constitute action, action on thematter.
But I would say his remarks are perhaps best characterized by
his encouragement of others to do something.
Quote, we welcome continued efforts by the UN, the African
Union and countries of the region to advance an inclusive
(24:00):
political process. And then on Thursday, 10th of
July, the Council met to discussthe situation in Darfur.
And this was prompted by a report from the Deputy
Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Nazat Khan on.
Now, before considering what it is that she did say, I should
just point out the remit of the ICC, as shown here on the banner
(24:24):
at the top of their website saystrying individuals for genocide,
war crime, crimes against humanity and aggression.
Now, she was keen to begin by thanking the president of Sudan
for attending a point of significance which I'll come
back to. Khan's opening gambit was to
state that, quote, the humanitarian position has
(24:44):
reached an intolerable state, which makes it significant that
her statement, which was nearly 2000 words long, should not
mention a single date. Now, the reference to the
humanitarian position could describe any point over the last
several decades, making this just another demonstration of
the international community's sustained ability to preserve
(25:05):
and protect vested interests. While talking as though
something will happen and to pick out an example with which
to illustrate the point, Nazad Khan said, quote and I wish to
be clear on a key priority in this respect.
We must work together with seriousness and focus to secure
the arrest of those individuals subject to ICC arrest warrants
(25:29):
presently in Sudan, Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir, Ahmad Harun and
Abdel Rahim Mohammad Hussain. Now she's referring here to a
process which has already been going on for 20 years and still
no sanctions have been brought against any of those three men.
UK Column has covered the extraordinarily ineffectual
(25:52):
record of the ICC and I refer back to Khan's opening remarks
about Sudan's President Abdel Fattah Al Bahan in 2008, when
delivering a similar report, thethen ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno
Ocampo said, quote, my office has a duty not to intervene when
(26:13):
national authorities are conducting national proceedings.
This is the principle of complementarity.
The Sudan claimed that it would investigate and prosecute
perpetrators of crimes. Well, obviously it did not.
Now as to whether there is any sincere desire for or
expectation of change. This clip examines the
(26:36):
effectiveness of the UN set alongside the remarks of Kieran
Prendergast, the former Under Secretary for Political Affairs
at the UN, as recorded for PBS Frontline documentary from 2007.
At the summit, world leaders toasted a final agreement that
covered a great deal of ground. Within It was a section on the
(26:59):
responsibility to protect. It was an endorsement of an
emerging legal norm that gave the UN authority to intervene
and, if necessary, even invade acountry to protect the civilian
population. It seemed to offer hope.
(27:21):
But once again, the principles the UN put on paper would not
translate into concrete action to save the people of Darfur.
Veteran UN officials were candidin their skepticism.
We don't mean it when we when wesay that we're not going to
accept other Rwanda's, further Rwanda's.
But I, I never thought we did mean it.
(27:44):
And that's a very, it's a very sad conclusion.
But I don't think there's any evidence to, to sustain the view
that we did mean it. We may have meant it as a kind
of, you know, at a level of generalised, generalised
indignation, but but when it comes to accepting the
consequences of that, we don't pretty girls there, I think,
(28:09):
telling you really everything you need to know.
And of course, it should be pointed out that UNAMID, the UN
mission to Darfur, was shut downin 2020 and there's none running
there currently. Now, of course, given the very
short memory that the public is permitted to have by the
mainstream media and the variousnational and supranational
governments of the world, it's no surprise to see follow up
statements such as that from Colin McIntyre.
(28:32):
The ICC, Sorry. In response to the ICC report,
McIntyre said that he was, quote, gravely concerned and
that there are reasonable grounds to believe that war
crimes and crimes against humanity may have been committed
and indeed are continuing to be committed in Darfur.
He even tried to turn the failedarrests of the three men as a
(28:55):
warning to perpetrators who still believe themselves beyond
the reach of international law. And of course, it is quite the
opposite. Now, as to why and how this
situation is allowed to perpetuate, there is of course
not enough time in this report to go into sufficient detail,
but the activities of the government of the United Arab
(29:16):
Emirates, as Vanessa has just been articulating, should be
scrutinised to a much greater degree.
And under the auspices of humanitarian aid from
neighboring Chad, UAE has been accused of supplying weapons to
the Rapid Support Force RSF, thelatest incarnation of the
Janjaweed militia for the continued conflict in Darfur, as
(29:38):
referenced by this Guardian article from April.
Certainly the UAE is the largestpurchaser of Sudanese gold as
shown here by the OEC statisticsfrom 2023, making them the
largest single contributor to the Sudanese economy and
therefore have a huge amount of influence.
The UAE has made no secret of its plan to control an enormous
(30:00):
number of deep water ports all over the world via the state
controlled DP World. And as reported by UK Column,
the UK itself is partnered by DPWorld via British International
Investment, most notably at the controversial port of Berbra in
Somaliland. And moving on to this piece in
the cradle, which describes thisas a covert empire across the
(30:24):
Red Sea. It's certainly worth reading and
there'll be a link to it in the show notes.
Now the other factor deserving equal consideration, though it's
most certainly not exclusive to the UAE, is the outsourcing of
agriculture to Sudan. And here we have grain, a non
profit, which has examined this reckoning that UAE now controls
more than a million hectares of Sudanese farmland during what is
(30:48):
described as a famine in Sudan by the United Nations.
And perhaps most critically, theUAE is seen as a key strategic
partner in the alliance against Iran, most notably, as Vanessa
has just been describing, via the Abraham Accords and indeed
her relationship with Israel. So sorry, UAE rather than
Vanessa. It is an enduring and complex
(31:11):
picture and one that strongly suggests that none of the actors
involved have any interest in improving.
Now, I don't know if we've got time to have a few thoughts from
Vanessa on on that situation, but perhaps particularly the
role of UAE in Sudan's, you know, degenerate state of
affairs. Well, I mean, it's just
(31:34):
terrific. But I think what is equally
scary is the clear involvement. I mean, I haven't checked on the
Tony Blair Institute of the connections to Sudan, but I'm
sure they will be there because Tony Blair is clearly partnering
with the UAE in this Israel linked expansionist project.
And of course, it's all related to to water largely for Israel
(31:58):
in particular and UAE that don'thave access to water resources
at all. I think, I think you're hitting
the nail on the head there. Tony Blair, as we've mentioned
many times in this programme, isinterested in the whole Sahel
region, which is that whole region South of the Sahara
Desert. So I think he's absolutely
active in the area. OK.
(32:20):
If you like what the UK column does, you would like to support
us, the link to do that is on the front page of the UK column
website. Click on there and you'll find
all the options. Thank you very much to everybody
that is helping us out financially.
If you can't do that, then please do share anything you see
on the UK column website that takes your fancy.
Now let's have a look at this fact checking the fact sense,
(32:43):
fact censors. This was Diane's discussion with
Doctor Judith Brown went out at 1:00 PM yesterday.
It's now available on demand on the website.
Please do watch that if you haven't seen it.
Judith knows what she's talking about and it's another hugely
interesting conversation. Tonight Jerem will be asking the
question, do we really have freewill with Todd Highen?
(33:05):
So that's 7:00 PM in the usual live stream places.
Ukcolumn.org/live and so on and tomorrow at 1:00 PM Joy Warren
is the guest. So yeah, her third interview
with the UK column talking aboutthe massive concern around fluid
fluoridation of water by water companies and the effectively
(33:27):
indiscriminate medication of thepopulation by doing it.
On demand UK, sorry on location UK Call them on location
Saturday the 18th of October 2025 in New York.
Tickets go on sale on the 20th of July.
We're looking forward to Charles.
Yeah, we are. We're very much looking forward
to it. And there will be tickets
available for both the in personevent and indeed the live stream
(33:49):
from the 28th of July. So we'll be announcing speakers
very soon. And this weekend, then the
Theatford Truth and Festival taking place in the Angel Ills
in Swallow Lane in Larling. And Diane will be speaking at
that. So get along to that if you
possibly can. And the the Question of
Devolution Sunday, which we're about to talk about, we're going
(34:12):
to be speaking on this on Sunday.
Yes, I am indeed. Yeah.
The distance meeting in the southwest at Gough, inland in in
Devon, in Exeter. And yeah, you know, I think
Andrew Bridges speaking as well.I don't know what he's speaking
on, but he usually pulls it out of a hat.
And I'm just going to be really focusing on devolution because
(34:34):
it is really something that I'llbe speaking about later and so
will you. And it's a really important
topic because it it is all aboutour, our democracy, or lack of
at the moment. Yeah.
Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you, Sandy.
And Speaking of Andrew Bridgen, he will be speaking in the Seven
Stars Hotel in Totnes on Friday the 25th of July.
(34:58):
Patrick Anixon will be introducing that and there'll be
AQ and A afterwards. The details for all these events
will be in the show notes. So have a look at the Today's
news programme on the UK column website for more on these
things. Now let's then come straight on
to the question of devolution and the fantastic news that
Plymouth is going to hold a referendum tomorrow on the issue
(35:21):
of whether or not to have a directly elected mayor.
And as is typical for Plymouth, this is a very stupid thing to
do because no matter the outcome, there won't be a
directed electric directly elected mayor.
And this is because three weeks ago the Starmer regime announced
that metro mayors are the only way to go, so there will be no
city mayors. So the outcome of this
(35:41):
referendum makes no difference. Now, the most widely recognized
metro mayors are, of course, Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham, but
there are quite a number of so-called regions which have
elected mayors. Now, according to the Institute
of Governance, sorry, the Institute for Government,
regional mayors are directly elected leaders who chair
(36:02):
mayoral strategic authorities Brackets, also known as combined
authorities, to which specified functions and budgets have been
devolved from Whitehall. Mayoral strategic authorities
are formed by a group of local authorities at a city, regional
or regional level, as the Institute for Government says.
And they go on to say that the specifics of the powers of Msas
(36:24):
vary from place to place, but typically include aspects of
transport skills, housing and local infrastructure investment,
and in some cases special special planning, policing,
health and employment support. Now the government's Devolution
Bill will establish A3 tier devolution framework.
They say that applies by defaultto all places, bringing a
(36:45):
greater consistency of what is devolved each MSA.
Now what they're talking about there is the English Devolution
and Community Empowerment Bill, which Sandy's going to talk
about in a second, introduced a few days ago by Angela Rayner,
and which Ben spoke about on Monday's programme, and which
will bring centralised control to the local level.
But as we've been, we've been highlighting this for years in
(37:06):
article after article. These people are about as
democratic as Stalin and you know, just lots of articles on
this topic. So Sandy, let's hear more from
you on this. Yeah, sure.
I mean, my first, my first slideis really from the, it's, it's
(37:26):
saying, you know, are, are thesemayors, are they, are they going
to fix our regions? Well, uh, no, I don't think they
are. They're going to fix it for
themselves, surely, um, and for the, for global governance, but
they're not going to fix it for the people of the UK.
And, um, and that The thing is that this is, you know, this is
(37:47):
a kind of problem reaction solution thing because, you
know, the regions, if you like, if you want to call them the
regions, the UK has been hollowed out from inside out.
The infrastructure's been decimated.
And so they're coming in, they're flying in as the
saviours. And it's the same thing.
It's problem reaction solution. And, you know, really it's the
(38:08):
remedy for, to bring in the, thefull technocratic control
agenda. And you know, this isn't by
anything, you know, all of this is, is very because it all feeds
into the, the 20-30 sustainable development goals run by, you
know, obviously by the UN and, and the WEF.
So do we really want, you know, that kind of that kind of
(38:32):
fascist fascism actually? And The thing is that what we
have to remember is that this isa, this new bill that we've got
coming in is really about, I'm just going to get actually the
first, the first, the next slideis, is about a short recent
history of, of devolution. I'll just go into that first
(38:53):
because it's been a long term plan.
And I think people have to realise that this is really long
term plan from 1988, I believe. And then, you know, Tony Blair
really tried to push it in the early 2000s and it was voted out
in 2004. And then in 2016, the biggest
shift was the Communities and cities, Cities and Communities
(39:15):
Act that came in, in 2016. And that kind of laid the
pathway really for what we're finding now with the devolution
white papers, the next thing that came up.
And then, of course, we've now got the, the, the, this cities
and communities, um, in power, you know, sort of empowerment
act. But The thing is that it is, it
(39:38):
is not going to empower the people.
It's going to empower the agenda.
And that's, that's the problem. That's the problem, because
under this act, mayors gain really control over trans.
We're talking about the, the smart city mayors or the metro
mayors, whatever you want to call them, the trans, the, the,
(39:59):
the, the shift, the power shift is coming away from Westminster
to these. These people that haven't really
been elected by us and they're being put in positions of
ultimate power. They're being given the power
over transport, housing and planning, net zero
infrastructure, energy systems, economic development, skills and
(40:22):
innovation and police and crime commissioning and fire services
in some in some cases. So this is really quite, I mean,
it's, it's, it's really worrying.
And as much as these, these mayors, their sole aim is to, to
hit the net 0 targets. So they don't really care what
(40:43):
you think. They, they want to hit their net
0 targets. And they're, I mean, as we've
seen with, with Andy Burnham in,in Manchester, you know, he's
completely changed the whole transport system there and he's
got all the electric buses and cycle lanes.
And it is turning into that, youknow, a smart city in, in, in
(41:03):
every single way. And what we need to realise is
that also the system is changingfrom government policy.
The biggest take away from this bill is that the system is
changing from government policy to global framework really.
And so these global frameworks are all integrated with Agenda
(41:25):
2030 and the St. GS.
And so we've, we've just got to realise that this everything is
is influenced. You've got local authorities
under these global covenant of mayors and the Global Covenant
of Mayors are, is, is part of the C40 Cities Plan.
(41:46):
And the C40 Cities plan is the, it's a group, it's a leadership
group of global network of about100 major cities committed to
addressing climate change and advancing the goals of the UN
Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement.
It was founded in 2005. So it's gone, you know, it's
come from quite a way back. And it brings together both
(42:09):
mayors and city leaders to collaborate on cutting urban
carbon emissions and promoting sustainability and implementing
net 0 policies across transportation, energy,
buildings and waste systems. It's heavily backed by the
global institutions like the Bloomberg Philanthropies, World
Bank Italy, which is the International Committee for
(42:29):
Local and Environmental Initiatives that was brought in
from Agenda 21 into every town council in the UK.
And it works closely with the World Economic Forum and the UN
bodies. The C40 Cities pledges to
implement policies that align with global climate targets,
often pushing beyond national governments in ambition.
(42:50):
You see critics argue that it bypasses democratic
accountability, and I think it does.
It's really giving unelected global actors the influence over
our our policies and promotes A technocratic control under the
guise of climate action. And so the climate thing is the
biggest thing because as we know, there are plans for
(43:13):
climate lockdowns. We've got plans for, you know,
our cities are heavily surveilled.
We've got geofencing in place, you know, this could actually
become a, a real worry and that,you know, the fact that we're,
we're bypassing parliament, Parliament is being the powers
of parliament are being literally shifted over to these
(43:36):
global mayors. So I, I really feel that we've
got to somehow understand that the, the, the, the way things
are going, our, our democracy is, is being further eroded
because at least at the moment, I know we, we are town councils,
some of them are pretty bad. Our parliament is bad.
(43:57):
But at least at the moment we can change things.
Once these guys get in, we can't, we don't have any choice.
They will just do what they want.
And at the moment we, we, you know, with the C40 cities, I'm
thinking about the farmers. You've got, can I go back to the
foot the, the last slide, please, which was the yeah,
you've got think tanks like the London, London University and
(44:21):
they're, they're looking at foodand how food could be sort of
woven into devolution. And then on the next slide,
please, we've got the planetary diet that was put forward by the
C40 cities. And really the planetary diet is
about cutting out meat from yourdiet.
And so they want to just controlevery aspect of our lives.
(44:44):
And if we look at the, obviouslyMike put this slide up, This is
the, and this is how devolution is, is progressing throughout
the UK. Then mainly the, the devolved
areas are up north. And what you'll find is in your
local council, you might be first of all going unitary,
which is you, you join up with another couple of councils and
(45:07):
then it goes into a combined authority, which is slightly
bigger. And then after that they want
you to go regional. Now I'm looking here at Tony
Blair's regional federal map of what he, he wanted the, the
federal map to look like by 2020.
And he, he produced this in the early 2000s.
(45:29):
So more and more Tony Blair's idea of how we should be is
playing out now. And, and, and that's, that's
what I'm seeing. And unfortunately, you know,
this the, the, the way things are going, we, we, we've got
these mayors that they're using this as a, as a, as a way.
(45:50):
For. Bringing, yeah, bringing in
global control and we don't havea say at the moment and we need
to. So that's that's kind of it.
Thank you, Sandy. Thank you, Charles.
Let's stick again in the UK. Move on to the question of
drought. Yes.
I mean, all these things are of course related, but we are now
in a situation where we have more warm weather, more hose
(46:13):
pipe bands, more finger pointingand more climate alarmism.
It must be summer. And the Environment Agency,
which behaves as though it has assumed overall responsibility
for all water within the United Kingdom, has announced another
meeting of the National Drought Group.
Their plan it would appear, is to ask everyone to use less
(46:33):
water, but their ability to either influence or monitor this
is seriously compromised. I Just like farmers and other
businesses, water companies are theoretically limited by their
abstraction license as to the amount of water they can take
from natural supplies and this is controlled by the Environment
(46:54):
Agency. As we know, all water companies
have an appalling and well recognised track record of
wasting water through leakage, something which is never
properly addressed and results, as now in farmers and members of
the public, being blamed for theamount or predicted shortages.
Now the National Framework for Water Resources published
(47:17):
recently makes many references to the forthcoming deficit and
to all the various and competingdemands on the water supply.
What they most certainly do not do is make any suggestion that
there should be a hierarchy of priorities when it comes to what
they describe as an increasinglyscarce resource.
There are any references to the burgeoning thirst of data
(47:39):
centres and artificial intelligence hubs, but a
consistent failure to attach anyfigures to this requirement.
The framework does suggest, somewhat hopefully, that data
centres should look to other supplies of water beyond using
public water supply, for exampleusing recycled water.
I submitted a Freedom of Information request to the
(48:01):
Department for Energy Security and Net 0 in order to establish
the current and projected consumption of both water and
electricity where AI and data centres were concerned.
The reply was underwhelming, though predictable.
They have no idea as they do notkeep records and strangely they
do not use modelling to guess what will happen next.
(48:22):
Also claiming not to use modelling is the annual State of
the UK Climate Report 2020 4 published on Monday.
So for the year in retrospect, this is written by the Met
Office and the Royal Meteorological Society.
Merely A lengthy reminder that according to their very
obviously manipulated statisticsand records that the country is
(48:43):
getting warmer and drier and wetter but not windier though,
which may present a problem for the storm loving weather
forecasters in the mainstream. The other key assertion is that
the sea level is rising. And of course all of this is
written with two things in mind.Firstly, it's your fault and
secondly it is all dangerous. Now, though, the report is
(49:05):
explicit in stating that it should not be used to predict
the future. That is precisely what Liz
Bentley, the chief executive of the role Meteorological Society,
has done in her interview about the report with the BBC.
But no challenge was issued by the BBC when she did so.
Concurrent with the doom mongering has been the belief
that this year's harvest will bea disaster, which of course
(49:27):
provides the perfect nudge into consuming lab grown
indigestibles. It's too early to give much of
an indication, but Farmers Weekly suggest that the wheat
harvest so far is actually better than expected.
And on a related note, you may recall that back in April UK
column reported on what appearedto be an I'll considered
encouragement to farmers to withhold milling wheat in order
(49:50):
to create a bread shortage so that the public would be made
aware that the government is notlooking after farmers now.
This initiative, published by Sorry, pushed by Olly Harrison
and Clive Bailey, does not appear to have taken market
forces into account. And the Agricultural and
Horticultural Development Board was already predicting back then
(50:13):
that there would be a 13% increase in wheat imports for
this year, and that was as far back as March.
Agri trade news we've just seen on screen suggesting that this
strike made absolutely no difference, although there may
have been some unintended and negative consequences for any
farmers who were convinced to take this sort of action.
So imagining that the governmentwill ever have farmers interests
(50:34):
at heart is made to look like a fool's errand.
And anyone listening who does produce food, please do go to
the farming section on the UK column website for inspiration
in terms of establishing local markets.
Finally, the Bill which absolutely refuses to die.
There would be a strong chance that the era of global boiling
will have petered out by the time the Climate and Nature Bill
(50:56):
is debated again in Parliament and its second reading already,
which, back to the 11th of July this year, has now been further
deferred to Friday the 29th of May 2026.
That's a shame. Well, yes, I suppose it depends
which way you look at it. OK, back to Sandy then.
And Sandy, tell us about the Royal Foundation.
(51:18):
Well, it, it's really part of the, the, the Royal Foundation
is a, is a, is a mixture of of obviously William and, and Kate
getting together and he's, he's kind of doing the conservation
and the earth shot thing. And she seems to have taken a
very keen interest in, in early years development for children.
(51:38):
And she set up the Royal Foundation Centre for early
childhood. And I, I think I've got a, a
video here of her and how she's,how she's, well, what she's
doing. So listen to this and, and
we'll, we'll go on from there. Earlier this year, we asked you
(52:00):
5 big questions about raising our under fives.
We wanted to hear what you thinkabout the importance of the
earliest years of our children'slives.
More than half a million of you answered that call.
So we've taken your input and combined it with even more
public research to produce the Uks biggest ever study on the
early years. This year has been a hugely
(52:23):
challenging time for us all and there hasn't been a more
important moment to talk about families.
Later on this week we'll share 5big insights that we've
discovered and I will take your questions.
This is just the beginning and Iwant to thank you for starting a
conversation because we're all on this journey together, right?
(52:46):
Well, it's interesting. She, she's the, the, the, the,
the foundation have teamed up with the, the Lego Foundation,
Unilever. And yeah, there's NatWest and
Ernst and Young and Deloitte andthese, these big corporations
are heavily invested in early child development.
(53:10):
Now I wonder why? And we can see now that because
of the AI in schools now they can monitor those children's
outcomes. And as we know, outcomes for
children are being sold, you know, to, to third parties on
the blockchain and sort of like,almost like betted as futures.
(53:30):
And there there's children are being commodified in school and
these early years things. It's really quite, I, I find it
really concerning because, you know, this is a, a, a there is
another video, but it was too long to put on, but on.
Can I have that slide back? Yeah, this slide, umm, it shows
you that it's all about feelingsand empathy and understanding
(53:52):
each other and working alongsideeach other and collaborating and
being in, in children being in community and how all of their
feelings and, and, and everything are very important.
Well, of course they are becausethey are monitoring them with
SEL learning, which is social and emotional learning through
(54:13):
the devices in their schools. And all this information is
being sold onto third parties. It's being harvested and used as
a commodity. And unfortunately, children that
they're, they're saying that, you know, the, the, the teachers
are going along with this because they're saying, Oh well,
isn't it great that the childrenare being, are, are
(54:33):
understanding their own feelings, their own emotions,
their own empathy, their own, the way they, they deal with
their emotions. But all of that is being, being
filtered to use. And it could be that they're
using them because they're, they're trying to work out which
ones are new or diverse, which ones aren't, because money can
be made on children either way, whatever, whatever their,
(54:55):
whatever their cases are. So the Lego group I found quite,
quite, quite weird, really. Well, not weird, but they, they,
they're very, they're very closeto The Who and UNICEF.
They're working in, in conjunction with them.
And, you know, they, they've gotplay futures labs and they've
got global ties with the, with they're an advocate of the SDG
(55:18):
4. They're, they're aligned with
globalist reform initiatives Andthey, they, they've on their
website, they've got policies and it all aligns, it all aligns
with the, with the WEF and all the whole agenda.
And what I thought was really strange is in the next slide,
they actually have a, a policy of snitching in their, in their,
(55:42):
in their corporation that if youfind somebody that is, is not
actually going along with their narrative, then you can snitch
them and get them the sack, which I thought was quite
interesting. So all of this is, is aligned to
a bigger, bigger picture of umm,data harvesting children in the
early years, which is really, really, it's technocratic
(56:04):
framing of childhood. Umm, it promotes, the centre
promotes the idea that early childhood birth to age 5, it's
not just a family or community matter.
So they're taking the responsibility from the families
and the parents because it really is a national investment
issue. They say while supported by
neuroscience, this language is also a gateway to, you know, to
(56:28):
literally sort of reading children's emotions and, and
framing them in into this into this kind of data set that they
can use really for for, for making money.
So yeah, it it, it mirrors a broader global strategy to frame
human beings as assets to be optimised.
(56:49):
Really. Yeah, certainly with sustainable
development. 3. Now I've got an SEL learning
video so we can put that up and you can understand what SEL
learning is. There's a lot of talk these days
about SEL social emotional learning, but what exactly is
it? Social Emotional learning is the
(57:11):
process of learning social and emotional skills, and it's just
as important as learning readingor math.
This learning process is most effective when it begins early
and continues through high school.
Social emotional skills are essential for success in school,
work, and life. With SEL, students learn to
(57:33):
manage their own emotions and behaviors, have empathy and show
caring concern for others, solveproblems effectively, make
responsible decisions, and maintain healthy relationships.
Students learn to recognize what's happening inside them and
to be aware of their emotions, which helps them deal with
(57:53):
strong emotions and impulsive behaviors.
It helps them stop, take a breath, and think about a
situation before acting. Students learn to identify
others emotions and perspectives, which helps them
empathize and show compassion nomatter who they are or what
their background is. It's not difficult to imagine
(58:16):
how this is important in the classroom and in life.
Students learn to solve problemsin peaceful ways and communicate
assertively about what they needor want.
This helps them get along with other students and get the help
they need from adults. Yeah, the adults.
(58:36):
So it just, it just shows you that this supports long term
psychological compliance. Really, they want the perfect
global citizens and you know, itall aligns with the ESG values
and it takes the, the responsibility of the of the
parents away. And I, I think it's a form of
child abuse actually, but that'sprobably going a bit far, but I
(58:59):
don't think so. Any thoughts?
The outsourcing of everything, where, where does it end?
It's it's totally absurd. We have a final video clip.
Charles, why don't you introduceus?
We do. We've taken a bit of a battering
from the climate change narrative today.
So to lighten the boon, the mood, we're going to cast our
(59:19):
eye back to a Foscho sketch from, I think, 2011, where they
imagined the weather forecast inforeign, in the days when you
could still laugh about stuff. Nick Iteros.
Fosso Tipio. Fiteros Weekend.
Meteorological. Smith, Paula.
Hello classy Costa paratos miatrochi a valley Portos
(59:42):
scorchio Miya cuna Tera. Interior scorchio.
Miya cuna Tera Exterior scorchio.
Montablanco scorchio. Costa scorchio.
Metrologic is Manana Oh Scorchio.
(01:00:05):
Scorchio. There we go.
Seems they knew what was coming.Sadly they haven't looked out
the window here, so we're not quite scorching.
Today. Anyway, we're going to leave it
there for today. Thank you very much Sandy and
Vanessa for joining us and Charles, of course everybody
that's watched. If you're a UK column member,
(01:00:26):
stick around on the live stream and we will be back for some UK
column news extra in a few minutes time.
Otherwise, don't forget Germ tonight, the interview tomorrow,
and we'll be back at 1:00 PM as usual on Friday.
See you then. Bye bye.
Bye bye.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.