August 11, 2025 • 64 mins
Brian Gerrish, Ben Rubin and Prof. Diane Rasmussen McAdie with Monday's UK Column News.Sources: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-11th-august-2025UK Column On Location TICKETS and LIVESTREAM access: https://shop.ukcolumn.org/Timestamps:00:00 When Dissent Gets Branded Terrorism - The Palestine Action Crackdown15:16 Hospitals on Hold: The Endless Waiting Room28:38 Stargate UAE: Opening the Gates to AI Power42:17 Visit The UK Column Website - Lots More Than The News46:09 Farming for Control: The Power Shift in Our Food53:33 South Yorkshire Police Raid: Protecting Abusers or Justice?57:19 Flames of Neglect: The Wildfire Problem We’re Choosing Not to Solve
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Good afternoon. Today is the eleventh of August twenty twenty five,
just after one o'clock. Welcome to UK column News. I'm
your host, Brian Gerrish, delighted to have Ben Rubin with
me in the studio and we'll be joined by Diane
Rasmus and mcaddy by a link from the northeast of England.
(00:30):
I'll just say if you look out of the window
behind me, you can see we've got a very gray
day in Plymouth. There's a bit of drizzle, there's certainly
full cloud cover, not particularly hot, so we're surviving here.
We'll say a little bit more about climate at the
end of today's news, but let's start with some serious
(00:52):
events and that was really over the weekend on Saturday,
Palestine Action, when, of course we saw some pretty endible
scenes between the police and the general public, many of
whom were arrested on the basis that they've now become terrorists,
no matter what their age or background. Let's have a
look at how the Guardian portrayed things.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Rest the people can see the genocide, arrest the people
that are selling.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Arms, they're bombing, killing, allowing the starving of uphole nations.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Well, there were Ben That's how the Guardian portrayed things,
so lots of noise. You got the impression that this
was a pretty brutal reaction with the police and not
a lot of information apart from the Guardian being keen
to warn people at the end of the video that
you dare support Palestine Action, you are going to be
branded a terrorists and you can face up to fourteen
(02:21):
years in prison. Well, luckily UK Column was able to
report from the scenes. Let's have look at this alternative
clip which has kindly been shot for the UK Column
by will.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Excuse me madam?
Speaker 5 (02:40):
What's happened.
Speaker 6 (02:48):
Yellside?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
They said they arresting.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
And the arms, sailers and the politicians.
Speaker 8 (02:55):
Hello, this is Will Coles have a pointing for UK Column.
We're down here today in Parliament Square. You can see
big men behind me and the police are one by
one picking off members.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Or supporters at least of the group.
Speaker 8 (03:07):
Palestine Action was just being prohibited as a so called
terrorist group for throwing paint on a crane on a plane,
which many think is criminal damage.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
The police are.
Speaker 8 (03:17):
Grabbing the people one by one and it looks like
these people are going to be tried, charged and possibly
imprisoned as terrorists for holding up signs saying they support
an organization which commits criminal damage.
Speaker 7 (03:37):
To exercise my fundamental human rights.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Are you willing to go to prison? Absolutely?
Speaker 8 (03:43):
Do you think about being labeled as a terroriffy?
Speaker 7 (03:45):
It's snortingly ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
It's going to be the thin end of the website.
Speaker 7 (03:51):
Absolutely, we're on the way down to a totalitarian state,
so much you.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
What do you think of what's happening.
Speaker 9 (04:01):
I think it's said the death of democracy, the death
of freedom, the death of sweet priest speech. And it's frightening,
completely frightening to see this in the twenty first century
we've had it.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Did you want to over.
Speaker 10 (04:18):
The police?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
What do you think of this?
Speaker 10 (04:19):
I think it's shameful. I think it's absolutely disgusting. This
is our democratic right to stand here and protest, and
the policemen are stopping something that is no crime.
Speaker 11 (04:30):
I was shocking, subtly shocking. I've never seen anything like
this in this country. This is a disgrace and this
we'll go down in history like shame on you.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
I am you know.
Speaker 12 (04:43):
Oh, they shouldn't be arresting people that are just trying
to protest.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Most of them are retirees. We've seen retired vickers, We've
seen doctors, we've seen grandparents. Peaceful people just protesting against
the genocide are being arrested by the Met police who
don't have the brains to think for themselves. They're just
foot soldiers for genocide. They're following orders, the orders of
a general sidal government. There's committing genocide right now in Israel.
Speaker 8 (05:07):
Run's commander, is this a proportion of res one?
Speaker 4 (05:10):
We're enforcing people that are breaching legislation.
Speaker 8 (05:13):
So do people not have a rig of free speed?
What do you think about this terrorist classification for criminal damage?
Speaker 4 (05:27):
It's absolutely absurd.
Speaker 9 (05:29):
Kalifine Action are a group that peacefully protested about a
genocide that's killed. Depending on who you hear, four hundred
thousand official number sixty thousand odd, but it's probably going
to be far more than that. And at the end
of the day, they were doing the work that other
people wanted them to do. Now they've been prescribed as
(05:50):
terrorists because they threw paint on rented aircraft.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
That not my cup of tea. This is in Britain.
This is a fascist state.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
It's really some well un experts have called for the
UK government to rescind the prescription of Palastine action. The
UN experts have said there is no internationally a Greek
definition of terrorism, but consensus is that it is damage
and intentional damage or harmed to civilians for political gains,
not property. Palistine action have only ever gone for property.
(06:19):
They've made that very clear. There's already existing legislation to
cover that. There's criminal damage, there's trespassing, you know, all
sorts of legislation they could draw. And it's politically motivated
because they were so shamed by some people getting into
the RAF site and spray painting a plane. They were
so humiliated that they've prescribed the organization doing it. But
as you can see, the people are against it and
(06:40):
we will keep coming.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
It makes a mockery of the Lord.
Speaker 13 (06:44):
And it's very selective because the Quakers have been doing
action like that for years and it gets ignored, they're arrested.
So other organizations have done this, but it's only because
it's Palestine, but all of a sudden that's labeled as terrorism.
Yet other organizations have done this in the past. I
know the Quakers have, so I mean by the principles
and doing.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
The right thing.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
It's just by spiece eroding away our rights to demonstrate,
to protest the democracy, and it's just piece by piece
it's slipping away from us.
Speaker 12 (07:14):
I can do what you have to do.
Speaker 9 (07:25):
I think that we are now on such a dangerous
position that we are in trouble of losing all freedom.
Speaker 8 (07:35):
Do you think that many people are going to be
acquisted by jury?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Yes?
Speaker 11 (07:39):
Yeah, the public opinion is on the side of the people.
Speaker 8 (07:42):
And do you think that more people are going to
come out and do this as they continue locking people up?
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Yes?
Speaker 11 (07:46):
I don't think this will stop now.
Speaker 10 (07:48):
They need to be exonerated by a jury, and Starmer
and his government need to apologize for getting this so
very badly wrong.
Speaker 8 (07:54):
Who want other people who may not even agree with
you on Palestine to stand up for these people?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Upon principle for speech, absolutely absolutely free speeches for everyone,
And there might be people that I disagree with their
opinion fundamentally, but I will definitely stand up for their
right to have free speech.
Speaker 13 (08:12):
Yeah, I agree completely. They're not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 8 (08:14):
We've seen a rest for this before, but now this
seems to be the biggest that we've seen so far,
and it seems like this isn't issue which isn't.
Speaker 14 (08:23):
Going away, and.
Speaker 8 (08:25):
More and more people are going to be ended up
in prison on trial for saying the words I support
Palestine action. This is Will Coles Hill reporting for UK
columns support.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So excellent report by Coles Hill there, and of course
the contrast with the Guardian report when no substance, no
interaction with the public are obviously deeply concerned. It really
shows the manipulation of the mainstream media. Now towards the
end of Will's report there a member of the public
(09:20):
was talking about the power of the jury to do
something and I think this is the time when we
need to flag up the government's other attack at the moment,
which is on just that juries. And the man in
question is retired Judge Brian Levison, who the UK column
has reported on many occasions. But center screen you've got
(09:42):
his independent review at the criminal Courts part one. We
just wanted to make sure people knew that aside from
attacking the jury system, it's quite clear and many people
are commenting on this that he seems determined to get
rid of more and more opportunities for people to be
tried by a jury their peers. We notice that on
(10:02):
the front COVERI is also promoting the Talmud uniquely amongst
other neutral comments about justice and make your own mind up.
But of course, if we have a look at what
Keirs Stalmer is talking about at the moment, then he
is pushing heavily, of course, for things to go in
(10:22):
Israel's favor in Gaza. Let's have a listen to this
little clip from the twenty ninth of July.
Speaker 15 (10:30):
On the seventh October twenty twenty three, Hamas perpetrated the
worst massacre in Israel's history. Every day since then the
horror has continued. The hostages are still being held today.
The Palestinian people have endured terrible suffering now in Gaza
(10:52):
because of a catastrophic failure of aid. We see starving babies,
children too weak to stand. Images that will stay with
us for a lifetime. Our goal remains a safe and
secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Well, there we are, obviously, that's a section of his
full speech was edited, but the meaning of what he
had to say was not changed. It's clear that the
priority is Israel, and all the troubles in Gaza are
simply the result of not being able to get food,
in no mention of bombing and indiscriminate killing at all.
(11:38):
It's simply a problem in getting food in Now he
has also made a recent statement and this was pushed
out on Defense HQ, the government's mod propaganda machine, and
here he's saying that the Israeli government's decision to further
escalate its offensive in Gas is wrong. We urge it
to reconsider immediately. Then again he's talking about humanitarian aid,
(12:05):
but he goes on to say that together with our allies,
we're working on a long term plan to secure peace
in the region as part of a two state solution
and ultimately achieve a brighter future for Palestinians and Israelis. Well,
that's putting a lot of gloss over it. But the
key thing is while he's supposingly talking peace, UK, the
(12:25):
US and indeed many countries in the EU are going
to pump in the weapons to keep that slaughter of
the Palestinians in guards are going. So the hypocrisy truly breathtaking.
But now we've reached the stage where ordinary British people
on the streets protesting about this genocide and brutality have
(12:47):
become the terrorists. And not only that, of course, we
are seeing attack on Jewish people themselves. Thank you very
much for the viewer who picked up this Oxford mail report.
This is Margols who was one of the Harry Potter
stars as an actress. And what's the attack about? Well,
(13:08):
she said this, she's Jewish herself. She spoke to the
big issue about Israel's military campaign in Gaza. She said
it reminded her of the Holocaust and added the terrible
thing I face is that Hitler won. He changed us,
he made us like him. So this lady clearly very
upset and disturbed at what she was seeing happen. But
(13:31):
what was the result. That the result was a massive
attack on her by the Campaign against Anti Semitism. Now
have attributed the remarks in the paper which came from
the organization to the chief executive, Gideon Falter. He said
the organization said the remarks are repugnant. The fact she
was born Jewish does not give a license to use
(13:53):
her immense platform to spread quote anti Jewish. Venom went
on to say this has to be the end of
the road. She must be shunned by the showbiz world.
That has formed and bowed until now. So there you
have it. You can be Jewish, you can criticize the
Israeli government for its policy of killing in Gaza. You
(14:17):
will then be attacked by organizations which, as we'll see
from this next image, boast that they are working alongside
the police, CPS and regulatory bodies and government in order
to enforce rules and regulations against anybody they deem to
(14:39):
be anti Semitic. But I'm going to say to you,
I found this really a dangerous situation where even Jewish
people themselves are now being silenced in talking out about
these horrors in the Middle East by the Israeli government
and their agents which are operating in UK alongside them police,
(15:00):
government agencies and the British government. It's almost like everybody
who dares speak out for peace is going to be
labeled terrorists inside this country, whether you're Jewish or non Jewish.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Seems to be the plybook.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yes, indeed, Diane, let's welcome you in at this point, because,
of course, whilst there's plenty of money for the weapons
and the bombs and the ammunition going into Israel to
help it perpetuate its attack on Gaza, we've got an
NHS that is in absolute chaos in UK.
Speaker 14 (15:36):
Yes very much, thanks Brian, and hello everyone, it's good
to be here today. I wanted to follow up on
a couple of things from First of all, from May
of twenty twenty four, it was the first time that
UK column covered this issue of the new hospitals that
are meant to be put around the country. But this
tip off recently came from a viewer in Consett, County
(15:57):
Durham up here where I am in the northeast of England,
concerns about the local hospital that is going to be
replaced in his town, or that at least that's the
plan apparently to do so. The existing hospital in Conset
is called Shotley Bridge Community Hospital, which opened in nineteen twelve.
The NHS says the problem is that it leaks heat.
Now the new hospital is meant to be built near
(16:17):
this site of this sculpture, called the Terrace novalis in Conset.
This consists of two measuring instruments at theodolite and an
engineer's level. It's very very large and it's meant to
wark the watershed between the upland and the Moorlin landscape.
And the extremes of the industrial age. The significance of
this is that concept as an old steel town was
once actually once Europe's largest steel works, and this landmark
(16:41):
is very important. Another concern is that in addition to
the corruption and the waste that might be happening with
this hospital, which we're going to look at this is
happening around England by the way, is that it's possible
that this landmark could be in danger as well as
the beautiful land that surrounds it. So after I received
this tip off, I went to do a little bit
of a little photojournalism myself. This report comes from this
(17:05):
photograph which is part of the new hospital site apparently,
which has been confirmed last month by the BBC now
that the construction of the new hospital will be taking place.
It's near a big retail park area where the old
steel factory used to be. So here's a couple of
photos both from the different areas of the engineering site
where they're basically doing testing on the ground. The council
(17:28):
has previously said that the ground is not satisfactory for building,
but I guess they're doing it anyway. So what's happening
with the overall story of the hospitals around the country
is a particular concern. This in particular is Project Genesis,
which took over concert years ago. I think it was
in the nineties when the steel factory closed and the
(17:50):
Genesis project took over to try to do something with
the city. So this is nineteen forty five when the
steel factory was still in operation. You can sort of
see the area kind of the mill, sort of off
to the left of the town where the houses are.
And if we go forward to the next year that
Project Genesis provides in twenty twenty four, we can see
that there's more housing that's taking over most of the
(18:12):
steel factory. You can see the big buildings there that
are the retail park and the new hospital is set
to take place to be built over the green space
to the sort of the left of it. Project Genesis
has taken over, as I said, a lot of the city.
But the problem is that when we look at this
from a wider perspective around England, we start to see
(18:33):
the problems and how this might be taking place. If
you go back to twenty nineteen the general election, it
was part of the manifesto for Boris Johnson to think
about you know what we're going to do with the hospitals.
There he is in October of twenty twenty with Build
Back Better of course in the background, because we're going
back to this time when he was saying that this
(18:54):
would be built as a package worth three point seven
billion pounds for forty hospitals. At the time, this was
all the Health Infrastructure Plan, said to be the biggest
hospital building program in a generation, and the Shotleybridge Hospital
and concept was going to be part of this at
the time. Just to quote Boris Johnson to see where
we were in the timeline, saying this, the dedication and
(19:16):
tireless efforts of our nurses, doctors and all healthcare workers
have kept the NHS open through this pandemic. But no
matter what the virus throws at us, we are determined
to build back Better and delivered the biggest hospital building
program in a generation. And then Matt Hancock of course
came in and supported him to say that. So we
can see that. There's lots of policy documents and so
on from the UK government which can be available in
(19:38):
the show notes. So I won't go into too much detail,
but by the time we get into further into twenty twenty.
He says that we're going ahead with the hospitals, and
there were lots of things around of health boards around
the country, different trusts talking about this. So I believe
we now have a video from a GP speaking from
the Lancature area and he was talking about this new
(20:00):
hospital program.
Speaker 16 (20:09):
I'm Jeff Jolliffe. I'm a GP here in Barrow in Furness,
part of Lancaston and South Cumbria, and I'm also the
chair of the CCG in Morecambe Bay. I sit on
the Clinical Oversight Group for the new hospital's program. What
is it the new hospital's program. It's a great opportunity,
isn't it. It's a big lump of money to redevelop
our hospitals. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. We
(20:32):
can't miss it. It's going to be great for the population.
New hospitals program might seem to not mean much to
primary care, but it's actually vital, isn't it, Because we
care for our patients and our patients need good hospital
care as part of the whole pathway. So there will
be a huge knock on benefit to our patients and
therefore to the way primary care works. And night to
the future with more care closer to the patient's home,
(20:54):
more care in community services, and we need to focus
on doing in hospital only what we need to do.
In addition, they provide an environment that is better for staff,
better for patients, and an environment that patients flow better,
so you end up with better outcomes. But assuming we
get the money, and I'm hopeful of that, we could
then start the process of identifying which is the best
(21:16):
solution to spending that money. There's a big process, so
it can't happen overnight, but we'll get there and we'll
have them.
Speaker 14 (21:34):
So that all sounds nice and lovely. So that was
twenty twenty one. If we go forward a bit to
twenty twenty three, we start to see the reporting coming
from the government saying that this is now twenty billion pounds.
It was just I think just a few billion previously.
So now we're talking about it prioritizing the rebuilding of
five hospitals that we're using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete rebuilt
(21:58):
by twenty thirty as part of the new Hospital program,
because they're saying that this material was not basically fit
for purpose and that it was going to fall apart,
so they identified five hospitals as well as many other
hospitals around the country that need to be built. So
this new building, which again is going to include this
hospital and here in County Durham and many others, is
using what they call standardized design that will harness digital transformation,
(22:22):
making the use of latest technology for the benefit of
staff and patients, and it's sustainable, contributing to net zero
carbon across the NHS. So that's fabulous news, incorporating learning
from the pandemic and ensuring hospitals can adapt to changing
health needs. So this is how they're selling it in
twenty twenty three under something that they call Hospital two
point zero, which is a standardized design for future hospitals
(22:44):
which will benefit patients and staff through digital solutions and
optimize hospital layout. This will decrease the time needed to
develop and build hospitals as well as reducing the cost
through economies of scale. So what we're seeing is what
we've reported before a UK column that there's a trend
towards digital management of health, less focus on physical space,
(23:06):
less focus on human connection and the nurses and the
doctors who support people. So going forward now to twenty
twenty five, we are now seeing with Labor and Power,
and what we're seeing is a report that came out.
Basically they did a review of what the Conservatives did
looking at the new hospital program. So we have a
quote from this policy paper that was published in January
(23:28):
this year from West streeting our Hill secretary saying the
NHS is quite literally crumbling. And that's just one of
the sentences. I just wanted to highlight that the report itself, Basically,
what they did is an evaluation of where we were
with the hospital situation in England to make it sort
of prioritize what needed to be rebuilt, what was the
(23:50):
most important thing to do, using something a multi criteria
decision support analysis tool to look at which hospitals need
to be prioritized and what could wait. So as a
map here again you can see this again in the
policy documents yourself if you can't see it while on
the screen, showing which hospitals had been highlighted to be
part of the scheme and which ones were not, and
(24:11):
which ones were going to be prioritized because of this
concrete problem we see in this list there was a
list of different waves through whether we're going to be
prioritizing which hospitals and so shotley Bridge Community Hospital in
concept is in Table two Wave one, which you can
see in the report, to start construction between twenty twenty
five and twenty thirty and as we saw with my
(24:33):
photos at the start of the segment, they are starting
to look at the land underneath it. I went to
also take some photos of the existing shotley Bridge Community
Hospital and concept. These are my photos. You can't really
see the signs because the trees and the bushes haven't
been trimmed too well, but that's the assign to the
entrance to a hospital. The outside of the hospital. I
(24:55):
didn't go inside. I didn't want to draw any attention
to myself, but that's the outside. The hospital still look
like it's in place, but they say it's leaky and
the heating needs fixed. Apparently that's the problem. And there's
a sign here of the different services that they offer.
There are some people in the community who, from what
I've heard, are concerned that some of these services will
be going away. The new hospital, even though it's meant
(25:16):
to cost about five hundred million pounds to build, I
believe is only going to have sixteen beds in it,
and so they're concerned that because of the size of
the community that it serves, there will be a decrease
in services. And I want to also highlight here the
BBC reporting of the process of this hospital over time,
where there was a lot of back and forth about
what was going to happen. So first we see here
(25:39):
September twenty twenty three, the replacement is going to be delayed.
They talk about issues with funding, issues with resources. October
twenty twenty three. I've got several links here to these
are all BBC articles. Many millions of pounds over budget,
a hospital plan reviewed over spiraling costs. This was in
(25:59):
September twenty twenty four. Just reading the headlines here there
was a home skiing that was put on hold as
the new hospital husband put under review, where they were
talking about building homes for elderly people, calling it a
health village, which sounds a little bit concerning to be
built next to this new hospital. November twenty twenty four. Again,
new hospital project will never happen. So we were hearing
(26:20):
from a labor and live dems essentially at this point,
worrying about what's happening and now in January twenty twenty
five the build is to go ahead following a review,
and that's the most recent from the BBC. We have
a quote from west Street who actually came out to
see the new site and concept, so if we could
(26:40):
put that up on the screen, if we have it here.
He was saying, we have secured the funding producing a
realistic timetable with spades in the ground for a new
hospital site and concert in twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven.
It was great to see the site myself and hear
from Labor councilors how important the investment will be to
regenerating Concept. Labor will deliver this new hospital building so
(27:02):
patients and Concept get the care they deserve now. Originally,
when they reported on their report regarding what they were
going to do or not do, they criticized the Conservative
government for not putting enough money in place. And then
but you know, as we've seen here, this bit off
and on and off and on. So now they're saying
they're going to do it. The local MP called Liz Twist,
(27:24):
whose Labor for Blatant Concept, said when west visited the
site a few months ago, she said having the health Secretary,
here is a clear indication that labor is delivering for
Concept and the surrounding communities. The new site will have
state of the art facilities and much improved transport links.
I'm keen to keep working with all the relevant stakeholders
to ensure this project is built and delivered within the
(27:45):
timeframe and to improve healthcare within our communities. So the
local magazine called Concept Magazine covered this as well as we.
So they were showing when they came out to visit
and basically saying, well, all right, this is what's happening,
and now we will just wait to see what happens. Brian,
I don't know if it will get built or out,
or how much it will cost, but this is happening
around the country, so check your local areas if you're
(28:07):
in England to see what's going on with your hospital.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Ianne, thank you very much for that report. Well the
words are there, aren't they. It's always jammed Tomorrow, utopia, Tomorrow,
everything will be okay tomorrow. But what we constantly see
is that when tomorrow comes, there's more of the shamble.
So I have no confidence in what is happening here,
and I think the chaos that you are seeing is
(28:31):
part of the overall chaos to destroy the NHS as
this massive privatization coming in. Ben, I'm going to look
at you and say, so, is AI going to solve
the problem.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
No, it's not. It's certainly not going to solve the problem,
although they're going to make good use of the chaos
in the NHS. Atra Faugus squar as we heard earlier.
That was an excellent report, Diane, and also that report
by will Z was top notch. That was brilliant. And
last week we had chaos outside of migrant hotels in
(29:08):
Epping and further Afield. So there's chaos going on all
over the place. And in the background, an invasion is happening.
And I don't mean an invasion of illegal immigrants. I
mean something quite different actually, as I'll get into and
I'm going to start this in the Oval Office. On
January twenty first this year, day one of the second
(29:32):
Trump administration, the announcement of Projects Stargate half a trillion
dollars to build AI data centers across the whold of
the US, essentially mass surveillance and genetic engineering infrastructure. Really
nightmare stuff delivered through a public private partnership commissioned by
the state, represented here by Donald Trump, and delivered by
(29:56):
the private sector by corporations represented by Massa sand from SoftBank.
On the left. There Larry Ellison from Oracle, basically Tony
Blair's top thunder over the past twenty thirty years. And
importantly Sam Altman, the founder of open AI, one of
the top minds in artificial intelligence, also affectionately named by
(30:18):
the Washington Post King of the Cannibals. That's quite a name,
isn't it. The King of the Cannibals, Sam Altman. Maybe
I'll come back to that a little bit later on.
So this is rumbling on as you'd expect. In fact,
it's not rumbling. They've gone right out of the gate.
Trump's AI vision takes shape as Oragle and open AI
expand a massive stargate infrastructure project in Texas. So they
(30:42):
have broken ground. They are making headway. This is the Abilene,
Texas site just a few weeks ago. Provide a link
to this article you can go and have a look
at it. So it's all guns blazing in the US.
But also importantly they're moving internationally as well, and say
announced to the end of May, the UAE Stargate project.
(31:04):
So this is in Abu Dabbi and the World Economic
Forum interestingly very excited about this. Remember those people that
Trump is the enemy of where they really like this policy.
It's interesting, that, isn't it. So the UAE Stargate project
hints at how AI can be integrated international infrastructure crucially.
All right, and let's have a little listen to Chris Lahane,
(31:25):
chief Global affairs officer from open AI, talking about this
project to Fox News a few days ago.
Speaker 6 (31:33):
Open AI is also launching Stargate. UAE is the first
international deployment of open AI's infrastructure platform. Joining me now,
Chris Lahyan and the chief Global Affairs officer at open AI. Chris,
let me see, I've got this right. You are open
AI is working directly with other countries, in this case UAE,
(31:55):
to help their AI capacity, working in conjunction with the
United State. Have I got that right?
Speaker 4 (32:02):
You got that right.
Speaker 12 (32:03):
We think of this as open AYE for countries, but
in this particular case, it really follows on President Trump's
visit to the UAE really the Mideast last week, and
I think this partnership really is going to accomplish two
really important things. First of all, it's going to help
advance making sure that US led democratic AI is being
(32:25):
built around the world here in the UAE case. And
then secondly, this partnership also involves bringing money back into
the US, investment back into the US, into US infrastructure.
So really a win win, A win for making sure
we're building the AI system on democratics US led rails,
and a win bringing money back into the US to
(32:46):
build infrastructure for AI in the US, jobs, economic development
that comes with that.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Did you might get that, baran Well, I was witnessing
a bit the idea of democratic AI coming from the
US that it can sell in order to bring more
money back into the US.
Speaker 12 (33:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Right, we are looking at global governance here. This is
clear that we're now seeing the absolute end of the
nation state.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
It's sovereign AI though importantly, but you have to buy
it from open AI. Right, So it's sovereign because they're
going to build these data centers in your country, but
you can only buy it from a handful of very
carefully selected technology companies, all of them aligned to US imperialism.
But it's not just US imperialism, it's something that's got
(33:33):
hold of the United States. Actually, I think that's probably
a bit more like it. But I love that idea
you picked up on it. US led democratic AI. It's
a little bit like when the US would go and
invade countries to deliver freedom to people, isn't it. It's
a similar kind of thing, and they're just doing it
by stealth now rather than by bombing people, although they
are doing some bombing too. Let's give them for that. Yeah, exactly, yes,
(33:56):
And the use of the term US lead rails. Right,
So if you're on rails, if you're in a train,
you can only go in one direction or back or forth. Right,
there's no way you can get off those rails. And
that's quite telling. Anyway. Let's have a little listen to
the second half of that clip.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
Is there a worldwide contest between the United States and China,
but not for dominance of AI, but for control of AI?
Forgot that right?
Speaker 12 (34:22):
Yeah, it's a great it's a great way to put
it right now in the world, there's two countries that can.
Speaker 14 (34:27):
Build AI at scale.
Speaker 12 (34:29):
That's as you were saying, the US and the communists
led People's Republic of China. Those are the only two
countries that can build this at scale, and in this moment,
the US does have the innovation lead. We want to
leverage that lead so that we're bringing as many countries
as possible into the US rails, the US system. And
(34:49):
I think what the President did last week, I think
the way the administration is thinking about it, I think
the way we at open AI are thinking about this
in the context of Stargate International. In this case Stargate
U is really how can we take advantage how can
we leverage the innovation lead we currently have to bring
these countries onto our rails, into our system. And I
(35:10):
think that really then sets up arguably the next hundred
years as we.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
Go forward, does a contest. It's a grand battle between
capitalist America and communist China, and we've got to compete
with each other to get as much of the world
as possible onto our platform, onto US rails. Exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
This is the synthesis, isn't it. This is the final
synthesis towards one world control, because whoever controls this AI
system is ultimately going to control each nation.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
State exactly as exactly correct. I mean, we've just heard
about Abu Dabe's this is a UAE Middle East but
it's also just in the past few days hit continental Europe.
Let's hear from instant trying from Nvidia.
Speaker 17 (36:03):
Congratulations to everyone gathered in Oslo today and to Prime
Minister Store and the Government of Norway on this important milestone.
The launch of Stargate Norway marks a new chapter for
AI infrastructure in Europe. We're entering a new industrial era.
Just as electricity and the Internet became foundational to modern life,
(36:27):
AI will become essential infrastructure. Every country will build it,
every industry will depend on it. AI is no longer
hand coded, it is trained, It is refined with massive compute.
It is deployed into factories, research labs and digital services.
Stargate Norway will be powered by GB three hundred super
(36:50):
chips and connect it with mb link. It is designed
to scale to hundreds of thousands of GPUs and support
the most advanced models in training, reasoning and real time inference.
Congratulations to Ndscale and to Josh Pain and the teams
who helped make this possible, and congratulations to Sam and
(37:12):
open Aye on being part of this important first for
the region. We're proud to support this effort to SYNTAC.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
To SYNTAC what came into my mind. Bent was I
think this story, this quote is right. But the man
who produced the first gattling gun machine gun said well,
this is going to be the weapon that stops all
the war. So it's gushing enthusiasm for what they've created
without any concept what this is actually going to do
(37:45):
to humanity and mankind.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
I don't know. I think he probably has some concept
of it. Okay, yeah, I think I think these people
at the top know exactly what it's going to do.
But essentially what they're saying is this is this is
gonna First of all, I've got a real that that
one heeds me because I'm caught in Norwegian. That's where
my mother's mother was from Norway. And he says twocentac
at the end there and that mean's a thousand thanks
in Norwegian, and I just really got to me. But
(38:10):
he's talking about a total transformation of everything. Right, So
AI apparently is going to become foundational infrastructure like electricity,
like the internet. Every country will build it, as we
talked about all and all industries will depend on it.
Everything is going to run on these platforms built by
these companies. And he mentioned got a little bit of
(38:35):
bit of video here we can see. So this is
in the North and Norway. Narvik. This his open a
Eyes European gigafactory, but that was introduced by Jensen's run
from in video who makes the micro the microchips, Opening
Iye makes the software. But they're also working with a
bunch of other companies to build the physical infrastructure. Importantly,
of course, with the pr perspective, this is all on
sustainable energy, is going to create valuable new jobs, it's
(38:59):
going to transform the Norwegian economy, political system, absolutely everything.
His touches on every part of society. And it's called Stargate,
so again it's the same name. Yeah, so it's almost
like Operation Stargate, right you think about the way that
you know, operation does as Stormail, Operation Stargate. It feels
(39:20):
like that kind of that kind of program to me.
And he also mentioned a guy by name, a young
man called Josh Payne, and Josh Payin is the founder
and chief executive officer of an organization called n Scale.
I've got this from his LinkedIn profile. He was also
from twenty twenty to twenty four the founder and executive
(39:42):
chairman of something called ARCon Energy and It's a really
fascinating name because in the Babylonian mystery religions, Arcon's were
the rulers of the world of darkness, but I think
that's probably just a coincidence. Absolutely. And then the final
role that he had was bats with the co founder
in chiefv executive officer, sorry, chief operating officer of Battery
Future Acquisition Corps in Sydney, which focuses on raw materials
(40:06):
for infrastructure. So this guy basically in the past four
years has founded and run the businesses across the entire
what they call the value chain for artificial intelligence, from
the raw materials used to build the technology to it
being deployed across industries in Northern Europe in this instance.
(40:27):
But before this, he's got absolutely no personal history. He's
got no track record. So if he looks, I don't
know was he looked late thirties, early forties young guy.
If you're on his LinkedIn profile, it stops there at
twenty twenty one, so we don't know who this guy is.
Who is Josh Payne? And this is really crucial, right
because he's building foundational infrastructure in the Northern Europe but
(40:51):
also from a UK perspective. He's building in England too,
because back in January they announced Nscale announced in vestment
of two point five billion dollars in the UK data
center industry over the next three years, and they are
actually they've already broken ground on another one of these
data centers in Louton in East London, in Epping Forest,
(41:14):
and Peter Kyle, the Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary, said
that their support n scale support will serve as a
catalyst for innovation, sending a clear message to Britain is
the perfect home from home to drive growth. Home home
from home suggests people that don't live here. It's his
international investor is coming in and using this infrastructure. This
(41:35):
guy who's only just turned up four years ago has
been given hundreds of millions billions of dollars to build
this infrastructure. He's doing joint press releases with the Secretary
of State. The BBC is running puff pieces saying that
this is going to deliver jobs into East London. And
we've got absolutely no idea where this has come from,
but we do know that there's an organization called open
Ai at the center of it all, with a logo
(41:57):
that when you flip it around and turn it back
on itself. Looks a little bit like that.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
That's a coincidence, I'm sure, Ben, of course, thank you
very much. Well, this is important stuff and the mainstream media,
at least in UK is simply not reporting what is
happening around us. So it'll remain to the UK Column
to do this.
Speaker 7 (42:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
We can only do what we do with your financial support,
and so a huge thank you to everybody who is
assisting the UK Column. And if you are not a member,
or you're not donating or purchasing from our shop, go
on to the website and if you click the button
you can basically get into the donate page or join
(42:43):
up as a member.
Speaker 16 (42:44):
Now.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
The other thing is huge amount of information on our
website and many people have not seen it because they
don't go and look, or they don't do a search.
We just like to encourage you to get deep into
a website and have a look at the hundreds andundreds
of articles, thousands and thousands of hours of video and
reports which are there over nearly twenty years of UK Column. Diane,
(43:09):
just bring you in because I think we've got some
comments on a couple of the latest articles to go
on the website.
Speaker 14 (43:19):
Yes, thanks Brian. We have one that we'll be talking
about a little bit later in the program, but just
two that were published last week that relate to the
serious situation in the Middle East, which is impossible to
cover in the time that we have in the news.
So there are two articles to take a look at.
One is by a journalist in Lebanon working with Vanessa
Bailey called the Last Army Standing the US Zionist plan
(43:40):
to disarm the Middle East, and the other one is
Vanessa's latest installment in her new blog series on Syria,
if we can put that one up as well. This
one is about Cyprus in particular and US and Israel
clashing of Turkey over control of the eastern Mediterranean. And
just a bit later we'll be talking about a new
article related to a while well prior to the sustainable developments. Brian.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Okay, thank you very much for that. And just to
give people a reminder that jerm will be out tonight
in a discussion with the em Berlin Game and I'm
sure that will be fascinating, So please join Germany's guest
annoight at seven and tomorrow at one o'clock. Another interview
going out with Professor Gloria Moss. Do you want to
(44:24):
say a little bit there, Diane.
Speaker 14 (44:27):
This is an incredibly important interview, Brian. This is part
three of our three part series interview with Gloria. I
did part one with her on universities and what's happening
with them, the sad state of universities in the UK
and men. Did part two with her on her research
on the differences between men and women in design. This
one I titled how to Save Humanity and this is
(44:47):
literally about the transhumanist agenda that has been pervading our
world for a very long time and continues to do so.
But I want everyone to see this. It's very important
to watch this. But we will give you some ideas
a the end about what to do to cite humanity.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Okay, thank you very much for that. And of course
we want to advertise the Freedom Music Festival coming up here.
We are twenty second of the twenty fifth of August.
The UK column team of course will be there. It's
going to be a great event and you've got the
opportunity for twenty percent off ticket prices if you use
the code uk CE twenty. Now. The other big thing
(45:28):
is of course our UK column on location in York.
My goodness, well over half of the tickets have been
sold already, just a fantastic response. And of course we've
now started to announce the speakers and Charles Mallett mentioned
on Friday Andrew Wakefield will be one of those key speakers,
(45:48):
and we just wanted to remind people that, aside from
the tremendous event itself, as a ticket holder, you will
get the opportunity to see Protocol seven as well. So
if you're not already on board, the tickets are going
very very quickly, and you really do need to get
one if you're going to be there and join us. Now, Ben,
(46:11):
you're going to take us into the realms of a
farmer and farming, which sounds to me like a bit
of a dangerous combination.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
Say that again. Yes, we're going to have a look
at big farm. So I'm calling it this is where
farming and the pharmaceutical industries meet. Let's hear from Henry dimblebeep.
We're going to get there?
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Is that one going to come up?
Speaker 5 (46:45):
I've been thinking a lot about appetites pressing drugs recently,
and I don't think food companies are even close to
being prepared for the kind of change that they might
bring to bear in our food system, both in terms
of what people eat, but also in terms of what
we grow.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
What do we know?
Speaker 5 (46:59):
So we know, for example, in this country one point
five million people are taking them. It took SSRIs and
Statins ten thirteen years to get to that level of consumption,
and people are paying two thousand pounds plus a year
for these drugs. We also know that the price is
going to come down. We know that they're going to
be available in pill form. We know that people eat differently,
(47:22):
not just less volume when they're on them, but different
quality of food, more fruit and vegs, less junk food,
less donuts, more fiber. And so if you play that forward,
what happens where we have a situation where convenience shops, supermarkets,
restaurants are selling a very different mix of food and
less food. But also our supply which has grown up
(47:46):
basically being built on refined calorie base of refined carbohydrates,
refined vegetable oils and refined sugar. It could change that
as well. So it might not just change what's on
your high street, it could also change what you see
and on our land, how our land is used. It's
going to be a pretty wild ride. And if you
aren't thinking about this in terms of your business five
(48:10):
years from now, it's probably time you should start, because
it's going to be a pretty crazy transition.
Speaker 14 (48:16):
I think.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
That's encouraging crazy transition. That's what we need to help
run our lives KA or some crazy transition.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
Exactly that, right, And the regular views will remember doctor
Liz Evans did a segment about two months ago, I
think it was talking about a zimpick and these weight
loss drugs and the fact that they're causing cancers and
there's been no proper oversight in terms of the regulator,
and actually they're destroying people's bones, and we've got no
(48:47):
idea of the long term health effects of these things.
And yet we've got Henry Dimbleby here saying that we
need to transform the food system in response to those
drugs because essentially they are here to stay now, right,
that doesn't strike me as a reasonable strategy someone in
the position of influence in the food system, and he
does have a significant influence in the food system. He
(49:08):
launched a fund last year we reported it at the
time to transform the global food system to disrupt it
and commercialize it for his own benefit. Ultimately starting here
in the UK. It's called Bramble Partners and we Go.
They're on a mission to fix what they call the
broken food system with investments and intelligence to create impact
(49:30):
at scale, and that's all about tackling climate change, obviously,
restoring the environment, improving health and well being, increasing food security,
all of the kind of buzzwords. Quite a lot of
occult symbolism on the website, to be honest with you,
there's the Masonic bee on there and also the hemetic
seed of life, so make of that what you will,
(49:53):
and that actually carries through to mister Dimbleby's LinkedIn profile.
You can see the bumblebee on the left hand side there.
We discover that a few years ago he was actually
the author of the National Food Strategy between twenty nineteen
and twenty two and I'll come back to that in
a moment, while at the same time working as the
lead non executive director at DEFRA and also working as
(50:17):
an external advisor to Baine, so there was an overlap
between working at DEPHRA and working with Bain and Bain
is one of the Big three strategy firms alongside McKinsey
and BCG, who are the basically dictate policy for global
corporate and increasingly for international governments as well, and they
are strategic partners of the World Economic Forum. So you
(50:38):
want to understand how wef policy gets inserted into the
UK government. It's three people like this doing dual roles
between public and private sector. And Bain fascinatingly one of,
notoriously one of the most ruthless, commercially ruthless consulting firms
in the world. And in twenty twenty two when mister
Denmleby was working with them, they actually got banned from
(51:00):
working in South Africa for ten years for orchestrating what
is called state captures. Essentially they repurposed state institutions to
the advantage of the firm, the government and its private
sector allies. Right, So I can't imagine that anything like
that was happening in the UK at the same time,
although it did actually lead to a three year ban
on delivering UK government work, which was overturned after just
(51:23):
six months. Apparently they really want to work with Bain. Obviously,
mister Dimmleby has now gone off to Bain, so you
know I'm sure that there's nothing going on here, nothing
nothing untoward. Yeah, absolutely. They also, interestingly Baine provided and
again I'd reported on quite a lot of this last year,
but it's useful to just restate this in the context
(51:43):
of how this is developing. Bain also provided supplementary evidence
to the development of the National Food Strategy. So actually
these are the people who are in putting into what's
going to happen next in our food supply. Also Dave
Helping from Behaving Insights team is in the mix as well,
and in there they talk about the food system as
a series of interconnected industrial processes. It's a value chain essentially,
(52:06):
from left to right, all the different component parts, lots
and lots of big corporates.
Speaker 13 (52:10):
In there.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
You can see a Tesco logo and Mars Tait and
Lysle all those kinds of people. They're particularly interested in
this bit though, produce. This is farms basically, and the
big weakness apparently in the UK food system is that
there are too many independently owned farms and we need
to consolidate those into corporate entities that can trade more
(52:31):
effectively with the other big corporate component parts of the
supply chain. And interestingly all the bramble Partners, Henry Dimbleby's
firm up to they just launched a few months ago
the one Million Hectares Coalition, a new national movement to
regenerate a million hectares of UK farmland in the next decade.
And it's about five percent of our total farmland and
(52:52):
that will very neatly align with the interests of the
pharmceugical industry and international capitals mister Dimpleby talking about in
the video shared at start.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
Yeah, incredible, regenerate million hectares and at the same time
we destroy farming land to put in the renewable energy
right system. So complete madness and chaos, but deliberate. But
I noticed that the people taking control of the food
supply were already embedded in it. Are regarded as players.
(53:25):
That's how they were labeled in your diagram. They're merely
players in the food system.
Speaker 4 (53:32):
Indeed.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Okay, well, a quick change of subject here, and really
I'm going to pray see this. We'll discuss it more
in extra time. But last Monday's news I did report
that a gentleman had been had his home invaded and
rested by South Yorkshire police. His computers taken and this
(53:54):
was all because he'd done thirty years worth of research
into the cover up of child really incredible research. I'm
going to say this individual is well known to the
UK column His work is exceptionally good and over the
years he's been able to show that the cover up
of child abuse has run through the very systems and
(54:17):
organizations that say they're there to protect children, such as
the police, but also into the government systems itself, such
as the Grand Prosecution Service and the higher levels of government.
Now just give you a flavor. South Yorkshire Police have
now said, well, because we know that some police officers
(54:37):
were involved in what was going on, we were going
to originally let ICPO investigate and that's now been passed
on to the National Crime Agency. But just to set
the scene with one of these slides, will make sure
that all this information is available in the show notes.
(55:00):
This is Haley Barnett, the Assistant Chief Constable of South
Yorkshire Police. She said, well, this is a very sensitive
investigation and the victim survives of steadfastly remained our number
one priority, of our number one priority. Over many months.
(55:20):
I've had conversations at the highest level with IOPC and
the National Crime Agency to ensure these courageous women truly
remain at the heart of our work and that the
mode of investigation remains appropriate. So it seems an extraordinary
coincidence at the very time that South Yorkshire Police is
(55:42):
very nervous about its implication and indeed that of other
forces in not only child abuse but the cover up
of that abuse, that suddenly somebody who's investigated this subject
for thirty years using primary public sources, is raided by
the police. All of his computers and information is taken,
(56:04):
and he goes through what he felt was a pretty
brutal interrogation in the police station where he was held
in a pretty cold cell, denied food and medication at
one point, all because he has pulled together public information
which demonstrates this cover up. So I'm going to say
(56:26):
that UK column will actually cover more of this report
in due course. But if we just say put this
slide up here, we've basically got the comment from Haley Barnett.
She says, it's for these reasons and a mutual agreement
with our partners that I've asked the National Crime Agency
to take ownership this operational work. But a lot of
(56:49):
questions need to be asked as to whether the arrest
of this man and his thirty years of data about
the cover up of child abuse is to enable South
Yorkshire Police and it's partners to whitewash government failures to
protect children, or indeed to actually protect people in the
system who were abusing children themselves. So this is quite
(57:12):
a story. We're going to stick with it and we
will give you more detail and we'll discussed more in
extra today.
Speaker 4 (57:20):
Diane.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
Let's come back to you and your pardon. Let's just
finish this one and I should be able to bring
up your section and you're going to talk to us
about the subject of wildfires and really some of this
amazing fear factor around super hot summers, clearly when I've
(57:42):
got that in Plymouth today, But be fearful of the temperature,
stay locked in your house. There's going to be fires,
there's going to be plagues. This is terrible fear mongering.
Speaker 14 (57:55):
Oh absolutely, Brian. I'm seeing it all over these so
called local papers on social media talking about you know,
locker room windows, don't go outside because it's burning, global
boiling out there. But I want to bring you back
to yesterday. There was a fire that broke out on
Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. If we have I think we
have some video of this to show what it looked
(58:16):
like yesterday before they started to fight the fires. Basically
what happened was in Edinburgh, of course, in the August.
I was there last weekend. This is the you know,
the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in the International Festival. Lots of
things going on in Edinburgh over the summer in August
and unfortunately Arthur's Seat, which is the big extinct volcano
(58:37):
that sort of overlooks the city, broke out in the
terrible fire yesterday. And this is also happening when Oasis
concerts are happening all at the same time with the
festivals going on, so one hundred and forty thousand fans
over the first two nights sold out at Murrayfield Stadium
by Oasis, as well as a third one that will
be coming on Tuesday. According to the Scottish and a
(58:57):
Fire Rescue Service, this is a terrible summer for wildfire.
I was across Scotland, including at the Highlands, and it
said the Highland wildfires are considered so far the biggest
Scotland has ever seen and so we're seeing in Edinburgh
and in Scotland where you know, you would not assume
that there was would have been a problem with water
(59:18):
in Scotland because it's kind of everywhere. That's just a joke.
But anyway, so tied to this, we're seeing wildfires in
the south of France and I last got a very
quick article to be by Neil Harrison late last week
on Friday actually, and we decided to prioritize this editorially
because he's a frequent contributor to UK column, I'm happy
(59:40):
to say, and because the wildfires were going as he
basically wrote this article and sent it to us for publication.
And what he said at the start of this article
you can read the full thing, but just to understand
the scope of this fire in the south of France.
He was writing this on day four, close to where
he has a house. He said, at the moment, ten
thousand hectares of land in the department have been burnt,
(01:00:02):
many villages completely gutted, transport, an electricity cut over a
vast area, and a flamefront that yesterday took up a
length of eighty kilometers. So he goes on to talk
about how desperately the firefighters have been working very hard
to stop the fire, but has not been happening. He
talked to some locals there and one person said, quote,
(01:00:23):
all of our children here are taught that the best
way of controlling fires is our vineyards. They are natural
fire breaks. Vineyards are watered, the vines are covered in green,
wet leaves, weeds and dried grasses are cut. But unfortunately
it has been government and EU policy to rip up
the vineyards and return the land to the wild. And
as he pointed on the article, the scientific justification for
(01:00:45):
destroying vineyards to satisfy Agenda twenty thirty requirements is based
on soil degradation, loss of organic matter, erosion, low carbon
sequestration compared to natural vegetation or AGGO force. So I
think there are some important questions for us to ask here.
We're seeing breakouts of wildfires because it's apparently global boiling everywhere.
(01:01:08):
What is causing these fires? Are there reasons for this
that are related to Agenda twenty thirty and sustainable development goals?
Or is it just because it's so terribly hot The
fires are breaking out everywhere. Are there arsons involved? There
have been a lot of questions around this, But I
think it's just important for us to maybe think about
this and I ask the question about why it is
that so much is happening around wildfires this summer.
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Very much for that. Apologies about the footage there from Scotland,
but I'm sure many people have seen the film clips
or wider media with regard to the wildfires or just
add that. Of course, one of the things we were
told by firefight is in America when some of the
really big woodland fires were burning there, forest fires were burning,
(01:01:54):
was that in many areas, the firefighting teams have not
been allowed to create fire breaks or indeed deal with debris,
very dry debris on the forest floors, and this was
helping to create very very intense fires with rolling fireballs
going over the tree canopy and jumping considerable distances. So
(01:02:16):
firefighters in America, some of them at least blaming the authorities,
saying that they were preventing the firefighters from actually doing
pre emptive work to stop the fires. Let's just end
on a positive note, Diane, and you've got a very
lush green picture of UK here. I don't think it's
(01:02:39):
very likely fires are going to break off breakout in
this environment. What is your message for us.
Speaker 14 (01:02:47):
Well, I just wanted to say to get out and
enjoy it while we can. Don't forget it is summer.
It is summer holidays still for children, and we all
should be just getting out and enjoying the beautiful weather.
This was me a couple of days ago going to Bridge,
which is a beautiful village up here in the northeast
of England, in Northumbria. And as we can see that,
well you can't see in the photo, but the village
(01:03:09):
car park was completely packed and we can see people
there walking to and from the car park across the bridge,
across the river, enjoying the cafes and the shops and everything.
And I spent a few hours there and just enjoy it.
So feel free to do the same, because the warm
weather is what we're supposed to be experiencing here in August,
(01:03:30):
even if it is the UK.
Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
I think it's called the summer, Diane. And yes, wonderful weekend,
lots of people having a very good time outside in
the sunshine. And we say to our audience do the same.
Get out there, fresh air, sunshine, relax and enjoy some
normal life with your friends and family and good normal people.
(01:03:53):
We must end it there. A huge thank you to
the UK Column audience wherever you are. Remember there are
still some it's available for the conference in York. But
if you haven't got a ticket, going to encourage you
to buy, somebody is going to be disappointed very soon
at the rate these tickets are going. We've got more
speakers to be announced. We're really looking forward to you
(01:04:15):
being there, so get onto the UK Column website and
have a look for those tickets. We must spend the
news there. Huge thank you to everybody. Thank you Ben
and Diane. We'll be back for UK Column Extra in
a few minutes and we'll look deeper into that story
about South Yorkshire police and the cover up of child abuse.
Thanks very much for joining us. Bye bye,
Good afternoon. Today is the eleventh of August twenty twenty five,
just after one o'clock. Welcome to UK column News. I'm
your host, Brian Gerrish, delighted to have Ben Rubin with
me in the studio and we'll be joined by Diane
Rasmus and mcaddy by a link from the northeast of England.
(00:30):
I'll just say if you look out of the window
behind me, you can see we've got a very gray
day in Plymouth. There's a bit of drizzle, there's certainly
full cloud cover, not particularly hot, so we're surviving here.
We'll say a little bit more about climate at the
end of today's news, but let's start with some serious
(00:52):
events and that was really over the weekend on Saturday,
Palestine Action, when, of course we saw some pretty endible
scenes between the police and the general public, many of
whom were arrested on the basis that they've now become terrorists,
no matter what their age or background. Let's have a
look at how the Guardian portrayed things.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Rest the people can see the genocide, arrest the people
that are selling.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Arms, they're bombing, killing, allowing the starving of uphole nations.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Well, there were Ben That's how the Guardian portrayed things,
so lots of noise. You got the impression that this
was a pretty brutal reaction with the police and not
a lot of information apart from the Guardian being keen
to warn people at the end of the video that
you dare support Palestine Action, you are going to be
branded a terrorists and you can face up to fourteen
(02:21):
years in prison. Well, luckily UK Column was able to
report from the scenes. Let's have look at this alternative
clip which has kindly been shot for the UK Column
by will.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Excuse me madam?
Speaker 5 (02:40):
What's happened.
Speaker 6 (02:48):
Yellside?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
They said they arresting.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
And the arms, sailers and the politicians.
Speaker 8 (02:55):
Hello, this is Will Coles have a pointing for UK Column.
We're down here today in Parliament Square. You can see
big men behind me and the police are one by
one picking off members.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Or supporters at least of the group.
Speaker 8 (03:07):
Palestine Action was just being prohibited as a so called
terrorist group for throwing paint on a crane on a plane,
which many think is criminal damage.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
The police are.
Speaker 8 (03:17):
Grabbing the people one by one and it looks like
these people are going to be tried, charged and possibly
imprisoned as terrorists for holding up signs saying they support
an organization which commits criminal damage.
Speaker 7 (03:37):
To exercise my fundamental human rights.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Are you willing to go to prison? Absolutely?
Speaker 8 (03:43):
Do you think about being labeled as a terroriffy?
Speaker 7 (03:45):
It's snortingly ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
It's going to be the thin end of the website.
Speaker 7 (03:51):
Absolutely, we're on the way down to a totalitarian state,
so much you.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
What do you think of what's happening.
Speaker 9 (04:01):
I think it's said the death of democracy, the death
of freedom, the death of sweet priest speech. And it's frightening,
completely frightening to see this in the twenty first century
we've had it.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Did you want to over.
Speaker 10 (04:18):
The police?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
What do you think of this?
Speaker 10 (04:19):
I think it's shameful. I think it's absolutely disgusting. This
is our democratic right to stand here and protest, and
the policemen are stopping something that is no crime.
Speaker 11 (04:30):
I was shocking, subtly shocking. I've never seen anything like
this in this country. This is a disgrace and this
we'll go down in history like shame on you.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
I am you know.
Speaker 12 (04:43):
Oh, they shouldn't be arresting people that are just trying
to protest.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Most of them are retirees. We've seen retired vickers, We've
seen doctors, we've seen grandparents. Peaceful people just protesting against
the genocide are being arrested by the Met police who
don't have the brains to think for themselves. They're just
foot soldiers for genocide. They're following orders, the orders of
a general sidal government. There's committing genocide right now in Israel.
Speaker 8 (05:07):
Run's commander, is this a proportion of res one?
Speaker 4 (05:10):
We're enforcing people that are breaching legislation.
Speaker 8 (05:13):
So do people not have a rig of free speed?
What do you think about this terrorist classification for criminal damage?
Speaker 4 (05:27):
It's absolutely absurd.
Speaker 9 (05:29):
Kalifine Action are a group that peacefully protested about a
genocide that's killed. Depending on who you hear, four hundred
thousand official number sixty thousand odd, but it's probably going
to be far more than that. And at the end
of the day, they were doing the work that other
people wanted them to do. Now they've been prescribed as
(05:50):
terrorists because they threw paint on rented aircraft.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
That not my cup of tea. This is in Britain.
This is a fascist state.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
It's really some well un experts have called for the
UK government to rescind the prescription of Palastine action. The
UN experts have said there is no internationally a Greek
definition of terrorism, but consensus is that it is damage
and intentional damage or harmed to civilians for political gains,
not property. Palistine action have only ever gone for property.
(06:19):
They've made that very clear. There's already existing legislation to
cover that. There's criminal damage, there's trespassing, you know, all
sorts of legislation they could draw. And it's politically motivated
because they were so shamed by some people getting into
the RAF site and spray painting a plane. They were
so humiliated that they've prescribed the organization doing it. But
as you can see, the people are against it and
(06:40):
we will keep coming.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
It makes a mockery of the Lord.
Speaker 13 (06:44):
And it's very selective because the Quakers have been doing
action like that for years and it gets ignored, they're arrested.
So other organizations have done this, but it's only because
it's Palestine, but all of a sudden that's labeled as terrorism.
Yet other organizations have done this in the past. I
know the Quakers have, so I mean by the principles
and doing.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
The right thing.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
It's just by spiece eroding away our rights to demonstrate,
to protest the democracy, and it's just piece by piece
it's slipping away from us.
Speaker 12 (07:14):
I can do what you have to do.
Speaker 9 (07:25):
I think that we are now on such a dangerous
position that we are in trouble of losing all freedom.
Speaker 8 (07:35):
Do you think that many people are going to be
acquisted by jury?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Yes?
Speaker 11 (07:39):
Yeah, the public opinion is on the side of the people.
Speaker 8 (07:42):
And do you think that more people are going to
come out and do this as they continue locking people up?
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Yes?
Speaker 11 (07:46):
I don't think this will stop now.
Speaker 10 (07:48):
They need to be exonerated by a jury, and Starmer
and his government need to apologize for getting this so
very badly wrong.
Speaker 8 (07:54):
Who want other people who may not even agree with
you on Palestine to stand up for these people?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Upon principle for speech, absolutely absolutely free speeches for everyone,
And there might be people that I disagree with their
opinion fundamentally, but I will definitely stand up for their
right to have free speech.
Speaker 13 (08:12):
Yeah, I agree completely. They're not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 8 (08:14):
We've seen a rest for this before, but now this
seems to be the biggest that we've seen so far,
and it seems like this isn't issue which isn't.
Speaker 14 (08:23):
Going away, and.
Speaker 8 (08:25):
More and more people are going to be ended up
in prison on trial for saying the words I support
Palestine action. This is Will Coles Hill reporting for UK
columns support.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So excellent report by Coles Hill there, and of course
the contrast with the Guardian report when no substance, no
interaction with the public are obviously deeply concerned. It really
shows the manipulation of the mainstream media. Now towards the
end of Will's report there a member of the public
(09:20):
was talking about the power of the jury to do
something and I think this is the time when we
need to flag up the government's other attack at the moment,
which is on just that juries. And the man in
question is retired Judge Brian Levison, who the UK column
has reported on many occasions. But center screen you've got
(09:42):
his independent review at the criminal Courts part one. We
just wanted to make sure people knew that aside from
attacking the jury system, it's quite clear and many people
are commenting on this that he seems determined to get
rid of more and more opportunities for people to be
tried by a jury their peers. We notice that on
(10:02):
the front COVERI is also promoting the Talmud uniquely amongst
other neutral comments about justice and make your own mind up.
But of course, if we have a look at what
Keirs Stalmer is talking about at the moment, then he
is pushing heavily, of course, for things to go in
(10:22):
Israel's favor in Gaza. Let's have a listen to this
little clip from the twenty ninth of July.
Speaker 15 (10:30):
On the seventh October twenty twenty three, Hamas perpetrated the
worst massacre in Israel's history. Every day since then the
horror has continued. The hostages are still being held today.
The Palestinian people have endured terrible suffering now in Gaza
(10:52):
because of a catastrophic failure of aid. We see starving babies,
children too weak to stand. Images that will stay with
us for a lifetime. Our goal remains a safe and
secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Well, there we are, obviously, that's a section of his
full speech was edited, but the meaning of what he
had to say was not changed. It's clear that the
priority is Israel, and all the troubles in Gaza are
simply the result of not being able to get food,
in no mention of bombing and indiscriminate killing at all.
(11:38):
It's simply a problem in getting food in Now he
has also made a recent statement and this was pushed
out on Defense HQ, the government's mod propaganda machine, and
here he's saying that the Israeli government's decision to further
escalate its offensive in Gas is wrong. We urge it
to reconsider immediately. Then again he's talking about humanitarian aid,
(12:05):
but he goes on to say that together with our allies,
we're working on a long term plan to secure peace
in the region as part of a two state solution
and ultimately achieve a brighter future for Palestinians and Israelis. Well,
that's putting a lot of gloss over it. But the
key thing is while he's supposingly talking peace, UK, the
(12:25):
US and indeed many countries in the EU are going
to pump in the weapons to keep that slaughter of
the Palestinians in guards are going. So the hypocrisy truly breathtaking.
But now we've reached the stage where ordinary British people
on the streets protesting about this genocide and brutality have
(12:47):
become the terrorists. And not only that, of course, we
are seeing attack on Jewish people themselves. Thank you very
much for the viewer who picked up this Oxford mail report.
This is Margols who was one of the Harry Potter
stars as an actress. And what's the attack about? Well,
(13:08):
she said this, she's Jewish herself. She spoke to the
big issue about Israel's military campaign in Gaza. She said
it reminded her of the Holocaust and added the terrible
thing I face is that Hitler won. He changed us,
he made us like him. So this lady clearly very
upset and disturbed at what she was seeing happen. But
(13:31):
what was the result. That the result was a massive
attack on her by the Campaign against Anti Semitism. Now
have attributed the remarks in the paper which came from
the organization to the chief executive, Gideon Falter. He said
the organization said the remarks are repugnant. The fact she
was born Jewish does not give a license to use
(13:53):
her immense platform to spread quote anti Jewish. Venom went
on to say this has to be the end of
the road. She must be shunned by the showbiz world.
That has formed and bowed until now. So there you
have it. You can be Jewish, you can criticize the
Israeli government for its policy of killing in Gaza. You
(14:17):
will then be attacked by organizations which, as we'll see
from this next image, boast that they are working alongside
the police, CPS and regulatory bodies and government in order
to enforce rules and regulations against anybody they deem to
(14:39):
be anti Semitic. But I'm going to say to you,
I found this really a dangerous situation where even Jewish
people themselves are now being silenced in talking out about
these horrors in the Middle East by the Israeli government
and their agents which are operating in UK alongside them police,
(15:00):
government agencies and the British government. It's almost like everybody
who dares speak out for peace is going to be
labeled terrorists inside this country, whether you're Jewish or non Jewish.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Seems to be the plybook.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yes, indeed, Diane, let's welcome you in at this point, because,
of course, whilst there's plenty of money for the weapons
and the bombs and the ammunition going into Israel to
help it perpetuate its attack on Gaza, we've got an
NHS that is in absolute chaos in UK.
Speaker 14 (15:36):
Yes very much, thanks Brian, and hello everyone, it's good
to be here today. I wanted to follow up on
a couple of things from First of all, from May
of twenty twenty four, it was the first time that
UK column covered this issue of the new hospitals that
are meant to be put around the country. But this
tip off recently came from a viewer in Consett, County
(15:57):
Durham up here where I am in the northeast of England,
concerns about the local hospital that is going to be
replaced in his town, or that at least that's the
plan apparently to do so. The existing hospital in Conset
is called Shotley Bridge Community Hospital, which opened in nineteen twelve.
The NHS says the problem is that it leaks heat.
Now the new hospital is meant to be built near
(16:17):
this site of this sculpture, called the Terrace novalis in Conset.
This consists of two measuring instruments at theodolite and an
engineer's level. It's very very large and it's meant to
wark the watershed between the upland and the Moorlin landscape.
And the extremes of the industrial age. The significance of
this is that concept as an old steel town was
once actually once Europe's largest steel works, and this landmark
(16:41):
is very important. Another concern is that in addition to
the corruption and the waste that might be happening with
this hospital, which we're going to look at this is
happening around England by the way, is that it's possible
that this landmark could be in danger as well as
the beautiful land that surrounds it. So after I received
this tip off, I went to do a little bit
of a little photojournalism myself. This report comes from this
(17:05):
photograph which is part of the new hospital site apparently,
which has been confirmed last month by the BBC now
that the construction of the new hospital will be taking place.
It's near a big retail park area where the old
steel factory used to be. So here's a couple of
photos both from the different areas of the engineering site
where they're basically doing testing on the ground. The council
(17:28):
has previously said that the ground is not satisfactory for building,
but I guess they're doing it anyway. So what's happening
with the overall story of the hospitals around the country
is a particular concern. This in particular is Project Genesis,
which took over concert years ago. I think it was
in the nineties when the steel factory closed and the
(17:50):
Genesis project took over to try to do something with
the city. So this is nineteen forty five when the
steel factory was still in operation. You can sort of
see the area kind of the mill, sort of off
to the left of the town where the houses are.
And if we go forward to the next year that
Project Genesis provides in twenty twenty four, we can see
that there's more housing that's taking over most of the
(18:12):
steel factory. You can see the big buildings there that
are the retail park and the new hospital is set
to take place to be built over the green space
to the sort of the left of it. Project Genesis
has taken over, as I said, a lot of the city.
But the problem is that when we look at this
from a wider perspective around England, we start to see
(18:33):
the problems and how this might be taking place. If
you go back to twenty nineteen the general election, it
was part of the manifesto for Boris Johnson to think
about you know what we're going to do with the hospitals.
There he is in October of twenty twenty with Build
Back Better of course in the background, because we're going
back to this time when he was saying that this
(18:54):
would be built as a package worth three point seven
billion pounds for forty hospitals. At the time, this was
all the Health Infrastructure Plan, said to be the biggest
hospital building program in a generation, and the Shotleybridge Hospital
and concept was going to be part of this at
the time. Just to quote Boris Johnson to see where
we were in the timeline, saying this, the dedication and
(19:16):
tireless efforts of our nurses, doctors and all healthcare workers
have kept the NHS open through this pandemic. But no
matter what the virus throws at us, we are determined
to build back Better and delivered the biggest hospital building
program in a generation. And then Matt Hancock of course
came in and supported him to say that. So we
can see that. There's lots of policy documents and so
on from the UK government which can be available in
(19:38):
the show notes. So I won't go into too much detail,
but by the time we get into further into twenty twenty.
He says that we're going ahead with the hospitals, and
there were lots of things around of health boards around
the country, different trusts talking about this. So I believe
we now have a video from a GP speaking from
the Lancature area and he was talking about this new
(20:00):
hospital program.
Speaker 16 (20:09):
I'm Jeff Jolliffe. I'm a GP here in Barrow in Furness,
part of Lancaston and South Cumbria, and I'm also the
chair of the CCG in Morecambe Bay. I sit on
the Clinical Oversight Group for the new hospital's program. What
is it the new hospital's program. It's a great opportunity,
isn't it. It's a big lump of money to redevelop
our hospitals. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. We
(20:32):
can't miss it. It's going to be great for the population.
New hospitals program might seem to not mean much to
primary care, but it's actually vital, isn't it, Because we
care for our patients and our patients need good hospital
care as part of the whole pathway. So there will
be a huge knock on benefit to our patients and
therefore to the way primary care works. And night to
the future with more care closer to the patient's home,
(20:54):
more care in community services, and we need to focus
on doing in hospital only what we need to do.
In addition, they provide an environment that is better for staff,
better for patients, and an environment that patients flow better,
so you end up with better outcomes. But assuming we
get the money, and I'm hopeful of that, we could
then start the process of identifying which is the best
(21:16):
solution to spending that money. There's a big process, so
it can't happen overnight, but we'll get there and we'll
have them.
Speaker 14 (21:34):
So that all sounds nice and lovely. So that was
twenty twenty one. If we go forward a bit to
twenty twenty three, we start to see the reporting coming
from the government saying that this is now twenty billion pounds.
It was just I think just a few billion previously.
So now we're talking about it prioritizing the rebuilding of
five hospitals that we're using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete rebuilt
(21:58):
by twenty thirty as part of the new Hospital program,
because they're saying that this material was not basically fit
for purpose and that it was going to fall apart,
so they identified five hospitals as well as many other
hospitals around the country that need to be built. So
this new building, which again is going to include this
hospital and here in County Durham and many others, is
using what they call standardized design that will harness digital transformation,
(22:22):
making the use of latest technology for the benefit of
staff and patients, and it's sustainable, contributing to net zero
carbon across the NHS. So that's fabulous news, incorporating learning
from the pandemic and ensuring hospitals can adapt to changing
health needs. So this is how they're selling it in
twenty twenty three under something that they call Hospital two
point zero, which is a standardized design for future hospitals
(22:44):
which will benefit patients and staff through digital solutions and
optimize hospital layout. This will decrease the time needed to
develop and build hospitals as well as reducing the cost
through economies of scale. So what we're seeing is what
we've reported before a UK column that there's a trend
towards digital management of health, less focus on physical space,
(23:06):
less focus on human connection and the nurses and the
doctors who support people. So going forward now to twenty
twenty five, we are now seeing with Labor and Power,
and what we're seeing is a report that came out.
Basically they did a review of what the Conservatives did
looking at the new hospital program. So we have a
quote from this policy paper that was published in January
(23:28):
this year from West streeting our Hill secretary saying the
NHS is quite literally crumbling. And that's just one of
the sentences. I just wanted to highlight that the report itself, Basically,
what they did is an evaluation of where we were
with the hospital situation in England to make it sort
of prioritize what needed to be rebuilt, what was the
(23:50):
most important thing to do, using something a multi criteria
decision support analysis tool to look at which hospitals need
to be prioritized and what could wait. So as a
map here again you can see this again in the
policy documents yourself if you can't see it while on
the screen, showing which hospitals had been highlighted to be
part of the scheme and which ones were not, and
(24:11):
which ones were going to be prioritized because of this
concrete problem we see in this list there was a
list of different waves through whether we're going to be
prioritizing which hospitals and so shotley Bridge Community Hospital in
concept is in Table two Wave one, which you can
see in the report, to start construction between twenty twenty
five and twenty thirty and as we saw with my
(24:33):
photos at the start of the segment, they are starting
to look at the land underneath it. I went to
also take some photos of the existing shotley Bridge Community
Hospital and concept. These are my photos. You can't really
see the signs because the trees and the bushes haven't
been trimmed too well, but that's the assign to the
entrance to a hospital. The outside of the hospital. I
(24:55):
didn't go inside. I didn't want to draw any attention
to myself, but that's the outside. The hospital still look
like it's in place, but they say it's leaky and
the heating needs fixed. Apparently that's the problem. And there's
a sign here of the different services that they offer.
There are some people in the community who, from what
I've heard, are concerned that some of these services will
be going away. The new hospital, even though it's meant
(25:16):
to cost about five hundred million pounds to build, I
believe is only going to have sixteen beds in it,
and so they're concerned that because of the size of
the community that it serves, there will be a decrease
in services. And I want to also highlight here the
BBC reporting of the process of this hospital over time,
where there was a lot of back and forth about
what was going to happen. So first we see here
(25:39):
September twenty twenty three, the replacement is going to be delayed.
They talk about issues with funding, issues with resources. October
twenty twenty three. I've got several links here to these
are all BBC articles. Many millions of pounds over budget,
a hospital plan reviewed over spiraling costs. This was in
(25:59):
September twenty twenty four. Just reading the headlines here there
was a home skiing that was put on hold as
the new hospital husband put under review, where they were
talking about building homes for elderly people, calling it a
health village, which sounds a little bit concerning to be
built next to this new hospital. November twenty twenty four. Again,
new hospital project will never happen. So we were hearing
(26:20):
from a labor and live dems essentially at this point,
worrying about what's happening and now in January twenty twenty
five the build is to go ahead following a review,
and that's the most recent from the BBC. We have
a quote from west Street who actually came out to
see the new site and concept, so if we could
(26:40):
put that up on the screen, if we have it here.
He was saying, we have secured the funding producing a
realistic timetable with spades in the ground for a new
hospital site and concert in twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven.
It was great to see the site myself and hear
from Labor councilors how important the investment will be to
regenerating Concept. Labor will deliver this new hospital building so
(27:02):
patients and Concept get the care they deserve now. Originally,
when they reported on their report regarding what they were
going to do or not do, they criticized the Conservative
government for not putting enough money in place. And then
but you know, as we've seen here, this bit off
and on and off and on. So now they're saying
they're going to do it. The local MP called Liz Twist,
(27:24):
whose Labor for Blatant Concept, said when west visited the
site a few months ago, she said having the health Secretary,
here is a clear indication that labor is delivering for
Concept and the surrounding communities. The new site will have
state of the art facilities and much improved transport links.
I'm keen to keep working with all the relevant stakeholders
to ensure this project is built and delivered within the
(27:45):
timeframe and to improve healthcare within our communities. So the
local magazine called Concept Magazine covered this as well as we.
So they were showing when they came out to visit
and basically saying, well, all right, this is what's happening,
and now we will just wait to see what happens. Brian,
I don't know if it will get built or out,
or how much it will cost, but this is happening
around the country, so check your local areas if you're
(28:07):
in England to see what's going on with your hospital.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Ianne, thank you very much for that report. Well the
words are there, aren't they. It's always jammed Tomorrow, utopia, Tomorrow,
everything will be okay tomorrow. But what we constantly see
is that when tomorrow comes, there's more of the shamble.
So I have no confidence in what is happening here,
and I think the chaos that you are seeing is
(28:31):
part of the overall chaos to destroy the NHS as
this massive privatization coming in. Ben, I'm going to look
at you and say, so, is AI going to solve
the problem.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
No, it's not. It's certainly not going to solve the problem,
although they're going to make good use of the chaos
in the NHS. Atra Faugus squar as we heard earlier.
That was an excellent report, Diane, and also that report
by will Z was top notch. That was brilliant. And
last week we had chaos outside of migrant hotels in
(29:08):
Epping and further Afield. So there's chaos going on all
over the place. And in the background, an invasion is happening.
And I don't mean an invasion of illegal immigrants. I
mean something quite different actually, as I'll get into and
I'm going to start this in the Oval Office. On
January twenty first this year, day one of the second
(29:32):
Trump administration, the announcement of Projects Stargate half a trillion
dollars to build AI data centers across the whold of
the US, essentially mass surveillance and genetic engineering infrastructure. Really
nightmare stuff delivered through a public private partnership commissioned by
the state, represented here by Donald Trump, and delivered by
(29:56):
the private sector by corporations represented by Massa sand from SoftBank.
On the left. There Larry Ellison from Oracle, basically Tony
Blair's top thunder over the past twenty thirty years. And
importantly Sam Altman, the founder of open AI, one of
the top minds in artificial intelligence, also affectionately named by
(30:18):
the Washington Post King of the Cannibals. That's quite a name,
isn't it. The King of the Cannibals, Sam Altman. Maybe
I'll come back to that a little bit later on.
So this is rumbling on as you'd expect. In fact,
it's not rumbling. They've gone right out of the gate.
Trump's AI vision takes shape as Oragle and open AI
expand a massive stargate infrastructure project in Texas. So they
(30:42):
have broken ground. They are making headway. This is the Abilene,
Texas site just a few weeks ago. Provide a link
to this article you can go and have a look
at it. So it's all guns blazing in the US.
But also importantly they're moving internationally as well, and say
announced to the end of May, the UAE Stargate project.
(31:04):
So this is in Abu Dabbi and the World Economic
Forum interestingly very excited about this. Remember those people that
Trump is the enemy of where they really like this policy.
It's interesting, that, isn't it. So the UAE Stargate project
hints at how AI can be integrated international infrastructure crucially.
All right, and let's have a little listen to Chris Lahane,
(31:25):
chief Global affairs officer from open AI, talking about this
project to Fox News a few days ago.
Speaker 6 (31:33):
Open AI is also launching Stargate. UAE is the first
international deployment of open AI's infrastructure platform. Joining me now,
Chris Lahyan and the chief Global Affairs officer at open AI. Chris,
let me see, I've got this right. You are open
AI is working directly with other countries, in this case UAE,
(31:55):
to help their AI capacity, working in conjunction with the
United State. Have I got that right?
Speaker 4 (32:02):
You got that right.
Speaker 12 (32:03):
We think of this as open AYE for countries, but
in this particular case, it really follows on President Trump's
visit to the UAE really the Mideast last week, and
I think this partnership really is going to accomplish two
really important things. First of all, it's going to help
advance making sure that US led democratic AI is being
(32:25):
built around the world here in the UAE case. And
then secondly, this partnership also involves bringing money back into
the US, investment back into the US, into US infrastructure.
So really a win win, A win for making sure
we're building the AI system on democratics US led rails,
and a win bringing money back into the US to
(32:46):
build infrastructure for AI in the US, jobs, economic development
that comes with that.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Did you might get that, baran Well, I was witnessing
a bit the idea of democratic AI coming from the
US that it can sell in order to bring more
money back into the US.
Speaker 12 (33:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Right, we are looking at global governance here. This is
clear that we're now seeing the absolute end of the
nation state.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
It's sovereign AI though importantly, but you have to buy
it from open AI. Right, So it's sovereign because they're
going to build these data centers in your country, but
you can only buy it from a handful of very
carefully selected technology companies, all of them aligned to US imperialism.
But it's not just US imperialism, it's something that's got
(33:33):
hold of the United States. Actually, I think that's probably
a bit more like it. But I love that idea
you picked up on it. US led democratic AI. It's
a little bit like when the US would go and
invade countries to deliver freedom to people, isn't it. It's
a similar kind of thing, and they're just doing it
by stealth now rather than by bombing people, although they
are doing some bombing too. Let's give them for that. Yeah, exactly, yes,
(33:56):
And the use of the term US lead rails. Right,
So if you're on rails, if you're in a train,
you can only go in one direction or back or forth. Right,
there's no way you can get off those rails. And
that's quite telling. Anyway. Let's have a little listen to
the second half of that clip.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
Is there a worldwide contest between the United States and China,
but not for dominance of AI, but for control of AI?
Forgot that right?
Speaker 12 (34:22):
Yeah, it's a great it's a great way to put
it right now in the world, there's two countries that can.
Speaker 14 (34:27):
Build AI at scale.
Speaker 12 (34:29):
That's as you were saying, the US and the communists
led People's Republic of China. Those are the only two
countries that can build this at scale, and in this moment,
the US does have the innovation lead. We want to
leverage that lead so that we're bringing as many countries
as possible into the US rails, the US system. And
(34:49):
I think what the President did last week, I think
the way the administration is thinking about it, I think
the way we at open AI are thinking about this
in the context of Stargate International. In this case Stargate
U is really how can we take advantage how can
we leverage the innovation lead we currently have to bring
these countries onto our rails, into our system. And I
(35:10):
think that really then sets up arguably the next hundred
years as we.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
Go forward, does a contest. It's a grand battle between
capitalist America and communist China, and we've got to compete
with each other to get as much of the world
as possible onto our platform, onto US rails. Exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
This is the synthesis, isn't it. This is the final
synthesis towards one world control, because whoever controls this AI
system is ultimately going to control each nation.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
State exactly as exactly correct. I mean, we've just heard
about Abu Dabe's this is a UAE Middle East but
it's also just in the past few days hit continental Europe.
Let's hear from instant trying from Nvidia.
Speaker 17 (36:03):
Congratulations to everyone gathered in Oslo today and to Prime
Minister Store and the Government of Norway on this important milestone.
The launch of Stargate Norway marks a new chapter for
AI infrastructure in Europe. We're entering a new industrial era.
Just as electricity and the Internet became foundational to modern life,
(36:27):
AI will become essential infrastructure. Every country will build it,
every industry will depend on it. AI is no longer
hand coded, it is trained, It is refined with massive compute.
It is deployed into factories, research labs and digital services.
Stargate Norway will be powered by GB three hundred super
(36:50):
chips and connect it with mb link. It is designed
to scale to hundreds of thousands of GPUs and support
the most advanced models in training, reasoning and real time inference.
Congratulations to Ndscale and to Josh Pain and the teams
who helped make this possible, and congratulations to Sam and
(37:12):
open Aye on being part of this important first for
the region. We're proud to support this effort to SYNTAC.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
To SYNTAC what came into my mind. Bent was I
think this story, this quote is right. But the man
who produced the first gattling gun machine gun said well,
this is going to be the weapon that stops all
the war. So it's gushing enthusiasm for what they've created
without any concept what this is actually going to do
(37:45):
to humanity and mankind.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
I don't know. I think he probably has some concept
of it. Okay, yeah, I think I think these people
at the top know exactly what it's going to do.
But essentially what they're saying is this is this is
gonna First of all, I've got a real that that
one heeds me because I'm caught in Norwegian. That's where
my mother's mother was from Norway. And he says twocentac
at the end there and that mean's a thousand thanks
in Norwegian, and I just really got to me. But
(38:10):
he's talking about a total transformation of everything. Right, So
AI apparently is going to become foundational infrastructure like electricity,
like the internet. Every country will build it, as we
talked about all and all industries will depend on it.
Everything is going to run on these platforms built by
these companies. And he mentioned got a little bit of
(38:35):
bit of video here we can see. So this is
in the North and Norway. Narvik. This his open a
Eyes European gigafactory, but that was introduced by Jensen's run
from in video who makes the micro the microchips, Opening
Iye makes the software. But they're also working with a
bunch of other companies to build the physical infrastructure. Importantly,
of course, with the pr perspective, this is all on
sustainable energy, is going to create valuable new jobs, it's
(38:59):
going to transform the Norwegian economy, political system, absolutely everything.
His touches on every part of society. And it's called Stargate,
so again it's the same name. Yeah, so it's almost
like Operation Stargate, right you think about the way that
you know, operation does as Stormail, Operation Stargate. It feels
(39:20):
like that kind of that kind of program to me.
And he also mentioned a guy by name, a young
man called Josh Payne, and Josh Payin is the founder
and chief executive officer of an organization called n Scale.
I've got this from his LinkedIn profile. He was also
from twenty twenty to twenty four the founder and executive
(39:42):
chairman of something called ARCon Energy and It's a really
fascinating name because in the Babylonian mystery religions, Arcon's were
the rulers of the world of darkness, but I think
that's probably just a coincidence. Absolutely. And then the final
role that he had was bats with the co founder
in chiefv executive officer, sorry, chief operating officer of Battery
Future Acquisition Corps in Sydney, which focuses on raw materials
(40:06):
for infrastructure. So this guy basically in the past four
years has founded and run the businesses across the entire
what they call the value chain for artificial intelligence, from
the raw materials used to build the technology to it
being deployed across industries in Northern Europe in this instance.
(40:27):
But before this, he's got absolutely no personal history. He's
got no track record. So if he looks, I don't
know was he looked late thirties, early forties young guy.
If you're on his LinkedIn profile, it stops there at
twenty twenty one, so we don't know who this guy is.
Who is Josh Payne? And this is really crucial, right
because he's building foundational infrastructure in the Northern Europe but
(40:51):
also from a UK perspective. He's building in England too,
because back in January they announced Nscale announced in vestment
of two point five billion dollars in the UK data
center industry over the next three years, and they are
actually they've already broken ground on another one of these
data centers in Louton in East London, in Epping Forest,
(41:14):
and Peter Kyle, the Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary, said
that their support n scale support will serve as a
catalyst for innovation, sending a clear message to Britain is
the perfect home from home to drive growth. Home home
from home suggests people that don't live here. It's his
international investor is coming in and using this infrastructure. This
(41:35):
guy who's only just turned up four years ago has
been given hundreds of millions billions of dollars to build
this infrastructure. He's doing joint press releases with the Secretary
of State. The BBC is running puff pieces saying that
this is going to deliver jobs into East London. And
we've got absolutely no idea where this has come from,
but we do know that there's an organization called open
Ai at the center of it all, with a logo
(41:57):
that when you flip it around and turn it back
on itself. Looks a little bit like that.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
That's a coincidence, I'm sure, Ben, of course, thank you
very much. Well, this is important stuff and the mainstream media,
at least in UK is simply not reporting what is
happening around us. So it'll remain to the UK Column
to do this.
Speaker 7 (42:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
We can only do what we do with your financial support,
and so a huge thank you to everybody who is
assisting the UK Column. And if you are not a member,
or you're not donating or purchasing from our shop, go
on to the website and if you click the button
you can basically get into the donate page or join
(42:43):
up as a member.
Speaker 16 (42:44):
Now.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
The other thing is huge amount of information on our
website and many people have not seen it because they
don't go and look, or they don't do a search.
We just like to encourage you to get deep into
a website and have a look at the hundreds andundreds
of articles, thousands and thousands of hours of video and
reports which are there over nearly twenty years of UK Column. Diane,
(43:09):
just bring you in because I think we've got some
comments on a couple of the latest articles to go
on the website.
Speaker 14 (43:19):
Yes, thanks Brian. We have one that we'll be talking
about a little bit later in the program, but just
two that were published last week that relate to the
serious situation in the Middle East, which is impossible to
cover in the time that we have in the news.
So there are two articles to take a look at.
One is by a journalist in Lebanon working with Vanessa
Bailey called the Last Army Standing the US Zionist plan
(43:40):
to disarm the Middle East, and the other one is
Vanessa's latest installment in her new blog series on Syria,
if we can put that one up as well. This
one is about Cyprus in particular and US and Israel
clashing of Turkey over control of the eastern Mediterranean. And
just a bit later we'll be talking about a new
article related to a while well prior to the sustainable developments. Brian.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Okay, thank you very much for that. And just to
give people a reminder that jerm will be out tonight
in a discussion with the em Berlin Game and I'm
sure that will be fascinating, So please join Germany's guest
annoight at seven and tomorrow at one o'clock. Another interview
going out with Professor Gloria Moss. Do you want to
(44:24):
say a little bit there, Diane.
Speaker 14 (44:27):
This is an incredibly important interview, Brian. This is part
three of our three part series interview with Gloria. I
did part one with her on universities and what's happening
with them, the sad state of universities in the UK
and men. Did part two with her on her research
on the differences between men and women in design. This
one I titled how to Save Humanity and this is
(44:47):
literally about the transhumanist agenda that has been pervading our
world for a very long time and continues to do so.
But I want everyone to see this. It's very important
to watch this. But we will give you some ideas
a the end about what to do to cite humanity.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Okay, thank you very much for that. And of course
we want to advertise the Freedom Music Festival coming up here.
We are twenty second of the twenty fifth of August.
The UK column team of course will be there. It's
going to be a great event and you've got the
opportunity for twenty percent off ticket prices if you use
the code uk CE twenty. Now. The other big thing
(45:28):
is of course our UK column on location in York.
My goodness, well over half of the tickets have been
sold already, just a fantastic response. And of course we've
now started to announce the speakers and Charles Mallett mentioned
on Friday Andrew Wakefield will be one of those key speakers,
(45:48):
and we just wanted to remind people that, aside from
the tremendous event itself, as a ticket holder, you will
get the opportunity to see Protocol seven as well. So
if you're not already on board, the tickets are going
very very quickly, and you really do need to get
one if you're going to be there and join us. Now, Ben,
(46:11):
you're going to take us into the realms of a
farmer and farming, which sounds to me like a bit
of a dangerous combination.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
Say that again. Yes, we're going to have a look
at big farm. So I'm calling it this is where
farming and the pharmaceutical industries meet. Let's hear from Henry dimblebeep.
We're going to get there?
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Is that one going to come up?
Speaker 5 (46:45):
I've been thinking a lot about appetites pressing drugs recently,
and I don't think food companies are even close to
being prepared for the kind of change that they might
bring to bear in our food system, both in terms
of what people eat, but also in terms of what
we grow.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
What do we know?
Speaker 5 (46:59):
So we know, for example, in this country one point
five million people are taking them. It took SSRIs and
Statins ten thirteen years to get to that level of consumption,
and people are paying two thousand pounds plus a year
for these drugs. We also know that the price is
going to come down. We know that they're going to
be available in pill form. We know that people eat differently,
(47:22):
not just less volume when they're on them, but different
quality of food, more fruit and vegs, less junk food,
less donuts, more fiber. And so if you play that forward,
what happens where we have a situation where convenience shops, supermarkets,
restaurants are selling a very different mix of food and
less food. But also our supply which has grown up
(47:46):
basically being built on refined calorie base of refined carbohydrates,
refined vegetable oils and refined sugar. It could change that
as well. So it might not just change what's on
your high street, it could also change what you see
and on our land, how our land is used. It's
going to be a pretty wild ride. And if you
aren't thinking about this in terms of your business five
(48:10):
years from now, it's probably time you should start, because
it's going to be a pretty crazy transition.
Speaker 14 (48:16):
I think.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
That's encouraging crazy transition. That's what we need to help
run our lives KA or some crazy transition.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
Exactly that, right, And the regular views will remember doctor
Liz Evans did a segment about two months ago, I
think it was talking about a zimpick and these weight
loss drugs and the fact that they're causing cancers and
there's been no proper oversight in terms of the regulator,
and actually they're destroying people's bones, and we've got no
(48:47):
idea of the long term health effects of these things.
And yet we've got Henry Dimbleby here saying that we
need to transform the food system in response to those
drugs because essentially they are here to stay now, right,
that doesn't strike me as a reasonable strategy someone in
the position of influence in the food system, and he
does have a significant influence in the food system. He
(49:08):
launched a fund last year we reported it at the
time to transform the global food system to disrupt it
and commercialize it for his own benefit. Ultimately starting here
in the UK. It's called Bramble Partners and we Go.
They're on a mission to fix what they call the
broken food system with investments and intelligence to create impact
(49:30):
at scale, and that's all about tackling climate change, obviously,
restoring the environment, improving health and well being, increasing food security,
all of the kind of buzzwords. Quite a lot of
occult symbolism on the website, to be honest with you,
there's the Masonic bee on there and also the hemetic
seed of life, so make of that what you will,
(49:53):
and that actually carries through to mister Dimbleby's LinkedIn profile.
You can see the bumblebee on the left hand side there.
We discover that a few years ago he was actually
the author of the National Food Strategy between twenty nineteen
and twenty two and I'll come back to that in
a moment, while at the same time working as the
lead non executive director at DEFRA and also working as
(50:17):
an external advisor to Baine, so there was an overlap
between working at DEPHRA and working with Bain and Bain
is one of the Big three strategy firms alongside McKinsey
and BCG, who are the basically dictate policy for global
corporate and increasingly for international governments as well, and they
are strategic partners of the World Economic Forum. So you
(50:38):
want to understand how wef policy gets inserted into the
UK government. It's three people like this doing dual roles
between public and private sector. And Bain fascinatingly one of,
notoriously one of the most ruthless, commercially ruthless consulting firms
in the world. And in twenty twenty two when mister
Denmleby was working with them, they actually got banned from
(51:00):
working in South Africa for ten years for orchestrating what
is called state captures. Essentially they repurposed state institutions to
the advantage of the firm, the government and its private
sector allies. Right, So I can't imagine that anything like
that was happening in the UK at the same time,
although it did actually lead to a three year ban
on delivering UK government work, which was overturned after just
(51:23):
six months. Apparently they really want to work with Bain. Obviously,
mister Dimmleby has now gone off to Bain, so you
know I'm sure that there's nothing going on here, nothing
nothing untoward. Yeah, absolutely. They also, interestingly Baine provided and
again I'd reported on quite a lot of this last year,
but it's useful to just restate this in the context
(51:43):
of how this is developing. Bain also provided supplementary evidence
to the development of the National Food Strategy. So actually
these are the people who are in putting into what's
going to happen next in our food supply. Also Dave
Helping from Behaving Insights team is in the mix as well,
and in there they talk about the food system as
a series of interconnected industrial processes. It's a value chain essentially,
(52:06):
from left to right, all the different component parts, lots
and lots of big corporates.
Speaker 13 (52:10):
In there.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
You can see a Tesco logo and Mars Tait and
Lysle all those kinds of people. They're particularly interested in
this bit though, produce. This is farms basically, and the
big weakness apparently in the UK food system is that
there are too many independently owned farms and we need
to consolidate those into corporate entities that can trade more
(52:31):
effectively with the other big corporate component parts of the
supply chain. And interestingly all the bramble Partners, Henry Dimbleby's
firm up to they just launched a few months ago
the one Million Hectares Coalition, a new national movement to
regenerate a million hectares of UK farmland in the next decade.
And it's about five percent of our total farmland and
(52:52):
that will very neatly align with the interests of the
pharmceugical industry and international capitals mister Dimpleby talking about in
the video shared at start.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
Yeah, incredible, regenerate million hectares and at the same time
we destroy farming land to put in the renewable energy
right system. So complete madness and chaos, but deliberate. But
I noticed that the people taking control of the food
supply were already embedded in it. Are regarded as players.
(53:25):
That's how they were labeled in your diagram. They're merely
players in the food system.
Speaker 4 (53:32):
Indeed.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Okay, well, a quick change of subject here, and really
I'm going to pray see this. We'll discuss it more
in extra time. But last Monday's news I did report
that a gentleman had been had his home invaded and
rested by South Yorkshire police. His computers taken and this
(53:54):
was all because he'd done thirty years worth of research
into the cover up of child really incredible research. I'm
going to say this individual is well known to the
UK column His work is exceptionally good and over the
years he's been able to show that the cover up
of child abuse has run through the very systems and
(54:17):
organizations that say they're there to protect children, such as
the police, but also into the government systems itself, such
as the Grand Prosecution Service and the higher levels of government.
Now just give you a flavor. South Yorkshire Police have
now said, well, because we know that some police officers
(54:37):
were involved in what was going on, we were going
to originally let ICPO investigate and that's now been passed
on to the National Crime Agency. But just to set
the scene with one of these slides, will make sure
that all this information is available in the show notes.
(55:00):
This is Haley Barnett, the Assistant Chief Constable of South
Yorkshire Police. She said, well, this is a very sensitive
investigation and the victim survives of steadfastly remained our number
one priority, of our number one priority. Over many months.
(55:20):
I've had conversations at the highest level with IOPC and
the National Crime Agency to ensure these courageous women truly
remain at the heart of our work and that the
mode of investigation remains appropriate. So it seems an extraordinary
coincidence at the very time that South Yorkshire Police is
(55:42):
very nervous about its implication and indeed that of other
forces in not only child abuse but the cover up
of that abuse, that suddenly somebody who's investigated this subject
for thirty years using primary public sources, is raided by
the police. All of his computers and information is taken,
(56:04):
and he goes through what he felt was a pretty
brutal interrogation in the police station where he was held
in a pretty cold cell, denied food and medication at
one point, all because he has pulled together public information
which demonstrates this cover up. So I'm going to say
(56:26):
that UK column will actually cover more of this report
in due course. But if we just say put this
slide up here, we've basically got the comment from Haley Barnett.
She says, it's for these reasons and a mutual agreement
with our partners that I've asked the National Crime Agency
to take ownership this operational work. But a lot of
(56:49):
questions need to be asked as to whether the arrest
of this man and his thirty years of data about
the cover up of child abuse is to enable South
Yorkshire Police and it's partners to whitewash government failures to
protect children, or indeed to actually protect people in the
system who were abusing children themselves. So this is quite
(57:12):
a story. We're going to stick with it and we
will give you more detail and we'll discussed more in
extra today.
Speaker 4 (57:20):
Diane.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
Let's come back to you and your pardon. Let's just
finish this one and I should be able to bring
up your section and you're going to talk to us
about the subject of wildfires and really some of this
amazing fear factor around super hot summers, clearly when I've
(57:42):
got that in Plymouth today, But be fearful of the temperature,
stay locked in your house. There's going to be fires,
there's going to be plagues. This is terrible fear mongering.
Speaker 14 (57:55):
Oh absolutely, Brian. I'm seeing it all over these so
called local papers on social media talking about you know,
locker room windows, don't go outside because it's burning, global
boiling out there. But I want to bring you back
to yesterday. There was a fire that broke out on
Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. If we have I think we
have some video of this to show what it looked
(58:16):
like yesterday before they started to fight the fires. Basically
what happened was in Edinburgh, of course, in the August.
I was there last weekend. This is the you know,
the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in the International Festival. Lots of
things going on in Edinburgh over the summer in August
and unfortunately Arthur's Seat, which is the big extinct volcano
(58:37):
that sort of overlooks the city, broke out in the
terrible fire yesterday. And this is also happening when Oasis
concerts are happening all at the same time with the
festivals going on, so one hundred and forty thousand fans
over the first two nights sold out at Murrayfield Stadium
by Oasis, as well as a third one that will
be coming on Tuesday. According to the Scottish and a
(58:57):
Fire Rescue Service, this is a terrible summer for wildfire.
I was across Scotland, including at the Highlands, and it
said the Highland wildfires are considered so far the biggest
Scotland has ever seen and so we're seeing in Edinburgh
and in Scotland where you know, you would not assume
that there was would have been a problem with water
(59:18):
in Scotland because it's kind of everywhere. That's just a joke.
But anyway, so tied to this, we're seeing wildfires in
the south of France and I last got a very
quick article to be by Neil Harrison late last week
on Friday actually, and we decided to prioritize this editorially
because he's a frequent contributor to UK column, I'm happy
(59:40):
to say, and because the wildfires were going as he
basically wrote this article and sent it to us for publication.
And what he said at the start of this article
you can read the full thing, but just to understand
the scope of this fire in the south of France.
He was writing this on day four, close to where
he has a house. He said, at the moment, ten
thousand hectares of land in the department have been burnt,
(01:00:02):
many villages completely gutted, transport, an electricity cut over a
vast area, and a flamefront that yesterday took up a
length of eighty kilometers. So he goes on to talk
about how desperately the firefighters have been working very hard
to stop the fire, but has not been happening. He
talked to some locals there and one person said, quote,
(01:00:23):
all of our children here are taught that the best
way of controlling fires is our vineyards. They are natural
fire breaks. Vineyards are watered, the vines are covered in green,
wet leaves, weeds and dried grasses are cut. But unfortunately
it has been government and EU policy to rip up
the vineyards and return the land to the wild. And
as he pointed on the article, the scientific justification for
(01:00:45):
destroying vineyards to satisfy Agenda twenty thirty requirements is based
on soil degradation, loss of organic matter, erosion, low carbon
sequestration compared to natural vegetation or AGGO force. So I
think there are some important questions for us to ask here.
We're seeing breakouts of wildfires because it's apparently global boiling everywhere.
(01:01:08):
What is causing these fires? Are there reasons for this
that are related to Agenda twenty thirty and sustainable development goals?
Or is it just because it's so terribly hot The
fires are breaking out everywhere. Are there arsons involved? There
have been a lot of questions around this, But I
think it's just important for us to maybe think about
this and I ask the question about why it is
that so much is happening around wildfires this summer.
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Very much for that. Apologies about the footage there from Scotland,
but I'm sure many people have seen the film clips
or wider media with regard to the wildfires or just
add that. Of course, one of the things we were
told by firefight is in America when some of the
really big woodland fires were burning there, forest fires were burning,
(01:01:54):
was that in many areas, the firefighting teams have not
been allowed to create fire breaks or indeed deal with debris,
very dry debris on the forest floors, and this was
helping to create very very intense fires with rolling fireballs
going over the tree canopy and jumping considerable distances. So
(01:02:16):
firefighters in America, some of them at least blaming the authorities,
saying that they were preventing the firefighters from actually doing
pre emptive work to stop the fires. Let's just end
on a positive note, Diane, and you've got a very
lush green picture of UK here. I don't think it's
(01:02:39):
very likely fires are going to break off breakout in
this environment. What is your message for us.
Speaker 14 (01:02:47):
Well, I just wanted to say to get out and
enjoy it while we can. Don't forget it is summer.
It is summer holidays still for children, and we all
should be just getting out and enjoying the beautiful weather.
This was me a couple of days ago going to Bridge,
which is a beautiful village up here in the northeast
of England, in Northumbria. And as we can see that,
well you can't see in the photo, but the village
(01:03:09):
car park was completely packed and we can see people
there walking to and from the car park across the bridge,
across the river, enjoying the cafes and the shops and everything.
And I spent a few hours there and just enjoy it.
So feel free to do the same, because the warm
weather is what we're supposed to be experiencing here in August,
(01:03:30):
even if it is the UK.
Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
I think it's called the summer, Diane. And yes, wonderful weekend,
lots of people having a very good time outside in
the sunshine. And we say to our audience do the same.
Get out there, fresh air, sunshine, relax and enjoy some
normal life with your friends and family and good normal people.
(01:03:53):
We must end it there. A huge thank you to
the UK Column audience wherever you are. Remember there are
still some it's available for the conference in York. But
if you haven't got a ticket, going to encourage you
to buy, somebody is going to be disappointed very soon
at the rate these tickets are going. We've got more
speakers to be announced. We're really looking forward to you
(01:04:15):
being there, so get onto the UK Column website and
have a look for those tickets. We must spend the
news there. Huge thank you to everybody. Thank you Ben
and Diane. We'll be back for UK Column Extra in
a few minutes and we'll look deeper into that story
about South Yorkshire police and the cover up of child abuse.
Thanks very much for joining us. Bye bye,
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