UK Column News - 18th August 2025

Brian Gerrish, Ben Rubin and Prof. Diane Rasmussen McAdie with Monday's UK Column News.Sources: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-18th-august-2025Timestamps:00:00 Honouring The Fallen While Preparing the Next Generation19:56 WEF’s Future in BlackRock’s Hands: From Schwab’s Vision to Fink’s Fortune24:34 From Classrooms to Newsrooms: All In for the SDGs39:57 Join Us In York or Watch The Livestream45:58 The New Port Authority — Military Muscle With Corporate Ambition1:01:10 Chat-GPT, Remember: Garbage In = Garbage Out

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Good afternoon. Today is Monday, the eighteenth of August twenty
twenty five, just after one o'clock. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your Hopes Bryan Garish. Delighted to have Ben Rubin
with me here at the studio. Hello Ben, and we'll
also be joined by Diane Rasmus and mcaddie on live
link from the northeast of England. Now we're going to

(00:32):
kick off on this subject of really remembering remembering the war,
and this has been an important theme, particularly over the
last few days and certainly over the weekend. And I
had the opportunity to attend a local event here in Devon,
was close to Yelverton on Dartmoor and this is effectively

(00:54):
the site of the old ref base Harrow Beer. It
was a fantastic two days. I've got a little bit
of video clip here to give you an idea of
what was taking place. But of course this little clip
is bittersweet because people having fun, very enjoyable time. The
sun was shining, but at the end of the day

(01:16):
it was memories of war and of course the hundreds
of thousands of people that died from the UK side
of the millions of people that died worldwide. Let's have
a look at the clip and then we can just
discuss it a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
My part, Hardy's jumping, didn't you really start? I am
probably in heaven, web out far and.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
I am probably in heaven we out far.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, there we are. The weather was superb. There was
actually a huge amount of people. Many people attended both
days because they found the Saturday to be so tremendous,
and as you can see from some of those images,
many many people put a huge amount of effort into
bringing vehicles, appearing in military uniform of the day, talking

(02:31):
about what was happening to the civilians. There was displays,
there were stalls, there was all sorts of things, so
a huge amount of effort, and overall people were having
a wonderful time, which was absolutely great. Then, but as
you walked around and you saw some of the relics
of the Second World War, your mind, of course was

(02:51):
brought back on the utter bloodshed of that war, and
as with the First World War, we were told never again.
So I want to bring people's attention to the government
because while the government was very keen that people route
with that kind of event, to remember Vjday or V Day,

(03:12):
the government itself has got a very very duplicitous message.
Let's have a listen to Healey MP speaking.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
Today.

Speaker 5 (03:23):
The fifteenth of August marks the eightieth anniversary of Vjday,
victory over Japan, Victory over Japan and the end of
the Second World War. It reminds us why for many
in the UK, the celebrations for V Day in nineteen
forty five were not the end of the story. For

(03:46):
the Second World War would continue for another three months.
In the Far East. British, Commonwealth and Allied forces were
still fighting a grueling battle, a coalition of nations refusing
to bow in the face of tyranny, a coalition of
nations forging alliances that still keep us safe today. But

(04:08):
too many made the ultimate sacrifice. Thirty thousand British personnel.
Many more from Commonwealth and Allied forces would lose their
lives in the Far East Campaign. Many who returned could
never bring themselves to speak about the conditions they endured

(04:28):
or the horrors they witnessed. We know the courage, we
know the resilience they showed to bring about a brighter future,
and after years of conflict, a lasting peace their courage,
their dedication, their sacrifice still inspires every member of the

(04:50):
armed forces today, and today the British people remember and
pay tribute.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
I'll apologize to our audience for showing all of that
little clip, but I wanted to show it all because
for me, I find the duplicity of what's going on
here Ben just truly appalling, but also the presentation, the
false sincerity, the music, the atmosphere that here is this wonderful,

(05:21):
concerned man who is there in the world to make
sure that we don't have any more bloodshed on that scale.
And yet of course in the background, of course, the
British government absolutely stoking up the war in Ukraine and
of course fully supporting Israel in the horrors that have
been happening in Gaza.

Speaker 6 (05:40):
Ben.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
I don't know whether you've got any comments on it,
but these video clips they're very polished and glossy, but
I find them quite nauseating.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
Yes, well they're they're they're polishing over our barity, absolute horror.
As my grandfather was a Japanese prisoner of war, and
like he just said, he never spoke of it, couldn't.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
I couldn't, couldn't even talk about it, and one of
the young men I spoke to at the events there
are harrow beer at the weekend also told me of
relations that he'd been able to speak to when he
was very, very small, some of whom would talk about
horrors and some wouldn't. But is the government in UK

(06:20):
working for peace? I think not. Is the King working
for peace? Well, I think the jury is out, but
I effectively think he's also on board, as we'll see.
But let's have a listen to part of the King's message.

Speaker 6 (06:43):
Far from her.

Speaker 7 (06:48):
A long.

Speaker 6 (06:50):
The war is over years ago today for short words,
after six long years of bloodshed, fear and suffering. Seldom

(07:11):
in a simple message they resonated with such a potent
mix of relief, celebration as sorrow for those who never
lived to see the glow of Freedom's moved all on
this day of profound remembers. I speak to you in

(07:32):
that same spirit of collaboration and celebration, as the honor
knew all those whose service were sacrificed, all the forces
of limative prevail.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Well, Ben, I'm certainly not frightened to say that I
find the hypocrisy of the King truly breasttaking because of course,
is he setting out to help achieve peace in the world.
Clearly he is not. We'll see in a minute. He's
interfacing with Zelensky, but basically governments and the royalty themselves

(08:13):
talking one thing, but behind the public's back fully engaged
in making sure that the war's taking place, immense bloodshed,
particularly in Ukraine, horrors also in Gaza. No effort to
actually install peace, but plenty of effort to ramp up
the weapons. Let's have a little look at headlines for

(08:35):
the papers, and of course there's only one thing to
be shown on this, which is Zelenski. So the Times
Zolensky wants security guarantees before a deal. It's presented to
the public as oo. Zelensky is the man that the
British public should pay attention to. Who cares what Zelenski wants.
He's helped to keep this vile war in Ukraine going

(08:58):
for the length of time it has. We've got the
Daily Telegraph Europe tells Trump, don't give in to Putin.
So this is part of the message Putin bad regime.
Change got to happen in Russia and of course Ukraine
with the proxy war and the proxy troops are going
to be the force to do it, the Daily Mail
d day. So now we've equated Ukraine to the Second

(09:21):
World War. This is all part of propaganda aimed at
the British public mind. In my appearance and finally from
the Mirror, as I suppose we might expect Ukraine war showdown.
Europe takes a stand. So the papers only putting one
message across, and that is basically that the war has

(09:42):
got to be ended on the lines that Zelenski thinks
Russia is bad and if there's no peace agreement then
of course UK and the EU in particular prepared to
pump in the weapons. But it's quite clear Ben that
UK and Europe very nervous about where Trump may take

(10:04):
these negotiations. Okay, so if you have a look at
the Guardian today as well as the Zelensky headline here
excuse me, you can euse Zelensky side for talks with Trump.
Down at the bottom was an interesting little headline almost

(10:25):
lost IDF prepares to force one million people out of
Gaza City. So here's another horror going on in the
world today. Are we seeing British politicians, indeed, are we
seeing the King put on the pressure to stop the
violence in either place. Absolutely not. Rather, we've got the King,

(10:46):
of course, meeting up with Zelensky. And if we just
play a little bit of video here, we can see
Zelenski arriving to meet the King. Notice he's not allowed
to step forward, would until he was actually invited to
do so. So it's very clear who's got the power
in this particular incident. But of course this is the

(11:08):
King greeting this man like a long lost friend, but
Zelenski ultimately responsible for hundreds of thousands, if not million,
plus deaths of his own countrymen fighting a proxy war
for the UK and the West. Diane, just very quickly,
I'll bring you in here. I find this truly appalling

(11:30):
as this comes out of the woodwork. But essentially we've
had the same thing going on in America with this
massive support for a war clearly designed to try and
achieve regime change in Russia.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Oh absolutely, And I think that's something that people miss
because we're seeing so much on the American side of
the pond where people are still very pro Trump, but
they don't realize what's actually happening because he's doing so
many things to distract the sexual agenda that's playing out
in the background, and I think that the media is
obviously contributing to that by saying, oh, he's wonderful, He's

(12:07):
doing all these great things, but in the background, what
he's actually doing is not something that the public is
aware of. And maybe there wouldn't be so much on
his side if they are being a little bit more
honest about these deals that he's doing in the background.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
And there's a very very good point, Diane, because of
course the public being told very little in UK and
as we will mention in a few moments time, will
be pointing out that, of course no real figures of
the number of Ukrainian casualties, so this is a war
only fought with apparently Russian casualties. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian troops

(12:44):
simply don't matter they or can and fodder. I find
it quite obscene, but I wanted to play once again
the clip of Starmer and Zelenski, which I've called a
love affair. Might cover this with the UK column News
on Frey Day, but I think it's worth showing this
appalling clip again to getting a feel for just how

(13:05):
deep into the bed Kiir Starmer is with Zelenski. So

(13:39):
presumably Zelenski had to point out where Ukraine actually was
on that huge globe, so that Kiir Starmer was fully
up to speed. But as I saw them walking around
the garden with the flowers, it really should have taken
one of them to put on the dress and they
would have been the loving couple. Now, this is what
Kiir Starmer had to say at the weekend about what

(14:02):
was happening with regard to the talks. He said that
Trump's efforts have brought us closer than ever before to
ending Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. No mention, of course,
of the provagations of the West. His leadership and pursuit
of an end to the killing should be commended. Well,
that's apart from the weapons which America's pumped in a course,
whilst progress has been made, the next step must be

(14:24):
further talks involving President Zelenski. The path to peace in
Ukraine cannot be decided without him. So that's effectively saying
that there is no pass paths for a path to
peace without Zelenski himself, and he said it. Kirstommer went
on to say, I spoke to President Zelenski this morning,

(14:44):
President Trump and other European partners, and we all stand
ready to support this next phase, and the missive went on.
I welcome the openness of the United States alongside Europe
to provide robust security guarantees to Ukraine part of any deal.
This is important progress and will be crucial in deterring
Putin for coming back for more when they seem to

(15:08):
regard this as some sort of game in the language
that's being used here. In the meantime, until Putin stops
his barbaric assault, we will keep tightening the screws on
his war machine with even more sanctions, which already had
a punishing impact on the Russian economy and its people
are a waving and wavering support for Ukraine will continue

(15:30):
as long as it takes. I just find this crass.

Speaker 4 (15:34):
I can't think of I'd imagine that Putin is quaking
in his boots right now. Be Wustarma is going to
ramp up the sanctions.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Or indeed so sanctions and sanctions, But of course the
reality is that the Russians at the moment are overcoming
not only Ukraine, but the full might of the West,
including the United States. We just have a look at
these little film clips here which just shows some of
the activity on the front. And the point I'm making

(16:03):
here is that the Ukrainians are being destroyed on the
battlefield because the Russians were able to bring weapons to
the front, which the Ukrainians can't despite Western missile defense
systems such as Patriot. The truth of the matter is
that Ukrainian forces hammered on the front lines, and so

(16:24):
whenever we look at casualty figures, we can be very
sure that Ukrainian casualty figures much higher than for the Russians.
This is actually a video clip of the aftermath of
an explosion of an ammunition dump, of very large Ukrainian
ammunition dump, and this once again shows that the power

(16:46):
of the Russian weapons is having a huge effect.

Speaker 8 (16:50):
Now.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Most of the propaganda coming out of uk is coming
from Defense HQ Defense Intelligence. This is one of their
latest reports which says that President Putin has reiterated longstanding
maximalist demands regarding Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. So no

(17:13):
mention of what was happening in twenty fourteen and the
vicious attacks by Ukraine on the Donbas areas and the
Russian speaking people. Most of this is pure propaganda coming
out of Defense HQ. But this is where it gets
interesting because essentially they're crowing, they're mocking the Russians and

(17:34):
saying it's going to take them four and a half
more years of war and approximately one point nine million
further Russian casualties killed and wounded if they're going to
take the remaining ground in Ukraine. Now, of course, what
there isn't in this report is any mention of the
I put a million, because this is the number being

(17:57):
mentioned increasingly by analyst into the Ukrainian War. A million
Ukrainian war dead that is not being mentioned. Ukrainian casualties
don't count because they are simply the proxy soldiers of
the West. So we'll just end this segment by having
a look at Kiir Stormer another video. But this is

(18:19):
where he's saying, trust me, because I only have the
best interests of the uk population at heart.

Speaker 9 (18:28):
Across Britain, people get up every morning to go to work,
to get their kids to school, They pay their bills,
try to save a bit. They graft the factory workers,
small business owners, teachers, carers, those who serve our country,

(18:48):
whether that's in scrubs or the uniform of their regiment,
the ordinary people of men and women who make this
country what it is, people like you and your and
that's who I think of every time I face a decision.
I know, like all of us, you are proud of

(19:09):
our country. We all love our country. But I also
know that at times he doesn't feel like Britain is
fair enough for those people, the people who are getting
on with it, and that's what drives me forward at
home or representing our interests Appoard, I'm putting you first.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well, the claim there, Ben is very clear he puts
us first, but of course in that BBC interview he
put the World Economic Forum first.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
He certainly did. Yes, it's quite entertaining hearing Starmer use
the word graft. He's a real man of the people,
isn't he. You're in scrubs or uniform. A focus grouped
the hell out of that speech, I think, yes. And
as we know, Starmer doesn't think about the British people,
certainly not in any endearing sense anyway. He thinks about

(20:04):
his friends in Davos, and as you kind of alluded
to there, Brian, he did say, under questioning from Emily Matels,
I think it was if you preferred Davos or Westminster
and Davos straight out the gate. So we know who's
pulling his strings, and actually we know who's pulling Zelenski's
strings as well amongst other people, because Ukraine, in the
destruction of that country, is going to be rebuilt through

(20:27):
the World Economic Forum and a huge amount of investment
from Black Rock as well amongst others. As actually the
game that's being played here, the deliberate destruction of nation states.
They can be replaced with a new order, and the
World Economic Forum is right at the heart of it.
Been a bit of a personnel change there over the
past couple of months. You may have heard, we probably

(20:49):
mentioned it on the news at some point that Klaus
Schwab left his position as chairman. He'd been there since
nineteen seventy two, forty three years in the top Sea
at the World Economic Forum. But then the very next
day a whistleblower submitted some allegations to the WEFT board
basically saying that Schwab had blurred the lines between his

(21:11):
personal and corporate interests, as if that was the worst
thing in the World Economic Forum had ever done, or
Klaus Schwab had ever done, which is not really surprising,
to be honest with you, given that he actually was
the unelected ruler of this global corporate empire and also
actually ran something called the Schwab Foundation under the auspices

(21:32):
of the World Economic Forum, which was run by his
wife and I believe his children working the Forum as well.
This is it's exactly what it is. But obviously the
wif of run an internal investigation and I'm very happy
to say for Hesh fob that he was cleared of
all wrongdoing. It's a bit like when they get a
new chairman in the BBC and they run an internal

(21:54):
review and they come back and say, no, no, everything's fine.
The BBC's fantastic. Exactly the same thing here, wouldn't you
say marking?

Speaker 1 (22:04):
You don't need to speak because it's obvious what's.

Speaker 7 (22:08):
Marking his own homework.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
But they have appointed and this is the real big news,
two interim chairs. One of them was announced earlier in
the year. I'm going to forget his name off the
top of my head. He's the former NESLE chief executive.
And then over the weekend we found out this guy
Larry Fink, the founder of black Rock, who sits on
top of twelve trillion dollars of accumulated wealth is now

(22:35):
going to be running the World Economic Forum, And essentially
this is more.

Speaker 7 (22:40):
Of the same.

Speaker 4 (22:41):
Schwab was always boasting about the fact that he had
penetrated the cabinets of all of the major nations. Well,
I think has already done exactly the same thing. He
was hanging around with Starmer last year while the Standard
was boasting about him going on an asset buying in
the undervalued UK. So Stalin's thinking about the British people.

(23:05):
But actually, in reality, exactly, it's exactly what he's doing. Yeah,
and really this is what they mean by economic growth.
By the way, it means black rock buying everything at
a discount. That's what economic growth is. And also, let's
not forget he was also hanging around with Rachel Reeves
and Angela Rayna, current deputy Prime Minister, actually slaved by
some to be a future leader with the country. Remarkably

(23:28):
so we can see that even with Schwab Goon, the
relationship between the World Economic Forum and the current Labor
government and the rest of our political apparatus is as
strong as it ever was. And what are they particularly
focused on. They're focused on delivering the sustainable development goals
as we're going to get into.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Indeed. Yeah, and of course that man heavily like Rock,
heavily involved in Ukraine and supposedly the rebuilding of Ukraine
when the war is over, so all of those deals
already signed and in place of people to make billions
off the suffering of the Ukrainian people. I think this
is an important point if anybody out there thinks that

(24:08):
by defending the Russian position at the moment, we are
in somehow against the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians, of course taken
to the cleaners by the West. Country destroyed a million men.
The figures are pointing towards killed in this horrific war,
and then the country is simply going to be hoovered

(24:29):
up the West for more profit. It's quite obscene, Diane.
Let's bring you in here, because of course, one of
the key things to understand is how the world's political
system or power base is working, and sustainable goals are
clearly a major part of that agenda.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yes, absolutely, And what I would like to show today
is very clear and concrete and overwhelming evidence of how
the sustainable development glows have infiltrated into do research and universities,
and I can say this as a former professor of
UK universities who knows the system very well. I want
to start out by pointing out this article that we

(25:10):
published late last week that I really helped with as
commission editor for UK column called Demise of Livestock, Farming,
Fraudulent Science and Blackrock by Neil Harrison. He was specifically
talking about farming. Obviously, this is part of a three
part series. We talked about part two of his series
last week when we discussed his evidence around the wildfires
and Agenda twenty thirty and Sustainable Development Goals. But this

(25:33):
made me look a little bit further into something that
he pointed out in the article, which has to do
with how against sustainable development goals and research are tied together.
So back in twenty twenty, when all of us were
obviously distracted by something else and we all know what
that is, there was something that was signed by several
of the largest academic publishers in the world called the

(25:54):
Sustainable Development Goals Publishers Compact from the United Nations. And
I would like to start here with a video clip
from when they announced how excited they were that they
were signing this compact, so let's watch this clip.

Speaker 7 (26:12):
Welcome. I'm Michail Coleman.

Speaker 10 (26:14):
I'm the Presidential Envoy for Diversity and Inclusion for the
International Publishers Association. I am delighted to see publishers and
colleagues from across the publishing industry joining us today for.

Speaker 8 (26:26):
This landmark event, the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals
Publishers Compact in short, the SDG Publishers Compact. The Compact
is a pledge of ten concrete steps that publishers publishing
organizations can commit to in order to accelerate progress in
achieving these sustainable development goals by twenty to thirty, only ten.

Speaker 7 (26:48):
More years to go.

Speaker 10 (26:50):
I am here joined by illustrious panel their Sherry Eldest,
Chief of the United Nations Publications, Yugo Zetzer, President of
the International Publishersgociation, Jurgen Both, President and CEO of the
Frankfurt Book Fair not Jack Nisler, chair of the Publishers
Committee of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, the version

(27:11):
n Welcome everybody. Let me immediately start.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
With explaining what exactly.

Speaker 10 (27:17):
Are the United Nations Sustainable Development goals and what does
the SDG Publishers Compact mean cherry off to you.

Speaker 11 (27:25):
Thank you very much, me Hayle.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
I'm delighted to be here.

Speaker 11 (27:28):
It's a momentous occasion for us to be launching the
SDG Publishers Compact and happy to be working with the
IPA again on this project to promote the Sustainable Development Goals. So,
as you say, we call them the SDGs, and they
really are our roadmap for the next ten years. And
when I say our roadmap, I mean all of us,

(27:48):
each and every one of us and publishers as well.
So the STGs are seventeen goals that we're conceived to
transform the world over a period of fifteen years, the
universal call to action, to end poverty, to protect the planet,
and to improve the lives and prospects of absolutely everybody everywhere.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
So there we go. It affects all of us if
we go to the next slide. Here, I've just got
as an example here from the UAN website from showing
as we see the wheel with all those colors, which
you will have seen that those presenters were wearing their pins.
They always wear the Sustainable Development Goal pins. That's how
we know that they're part of it. So what does
it mean to sign the compact. Well, there's ten points

(28:32):
that I'd like to go through quickly, which is committing
to the sustainable Development goals themselves or the SDGs, Actively
promoting and acquiring content that advocates for the SDGs. Annually
reporting on progress towards achieving the SDGs. Nominating a person
who will promote SDG progress, raising awareness and promoting the

(28:53):
STGs amongst staff, so that's for the publishers. And five more,
raising awareness and promote the SDGs among suppliers, becoming an
advocate to customers and stakeholders by promoting the SDG agenda,
Collaborating across cities, countries and continents on projects that will
advance the SDGs, dedicating budget towards SDG progress, and taking

(29:16):
action on at least one SDG goal. So that's what
it means for publishers to sign up to this agreement.
Now I'm going to go into some specific examples of
publishers and then eventually at university projects that show how
this is actually getting put into place. Springer Nature is
one of the biggest academic publishers in the world, so
they have an entire section on their website about how

(29:37):
they are promoting Sustainable Development Goals program, and we have
a video from Springer Nature as well explaining this.

Speaker 12 (29:46):
The people who built Spring and Nature have been opening
doors to discovery since the beginnings of modern science. The
research we publish has provided a trusted source of knowledge
to make progress towards a better tomorrow.

Speaker 13 (30:01):
We build on this legacy with.

Speaker 12 (30:02):
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a blueprint to achieve
a better and more sustainable future for all.

Speaker 14 (30:11):
We work to support researchers across the globe as they
tackle urgent societal needs, connecting them with practitioners in policy
and business who desperately need those insights to improve the world.

Speaker 15 (30:24):
We work to amplify the discoveries in our multidiscplinary books, journals,
and cutting edge science journalism, opening up and the disseminating
data and insights for those who need it most.

Speaker 14 (30:37):
We work to innovate by investing in new services and
technologies such as machine learning to identify SDG relevant content,
providing insights and tools to empower our customers and stakeholders
to deliver.

Speaker 15 (30:52):
We take responsibility for the environmental and the societal impacts
of our own business operations, cutting our carbon footprint, working
towards greater inclusion and the didasity, and forging strong links
with the communities research.

Speaker 12 (31:07):
With twenty thirty fast approaching, we work to deliver real
progress in addressing the most urgent societal needs because we
are a company.

Speaker 14 (31:16):
Of researchers, engineers, writers, communicators and leaders.

Speaker 12 (31:21):
Committed to advancing discovery for the benefit of future generations.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
So that is what the publishers are doing. So I
want to go into specifically a situation of just one
UK university, and this is our universities all throughout the
country and as you'll see throughout the world if you
look at the publishers. So of course, if you are
an academic or researcher, you have to publish papers, and
you have to get funding, and you have to make
your university happy to show by showing that you are

(31:57):
continuing to do these things. So if we look at
the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, which is where I
worked for several years as an academic, because I know
the system. Well, I'm just choosing this as one example,
but you can see this in any university in our country.
They talk about the sustainable Development goals under REF twenty
twenty one. So REF is the Research Excellence Framework that

(32:18):
every university in the UK has to participate in every
few years. It's the government system for what they call
assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions.
So as we can see on the next slide here,
but the University of Strathclyde did as part of their
participation in the Research Excellence Framework twenty twenty one, they

(32:39):
broke down the research of all of the academics that
had published over the past years leading up to twenty
twenty one and the percentage of each sustainable development goal
that the research was meeting, so that basically you're required
to meet sustainable development goals to make the university happy,
or else you're basically not even allowed to do the research.
Every university, as a result of being compliant with the

(33:02):
Research Excellence Framework, has to have a research repository. In
the case with the University of straft Clyde, it's called
the Knowledge Based Research Information Portal where you can search
all of the published research done by the academics at
the university and you can see right there on the
homepage for the portal there's a list of the seventeen
sustainable Development Goals, and I just want to go into

(33:23):
one example of just one research project from the University
of Straft clude you can find anything that any of
these universities are doing now that they have to align
with these goals where they're else they can't do it.
This is one example called Design Hopes or Healthy Organizations
in a place based ecosystem in Scotland. This was funded
for almost four million pounds. It is the funding period

(33:45):
is about to end and it's funded by the Arts
and Commandities Research Council, which is again part of the
UK Research Council's funding scheme. And what they are doing
here is making NHS Scotland more sustainable. So let's look
at their video explaining what they have been doing in
this project.

Speaker 16 (34:04):
The health and care sector is a part of the
green transition, like all other parts of society, and in
response to the pressing climate emergency we all face, it
needs to work more sustainably and move beyond net zero.
If the global healthcare sector were a country, it would
be the fifth largest contributor to climate change in the world.
And NHS Scotland has set out its own plans to

(34:26):
become a net zero organization by twenty forty. Design Hopes
is a design led research project which responds to health
and social care needs. In order to address these pressing challenges,
we work collaboratively across five of Scotland's universities, in collaboration
with NHS Scotland and other project partners, creating a range

(34:47):
of design interventions to help meet and move beyond these
urgent net zero goals.

Speaker 17 (34:54):
Working with frontline healthcare practitioners, I see every day how
much energy systems consume and how much clinical and domestic
waste is generated in a single ward, a single hospital.
If you can imagine this multiplied across the whole healthcare system,
you can start to understand some of the changes required
in our day to day work to meet our net

(35:16):
zero targets.

Speaker 18 (35:18):
It's clear there is the will to deliver world leading
health and social care in a way that benefits patients,
the planet, and the broader ecosystems we are all part of.
There is now an urgent need for us to ensure
our health and care services are delivered sustainably. Design Hopes
will help us to innovate and change in ways that
are tangible and demonstrates the value of these new approaches

(35:40):
to patients, interest, Scotland, staff, careers, and the wider public.

Speaker 19 (35:46):
Design hopes will advance society's understanding of designs value and impact,
as well as some of the behavior changes and tools
needed to transition the health and social care sector to
an ecologically and socially sustainable coach.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
So at the end there that was Professor Paul Rodgers
of the University of strap Clyde who is the leader
of the project, and you can see he's talking about
behavior change. If we look at one of the what
they call research outputs ie articles academic papers produced as
a result of this four million pound funded project, there's
one here in the research repository from the University of

(36:23):
strath Clyde which is called Design, Thinking, Acting, Making a
net zero transformational change across NHS Scotland. Professor Rogers is
listed as the first author of this paper and you
can see right there clearly on the slide that it
contributes to SDG thirteen Climate Actions. So everything that is
in this repository will have these links. That particular paper

(36:46):
was published by a different huge academic publisher called MDPI.
They also have a section on their website explaining how
they are committed to the un Compact on SDGs and
how these will be transforming the world, how the supports
what they do, and choosing the research that they publish.
One thing that I want to mention as well about
Professor Rogers is that his personal profile on the University

(37:10):
of strath Clyde's website lists all that he has done
research that aligns to all seventeen SDGs, which is certainly,
in today's academic world, a clear marker for promotion. If
that's what you're after. Here are some examples of what
Design Hopes has done with the taxpayers for a million pounds.
There's a whole website of on this. So Design Hopes,
as it says, is supporting a green and just transition

(37:32):
for NHS Scotland. But what does that actually mean. Well,
some of the projects they've done because Professor Rogers is
in design, they have designed, for example, a board game
that engages communities in designing exclusive healthcare gardens to enhance
health and well being, and this interactive game is going
to help them learn how to do that. There's a

(37:53):
project called Flow, which is an interactive game, once again
designed to help NHS Scotland staff visualize page movement through hospitals,
particularly focusing on urgent or semi urgent care at NHST
side and reusable theater caps hot off the press. This
one was a big, big, huge outcome from this four
million pounds. It was curved all over mainstream media and

(38:16):
as we can see examples here. This is from that
article that I mentioned by the academic publisher that there's
one of the things that they've done is create he's
reusable operating theater caps and that this is a big
deal for them. They're using the right materials and they
can reuse them. And we can see them all happy
there in their masks showing off what they've done. At
Professor Rogers as well. And this is just not to

(38:37):
pick on one particular person, but anyone in any university
is doing things like this. But I thought this was
a particularly interesting thing to end the segment on. Not
related to the Designed Hopes project, but he has contributed
to a book called Chronicles of Care, a design history
of the COVID nineteen virus, and the whole point of
it was that it says that in the abstract it
says the COVID nineteen crisis, and the design interventions that

(39:01):
the authors have cataloged in this book proved definitively that
design does care. The author's documented this as it evolved
every day from the first of January twenty twenty to
thirty first of May twenty twenty inclusive, so we're looking
at an interesting timeframe there, and we can see that
that research this book contributed to four different unsdgs, so

(39:22):
I'm sure he got a lot of great credit for
that and his own review. Brian and Ben.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Jane, thank you very much. The CAP's reusable cap got
me because basically, as far as I remember, in the NHS,
uniforms used to be meticulously boil washed, as was bed linen,
and so a reusable cap would have been given a
boil wash and brought back into use. But apparently we
now need a four million pound design research study in

(39:52):
order to come up with a new cap. Quite quite astonishing.
Thank you for that. Now, once again, a huge thank
you to the audience wherever you are in the world
for everybody supporting UK column. We can only do what
we do with your financial support, so a huge thank you.
If you're not on board as a member, you're not

(40:13):
thank your pardoner's come back here, or you're not donating
to the UK Column, then go to the website and
click the blue button and bring that on screen once
more and follow it through. Now Tonight at seven o'clock,
Jo and Warfare will be interviewing former Angus so farming.

(40:33):
Food health always very important to us here at the
UK Column. If you haven't joined any of germs interviews,
tune in tonight at seven pm and the next one,
Diane is yours interview with Rosemary Jenkinson.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yes, Brian, I interviewed Raspberry Drinkinson, who's an author that
I met at the Academy conference that I attended earlier
in the summer. She's an author who was canceled by
her publisher for something that she wrote, and so she's
written this dystopian novel called The Memorizers and it's a
very interesting novel and we'll be talking about the context
around this writing. I just to give you a bit

(41:12):
of a preview. On the back cover, it says your
truth is the wrong kind of truth.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yes, and that becomes ever more true. Okay, thank you
for that. Now, I just wanted to give a quick
mention to some of the people that helped that fantastic
local event over the weekend RF Harrow Beer near Yelverton,
and so I wanted to give a mention to both
the Military Vehicle Trust Devon Military Vehicle Trust and the

(41:41):
World War Two Reenactment Southwest Group, who really did a
fantastic job. So anybody who's interested in things to do
with the Second World War history thereof or reenactment, you
may choose to give them some support. Now, we've got
other people who've been working hard and we've mentioned them
before for We the People in the Northeast. What have

(42:02):
you got here, Diane.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Well, yes, thanks to our friends at WE the People
in Northeast who provided the coverage that we all showed
two weeks ago today on the migrant protests that happened
in Newcastle. They have taken some of our content that
we used on the news that day, as well as
our extra time content and some of their own coverage
that didn't quite manage to make it into the news
just because of time, and they've created a full video

(42:28):
which is over an hour called Who's Streets because one
of the chants happening during the protest, of course, was
whose streets are streets. And this is from again the
second of August migrant protests at the New Bridge Hotel
in Newcastle. So they've provided me with the trailer. You
can see the full thing on their Rumble Channelie we
will put a link to in the show notes. But
let's watch the trailer for.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Now, Ben, just for me to see people in masks
when clearly the police have said many many times they're

(43:10):
not going to tolerate people being masked up. This appears
to me at least to be part of what I'm
going to call to tier policing.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
It's certainly two tier policing. I think a lot of
those people who are just cowards, to be honest with you,
if you've got an opinion, get out on the street
and front it up yourself, you know. And also a
lot of these people who have just bust in. So
you have local communities out protesting and then these people
turn up a lot of the time hushered in by
the police and they're from out of the area.

Speaker 7 (43:40):
Well, I'm not going to answer any questions.

Speaker 15 (43:42):
It's good to our press office unless it's something about.

Speaker 7 (43:44):
What you want to do.

Speaker 10 (43:45):
And now, okay, what will the police be taxing in
the far left like you did in ethics.

Speaker 15 (43:49):
I'm not going to be answering any kind of questions.

Speaker 16 (43:51):
I'm not here for an interview, clearly, I'm he ever.

Speaker 15 (43:53):
To help Plice as protest guide.

Speaker 7 (43:56):
I've had a fuse. It's slowly burning. It's slowly burning.

Speaker 9 (44:00):
It's just going to be an experiity.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Okay, Well, thank you very much the people Northeast for that,
and I hope that they'll be providing more clips in
the future as they're doing some really good work getting
out and about and recording what's happening now. Also a
reminder for the coming weekend event, and that's the Freedom
Music Festival, the Hope Group and the UK Column will

(44:31):
be there. We'll be setting up this coming Friday, but
we're there for the weekend and we're really looking forward
to it. And of course UK Column team will be
giving a full day to not only a news but
also talks to the audience on the Saturday, so do
come along and join in. It will be really excellent.

(44:51):
And I have just been told that if you use
the Freedom fifty code when you apply for a ticket
for this event, you'll get fifty percent off. So there
you are. You can't do better than that. Now, just
a reminder that the UK column on location event in
York tickets selling very very well, so thank you very

(45:12):
much to everybody who's bought them. We've been starting to
announce speakers, so Andrew Wakefield of course we've talked about
we've also said that people will be able to see
the Protocol seven video, but we'd also like to announce
that Tess Laurie from the World Council for Health will
also be one of the speakers. There are more to come,

(45:33):
and of course she's been working very hard to give
ordinary people power in making decisions about their health and
saying that there's a better way of doing things than
we're told via the World Economic Forum, Sustainable Development Goals
or indeed the NHS on Health. So I'm sure that's
going to be really fascinating. Now, Ben, let's bring you

(45:57):
in because we've had some coincidence is when we've been
researching over the last few months and some of that
has come back to Plymouth in the work that I
was looking at probably fifteen sixteen years ago, has suddenly
become relevant again. But you've discovered also that Plymouth is
absolutely heading towards the super city status.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
It absolutely is, and you brought this to my attention actually, Brian,
because of the event you went to, the community consultation
event that you went to.

Speaker 7 (46:27):
When was that about a month ago?

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Was it a conversation where of course Plymouth wants to
expand and take over local parishes, it wants to increase
the population of Plymouth. This is all to do with
centralized power under the government's under the central Government's Local
Government Reorganization Plan.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
Yes, and a lot of that is to do with
this report from Babcock, which I believe that they introduced
to you during that meeting, one Devenport a blueprint for
the future, which essentially amounts to the military rization of
the UK economic system, as we've been talking about earlier
on in the show. So what does this actually involve?

(47:09):
They set out a visions come from the Royal Navy.
Well says on't the cover from the Royal Navy. We'll
get into who is actually from as we go along.
But what they're doing is developing a world class, secure, safe,
integrated operating in support base for the Royal Navy and NATO. Crucially,
this as a UK base and a NATO base and
that term integrated operating really puts the hairs on the

(47:33):
back of my neck up right, because there's a document
that Mike's talked about a lot previously integrated operating concepts
which saysusly says that we are never not at war
and our own citizens should be considered enemies, even within
our own barracks. Actually, and that's embedded right into this
Royal Navy document talking about the redevelopment of Plymouth, Right,

(47:53):
So what is this all about? Militarization, force generation across
every component of the system, Building a new operating base,
establishing capabilities for nuclear fuel handling for submarines and for warships,
building barracks, community engagement, hiring and training the workforce, running

(48:18):
support for operations for ford deployed ships, doing maintenance, the
full suite of capabilities.

Speaker 7 (48:25):
This is actually a.

Speaker 4 (48:26):
Really impressive site that they've got that I mean already exists, right.
You know, Plymouth has been naval center for centuries, but
this is the next generation of that building what they're
calling a new Navy essentially.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
And I've just added into that bent that the dockyard
in Plymouth is vast. It's over three hundred and forty hectares,
so overwhelmingly the biggest naval base in Europe and so
this is the strategic importance of it.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
Yeah, absolutely, And this so it's a huge development program,
loads of money coming in, a lot of it as
you can see at the bottom there maybe just a
little bit small for some people, but we've got EU
money there alongside HM government, so there's a real kind
of mixture happening here. This is a total redevelopment of

(49:19):
a huge piece of legacy infrastructure. So you can see
on the right hand side in the center there's beautiful, frankly,
you know, astonishingly beautiful Victorian buildings that we have over
there in Devonport and in the southwest of the city
and this is all being completely transformed. You can pause
this and have a look at it. And this is

(49:40):
going to run out for decades, you know. So they've
got long term planning running out past twenty forty and
this is essentially the economic engine that is going to
be used to drive population growth across Plymouth, right, you know,
they're really going after this and importantly this is a
public private partnership. Talk about this all the t time.

(50:00):
So you can see at the bottom there is from
the back page of the document and got the Royal Navy,
the Defense Equipment and Support, the mod the Summarine Delivery Agency,
alongside Mighty Circo and Babcock. All right, so those are
three listed corporations, vast listed corporation.

Speaker 7 (50:19):
Yeah, absolutely, And that.

Speaker 4 (50:21):
Is the corporatist system that we talk about, right, That's
the definition of fascism. That's what Missolini and Mussolini described fascism.
It's corporatist. And importantly, corporations are incentivized to maximize returns
to shareholders, so there's never any incentive for them to

(50:42):
end the wars. It's actually part of the way that
they're constituted, right, And this is what is sitting right
at the heart of the UK economic strategy, and in fact,
this is something that Starmer himself has talked about extensively,
and this is really sitting right at the heart of
the future of and Babcock are right in the.

Speaker 7 (51:01):
Middle of it. Essentially, this is a Babcock site.

Speaker 4 (51:04):
The other corporations we've talked about are partners in this,
and this is a.

Speaker 7 (51:11):
Listed corporation.

Speaker 4 (51:13):
As I've just said, there's zero incentive for them to
ever de escalate or to end wars because that's.

Speaker 7 (51:18):
How they make their money.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
They are hugely significant in the UK economy, so four
point three billion total contribution to the economy, one point
one billion in taxes, sixty seven thousand jobs either directly
or indirectly related to Babcock and they.

Speaker 7 (51:39):
Are in the southwest of England, but also up in Scotland.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
Obviously we've got a big nuclear capability up there. And
this is all about delivering the defense dividend. So when
Starner's there talking about good jobs for working people, putting
money into your pocket, thinking about the working class, it's
because they want to invest in the military industrial complex
and an ever escalating and cascading series of international conflicts. Right,

(52:05):
it is ultimately what it's all about, and who's pulling
the strings here.

Speaker 7 (52:09):
It's going to have a look at the board.

Speaker 4 (52:10):
Just three people who immediately jumped out of me Dame
Ruth Kenney dB, who is also the patron of Women
in Defense, which made me feel really warm and fuzzy.
Actually known that there's a lady in charge of our
nuclear capability.

Speaker 7 (52:24):
That was fantastic.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
Well, there's a lot of questions to be asked about that,
and these people and how they get their power base.

Speaker 7 (52:32):
I agree, yeap, certainly.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
So these are the top corporate people, David Lockwood in
the center there ob importantly dB OBE.

Speaker 7 (52:42):
So these are courtiers, let's think of.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
Them that like that, favored individuals.

Speaker 4 (52:47):
Absolutely, And the gentleman on the right hand side there,
the right honorable the Lord Parker of Men'smere GVO KCB
A bit of a mouthful. He actually was the director
Gentleman of m I five by David Cameron, did that
job until twenty twenty from twenty thirteen, and he was
then appointed as Lord Chamberlain, so essentially head of the
Royal household. So again we've seen video earlier of King Charles,

(53:13):
you know, talking about how awful war is, and yet
he's got one of his top people who actually runs
the royal household also sitting on top of a weapons company.
So this doesn't really add up, does it. It doesn't
make any sense.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
It does for a duplicitous world, yes, is what I
will say.

Speaker 4 (53:32):
Yes, right, And that's what's happening in Plymouth, total transformation
of the city driven by the military industrial complex. But
it's not just happening in Plymouth, it's happening across the
whole of the UK. And actually I might just skip
the next slide, Mike, and we'll just go straight to

(53:54):
the video where we'll find out a bit more about
the Thames Freeport.

Speaker 20 (54:02):
We're bringing you new possibilities right here, five the.

Speaker 7 (54:06):
Tenths, your hand, your school, your future, or.

Speaker 11 (54:12):
Connected Welcome to our driverless service.

Speaker 13 (54:27):
Need something, it's always within reach.

Speaker 10 (54:35):
New jobs are on the way, Sustainable future it's built.

Speaker 20 (54:39):
For you, a smarter green of faces, always there when
you need it.

Speaker 7 (54:58):
Future tip, it can easier every day.

Speaker 13 (55:07):
Your future right here by the tenths.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Cartoon, we've had jig salts for young children in order
to get the SDG message across from here, we've got
a cartoon.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
There's quite a childish, really, wasn't it. But that's that's
the smart city agenda, right. So it's everything's connected, driverless vehicles,
virtual reality concerts, drone delivery of fast food so you
don't have to actually talk to anyone at any point,
charging points so that you'll never run out of battery,
or on your phone. You can imagine it's geo fence.
You're not actually allowed to leave, right, This is what

(55:46):
they're pushing towards ultimately, and it's the same agenda that
we just talked about in Plymouth. Ultimately that will be
a smart city, no doubt. But it's the same agenda
that we can see happening up in London and to
the east of London importantly, that was Thames Freeport. Sandy's
spoken about the freeport entities like this kind of new

(56:07):
free trade structure, these zones that don't exist within the
normal bounds of the country, they are actually separate entities.
Talked about that earlier on in the year and essentially
this has been positioned as the biggest opportunity in a
generation for London ultimately, which is a remarkable statement, to
be honest with you. Apparently, it's unique and transformative. It's

(56:27):
going to stimulate trade, foster renovation, support the energy transition.

Speaker 7 (56:31):
So these new cities they're.

Speaker 4 (56:33):
All about bringing through new technological infrastructure and this is
absolutely vast. It's right in the east of the city,
in the London borough of Barkingham, Dagenham, London Borough of
Havering and then out into Essex into Thurrock, and it
is going to transform that kind of post industrial landscape. Ultimately,

(56:54):
that's what a lot of that is not exclusively, but
that has been a hub of global trade for a
thousand years and they're now going to turn it into
this completely transformed a smart city. This was announced by
Ruth Kelly, the former Secretary of State for Communities and
Local Government under Tony Blair. Obviously we've got Blair people

(57:15):
in the mix, and it's going to be delivered by
a consortium led by e Y where I used to work,
who are a World Economic Forum strategic partner, alongside a
couple of other people, including the Young Foundation. So you've
got these kind of social engineering type organizations like the
Young Foundation working hand in hand with e Y, who

(57:36):
are kind of hardcore uber capitalists, right, So this is
that sort of money and power dynamic that I talk
about a lot.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
And Young Foundation worked alongside Common Purpose and Demos, so
yes are tangled. Were these very powerful think tanks and facilitators.

Speaker 4 (57:54):
Exactly and to deliver what exactly, because they're going to
tear up the country in order to implement what. You
got that little ridiculous little video that we just watched, Like,
how is that going to translate into reality? It won't
translate into reality, like this is it's just ludicrous, the
idea that we would want to progress with something like

(58:15):
this and where's it coming from? So I actually found
out about this via this chap. This is Max Beverton Palmer,
who's currently head of Public Policy and Video UK and
I spoke about in video last week.

Speaker 7 (58:27):
They're one of the.

Speaker 4 (58:28):
People who are leading the project's Stargate initiative up in
Norway and he's formerly of the Blair Institute and their
mantra you can see here writ large technology is disruptive.
The pace of technological change is accelerating. According to them,
technology changes power structures, it centralizes power structures, it globalizes
power structures. That's what these people are doing and it's

(58:49):
going right into Dannik Street right. So this guy, Beverton Palmer,
it's been at Downing Street in the past couple of
weeks talking about the Thames Freeport initiative, this idea of
a new smart city for the East of London with
a delegation made up of money, infrastructure, of weapons and
technology companies.

Speaker 7 (59:07):
Money.

Speaker 4 (59:08):
You've got Barclays and Standard Charter are in their infrastructure.
You've got BT Group in the National Grid, weapons manufacturers,
you've got Babcock again, and BAE Systems. They're in the
mix for this, and then startups, including this organization Humanoid,
will just run a tiny little bit of this. But
there is literally a company that is building humanoid robots

(59:28):
to create a new workforce to exist in this smart city,
going to Downing Street with people from the Blair Foundation
and the weapons manufacturers. Right, this is the technological roadmap
that they're progressing with and they're going to flatten but
a load of East London, a load of Ssex. And

(59:50):
actually they're not the only people who are going to
be flattening a bunch of Essex because also we've seen
in the past few days TfL have just announced a
new partnership with EDF, a French multinational energy company, to
supply solar energy, enough solar energy to run the entire
Tube network. Apparently that's going to be out of a
brand new solar facility in Essex, supposedly creating green jobs,

(01:00:15):
boosting biodiversity somehow, I'm not sure how that's possible. Just
putting loads of solar panels onto a field not going
to boost biodiversity. And as you can see here that
is all prime farmland. There are a bunch of farms
who are no longer going to be farms who are
going to be replaced with the infrastructure for this new

(01:00:37):
technological paradigm that we're being ushered into. And this is
absolutely happening right now today and being pushed out across
the country, and.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Of course most people overwhelmingly absolutely not aware of what's
being planned or indeed how it's being planned through Westminster.
But as we heard at the start of the New SKA,
Starmer reassuring the British public that he's got us at
the forefront of his mind every day, asks jobs, families.

(01:01:08):
Let's leave it there, Ben, Diane, let's bring you back
just for a final segment about well it's AI and
what are we really saying should we trust it? I suppose.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
That's an interesting question, Brian. So I just wanted to
give you an example of chat GPT use, which we're
hearing more and more people saying all the time, well,
just use chat GPT. It's quick, it's easy, it will
give you a good answer. You don't have to do
a lot of time it's spent to find whatever it
is that you need to find, because you just type
in the question and have a conversation with you. Just recently, anecdotically,

(01:01:48):
I've been playing with chat GPT, which should be very
simple questions, and I'm getting a lot of incorrect answers back.
I even know of someone that was trying to have
a zoom call with a few weeks ago use chat
GPT to figure out the time difference because she was
in another country. She got the time wrong because chat
GPT didn't account for the fact that we were on

(01:02:08):
British summertime, so she was an hour off. And the
message lately that we've been seeing around is that chat
GPT and these other AI chatbots and so on can
sort your life out. So I just kind of did
some very casual types of searching around. So I just
typed into Google chat GPT sorting my life out, and
what happened, Well, AI told me. Google's AI told me

(01:02:28):
that chat GPT can indeed be a valuable tool for
organizing various aspects of life, including time management, goal setting,
and even decluttering, breaking down tasks, et cetera. So I thought, okay,
so what's a task that we might do with chat
GPT that's very simple? So I thought about all of
the budgetary issues that people are facing in this country
because of the state of the economy, and I thought, well,

(01:02:50):
what about shopping and buying basic groceries? So looking at
trying to figure out how much somebody might be able
to budget for their groceries in a weekly I asked
it and I said, what is the street value of Lurepac?
So then it responded to me, which was really didn't see.
Maybe my wording was a bit unusual, but I was

(01:03:11):
trying to see what it would say to me. It said,
it sounds like you're curious about the street value of Lurepac,
perhaps wondering what it's actually selling for in shops, rather
than any black market context. I wasn't asking about black
market anything. Lurepac is a premium butter brand which I
would beg to differ, so it's prices tend to reflect that.
So it listed a few bullet points of some different

(01:03:33):
prices of Lupac of sort of typically around three pounds
seventy five four pounds, and it's as you can see here,
it's referring to different sources. It refers to Amazon UK
too good to know. I don't know why it's listed
prices for Tesco and Asda. But then they're sort of
crossed out, so I don't know what the strikethrough was for.

(01:03:53):
It says around two pounds fifteen at Amazon UK for
two hundred grams. So I decided to actually go to
real shops instead of depending on AI to do to
figure out how much it would cost to buy lupack
in my city. So the Tesco, which is local to me,
said that the cost of seven hundred and fifty grams
of lur pack with eight pounds twenty five, which I

(01:04:16):
thought was quite ridiculously high for any amount of lurpack
at all whatsoever. So why I went to four different
shops in my city just to compare prices. So this
is actual on the ground reporting, and I just made
a little bar chart out of it. I went to
B and m Aldi, Morrison's and Tesco. And what's interesting
is that you can see that there is a range

(01:04:38):
of prices, but there's also a range of sizes, so
it's not so much about a big or a small
lure pack. It gets a bit confusing because there's two
hundred and fifty grams, four hundred grams, five hundred grams,
six hundred grams, seven hundred and fifty grams that appeared
in just these four different shops in one city, which
could make you believe that maybe something costs more or
less than it actually costs. So it makes it very

(01:04:58):
difficult for someone to do termine and obviously impossible at
this point for AI to be able to discern between
those different sizes and which is actually the best value
for money. So with all that, it's just a silly
example I guess to sort of show how information can
be really, really incorrect on these chatbots, and we're going
to be doing a lot of future reporting on chat

(01:05:19):
GPT to actually look at how it's getting its information,
and this will be coming from future editions of UK
column News. I would also like to announce to our
longer time viewers if those of you who remember UKC
Verify in the past, we are bringing that back. I'm
happy to say UKC Verify is of course the anecdote
to BBC Verify and Marianna Spring. I would like to

(01:05:41):
say that personally, I believe that as the information correspondent
for UK Column, I am also the antidote for Marana Spring.
We've tried to have her on the show several times
and she just for whatever reason will not respond to
us to our our request to interview her or talk
to her. But what I would like to say is
that we have art of UK see verify in the past,

(01:06:01):
saying that if you find any sort of mainstream source
that you would like us to check to make sure
whether or not it is accurate, we can do that
for you. I would also like to invite viewers to
consider trying this with chat GPT or other AI chatbots,
and if you would like us to verify any information,
whether it's about the price of lur pack or the
street value of lurpack or anything else, we can do that.

(01:06:23):
But there are actually some very serious implications to finding
incorrect information, and we're also unfortunately seeing that in some
cases it's affecting people's mental health and their well being,
so we really need to be careful with us. So
I invite any sort of discussion back and forth with
our viewers, and we'll be doing some very serious reporting
on this in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
Thank you very much for that, And indeed it is
a very serious thing AI, and we will be spending
a lot more time looking into it and what it's
possible impacts are. So we must send there Ben thank
you very much for joining me, Diane. Thank you for
UK column members. We'll be back in a few moments
for UK column. Extra huge thank you to our audience

(01:07:08):
today wherever you are in the world. And please, if
you haven't got a ticket for that your event and
you'd like to come and meet the team and hear
some really great talks, get on board and get a ticket.
We'd love to see you there. We'll end on that note,
thanks for joining us. Bye bye.