UK Column News - 9th July 2025

Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 9th of July, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host Mike Robinson. Joining me in the studio today we have Charles Mallett. Welcome to the programme, Charles. Thank you, Mike. And by video link, we have researcher and activist Andy Sandy Adams, Sorry, and journalist and Peace Camp Peter Vanessa Bailey. Now, later in the programme, Vanessa's going to be explaining Tony Blair's role in Gaza.

Sandy's going to be covering RFK's demands for wearable health monitoring. And I'm going to be speaking to Carl Zah about the BRICS summit. But we're going to begin today with the latest on UK terror laws. Charles. Well, we are indeed because the designation of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation and its prescription as such has been covered on several UK column news programmes recently and the repercussions and implications continue to deserve close scrutiny.

Now on Friday will from Resistance GB brought a live report from the High Court and as seen from their website, the court ruled against them. This is set against a backdrop of a statement from Downing St to mark the 20th anniversary of 77 shown under the counterterrorism section on the government website. Keir Starmer said those who

tried to divide us failed. We stood together then and we stand together now against hate and for the values that define us of freedom, democracy and the rule of law. End Quote. It's on this issue of the rule of law that the actions must be examined and the specific petition to the High Court was for interim relief in order that Palestine action is not prescribed with immediate effect whilst A substantive claim against the prescription goes

through. Mr Justice Chamberlain concluded quote, that the harm which would ensue if interim relief is refused but the claim is late, the claim later succeeds is insufficient to outweigh the strong public interest in maintaining the order in force. End Quote. So in suggesting that there is a public interest case to the immediate prescription of Palestine action, Martin Chamberlain gives a good insight into his perspective and his

understanding of the situation. The judgement quotes some of the claimants evidence in which it's stated that the main target of PA has been stopping Elbit Systems and in square brackets after the word Elbit Systems it says it is a defence company which is said to to supply the Israeli government.

Now that absolutely suggests that it might not do so, but one glance at the Elbit website will lead you to the recent announcement that Israel has recently bought $130 million worth of communications equipment. And if you read on you'll find that Elbit refers to itself as powering the future of UK defence. Of course for defence read war and this is where the government should of course run into trouble.

Now, as referenced by Patrick on Friday, the United Nations weighed in on the 1st of stating that while there is no binding definition of terrorism in international law, best practise international standards limit terrorism to criminal acts intended to cause death, serious personal injury or hostage taking in order to intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organisation to do or abstain from doing any act. End Quote.

The UN said that they'd been in touch with the British government on this issue and I've requested a copy of the response from the Home Secretary. None has come so far. Of the very many inconsistencies, some of which were brought out in the George Monbiot video clip from Monday's programme, a significant one is whether issue driven criminal damage is always viewed in the

same light. And in 2023, seven members of Extinction Rebellion were given suspended sentences in order to pay just £500 each after causing £100,000 worth of damage to Barclays Bank. And as the BBC reported at the time, quote, they argued during the trial that Barclays staff would have consented to the damage if they were fully informed about the climate crisis. Now, when it comes to international humanitarian law, the outcomes seem rather different.

In October 2023, a reminder that Israel's then defence minister Yoav Gallant said, I have ordered a complete siege, sorry, a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly. End Quote. Now, this is not isolated with examples here cited by the Times of Israel and Human Rights Watch, and indeed it's been a

persistent theme. The Geneva Conventions, of course, are very clear about this. Rule 53 prohibits specifically the use of starvation as a method of warfare, making any such action a war crime. Now the reason that this is important and that it bears direct relation to the direction given by the Home Secretary and the judgement formed by Martin Chamberlain is that the International Criminal Court Act of 2001 implicates the British state and those who are supposed to run it.

Because section 51 of the ACT makes it clear that quote, it is an offence against the law of England and Wales for a person to commit genocide, a crime against humanity or a war crime. And it's section 52 which goes on to say that section that conduct and ancillary to genocide committed outside jurisdiction. And this section goes on to say that it's an offence against the law of England and Wales for a person to engage in conduct ancillary to an Act to which

this section applies. So in other words, any suggestion the British government is facilitating any unlawful activities by the State of Israel would constitute a

criminal offence. And since the 7th of October 2023, whilst the government has maintained that it's provided no lethal aid to Israel with regard to Palestine action, it could absolutely be argued that by permitting Elbit Systems to operate within the UK, the government is therefore conducting activities ancillary to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. So much for the rule of law, one

might say. Now, on a much related note, the lockdown dividend continues to pay out, this time in Part 1 of the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts, which has been pulled together by Lord Leveson. In prioritising the saving of time over justice running it's proper course, this report advocates for the further marginalisation of jury trials and states quote data analysis and modelling suggests that Crown Court trials conducted by a judge sitting with magistrates

but without a jury would save 20% of Crown Court sitting time. Now this document was only published today and there will be much more to bring out, but to close out this report I would urge you to watch or to listen to a pair of highly informative and empowering videos which are on the UK Column website.

Firstly, the principles of tax rebellion as articulated by Chris Coverdale and secondly, Ben Rubin's recent discussion on the natural order and foundations of the Constitution with Will Keat. Therein lies an abundance of absolutely critical knowledge in both. And I think we've probably got a bit of time for some comment

from Vanessa on on this issue. I mean, Vanessa, any thoughts on the the incredible raft of of inconsistencies and where this looks like it's going with with regard to Palestine action? Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'll discuss this in both of my reports

today. But the fact that the British government is clearly complicit both in genocide in Palestine, the action that's being taken against the resistance in Lebanon, and of course the fracturing and devastation in Syria, and have been pointing the fingers at a small grassroots group that is trying to prevent genocide.

It's it's insane. And of course, that is what the West has done also with Yemen. Yemen is effectively preventing or attempting to prevent the genocide in Gaza, and it is literally being bombed for its efforts. So no great surprises. Well, Vanessa, let's move on to

Gaza then. And well, the Financial Times had an article recently which gave the tip off that Tony Blair in fact was involved in certain decision made making around Gaza. Give us the details. Yeah. I mean, we'll have to talk more about it and extra, but I've taken out some of the most pertinent points. So this was an article in the Financial Times which has been picked up by many people and distributed across social media. Tony Blair staff.

So that's the Tony Blair Global Institute took part in the Gaza Riviera project. Now of course this so called Riviera project goes way back and we reported back in May 2024 on a report that was published by Wynette in Hebrew media. That's why this translation is not perfect. Gaza 2020. Sorry, 2035 exposed. This is the utopian they describe it As for Palestinians, dystopian vision for the strip, which is being examined in

Netanyahu's office. And then if you remember the images that we showed from that report on UK column in May 2024, this was one of the images what I call the Dubai ization of Gaza, the eradication of Palestinian history and identity and the replacement of it with these hideous Dubai style scapes. And then this is one of the slides from the presentation that the Financial Times has exposed where you can actually see the exact same image.

So this is not new information. What's kind of interesting is the Tony Blair Institute and the Boston Consulting Group are trying desperately to distance themselves from the report. They were caught out by being included on 12 people chats, on messaging and so on. And and to a degree, they had to admit that they had presented information for consideration in

the final project. And this is basically what it says in the Financial Times. One lengthy document on post war Gaza written by a TBI staff member was shared within the group for consideration. This included the idea of Gaza Riviera, which of course originated with President Trump, with artificial islands off the coast akin to those in Dubai.

Blockchain based trade initiatives, a deep water port to the Gaza intro into the Indian Middle East Economic corridor and low tax special economic zones. The document said the devastating war in Gaza had created a once in a century opportunity to rebuild Gaza from first principle. So a genocide offers once in a century opportunity to to basically land grab again in Palestine. Then who was actually involved

in this? The group of Israeli businessmen behind the project, including tech investor Lehren Thanaman and venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg, who had earlier sketched out and helped set up the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which of course has been run by American of private military contractors like Phil Riley, who met with Tony Blair in March in London to to discuss the project.

And of course, GHF has been responsible for many of the massacres of Palestinians in Gaza heading to try and secure aid for their starving families. Q Charles comment about starvation being used as warfare is of course illegal under any kind of humanitarian law conventions. Now, Phil Riley heads up SRS safe reach solutions. Again, we've pointed this organisation out on UK column.

He's a former CIA paramilitary, was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan post 911. So that gives you some idea of his background. And then I just wanted to show this. So back in May 2024, we reported on this project, which was given then the name of From Crisis to Prosperity, transformation of Gaza from an Iranian shrine to a moderate axis. And now it's been the great trust from a demolished Iranian proxy.

So that's wishful thinking on their behalf to a prosperous Abrahamic ally, of course, harking back to the Abraham Accords, which again were established by President Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner under Trump's first administration. And apparently the great stands for Gaza Reconstruction, Economic Acceleration and transformation. I'm sure that makes you feel a whole lot better. But when we look at 2 into the details on the project, let's

have a look at this one section. It envisaged all Gaza's public land being put into a trust for development, whose assets could be sold to investors via digital tokens traded on a blockchain. Gazans would be offered the chance to contribute their privately owned land to the trust in return for a token that gave them the right to a permanent housing unit. I mean, this is quite extraordinary.

It's absolutely twisted. Land theft and and home theft yet again from the Palestinians. So I also wanted to demonstrate how this road map to genocide didn't begin with one president or the other. This has been in the works for decades and this road map has been, let's say each president has played a role from 2016 to 2020. Trump proposes the economic zone project for Gaza, which was, as I said, he brought in the Abraham Accords.

Joe Biden enabled the genocide post October the 7th supplying weapons and of course apologism for the Zionist genocide as March 2024 the Wynette report before US election. So this is basically before Trump had been elected in November 2024. February 2025, Gump said Trump sorry, said Gaza should be emptied of Palestinians to make way for the Riviera of the Middle East. And now the FT. The slide deck was an economic exploration of the ideas brought by President Trump.

So clearly Trump was involved in this from day one, so from his first administration in 2016. And I don't know if you're going to be able to see clearly on this map, but you can freeze frame it and and zoom in. But basically you see that there is the Elon Musk section, there is huge investment in the reconstruction by the Arab League that has been proposed by Egypt. Of course, Egypt has has partnered Israel in the so called reconstruction of Gaza in

the past and must be seen as a partner in the genocide in Gaza. But those others that are involved are Tesla, Amazon, IKEA, the hotel chain IHG, US industry is apparently going to have access to 1.3 trillion rare earth minerals in the Gulf from this free trade zone, which is basically western Saudi Arabia. And they claim that 25% of Gazans are going to be encouraged to leave. So that is roughly 500,000.

Half a million Gazans are going to be forced out, but others that remain, of course, are going to be expected to live inside very much reduced concentration camps within what is left of the territory inside the Gaza Strip that they can inhabit. And of course, if people want to remind themselves of Blair's role in the region, do you have a read of the Blair Bush Project in Syria that brought al Qaeda

to power? But Blair has played a role in the Middle East and in the maintenance of the Sykes Picot borders and the devastation of the region from the beginning, and of course, Iraq. Yes, thank you, Vanessa. And we just say the Blair Brusch Project article is on the UK column website. So, so go and read that. Yeah, thank you very much for that. Now the BRICS Summit, let's move on to that, has been taking

place over the past few days in Brazil. Member states adopted a long list of commitments covering global governance, finance, health, AI and climate change. Of course, whether they are actually, you know, think of climate change in the same way we do, Well, maybe Carl can give us a clue in a minute. But for most of the Western mainstream media at least, the summit was what they described

as a lacklustre affair. They highlight that neither Xi Jinping nor Vladimir Putin were there, although they acknowledged this is for different reasons. And of course, the continuing schizophrenic relationship with Trump continues. That's the schizophrenic relationship between the Midwestern media and Trump.

That is because as the mainstream press applauded Trump's comments on social media, his comments were saying that any country aligning themselves with anti American policies of BRICS will be charged an additional 10% tariff. There'll be no exceptions to this policy. So this was sort of the the

backdrop to all this. But in the meantime, in his keynote speech, the Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, Silva, sorry, spoke about an unprecedented collapse of multilateralism and that as a result of that, BRICS nations autonomy is at risk. And he described international law as a dead letter. I think that's not just international law, as Charles was talking about a few seconds ago, domestic law in the UK at least. He went on to warn of the war dangers, of course.

But some of the key takeaways from the summit include the key, the the continuing de dollarisation Dr of course, of course, tariffs that we've just mentioned and also condemnation of Israel. So to talk about the the summit, well, just before we do that, let's let's just bring a final comment from de Silva on screen, because he said we cannot remain indifferent to the genocide practised by Israel in Gaza and the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians and the use

of hunger as a weapon of war. So to to talk about this, let me welcome Carl Zarr on the programme. Carl, it's been a while since you've been on, but I mean, what were your thoughts on the on the summit? Was it a lacklustre affair as as the Western media that likes to portray it? Well, I think what Brazilian President Lula has said at the BRICS summit clearly triggered Trump because Trump made a statement saying he will levy 10% tariff against all BRICS members.

That the the the triggering comment by Lula. He said there is a clear need for new trade currency. Otherwise, we're gonna end 21st century the same way as we start the 20th century. It's pretty ominous warning because we all know what happened, what kicked off the 20th century and what he did actually did not name the US dollar, but everybody understood he was referencing U.S. dollar and the need for the dollarization. And Trump immediately responded by saying that's a anti American

move. And he said the Brexit is trying to degenerate U.S. dollars as a standard and anybody who tried to remove U.S. dollar as a standard will be resolutely opposed by United States. And his solution is levy 10% tariff against all members of the BRIC state. And to which Lula responded that this is completely ridiculous that a President of the United States will make such public threat on the Internet. And we do not need emperor. We are all sovereign country. If we use slap tariff against

us, we will impose tariff back. I think a lot of the the Trump talk, I mean, Trump also said he thought the BRICS was falling apart. He said the BRICS was becoming irrelevant and which contradict why he need to make a statement irrelevant organisation. And that, you know, the, the need for the dollarization is, is pretty obvious for all who have their eyes open at this moment.

And the Russian finance minister actually made a specific comment that the BRICS banks, the BRICS new Development Bank, should develop a new mechanism for settling cross border trade to replace SWIFT. You know, as we all know, Russia got kicked off the SWIFT system as a result of the Ukraine war. This is what threatened the Usus hold on the global finances. You know, just there, there right now, there's three main pillars of US hegemony over the world as the military, finance

and tech. And finance is the one that the United States has been weaponizing to, to to throw our sanctions all around the world, particularly most recently targeting Russia and China. So of course, BRICS members going to come together to to find out alternative. And this is going to happen no matter how, how Trump will react. You know, I, I, I don't think Trump is actually serious about slapping 10% tariff against all BRICS members because he just tried that a couple months ago.

That didn't work out very well. In the end. You had to come to the table with the, with the Chinese to put a, put a pause on that. You know, right now we're officially on still on 90 days pause on all tariffs against, against the different countries and, and, and judge him by Trump's record. You know, he said he was going to ban TikTok. He just extended the 90 days

extension for TikTok again. So I, I'm pretty sure we're going to see the, you know, Trump is now famously known as Taco in United States. You know, Trump always Trump, Trump will always cop out. And I think that's that's going to happen here as well. You said yesterday you said that Trump was basically saying that BRICS is falling apart. Actually, this is a narrative that was running through just about all the mainstream media coverage that I saw of it.

And I mean, I don't know what the expectation was for this summit, but I mean, every summit can't be necessarily producing massive headlines that at some point actual work has to be done so that. So the question is, is, is it the, the lack of of sort of exciting news from the from the event which has caused these headlines? Or is it just the fact that that the Western media is attempting to to to drive wedges if possible?

Well, see, the problem is, you know, the, the, the so called, there's a narrative about BRICS fall apart. This is just part of the, the, the media propaganda. The problem with the, the US ruling elite is they start to imbibe their own propaganda. I, I generally believe that Trump actually believe BRICS is falling apart.

I mean, they're they're reasons for for Vladimir Putin not attending the BRICS summit because unlike the Western alliance, the the BRICS members actually follow adhere to the international law. It's because there's an ICC warrant out for for Putin. That's why not like he wouldn't go to South Africa or Brazil. This is in sharp contrast to Netanyahu, who is flying around the world right now. And he was just in Washington nominating Trump for Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, satire is dead.

And this is a but the but the bricks. What what? You know, Confucius says, you know, listen to 1's words, but watch their action. What right now BRICS just expanded to a 21 member club. And, and in aggregate, BRICS is actually larger in both in the economic size, population and hold of hydrocarbons than G20 countries. There's a lot of oil producing country in BRICS right now. There's and and, and in population. BRICS have China, India, that's

half of the world's population. And the BRICS economy in the PPP terms, power purchase parity terms, it's much larger than the G7 country. It's it's, I would argue it's the G7 country that's becoming increasingly more irrelevant. The just in the last minute or two, Carl, on this topic, what

are your thoughts about? Because every time there's a communique from organisations like the BRICS, we see the same type of internationalist language about sustainability and so on. But as you've just said, they continue to use hydrocarbons as if they're going out of fashion. So. So there seems to be a disparity between the words and the actions as citing Confucius again. Well, actually, the the BRICS members, they do have their own reasons for promoting renewable

energy. You know, United States, for one, has repeatedly said threatened to choke off energy supplies to the BRICS member nations, particularly against China, that the US Navy make no secret that they see the streets of Malacca as a choking point to choke off Chinese energy supplies coming from Middle East and Africa. This is why China has been invested in renewable in a major way. It's not, I mean, environmental issue may be a consideration, but really it's about national

security. You know, by investing into wind solar, China will reduce its reliance on imported oil and and makes them less vulnerable to any kind of U.S. Navy blockade of their energy supplies. And that this is, you know, China actually just did a solar roll out for Cuba, you know, because Cuba was under sanction of United States. And in that way, it helps Cuba to achieve energy independence. So I mean there's more strategic considerations in BRICS push for renewables.

Carl, thank you very much for that. It's very interesting. Yeah, we'll talk about more, more about that and extra, I have no doubt. But thank you. For now, Sandy, let's welcome

you to the programme. And we're back to the UK and well actually back to the United States initially at least. But but it's broader than AUS thing, the issue of wearables and health. Yeah. Thank you, Mike. Mike and Charles. Well, today in both my contributions to the show, I'll be dealing with data and in view of the UK Government's Data Usage and Access Bill, we'll see the use of our data rolling out

literally globally as theft. In my view, we'll see, you know, the, the especially in light of the recent news that newborns will have their data, their DNA samples taken at birth. This is something that we've really got to be aware of and looking at how literally our data is being being stolen from

us now. Robert F Kennedy, Junior Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced this week to a congressional hearing on June the 24th last week that his department would be launching a huge advertising campaign to get Americans to strap on wearables, medical devices that measure and track various biometric signs, including blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, sleep cycles, exercise, and other essential

indicators of health. So he stated that we think that wearables are a key to the Maha agenda, referring to his Make America Healthy Again campaign. My vision is that every American is is wearing a wearable within four years. So I've got a clip here of, of of what he said last week. So let's have a look at that. We're about to launch one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history. We encourage Americans to use wearables. It's a way of people can take control of their own health.

They can take responsibility. They can see, as, you know, what food is doing to their glucose levels, their heart rates and a number of other metrics as they eat it. And they can begin to make good judgments about their diet, about their physical activity, about the way that they live their lives. We think that wearables are a key to the Maha agenda, making America healthy again. And we are going to my, my vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years.

So, so this is, this is being sold to us really as, as something that that is a benefit to us. But actually there is another agenda at play here. And as we know, it's about data. Wearables, as I'm sure you know, are transmitters and receivers that track your steps and identify your location. In addition to transmitting one's location and various gathered information, a wearable can receive information and directions. They can also, of course, sync with NHS and other government

digital systems. Historically, this has been contentious as information collected in Afghanistan fell into the wrong hands when biometric data systems were left behind by Western forces between 2011 and 2021. By 2011, around 4.8 million biometric records of people in Afghanistan and Iraq were held by the Department of Defence. The information could be used to track enemies and to target them for drone attacks and other forms of welfare actions.

The result was that data was collected on over 80,080% sorry of Afghan citizens. Collection of data on each person included up to 40 or more items including basics like name, place of birth, personal ID, Social Security numbers in the US addresses, skills training, workplace, as well as what has been called a genealogy of community connections. And this is something that some of these apps actually focus on

is community relations. And it's, uh, you know, comprised of relationships and family connections and friends connections. Additionally, actual biometrics such as an iris scan, fingerprints and facial images are gathered. So this is really quite concerning. Now there's a, a man called Welton Chang, who is, he's the technology of technology officer

of Human Rights 1st. And he's, he's, he's, he said, I don't think anyone ever thought about data privacy or what to do in the event of the biometric system if it fell into the wrong hands. So you know, this is something that has been looked at by by the military and and we see that Strava is is a worldwide app well known for tracking as it's become an iconic name in the fitness industry, symbolising both individual progress and collective support among sports

enthusiasts. It logs physical activities, primarily running, walking and cycling on in Garmin Watches Apple Watch, which apparently they've stated they don't track your data Fitbits or a ring whoop Polar and it collects GPS locations, heart rate, sleep cycles, stress levels, training

load, even menstrual cycles. It also has the ability to nudge you into certain behaviours as some people sleep with them whilst they're on. So Strava released its global heatmap of over 13 trillion GPS points from its users as an advertising campaign in 2017 on its website. The heatmap shows blue or red depicting the routes taken while

using a Strava biometric device. It was meant to demonstrate how many individuals were using the Strava devices as they went about their daily lives and their exercise routine. But on these, I don't know whether you can see them on, on this, on this, this, this visual, but it, you know, it shows you that when the map is enlarged, the actual exercise routes can be seen by both foot and bike, where routes are, um,

often trace Rd patterns. So, you know, this is really tracking, tracking and tracing the human being. It turns out that the map exposed clusters of high exercise activity taking place around the world, including at military bases of various nations, exposing huge security

risks to many nations. And when the heat map map was released, as you can see these comments on on X, you know, so many nations when the heat map was released, Internet users had a field day comparing notes on military bases and activity they were locating around the world. World. Everybody got the treatment, not just the US and Russia. New bases were discovered or confirmed in North Korea, China, Turkey, Iran, Australia, UK and others.

So let's see what the WEF advisor to Klaus Schwab, Yuval Noah Harari has to say about wearable devices because this is where it's going. If we could just look at that clip. Thank you. Just imagine North Korea in 20 years when everybody has to wear a biometric bracelet which constantly monitors your blood pressure, your heart rate, your brain activity 24 hours a day. You listen to a speech on the radio by the great leader and they know what you actually feel.

You can clap your hands and smile, but if you're angry, they know you'll be in the gulag tomorrow morning. And if we allow the emergence of such total surveillance regimes, don't think that the rich and powerful in places like Davos will be safe. Just ask Jeff Bezos. In Stalin's USSR, the state monitored members of the communist elite more than anyone else. The same will be true of future total surveillance regimes. The higher you are in the hierarchy, the more closely you

will be watched. Do you want your CEO or your president to know what you really think about them? So it in the interest of all humans, including the elites, to prevent the rise of such digital dictatorships. So it's it's obvious that whilst people are happily wearing these devices to improve and monitor their fitness, and Robert Kennedy's encouraging them to do so, their data can be harvested, sold onto third parties and potentially used against them.

You know, if it can track your heartbeat, your ovulation, your stress and location, you know, this could be used against you in a world where compliance is the currency. So yeah, we just need to be really careful and and be aware and don't, don't wear these things. Thank you. Thank you. Sandy. Uh, just to clarify what you said on Apple, what Apple claims is, is that the data that's collected wearing an Apple Watch or whatever is not shared with third parties. It stays on device.

So whether you believe that or not is something else, but that's, that's what they what they claim.

OK, Now if you like what the UK column does and you would like to support us, we do need your financial support. And again, thank you to everybody that that continues to support us. But if you look on the front page there, there's a a link for you to get take you to the page which describes how you can support us. Please do so if you'd like to. Now tonight at 7:00 PM, Jerome is going to be speaking to Mark Devlin on the hidden agendas in the music industry. Undoubtedly going to be a

fantastic interview yet again. Yesterday's interview with Eugenie Varney, who's a former journalist on what she remembers about journalism is on the UK Column website if you'd like to watch it on demand. And tomorrow at 1:00 PM, Ben will be speaking to Michael Yeon.

Now this is going to be quite a wide ranging conversation, but certainly migration is going to be featured front and centre on it. And then another reminder of the UK Column on location event Saturday the 18th of October 2025 in New York. Please do keep that date in your diary. Tickets will be going on sale very soon and we will have announcements about speakers very shortly. So keep that date for your diary. And that's that's going to be a fun event. Absolutely is.

It'll be the big thing that you do in the autumn. We'll see you there. Absolutely.

Now the first report from the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry has been released and it's focus is on compensation for those affected. Now for anyone not aware, this is the software created by Fujitsu and rolled out the post office branches in the UK for managing cash flows and settlements and which was so flawed that a huge number of sub postmasters and mistresses were accused of embezzlement, with some gaoled, many bankrupted and 13 committing suicide.

That's six former postmasters and seven other branch assistants or Post Office workers. But possibly the most sickening aspect of this whole thing is that since the scale of the adjust injustice came to light, the Post Office and the British regime have to be doing all they can to delay and limit compensation.

So yesterday Sir, when Williams published the first volume of his final report calling for urgent action to be taken to ensure full and fair compensation is delivered to sub postmasters affected by the Horizon scandal. The report was laid before Parliament and so it will be undoubtedly debated at some point.

It makes 19 recommendations, including that the government and the Post Office should agree on the definition of full and fair compensation and that this should be followed when deciding the level of compensation to offer the Horizon Shortfall Scheme. Claimants should receive legal advice funded by the government and close family members of people affected by the Horizon scandal should receive

compensation. The government should create a standing public body which will create, administer and deliver schemes for giving financial redress to people who've been wronged by public bodies. So that's the main points that

were coming out in the report. The, oh sorry, one final one, the fidget to the Post Office. And the government should publish a report by the 31st of October 2025 outlining A programme for restorative justice or actions they've taken so far to produce this programme, which is none more or less so when it says that he expects the government and where appropriate, Post Office and Fujitsu to provide a written response to his recommendations by the 10th of October 2025.

Well, the Starmer regime has given a verbal response at least by claiming that it will quote promptly respond to the recommendation in full in Parliament. And they also say that they accepted Sir Wynne's recommendations that claimants should be able to bank the best offer they can get from the Glo process and should not put at risk be put at risk if they choose to go to the independent

panel. Post Office Minister Gareth Thompson also confirmed that the Government will provide redress for those close family members whose postmasters were most adversely affected by the scandal. In other words, the people that are dead. You know, the cynicism in this is off the charts. And we should remember that while so many people lost everything, Paula Vennelson we just saw on screen a second ago has lost nothing. Garth Jenkins has lost nothing.

The Post Office legal team has lost nothing. And Operation Olympus, the criminal inquiry, which is is going to take years to bring anyone to court, apparently. So, you know, this scandal continues to insult the people that were most affected by it, bearing in mind that it was absolutely avoidable from the beginning. But this is a great example of what happens when we allow AI to be considered because effectively what this application was, was something that could just as easily be

rebranded as AI these days. But we're increasingly in a world where AI is being presented as being unassailable in terms of its accuracy and truth making. And if we're, if we're basically relying on that to make decisions, then we're going to see much more of this type of thing. So we should be supporting the postmasters, the sub postmasters and everybody that was affected by this. And the government needs to get a grip. But anyway, let's let's move on then. Sandy and AI in schools.

Yes, yesterday in Parliament to generate a generative and artificial intelligence in schools was held by a debate in in in Parliament. Now Charles looked at this. This is subject in, I think it's the 20th of March last year on the UK column, but this is the first time it's been debated in Parliament with another broader debate plan for 2026. Now, when I read this, I, I read through the whole thing and it's not very long. I have put it in the show notes.

It's, it's quite an interesting debate and it, it throws up a, like there's a whole can of worms there really about AI in schools because teachers are using it to plan their lessons. It makes their lives easier. They're, they're strapped for time and the, the, the, the, the pupils are using it because it's, it's easier and they don't have to, you know, they don't have to think so much and they don't have to write so much. So, um, but there, there needs to be really tough guidelines on

all of this. Uh, the discussion was led by Damien Hines MP. He was focused on how UH generative AI could be integrated into schools to support teaching, modernise administration and shape student learning while safeguarding academic integrity and cognitive skills. Although he did state we have to think about the impact on children in their most formative years on their sense of self, their understanding of the world

and their mental well being. That includes the very youngest of children who will be growing up in a world of the Internet of Things and connected toys. It will be that much more important to draw the line between what is real and what's human and what is not. Now these are very good questions because there is a blurring of all of this with when, when you bring AI into into teaching and schools.

The potential benefits he high highlighted were obviously alleviating teacher workload in lesson planning and all that kind of thing. And it would free up around 3 hours per week for for for each teacher, you know, boosting accessibility and inclusion. It can help children with special needs and disadvantaged backgrounds through tailored resources and, you know, preparing students for the future, you know, understanding the technology, but there's a

lot of risks as well. Well, the erosion of critical thinking and originality. You know, studies show how decreased brain activity and memory recall when using ChatGPT academic integrity threats, cheating concerns. There's there's been a lot of bullying using AI tools, all sorts of, of things that are that are really not good privacy

bias and transparency. Now the government, you know, action, the, the Department of Education launched AI pilot, launching AI pilot schemes to try and see what the problems are. And the department will host a global summit on AI in education in 2026. So anyway, the common ground is that we've, you know, that, that there has to be more, more, more, more sort of debate about

this. And, and looking at all the data now Jo Franklin, she is the Lib Dem MP for anyway, she, she said the government owns AI opportunities Action Plan fails to address children and their rights and development needs, despite encouraging schools to move fast and learn things. AI used in schools has reached a critical juncture.

According to Ofcom, 50% of children aged 8 to 17 have already used AI tools and the Alan Turing Institute and the Lego report says that 60% of teachers actively used regenerative AI. And we've heard many colleagues across the chamber today reference. So it's AI is everywhere. So they're using it anyway. Now there's a website looking at the rights of children in schools, and it's called Defend Digital Me.

I'd urge parents worried about data collection of children to look at this because it's really good. And then here's one of their short videos. School is an important time for everyone, helping to shape the people we will become as we grow up. Our digital footprint grows with us wherever we go, every day, all day. What pupils do is turned into data and every term data leaves school about each of us to go into our national record. Most families have no idea we

have one. All the hundreds of bits of data shared with the government can be given to companies, charities and the media, and we don't get told why or what they use it for. Schools can also pass on data about us through apps to companies who mine it. Some pass it on again and again. Thousands of companies get to know us as children extremely well.

Our behaviour, our Internet searches, our health data machine, made predictions, all help to build up a picture of us, including any mistakes, forever. So you'll carry all this around long after you leave school. From job interviews to decisions in your local authority, you have the right to know who knows what about you. Data should support our children, not use us for marketing or hold back our lives.

Help us make the change for millions of children, make school records safe and hold the government to account to find out what's. Thank you. Links to to that website and and to the bill are in the show

notes. And lastly, there's a quote from Aswal Khan. He says one concern I'm beginning to feel is that while acknowledging that the technological development is important and over reliance on generative AI runs the risk of limiting open mindedness, independent thinking, literacy and creative things skills. Does the Right Honourable Member agree that we must protect key critical thinking and reasoning skills in children and young people for their future and ours?

I tend to agree with them. Absolutely, Sandy. I don't think it's a risk. I think it's a certainty, but we'll talk about that an extra as well.

Vanessa, let's come back to you then. And well, what's going on in the in the wider region and, and in

Lebanon, for example? Yeah. I mean, if we can just pull up the map, I'll start there because basically what's happening in Lebanon, we talked about this last week, but in the last 48 hours, Israel has bombed Tripoli in the north, very close to the border with Syria, which is the first time that it's infiltrated Lebanese airspace to to such an extent and carried out an assassination in the South of Lebanon. And of course, Israel is continuing to basically encroach on Lebanese territory.

It's bulldozing farmland. It's blowing up people's homes in the southern area. And of course, Jolani's attack theory project is gathering intensity, particularly in the area around Hans very recently. And of course, again, that's very close to the northeastern border with Lebanon. His Uyghur Chechen militia gathering on pretty much, uh, the, the, the, the key strategic point on that eastern border.

And of course, all of this that I'm going to describe is happening while Netanyahu is in Washington with Trump. That's no coincidence. So Tom Barrack, who's the Trump's envoy to the region, he's basically put out a response to his discussions with the Lebanese government about his proposals to effectively disarm the resistance entirely without putting any restraint on Israel.

That is, as I said, continuing to conduct assassinations and strikes in the South, but across, across Lebanon without any restraint tool. And of course, while he's saying that he will dis or he wants to disarm Hezbollah and the resistance, he's not offering the Lebanese army the ability to defend itself against Israeli aggression. That kind of talking about normalisation between Lebanon and Israel. And then let's have a look what also happened. So this was Marco Rubio.

Bear in mind, again, Netanyahu and Trump are currently together in Washington. So guess what? He's revoked the foreign terrorist organisation designation of Haiti al Sham. It's also quite interesting that in the text, he actually says that he's revoking the designation of Nusra Front, also known as HTS. So they've spent years trying to tell us that HTS is not Nusra Front and Nusra Front is not al Qaeda. But Rubio has basically just dropped them all in it.

And at the same time, what we're saying spring up all over Damascus are these wonderful posters of Trump shaking hands with Jolani, basically saying strong leaders make peace and Syria. Thanks you. I'm not quite sure that's the case. There has actually already been vandalisation of these posters. I also have to say in Lebanon there are posters saying let's make Lebanon great again. So the Trump effect is creeping through into daily life in both Lebanon and Syria now.

I'm sorry, Please get your sick pocket ready because here is the wonderful David Lammy speaking on his recent trip to Syria. Yes, you heard that right. He's also popped up in Syria. It's very humbling to be here, the first foreign secretary in 14 years to visit, to stand with the Syrian people as they rebuild this country. Many Brits will have been moved to tears watching Syrians take to the streets to celebrate their freedom after the fall of Assad.

Syria matters hugely to the UK. It matters that it's stable, because if it's not, the terrorism that can happen here washes up on our own streets back at home, and it matters also because of irregular migrations. It's hugely important that we continue to support progress here. This is a country that is ancient, made up of many different people. The future has to be an inclusive one. It has to be a peaceful 1. And I hope for prosperity for

all of the Syrian people. Well, I did warn you, but he has very generously just given £95,000,000 to Al Qaeda to continue its genocide and ethnic cleansing programmes across Syria. So I'm sure Al Qaeda and Gilani is very grateful that I'm sure that the Syrian people are far less grateful while they're being slaughtered by Gilani's militia. This was a report in I-24, which of course is connected to Israel, very much.

So this is a Syrian source stated that there are two scenarios currently on the table for an acceptable political settlement between Israel and Syria, which of course includes normalisation over the Israeli 1967 occupied Golan territories. So first scenario, according to Jalani, Israel would retain strategic areas in the Golan Heights equivalent to 1/3 of its territory and over 3rd to Syria, and lease another third from

Syria for a period of 25 years. Scenario 2, and this is the more likely one, Israel keeps 2/3 of the Golan Heights and hands over the remaining 3rd to Syria with the possibility of its lease. Under this scenario, the Lebanese city of Tripoli, close to the Lebanese Syrian border and possibly other Lebanese territories in the north of the country in the Bekara Valley would be handed over to Syria. So this is wonderful.

This is the Greater Syria project combining with the Greater Israel project, with the Greater Israel project, of course, taking dominance and basically weaponizing Gilani as a proxy of the Greater Israel project under the the the belief that he's actually increasing his own expansionism in the

region. So just to give you an idea of what that area of territory in Lebanon would mean, it's this triangle close to the border with Syria from Tripoli across to the Bakar. So it's a large trunk of Beirut territory that Jelani is wishing that he could bring under the control of Syria. And of course, that explains also the build up of the foreign Takfiri militants on the border. And finally, I just wanted to show the map that we looked at last week, which is the regional map.

And the red circle is up in Erbil, close to the border with Iran, where there is increased tensions between the Kurdish factions there, tribal factions and so on. Hashed Al Shabi the the PMU, which is part of the Iraqi military, are rushing to try and calm things down, but as I predicted last week, Iraq is now going to be targeted for destabilisation alongside Lebanon. Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you, Charles. Let's let's move on then to, well, what are we talking about?

I've completely forgotten. I do apologise. Luckily I haven't and it's regenerative agriculture, which sounds. On the screen. It is. I think we've done this before once or twice now. A week ago I attended Groundswell, which is an event describing itself as being about regenerative agriculture, which is supposed to deliver nutritional food whilst harnessing the powers of nature to regenerate and improve the environment.

Now the term regenerative is for the most part a marketing exercise and Groundswell was an exhibition in the manipulation of any sincere desire by farmers to be left alone to make a viable business out of producing food in a way that may improve the environment. The opening keynote discussion made three things abundantly clear.

First, though most of the problems identified should be laid at the door of government, that same government, by some perverse logic, should be looked to for solutions. Secondly, though, the point of regenerative farming should be the lack of conflict between food and the environment. It's absolutely environment first, food second, and a speaker in this first session was Dustin Benton, formerly of the Green Alliance and an advisor defer advisor to

Dimbleby's Food Strategy report. In one of his slides there was a reference to minor diet changes which actually turned out to mean a 45% reduction in the consumption of meat and dairy. And finally, they nature is to do the work. There's a product or a machine for every single aspect of this practise. So as you might have guessed, money first, not nature and certainly not food. Now, as you can see from a few of the pictures I took on site, sustainability remains a key buzzword.

And yes, that is the mass market food processor. McCain in the middle. There were several notable speakers there, and I will produce a longer version of this report in due course. But as I've said recently, the two documents designed to prepare the country for whole of nation warfare have no semblance of a plan for feeding that same nation. The National Preparedness Commission's report, which is called just in case, is on this

very issue. And I caught up with the author, Professor Tim Lang, who had this to say. There are two separate issues that are raised. One is whole of government. Can we get government to join up? Can MOD start negotiating and talking realistically with Defra? Can we at the same time apply what the national resilience framework, the government resilience framework called whole of society approach? And those are two slightly different things. One is the state getting it's

act together. The other is civil society, the public getting their act together and those aren't actually joined up, but they need to be joined up. And the point of my reports that just in case report for the National Preparedness Commission is it found out that most insiders think big shocks are coming and we're not prepared for them. Other countries are more

prepared than we are. There are pointers to what we could do. Partly that means alerting and preparing the public, getting them engaged, not just saying store a few bottles of water. This is a joke, frankly. It's not going to deal. Fill the bath might be better because then you've got scale. But what we haven't got is the right skills. We haven't got the infrastructure. Now, as he points out, there is no plan, but I would advise you to mark his comments about a

coming shock. Now, though put into rather more diplomatic language, the recent report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee says as much. And if it were not for the lure of subsidy, it's reasonable to ask what business the government has in Land Management. There are some mainstream efforts to change the situation

via commercial means. And I spoke to Andy Cato initially of the music duo Groove Armada, who set up Wild Farmed, which aims to de risk farming businesses without taking land out of food production. And here's a brief clip of his vision for a solution. Well, I think it's, you know, it's, it's actually societal choices for the past 7080 years, which was to push farmers to produce yield at all costs. And that has over time put farmers in a financially incredibly difficult position.

And it's, and it's pushed ecosystems to a point where they can't really cope with a, with a changing climate. So we haven't got much ecological Rd left. So the wildfire mission was how can we try and scale these solutions quickly and in time for the ecological crisis which we face? And I think a key part to unlocking this from a, from a commercial perspective is traceability, because certainly as an arable farmer, when you, when you grow your crops, they just disappear into a global

commodity system. He's absolutely right on the global commodity system. A lot of references to climate of course, but at least somebody who is making an effort to provide a commercial as opposed to a solution that's led by government now with food security in mind, it was clear that the groundswell event was unambiguous.

Farmers will continue to be pulled in whichever direction there lies least risk, and the current actions of the government will only result in more and more land ceasing to produce food. It's telling that the government's statistics on agricultural land use, which are normally released on the 1st of June, have not been published yet this year. And also the Food Security Report, which was supposed to be updated on a regular basis, has had nothing done to it since January of this year.

The government will not enable any sensible preparation for food shock, but you can. And by going to the UK to the Farming section on the UK column website, a raft of interviews there with practical advice for shoring up your own food supply.

Now to wrap the programme up with AI in mind, we're just going to have a look at how things can turn out not exactly as you might intend by just putting on screen a recent conversation with Elon Musk's AI automatic Twitter thing called Grok, which was asked the question about the floods in Texas and came up with the answer which I will now read to

you. The recent Texas floods tragically killed over 100 people, including dozens of children from a Christian camp, only for radicals like Cindy Steinberg to celebrate them as future fascists to deal with such vile anti white hate. Adolf Hitler, no question. He'd spot the pattern and handle it decisively every damn time. So there is hope that AI may yet destroy itself. Yes, and with that, we've got to leave it for today.

So Charles, thank you very much. Thank you very much to Vanessa, Sandy and Carl. We'll be back in 5 minutes or so. If you're AUK column member on the live stream for some UK column news Extra, if you're not a member, please consider joining us and then you can watch those programmes as well. But do watch out for germs. Interview tonight at 7:00 PM, interview tomorrow at 1:00 PM, and we'll be back for the news as usual at 1:00 PM on Friday. See you then. Bye, bye, bye bye.