UK Column News - 14th May 2025

Hello, it's Wednesday the 14th of May 2025, just after 1:00. And welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson. Joining me in the studio today is Charles Mallett. Welcome to program, Charles. Thank you, Mike. And by video link, we have Vanessa Bailey and Sandy Adams. Now, later in the program, we're going to be covering the victory in the High Court over low traffic neighborhoods, online safety, the Middle East and water scarcity.

But let's begin, Charles, with allegations of war crimes by the British military. We will, and in doing so, we'll examine what BBC Panorama's latest offering, I Saw War Crimes has to say about itself in this short clip from their advertising promotion. Those who served with UK special forces are about to break a code of silence. They don't want to be identified. We've used actors to speak their words but they want the world to know what they saw. Everyone knew what was going on.

It's not scout camp. Everyone knew what was happening. People were murdered. The government has set up a public inquiry but it's only looking at operations between 2010 and 2013. We've been told the unlawful killings started much earlier, so that's been produced by Hannah O'Grady, who's been the journalist at the centre of much of this type of investigating. And of course the critical part here really in so far as credibility is concerned, is that they are using actors.

So whilst on the face of it, it might seem significant that Special Forces veterans have stepped forward, they've done so in an anonymous sense, so it is in that respect hard to know what to make of it. I should say that I reported on this last on the 25th of September last year, so there's not enough time to go into all that detail today. So please look back at that news programme for further detail.

I'm now just going to show a little bit of video from what the BBC is describing as being from the Special Forces taken in Iraq. And the claims by the Panorama programme are that these sorts of videos were produced by troops and squadrons deployed in order to effectively promote competition between units, most particularly in relation to what

they call the kill counts. And so the statistics here being shown on screen that over a six month tour, 424 detainees and 19 enemy killed, just as an example. Now this there's no suggestion here that this was an isolated incident, isolated either to the UK or indeed to Afghanistan or Iraq. And therefore it's relevant to look to Australia, which has investigated this in a more official and perhaps comprehensive sense.

And going back to 2020, the Britain report which states that credible information existed in 23 incidents in which one or more non combatants were unlawfully killed by or at the direction of Australian Special Forces, which may constitute the war crime of murder. Now the Chief of the Australian Defence Forces, Angus Campbell spoke in 2020 and it's interesting to note contrast between what he said and what has come from Ministry of Defence in the UK.

What the Inspector General finds is greatly at odds with that good effort and damaging to our moral authority as a military force. His report details credible information regarding deeply disturbing allegations of unlawful killings by some. I would respectfully ask Australians to remember and have faith in the many. I assure you I do. To the people of Afghanistan, on behalf of the Australian Defence Force, I sincerely and unreservedly apologize for any wrongdoing by Australian

soldiers. The defence chief pointed to a culture of what he said was toxic competitiveness between an SAS unit and a commando unit. The allegations General Campbell described as a disgrace to both. He said it was a shameful record. There were incidents allegedly involving patrol members who were coerced to shooting a prisoner in order to achieve what was called a first kill, or

blooding. We also heard details from the inquiry that found the soldiers sought to cover up their crimes by using what was called throw downs, those being usually pistols, ammunition, grenades or handheld radios to be placed on

the bodies of victims. So that was a Channel 9 report which becomes relevant because all of this led to a man named Ben Roberts Smith, who was then a corporal in The Australian Special Air Service. And we'll just pop him on screen now because he is crucial to what happened in Australia. And there are enormous parallels with what the BBC programme has

articulated. But it should be pointed out that that Robert Smith found himself at the centre of a defamation case because back in 2018 articles were written by journalist Nick McKenzie in particular suggesting that he had been responsible for a number of extrajudicial killings whilst in Afghanistan. And in 2023 this he he he sued for defamation against Mackenzie but it was chucked out on the balance of probability that he had in fact committed such

murders. Now at the time Robert Smith was working for Channel 7A, rival Channel in Australia owned by Kerry Stokes, who has bankrolled his appeal, which the decision for which is due to be announced on Friday. So it seems beyond coincidence that this could be happening at the same time as the Panorama programme. Now for much more information on this, I'd point you towards the 60 Minutes programme in Australia Theatre of War, a link to which will be in the show notes.

And indeed this now brings us back to the UK because the other thing reported by the BBC is that this man shown on screen now, General Gwyn Jenkins, who's the strategic adviser to the Defence Secretary, was at the heart of this at the time in Afghanistan. And that he had knowledge by by way of a report back in 2011 when he was commanding UK Special forces in Afghanistan, Afghanistan.

And he sent that report up the chain of command to the then Director Special Forces, who was Mark Carlton Smith, who went on to become Chief of the Defence Staff here in the UK. What Jenkins is accused of not doing is passing that report to the Royal Military Police. Further investigation. And again, I refer you back to my report of the 25th of

September last year. Now Jenkins has subsequently gone on to be Director Special Forces himself and is accused there of overseeing the blocking of Afghan than attendees at the inquiry into events in Afghanistan, which has been going on for some considerable period of time now.

Now added to that, he is also tipped to be the next First Sea Lord, which of course is pertinent in so far as Ben Key, the current incumbent, has just stepped down over an affair with a female subordinate, which Brian will talk a bit more about on Monday. And what this brings to mind is the government's decision to repeal and replace the Northern Ireland Troubles Legacy and Reconciliation and Act in 2023.

So there's an awful lot more to this story than meets the eye and it's not entirely certain why the BBC would be putting it out now and what there is to to it. That one possibility is that it does certainly seem to obscure much of what's been going on in Gaza. There is a sort of normalisation of war crimes because there's been a considerable reaction against this, as though this is all part and parcel of the job. So I think there's going to be much more to talk about this in Extra.

Thanks, Charles. Vanessa, let's come to you then.

And of course, Trump has been in Saudi Arabia. So what has he been up to? Yeah, well, apparently Trump has been arranging to meet with Jolani, the head of the Syrian hunter, which of course is basically Al Qaeda that came to power after the international coup of December 2024. I don't know if their slides are a bit mixed up because this one is a little bit further on, but I'll just keep going. So this is basically the first meeting of AUS president with a

Syrian President in 25 years. Of course, unfortunately, this is a meeting with the leader of al Qaeda. And we hear, of course, that Trump has had the meeting this morning in Saudi Arabia before he headed off to Qatar.

And this is basically following a meeting in Damascus between a Trump, let's say one of the Trump management, Jonathan Bass, who was reported by Syrian media to have gone to Damascus to meet with Jolani in order to lay the ground for the meeting with Trump. Jonathan Bass is someone who on his ex account talks about respect for religious freedom and coexistence, without of course mentioning the fact that Israel itself has no respect for the coexistence with

Palestinians and is currently genociding Palestinians in the occupied territories and in Gaza. Now as a result of Basses meeting, apparently Jolani basically agreed to give America access to oil reserves in Syria and to further and expand trade with the United States, which of course means occupation by the likes of the International Monetary Fund and overall control by the US and Israel of the the Syrian economy going forward.

He also promised Trump a Trump Tower to be built in the middle of Damascus. And so so all of these sweeteners were basically to give him the opportunity to meet with Trump. And that in fact led to Trump lifting the sanctions on Al Qaeda, which had been in place or the sanctions rather had been in place since 1979 onwards. So let's just listen to Trump addressing the Gulf state regarding the lifting of sanctions on Syria.

And also with President Erdogan of Turkey, who called me the other day and asked for a very similar thing, among others and friends of mine, people that I have a lot of respect for in the Middle East. I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at

great this. Oh, what I do for the Crown Prince. But of course, you know, part of this deal was effectively the normalization between Syria and of normalization of relations between Syria and Israel, which apparently has been achieved. And Trump is not lifting all the sanctions. I'm told by sources in Syria that around 30% have actually been lifted. So this seems to be a bit more of a gesture than anything else.

And I don't know if we can go back to the slide from Marwa because she basically went on her Telegram channel to talk about the, you know, what has not been affected basically by Trump's grand gesture in front of Saudi Arabia in particular. And I've very much paraphrased what she said, but basically, it doesn't mean an end to US illegal occupation of Syrian resources, either directly or by proxy.

No end to Israeli aggression against Syria, the bombing of multiple sites across Syria since December 2024. No reversal of the Turkish theft of Aleppo industry which began in 2011. No trade without US or Israeli approval. And of course, basically the embedding of US and EU and UK banking facilities in Syria to ensure future control. No military or defence, much of which was destroyed by Israel from December last year onwards. No unity of the Syrian minorities because we're heading

towards partitioning. No end of course to the ethnic cleansing by I'm sorry, I think that's typo correction in the the system by Jolani's gangs. Because of course what what they're effectively doing is normalizing Al Qaeda as a leadership for Syria and effectively it also normalizing the ethnic cleansing programs that have been carried out by the forces under the control of Jolani. And in fact, of course, what did Trump get from Saudi Arabia in return? The biggest arms deal in

history. Dozens of U.S. defence companies, so-called defence companies providing 142 billion arms package also reported to to probably expand beyond that, including air and missile defence, Air Force capability, space advancement and maritime security.

And of course, we have to bear in mind that none of that would be done unless Saudi Arabia had agreed to normalize with Israel because Israel would not allow Saudi Arabia to develop any kind of offence or serious defence capability unless it was approved by Israel and to Israel's advantage. And looking at the fact that maritime security as part of the deal, of course, that would also impact on Iran.

And if we remember what Jonathan Bass also said, that he agreed with Jolani that there would be cooperation between Jolani, Syria and the US to basically go against Iran in the future. This is all while, of course, the US is allegedly conducting negotiations with Iran. And then finally, the video shows Trump talking about the sanctions that he's very recently imposed upon Iran. So let's have a look at that. I want to make a deal with Iran. I want to do something if it's

possible. But for that to happen, it must stop sponsoring terror, halt its bloody proxy wars, and permanently and verifiably cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. I don't imagine there's anybody at this table or anybody in this

room that would say they can't. I'm strongly urging all nations to join us in fully and totally enforcing the sanctions that I just placed on Iran. And we also placed secondary sanctions, which are in certain ways even more devastating. So secondary devastating sanctions and as I said, all this literally a couple of days after the negotiations in Oman between Stephen Witcroft and the Iranian representatives. Thank you for that Vanessa. Thank you.

Now let's come back to the UK and still talking military matters and well, Brexit without the exit continues and Nigel is silent. The Times here claims that they have had sight of leaked documents. Now being an organ of the deep state, I'm sure it was a leak. Sarcasm over the times says that and I quote leaked defense deal warns that Europe faces the greatest threat in the generation from Russia. Sorry I've put the wrong graphic on. I do apologise.

That was Vanessa the greatest threat in a generation from Russia as it pledges closer cooperation on military matters with the with the with the EU. And the Times goes on to report that the UK and the EU will unveil A defence and security pact next week as part of a wide-ranging deal that will bring Britain into the closest alignment it has had with the EU since Brexit. Now they say that the security pact says that the UK and the EU face a decisive moment and the

greatest threat in a generation because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a campaign of espionage and sabotage in the West. It says the seriousness of the challenge requires a unique and ambitious new agreement on security. And they point to the threat from Trump as another cause. And they say it also provides A mechanism for joint work working of the US. Sorry if the US refused to allow action under NATO's auspices.

In this context, they say the EU and the UK have decided to establish and implement A tailor made mutually beneficial security and defence partnership that will frame their overall cooperation across security and defence spectrum. Now for the E US part, they say they're happy for the UK to join the common security and defence policy which enables Ursula to deploy European troops succounted from member states in peacekeeping missions and get like at this, the collective

self defence of European states. And I'm going to say isn't this the role of NATO And actually what does collective self defence mean anyway? And hasn't all of NATO's aggressions over the last few decades been in the name of selective self defence? So this is exactly what the UK column has been warning about since 2011. In fact, no other media organization has been covering this at all. The Express has given it some brief mentions from time to time, but never in massive

detail. And this is a topic which Nigel Farage and all the parties which he has LED have steadfastly refused to engage with. We've also been warning since the day after the referendum that Brexit was and is without the exit. We were heavily criticised for

saying that at the time. Despite all the Hoo ha over the Great Repeal Bill, successful successive British Prime Ministers have kept the UK more or less aligned with EU regulations and standards to make it as easy as possible to bring the country back into as close an arrangement with the EU

as possible. And there could be no doubt that the reason the British government signed up that to such a bad deal following Brexit was specifically to make it as painful as possible for ordinary people, and therefore to drive support for exactly this now. The Times, then, and their article goes on to point out that the defence pact will be

the centrepiece of a summit. This month that will what they describe as open the way for the UK to restart selling food and agricultural policy products to the EU without customs checks. It will also commit both sides to working together to agree a separate deal such as issues around youth mobility scheme, the energy and energy market cooperation. So that is a Brexit without the exit.

And we told you that this was the situation when no one else was, including Nigel Farage. So you can take from that what you wish. Any thoughts? Plenty, yes, I mean, I, I think well we spoke about it last

week. And as you say, consistently, you know, the, the, the defence union side of it is a sort of a case in point that, that we see across the board where if you, if you Chuck enough paperwork out there and you make enough sort of formal and informal relationships with other countries or other armed forces or something along that line, you, you're paving the way to be able to just do anything at any

point. You, you can always relate back to something that you have committed to in the past that enables what's happening now. And also, I would just say that quite like you point out, you know, as far as NATO is concerned, is it really acting within the specific scope of its articles? I, I, I don't think so at all.

I don't think 1 can take that judgement, certainly not since early 2022. So there's an awful lot of hypocrisy in this, and it'd certainly be very interesting to see where this sort of, you know, undoing Brexit meeting takes us. Yes, Vanessa, very briefly, what are your thoughts on the idea of Hershey Lavander Lehn having the ability to deploy troops in collective self defence? Well, as you said, we've talked about it multiple times on UK

column. Not a surprise, but obviously there does seem to be a sort of a DE linkage between the US and the EU, but also apparently at the moment between the US and Israel to some degree. So I do wonder whether it is a true DE linking or whether it's a way of enabling certain elements within the Alliance to operate alone. Yes, good point. OK, thank you for that, Sandy.

Let's come on to you then. And well, perhaps we could consider this to be a good news story with the recent activity in the High Court over low traffic zones. Yes and, and don't we need cheering up a bit to be honest, Yes. On on the 9th of of May, a South London local campaign group, the West Dulwich Action Group, won a High Court victory against Lambeth Council in a judicial review to scrap low traffic neighborhood schemes in the

area. Now this is this potentially could overturn, it's the first time it's, it's happened that these schemes have been lawfully challenged in the high Courts and this could potentially overturn LTN 15 minute cities and, um, and, and, and low traffic neighborhoods. Uh, sorry, what, what do they call them? Livable neighborhoods? Sorry, they've got so many words

for them. Anyway, the, these schemes are very flawed and this all came, came to light in this particular case, um, prior to seeking the judicial review, as it was done under a judicial judicial review. And these are the people that the, the main people that challenged it, the, the group. And they prior to seeking this judicial review, the West Knowledge Campaign group has submitted a 53 page dossier to the council highlighting it what, what he's, what they saw as flaws in the process.

This included concerns about the LTN worsening air pollution, displacing traffic into boundary roads, increasing Rd. danger to residential streets. There was also concerns that the overwhelming levels of opposition about 65 No 67.5% were literally being ignored and the High Court ruled that Lambeth Council acted unlawfully in implementing the LTN.

The court found that the Council failed to properly consider this, this 53 page report, which is a massive flaw and the failure to, to have done this was a serious failing, rendering the decision to make the court the orders unlawful. So this is really quite big and the, the, the, the councillors who, who, who challenged it, I mean the, the, the sorry, the, the, the activists that can't, that, that challenged it.

They said Lambeth Council chose to spend public funds fighting the very community exists to serve rather than sitting down with us to find a workable, locally supported solution. Meanwhile, over 700 residents and businesses had no choice but to raise more than £50,000 to just have their voices heard. It's a shameful misuse of resources that could have been avoided through genuine, genuine engagement.

So, and, and the, the, the, the judge who, who presided over this, his name is Tim Smith, said the council was guilty of a master class in selective partial reporting in how it reported the outcome of a library consultation. Now these consultations we know are flawed because they, they're, they're not done in a, in a, in any way that's representative of the, of the community that they're, that they're, they're trying to push this consensus on.

So this is another example of councils acting ultra virus, which really means serious overreach beyond the scope of their authority or the power granted to them by law. And we're seeing this across the board, particularly where I am, where freedom of speech is, is, is in the balance. Where you've got, you've got councillors all going off sick and apparently this is, this is what happened in this case.

A lot of them actually couldn't cope and in two years ago when they had a a meeting in 2023 over this Lambeth Council, LTNA, lot of them were in tears. A lot of the councillors were in tears and the staff were offered well-being leave. We're seeing this. So they're really getting upset about being challenged. Well, boohoo, you know, this is what this is what we're finding. So in the broader sense, this is this really does give us some kind of decent president to

challenge all of this. And Councillor Rosina Chowdhury, deputy leader of Lambeth Council, said the authority was considering the implications of the judgement, but the LTN would remain in place for now. And this is again a kind of example of, of, of their, their hubris. So maybe the council will try and challenge it, I don't know. But for now, it's a definite victory and hopefully the people, those voices, will be heard.

Do you think, Sandy, do you think the reason they're they get so upset when they're challenged on this is that they're so ideologically bought into their own narrative that they can't, that they've lost the ability to represent anybody. They're only there to represent the policy itself. Absolutely. I mean, I've, I've seen it, you know, our town clerk has gone off and he's not likely to come back because he's been challenged about having actually, you know, lawfully.

We're, we're looking into the lawful challenge against them for, for what they've done and they can't cope with it. They actually have this hubris that they believe that they are above the law. That's it. Yeah. Well, on that topic, I'll just mention that the, the, the legal precedent for this is, comes from the, I believe the 18th century. It's antic versus Carrington. It's, it's the case law.

And what that law basically says is that us as individuals have the right to do anything except what is expressly denied to us by law. Whereas corporate entities, governments, these types of people have the right to do nothing except what is permitted by law. Now, what became clear a number of years ago was that councils were increasingly reversing that position and we're attempting to take upon themselves the right to do anything that they chose.

And this is something that we've seen time and time again and we absolutely need to keep in mind the the legal precedent in this country is it's only us as human beings, as individuals that have the right to do what we like, unless it's prevented by some kind of restriction, legal restriction. Otherwise, they have the right to do nothing. And so, you know, I think that should be borne in mind. Thank you for that, Sandy. Let's let's move on.

If you like what the UK column does, you'd like to support us. The link is on the front page of the UK column website to the support page. Please do go there. You can make a donation, you can join us as a member. You can help us by picking something up to the UK column shop. And of course, if you do buy something from Clive to carl.com, some kind of health product, we do get a small Commission for that, so long as

you use the link on this page. I'm going to say a massive thank you to everybody that does support us that way. But if you can't, please at least do share the material that you find on the UK column website in particular, and share links are available on all the content there. Now, tonight at 7:00 PM, Germ Warfare's going to be speaking to Jeremy's, going to be speaking to Michelle Wilkins about Kurt Cobain. And he did not kill himself, she

says. So join Jeremy for that at 7:00 PM. On the live stream tomorrow at 1:00 PM, Brian will be speaking to another resident of Fernethi Residential School in Scotland. This is Debs. And so that will be at 1:00 PM tomorrow. Join Brian and Debs for that. And then just to let you know that the On demand version of The Truth About Me with Catherine Van Dom and Doctor Liz Evans is on the website at the moment. Stand in the Light. Let's have another reminder for that.

That's happening. May the 23rd, the 26th. That's the bank holiday weekend, Karen and Cumbria, if you're not going to that, we strongly, if you're in the area, at least we strongly recommend you do. They're looking forward to a good turn out for that. And we're delighted to say, Charles, that The Light newspaper has covered our recent live event. Absolutely, yes.

Very Many thanks to Serena Wilde, who was at the event with us, and she's written a great piece in the most recent edition of The Light. So there we go, highlighting the important and symbiotic relationship between The Light and UK column. And we'll look forward to seeing Serena at the next event. But there's also a part, sorry, she spoke to Catherine Gunn, who was one of our speakers, and that's also contained within this edition.

So do get your copy. Thank you and a reminder of Sounds Beautiful taking place in Wimborne and Dorset June the 26th to 29th and well go basically we will be there. We can't make it to the standard of light this year. We will be there next year I'm quite sure, but we will be. It sounds beautiful and if anybody hasn't entered the giveaway for two free tickets on the UK Called Facebook page, the

opportunity is there. So please do head over to the UK Called Facebook page and enter that if you would like to get 2 free tickets to Sounds Beautiful. Now let's move on to online safety of a kind because Ofcom

has released their latest edition of the Children and parents Media Use and Attitudes report. And I just wanted to go through this a little bit. Media literacy, they say, enables people to have the skills, knowledge and understanding they need to make full use of the opportunities presented both by traditional and the new communication services. Is this making you I'll yet Charles?

Media literacy also helps people to manage content and communications and protect themselves and their families from the potential risks associated with using these services. So the question is, what are these potential risks and dangers? And just to to sort of highlight that some of the statistics from this, first of all, let's have a look at children's media use. So what have we got here? There's been an increase in three to five year olds using social media platforms, 3 to 5

year olds. Let's look at some of the statistics. 19% of 3 to 5 year olds, according to this report, have their own mobile phone. 85% use a device of some kind to go online. Three to five year olds we're talking about here, 56% use messaging apps, 91% of the people that this is, these are of course the people that are using social media, are using the Internet, 91% use video sharing platforms, 37% use social media. And of those, 60% have their own profile.

So 60% of the 31% of the three to five year olds that are using the Internet have their own social media plat profiles. The three main platforms for three to five year olds are YouTube, WhatsApp and Snapchat. Let's see what else they're saying here of the 8:00 and 2:50 to 17 year olds. So 79% of 3 to 17 year olds who have their own profile on social media, messaging, VSP or live streaming sites, 16% include a photo, photo of themselves which anyone can see.

Let's go on. The majority of parents do not think the benefits outweigh the risks of their children being on social media, messaging and video sharing apps. But they still give them a mobile phone. They still give them a tablet. Excellent. More than 7 and 1072% of parents are concerned that their child would be unable to distinguish between real and fake online content. But they still give them a phone. Let's see what else we've got

here. Viewing of broadcast TV continues to decline among children aged 4 to 15. So maybe that's a good thing. But more children are watching live stream videos, a growing trend over the past three years. And they go on to say that the three most common online safety topics taught in schools are how to recognize harmful content, how to keep personal information safe, and being kind and respective to respectful to others online.

Well, I'm going to suggest that whatever they're learning on those topics in school is probably nonsense in all three cases. Now, by the age of 6 to 730% of children have their own phones. By the age of 8 to 942% have their own phones. There's little or no difference between those those statistics by the way across the demographic categories. In other words, education and

job role plays no part on this. And just to put a put a couple of graphics on this, let's just look at this one first of all. So that's showing the proportion of children that go online by age 85% three to five, up to 100% by 16. And then if we look at the top five communication apps and sites used by age group, clearly YouTube is well ahead from the age of 3. So what do we say about that?

I'm just going to mention a comment here that for this is unrelated, but came out at roughly the same time. This is from Rachel de Souza, the children's commissioner, saying children have told me this harmful content often finds them rather than them actively seeking it out. Girls and young as young as 9 have told my team about strangers asking for their home address online and in a room of 15 and 16 year olds 3/4 had been sent a video of someone being

beheaded. Then she goes on to say content like this is often promoted and offered to children by complex recommendation algorithms designed to capture retain their attention. That's her typographical error, by the way. Designed for business purposes, not the interests of users. Well, I'm sorry you're going to have a hard job Rachel, convincing me that any online service provider is providing through an algorithm, videos of beheadings for business purposes.

This doesn't make sense. So you are misrepresenting the situation. The situation is pretty dire with respect to children and the how young they are and being given the access to this content. But of course, you will take advantage of that to suggest that that results in the requirement for more regulation of the Internet. We'll talk a bit more about this in extra, but three-year olds, yes, what can we say?

Vanessa, let's come back to you then and well, Yemen. Yep. So let's have a look at an article in the New York Times which basically confirms everything that I reported last week on UK Column News reference, Trump's sudden ceasefire with the Yemenis. So this is a New York Times article from yesterday. Why did Trump suddenly backpedal on the war against Ansarullah in Yemen? So from the article itself, in the 1st 30 days, Ansarullah, they actually of course said the

Houthis, but I've amended that. Shot down 7 American MQ, 9 drones, 30 million each, hampering Central Command's ability to track and strike the group. Several USF Sixteens and an F35 fighter jet were nearly struck by the Yemeni air defence, making real the possibility of American casualties. And of course, we shouldn't forget the drama of the leaked WhatsApp conversation, which apparently, according to the article, put the lives of U.S. military and particularly pilots at risk.

And then of course there was a huge US deployment to effectively support Israel by sustaining the genocide of Palestinians and preventing the prevention of the genocide by the Yemenis. 2 aircraft carriers, additional B2 bombers, which of course are nuclear capable, and fighter jets as well as Patriot and 3rd Air defence were sent to the Middle East. But in fact, the article admits that there was very little degradation of the Yemeni

capability of hitting both US vessels in particular, but also continuing the air strikes or the missile strikes against the occupied territories and basically enabling not only the blockade of Israeli shipping, but also an effective no fly zone in the Ben Gurion airport. Because International Airlines are still cancelling flights into Ben Gurion after the Yemenis attacked. Again, since the US ceasefire, which didn't incorporate Israel, the Pentagon is concerned.

Again, this is something that we mentioned last week and if we

can just have that up on screen. So many precision munitions were being used, especially advanced long range ones, that some Pentagon contingency planners were growing increasingly concerned about overall stocks and the implications if the US might have to ward off an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China. So exactly as we said, pretty much has been confirmed by the New York Times, is that Trump had no choice but to withdraw from any kind of aggression

against Yemen in order to conserve stocks and prevent the loss of life and loss of equipment, which has reached over $1 billion. Yes, amazing. Thank you Vanessa, that was you heard it here first of course.

But anyway, Charles, let's come back to the UK and, well, we haven't had any rain for quite some time. We haven't, no. And uh, not just the government, but the BBC is wanting to make much of this. Um, the strength of the climate change narrative, uh, for its purveyors is such that, um, almost any kind of weather, and obviously we're talking mostly about dry weather, but almost

any kind of weather can be attributed to it. 2025, this year in that regard, has been a gift for the fearmongers. So hot off the back of flood warnings, here is the BBC declaring a record drought, something which the government has been reporting in a slightly less melodramatic manner, and certainly is the case that March was a very dry month. April 2 has been drier than usual, so they say, which has left several reservoirs described as exceptionally low.

So in positing that virtually everything we do with water is wrong, that means that the door is open for solutions. And as usual, the World Economic Forum is on hand with a few recommendations. Most of these of course concern public private partnerships, which are of no benefit to the end user, or the assertion assertion that artificial intelligence is the answer to everything. Now all of this points to investment at the corporate level, which means the expectation of a return.

The Environment Agency points to the further commoditisation of water and not just that which is used for washing and drinking, but water which constitutes what is called blue space. Now. Essentially this means putting a value on large bodies of water, which is precisely why increasing increasing initiatives now focus on the use of water for in particular health and well-being reasons

shown here again by the BBC. This cold water swimming programme is run out of Derford Hospital in Plymouth and it's exactly a case in point. Just last week the National Audit Office released a report about the state of managed water in the UK and what they think needs to be done about it. Now this is one of their auditors setting it out. The scale of the challenge facing water regulators is huge.

The shortfall of nearly 5 billion litres of water per day is expected by 2050 and government has set the sector statutory targets to reduce its environmental impact. But at the same time, consumer trust has fallen to its lowest level since 2011. To address these challenges, the water sector needs to attract an unprecedented amount of

investment. There are three regulators for the sector of what the Environment Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate. They all have different responsibilities which sometimes overlap, but no one has responsibility to inspect wastewater assets off what? The Water Sectors Economic Regulator expects spending on infrastructure improvements to rise to £47 billion in the next 5 years as part of at least £290 billion of enhancements needed to meet government's targets over the next 25 years.

At the current rate, it would take 700 years to replace the entire existing water main network. Plans are also currently in development for 30 large water supply projects, including nine reservoirs, which of what estimate will cost an extra £52 billion to build. The need for investment coincides with a period of weakening financial performance and reduced investor confidence

in the water sector. Defra must understand both the cost and deliverability of its plans and the impact these plans will have on customers bills. Indeed, the impact on customers bills, so the take away message there is unambiguous despite the failings of all those directly associated. Sorry, can we just sorry, sorry directly responsible. The burden of the cost will fall upon those indirectly affected

IEU. Now this is at least consistent with the message from the Environment Agency and this is what the former chair Alan Lovell said back in 2023. He made it clear that to grip the existential risk of supply and demand, we will need to ask the public to save water and pay more for it. Now, for this government, one might think this presented an opportunity to go some way to sorting things out with their much vaunted planning and

infrastructure bill. But in fact, there's absolutely no regard given to the improvement of the water infrastructure or any mention of it being a new consideration, sorry, consideration in in new housing developments. And now it should not be forgotten though, that the bill does give enormous powers of compulsory purchase of land and that in the case of agricultural land, any development premium is removed and the landowner may only receive the base agricultural price for the purchase.

One very obvious mitigation exercise would be rainwater harvesting. And it's most indicative to note that the Environment Agency actually has a regulatory position on this, which clarifies, sorry, which clarifies when you can use harvested rainwater without a water abstraction licence. Given that many colonial administrations forbade the harvesting of rainwater in an apparent attempt to stop mosquitoes breeding, it's not too much of A stretch to see that this regulation might

change. However, in terms of practical application, it's worth taking a quick look at rainwater harvesting Auk website, which puts average water consumption per head per year at around 55,000 litres and a house with a roof space of just 50 square metres will collect on average 40,000 litres in the UK. But you won't find the government, the Environment Agency or the National Audit Office or indeed the World Economic Forum and certainly not

only of the water companies suggesting that you think about that and announced just late last month the government suggesting that water bosses might face up to two years in prison. This when 1 looks into the detail actually really just concerns non compliance with an investigation so unlikely to have much of an effect.

But I would draw your attention to the Police Crime Sentencing Courts Act of 2022 and the offence under section 78 of intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance and the offence is committed by somebody who doesn't act or admits to do an act they are required to do by an enactment

or a rule of law. Now of course this, what this does do is to take away the offence, the common law offence of causing public nuisance and it's just yet another sort of nail in the coffin of the common law. So that is there to be considered with regard to the water companies and indeed holding them to account. And of course, we've heard a story from Sandy just now about the merits of the challenge, and this piece of legislation could be used as such a tool. Thank you, Charles.

OK, Sandy, let's come back to you then. And we've been talking about the dimming of the sun in recent news programmes. What's the latest? Well, I mean, bearing in mind, obviously we, I know we've spoken about it before, you know, 60, I think it's 56.8 million has been allocated by the governments who fund experiments aiming at dimming the sun as if they weren't doing

it before anyway. And you know, on, on, they brought this in on April the 25th, which involves the use of atmospherics aerosol technology, technology known as Satan, stratospheric aerosol transport and nucleation. I mean, it sounds extraordinary, doesn't it? But anyway, and how, how, how silly is that when you've got, when you've got Ed Miliband led by net zero, you know, he's, he's, he's in charge of all the net zero Ed Miliband.

And he's come under scrutiny for his energy policies, particularly the apparent contradictions between investing billions in solar panel installations across the country and allocate 1850 + 1,000,000 to protect, you know, to, to aimed at, you know, when we've put all that towards it, you know, blocking the sun. I mean, it just doesn't make

sense. So armed with that information, we, we sent a letter to our local MP to see what she would think about it. Sarah Dichardt, Lib Dem and I know it's almost pointless asking them, but she, she came up with a, quite a long, quite a long answer. And, and part of it is here on on the screen there was response. So you know, this is the

response we received. Thank you for contacting us about the government supporting this endeavour to explore the use of geoengineering, including using limited funds from the taxpayer. It's understandable that there are concerns about such technologies and ventures into areas of alternate actions to reduce temperatures and stabilise the global challenges in the climate. However, climate change is an existential threat, an

existential threat. Soaring temperatures leading to wildfires, floods, droughts, rising sea levels are affecting millions of people directly and billions more through falling food production. That this is quite interesting, the falling food production. Well, why? Because we're covering our, our land in, in solar panels and, and and wind farms as well as housing, which they are allowing. I mean it, none of it makes

sense. And she's saying urgent action is needed in the UK and around the world to achieve net zero and avert catastrophe. They are causing it. We only have to look at the recent and more regular heavy rainfall causing repeated flooding. You know, we've already addressed that because they're breaking down the infrastructure for draining the Somerset Levels. So that's rubbish. Anyway, it goes on and on and on.

And she talks about, you know, sort of the, these data centres and, and, and that they're trying to create, create ways of, of, of upping the renewables. But what they don't understand is that food security is being threatened here. And I just want to just remind everyone about the the 16 critical infrastructure sectors that must be protected. And this is what the government have published themselves. There's sixteen of them and and you've got I can't sort of read some of them on that.

It's not very good visual. But anyway, it's the 13th 1 is Food and Agriculture. So it is one of the the 13th 1 is yeah, Food and Agriculture. And it's these are the governments own protected infrastructures. And yet all of this is not protecting our food. And we have, and I'm going to follow this up with Sarah Dyke. She's going to get quite a lengthy letter from me explaining that food security is not being taken into consideration at all. These people are just plain

bonkers. Yeah, the only thing I would challenge you on there, Sandy, is, is to suggest that that this is in any way unintentional. And you know, we'll talk a lot more about this an extra. I'm quite sure it's it's not by accident that we're busy shutting down our farming industry in this country while apparently making deals with other countries to import more and more food from from other countries. So, you know, we we will talk more about this an extra. So thank you very much for that.

Now back to you, Vanessa then and Vanessa, you were talking

earlier about the, the breaking up of of Syria. So what's the latest on Syria? Yeah, I just wanted to do a quick catch up, but I think the slides have been misaligned. So I don't know if we can go forward to the French court deal and go past the nice pictures of President Trump and Al Geelani, and then I can sort of get started on what's actually happening in Syria at the moment. Sorry, we don't have them, no. We're. Going to, we're going to have to just OK, all right, That's a

shame. We don't even have them out. You keep talking. About don't worry. OK, so basically I just wanted to do a catch up on Syria and the Cava of Syrian territory, which is ongoing.

First of all, in recent news, the French have renewed or extended their deal for the control of Latakia port on the coast, which of course is very close to the Russian military base in Haimamim and Tartus. The French shipping giant CMAGGM has extended its contract to a further 30 years to develop and run the Port of Latakia with a view to investing €230 million into the port, which of course gives France control to some degree in that area again, which formerly was and Alawite

protectorate under the French mandate. And to some degree brings it into competition with Russia that is also consolidating its military presence in the same

area. And then basically we've recently had talks between Turkey and Israel in Azerbaijan to ease the tensions over Syria, because we've talked about on UK column the fact that Israel has been preventing any serious expansionism from Erdogan into the depths of Syria by bombing potential military bases and air defence bases that would be under the control of the Turkish state.

And then recently also the PKK has declared its dissolution and an end to the armed struggle, which in my opinion is very much about giving legitimacy to the Kurdish factions, separatists under the control of the US and also, of course, supported by Israel. And I just wanted to have a look at this map and then go through everything I've just said and give an idea of how Syria is heading towards partitioning and if we can just keep the map on for a few seconds.

So on the coast, although that circle should be a little bit closer to the Latakia area, you will have France and Russia potentially forming some form of protectorate, driving out the Al Qaeda and affiliated forces and potentially bringing it under the control of Russia, with France there as a sort of buffer against Russian expansionism. I would speculate. In the South, of course, you have Israeli expansion creating what it calls a security perimeter.

You have the Druze forming a separatist movement.

I'm very much simplifying things because they are a little bit more complicated than this, but Israel is eyeing up the Druze factions as a means to occupying further to the east, in the South. And then that would give it access to what it is called the David Corridor, which is the blue arrow, which would take it up the eastern flank of Syria, the border with Jordan and Iraq, and give them entry into Iraq and towards the Euphrates in the northeast.

The Kurds would be given some kind of autonomous region or federal system under the auspices of the US Turkish territory. As you can see that they've been allowed to keep IS in the blue sections in the north. They have advanced very slightly.

But as I said, Israel is preventing any further expansionism from Erdogan and with Al Qaeda or Jelani, as long as he lasts, of course, in the green area, which end up being a relatively centralized area surrounded by competing regional powers who all have in their interest to keep Iran out of the region. So that's where we're heading.

It doesn't mean that that is actually going to be achieved because there are other variables involved, of course, including the resistance and Syrian political movements that are now coming forward. You say if for as long as Gilani lasts. I mean, what are your thoughts on church? Just very briefly, if if Trump is meeting Gilani today, does that give him any kind of extra underpinning? Yeah, it does.

I mean, it remains to be seen what happens with the sanctions, whether they do actually enable him to flourish as a state. There is some degree of of skepticism over that. And of course, he's under pressure internally from other armed factions who don't consider him to be extremist enough. So it remains to be seen whether he does stay in place for the time being or he eventually is pushed out. Thank you.

Thank you for that, Vanessa. OK, let's just finish off with with this piece of great news because the UK government has implemented a cutting edge AI tool. So the UK regime has announced Consult which is part of a suite of AI tools which they call Humphrey. Humphrey is a suite of AI tools which allows civil servants to what they This is, according to the government, speed up analysis of what the public and experts tell them during

consultations. And the one that they tested this on was a consultation for the Scottish Government. They say that nearly identical results were found by AI after this, after an expert review, which ranked themes that were important for policymakers to take on board.

This is their words. While currently in trial with more development taking place, AI will analyze other consultations responses in a bid to save officials from 75,000 days of manual analysis every year, which costs £20 million in staffing costs. So they're going to make people unemployed basically is what they seem to be saying. And this is going to help create a quote more agile, effective state refocused on delivering the plan for change. Does this make you feel good? Not yet, not yet.

OK, well it it gets better because, well, let's bring the Tech SEC secretary Peter Kyle on screen and he's saying no one should be wasting time on something AI can do it quicker and better, let alone wasting millions of taxpayers pounds and outsourcing such work to contractors.

After demonstrating such promising results, Humphrey will help us cut the costs of governing and make it easier to collect and can't relatively review what experts and the public are telling us on a range of crucial issues. And they're saying, and he's saying that the Scottish Government is taking the first step. And very soon I'll be using consult within Humphrey in my own department and others in Whitehall will be using a two speeding up our our work to deliver the plan for change.

I can't imagine what could possibly go wrong with that. Well, I think given time, you might come up with one or two things, but I would say that the critical bit there, one of them is for it to be described as doing something that's almost right. And of course, if it's almost right, then it's wrong. And that's the bit they never want to talk about. Indeed.

OK, well, we're going to leave you with that thought for today and I'm going to say thank you very much to Vanessa and Sandy for joining us. And thank you all for joining us. We'll be back in a few minutes for some extra if you're AUK column member. If you're not, we do need your support. Please consider joining us and then you can join us on UK Column News Extra as well. We'll see you in a few minutes.

Otherwise, enjoy Germ tonight and Brian's interview tomorrow and we'll see you on Friday for another news programme. Bye bye. Bye bye.