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UK Column News - 11th August 2025

Aug 11, 20251 hr 5 min
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Episode description

Brian Gerrish, Ben Rubin and Prof. Diane Rasmussen McAdie with Monday's UK Column News.

Sources: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-11th-august-2025

UK Column On Location TICKETS and LIVESTREAM access: https://shop.ukcolumn.org/

Timestamps:

00:00 When Dissent Gets Branded Terrorism - The Palestine Action Crackdown

15:16 Hospitals on Hold: The Endless Waiting Room

28:38 Stargate UAE: Opening the Gates to AI Power

42:17 Visit The UK Column Website - Lots More Than The News

46:09 Farming for Control: The Power Shift in Our Food

53:33 South Yorkshire Police Raid: Protecting Abusers or Justice?

57:19 Flames of Neglect: The Wildfire Problem We’re Choosing Not to Solve

Transcript

When Dissent Gets Branded Terrorism - The Palestine Action Crackdown

Good afternoon. Today is the 11th of August 2025, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News. I'm your host Brian Gerrish, delighted to have Ben Rubin with me in the studio and we'll be joined by Diane Rasmussen Mccallie via link from the North East of England. And I will just say if you look out to the window behind me, you can see we've got a very grey day in Plymouth. There's a bit of drizzle, there's certainly full cloud cover, not particularly hot. So we're surviving here.

We'll say a little bit more about climate at the end of the today's news, but let's start with some serious events. And that was really over the weekend, on Saturday, Palestine action, when, of course, we saw some pretty incredible scenes between the police and the general public, many of whom were arrested on the basis that they've now become terrorists, no matter what their age or background. Let's have a look at how the Guardian portrayed things.

Arrest the people complicit in the genocide. Arrest the people that are selling arms that are bombing, killing, allowing the starving of the whole nation. Well, there we are, Ben. That's how the Guardian portrayed things. So lots of noise.

You got the impression that this was a a pretty brutal reaction with the police and not a lot of information apart from the Guardian being keen to warn people at the end of the video that you dare support Palestine action, you are going to be branded a terrorist and you can face up to 14 years in prison. Well, luckily UK column was able to report from the scenes. Let's have a look at this alternative clip, which has kindly been shot for the UK column by Will.

Excuse me, Madam, What's happened to you, Madam? They're. Arresting me for protesting. No protesting genocide. They should be arresting the genociders on the arms and the politicians. Hello, this is Will Cole Silver, boarding for UK column. We're down here today in Parliament Square.

You can see Big Ben behind me and the police are one by one picking off members or supporters at least of the group Palestine Action which has been prohibited as a so called terrorist group for throwing paint on a crane on a plane which many think is criminal damage.

The police are grabbing the people 1 by 1 and it looks like these people are going to be tried, charged and possibly imprisoned as terrorists for holding up signs saying they support an organisation which commits criminal damage. To exercise my fundamental human. Rights Are you willing to go to prison? Absolutely. What do? You think about being labelled as a terrorist, Sir. It's snortingly ridiculous. It's it's gonna be the thin end of the Wed, Sir. We we're on the way down to a

totalitarian state. Shame on you. What do you think of what's happening? I I think it's the death of democracy, the death of freedom, the death of free speech. And it's frightening, completely frightening to see this in the 21st century. We've had it. Did you want to overturn? What do you think of this, Sir? I think it's shameful. I think it's absolutely disgusting. This is our democratic right to stand here and protest, and the policemen are stopping something that is no crime.

I was shocking. It's absolutely shocking. I've never seen anything like this in this country. This is a disgrace. This will go down in history like. Shame on you. I am you. Know. Almost speechless. They shouldn't be arresting people that are just trying to protest.

Most of them are retirees. We've seen retired vicars, we've seen doctors, we've seen grandparents, peaceful people just protesting against the genocide of being arrested by the Met Police who don't have the brains to think for themselves. They're just foot soldiers for a genocide. They're following orders. They're orders of a genocidal government that is committing genocide right now in Israel. Ron's commander. Is this a proportion of response?

We're enforcing people that are breaching legislation, Sir, do people not have a right to free speech? What do you think about this terrorist classification for criminal damage? It's absolutely absurd. Palestine Action are a group that peacefully protested about a genocide that's killed. Depending on who you hear. 400,000 official #60,000 odd, but it's probably going to be. Far more than that. And at the end of the day, they were doing the work that other people.

Wanted them to do. Now they've been prescribed as terrorists because they threw paint on rented aircraft. Nah, not my cup of tea. This isn't Britain, this is a fascist state. It's really simple. UN experts have called for for the UK government to rescind the prescription of Palestine Action. The UN experts have said there is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism, but consensus is that it is damage, an intentional damage or harm to civilians for political gains,

not property. Palestine Action have only ever gone for property. They've made that very clear there. There's already existing legislation to cover that. There's criminal damage, there's trespassing, you know, all sorts of legislation they could draw and it's politically motivated because they were so shamed by some people getting into the RAF site and spray painting a plane.

They were so humiliated that they prescribed the organisation doing it. As you can see, the people are against it and we will keep coming. It makes a mockery. Of the Lord. And it's very selective because the Quakers have been doing action like that for years. And he gets ignored. They're not arrested. So other organisations have done this, but it's only because it's Palestine that all of a sudden that's labelled as terrorism. Yet other organisations have

done this in the past. I know the Quakers have. So they're standing by the principles and doing the right thing. It's just piece by piece eroding away our our rights to demonstrate, to protest the democracy, and it's just piece by piece, it's slipping away from us. I can do what you have to do. I think that we are now on such a dangerous position that we are in trouble of losing all freedom. Do you think that many people are going to be acquitted by

juries? Yes. Yeah. The public opinion is on the side of the people and do you think that more people are going to come out and do this as they continue locking people up? Yes. I don't think this will stop now. They need to be exonerated by a jury and Starmer and his government need to apologise for getting this so very badly wrong. You want other people who may not even agree with you on Palestine to stand up for these people upon principle of free speech. Absolutely, absolutely.

Free speech is for everyone, you know, and there might be people that I disagree with their opinion fundamentally, but I will definitely stand up for their right to have free speech. Yeah, no, agree completely. They're not doing anything

wrong. We've seen arrests for this before but now this seems to be the biggest that we've seen so far and it seems like this is an issue which isn't going away and more and more people are going to be ending up in prison or on trial for stating the words I support Palestine action. This is Will Coleshill reporting the UK column there's special

support for. So excellent report by Wills, Will Coleshill there and of course the contrast with the Guardian report where no substance, no interaction with the public are obviously deeply concerned. It really shows the manipulation of the mainstream media. Now towards the end of Will's report there, a member of the public was talking about the power of the jury to do

something. And I think this is the time when we need to flag up the government's other attack at the moment which is on just that, juries. And the man in question is retired Judge Brian Leveson, who the UK column has reported on many occasions.

But centre screen, you've got his independent review of the Criminal courts Part 1. We just wanted to make sure people knew that aside from attacking the jury system, it's quite clear, and many people are commenting on this, that he seems determined to get rid of more and more opportunities for people to be tried by a jury of their peers. We noticed that on the front cover he's also promoting the Talmud uniquely, amongst other neutral comments about justice.

So make your own mind up. But of course, if we have a look at what Keir Starmer is talking about at the moment, then he is pushing heavily of course, for things to go in Israel's favour in Gaza. Let's have a listen to this little clip from the 29th of July. On the 7th of October 2023, Hamas perpetrated the worst massacre in Israel's history. Every day since then, the horror has continued. The hostages are still being held today. The Palestinian people have

endured terrible suffering. Now in Gaza, because of a catastrophic failure of aid, we see starving babies, children too weak to stand, images that will stay with us for a lifetime. Our goal remains a safe and secure Israel alongside A viable and sovereign Palestinian state. Well, there we are. Obviously that's a section of his full speech was edited, but the meaning of what he had to

say was not changed. It's clear that the priority is Israel, and all the troubles in Gaza are simply the result of not being able to get food in. No mention of bombing and indiscriminate killing at all. It's simply a problem in getting food in. Now. He has also made a recent statement and this was pushed out on Defence HQ, the government's MOD propaganda

machine. And here he's saying that the Israeli government's decision to further escalate it's offensive and Gaza is wrong and we urge it to reconsider immediately.

Then again, he's talking about humanitarian aid, but he goes on to say that together with our allies, we're working on a long term plan to secure peace in the region as part of a 2 state solution and ultimately achieve a brighter future for Palestinians and Israelis. Well, that's putting a lot of gloss over it. But the key thing is, while he's supposedly talking peace, UK, the US and indeed many countries in the EU are going to pump in the weapons to keep that

slaughter of the Palestinians in Gaza going. So the hypocrisy, truly breathtaking. But now we've reached the stage where ordinary British people on the streets protesting about this genocide and brutality have become the terrorists. And not only that, of course, we are seeing attack on Jewish people themselves. Thank you very much for the viewer who picked up this Oxford Mail report. This is Miriam Margols, who was one of the Harry Potter stars as as an actress.

And what's the attack about? Well, she said this. She's Jewish herself. She spoke to the big issue about Israel's military campaign in Gaza. She said it reminded her of the Holocaust and added, the terrible thing I face is that Hitler won. He changed us. He made us like him. So this lady clearly very upset and disturbed at what she was seeing happen. But what was the result? Well, the result was a massive attack on a by the campaign

against anti semitism. Now I've attributed the marks of the remarks in the paper which came from the organisation to the chief executive, Gideon Falter. He said, well, the organisation said the remarks are repugnant. The fact she was born Jewish does not give her licence to use her immense platform to spread, quote, anti Jewish venom. It went on to say this has to be the end of the road. She must be shunned by the showbiz world that has formed and bowed until now. So there you have it.

You can be Jewish, you can criticise the Israeli government for its policy of killing in Gaza.

You will then be attacked by organisations which as we'll see from this next image, boasts that they are working alongside the police, CPS and regulatory bodies and government in order to enforce rules and regulations against anybody they deemed to be anti Semitic. But I'm going to say to you, I found this really a dangerous situation where even Jewish people themselves are now being silenced in talking out about these horrors in the Middle East by the Israeli government and

their agents which are operating in UK alongside the police, government agencies and the British government. It's almost like everybody who dares speak out for peace is going to be labelled a a terrorist inside this country, whether you're Jewish or non Jewish. Seems to be the playbook, yes. Indeed Diane, let's welcome you

Hospitals on Hold: The Endless Waiting Room

in at this point because of course, whilst there's plenty of money for the weapons and the bombs and the ammunition going into Israel to help it perpetuate its attack on Gaza, we've got an NHS that is in absolute chaos in UK. Yes, very much. Thanks, Brian, and hello, everyone. It's good to be here today. I wanted to follow up on a couple of things from first of all, from May of 2024, it was the first time that UK column covered this issue of the new hospitals that are meant to be

put around the country. But this took off recently, came from a viewer in Concert, County Durham. Up here where I am in the northeast of England, concerns about the local hospital that is going to be replaced in his town, or that at least that's the plan apparently, to do so. The existing hospital in concert is called Shotley Bridge Community Hospital, which opened in 1912. The NHS says the problem is that it leaks heat.

Now the new hospital is meant to be built near the site of this sculpture called the Terrace Navales In Concert. This consists of two measuring instruments at Theo Delight and an engineer's level. It's very, very large and it's meant to work the watershed between the upland, the moorland landscape and the extremes of the industrial age. The significance of this is that concept as an old steel town was once actually once Europe's largest steelworks and this

landmark is very important. Another concern is that in addition to the corruption and, and the waste that might be happening with this hospital, which we're going to look at, this is happening around England by the way, is that it's possible that this landmark could be in danger as well as the beautiful land that surrounds it. So after I received this tip off, I went to do a little bit of a little photojournalism myself.

This report comes from this photograph which is part of the new hospital site, apparently, which has been confirmed last month by the BBC now that the construction of the new hospital will be taking place. It's near a big retail park area where the old steel factory used to be. So here's a couple of photos, both from the different areas of the engineering site where they're basically doing testing

the ground. The council has previously said that the ground is not satisfactory for building, but I guess they're doing it anyway. So what's happening with the overall story of the hospitals around the country is a particular concern. This in particular is Project Genesis, which took over concerts years ago, I think it was in the 90s when the steel factory closed and the Genesis project took over to try to do something with the city.

So this is 1945 when the steel factory was still in operation. You can sort of see the area kind of in the middle, sort of off to the left of the town where the houses are. And if we go forward to the next few that Project Genesis provides in 2024, we can see that there's more housing that's taking over most of the steel factory. You can see the big the big buildings there that are the

retail park. And the new hospital is set to take place, to be built over the the green space to the sort of the left of it. Project Genesis has taken over, as I said, a lot of the city. But the problem is that when we look at this from a wider perspective around England, we start to see the problems and, and how this might be taking place. If you go back to 2019, the general election was part of the manifesto for Boris Johnson to think about, you know, what we're going to do with the with

the hospitals. There he is in October of 2020 with buildback better of course, in the background because we're going back to this time. And he was saying that this would be built as a package worth £3.7 billion for 40 hospitals. At the time this was called the health infrastructure plan, said to be the biggest hospital building programme in a generation.

And the Shotley Bridge Hospital and concept was going to be part of this at the time, just to quote Boris Johnson, to see where we were in the timeline saying this. The dedication and tireless efforts of our nurses, doctors and all healthcare workers have kept the NHS open through this pandemic. But no matter what this virus throws at us, we are determined to build back better and deliver the biggest hospital building programme in a generation.

And then Matt Hancock, of course, came in and supported him to say that. So we can see that there's lots of policy documents and so on from the UK government which can be available in the show notes. So I won't go into too much detail, but by the time we get into further into 2020, he says that we're going ahead with the hospitals and there were lots of things around health boards around the country, different

trusts talking about this. So I believe we now have a video from AGP speaking from the Lancashire area and he was talking about this new hospital programme. I'm Jeff Jolliffe, I'm AGP here in Barrow, in Furness, part of Lancashire and S Cumbria and I'm also the chair of the CCG in Morecambe Bay. I sit on the clinical oversight group for the New Hospitals programme. What is it? The new hospitals programme? It's, it's a great opportunity isn't it?

It's a big lump of money to redevelop our hospitals. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. We can't miss this. It's going to be great for the population. New hospitals programme might seem to not mean much to primary care but it's actually vital isn't it, because we care for our patients and our patients need good hospital care as part of the whole pathway.

So there will be a huge knock on benefit to our patients and therefore to the way primary care works a night to the future with more care closer to the patient's home, more care and community services. And we need to focus on doing in hospital only what we need to do. In addition, they provide an environment that is better for staff, better for patients and an environment that patients flow better, so you end up with better outcomes.

But assuming we get the money, and I'm hopeful of that, we could then start the process of identifying which is the best solution to spending that money. There's a big process, so it can't happen overnight, but we'll get there and we'll have them. So that all sounds nice and lovely. So that was 2021. If we go forward a bit to 2023, we start to see the reporting coming from the government saying that this is now £20 billion. It was just, I think just a few

billion previously. So now we're talking about it, prioritising the rebuilding of five hospitals that were using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete rebuilt by 2030 as part of the new hospital programme, because they're saying that this material was not basically fit for purpose and that it was going to fall apart. So they identified 5 hospitals as well as many other hospitals around the country that need to

be built. So this new building, which again is going to include this hospital in here in the County Durham and many others, is using what they call standardised design that will harness digital transformation, making the use of latest technology for the benefit of staff and patients. And it's sustainable, contributing to net 0 carbon across the NHS. So that's fabulous news, incorporating learning from the pandemic and ensuring hospitals can adapt to changing health needs.

So this is how they're selling it in 2023 under something that they call Hospital 2 Point O, which is a standardised design for future hospitals, which will benefit patients and staff through digital solutions and optimise hospital layouts. This will decrease the time needed to develop and build hospitals, as well as reducing the cost through economies of

scale. So what we're seeing is what we've reported before in UK column that there's a trend towards digital management of health, less focus on physical space, less focus on human connection and the nurses and the doctors who support people. So going forward now to 2025, we are now seeing with Labour and Power. And what we're seeing is a report that came out basically they did a review of what the Conservatives did at looking at

the new hospital programme. So we have a quote from this policy paper that was published in January this year from West Streeting, our health secretary, saying the NHS is quite literally crumbling. And that's just one of the

sentences. I just wanted to highlight that the, the report itself, basically what they did is an evaluation of where we were with the hospital situation in, in England to make it sort of prioritise what needed to be rebuilt, what was the most important thing to do, using something a multi criteria decision support analysis tool to look at which hospitals need to be prioritised and what, what

could wait. So it's a map here again, you can see this again in the policy documents yourself if you can't see it well on the screen showing which hospitals had been highlighted to be part of the scheme and which ones were not and which ones were going to be prioritised because of this concrete problem we see in this list, there was a list of different waves through what, whether we're going to be

prioritising which hospitals. And so Shotley Bridge Community Hospital in concept is in table two, wave one, as you can see in the report to start construction between 2025 and 2030. And as we saw with my photos at the start of the segment, they are starting to look at the land underneath it. I went to also take some photos of the existing Shotley Bridge Community Hospital in concert. These are my photos.

Can't really see the signs because the the the trees and the the bushes haven't been trimmed too well. But that's the sign to the entrance to the hospital, the outside of the hospital. I didn't go inside. I didn't want to draw any attention to myself. But that's the outside. The hospital still look like it's in place, but they say it's leaky and the heating needs fixed. Apparently that's the problem and there's a sign here of the different services that they

offer. There are some people in the community who, from what I've heard, are concerned that some of these services will be going away. The new hospital, even though it's meant to cost about £500 million to build, I believe is only going to have 16 beds in it. And they're so they're concerned that because of the size of the community that it serves, there

will be a decrease in services. And I want to also highlight here the BBC reporting of the process of this hospital over time where there was a lot of back and forth about what was going to happen. So first we see here September 2023, the replacement is going to be delayed. They they talk about issues with funding, issues with resources. October 2023. I've got several links here too. These are all BBC articles. Many millions of pounds over budget. A hospital plan reviewed over

spiralling costs. This was in September 2024. Just reading the headlines here. There was a home skiing that was put on hold as the new hospital has been put under review where they were talking about building homes for elderly people. Calling it a health village. Sounds a little bit concerning to be built next to this new hospital. November 2024 again, new hospital project will never happen. So we are hearing from Labour and Lib Dems essentially at this point worrying about what's

happening. And now in January 2025, the build is to go ahead following a review, and that's the most recent from the BBC. We have a quote from West Stream who actually came out to see the new site in concept. So if we could put that up on the screen if we have it here. He was saying we have secured the funding, producing a realistic timetable with Spades in the ground for a new hospital

site in concert in 20/26/2027. It was great to see the site myself and hear from Labour counsellors how important the investment will be to regenerating concept. Labour will deliver this new hospital building so patients and concept get the care they deserve. Now originally when it, when they reported on their report regarding what they were going to do or not do, they criticised the Conservative government for not putting enough money in

place. And then but you know, as we've seen here has been off and on and off and on. So now they're saying they're going to do it. The local MP called Liz Twist, whose Labour for Blatant Concept, said when Wes visited the site a few months ago. She said having the health secretary here is a clear indication that Labour is delivering for Concept and the surrounding communities. The new site will have state of the art facilities and much improved transport links.

I'm keen to keep working with all the relevant stakeholders to ensure this project is built and delivered within the time frame and to improve healthcare within our communities. So the local magazine called Concert Magazine covered this as well as we. So they were showing when they came out to visit and basically saying, well, all right, this is what's happening. And so now we we'll just wait to

see what happens. Brian, I don't know if it will get built or not or how much it will cost, but this is happening around the country. So check your local areas if you're in England to see what's going on with your hospital. Diane, thank you very much for that report. Well, the words are there, aren't they? It's always jam tomorrow, utopia tomorrow, everything will be OK tomorrow. But what we constantly see is that when tomorrow comes, there's more of the shambles.

So I have no confidence in what is happening here. And I think the chaos that you are seeing is part of the overall chaos to destroy the NHS as this massive privatisation coming in. Ben, I'm going to look at you

Stargate UAE: Opening the Gates to AI Power

and say, so is AI going to solve the problem? No, it's not. It's certainly not going to solve the problem, although they're going to make good use of the chaos in the NHS at Trafalgar Squares. We heard earlier that was an excellent report Diane and also that report by Willsey was top notch. That was that was brilliant. And last week we had chaos outside of migrant hotels in Epping and further afield. So there's chaos going on all over the place.

And in the background an invasion is happening. And I don't mean an invasion of illegal immigrants, I mean something quite different actually, as I'll get into. And I'm going to start this in the Oval Office on January 21st this year, day one of the second Trump administration, the announcement of Project Stargate, half a trillion dollars to build AI data centres across the whole of the US, essentially mass surveillance and genetic engineering infrastructure, Really nightmare stuff.

Delivered through a public private partnership commissioned by the state, represented here by Donald Trump, and delivered by the private sector, by corporate corporations, represented by Massasan from SoftBank. On the left there, Larry Ellison from Oracle, basically Tony Blair's top funder over the past 20-30 years. And importantly, Sam Altman, the founder of Open AI, one of the top minds in artificial intelligence, also affectionately named by the Washington Post.

King of the cannibals. That's quite a name, isn't it? Yeah. King of the king of the cannibals, Sam Altman. Maybe I'll come back to that a little bit later on. So this is rumbling on, as you'd expect. In fact, it's not rumbling. They've gone right out of the gate. Trump's AI vision takes shape as Oracle and Open AI expand a massive Stargate infrastructure project in Texas. So they have broken ground. They are making headway. This is the Abilene, TX site just a few weeks ago.

Provide a link to this article. You can go and have a look at it. So it's all all guns blazing in the US, but also importantly, they're moving internationally as well. And they announced at the end of May the UAE Stargate project. So this is in Abu Dhabi and the World Economic Forum, interestingly, very excited about this. Remember those people that Trump is the enemy of? Well, they really like this policy. It's interesting that, isn't it?

So the UAE Stargate project hints at how AI can be integrated international infrastructure crucially, right? And let's have a little listen to Chris Lehane, Chief Global Affairs Officer from Open AI talking about this project to Fox News a few days ago. Open AI is also launching Stargate UAE. It's the first international deployment of Open AIS infrastructure platform. Joining me now, Chris Lehane, the Chief Global Affairs Officer at Open AI. Chris, let me see if I've got

this right. You are. Open AI is working directly with other countries, in this case UAE, to help their AI capacity, working in conjunction with the United States. Have I got that right? You, you got that right. We think of this as open AI for countries, but in this particular case, it really follows on President Trump's visit to the UAE, really the Mideast last week. And I think this partnership really is going to accomplish 2 really important things.

First of all, it's going to help advance making sure that US LED Democratic AI is being built around the world here in the UAE case. And then secondly, this partnership also involves bringing money back into the US, investment back into the US, into US infrastructure. So really a win win, a win for making sure we're building the AI system on Democratic. US LED Rails. And a win, bringing money back into the US to build infrastructure for AI in the US, jobs, economic development that

comes with that. You may get that, Brian. Well, I was wincing a bit. The idea of democratic AI coming from the US, that it can sell in order to bring more money back into the US Yeah, right. We're looking at global governance here. This is clear that we're now seeing the absolute end of the nation state. But it's so it's sovereign AI though, importantly, but you have to buy it from open AI, right?

So it's sovereign because they're going to build these data centres in your country, but you can only buy it from a handful of very carefully selected technology companies. All them, all of them aligned to US imperialism. But it's not just US imperialism, it's something that's got hold of the United States. Actually, I think that's probably a bit more like it, but I love that idea. You picked up on it.

US LED democratic AI. It's a little bit like when the US would go and invade countries to deliver freedom to people, isn't it? It's a similar kind of thing, but they're just doing it by stealth now rather than by bombing people, although they are doing some bombing too. Let's, let's give them credit for that. Yeah, exactly. Yes. And the use of the term US LED rails, right. So if you're on rails, if you're on a train, you can only go in One Direction or back or forth, right?

There's no way you can get off those rails. That's quite telling. Anyway, let's have a little listen to the second half of that clip. Is there a worldwide contest between the United States and China? But not for dominance of AI, but for control of AI. Have I got that right? Yes, it's a, it's a great, it's a great way to put it. Like right now in the world, there's two countries that can build AI at scale that says, you're saying the US and the communist LED People's Republic of China.

Those are the only two countries that can build this at scale. And in this moment, the US does have the innovation lead. We want to leverage that lead so that we're bringing as many countries as possible into the US rails, the US system.

And I think what, you know, the president did last week, I think the way the administration is thinking about it, I think the way we at Open AI are thinking about this in the context of Stargate International, in this case, Stargate UAE, is really how can we take advantage, How can we leverage the innovation lead we currently have to bring these countries in onto our rails, into our system. And I think that really then sets up arguably the next 100 years as we go forward.

So as a contest, it's a grand battle between capitalist America and communist China and and we've got to compete with each other to get as much of the world as possible onto our platform. Onto US rails. So this is the synthesis, isn't it? This is the final synthesis towards One World control, because whoever controls this AI system is ultimately going to control each nation state. Exactly. That's exactly. That's exactly correct.

And we've just been heard about Abu Dhabi since the UAE Middle East, but it's also just in the past few days hit continental Europe. Let's hear from Jensen Huang from NVIDIA. Congratulations to everyone gathered in Oslo today and to Prime Minister Storr and the Government of Norway on this important milestone. The launch of Stargate Norway marks a new chapter for AI infrastructure in Europe. We're entering a new industrial

era. Just as electricity and the Internet became foundational to modern life, AI will become essential infrastructure. Every country will build it. Every industry will depend on it. AI is no longer hand coded. It is trained. It is refined with massive compute. It is deployed into factories, research labs and digital services. Stargate Norway will be powered by GB 300 Super chips and connect it with NB Link.

It is designed to scale to hundreds of thousands of GPUs and support the most advanced models in training, reasoning and real time inference. Congratulations to N Scale and to Josh Payne and the teams who helped make this possible. And congratulations to Sam and Open AI on being part of this important first for the region. We're proud to support this effort to send talk. To some tack.

What came into my mind, mind then was I think this this story, this quote is right that the man who produced the first Gatling gun, machine gun said, well, this is going to be the weapon that stops all the war. So this gushing enthusiasm for what they've created without any concept what this is actually going to do to humanity and mankind. I don't know, I think he probably has some concepts of it. Yeah, I think I think these people at the top know exactly what it's going to do.

But essentially what they're saying is this is this is going to first of all, I've got a real that that one hits me deep because I'm caught in Norwegian. That's where my my mother's mother was from Norway. And he says to some tack at the end there and that means 1000 thanks in Norwegian and I just that really got to me. But he's talking about a total transformation of everything, right? So AI apparently is going to become foundational infrastructure, like electricity, like the Internet.

Every country will build it, as we talked about, but all and all industries will depend on it. Yeah, everything is going to run on these platforms built by these companies. And he mentioned got a little bit of a bit of video here we

can see. So this is in the north of Norway, Narvik, this is Open AIS, the European Gigafactory, but that was introduced by Jensen from NVIDIA who makes the micro, the microchips, Open Eye makes the software, but they're also working with a bunch of other companies to build the physical infrastructure. Importantly, the the of course, for the PR perspective, this is all on sustainable energy is going to create valuable new jobs. It's going to transform the Norwegian economy, political

system, absolutely. Everything is touches on every part of society. And it's called Stargate. So again, this is the it's the same name. Yeah. So, so I, I it's almost like Operation Stargate, right? You think about the way that, you know, Operation does installment Operation Stargate. It feels like that kind of that kind of programme to me.

And he also mentioned a guy by name, a young man called Josh Payne. And Josh Payne is the founder and chief executive officer of an organisation called N Scale. I got this from his from his LinkedIn profile. He was also, from 2020 to 24, the founder and executive chairman of something called Archon Energy. And it's a really fascinating name because in the Babylonian mystery religions, Archons were the rulers of the World of Darkness. But I think that's probably just

a coincidence. Absolutely. And then the final role that he had was the Co founder and Chief executive officer, sorry, Chief Operating Officer of Battery Future Acquisition Corp in Sydney, which focuses on raw materials for infrastructure. So this guy basically in the past four years has founded and run.

Businesses across the entire what they call the value chain for artificial intelligence from the raw materials used to build the technology to it being deployed across industries in Northern Europe in this instance. But before this, he's got absolutely no personal history. He's got no track record. So if you look start, I don't know was he, look late 30s, early 40s, young guy. If you've got his LinkedIn profile, it stops there at 2021. We don't know who this guy is, who is Josh Payne?

And this is really crucial, right, because he's building foundational infrastructure in the north of Europe, but also from AUK perspective, he's building in in England too. Because back in January they announced N Scale announced the investment of $2.5 billion in the UK data centre industry over the next three years. And they are actually, they've already broken ground on another one of these data centres in Loughton, in East London, in Epping Forest.

And Peter Kyle, the Science, Innovation and Technology secretary, said that their support N scale support will serve as a catalyst for innovation. Sending a clear message to Britain is the perfect home from home to drive growth home from home. Home from home suggests people that don't live here, right? This is international investors coming in and using this

infrastructure. This guy who's only just turned up four years ago has been given hundreds of 1,000,000 billions of dollars to build this infrastructure. He's doing joint press releases with the Secretary of State. The BBC is running puff pieces saying that this is going to deliver jobs into East London. And we've got absolutely no idea

where this has come from. But we do know that there's an organisation called Open AI at the centre of it all, with a logo that when you flip it around and turn it back on, itself looks a little bit like that. That's a coincidence I'm sure, Ben, of course. Thank you very much. Well, this is important stuff and the mainstream media, at least in UK, is simply not reporting what is happening around us. So it will remain to the UK column to do this.

Visit The UK Column Website - Lots More Than The News

Now we can only do what we do with your financial support and so a huge thank you to everybody who is assisting the UK column. And if you are not a member or you're not donating or purchasing from our shop, go onto the website and if you click the button, you can basically get into the donate page or join up as a member. Now the other thing is huge amount of information on our website and many people have not seen it because they don't go and look or they don't do a

search. We just like to encourage you to get deep into the website and have a look at the hundreds and hundreds of articles, thousands and thousands of hours of video and reports which are there over nearly 20 years of UK column. Now, Diane, just to bring you in because I think you've got some comments on a couple of the latest articles to to go on the

website. Yes, thanks, Brian. We have one that we'll be talking about a little bit later in the programme, but just two that were published last week that relate to this, the serious situation in the Middle East, which is impossible to cover in the time that we have in the news. There's two articles to take a look at. One is by a journalist in Lebanon working with Vanessa Beeley, called The Last Army Standing, the US Zionist plan to disarm the Middle East.

And the other one is Vanessa's latest installment in her new blog series on Syria, If we can put that one up as well. This one is about Cyprus in particular and US and Israel clashing with Turkey over control of the Eastern Mediterranean. And just a bit later, we'll be talking about a new article related to wild wildfires and sustainable developments. Brian. OK. Thank you very much for that.

And just to give people a reminder that Germ will be out tonight in a discussion with the EM Burlingame, and I'm sure that will be fascinating. So please join Germany's guest tonight at 7:00 and tomorrow at 1:00, another interview going out with Professor Gloria Moss. Do you want to say a little bit there, Diane? This is an incredibly important interview, Brian. This is part three of our three part series interview with Gloria.

I did Part 1 with her on universities and what's happening with them, the sad state of universities in the UK. And Ben did Part 2 with her on her research on the differences between men and women and design. This one I titled How to Save Humanity. And this is literally about the transhumanist agenda that has been pervading our world for a very long time and continues to do so. But I want everyone to see this.

It's very important to watch this, but we will give you some ideas at the end about what to do to see humanity. OK. Thank you very much for that. And of course, we want to advertise the Freedom Music Festival coming up here. We are 22nd of the 25th of August. The UK column team of course

will be there. It's going to be a great event and you've got the opportunity for 20% off ticket prices if you use the code UKC 20. Now the other big thing is, of course, our UK column on location in York. Oh my goodness. Well over half of the tickets have been sold already. Just a fantastic response. And of course, we've now started to announce the speakers and Charles Mallett mentioned on Friday, Andrew Wakefield will be

one of those key speakers. And we just wanted to remind people that aside from the tremendous event itself, as a ticket holder, you will get the opportunity to see Protocol 7 as well. So if you're not already on board, the tickets are going very, very quickly. And you really do need to get one if you're going to be there and join us. Now, Ben, you're going to take

Farming for Control: The Power Shift in Our Food

us into the realms of of farmer and farming, which sounds to me like a bit of a dangerous combination. Say that again. Yes, we're going to have a look at Big Farm, so I'm calling it. This is where farming and the pharmaceutical industries meet. Let's hear from Henry Dimbleby. We're going to get that. Is that 1 going to come up?

I've been thinking a lot about appetite suppressing drugs recently, and I don't think food companies are even close to being prepared for the kind of change that they might bring to bear in our food system, both in terms of what people eat, but also in terms of what we grow. What do we know so far? We know, for example, that in this country 1.5 million people

are taking them. It took SSR is and statins 1013 years to get to that level of consumption and people are paying 2000 lbs + a year for these drugs. We also know that the price is going to come down. We know that they're going to be available in pill form. We know that people. Eat. Differently, not just less volume when they're on them, but different quality of food, more fruit and veg, less junk food, less doughnuts, more fibre. And so if you play that forward,

what happens? Well, we have a situation where convenience shops, supermarkets, restaurants are selling a very different mix of food and less food, but also our supply which has grown up basically being built on refined calorie base of refined carbohydrates, refined vegetable oils and refined sugar. It could change that as well. So it might not just change what's on your High Street, it could also change what you see when on our land, how our land is used. It's going to be a pretty wild

ride. And if you aren't thinking about this in terms of your business 5. Years from now, it's probably time you should start because it's going to be a pretty crazy. Transition I think. That's encouraging crazy transition. That's what we need to help run our lives. Chaos and crazy transitions. Exactly that, right?

And, and the regular viewers will remember Doctor Liz Evans did a segment about two months ago, I think it was talking about Ozempic and these weight loss drugs and the fact that they're causing cancers and there's been no proper oversight in terms of the regulator. And actually they're destroying people's bones. And we've got no idea of the long term health effects of these things.

And yet we've got Henry Dimbleby here saying that we need to transform the food system in response to those drugs because essentially they are here to stay now, right? That doesn't strike me as a reasonable strategy. Someone in position of influence in the food system, and he does have significant influence in the food system. He launched a fund last year, we reported it at the time, to transform the global food system, to disrupt it and commercialise it for his own benefit.

Ultimately starting here in the UK. It's called Bramble Partners and we go there on a mission to fix what they call the broken food system with investments in intelligence to create impact at scale. And that's all about tackling climate change, obviously restoring the environment, improving health and well being, increasing food security, all of the the kind of buzzwords, quite a lot of occult symbolism on the website, to be honest with you.

There's the Masonic B on there and also the Hermetic seed of life. So make of that what you will. And that actually carries through to Mr Dimbleby's LinkedIn profile. You can see the bumblebee on the left hand side there where we discover that a few years ago he was actually the author of the National Food Strategy between 2019 and 22. And I'll come back to that in a

moment. While at the same time working as the lead non executive director at Defra and also working as an external advisor to Bain. So there was an overlap between working at Defra and working with Bain. And Bain is one of the big three strategy firms alongside McKinsey and BCG, who are the the basically dictate policy for global corporate and increasingly for international governments as well. And they are strategic partners of the World Economic Forum.

So you want to understand how WEF policy gets inserted into the UK government. It's through people like this doing dual roles between public and private sector, all right, and being fascinatingly 1 of notoriously one of the most ruthless, commercially ruthless consulting firms in the world. And in 2022 when Mr Denbleby was working with them, they actually got banned from working in South Africa for 10 years for for orchestrating what is called a state capture.

It's essentially they repurposed state institutions to the advantage of the firm, the government and its private sector allies, right? So I can't imagine that anything like that was happening in the UK at the same time. Although it did actually lead to a three year ban on delivering UK government work, which was overturned after just six months. Apparently they really want to work with Bain. Obviously Mr Dimbleby has now gone off to Bain, so, you know, I'm sure that there's nothing

going on here. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing untoward. Yeah, absolutely. They also interestingly Bane provided, and again, I reported on quite a lot of this last year, but it's useful to just restate this in the context of how this is developing. Bane also provided supplementary evidence to the development of the National Food Strategy. So actually these are the people who are inputting into what's going to happen next in in our food supply.

Also Dave Halpin from Behavioural Insights team is in the mix as well. And in there they talk about the food system as a series of interconnected industrial processes. It's a value chain essentially, from left to right, all the different component parts, lots and lots of big corporates in there. You can see a Tesco logo, Mars, Tate and Lyle, all those kinds of people. They're particularly interested

in this bit though, produce. This is the farms basically, and the big weakness apparently in UK food system is that there are too many independently owned farms and we need to consolidate those into corporate entities that can trade more effectively with the other big corporate component parts of the supply chain. And interestingly, what are Bramble Partners, Henry Dimbleby's firm up to?

They just launched a few months ago the 1,000,000 hectares coalition and new national movement to regenerate a million hectares of UK farmland in the next decade. And it's about 5:00 percent of our total farmland. And that will very neatly align with the interest of the Pharmaceutical industry and international capital, as Mr Dimbleby was talking about in the video we shared at the start. Yeah, incredible.

Regenerate million hectares and at the same time we destroy farming land to put in the renewal renewable energy system. So complete madness and chaos, but deliberate. But I noticed that the people taking control of the food supply were already embedded in it are regarded as players. That's how they were labelled in your diagram. They're merely players in the food system. Indeed. OK, well, a quick change of

South Yorkshire Police Raid: Protecting Abusers or Justice?

subject here and really I'm going to pray see this. We'll discuss it more in extra time, but last Monday's news I did report that A the gentleman had been had his home invaded, rested by South Yorkshire Police, his computers taken and this was all because he'd done 30 years worth of research into the cover up of child abuse. Really incredible research. I'm going to say this individual is well known to the UK column.

His work is exceptionally good and over the years he's been able to show that the cover up of child abuse has run through the very systems and organisations that say they're there to protect children such as the police, but also into the government systems itself such as the Crown Prosecution Service and the higher levels of government.

Now just to give you a flavour, South Yorkshire Police have now said, well because we know that some police officers were involved in what was going on, we were going to originally let ICPO investigate and that's now been passed on to the National Crime Agency. But just to set the scene with one of the slides, we'll make sure that all this information is available in the show notes. This is Hayley Barnett, the assistant chief consul of South Yorkshire Police.

She said, well, this is a very sensitive investigation and the victim survives, have steadfastly remained our number one priority of our number one priority over many months. I've had conversations at the highest level with IOPC and the National Crime Agency to ensure these courageous women truly remain at the heart of our work and that the mode of investigation remains appropriate.

So it seems an extraordinary coincidence at the very time that South Yorkshire Police is very nervous about it's implication and indeed that of other forces in not only child abuse but the cover up of that abuse. That suddenly somebody who's investigated this subject for 30 years using primary public sources is raided by the police.

All of his computers and information is taken and he goes through what he felt was a pretty brutal interrogation in the police station where he was held in a pretty cold cell, denied food and medication at one point, all because he has pulled together public information which demonstrates this cover up. So I'm going to say that UK column will actually cover more of this report in due course.

But if we just say put this slide slide up here, we basically got the comment from Hayley Barnett. She says it's For these reasons and a mutual agreement with our partners that I've asked the National Crime Agency to take ownership of this operational work.

But a lot of questions need to be asked as to whether the arrest of this man and his 30 years of data about the cover up of child abuse is to enable South Yorkshire Police and its partners to whitewash government failures to protect children or indeed to actually protect people in the system who were abusing children themselves. So this is quite a story. We're going to stick with it and we will give you more detail. We'll discuss more in extra today.

Flames of Neglect: The Wildfire Problem We're Choosing Not to Solve

Diane, let's come back to you and I beg your pardon? Let's just finish this, this one and I should be able to bring up your section and you're going to talk to us about the subject of wildfires and really some of this amazing fear factor around super hot summers. Clearly we haven't got that in Plymouth today. But be fearful of the temperature. Stay locked in your house. There's going to be fires, there's going to be plagues. This is terrible fear mongering. Oh, absolutely, Brian.

I'm seeing it all over these so called local papers on social media talking about, you know, lock your windows, don't go outside because it's burning global boiling out there. But I want to bring you back to yesterday. There was a fire that broke out on Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. If we have, I think we have some video of this to show what it looked like yesterday before they started to fight the fires.

Basically what happened was in Edinburgh, of course, in the August, I was there last weekend. This is the, you know, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the International Festival, lots of things going on in Edinburgh over the summer in August. And it unfortunately Arthur Seat, which is the big extinct volcano that sort of overlooks the city, broke out in the terrible fire yesterday.

And this is also happening when Oasis concerts are happening all at the same time with the festivals going on. So 140,000 fans over the first two nights sold out at Murrayfield Stadium by Oasis as well as a third one that will be coming on Tuesday. According to Scottish and Fire Rescue Service. This has been a terrible summer for wildfires across Scotland, including at the Highlands. And it says the the Highland wildfires are considered so far the biggest Scotland has ever seen.

And so we're seeing in in Edinburgh and in Scotland where, you know, you would not assume that there was a would have been a problem with water in Scotland because it's kind of everywhere. That's just a joke. But anyway, so tied to this, we look, we're seeing wildfires in the South of France. And I last got a very quick act, quick article sent to me by Neil Harrison late last week, on Friday actually.

And we decided to prioritise this editorially because he's a frequent contributor to UK column, I'm happy to say. And because the wildfires were going as he basically wrote this article and sent it to us for publication. And what he said at the start of this article, you can read the

full thing. But just to understand the scope of this fire in the South of France, he was writing this on day four, close to where he has a house, he said at the moment, 17. 2000 hectares of land in the department have been burnt, many villages completely gutted, transport and electricity cut over a vast area and a flame front that yesterday took up a

length of 80 kilometres. So he goes on to talk about how desperately the firefighters have been working very hard to stop the fire, but it has not been happening. He talked to some locals there and one, one person said, quote, all of our children here are taught that the best way of controlling fires is our vineyards. Their natural fire breaks. Vineyards are watered, the vines are covered in green, wet leaves, weeds and dried grasses

are cut. But unfortunately, it has been government and EU policy to RIP up the vineyards and return the land to the wild. And as he pointed on the article, the scientific justification for destroying vineyards to satisfy Agenda 2030 requirements is based on soil degradation, loss of organic matter, erosion, low carbon sequestration compared to natural vegetation or agroforestry. So I think there are some important questions for us to ask here.

We're seeing breakouts of wildfires because it's apparently global boiling everywhere. What is causing these fires? Are there reasons for this that are related to Agenda 2030 and Sustainable development goals? Or is it just because it's so terribly hot, the fires are breaking out everywhere? Are there arsons involved?

There have been a lot of questions around this, but I think it's just important for us to maybe think about this and ask the question about why it is that so much is happening around wildfires for the summer. Thank. You very much for that and apologies about the footage there from Scotland, but I'm sure many people have seen the

film clips on wider media. With regard to the wildfires, I'll just add that of course one of the things we were told by firefighters in America when some of the really big woodland fires were burning there, forest fires were burning, was that in many areas the firefighting teams had not been allowed to create fire breaks or indeed deal with debris, very dry

debris on the forest floors. And this was helping to create very, very intense fires with rolling fireballs going over the tree canopy and jump jumping considerable distances. So firefighters in America, some of them at least blaming the authorities on on saying that they were preventing the firefighters from actually doing pre emptive work to stop the fires. Let's just end on a positive note, Diane. And you've got a, a very lush

green picture of UK here. I don't think it's very likely fires are going to break off, break out in this environment. What is your message for us? Well, I just wanted to say to get out and enjoy it while we can. Don't forget it is summer, it is summer holidays still for children and and we all should be just getting out and enjoying

the beautiful weather. This was me a couple of days ago going to Court Bridge, which is a beautiful village up here in the northeast of England in Northumbria. And as we can see that what you can't see in the photo, but the, the village car park was completely packed. And we can see people there walking to and from the, the car park across the bridge, across the river, enjoying the cafes and the, the shops and everything. And I spent a few hours there and just enjoying it.

So feel free to do the same because the the warm weather is what we're supposed to be experiencing here in August, even if it is the UK. Yeah, I think it's called the summer, Diane. And yes, wonderful weekend, lots of people having a very good time outside in the sunshine. And we say to our audience, do the same. Get out there, fresh air, sunshine, relax and enjoy some normal life with your friends and family and good normal people. We must end it there.

Huge thank you to the UK column audience wherever you are. Remember there are still some tickets available for the conference in York, but if you haven't got a ticket going to encourage you to buy, somebody's going to be disappointed very soon. At the rate these tickets are going, we got more speakers to be announced. We're really looking forward to you being there. So head on to the UK Column website and have a look for those tickets. We must end the news there.

Huge thank you to everybody. Thank you, Ben and Diane. We'll be back for UK Column Extra in a few minutes and we'll look deeper into that story about South Yorkshire Police and the cover up of child abuse. Thanks very much for joining us. Bye bye.

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