UK Column News — 12th November 2025

Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 12th of November, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson. Mike, host TODAY in the studios, Patrick Henningson. Welcome to the program, Patrick. Great to be with you, Mike. And joining us via Live Link, we have Vanessa Bailey and Liz Evans. Now today we're going to be following up on the BBC

implosion. In a couple of minutes, Vanessa is going to be reporting on Jelani's visit to the White House. Liz Evans is going to be covering the latest on organ donations. But we're going to begin with prisons because of course, as we all know, the Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy was in the House of Commons yesterday to up update Parliament on the sorry, the accidental, it is accidental release of prisoners which had been grabbing the headlines over the past few days.

So here's what he had to say. The first duty of government is to keep the public safe. Well, I would suggest that no, really it isn't. This is the UNI party regime's excuse for lockdowns and technocracy, and it's derived from British imperialist thinkers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke actually. So it's a mantra though, that we've been having shoved down our throats since 2020.

In particular, he went on to say we're putting in new guardrails around an archaic system with tougher new checks, reviewing specific failings of modernizing prison processes and joint working with courts, all to bear down on the increase in

mistakes. So now we're starting to get to the bottom of it because what they're talking about here is a £10,000,000 investment that will see the roll out of new AI powered tools, the frontline prison staff so that they can quotes, accurately calculate sentences and vital upgrades to the archaic paper based systems. This is all being accelerated of

course. They're saying that currently under already under pressure, prison staff are having to wade through more than 500 pages of guidance making mistakes more likely. The multi £1,000,000 pledge will be invested over the next six months and build a new digital crack. Teams deployed to prisons next last week to look at how cutting edge technology can be used to

bring down errors. So they're going to set up a new Justice Performance Board there, which is, they claim, going to give David Lammy greater oversight of the system and drive improvements in prisons and criminal courts. And they say that the measures include a, quote, relentless focus on data with new teams of data, teams of data scientists deployed to review all historic releases in error to understand

what was wrong in every case. So they're talking about an extra 14,000 prison places being built by this government, while sentences will be overhauled to make prisons to make sure that we have enough prison places to lock up dangerous criminals and keep the public safe. And they're saying that they've already delivered 2 1/2 thousand new places and that the last government added only 500 because they've got to get the

party political bit in as well. The the last government only added 500 places to the prison state in the last 14 years so well that's OK, but the question is where is the where are the prison officer staff going to come from because the prison service had been recruiting from outside the UK to fill

vacancies. Sorry, that's just that quote I was reading there a second ago So let's have a look at this report for example because this is highlighting that 30% of prison officers at the HMP Billington is just one example are foreign nationals. Now there's an ongoing spat taking place between the Justice Department and the Home Office because HM Prison Probation Service is no longer allowed to sponsor new skilled worker visas for prison officers. That's since July the 22nd this year.

So the question is, do we have accidentally released prisoners or is is there actually something else going on here? But whether that's the case or not, we certainly apparently need digital systems and AI suggestions of digital ID for prisoners. And we have a prisoner office, a prison officer recruitment crisis with demands for the Home Office to relax immigration rules.

And as we know immigration, relaxed immigration is going to require digital ID. So it's pretty clear what the what the agenda is here and what's being, well, I would argue is being engineered. So it starts with prisoners and veterans and then military service and then the public it

seems. I think the biggest growth for the prison system in the last year, the most amount of mass arrests were were pensioners, a blind pensioners, Holocaust survivors and people basically saying I support Palestine action quote UN quote, be careful. I put the quote UN quote in there. So that's the growth area for prisons. Maybe this is what they're ramping up for, is place to put protesters, process them more efficiently. Yeah, it could be, could be. But well, we'll see how that

goes. But I'm calling nonsense on that particular one. And it's it's a bit of a story which is being generated to create a reaction from people. But let's let's see where that goes. And as luck would have it, it was an immigrant indeed accidentally released. Indeed. OK, let's move on then to the BBC And Tim Devi, as I'm sure everybody knows by now by now, was on an all staff call with BBC staff for an hour yesterday. Here's what he had to say on the way into Broadcasting House Just.

Want to say a couple of things. I'm here to lead and support the BBC. I'm very, very proud of our journalists in this building. They're doing work. I think it's incredibly important. I want to thank everyone of them. They're doing a wonderful job. Also everyone across the BBC doing their thing for the big the UK and personally I'm here to lead and support them. The BB CS going to be thriving and I support everyone of the team. I'm very proud of them. Thank you very much.

How? Will you be responding to Mr. Trump 's? He's very proud of them. But look, look, the content of the call is no secret. His presentation to staff was full of I'm proud of you rhetoric, as he's just expressed there. But this clearly didn't go down well with BBC staff and by all accounts they were also pretty unimpressed with the fact that, contrary to previous suggestions, they were not free to ask questions during the call or after the call.

All the questions that were submitted had to be screened and Sky News has reported, for example, that staff were taking to public comments section on the BBC website to try to get their questions noticed. So if Tim Devi thought this would be an exercise in getting all hands to the pumps, he's

clearly failed spectacularly. But in the meantime, Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, was in the Commons yesterday to try to shore up support for this great British institution as she was expressing it, as there are fundamental difference there, sorry. There is a fundamental difference, she said, between raising serious concerns over ethical failings and members of this House launching A sustained attack on the institution itself.

Because the BBC is not just a broadcaster, it's a national institution that belongs to us all so well. Do we agree with that? Well, there's a lot lot to unpack there, Mike. I think, I think we can move, move on. Just take a look at this situation. I mean, let's look at how this scandal. First of all, let's just start with this. There is Tim Davy here. So he is out as well as the head of news, Deborah Turnus. They're both have resigned. Davies tells the staff, we've

got to fight for a journalism. So he's going out with the with the rallying cry there. But let's look at previous resignations of director generals. And I always find that these high profile resignations are usually to take the edge off something that's really happening that's actually damaging to the institution in the country here. We're going to call these pressure relief, these resignations here. Here's 2 director generals will bring up on screen.

First of all, 2012, the short lived director General George Entwistle resigns after ABBC report falsely implicating a senior British politician in a paedophile scandal, child abuse scandal. There we we can speculate on who that senior politician might have been, but nonetheless the result was he stepped down. 2004 Director General Greg Dyke resigned after pressure over the government's mysterious death of David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence weapons expert here.

And so the source to the BBC claimed that the government's dossier was sexed up. We all remember that story. This was Tony Blair's dossier used to lie the country into the Iraq war on a fake WMD case. But on both cases here the end whistle resignation really took the edge off that right there Mike, which was the Jimmy Savile scandal, which was at its height in 2012. There he is with the current King Charles there Saville being his social secretary very close.

And this the the dyke resignation took the edge off this, which was Tony Blair's sort of criminal involvement as a war criminal in lying the country into the war and saying that the David Kelly controversy was just a cock up. It wasn't a cover up. It's just a cock up in this is usually what the, the the media do here. And I think the same is probably true in the case of Tim Davey. Mike, there's a bigger scandal here. And one of those is the coverage of of the, the genocide in Gaza.

We'll get to that in a minute here. But just to tee off this one, this comes at the same time Donald Trump is threatening a $1 billion lawsuit against the BBC. But look at the subtext on this is interesting here. BBC board member with Tory links quote led the charge and systemic bias claims says insights. You can see how the establishers conveniently framing this as a left versus right or Tory versus Labor sort of controversy.

So it but it's not it's really Mike and we'll talk about this on Friday. It's big money and big money coming in on the right and from the Trump camp in the United States or the big corporate money coming in to buy up British media here. At the same time, the, the, the, the license fee is under the, under the cosh and they're going to re evaluate the, the, the BB CS license fee.

Could we be seeing the breakup of the BBC or the private part privatization of the BBC as a result of some of this? It's quite possible. And the question, though, is whether Trump will actually move ahead with his lawsuit. So let's just have a sorry to do this to everybody. Just a brief listen to what he said about whether it was really something that he needed to do. They they defrauded the public and they've admitted it. And their top echelon director

general. This is this is within one of our great allies. You know, this is our supposedly our great ally BBC have the government has a chunk of that one, I guess. But tonight you are saying to our viewers that you will go forward and file a defamation lawsuit against the BBC. Well, I think I have an obligation to do it because you can't get people, you can't allow people to do that. So he he has an obligation.

So it's, it's about the January 6th speech at the Ellipse before J6 and it was, the aggregations are, and it's clear the BBC kind of doctored that speech in order to make Trump seem like he was inciting the Capitol riot. So of course he probably has a, an actual case there. The the question is, is this excessive and hugely politicized? And are we looking at a power play ultimately by major private equity firms and so forth? We'll talk more about this.

We will. We'll break it down on, on, on. Friday, yes. So I look forward to that conversation, but this is the other one that's just coming at the exact same time. And I don't believe in quintessences in politics and I don't know anybody intelligent that does. But we'll bring this up on screen right now. The BBC editor is suing Owen Jones, a journalist over Israel bias claim.

The columnist for the Guardian. Owen Jones is vigorously defending his reporting after the corporation's Middle East editor. His name is Raffy Berg files a High Court libel claim. This is a major lawsuit. It probably going to be in the courts for a while here and we'll read the the basis of this court document seen by the PA

news agency. John Stables, the barrister for Raffy Berg. He is the BBC Middle East editor or claiming that Owen Jones's article published in Drop Site News, we'll show you in a minute, strikes at the claimants a professional reputation as a journalist and editor. He's talking about the BBC Middle East editor and that it caused Mr. Berg to suffer an onslaught of hatred, intimidation and threats, including death threats.

And he goes on here. The damage incurred apparently by this BBC Middle East editor, the claimant's reputation has been seriously damaged and he's it's caused substantial fear, anxiety, humiliation, upset and distress from Mr. Jones not apologizing or removing the article. First of all, let's just get into libel basics. It's not to Owen Jones that is liable. It is the publisher under British law, if I'm not mistaken, and that is Drop Site News.

OK, so they're saying now as an editor of a major news organization, if you get any backlash from other journalists or coverage or critiques from anybody that could cause you anxiety and sort of fear. Doesn't that go with the sort of job of being a newspaper editor or broadcast news editor,

especially a Middle East? Well, I mean, no matter what you think of Alex Belfield, for example, this is, this is sort of a precedent that's been set with that case, just, you know, because allegations to criticism turns into some kind of stalking or, or harassment. This If people are in the public, it seems to me that they should be willing to accept the public criticism if it's there, no matter if it's pleasant or

unpleasant. So this is an incredible at one time you see this BBC bias story blowing up in the national media. And here you have Owen Jones, who's a journalist accusing the BBC of bias coverage regarding Israel and Gaza and he's being sued for for libel. Now let's let's just unpack this because it's extraordinary here. We'll bring this up. This is Raffy Berg. This is the man in question, the BB CS Middle East editor.

This is his book here, Red Sea of Spies, which he apparently Co wrote with Danny Lamour, A Mossad agent. So there he is. But here is the article in question and this is the BBC Civil war over Gaza. Now, this is written by Jones. OK, This is an incredible article, by the way. This is this is no small piece. It's probably about 5000 words. It's he he's he spoke to 13 BBC journalists and other staff on this mic and basically has shown that there's been internal complaints.

There was an internal revolt as a result of the censorship and the what, what you might call editorial reshaping by the BBC here. And we'll get into this here. And so he interviewed 13 BBC journalist and other staffers, revealing insights of skewed stories in favor of Israeli narratives and repeatedly dismissed objections by other staffers. And this took place over 14 months here and demanded the network uphold its commitment to impartiality and fairness. And he goes on.

Jones investigation has three main components here. This is actually a really good breakdown.

Deep look into the internal complaints from BBC journalists, a quantitative assessment of how the BBC characterizes the year long siege in Gaza and also review the histories of people behind the coverage, in particular the BB CS editor Raffy Berg. And what's interesting about Raffy Berg like is he kind of cut his teeth with the US Foreign Broadcasting Service, which was later exposed to be a total CIA front under the State Department.

So he is effectively working as ACIA propagandist and he apparently when he found out, when this was known that it was ACIA front, he was quote, absolutely thrilled to find out. So not my words, of course, that's in an interview that he gave upon his knowledge of that incredible revelation there. So it's an excellent piece of journalism by Jones and many people might disagree with Owen Jones on a number of issues, but

this is excellent reporting. But I might point out here, Mike, we're talking about influence. Let's when you say the BBC is shaping the narrative on coverage from October 7th onwards here. This is what we're talking about. This is the rankings of top 50 English news sites in the world. OK, now look where the BBC ranks in terms of traffic. Take a look at that right at the top. And the numbers we're talking about are staggering. OK, look at that. So this is upwards of a billion

visits globally. Look at that. So. Just in October. They just they crushed the New York Times and that's the MSN New York Times combined. So this this incredible thing that we're witnessing here. But and you know, this, this story has been on the burner for the past year here. This is Jonathan Cook tweeted about this in January 2025 about Raffy Berg and accounts Mossad agents as close friends,

etcetera. So I mean, there is bias if you have somebody who is pro Israel and very much linked to Israel, Israel as as your Middle East editor for for the largest news organization in the world. OK, maybe a little bit of a problem there. So anyway, but the original story here, we have to give credit to Alan McLeod here at MIT Press news. And this was in January 3rd, 2025, Mike. So that's, that's it's not an it's not a new story. It's been around.

And what Owen Jones has probably done here is brought more publicity to it. And the lawsuit is going to be huge drops. Outside news already raised 100,000 and the first day they put up their crowdfunder, they say they're ready to fight Ryan Grimm, Jeremy Scahill, their former intercept. They're ready to fight this case. They think they have enough money, Mike, to go the distance and win.

This would be a huge defeat for the BBC and probably the Israeli lobby if they lose in court, but this could be tied up for a couple of years. We'll see. OK, OK. Thank you for that, Patrick. Vanessa, let me welcome you to the programme.

And, well, Jelani, our favorite terrorist, has been in the White House. He has indeed not just Jelani, of course, but the other founder of Al Qaeda in Syria, Assad al Shibani, the Sakuri regime foreign minister, both of them at the White House and appearing at various meetings. So this was in the New York Times. Syrian President meets Trump at the White House for the first time. Of course, he previously met him both in Riyadh and of on the sidelines of the UN GA

conference. But just prior to the meeting, this is what Trump said when he was asked a question, I think, regarding the lifting of sanctions on Syria. So let's just we're. Going to meet and I think he's doing a very good job. It's a tough neighborhood and he's a tough guy, but I got along with him very well. And a lot of progress has been made with Syria. That's a that's a tough one, but a lot of progress has been made.

You know, we took the sanctions off at the request of Turkey, at the request of actually Israel, at the request of a few different countries, and we took the sanctions off to give them a chance, so. I hope everybody picked up on the fact that Israel was involved in lobbying Trump to lift the sanctions on Syria. We then were entertained with a video of Jolani and Asad Chaibani playing nothing other than basketball with Brad Cooper, the head of CENTCOM and

Brigadier General Kevin Lambert who heads up the anti ISIS coalition in the region. Of course, we've previously seen Jelani playing basketball in Syria shortly after a number of the massacres that were carried out by the AL Qaeda thugs on the coast in the South. And now, of course, those massacres and slaughters, abductions, rape and abuse and torture of civilians is continuing inside Syria while all of this pomp and pageantry is happening at the White House.

Interesting that a lot of people picked up on social media that Jolani entered by the back door, not by The West Wing driveway, which is the route normally taken by heads of state. He used the West Executive Ave. apparently not quite the back door, but I understand why people were saying that.

It's important to note, of course, look at all the security around him, which is quite extraordinary when 1 looks back at President Assange 3rd arriving obviously not in the US, but for various state visits or excursions, even inside Syria during the war when he had very scarce, scarce security around him. But it's worth remembering that the US and the majority of the international community, such as it is, have not actually recognized the Takfiri regime in

Syria officially. Here we have. I mean, this is just an extraordinary picture. Trump grinning inanely with Geelani stood next to him. There's a number of these images. Many people have said to me they're they're actually reaching a point of Geelani fatigue because the branding and promotion by the MI sex and the CIA and so on is is really off the scale. There were images today of him playing chess, which which, you know, leaves a lot to the

imagination. But I also just wanted to show this image bearing in mind that normally presidents or heads of state will sit next to Trump in any kind of photo shoot here. To me, they look like a series of school boys sat in front of the headmaster. If you look at the body language, they're interesting. Vance's direction of of where he's looking seems to be looking at Jolani's shoes to check whether they're properly polished.

But then if we go on to basically this was, it's so, so Jelani did an interview, sorry, with Fox News while he was there. This is just a summary by Sprinter Press. Syria has declared an alliance with the US. After a meeting, Syrian President stated that the country is becoming a geopolitical ally of the United States. He added that Washington can now invest in gas production, which is interesting because they were effectively offering that to Moscow during the Kremlin meetings.

He also emphasized that the topic of his previous ties with the terrorist group Al Qaeda was not raised at the meeting. In an interview with Fox News, the president added that he was not involved in the attacks on the Twin Towers on September the 11th and he was too young at the time. I mean that, you know, you know, this, it's, it's just, I don't know, I can't find the words for it really important.

This image. This is Jelani looking rather like he'd stolen the suit from Assad's wardrobe when they took over the palace. He's looking very uncomfortable in that outfit. But he's standing next to Republican Congress member Brian Mast, stalwart supporter of Trump. But also, when October the 7th kicked off the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, he came into Congress wearing the Israeli military uniform. He's a staunch Christian Zionist. So again, the connection to Israel.

Israel lobbied for sanctions to be lifted. And here's Jelani with Brian Moss. But also here is Assad Shibani talking about his best friend, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who's probably the closest both to the deep state and to Zionist policy in Trump's administration, talking about lifting the restrictions on the Syrian mission and the embassy in the US for Syria. Now, this was a comment that Trump made after the meeting, which I think is also in itself very telling.

So let's just have a look at this. You can expect some announcements on Syria. We want to see Syria become a country that's very successful. And I think this leader can do it. I really do. I think this leader. Can do it. And people said he's had a rough past. We all had rough pasts, but he has had a rough past and I think. Frankly, if you didn't. Have a rough past?

You wouldn't have a chance. He gets along very well with Turkey. Rough past I I think Jolanis present is pretty rough considering the the atrocities that are being committed against Syrian civilians in Syria and have been of course for the last 15 years. And as regards Trump's rough past, we won't mention Epstein. So there were a number of summaries of what was actually discussed in the meeting. This was just one in the Italian Institute for International Political Studies.

And if we just move on, I did a summary of the main points which we can now look at. So the sanctions were not actually lifted. We're being very much deceived when we're looking at media saying that Trump has lift sanctions on Syria. They've been lifted again for

180 days or six months. The Caesar Act, which is the most draconian of the sanction measures imposed against the Syrian people as unilateral coercive measures under President Assad, actually needs Congress approval, which is why Jelani was lobbying Brian Miles to get them repealed. Sanctions, interestingly, despite the lifting for 180 days, remain on Russia and Iran, which is doubly ironic as Russia actually prints has the monopoly on the printing of Syrian

currency. So I'm not quite sure how that's going to affect that going forward. Discussion on the security agreement with Israel, which of course is heading towards normalization between Syria and Israel, which Jelani is digging his heels in about because of course that is going to turn the majority even of his most staunch supporters against him. US are offering Intel, sharing

arms and technology. Don't be full by that because of course the US also offers arms and technology to the Lebanese Armed forces that are utterly incapable of defending themselves against Israel. And that would be the same situation in Syria. Syria to join the anti ISIS coalition. Again, this is cannibalization policy for Jelani because the majority of his Tak fairy members, particularly the foreign ones are members of ISIS or are defecting to ISIS in the view of Jelani's more moderate

policies. But also I think what's important is under this six month waiver of course, what does this do? This creates an environment in Syria where there is unlikely to be serious foreign direct investment. It's risky for banks because there's potential the sanctions will be reimposed at the end of the six months. If Jelani doesn't comply with with Trump's demands. It leads to opaque fire sale concessions, which leads of course, to prices and jobs

remaining static. And there's very little employment for Syrians now, and debt and vulture investment. So really, it's not. What Trump has done is effectively not helping Syria at all. It's all semantics and image building. Thank you. Undoubtedly we'll talk more about that in Extra, but you got any thoughts? Well, I think maybe Keir Starmer should pardon the 77 bombers because they had a rough past. They've had a rough past. Osama bin Laden had a rough past.

Abu Baker al Baghdadi Rough. Past I I can't work out how someone who was the deputy leader of ISIS can suddenly become part of the anti ISIS coalition. If you haven't built a golf course in Dubai or you know, blown up a few cities, you really not fit to run a country. Right. OK, well, we'll, we'll talk more about that. An extra, I have no doubt, Liz. Liz Evans, welcome to the program. It's been a while since you've been on, but today we're talking

about organ donation. Thanks very much, Mike. Yeah, on Monday, we saw the Telegraph around this headline, which bemoaned a shortage of organ donations due to the increase in deaths at home since COVID. I wonder why that could be. But I'm not sure that what I'm going to say now, it will alleviate that situation.

My deep dive into the murky world of organ donation has uncovered serious ethical and safety issues the public need to be aware of. And the first is this recent change to the law on organ donation in the UK. So previously you opted in by carrying an organ donor card or your relatives were asked in the case of a sudden death or accident and the choice was yours and your relatives alone.

The new law requires you to actively opt out on the NHS organ donation register to avoid forced donation against your family's wishes. And if you don't opt out before you die, you're considered to have consented to donating your organs. This fundamentally changes how your body is viewed when you die, effectively making the state the owner of your body after your death. Now this drastic change to the law has not been well

publicised. I think many people are unaware of it or what they need to do to opt out and the slide that you just saw shows a couple of the NHS adverts to alert the public, which I certainly hadn't seen. And then to complicate the issue, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have different legislation using different terms that all mean the same thing. So Wales was the first to bring in what they call deemed consent in December 2015.

Then in May 2020 England brought in an opt out system for everyone over 18 years with capacity. In March 2021 Scotland brought in deemed authorisation for everyone over 16 years, 16 years. Then in June 2023 Northern Ireland brought in the Organ and Tissue Donation Deemed Consent Act for over eighteens. Now interestingly some of these laws are emotively named after

children. So England has Max and Keira's Law, named after 9 year old Max Johnson who needed a heart transplant and campaigned for this opt in system and his donor, 9 year old Kira Bell. Northern Ireland has Dahi's Law in honour of a little boy on the heart transplant waiting list since 2018. Now the reasons given for changing the law are firstly the shortage of organs for donation and also to allow more people to save more lives.

An NHS blood and transplant site that in England IN2018411 people died on the organ transplant waiting list while around 1000 families refused organ donations. So they argued that changing the law would make decisions easier for grieving families, IE there would be no decision to make. So the way the new law works in practice is that specialist nurses will speak to the family who do have a quote soft opt out option if no decision has been registered.

But if you have given consent, your family will be encouraged to agree with your decision and crucially will have no legal right to override your decision. And we're about to see a clip from an NHS training video which shows a role play situation where the relatives of the dying patient have never heard of the change in the law, they've never discussed organ transplantation. They are shocked that the law assumes he has consented and

they appear reluctant. I'm just going to show you the minute at the end which shows the nurse explaining how this works. We need to make a decision today. I. Don't really think about it as making a decision because like I said before, the way the law works now is to try and take the pressure off families that find themselves in this position on this obviously the saddest day. So what we'll be asking for is your support in helping Philip to become a donor.

I'm just, I don't know, it sounds like a good thing. I just. I just think he's. Been through a lot already, you know now. We have to think about. It it does, it does seem like a good. Idea what we'd have to talk about. Yeah, of course. I'll give you some time to think about it and I'll come back and answer any questions or concerns that you've got.

OK, OK. OK, so you are strongly encouraged to record your decision on the NHS Organ Donor Register and make sure your family know your decision and that any children over the age of 18 or 16 in Scotland have done the same. And even if you're happy to donate, I think it's worth considering whether to opt out anyway, allowing your family to make the decision within the context at the time, rather than the state making the final

decision now. Then, my next section may help you to make a more informed decision. Several commentators have recently raised serious concerns that organs may be being harvested from people who are not actually dead. The brain death does not mean fully dead, certainly not in the way that is commonly understood as a irreversible and permanent state in which life cannot be

restored to the individual. Death used to be defined as the irreversible and permanent cessation of heartbeat and circulation, IE true biological death. But this would preclude much organ donation because without a working circulation, organs, particularly the heart and lungs, degrade quickly. For historical context, in 1967 the world's first heart transplant was carried out by Christian Barnard using a donor with a severe brain injury.

At the time, the definition of death was whole body death, so a doctor would have been expected to turn off the ventilator and wait for the heart to stop naturally before harvesting the organs. I was shocked to discover that decades later it was revealed that Christian Barnard had stopped the donors heart himself by injecting potassium chloride, killing the patient and enabling him to immediately harvest a healthy heart legally from a fully dead body.

Having not disclosed this criminal act, Barna became an international sensation and Playboy, featuring on the front of Time magazine. Then the following year, in 1968, the Harvard committee redefined death to include neurological criteria, with a new diagnosis of brain death, defined as an irreversible coma with no respiratory function.

They justified this expansion of the definition of death on utilitarian grounds, firstly to reduce the burden on the patient, family, hospital and society from comatose patients, and secondly to facilitate organ harvesting from patients who didn't meet the dead donor rule. The rule that you are completely dead before your organs are removed because they still had a working circulation and biological functions. This therefore enabled healthy organs to be procured.

Now the UK currently has no statutory definition of death, but the British Transplant Society defines it as the permanent loss of the capacity for consciousness and loss of all brain stem functions which can result from either the permanent cessation of circulation or from catastrophic brain injury leading to so-called brain death.

Now donation after circulatory death actually only requires 5 minutes of continuous cardio respiratory arrest to fulfil the dead donor rule, but a person is unlikely to be fully brain dead after such a short time, so it's questionable whether the

situation is irreversible. And there are many cases of people being successfully resuscitated after cardiac arrest for far longer than 5 minutes, so many argue that this constitutes A physician assisted death, violating both criminal law and the central tenet of medicine to do no harm.

And then in the summer of this year, Kate Chemerani, the nursing ethics campaigner and Co founder of the British Nursing Alliance, began to raise the alarm that organ donation protocols in the UK are unethical and dangerous because they're based on a legal fiction that brainstem death equals

death. Kate argues that neither the scientific literature nor clinical practice supports the claim that brain death is equivalent to death, that there are many recorded cases of recovery in what was considered an irreversible situation. She also points out that brain dead individuals maintain heartbeat, circulation, hormonal function and can even gestate fetuses. Kate has published several excellent articles on her sub stack and Facebook page over the last few months that are well

worth a read. And these NHS guidelines for retrieving organs from brain dead donors admit that spinal movements which can appear quotes purposeful are reported in as many as 50% of brain dead brain stem dead patients. But doctors are reassured that this doesn't invalidate the diagnosis of death. But then, disturbingly, they are encouraged to give muscle relaxants to patients prior to

organ retrieval. And this paper even details the role of anaesthetist to provide sedation and analgesia to the donor during organ harvesting. Then in July this year, Robert F Kennedy Junior's HHS announced that a four year federal investigation had uncovered serious ethical and safety violations in the harvesting of organs in the US that hospitals had quotes allowed the organ procurement process to begin when patients showed signs of life.

Secretary Kennedy stated the entire system must be fixed to ensure that every potential donors life is treated with the sanctity it deserves and recently announced an agenda to reform the US organ transplant system. The federal investigation was triggered by the appalling case of Anthony TJ Hoover, a man in his 30s who was admitted to

hospital with a drug overdose. After two days of being unresponsive and being declared brain dead, his family agreed to remove life support so he could have his organ harvested. But as the procedure began, TJ woke up and started thrashing around on the bed and visibly crying. Staff members began to protest, but it was only when the procuring surgeon refused to participate that the procedure was finally stopped and Hoover survived, although with brain

damage. Subsequent investigations into Network for Hope, the organ procurement service, revealed 351 instances where donation was authorised but not completed, and of these, 73 had neurological signs incompatible with organ donation, IE were not brain dead. Also in the US, there are significant financial incentives to maximise organ and tissue harvesting, and the report described organ harvest teams as predatory, pressuring medical staff and families to expedite the procedure.

And shockingly, organs are even being harvested from euthanized patients in assisted dying programs in the Netherlands, Canada and Spain. For example, in Quebec, organ donation after made increased from 4.9% of deaths in 2018 to 14% in 2022. Then there's this paper on liver donation from MAID patients, which quotes Doctor James Shapiro saying that he hopes his study will allow a better understanding of the potential role of organ donation following

MAID and how impactful it can be for saving lives of many people in their final act of generosity. And predictably, this has led to cause for similar practices in the UK if the Assisted Dying Bill is passed, such as we have a. I think we've got a slide of a

2025 editorial in the BMJ. And we have a video clip of a former New Zealand MP speaking at the recent Assisted Dying Bill Select Committee hearing in the House of Lords last week, warning of the slippery slope that in just four years in New Zealand has led to harvesting of organs being commonplace from victims of euthanasia. So we'll roll that clip. A. Good example of that is organ donation. New Zealand Now has created policies about taking organs from euthanized patients.

Again, that was not specified in the law and the civil servants have decided to pick up that ball and run with it. OK, And then just a quick word from the organ recipients perspective. We are also seeing medical ethics being violated with coerced vaccination, which was brought to the To the Attention of UK column by a parent of a teenager with a congenital kidney condition who will require a kidney transplant one day.

Now, she had remained entirely unvaccinated because her parents decided it wasn't in her best interest. That decision led to harassment of the parents by doctors. She they've had repeated pressure to vaccinate their daughter and we're told she would eventually have to be vaccinated before she could have a transplant. Now it turns out that catch up vaccination is is recommended,

but it's not mandatory. But in practice, the recipient is not offered an organ unless they comply with the guidance. The argument being made that is that it's a luxury to receive an organ. So the recipient has a duty to honour the donor's gift by complying with all the recommendations to maximise the chance of a successful transplant. And this even applies if the donor is a living donor, including the parent. So this shows it's an ideological and not a scientific

position. So I just want to finish with good news from Texas, where they have actually passed a bill very recently in September, House Bill 4076, which explicitly prohibits Texan hospitals from denying organ transplants based solely on a patient's vaccination status. And hopefully we can get a similar challenge here in the US, sorry, in the UK. Thank you Liz.

Thank you very much for that. Now just a quick reminder that one more background to this, we have an excellent article by Doctor Mike Williams on the UK Column website entitled No Time to Die. So do have a look at that if you haven't seen that already. Now if you like what the UK column does and you would like to support us, details of how you can do that can be found via the front page of the UK Column

website. Please do click on the blue box and if you can support us financially we do need that and that would be massively appreciated by all here. If you can't support us financially, then please do share anything you find on the UK column website on the various social media platforms with a link back. That would be extremely helpful as well. Tonight, Jerem is speaking to Danny Carroll on the psychological link to cancer at 7:00 PM.

And Carl Zaz speaking to a black American hip hop artist in China, I think responsible for the rise of hip hop and in in China. So join us for that at 9 and Patrick very quickly. Andrew Bridge in Part 2 in Totnes on Friday. That's right, Friday night, 7 stars in Totnes are still tickets available. If you missed the first part with Andrew Bridgen a few months ago, it was a stunning talk. You were there, Mike, with

Brian, the Q&A. And they'll be discussing digital ID money, Bitcoin, the Reform Party, Zionism, Charlie Kirk, sovereignty activism and a whole lot more tickets on Eventbrite. Just type in Andrew Bridgen November 14th on Eventbrite and you will see tickets available. There's still some left according to the organizers. So yeah, it should be an interesting evening, Yeah.

That's Totnes in the Seven Stars Hotel on Friday, and on Saturday, Cumbria Against Government Betrayal is going to be at Carlisle Market Square. Diane Rasmussen speaking at that. If you can possibly get along against digital IDs and so on, do join for that. OK, Patrick, let's move on to Berlin and Gaza related news. Well, if you if you've been watching social media, Mike, TikTok, Instagram X, you'll see the German police have been quite thuggish with demonstrators who are opposing

Israel's genocide in Gaza here. So this is up in Germany. We'll bring this up on screen German High Court, Mike. So this is in the High Court and this is an issue of free speech. So they're going after pro Palestinian demonstrators here. Now, someone who was on the program before, Yara Madarelli, she's a journalist. She is based in Europe.

She was there at the court proceedings and she did an excellent piece to camera along with her other colleague from the Global Summit of Flotilla. And so we'll look at that report real quick and we have a quick comment. But here, here is the outside of the court hearings, and she'll

explain what this is all about. I'm here at a Berlin courthouse where we just observed A historic hearing where for the very first time, a Palestinian solidarity activist is being tried, not in a local court as usual, but in a higher state. Court. The state has escalated this case by labeling the political slogan From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free as terrorist propaganda.

This label turns a case about free expression into a dangerous legal precedent that could affect thousands of existing cases and in turn further criminalize any solidarity with Palestine. It's increasingly clear that Berlin is rapidly descending into full-fledged fascism. Where the state not only suppresses dissent but actively rewrites the meaning of justice, Those who speak out against a genocide and raise their voices for human rights are punished, while war criminals are protected.

This case is not just about one person, it's about a broader effort to silence an entire movement to make the difference. Of. Palestinian life itself a crime. We're living in an upside down reality where peaceful protesters and human right advocates are prosecuted while Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet of war criminals continue their war crimes without consequence. This entire process was deliberately to constructed to

guarantee a biased outcome. The case was arranged so that it would land before a specific judge one. Who already holds a clear political position on Palestine? Every step of the legal process here reveals a system designed not for justice but for conviction. Today's case is a clear violation of due process and of the most basic principle of justice. Germany can silence and distort the truth all they want, but the world stands with Palestine and the people will not allow the

struggle for. Freedom and equality to be criminalised. Justice for Palestine is justice for all. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. So they've been taken lessons from the British. Well, there's gonna be, there's gonna be 10 more court appearances in this High Court. We'll get a follow up from Yara as to results out there. Her colleague there from the Global Samud Flotilla crew member Kubra Sinar, who joined her there.

And it's great to see the Global Flotilla crew, Mike on, on the ground, on land. And they'll be promoting BDS sanctions against Israel and following these free speech issues here. But we'll go back to London. And thank you to Yada and her colleague for that report. We're back to London here. Bob Villain, you remember Glastonbury, this was over the summer. Here is the British rapper Bob Villain and he had a show in Kentish Town last night. And of course, the media were

going crazy. How could this be allowed? Bob Villain's welcome in Camden, according to these activist groups here. So that kind of a welcoming party for him at his gig at I think it was at the Kentish Town Forum there, but an incredible scene. And of course, there's the reaction Mike from the Telegraph. As you can imagine, Starmer ignores calls to block Bob Villain performance in his

constituency. So that what I call the woke right here at the Telegraph going for cancellation, limiting free speech, all the things they railed against the radical left and the woke for, they're doing themselves, of course, no surprise there. But we'll bring on sort of the scenes from that night here, courtesy of our colleagues from Al Mayadeen TV from Moussa Soror, and we'll look at the scenes here. You can see some incredible scenes here. This is outside.

You'll see some of the crowd forming. So it's kind of a symbolic demonstration in solidarity with Palestine. That's what's happened with Bob Villain. He's turned into a kind of phenomenon. So the more they censor him, the more they try to shut him down, the more popular this guy gets. And so he basically famously said at Glastonbury, death, death to the IDF were in, in London, Cockney, deaf, deaf to the idea. But, and apparently that was the

big sort of controversy here. And so you can see people, we'll show in a minute. People have T-shirts with that slogan on it. And apparently they're just the, the Israeli and pro Jewish organizations, they're very upset about this show being allowed to happen in London. And they're, a lot of people are saying they're feeling unsafe and so forth. So it's amazing how this is developed into kind of a phenomenon here. But we have some vox pops here from outside the, the, the gig.

And there's that. That's the Israeli counter demonstration as you can see Mike right there up on screen and not not very big, but they're sort of the police were there to kind of break them up. But but here is here's a few some react couple reactions real quickly from and a courtesy to Al Mayedeen TV for this footage as well. But here we'll take a look at these vox pops. I'm wearing this T-shirt. Because it's called. The end of the Genocide of. The arm, but.

This the. Israel meant to be the most progressive and so-called the best military in the army, most most democratic. For the other ones committing genocide, I'll wear this T-shirt to call for here in solidarity. With Bob. Villa, who has spoken out? There you go and you can see that was the journalist there, the reporter, Moussa Sarur, an excellent journalist with Al

Maydeen covering that story. So an interesting update from London. A lot of people are interested in what's happening with Bob Villain. He was in Turkey recently, had a couple sold out gigs there just at the tail end of the summer. Increasingly popular after being cancelled. Yes, OK. Well, thank you for that, Vanessa. Let's come back to you then and back to Syria. And the question is, are they the the new Syrian regime looking for money from the IMF? Well, this is a very interesting

scenario. Jelani met with the IMF while he was meeting with Trump, but only a couple of weeks ago the Takferi regime finance minister, this was reported in Al Mayadeen. Syria is not seeking IMF or World Bank loans, said the interim finance minister. So let's have a look at what he actually says.

But bearing in mind that this was following on, of course, from Jolani and Chobani's visit to Moscow, which was followed up with a visit by the defence minister also to Moscow, which led to Russia potentially being able to expand its bases into Hans and Hamar, which we reported last week in Syria, Central Syria. So basically at the end of this meeting in Moscow, the finance minister was talking about hope in Syria, Russian relations, and of course that includes grain

supply, potential weapons supply, the printing of Syrian currency, which is done by an organization, Russian organization called Gosnak. And so therefore things were looking, let's say, very rosy for relations between Syria and Russia. But look what then happened during Jelani's visit to the White House, suddenly reported in the Syrian Arab News Agency, which is now totally aligned, of course, with the takfiri regime. IMF is ready to support Syria's

economic recovery. Kristalina Georgieva, who's heads up the IMF. And here's a video of Jelani entering his meeting with the IMF in New York. Mr. President. Welcome to the IMF.

Music. So it seems really to me that that Trump is now stepping in to ensure that Moscow doesn't get too much influence in Syria, Although of course, Russia would not be able to maintain its bases in Syria and expand them without Washington oversight, having Israel, having lobbied of course, for Russia to remain to prevent Turkish expansionism into Syrian territory. But let's have a look at what the Italian institute had actually said about the fact that they're talking about sanctions.

But then of course they go on to talk about talks with IMF Managing director Kristalina Georgieva is to open Syria's long closed state dominated economy. Of course, Jolani is headed very much into the crony capitalist system, bringing in majority family members and so on to run the economy in Syria to attract international investment to a country devastated by 14 years of war, of course waged by the very entities that Jolani was meeting with in the US.

Now this is fascinating to me. Rebuilding of Syria after 14 years war will require over 200 billion, which is to be compared to Gaza 65 billion after two years of genocide, escalated genocide by the Zionist entity. Now what is interesting about this, the biggest current World Bank and IMF debt is Argentina 41.8 billion. Syria is intended to be 200

billion. This is indicative of the importance of keeping Syria completely enslaved to foreign debt, basically weakening Syria not only militarily and from a sovereignty perspective, partitioning it, but also keeping it under the most heavy debt enslavement.

And just again on the subject of Moscow and and Trump vying for influence in Syria, this was an interview at Al Arabiya English with Robert Ford, of course, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria involved in the rebranding of Geelani into the now perceived political opposition and of course now unelected president of Syria. And of course, Ford was responsible for facilitating the death squads in the early days of the so-called peaceful uprising in Syria.

But here he is actually talking about the competition between Russia and the US and Syria. So let's play this. Shara was just in Moscow recently and talked about, for example, security arrangements, military equipment and such things, and also the possibility of Russian involvement in the reconstruction of Syria's oil and power sectors. So. It's not. Right to say that the. Relationship between Syria and Russia is entirely cast aside or marginalized.

But I think Shada understands that American and Western capabilities to help Syria a get past sanctions and B bring in private investment. Working with Gulf states is far greater than anything Russia can do for Syria economically. So the gauntlet is very clearly thrown down, but of course the Syrian people benefit from neither having dominance in Syria. Thank you. Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you for that.

We're just going to finish off today with a little bit of a roundup of the conscription situation around Europe and the world because of course, this has been a topic that's been discussed in the UK in recent months and years. Uh, so first of all, here we've got Germany because, uh, four weeks ago there was a bit of an uproar, uh, within the GE German administration because, uh, uh, the defence minister found himself up against his own parliamentary group.

This is because he was trying to reach a target of 5000 new recruits per year. But they had, you know, it was basically impossible to do that just through voluntary recruitment as it were. So they had come up with the idea that in order to meet the NATO goal of 260,000 active soldiers by 2035 + 200,000 reservists, that they would have to bring in some form of mandatory recruitment for German youth. And so the SPD opposed this

idea. And, and they were proposing instead to have some kind of questionnaire based volunteer system. So this argument was going on for the last four weeks. And then they came up with a proposal to run a lottery scheme. And in this case 18 year olds would be drafted through a lottery based selection process. But then the Ministry of Justice in Germany raised constitutional objections to the use of a

lottery. And so the current plan now sees mandatory registration for all adult men aged 18 and above starting in 2027. And then that will give them an overall picture of what they've got potentially there. And they'll they'll make a decision as to who's going to end up being conscripted after that. So, so they're still working on it, but it looks like they're coming to some conclusion on that one. But then we moved to Croatia and they have now reintroduced

mandatory military service. This is following the end of conscription in 2008, but they've now voted to restart it again. Then we go to Sweden here because they have announced what they're describing as in this article here in Defence Industry Europe as Record defence budget. And some of this money includes money for conscripted personnel. They get an extra bonus by dent of the fact that it's been

conscripted. And they're also piling a load a lot more money into the agency which is there to to conscript people in the 1st place. We mentioned actually some time ago that Finland is already actually running a conscription mechanism here and to this Metro article talking about inside the Finnish Army base where young concert scripts prepare for war. So that's already a thing in Finland, in Finland, sorry.

And in Poland, of course, they, they already encourage or force people to, to, to run some kind of military service in their youth. But these they're looking at those people then becoming part of a conscription mechanism there as well. Poland is the most important country of all of these because they're they're being used as the basically spearhead of NATO's operation against Russia. And they're really relying on that anti Russian sentiment in Poland. And so but they can't mobilize

because it's hot. It's not very popular in Poland to want to go die just for the sort of, you know, collective ego of NATO in the EU. Well, indeed, indeed. I don't think it's popular in any of these countries.

It's not. But but anyway, just just to see one country that's thinking a little bit outside the box here because they don't want to use the word conscription or whatever the reason for it is. Just just briefly to look at Canada. Their military is going to rely on an army of public services, according to this servant. Sorry, according to this article in Ottawa Citizen. So basically they want to boost their ranks by 300,000.

So they're going to anybody that's a civil servant will basically have a gun thrust into their hands and be sent on a training course. That's a huge percentage of the Canadian population, by the way, to have a standing force like that. And what's that for? Is that for Trump's invasion of Canada? We're not certain. We're not certain. I mean, who knows, but but I mean, we're, we're just, I mean, was it Grant? Shap said. We've moved from a, from a post war world to being a pre war

world. This is this is clearly ramping up in a bad direction. I mean we had in America we have selective service. When I was 18/19/88 I got a birthday card from the government with a candle on it and beautiful picture and you have to sign the back saying you register for the draft. Now they they haven't activated the draft but everyone has to they have a registration so they

can activate it at any time. That was a big red pill moment for me at 18 years old because that was the height of the anti Vietnam War protests and all these films like Platoon coming out with Oliver Stone. And you really had to think, am I going to go into a Vietnam situation? I was just getting out of high school and it the answer was clearly no. And I think everybody probably in my class and my school agreed with me. And probably that was pretty common across the country.

So, but it was is the system like having the registration system in place? That's the first step. Absolutely. So we will keep reporting on this as time goes on. Seth, want to say thank you very much to Vanessa and Liz and to Patrick for joining me today and for you for watching. We'll be back in a few minutes on the live stream. If you're UK column member for some UK column News extra, don't forget Jeremy, Carl tonight.

We've got an interview going out at 1:00 PM tomorrow and join us at 1:00 PM on Friday for another UK column news. See you then. Bye bye.