Good afternoon. It's Friday the 14th of November 2025, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News. I'm your host Mike Robinson, my Co host in studio today, Patrick Hennigson. Welcome to the program, Patrick.
It's great to be with you, Mike. And we're joined today by Mark Anderson. Now, later in the program, we're going to be covering tensions in the Baltic, the Arctic and Ukraine. More on Trump and the BBC and Trump and Epstein and what looks like preparations for for banning VPN use in the United Kingdom and also smart cities. But we're going to begin today, Patrick, with MP Rupert Lowe's comments on Gaza. Well, it's much more than that, in fact, but that's the jumping off point.
But here is the topic at hand and this is really focusing on I think, Britain's role in the war on Gaza. And so we'll get into this. And this was a comment which was posted on X by the British politician Rupert Lowe. We'll bring this up on screen here. This is what he had to say. And this is interesting where this story goes. He is saying Rupert Lowe, MPI want to know how many Gazans? He doesn't say Palestinians
here. He says Gazan. Gazan migrants are being treated on the NHS and at what cost? How many British people have been pushed aside? What number of Gazans dependents have come to, In other words, family members that have come with children to be treated as will show how many have already claimed asylum. Not a single Gazan migrant should be allowed on British soil. I mean, it's quite a statement,
isn't it, Mike? Not. Palestinian. Palestinian even it's, it's from a British politician, so a lot of aggression here. And where's the where's the empathy with the injured? Well, we'll, we'll get to that in a moment. So we, we did a little digging on this and this is the government's official position on this here and we'll bring this up on screen. This is from uk.gov, the government website. First group of Gazan children arrive for specialist NHS treatment.
Now this is from September, so it's very recent, by the way, many children have come already and have been treated privately and that's been organized through a charity that deals with this sort of thing. But we'll bring this up back up on screen and this is what they say. The healthcare situation in Gaza remains incredibly difficult with many unable to access even basic levels of care and increase difficulties of those who require specialist treatment
and support. And so this this brings us to, you know, the, the policy here, where did this come from? Where did this government directive come from? Bring the sick and injured home. And this basically is the result of a cross party effort here, cross party group of 96 MPs and senior ministers who wrote to the government urging it to bring sick and injured children from Gaza to the UK, quote, without delay for treatment, children at the risk of imminent
death. Any barriers to their evacuation should be lifted. OK, very specific. It's a cross party effort on this. So let's look at what the Labor ministers are saying on this issue here will bring on screen. This is Wes Streeting, the Labor Health and social care secretary, and this is what he has to say on the issue. No one can fail to be distressed by the devastating impact of war is as it's had on the children of Gaza and I cannot imagine the fear and anguish their families
have endured. It is soul destroying situation that compels us to act. And he continues saying this reflects the very best of our NHS values, compassion, care and expertise when it matters most. I mean most British people I think generally Mike would agree with that statement. That is it comports with British values one would think, traditionally anyway. So that's what Streeting says.
And here is Yvette Cooper. She is the foreign secretary, and she says we continue to call for the protection of medical infrastructure and healthcare workers in Gaza for a huge increase in medicines and supplies to be allowed in. So, I mean, I would agree with that. But is that what the British government are actually doing?
That's another question. But anyway, the government is grateful to all its partners who have assisted this operation, including the World Health Organization for the support with the evacuation process and the government of Jordan, the Royal Jordanian Hospital organizations as well for facilitating the safe transit and of UK emergency medical team and NHS clinical team for their dedication in providing life saving medical care for these young patients.
So, and obviously the World Health Organization's name pops up there. So I'm some of our viewers are saying, Oh my God, it's, it's The Who, It's, it's Bill Gates or whatever. The World Health Organization is the intermediary that deals with the visas, the logistics and the transport. And so before you pass judgment, I would say if this was your children that was trapped in Gaza and needed to get life saving care in the UK and the and the World Health Organization was providing the
intermediary assistance. Would you say no on the basis of you don't like Bill Gates? I'm just throwing that out to the chat box trying to preempt some of the lewd comments that are likely to arrive to land in our chat box as a result. But so I agree with all these, Mike, I agree with W Streeting and Yvette Cooper in principle. What they're saying is correct. But is that the British government's actual position?
These are good words and we can agree with them, but is what is the British government actually doing? The hospitals have been bombed, you know, a 40 something hospitals and healthcare facilities have been destroyed. Doctors have been murdered and tortured. OK, British volunteers are also included in that, and healthcare and people. Aid Aid workers killed by the IDF. British aid workers killed by the IDF. So what's the British role in all of this? Are are they somehow involved in
the actual? Providing of weapons, for example. Providing of weapons, intelligence assistance. Well, let's look at this here. And this is the problem, Mike. And this is from Declassified UK This week, British military made at least 49 trips to Israel during the Gaza war, which is ongoing. OK, let's look at who made those visits. A number of visits. This is what they've uncovered, 4 times higher than what was previously disclosed.
They only disclosed 12 visits by senior officials, including Admiral Sir Tony Radikin, General Sir James Hulkenhall and Air Chief Marshall Sir Richard Knighton. OK, those officials have gone back and forth to Israel along with others, and we can't leave out, of course, this man, Labor Defense Secretary John Healey, also traveled to Israel during the war, meeting his counterpart, yo of gallant months before he was indicted by the International Criminal Court
for alleged war crimes. OK, so John Healey, what? So what? What were the British rank and file Mike doing in Israel? But I guess what it's like this colonial inspection of the genocide. Let's see how they're doing the Israelis. Let's look at the Intel. Let's watch the footage of the buildings being destroyed and so forth. But it doesn't end there. We'll bring this up on screen as well. And this is Matt Kennard, who's been tracking this for quite a while.
UK participation in the Gaza genocide is not slowing down. This is from December 2024. He's continued to report on these flights from RAF Equatori, the space in Cyprus. OK. And he's showing British spy planes here returning to Cyprus and back and forth. In other words, they claim the British government, that they're providing intelligence about finding hostages in Gaza.
But if you consider the fact that Israel's killed many of its own hostages, that's really providing Intel about targeting Palestinians, including 200 plus journalists who've been targeted and killed. Is that the sort of data that Israel's processing from the Israeli surveillance or sorry, the British surveillance flights from the RAF that are taking off from RAF Equatori? I mean, these are fair questions. So this is what the British
government is doing. On one side is assisting Israel in destroying Gaza, and on the other side ministers are saying we need to, we need to Save the Children. Now we're all for saving the children, but wouldn't it be simpler, Mike, just to? Stop the war. Just to stop enabling and facilitating Israel's slaughter against the native Palestinian population in Gaza. I, I, I don't know. It's, it's to me, it's not a difficult one. But let's see what the, what now? What does the Prime Minister
have to say about all this? Well, let's bring this up on screen. The Prime Minister has to say this. Israel has a right to defend itself. That is the party line. And no matter what's going on in Gaza, Kier Starmer maintains that stern line. Israel has a right to defend itself, even it means the total desolation. Look, look at the background images here. Just sit. Everything's just been desolate. No one's seen annihilation like this in modern times. And that's Kier Starmer's position.
Israel has a right to defend itself. Israel has a right to defend itself. So you know that I'm just making the argument, Mike, that I support the rhetoric of the ministers on this issue, but I do not see it being backed up by actual policy. And in terms of dealing with the cause of the problem, that's where the disconnect is. Yes, indeed. Well, this is an ongoing issue. People are dying.
Rupert Lowe, by the way, was asking Prime Minister's Questions on on Wednesday. Should the death penalty be brought back for all the domestic and immigrant criminals that are causing, you know, severe problems in the UK? He did that more or less on the day that, or at least in parallel with the same kind of an effort in Israel to bring the death penalty back there. I just find that quite
interesting. Clearly from the language that he's using, calling them Gazans and not Palestinians, we sort of see what side of this argument he's on. Well, the press. He died. If the press or politicians use the word Gazans, OK, this is a way of delegitimizing and dehumanizing Palestinians. Definitely a way of delegitimizing their identity for the Palestinian nation, which has been recognized by almost every country in the world bar a few. I do. Even Britain has recognized
officially a Palestinian state. So where is Rupert Lowe coming from on this? It just seems a bit mendacious and a bit too pro, I think pro Zionist or pro Israeli in the absolute extreme. And it this is extremism we're talking about, make no mistake about it. OK, well, NATO in the meantime has announced that the United States Air Force B52 Strata Fortress bombers from Berksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana have arrived in Moron Air Force Base in Spain. That happened on the 8th of
November this year. This is to begin multilateral training under Bomber Task Force Europe. And the quote is that the deployment strengthens coordination, cohesion with Allied and partner air forces including Finland, Lithuania and Sweden. And they say that operating from Moron, the aircraft will fly training missions across Europe, supporting deterrence and defence operations along NATO's eastern flank.
And the High N missions in northern regions are starting to integrate under NATO's new Combined Air Operations centre in which is based in Norway, which was inaugurated in October 2025. The new command node enhances, they say, NATO's ability to oversee and coordinate air operations across the Nordic and Arctic regions, complementing existing places in Germany and in Spain.
So what's this all about? Well, the Arctic is certainly part of it and particularly following the much non reported inaugural voyage of a container ship along the Arctic Silk Road which arrived in Felixstowe in the UK on the 14th of October. So clearly you know that is an ongoing pressure point as far as NATO is concerned. But it's also about the Baltic
and Russian shipping. We had the annual Operation Boltops Boltops exercises a few months ago, and this week it was the turn of NATO's Playbook Merlin 2025, hosted by Sweden and led by NATO's Allied Maritime Command. Now Playback Play Playbook Merlin 25 brings together what they described as cutting edge tactics, technology and teamwork. This is really exciting language, isn't it? Teamwork, like maybe team up to blow up pipelines or something like that.
We may be coming on to that in a second. But anyway, the this was an anti submarine warfare exercise in the Baltic Sea and it included Germany, Sweden, United States, France, the Netherlands and at least one B52, which is as we've just mentioned, is now based in Spain, flew a mission into the Baltic region alongside Playbook Merlin.
At one point that B52 was over Estonia, having flown over southern Sweden and Finland, practicing simulated bombing runs with Swedish and Finnish fighter jets is reported to have flown within 50 miles of the Russian border. And you know it's. It's a pretty clear provocation. What, what are they hoping to achieve by that? I mean, besides the flex operationally, do they really think it's a viable actual operation? They're just, I mean. Poking the bears all their attention. That's all.
Yeah, it's just a provocation. Now Military Watch online magazine reported on the 10th of November that Britain's armed forces are in Estonia practicing military exercises to capture and board Russian ships, as well as to prepare amphibious landings and Russian coastal facilities should quote hostiles for sorry hostilities further escalate, they say.
The British Armed Forces have deployed Royal Marine Special Forces from the 42 and 47 Commando units as part of a Special Operations Maritime task group to simulate covert boarding operations against enemy ships, coastal raids and the seizure of oil rigs. Exercises are taking place in the eastern Baltic Sea, close to the Ukrainian Theatre, where Royal Marines have also been involved in open hostilities
with Russian forces. They say exercises saw the Marines rehearse rapid interdiction and coastal raiding in coordination with the British Army's 3rd Ranger Battalion, and under which they deployed to capture ships and oil installations and so on. So I mean, this is also absolutely nuts. Was about interdicting. It's what Starmer said. And we need to stop Russia's shadow fleet. We can't allow Russia to, you know, transport energy or do trade in the Baltic.
I mean, this is the prelude to absolute war. The wars have been started over this very behavior, over these very policies. They're really playing with fire here. And I wonder what is the end game other than World War three? I mean, because that's where this type of thing leads. And is this what the British government want? Is this what NATO wants? Is that what Brussels wants? Is that what Finland? Wants. It's how it looks.
It's absolutely how it looks. It's crazy that the frontline countries like Sweden and Finland knew NATO members that were basically coerced into NATO under a whole lot of hype and hysteria in in April and May of 2022. And these were previously neutral countries and now they're the West, of course, are using Sweden and Finland as a cudgel against Russia in the same way they've been using
Ukraine against Russia as well. So I, I, people in the, in the Nordic countries, I just, I can't believe how absolutely insane and stupid their governments and their society are to have gone along with this and not realizing the implications of it. The fact that they were safe before and now they are now at risk. I find that to be breathtaking. But let's come on to Nord Stream
then. Well, but the background of this, of course, is Nordstrom. They're talking about submarine drills in in the Baltic. I wonder if they'll interdict NATO submarines that are involved in sabotage of major European energy infrastructure projects. Who knows, but in the background is the Nordstrom. I'm sorry, we'll go back to the previous slide. We'll bring this up on screen right now. And so the Italian court, it's starting to get a little bit interesting. But this is part of the red
herring operation. The Italian court approves the extradition of Nordstrom suspect to Germany. They're talking about one of these crack Ukrainian super soldiers that allegedly used this sailboat. Don't laugh everybody. It's not us, it's the Wall Street Journal. They use this 50 foot sailboat to supposedly hit 3 pipelines that are, you know, in the bottom of the Baltic, impossible to locate. And with the amount of equipment and so forth, they did.
They did it all out of a 50 foot pleasure craft. OK, believe it or not, so that they're still using, but they're using this Ukrainian Nordstrom story, Mike, to basically divert attention away from the Western countries and NATO. And what more likely is that these pipelines were prepped during ball tops, 22 in June and July of 2022 and detonated in September 2022 with the other NATO drill that was going on at that time. So the Ukrainian red herring story is just a convenient distraction.
And so this is going on. It's also being used to create tension between Poland and Germany. And the United States is quietly pushing that, as are the British. So, and the reason they're doing that is they're trying to maneuver Poland and Germany strategically in order to do certain things vis A vis Ukraine and also manipulate the politics in Poland. It's very clear that's what's going on, including the claims
of reparations. Polar is asking for reparations now for World War 2, imagine from Germany after 80 years and the United States is egging them on. At the same time, they're also claiming to, you know, want to support Germany as well, but they're trying to the, the, the US want to move a lot of their assets from Germany into Poland. In terms of moving the Iron Curtain, the new Iron Curtain, further eastward, That's the bigger picture.
And the other thing that's going on between Germany and the Poland and Poland at the moment, which isn't getting very much coverage over here is that Poland is accusing Germany of dumping migrants that are in Germany across the border into Poland. And so this is another sort of tension inflection point. So it's it's the relationship between those two countries is quite shaky it seems.
Yeah. And the migrant issue of course, again being used as a little bit of a tool as it was between Poland and Belarus, which I I might report more on as I learn more about that story recently by doing on the ground
investigation. Right. OK, Well, well, if we think that what we've heard so far in this segment is insane, let's have a look at this because this is task, the Russian media outlet and they're reporting that the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, has issued a statement claiming that Ukraine has been planning the false flag
of all false flags. According to the statement quotes, the Federal Security Service has uncovered and thwarted in operation by the Ukrainian Defence Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate. And it's UK supervisors to hijack a Russian Big 31 supersonic fighter jet, which is equipped with a hypersonic missile and flight abroad. In order to hijack the aircraft of Ukrainian military, intelligence officers tried to recruit Russian pilots, offering
$3,000,000. The special services then plan to send the jet with the missile to an area where NATO's largest air base in the Southeastern Europe is located in the Romanian city of Constanta, where it could be shot down by air defences. And they're saying that the the measures taken have thwarted the plans of the Ukrainian and UK intelligence services to carry out a large scale provocation. So that that is quite a staggering claim by the by the
Russian FSB here. But let's see what Sergei Lavrov had to say about it if we bring him on screen, he said. London's Honshon for provoking situations is, of course, notorious. Take the recent recent case where Russia's Russian FSB exposed the plot to trick a Russian pilot flying a fighter jet armed with the Kaizal missile into flying into flying to a base in Constanta, Romania,
with a fake order. The obvious intent was for the plane to be shot down, creating the pretext to accuse Russia of attacking NATO. But I'll set that aside for now. The FSB has already laid out the details. I don't know how the British will wash away the stain, but they've always had a remarkable talent for this, like a duck that waddles away from a shower without a drop of water on its
back. He, he is, he is, he is good crack in some ways, Patrick. Now, of course, the way that the British are going to wash away the stains. So they claim that this is just merely Russian disinformation and that there's nothing to see here. What are your thoughts? Well. First of all, if this false flag was allowed to happen, just imagine, OK, just imagine it went through and the NATO then shot down this false flag Mig jet and what, how would the
Western press react? I mean, let's in reality, what would Russia gain from sending an old Megan with a Kinshaw missile to hit, to fire a single to fire in a NATO base when obviously that's going to open up a whole sort of Pandora's box in, in terms of Article 5 madness. And you know what the Western reaction is? I know the propaganda line so well. They'll say Putin is emboldened because we have not been tough enough against the Russians and he's so emboldened and now he's
really shoving it in our face. He's really taking the piss by sending an old Mig to to send a Kinshaw missile. You think we're joking? That's exactly the media line and that's exactly what our ministers would stand up in government and say. They'd say it's because we're not. We haven't been tough enough on these Russians and now they're emboldened. They're sending, you know, dilapidated air aircraft in to hit to hit our biggest NATO bases.
I mean, this is just insane. But yet I I believe this is these types of plots are being hatched, hatched and you know there's more of them. OK. Well, let's then move to the question of the Caribbean. And the question is, well, first of all, the question is, where is the USS Gerald R Ford? Because it may be there or maybe actually in the Atlantic somewhere.
It's not really clear. But the other question is why has Britain stopped sharing some intelligence with the United States on drug trafficking activities in the region? Now the New York Times here is saying it's because Britain doesn't want to be complicit in U.S. military strikes on the drug boats because Britain believes the attacks are
illegal. I'm just going to say, like Britain worried about that at any time in the past, they haven't worried too much about getting involved in illegal operations with the United States before, have they? And we're sure there's no British assets on the ground in Central America running around the jungles posing as a Nature Photographers and things like that. I'm sure that's not happening. I'm sure it's not happening at
all. But look, none of this is stopping Secretary of War Pete Exith, who's announced Southern Spear. And I wonder, will Gerald Ford be part of this? It's clear that it's clear, at least to me, that the US is wrapping things up here on a Wednesday. Then speaking in Indiana, Hexif had this to say. So let's have a look at this video clip. We are deterring China's influence around the world, not to mention the Panama Canal. Where we are. Freeing that canal from malign
Chinese influence. Ensuring that American ships can sail freely. So we're opening up on all fronts, it seems, but. What was the Panama do you say Panama. Panama Canal so. I didn't realize China took over the Panama Canal. Is this? No, this is Trump's allegation going back this. Is new news.
This is breaking. But but look, well, if you remember Patrick, back in April, Hexes announced deeper security cooperation with Panama because of this, including joint training, more frequent US, Panama military exercises and even AUS an increased US presence.
So my question is, is, is this is the Venezuela thing a front for actually, is Panama actually the target here at the end of the day or it are they just taking advantage of of, you know, all, you know, two birds, one stone sort of thing.
But certainly the the the military presence in the region is being wrapped up. That said, there could be some credence to Pete had sex allegations there because we have detected a high sharp increase of China Chinese take away restaurants in Panama City just in the last 24 months. So there might be some legs to this. But all jokes aside, Mike, you're absolutely correct. Geopolitically, those are the big choke points.
It's not just the Panama Canal, but the other competing canals through the the massive lake in Nicaragua. But also they have other projects China is involved in vis A vis southern Mexico that would bypass the Panama Canal by a combination of ports and high speed rail and and with industrial bases built around that. So in other words, the Chinese and the Mexicans are way ahead in terms of their own economic interests. And the Panama Canal is 120 year old relic.
Relic. Yeah. So I mean, America's not happy about it, but I'm sorry you guys are. I don't know. They've been messing around in the Middle East maybe for the last 40 years. Maybe if you had focused on your own hemisphere Washington, you wouldn't be having this conversation now. Well, let's let's move on then to Ukraine. And, well, it's not corrupt at
all. Well, this is well, this is nothing new, but it's what's what's new about this is the fact that this story is being put front and center in the global media. Normally it'd be about protecting the Zelensky regime here. Ukraine corruption scandal, $100 million plot which is rocking Zelensky. That's the correct spelling
there with two Y's. So this is through NABU, the national Anti Corruption Bureau. This was set up by Victoria Nuland and her gang in 2014. And why did the US set up an anti corruption Bureau in Ukraine? It wasn't to stop corruption. It was to stop any potential whistleblowers and to protect the corruption that the US was favoring. And if you think about what Joe Biden got up to throughout his tenure as vice president, then you you understand why Naboo was put into place.
So the fact that this is being the scandal is being highlighted and put out by Naboo, which is a pretrial investigation unit, tells me. And in fact, that it hits the Zelensky's inner circle, which we'll show you in a minute, that this is bad news for Zelensky, really bad news. It means the US have taken the protection off of Zelensky. Let's take a closer look at this scandal here. And so who is Tamir Minditch? This is Zelensky's business
partner basically here. And how is he involved in this? Yes, there are piles of cash and photos of these circulating online. And this is the in and out of this is reportedly has links to Israel. This is from the Ukrainian press, by the way. Mintage celebrated his birthday in Israel in September, returned to Ukraine in mid-october and then went to Israel again. According to Ukrainian sources. He's also a longtime friend of Zelensky, not just a friend, co-owner of Cavartol 95.
That's Zelensky's media production outfit that was bankrolled by Igor Kolomoisky, that created Servant of the People. That was the sort of covert influence operation to prepare the public for him running for president. So that so this is a big scandal. And so it looks like this is Zelensky's inner circle being pinched here. It's funny, Mike, how this tracks back to Israeli organized crime. It's just unbelievable, but it shouldn't really surprise anybody here.
So all this is happening at the same time Zelensky is begging for, well, arms. 27 Patriot missile systems from the US. But in the meantime, it's going to take years to fulfill those orders. So Zelensky says he wants to borrow the European allies systems. So Ukraine's going to empty Europe of its air defenses. It doesn't get any better than this, does it? And so this is what he said to the Guardian recently here. So from AUK perspective, you know, why would you be pouring
money into Ukraine? And Keir Starmer says we're standing shoulder to shoulder with Zelensky. We're going to keep, I think they just okayed another big Christmas aid package for Ukraine here. Let's look at the total spend, though, from the UK government and we'll go to the House of Commons library here. And we did the math or they did the math for us actually on this and very close the relationship. I mean if if we did a slideshow of how many photos we have of them hugging in different
locations. I counted at least 20 before the program. The public photos. Yes, indeed. 21.8 billion since February 2022. Mike, think of how many track and trace apps the British government could have made with that 21.8 billion. I mean, so where is all that money going? Think of all these corruption and graph scandals. The thing about this latest one, it involves the protection of Ukraine's energy infrastructure from Russian attacks. So they're talking about protecting Ukraine's nuclear
facilities. Why would Russia ever attack a Ukrainian nuclear facility? Of course it wouldn't. But the electronic warfare systems and some of these defense systems, all the stuff is going out the back door kickbacks for government contracts, All of this stuff is been going. This is just what's been caught, OK? This has been happening
continuously for years. So if you're, if you're UK government and other European countries, they're throwing money away because very, I, I, I would say very little of this is being used and actually on the ground for what's intended for in terms of, in terms of aid here. So, and, and the context of this is here and we'll look at this
UK pledges. Remember this story 100 year pact, this was from last year or beginning of the year, January 2025. So this was this grand 100 year commitment for Ukraine. This was the government's pledge. So what I'm saying, Mike, here is that this is not a good investment, Ukraine. I mean, think of how how much austerity is going on right now in the UK And since 2022, they've thrown away over $20 billion for what? Are they winning the war? Are they doing better or is this a losing gambit?
Is this or are we, are we in the sunk cost fallacy type zone here? It's incredible. People need to ask these questions. The numbers certainly aren't looking good. So in the meanwhile in Europe, and this is the other thing, this is not a popular war in Ukraine. And, and this story is just so emblematic. Moscow is mocking Zelensky after Berlin asks Kiev to keep its fighting aged males. So basically Ukraine is having
problems with conscription. They're having problems getting able bodied males to populate the frontline positions. And Germany's saying that's enough with your, you know, migrants and so forth. You can keep your fighting aged males. We don't want them anymore.
I would think Germany might want them for for conscription themselves because they'll have problems conscripting or getting people to at least volunteer to join the German armed forces to meet the levels that we talked about on Wednesday.
But just to show you how, again, to underline how unpopular and how incredibly crazy the government in Kiev is in trying to abduct people off the street to serve in Ukrainian armed forces, there are literally thousands of these videos circulating online the last couple of years. This one is particularly harrowing of watch this. This is in Ukraine. This is Zelensky's press gangs trying to pick up people for the front lines. Watch this. None. I. And another one for the meat
grinder. I mean, remember Defense Secretary John Healy, Britains effort to support Ukraine, much must match the defiance of the Ukrainians, the defiance of the Ukrainians. You just saw the defiance of the Ukrainians. So they're abducting what was the son, maybe the husband of that poor woman screaming because the Ukrainians know it's a death sentence. It's a very unpopular war. And yet our European governments are saying, oh, this is a great noble effort.
It's not. And the president of Ukraine doesn't want to have elections. He is a dictator. Let that one sink in, yes? OK, let's move on then. And well, as we can see from NBC News here, their headline is Jeffrey Epstein wrote Trump knew about the girls and referenced Mar a Lago in newly released emails. Mark, let me welcome you to the program and just bring us up to date with with what has happened yesterday in particular. Yeah, I like to say this just in and that applies this time.
Good day, gentlemen, and UK viewers and members. Over the last 48 hours, the US House Committee on Oversight has been the main source of a tranche of correspondence raising questions about Trump and Epstein's relationship. This is according to the Democratic side, on the left part of the slide, the Democratic members of that House Oversight Committee and they're talking about Trump's apparent or alleged knowledge means crimes and relationship to the
victims. The other slide to the right, The other item to the right of this slide is a more general House Oversight Committee release. Oversight Committee releases additional Epstein estate documents. This has to do with lawyers and the estate of the late Jeffrey Epstein. And so there's been a release in total of about 20,000 pages, they're saying. And the Democrats have released what they think are the more salacious items, select emails.
And the Republicans have countered that the Democrats are cherry picking this. And Trump is maintaining that this is a conspiracy and a hoax, as he pretty much has always maintained. Some point to a couple of months ago when Ghislaine Maxwell, who's now in prison, spoke to there was a recorded testimony to A to the Department of Justice. And she said that, you know, Trump really didn't have any direct involvement.
And some people point to that. However, this latest release could, could change the landscape considerably, though we'll know a lot more in the days, weeks and even months ahead. Maybe we can talk about it more in, in, in extra. The BBC has noted that within hours, House Republicans released a massive tranche of documents to counter the Democratic effort to to cherry
pick this. In other words, the the large amount of documents seems to be just sort of a deliberate avalanche of information to sort of water down what the Democrats are allegedly cherry picking to what they're asserting that Trump was more involved with girls at Epstein's, you know, a fantasy island, that sort of thing. So the history of this is also quite interesting.
I'm looking back to American Free Press to refresh my memory on this in an article that I proofread sometime back back in August. And a lot of this goes to the efforts of Representative Thomas Massie, arguably the biggest renegade in Congress and in the Republican Party, who's willing to speak out against the party line on a number of issues, especially a salacious and sensitive 1 like this.
And Massey and a Democrat, Representative ROH Khanna of California. Massey, of course, is a Kentucky Republican. They held a press conference back in August, I believe it was, with many of the young victims of Epstein's sexual trafficking. And those victims spoke out. And Marjorie Taylor Green, the Georgia Republican, who's also a bit of a rebel, was alongside
Massey at that time. And they stood with the victims, and the victim spoke out and gave what looked to be convincing testimony about their harrowing experiences with the Epstein sex trafficking racket. And so it's an interesting thing. Massey blasted at the Times House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has tried to resist this avalanche of information. And what Massey said at the time about House Speaker Johnson was as follows.
What the speaker is asking you to believe when this is all over is that Epstein and Maxwell have 1000 victims themselves and nobody else was involved. And the day DOJ has no idea who else might have been involved in that sex trafficking ring, that's obviously false. And then there was also talk at that press conference about alleged victims that mysteriously died that maybe knew considerable, considerable information about what was really going on in Epstein's
venue. So that's that's the essentials of it. So hats off to Massey for having the guts on the Republican side and Marjorie Taylor Green to stand their ground and get more objectivity and a deeper look at this. But that's the latest. Maybe you guys would want to comment. And of course, we can extrapolate an extra if you'd like. Yeah, just a quick comment. Look, Massey was also attacked by Trump and the Israeli lobby.
And one of the reasons he's been attacked and threatened to be primaried in the next election is because of this issue. I think what this proves is that Trump lied about his relationship with Jeff Epstein, he says. I hardly knew the guy. Clearly he more than knew him. They were very close friends, spent a lot. A lot of time together. So this really cuts at the credibility of Trump and the president.
And I think it shows that the president is compromised because at the same time this release comes, we find out confirmation that Jeff Epstein was an Israeli intelligence operative, clearly. So that means Donald Trump, if you consider all of his Israel policies, how slavishly gushingly pro Israel he is. And now we, we put this into the frame, it's clear that this this is a president who is deeply compromised. And that's really disturbing. It should be a disturbing from
an American point of view. And not only that, Trump is covering up the Epstein scandal with his DOJ and his FBI. They're completely covering it up. So he's lying to the public and he's running a cover up to me. And This is why MAGA is falling apart. And ultimately this will be the issue that basically brands MAGA as a complete fraud. And now we're we're we're beginning to see what an absolute fraud this whole
movement was. It is basically a branding exercise, a bunch of red hats made in China. And this level of corruption should be unacceptable to all Americans. But yet there is still a hardcore that are hanging on to defend this president. I think it's unbelievable. Well, undoubtedly we'll talk more about that in extra. Thank you very much both of you for that. Now, if you like what the UK column does, you would like to support us, head over to the
website, the front page. There you'll find a link to take you to page which shows how you can support us. We absolutely do need your financial support if you can possibly do that. So please join us as a member or make a donation. If you can't do that, then share any of the material you see on the UK column website because that helps us beat the censorship regime that we're going to be talking about in a minute.
Weekly banter with Charles, myself and Jerem will be at 7:00 PM tonight and and we will have a a sorry, that is the wrong graphic because that's from Wednesday's programme. But we will have a Silk of Steel podcast going out tonight at 9:00. So so join Carl for that. And well, also tonight is Andrew bridging in the Seven Stars and taught Ness. It is. It is. This is going to be a great event. This is sold out, by the way, I just found out. The organizers just told us it's
sold out. There might be a few tickets, I say a handful of tickets for cash at the door. It's totally sold out. It's going to be a full house. Andrew Bridgen, of course, is a fantastic public speaker. So a lot of people are looking forward to this. Certainly I am as well and some of our supporters will be attending this tonight in Totnes.
OK. And a reminder of a couple of digital ID events, the Cumbria Against Government portrayal event happening at Carlisle Market Square and that's tomorrow at 1:00 PM. Diane is going to be speaking at that and the once again the guys in Glasgow will be out at the bottom of Jamaica St. by the River Clyde near the Crystal Palace pub to go and help them. If you'd like to support them in getting the word out on digital ID, brilliant T-shirt there. It's an interesting T-shirt. Absolutely.
OK, let's let's move on to this online safety related news because Ofcom, at least tech Radar here is is talking about this being an exclusive. Ofcom has told Tech Radar that it's using an unnamed third party tool to monitor VPN use that's virtual private network use in the UK.
Ofcom is refusing to name the platform that they're using, though, but it seems to have some kind of artificial intelligence capabilities and Tech Radar, saying that despite assurances that personal information isn't being accessed, privacy concerns remain now. Do you think that third party starts with AP by the way?
It may well do I I couldn't possibly comment, but anyway, Tech Radar contacted Ofcom and asked them to clarify how it's accessing information about VPN use in the UK and Ofcom said we're using a leading third party provider which is widely used in the industry to get gather information on VPN usage. The provider combines multiple data sources to train its models
and generate usage estimates. The data we access and use in our analysis is fully aggregated at the app level and no personally identifiable or user level information is included. And Tech Radar. Tech Radar is saying that although Ofcom has been transparent about the existence of the of VPN monitoring, this is the first time it's provided any information outlining the methods it's using.
They also say that VPN's pose a problem to the UK government and Ofcom specifically with regard to the controversial Online Safety Act. Well, I'm going going to add to that and say that it's not only that. The bigger problem for the regime is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act or the Investigatory Powers Act, which requires Internet service providers to collect metadata on their customers Internet activity and provide it to the government if there's if there's a court order made.
Now this is not possible with widespread use of VPNs. So the British government does not want to see the any kind of driver for VPN use in this country. So Baroness Lloyd was telling the House of Lords a day or two ago that nothing's off the table when it comes to protecting children online. She also said that there are no current plans to ban the use of VPNSII think the the word current there is extremely telling and that's probably the
keyword. But what what we do know is that Ofcom is building the case at the moment. This is, these are the types of tools that authoritarian regimes in the Gulf, for instance, use to stop people from, you know, using VPNs or etcetera. So what, you know what, what is the real motivation by the state behind this? And you can see it's really about control, total and censorship. Absolutely, absolutely. Mark back to you then and what have you got on Smart Cities?
Well, as you may recall, gentlemen, I reported in advance on Smart Cities in one of two reports I did in the UK column studio during my recent visit for the on Location event in York. And I found a particular thread of information that was interesting. It's a, it's a barrage of stuff going on projects and, and pipe dreams and, and you know, very highfalutin kind of stuff, some of it realistic and may be helpful and may be constructive in some ways, but a lot of it very ambiguous.
So I, I found things that are a little bit more tangible and provide some interesting terminology and interesting projects that we can think about here on this first slide. It gets into the basics of IT. Making urban government open, participatory and accountable. Well, that's questionable.
Advancing smart city developments while pushing the boundaries of technology and handling the double edged sword of data collection, which has to do with security, online security, things like that requires a careful and deliberate equilibrium involving good governance and cooperation as well as new partnerships, business models.
What are the tools local governments can use to enable products and services with a comprehensive approach to emphasis again, data governance and privacy concerns. Data governance is significant here. Let's move on and I'll explain key smart city Expo planks. The the whole event is Art City Expo that that kind of, that's the full name of it, Digital government and Blue economy along with the World Ocean Council, which is connected to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Those were the main things that jumped out. Other things, AI regulation and algorithmic transparency and data ethics, not quite as as prominent, but also quite prominent. Now, getting into a little bit more about what digital government actually means, we'll move on from there. Digital government, A main or major company that comes up when you look into digital government is Granicus, based in Denver, Co. I think they were formed in 1999.
Well, this Reuters item mentions A miscellaneous thing. Granicus owners exploring a $4 billion sale of the software maker, sources say. So this is going on in the background. The private equity owners of Granicus are preparing to explore a sale of the government services software maker that could make it that could value it at about four billion including its debt. But to get more specific, we'll go on from there on the next
slide. And privatizing government seems to be a la Bilderberg, the main goal here. Founded in 1999, as I mentioned, Granicus provides cloud based software and other technology tools to federal, state and local governments across the world, not just in the US to increase efficiency and transparency.
They say the company designs and maintains government websites, manages public records so that they're privatizing the management of public records, and helps upgrade technology, they say to make it easier for citizens to contact public officials. The Granica CEO is Mark Hynes. Hynes. Now I talked to a one of the top experts in Michigan, indeed in the Midwest about a data governance. I'll mention this briefly before
we go on with the slides. And he manages or overseas a, the digital systems, the phone systems, the computer systems, you name it, for a major hospital, Bronson Hospital in Kalamazoo, MI. And he believes that what Granicus is getting AT, and that's getting people involved in their government, but almost more or almost strictly on an online basis. In other words, there's less stress on attending government meetings.
There's less stress on getting together under one roof and more stress about public involvement being strictly through the Internet, strictly through filling out forms online, filing complaints online to where most of your contact with your
government is simply online. And the the guy that I talked to, the the systems expert said he believes that would actually reduce citizen participation and make government more distant and in many ways unaccessible for the people, although it would be more efficient for certain things like filling out basic forms and some of that basic correspondence. Maybe that would be an improvement in and of itself
just in that area. And so going on from there, as we consider the questionable aspects of what Granicus is doing, there was also the talk at the Smart City Expo about the blue economy. And this is not a very widely known concept. It's certainly not household words by any stretch. As political, economic and climate challenges reshape our world, the need to accelerate a sustainable and resilient blue economy has never been more
urgent, they're saying. The blue economy is built on the vast yet vulnerable oceans and it must undergo A profound transformation, they say, to remain viable and deliver long term. Value of the blue economy unites entrepreneurs, corporate entities, investors and experts
leading this transformation. Lots of contracts, lots of money exchanging hands for the private sector being moored or connected with government, lots of public private partnerships here, not not unlike what's going on with big pharma and government in
that in that sense. So moving on from there, the blue economy also we can put this up just briefly, is led by a strategic coalition of partners hosted by the city of Barcelona. So cities are involved in the, the, the global cities movement is becoming much more pronounced in terms of smart cities. You don't hear about global cities by name much anymore, not as much. So they're really funneling it into the smart cities concept.
So the Port of Barcelona is involved as a global partner, and we have the World Ocean Council and Ocean Innovation as strategic partners in the blue economy. So some other interesting and not altogether common concepts
there. Moving on, I found that the World Ocean Council is AUN partner in the Sustainable Development Goals and the WOCWOC as it's known as a non governmental non for profit organization, AUN sustainable goals partner established as an international multi industry business leadership alliance on ocean sustainability, science and stewardship, those sorts of things.
And then when it comes to ocean innovation, we have a slide on that and we can skip the world, World Ocean Council stated mission that's fairly self-evident. Moving on to ocean innovation, that's connected as it turns out, we'll show this to the European Commission. One thing's connected to the UN. Now this is oriented around the European Commission and this just shows some ocean innovation events, innovation in terms of investments in ocean assets,
that sort of thing. But one of those says, let's go back to that slide very briefly. There's one item I wanted to point out. The one to the upper right is AEU wide implementation, developing national restoration plans under the EU's nature restoration regulation of marine ecosystems. And they say unrealistically I would think, they say they want to restore habitats and restore ecosystems to their original status.
And they literally mean original ecosystems, original habitats, possibly as they might have been thousands of years ago, which really sounds like playing God, which really sounds like a presumptuous thing to say. How would they know precisely what the original habitat was? And they talked about renaturing, the concept of renaturing, restoring things in a very profound way in that sense. And so there was some breakout sessions we can mention.
I I won't go into these. The rise of private smart cities, promise practice and public impact, how to create a greener urban economy, the five up approach, urban planning for systemic climate action, democratic innovation in European cities. That's just to give this report a little more breadth as to what all was covered.
And I believe I have one more slide that shows a Norman Rockwell, a piece of the artwork of the well known American artist Norman Rockfell out of his four freedoms and the town hall meeting. The the concept where people get together under one roof to influence their government to have their say, where they where the citizens can hear what each
other has to say. The the democratic ideal, especially in in New England and and across the US, the town hall meeting was a long tradition that seems to be getting buried under this Granicus concept that your only, your only relationship with your government will be a digital one digital government. So that that democratic ideal might be lost despite all the rhetoric of these globalist about wanting democracy and greater democracy. So a lot going on there. And that was just a small slice
of it, guys. There was much more that that could be said, but those were the most relevant topics. Thank you Mark. So let's move on then to media and well, you'll be glad to know that the BBC has apologised to U.S. President Donald Trump for their Panorama episode that spliced parts of their of his speech from the 6th of January 2021 together. But the BBC says that they have rejected his demands for
compensation. So he was basically saying that he was going to sue them for a billion unless they provided A retraction, apologised and gave him compensation. He didn't specify how much compensation. Oh, so this would be an out of court settlement? An out of court settlement? Yeah. Interesting. So the BBC said that the edit had given the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action. And they said that they would not show the 2024 programme
again. That's, that's, that's very interesting. What about the 2021 Newsnight programme? Because people were talking about that yesterday that we're going to come on to in a second where? And the people that we're talking about was suggesting that the 2021 edit was even worse. But anyway, as I say, lawyers for Trump had threatened to sue the BBC for a billion dollars.
And well, Lisa Nandy, of course, was sent to Parliament or sent to the the media this morning to sort of justify everything that's going on. And she said that she's confident that the BBC is gripping this with the seriousness that it demands. Do you think that's likely? Well, jeez, I don't know the meddling in the US political system the BBC was caught doing so. Yeah, I mean, I can recommend the BBC to call Alex Jones's
lawyers. Well, if they need some some help, some Spartan legal assistance. Yeah, well look, it's the Telegraph which has been leading the charge against the BBC. As we were discussing on Monday and on Wednesday, The Telegraph seems to be financially stable at the moment with 842,000 digital subscribers. In December 2024, digital subscriptions were up 11% in a year. That's perhaps disappointing news. But anyway, that's that's the situation. But they've been trying to sell
themselves. I don't mean sell themselves as APR exercise have been literally sell the business now for something like 2 years. Flog it. Yes, flog it. Yeah, because the Telegraph has been in limbo for the last couple of years after the company was taken to Lloyds, taken by Lloyds Bank because of unpaid debts to the Barclays family.
So in November 2023, the Abu Dhabi state backed investment group Redbird IMI took control of Telegraph Media Group after agreeing a deal to pay off 1.2 billion pounds in Barclay family debts. The UK government then issued pre emptive orders restricting any transfer of ownership or changes to the Telegraph's board, or no changes to to key staff or to management responsibilities and so on.
So the red bird IM ideal was stopped in March of 2024 when the government announced plans to prevent any foreign government backed entities owning more than 15% of UK newspapers and magazines. So in May this year, Redbird announced a new bid with with within which the the Abu Dhabi money was limited to 15% because that was what they were basically told by the government that they should do. And that's where the situation lies. It's been stalled for a long time now.
Redbirds Jerry Cardinal, who is the the head of Redbird, made a public plea just a few days ago asking the Starboard, begging the Starmer regime in fact, to just get out of the way because this deal needs to be done. But unfortunately, as the Guardian is reporting here, the independent directors of The Telegraph who are there while this process continues, while the sale process continues, they've reported to the government alleged comments made by Cardinal.
To Telegraph editor Chris Evans that are in breach of the of the rules protecting editorial independence. So what we're seeing here, aside from any other motivations as discussed in Wendy's witnesses programmes, are two of the biggest media organisations in the UK fighting with themselves effectively over who's going to control them. So that the BB CS in a fight over the Royal Charter and the licence fee, The Telegraph's in a fight over ownership and
editorial independence. And so the question is, you know, where, where does this end? Well, I find it incredible. It's not just that, Mike, the Telegraph is is attacking the BBC and provoking them over the license, the upcoming review of the license fee. So it's and it's a bit rich considering, you know, there's supposed to be a Tory aligned, you know, Brit Britain first media outlet, but they're basically bankrolled with Arab money, you know, so I think that's funny.
Like why are these, why are these outlets skin in the 1st place is because they've lost huge shares of audience and huge shares of advertising because what they've been putting out is absolute tripe for years. That's why people flee the mainstream media and now they're, they have to go and beg to the Arabs or beg to whatever other, you know, despotic regimes internationally or to the Americans who've also sought to buy in and take over through proxies, by the way.
And we're talking about private equity firms, hedge funds and so forth. That's what that's what you're going to see more of when the government comes in with restrictions on this in terms of foreign money, The, the foreign funds will be able to erect proxies within the UK as shells or individuals that will do the bidding of the foreign powers. So that's what we that's a new trend that's certain to happen
now. Well, we're going to be talking a lot more about this an extra because I know Mark has has thoughts on on it as well. But unfortunately we're absolutely out of time for today. We're going to leave it there. If you are UK column member, stay on the live stream for UK column News extra. We'd be back in a few minutes. Otherwise, don't forget Jerem tonight at 7, Karza at 9:00 and we will be back at 1:00 PM as usual for another news programme on Monday. We'll see you then. Bye bye.