UK Column News - 20th August 2025

Good afternoon. It's just gone 1:00 on Wednesday the 20th of August 2025. Welcome to UK column News. I'm your host, Charles Mallett and I'm joined in the studio today by Mike Robinson. Welcome to the programme, Mike. Thank you, Charles. Good and by live link by Vanessa Bailey from Lebanon and Sandy Adams from Somerset.

Now in today's programme we'll be covering a great range of topics from JD Vance's visit to the UK, including a look into his past and how that relates to his relationship with Peter Thiel and Palantir. A further look at online safety and in particular how it's being used as a pretext for pushing to get rid of VPNs, as of course was predicted by UK column.

A further look into the fallout from the Alaska meeting between Trump and Putin and how that bears relation to what's happening in Syria. News from Australia concerning the suggestion of financial motivation for abortion and cybersecurity in the wake of the Bayesian disaster of a year ago. Also an on the ground update from the precarious situation in Lebanon and the ever increasing reach of the bio security state.

Now, before all of that, we will go to Mike for his take and indeed a report on the Coalition of the willing. Well, I think, well, we can't really call it that because it wasn't the whole coalition of the willing. They're now claiming that the coalition of the willing is 30 heads of state. And but nonetheless, several of them headed off to the United States. On Wednesday, Starmer, the EU leaders and Zelensky landed in Washington on Wednesday to try and keep the Ukraine war going.

Now, determined not to be left out, they worked on Trump to try to get boots on the ground, otherwise known as security guarantees. Trump has apparently not ruled out the possibility of US boots on the ground, but the main aim is to deploy EU troops and I include the UK and that as one of the leaders of European Defence Union. Now, Trump said there'll be a lot of help when it comes to security. It's going to be good. They meaning Europe are first in line, first line of defence

because they're there. But we're going to help them out also will be involved when it comes, he said. And as I mentioned, he also refused 3 times to rule out sending U.S. troops to Ukraine, despite previously saying that they would, that he would not put American boots on the ground. We'll let you know that maybe

later today, he said. Now, Starmer said, when we talk about security, we're talking about security not just in Ukraine. We're talking about the security of Europe and the United Kingdom as well, which is why this is

such an important issue. But your indication of security guarantees speaking to Trump of some sort of Article 5 style guarantees, I think we could take a really this could take a really important step forward today, a historic step actually could come out of this meeting in terms of security for Ukraine and security in Europe. I will come back to that in a moment. But asked about sorry, asked what security guarantees he needed to agree to peace, Zelensky. Zelensky said everything.

It includes 2 parts. 1st, a strong Ukrainian army. It's a lot about weapons and people and training missions and intelligence. And 2nd, it depends on big countries, on the United States, on a lot of our friends. Trump suggested a permanent peace could be negotiated without a ceasefire. Mertz said no to that. I can't imagine. He said the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire. Let's try to put pressure on Russia because the credibility of these efforts depends on a

ceasefire. And he went on to say the question of who will participate in the security guarantees and to what extent. Some. It is something we must of course discuss between our European partners and with the US administration. It's absolutely clear that the whole of Europe should participate. After all, it's not just about the territory of Ukraine, it is about Europe's political order.

And that is an absolutely incredible statement, Charles, because as you know, he is arguing for a real EU level military deployment as being key to the development of the EU itself. And that's exactly what we've been warning about for a decade or more. So anyway, later yesterday evening, NATO or sorry, on Wednesday evening, NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta spoke to Fox News and this is what he had. This he, this is reported by Reuters here. But let's have a look at what he had to say.

He said the situation is this, that the US and some other countries have said that they are against NATO membership for Ukraine. The official NATO position is that there is an irreversible path for Ukraine and NATO. But what we're discussing here is not NATO membership. What we're discussing here is Article 5 type of security guarantees for Ukraine and what exactly they will entail will now be more specifically discussed.

So clearly they are expecting that while Russia considers NATO membership for Ukraine to be a bad, to be a red line, sorry, that they'll somehow, that Russia will somehow capitulate to an alternative which is tantamount to debt to NATO membership. So we'll see how that goes. And, well, because I can't possibly let this report conclude without some degree of sadomastochistic torture, here's a little of what Keir Starmer said following the meeting.

So back at the British Embassy now after a long day, but a good day and a productive day because both of the outcomes that we, the United Kingdom, most wanted, we've moved forward in a material way. And there was a real sense of unity between the European leaders that were here today and President Trump and President Zelensky. And two big outcomes, A breakthrough when it comes to security guarantees with now the coalitional willing countries.

That's the 30 or so countries that we've been coordinating for some months on security guarantees. Now working with the US at pace to work up those security guarantees, these guarantees will ensure that if there is a peace, if there is a deal, then we hold to it and there isn't further conflict. So really important for Ukraine, really important for Europe and really important for the United Kingdom as well. That's why it was an outcome we

really wanted to achieve today. The second is that there will now be a bilateral meeting between President Putin and President Zelensky after a phone call by President Trump during the course of this afternoon to President Putin, followed by a trilateral meeting with President Trump as well. Now, that's really important because it's a real recognition of the principle that no decisions about Ukraine can be taken without Ukraine. Ukraine must be at the table.

So whether it's territorial issues, whether it's prisoners, whether it's the missing children, a really important step forward there. Now, these were both the outcomes that we planned for and wanted from today, because with that sense of unity, we're able to make real progress. So hopefully that wasn't too painless but painful. Sorry to apologise now. All of this was followed up with a virtual meeting yesterday of the so-called coalition, the Willing that Starmer mentioned there.

And according to the readout, the coalition of the willing is, is planning that teams will meet with their US counterparts in the next few days to quote, further strengthen plans to deliver robust security guarantees and prepare for the deployment of a reassurance force if the if the hostilities

are ended. So apparently there will be, as Starmer mentioned there, there's got to be this bilateral Zelensky Putin meeting followed by a trilateral adding Trump back into the mix with the aim of an Article 5 style guarantee for Ukraine with EU defence union boots on the ground, so-called reassurance force. This is all setting up a scenario for some kind of incident, I would argue blamed on Russia which enables permanent conflict. Perhaps Russia would be mad to accept this in my opinion.

Although it has to be stressed that nothing has been said yet about Russia, about what Russia is being offered. It's going to have to be something big, probably an offer they can't refuse, so to speak. So, you know, I don't know, Charles, what you make of it, But you know, you notice when Starmer was speaking there, the coalition that we are coordinating, this is a British effort. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think there are certainly points to draw out of this and I dare say we won't

have time now. So we'll go on into into extra with this. But I think that one of the first things, just finishing on what you were saying there in terms of reassurance, I think it would really only be the defence industry that takes reassurance for anything that's being

proposed so far. And the, the, it's interesting to see how the narrative has moved on over the last few months because of course, when we were discussing this several months ago, this coincided with the the supposed deal for rare earth minerals that Donald Trump had apparently struck with Ukraine. And that was when there was suggestion of a peacekeeping force.

And that's of course, being pushed quietly to one side because certainly if one is to follow what the United Nations sets out, a peacekeeping force specifically requires the consent of all parties to a conflict. And of course, Russia had been very clear to state that they were not going to, to guarantee that they would go along with any such thing. So I think that's an important

point. I think the other thing really is just the, the, you know, you've brought a lot of the, the sort of narrative points out of this and I've printed out a little bit of it. But, but it's, you know, the language used is just completely suggestive of, of, of war. I mean, you're talking about peace and then talking about a force that can deploy in the days following the cessation of

hostilities. Of course we've got 4.5 billion pinesworth of military support going to Ukraine this year talking about drone, the, the drone industry and, and all the rest of it. And the other thing I think is Radican chief of defence staff, who should be regarded absolutely as a politician and a propagandist in all of this. And to, to consider that he has any other part to play, I think

is, is wilfully naive. But he, he spoke last week in Washington to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and he said his his sort of opening gambit was to say that we're in a new, more dangerous era, but Britain remains safe, NATO is stronger, Russia is weak. And that that was the line of what he had to say. He, he went on to talk about the sort of advent of the conflict.

And again, I think the point to be made there is we're right back to the beginning in terms of suggesting that we must be next rather than listening to anything that Putin or, or the Russian administration has actually said about their objectives. This insistence that Kiev should have fallen because that's what they were setting out to do. And in actual fact, there's no substantive evidence of that point being pursued at all. So I mean, a huge amount to come

out of this. But, but as I say, it's all pointing towards re the reconstruction and, and the, the seizing of, I mean ironically, the seizing of all things Ukrainian by this supposed coalition of the willing to the benefit of the, of the defence industry, I would say. Vanessa, before we move on to your segment here, do you have

any thoughts on on that meeting? No, except as I'll try to demonstrate in my segment that I don't think you can divorce whatever conversations were ongoing even before Trump's inauguration about the Ukraine deal and how Syria in particular was involved in those conversations and potential concessions made by Russia to allow the toppling of the Syrian government after 14 years of resistance against a regime

change war. And so I think while we're sort of being tunnelled, visioned towards only looking at Ukraine in this instance, in my opinion, it also incorporates other deals that are going on globally between Russia and the US.

OK, well, why don't we move on to the potential other deals and I mean, what are your thoughts on this whole exercise right from the from the Alaskan meeting? Yeah. Well, I mean, what we've actually seen, of course, and we have to remember timing is always incredibly important. And the timing has been just as Israel is ramping up its final solution against the Gaza's Gazans in, sorry, the Palestinians in Gaza and in the occupied territories and also increasing pressure on Lebanon

for the resistance to disarm. So all of this is going on at the same time as the Alaska summit and not if we look at what's going on in Syria. And this is very much why I think it's intrinsically connected to discussions over Ukraine and concessions potentially being made by the US and Russia. And you will remember that earlier this year on UK column, we mentioned quite a few times that Tel Aviv or Israel has been lobbying for keeping the Russian

military bases in Syria effectively to contain Turkey, prevent Erdogan's near Ottoman expansionism, but also effectively to keep Iran or Iranian influence out of Syria. And then leading up to the Alaska summit, it's very interesting because we then had discussions between the Syrian Al Qaeda regime, of course, put in place by the the Washington Alliance meeting with Russia and then suddenly Russia having access again to the South in Syria.

In other words, restoring the patrols that it used to do under the Assad government to one, prevent Iran or, or any organisations affiliated with Iran reaching the border of the occupied Golan territory. But also I think in this instance, what's what is effectively happening is Russia is collaborating with Israel to police the South and to allow Israel to expand towards the David Corridor going up the eastern border with Jordan and Iraq in Syria.

At the same time, Russia is expanding since March isn't in northeast Syria, which of course is currently held by the Kurdish factions under the control of the United States, but also supported by Israel, because the David corridor will effectively link with the Kurdish held territory in the northeast. Israeli think tanks have also been reporting on this quite

happily without any criticism. So this is from Alma Research and Education Centre renewed Russian entrenchment northeastern Syria in Karmishli. And so, as I said, since March, Russia has been building not only its military reinforcements in Komishly, and this is a map showing exactly where Komishly is and how it's dead centre in the middle of the area which is effectively controlled by the Kurds.

Now, this comes at a time that the US is reducing its military footprint in the North East, which effectively has the potential to leave the Kurds relatively defenseless.

So that could be that Washington sees Russia as a tool for tactical stability and to replace their role supporting the Kurds again against Turkey. And also, there has been talk of Russia supplying weapons to Jolani because Trump has effectively washed his hands of them and has said that he's not going to be supplying weapons in the future and that they should go to Turkey and Russia. So in my opinion, what we're seeing is a kind of rebalancing of Russia's role in Syria and if

you like a strategic move from Russia, which I'll talk about now, to secure the oil and gas hydrocarbon resources that it had control of under the Assad government. So of course, what we've seen recently is the so-called peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the effective occupation of the Zhangazur corridor on the border with northwestern Iran by US corporate interests, which means, of course, they're military contractors, which opens the door to Israel on the border with Iran.

And Turkey has effectively put itself at the bridgehead of supplying gas from Baku via Gillis Aleppo pipeline Killis in southern Turkey with the support of Qatar. And of course, the war began back in 2009 when when Assad basically refused or turned down the Qatari Turkish pipeline in favor of the Russian Iranian 1. But if we actually look at this corridor, so this is going from Baku and Azerbaijan to Kailash.

There, as you can see in southern Turkey now that pipeline, there is some controversy over whether it is actually now open or not. But I want you to look at the green line. So basically it's coming down from southern Turkey, coming from Azerbaijan to southern Turkey, through northern Syria, down through Jordan and then to Israel, which is the primary target, of course, of of the

Baku oil. And it's being supplied through to Turkey throughout the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. But also look at the corridor that goes into Banyas and Tripoli and Lebanon. And that's what we've talked about, the importance of Tripoli, why the Americans are pushing Jolani to effectively annex northern Lebanon and take control of Tripoli. Turkey is also competing for influence over Tripoli.

So as I've said before, what we're now seeing in the world today is this new type of multi spectrum conflict taking control of all economic and resource corridors, trade corridors, military routes and so on. And again, let's have a look at the Kirkuk Banyas pipeline. So again, remember this is going into territory that Russia has been allowed to keep control of.

So going from Kirkuk in Iraq through Syria, central Syria into Banyas controlled by Russia, preventing Turkey from extending its control into the the coastal area. And then finally, I just want to have a quick look at this map which incorporates all of it, which I think is going to be clear. So you have on the coast Russian influence maintained with the approval of Washington in the South. Now they're going to extend their patrols and their military bases, which they already had

under the Assad government. And then that triangulates up to Commishli in the northeast. So what does that do? That actually traverses the two main corridors that are going to come in from Azerbaijan, through Syria to Israel and from Kirkuk to Banyas. And remembering that the Azerbaijan corridor also has, if you like, a mini corridor going off to Banyas, which is under the control of the Russians.

So I think what you're seeing right now, and particularly with the the the Alaska summit is the manoeuvring between Russia, Washington and Israel to enable Israeli expansion, but also to enable, as I said, tactical stability for Washington's interests in Syria, particularly the resources, but for Russia potentially to be able to protect its interests in South Caucasus. By having a foothold in the Sangazur corridor and in Azerbaijan.

Now of course, this this potentially brings it into conflict with Iran and the north-south Trade Corridor, which is part of their strategic partnership. And that is potentially why Russia is now making overtures towards Afghanistan to divert the north-south Corridor through Afghanistan rather than through Azerbaijan.

So we're seeing a very different kind of war right now, a lot of manoeuvring, a lot of very interesting alliances and potential disruptions of of existing strategic partnerships. Absolutely, Vanessa, thanks very much. And of course, as you say, control being absolutely at the heart of it. And I hope we'll have more time to talk about that and extra specifically with regard to Iran, which of course must be mentioned in a more full context. I think no, we will have to move

on. But going continuing on in a way, the theme of sort of control of everything. We're going to go to Sandy now, who's going to talk about JD Vance and indeed some of the relationships that he has with a certain set of influential people. Yes, thanks. Thanks very much, Charles.

Well, I've been looking at JD Vance this week because obviously he, he took his working summer holiday in the UK last week and his first stop was, well his second stop was Schevening was was sorry, the Matt Dean Manor where he, he hired a house. It wasn't him that organised it, it was George Osborne. But I'll get on to that. And so his, his first stop was in, in, in Shevening House in, in Seven Oaks in Kent where he went fishing with David Lammy.

Apparently they bonded quite well on their deprived backgrounds and, and Christianity. Apparently so. The logistics of this trip was organised by former Chancellor George Osborne. He, along with David Cameron, apparently lived nearby. So it's interesting that that Cameron, sorry Osborne, also organised the meeting at Dean House, Dean Manor with shadow ministers Robert Jenrick, Chris Phelp, Laura Trott and Sir Paul Marshall at a drinks party reception hosted by Vance.

Now George Osborne's involvement in Vance's trip showcases his skill at transforming old political ties into ongoing current scenarios. And his role as holiday planner was really more than a personal favour. It was an example of how a retired politicians managed to remain in power brokers basically in shaping connections and narratives long after leaving office. So the tiny village of Dean Chipping Norton was thrown into chaos with motorcades and police and security staff taking over.

And of course there was a good deal of anti Trump protesters there. And I think we've got a slide of anti Trump protesters there we are. They they didn't like it at all. And of course, I'm sure some of them were, were organised, but the, the locals really did didn't really enjoy the fact that JD Vance took up all the disabled bays in a, in a, in a, at the local shop, the local farm shop and nobody could get in there where he, he saw he, he had a meeting with Lord and lady.

I think it was, yeah. Bamford of the JCB fame. Anyway, so who is JD Vance? Has he been cherry picked for success? And I I believe he has. He wrote this book, Hillbilly Ilgy in 2016. He, it was published, which then became a Hollywood film.

And in this book, he, he, he talks about his, his awful, you know, dysfunctional childhood as a hillbilly in the Appalachian Mountains in the US and how he ever elevated himself for this, from this, this, this life by joining the Marines and then attending Yale Law School and eventually being he was catapulted really into the political arena at great speed. And everyone loves the rags to riches story. Hillbilly boy overcomes adversity and and becomes vice

president of the USA. People love all that, don't they? So is, is this what he's there for? And I think it is. So when did he form a a close working relationship with Peter Thiel? Vance's connection with Peter Thiel began during his post law school years. After his Yale Law graduation in 2013, he briefly practised law and then moved into tech and venture capital. And from then he joined he, he, he teamed up with obviously with, with Peter Thiel from Palantir.

And I think we've got a slide of Palantir as we know it's a tech giant. You know, they, they are really behind an awful lot of the, the rather transhumanist stuff that's going on with gene editing and what have you Now, Vance, first of all, in 2016 and 2017, he worked for Mithril Capital, which was Peter Thiel's venture firm as some.

And all the while he continued to work on his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. And then he, which was always, always financed really by Teal. Teal was his bankroll basically. And he had a lasting relationship with him. But he he then was was donated £10,000,000 by Teal to to back his Senate bid in March 2021 and helped shape and fund his political career. Now Vance had been transformed really from a Trump critic to a Trump supporter.

He once called Trump an American Hitler, and now he's one of his his most effective defenders and fundraisers. Teal brought Vance to this, his very first meeting with Trump at Mar a Lago in February 2021, according to the New York Times. Now, thanks to Teal's financial and strategic support, Vance has surged really from being an underdog to winning the Ohio primary in 2022. So, you know, it's it's he's really had this meteoric, you know, sort of rise to fame.

And so, you know, you've got to ask yourself why he fulfills a very important role. He's a brand ambassador for populism, giving ordinary Americans hope that they're being defended, I think. But the policies and corporations tied to his network, Palantir, Black Rock, AI driven governance, surveillance capitalism, they point to to the polar opposite of sovereignty. So it's really interesting the way that this narrative is playing out. And it might be a deception

strategy in my view. I mean, Vance functions as supposed to boy for populism, Catholic, patriotic working class, while behind the scenes, teals companies and allies build a very globalist, technocratic system that populists think that they're resisting. So it's, it's it's all very interesting. His meeting with in the UK with Farage, Jenrick and others under the control of David Cameron and George Osborne, who, let's face it, work for Black Rock for one

day a week for £500 per annum. You know, five, Yeah, I mean, you need 500,000 per annum. So this is a little bit unsettling really, because there's this whole other other thing working behind in the background. And then there's the Catholicism. I mean, Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019, having been an atheist to please Teal. And there's Catholicism in Silicon Valley, which is really, really odd.

I mean, it's it's actually, it apparently was this is from Vanity Fair, an article in Vanity Fair, which is, is Christianity was borderline illegal in Silicon Valley and now it's the new religion. So what what is going on here is all very odd. And Peter Thiel said he's got a quote here. One part of the Christian faith that I believe more strongly than anything is that death is evil and we should not accept it and fight it all any way we can.

Now that is really a transhumanists for way of talking about religion and it's his religion. He's playing God. So what we're looking out really is a, you know, this dichotomy between the spiritual death and the, and a physical death. So they're buying into transhumanism. And the whole thing is, is, is really playing, playing with our minds, messing with our minds.

Now we have to remember that Pope Francis did launch the 17 sustainable goals in 20-30 with Obama in 20/20/15 at the Vatican. So there is a whole story playing out here. So it's just interesting what what's really going on with with the whole Christian Catholic narrative. Yeah. Indeed, Sandy, thank you very much.

Indeed. I think Peter Thiel, they're probably taking some fairly large liberties with the Christian Scripture as other people might consider it, but but nonetheless, as you say, a series of murky relationships and it would be interesting to know about some of the conversations that Vance did have whilst he was holidaying in

large inverted commas over here. Now, whether or not you're Auk column member, I do hope you are making best use of the website by ensuring that you use the search facility as your first board of call when you're researching anything. But also looking at the various sections and indeed the comment part of the website. There's a huge amount to explore there, so please use it as a worthy resource.

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thoughts on dystopia. That's that's gone out well. So please do take a look at that on the website this evening. John will be speaking to Celia Farber, who has been described as challenging the HIV or AIDS narratives. That'll be a good lesson this evening. And then tomorrow, Thursday at 1:00, Brian Gerrish and Gemma Cooper in conversation specifically about the Sounds Beautiful event we attended a couple of months ago.

And you'll note that that's taking place in our Studio 2, which of course wouldn't have been possible without the very memberships and donations that I've just been referring to. But really a look at the events and the importance of getting out there and having face to face interactions. Upon which note, I must remind you that the Hope Freedom Music Festival is happening over this August bank holiday weekend and we will be there. So please do make a beeline for

it if you're able. And by using the code Freedom 50, you will get 50% discount off your ticket which takes us to October and our on location event which we're very pleased to speak about that's taking place on Saturday the 18th of October in York. And as announced, our first speaker that we've given details for is Andy Wakefield.

And indeed anyone buying a ticket either in person or on the live stream will have access to his fantastic film Protocol 7. And this week we've also announced that Tess Lorry of the World Council for Health will also be speaking at the event. So we're going to have a great line up, a proper in person event and indeed a social in the evening. So please do join us if you can. And if you can't, as I say, the live stream is there for you.

Now we're going to move on to well, or at least cast our minds back, in fact, to last year. And a recap of a set of apparently extraordinary events which did take place a year ago. Now, on the 19th of August, the yacht belonging to Mike Lynch, the cyber tycoon, capsized and off the coast of Sicily during a

storm. Now almost exactly the same moment a runner with a head injury died in hospital in Cambridgeshire. First I shown on screen this was the death of Stephen Chamberlain and there were no witnesses he he was on a regular running route. This was deemed not suspicious and the inquest report says Stephen Chamberlain was a highly experienced and safety conscious ultra runner but simply noted down the cause of death as a

road traffic collision. Now if you're wondering why any of this is relevant, we'll see where we get to by the end of the report and then I think it might make sense to you. But as stories emerged from the capsize of the Bayesian itself, it became clear that Mike Lynch, the Co founder of Autonomy and indeed defendant in a case brought by Hewlett Packard

concerning fraud. In that Hewlett Packard argued that Lynch and Chamberlain had inflated value of Autonomy their company, in order to sell it to Hewlett Packard. This timing of course, is of great significance. Also on board we had Jonathan Bloomer, who was a witness during the protracted legal proceedings, also dead, and indeed Chris Morvillo who represented Lynch and Chamberlain in the ongoing legal battle. Now in 2022, there was a ruling that the fraud had occurred.

This involved Lynch being extradited to the to the United States, being exonerated, and then indeed a celebration trip on the Bayesian, which we've just shown. Now for more detail on the curious circumstances of the specific cap size, I would point you towards New Lines magazine, an excellent article written earlier this year by Floriano Balfon. Link will be in the show notes.

Now the, the, what I would say with regard to the, the name of the yacht as a, as a curiosity, of course, Bayesian mathematics being concerning probability in relation, relation to the balance between previously held data and new evidence. So sort of bizarre echoes there. With regard to the accident itself, the Marine Accident Investigation Board have only managed to get as far as an interim report which was

published in May of this year. Very scant on detail and the only substantive point really is to say that the findings indicate that the extreme wind experienced by the Bayesian was sufficient to knock the yacht over further. Once the yacht had healed beyond an angle of 70°, the situation

was irrecoverable. Now as a stand alone point that that might be reasonable but interesting to note that moored very nearby was the Sir Robert Baden Powell which was had a hull built in the 1950s only a couple of 100 yards away, owned and skippered by a man called Caston Borner and it rode out the storm by engaging its engines and turning into the

wind. Now the was equipped with far superior instrumentation and indeed mechanical capabilities, but didn't take any such action, which again raises a large number of questions. One would imagine that will be covered by the Marine Accident Investigation Board now just a

few weeks ago. Which is what really brings us to the relevance of all of this is that the High Court issued a judgement on Hewlett Packard's claim against the estate of Mike Lynch. Now the initial claim was for £3 billion and Mr. Justice Hildyard, in summing up, described the death of Lynch as being tragically and almost unbelievably coincident with that of Chamberlain, but didn't

give any further comment. Now the ruling is that the Lynch estate must pay at least 700 million to Hewlett Packard and this is as the main Financial Services and Markets Claim Act with the other sums attached takes it to to over 700 million which is believed to be a sum that will bankrupt the estate of Mike Lynch. Now concurrent with all of this have been the activities of Dark Trace, the cybersecurity business, which of course was set up by Lynch with the

proceeds of the sale of autonomy via Invoke Capital. And just shown on screen here is the former Chief executive Poppy Gustafson with Anne Keith Butler, the current director of GCHQ, who turned down my invitation to join our On Location event in Cheltenham earlier this year. But nonetheless, very interesting to see the relationship that Dark Trace does have with the the

intelligence services. So one must ask, is it any coincidence that Kustafson was ennobled in the autumn and is now the Minister for Investment from her position in the House of Lords? Now she still shares, sorry, she still holds shares in Dark Trace and has been central to a raft of very significant investments into the United Kingdom, described of course by the government as being advantageous to the United Kingdom, which I might say is questionable at

best. Now coincident with the with all of this was the sale of Dark Trace to Tomo Bravo, which has one of the largest portfolios of cybersecurity businesses in the world and it sponsors what's shown on screen, which is called the Cyber Consortium. And it should be of note that since Gustafson came into government, Dark Trace has secured its largest ever contract with that same government at 2.7 million, which might not sound like a huge

amount of money, but given the explosion of entities that are described as being in need of autonomous cyber protection, it's fair to speculate that this is likely to represent the thin end of the wedge. And again, just to illustrate sort of where this appears to be going, two of the recent investments that Gustafson is said to have facilitated are the £1 billion commitment from DP World.

Now Ben was speaking about this very thing on Monday, but but just to make the point that the Freeport that he was talking about is in fact owned and managed by DP World, which of course is based in United Arab Emirates and has been involved in the very controversial port of Berbara in the Horn of Africa. Concerning the sovereignty of Somaliland and indeed relations with Ethiopia.

So wheels within wheels, one might say, and certainly nothing free about this Freeport, but also £5 billion investment from Oracle, again orchestrated it would seem by Baroness Gustafson formerly or perhaps presently of Dark Trace. And I would just conclude by mentioning that the BBC this morning talking about 94 new data centres. And the idea here is that whilst concerns are recognised that they're going to use all the water and all the energy that we

can possibly produce. Don't worry because they're going to recycle some of the heat and warm up all those swimming pools that haven't quite yet been built or indeed may not have any water to put in them. So all of these things, one might say, do point back to some very strange circumstances at this time last year. But the direction of travel, I would say seems fairly obvious or becoming more and more obvious. Yeah. Now that takes us into very much

related issue, which is online safety. Yes, well, the Children's Commissioner, Dame Rachel D'souza was on BBC News Night on Wednesday evening demanding that Ofcom age verification, or the Ofcom age verification regime is expanded to include providers of virtual private networks. Because since the age verification regime came into force, the number of downloads of VPN software is off the charts. Let's just have a quick listen to what she had to say. If you of course, we need age

verification on VPNs. It's absolutely a loophole that needs closing, and that's one of my major recommendations. And do you think the government's got the tone of this wrong because there are some people who don't agree with the Online Safety Bill on grounds of free speech and giving my data to the government? Do you think it's a mistake to call people who oppose the bill akin to Jimmy Savile? Do you think that shouldn't they

shouldn't have said that? Look, I think there is not, there is not one person in this country, not one adult who if I said to them should we keep children safe online, wouldn't would say of course we should keep children, but of course. Children don't, don't don't bring up this S word. Well, I mean, I think, look, I think, I think tone is everything we need to talk to at the adults of this country.

Like they as they, that they as they are adults and all of us should be in agreement that we keep children safe. The Online Safety Act is a big beast and there might be it's a bit that people don't like, but keeping children safe has got to be the search of it. So Rachel D'souza, representing children and claiming concern for child safety, joins the hordes of other government shills who claim that the biggest threat to the well-being of children is the possibility

that they access pornography. Ignoring the massive elephant in the room which is adults grooming children by posing as children on child oriented websites. As I highlighted a week ago when I reported that the US based National Centre. Of course. Sorry US based National Centre for Missing and Exploded Children published their their latest Getting this mixed up today. I do apologise.

Their latest cyber tip line report showing that last year they received 546,000 reports from tech firms of adults across the world soliciting children and that they said was 192% increase from 2023. Now around 99,600 of these reports came from the UK in the first six months of 2024 with Snapchat reporting far more concerning material than any

other platform in that period. So look, this is the tip of the iceberg since this these are only incidents, as we mentioned last week, reported by the platforms themselves. But you got a quick sight of what the BBC was saying here. So the BBC of course, wanting to maintain that the focus is on pornography. So, you know, VPNs, most downloaded apps in Apple's App Store in the UK after sites such as Pornhub, Pornhub requiring age verification.

You know, we we got to keep this massively in the forefront of everybody's minds that anybody that criticizes is tantamount to Jimmy Savile. And the other thing to say here is of course, that, you know, that the fact is that people are not objecting to this on the basis of children not getting access to pornography. They're objecting to it because of the massive totalitarian overreach by the Starmer regime.

But we have to keep in mind, of course, that this was Tory legislation in the 1st place, although it was supported by Starmer's Labour Party all the way through. This is a unit party issue. And then just very briefly, just to make the point that the petitions now around 527,000, this issue is something that I think people need to get organised around and see this up to 2 million at the least. I think that's what we need to be aiming for, Charles. I would absolutely agree, yes, indeed.

And I think we well we would hope that you as members of the audience and concerned about the future of not just UK column, but of course any organization putting content out, it has its future preserved. So.

So please do spread the word on that. No, very much The other side of the same coin is the issue of cybersecurity and indeed how that gets explained in a

narrative context. And we've got the National Cybersecurity Centre subset of GCHQ being pushed out of the shadows in order to remind us how dangerous the cyber sphere really is. And as I say, this is this is sort of wrapped up with online safety, but a but a sort of a branch off it. But we're constantly being reminded both on an individual and corporate basis, what it is we need to do about it. Now this is reinforced by a recent announcement announcement, first of all, hear

from America's cyber defence industry. This was just a couple of weeks ago, end of July about what's been called Scattered Spider. Now the Joint Cybersecurity advisory has indeed taken this on.

So you can see, well at least if you can't see this represented by various cybersecurity organisations across the Commonwealth, across the world, who are effectively joining up the same narrative in which they're suggesting that they've identified, or at least this scattered spider organization, have identified new techniques, tactics and procedures associated with this cybercriminal group. And in addition, they're using more sophisticated social

engineering techniques. And the advisory describes there's malware and ransomware variants which are being used to great effect. Now essentially this is the sort of thing that befell Marks and Spencer earlier in the year. And and indeed, we're constantly told that we need to to find a solution for it. So of course, these sorts of announcements and PR exercises look very much more like marketing exercises for the AI and cybersecurity industries

rather than anything else. Now, I've spoken about Dark Trace just a few minutes ago. Dark Trace, which of course purports to learn you through surveilling every single part of your digital signature in order to predict what's happening or what's going to happen next, which relates back to the sort of Bayesian strand of mathematics.

But interestingly, Dark Trace have themselves commented on this scattered spider effect, difficult as it has been to describe, because nobody seems to be quite sure who they are except that they might be British, they might be American, and they're probably very young. But Dark Trace had said in their failings to deal with this, which of course is supposed to be autonomous and shouldn't be need, shouldn't need to be told what to do. But it was.

It was not in autonomous response mode at the time, unfortunately, So the attack was able to proceed without interruption, they say. And indeed they went on to suggest that with Dark Trace's self learning AI, anomaly based detection and autonomous response inhibitors, businesses can halt malicious activities in real time.

Now I think you get the picture. But the what this points towards, and this of course is only speculation, but since it's widely known, of course, that cybersecurity, the cybersecurity industry does indeed pay people to test platforms and indeed hack in what's described as sort of benevolent sense, 1 can only wonder whether these sorts of interferences from organisations like Scattered Spider are indeed in some way connected to the industry itself, which seems to benefit enormously from the

outcomes. Now we're going to go back to

Vanessa, who of course been speaking a little bit about Lebanon in the last report. But Vanessa, a further update specifically on the situation in Lebanon from you. Yeah, obviously just an update on what's going on.

The the agenda is to effectively weaken Lebanon generally, not only to disarm the resistance, but also to cause division and fractures within the Lebanese army itself, reduce it down to nothing more than a national security or police force rather than a force that can actually defend Lebanon against Israeli

expansionism, of course. And so one of the first tactics that they used, and I think this is very interesting, this is the crossover between what is happening in the West and what's happening in the West Asia region generally, is that, first of all, Lebanese banks, most of which are franchises of European and foreign banks, have been banned from dealing with

Hezbollah's financial networks. Now we've talked before about the independence of the Hezbollah banking systems that are available to all Lebanese, not only to members of the resistance communities and that are based upon interest free loans basically. And then of course there's been taught very recently the Trump administration has been talking particularly Mark Marco Rubio about ending the UN peacekeeping

in Lebanon, Europe pushing back. I think this is more to do with Trump basically trying to foist the funding of UNIFL in Lebanon onto particularly France and Italy, and to disentangle the US from having to shell out any funding for them.

Because in fact, when Tom Barrack, the Trump envoy to the region and his very close business associate was in Lebanon, he's part, he's pushing for Chapter 7 to be imposed on southern Lebanon using UNIFL effectively, if we have a look at what it actually says in the article, using UNIFL as an occupational force on behalf of Israel. So the renewal decision for UNIFIL will carry an escalatory

and highly trudged tone. Basically under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which allows it to disarm by force the resistance by conducting raids, arresting citizens and setting up

checkpoints. Of course, until now, UNIFIL has only been able to operate in collaboration with the Lebanese Army. And So what they're effectively saying is they will restore the funding to UNIFL for one year and they will increase UNIFL rights to intervene on behalf of the state, in other words, on behalf of Israel and Washington in southern Lebanon. And then almost immediately after the meeting of the two envoys, including Morgan or

Morgano Ortagus, who came with Tom Barrack, he went immediately to Tel Aviv, allegedly to put Israel under pressure to withdraw from the five points that it's still occupying in the South. But of course, even during these meetings, Israel continued to bomb southern Lebanon and to assassinate what they claim are resistance members, but in fact, in many cases are nothing more than the civilians and citizens living in the South or trying to repair or reconstruct property

that was destroyed by the last war that ended in November 2024. Saudi Arabia, of course, is coming in on behalf of Israel and Washington, Washington to put its own pressure on the resistance faction, saying that basically there will be no investment in Lebanon from the Gulf states without Hezbollah's disarmament. So they're withholding investment, withholding reconstruction funds.

And at the same time, of course, what we've seen and what we've been talking about is a build up on the eastern border and the northern borders from Jolani's al Qaeda takfiri elements, particularly the Chechen, Uyghur and other foreign groups on the northeastern borders in the vicinity of Hemel city. And there have been sporadic incursions into Lebanese territory for some time now, since about March of this year.

But what we've seen in the last few days is a definite build up of heavy artillery, tanks and machinery to the area in Syria that is close to the border with Hermel. So what they're obviously angling for is to put pressure on the Lebanese government, with the threat of a Tekfiri invasion and an increase in Israeli incursions into southern Lebanon, to enforce the disarmament of the resistance. Melissa, thank you very much indeed. Any comment on on that? Now wait for wait for extra,

right. OK, no, just when you think you've heard it all, a report comes out of Australia suggesting that it might be possible to make money out of having an abortion. Sandy, what have you got for us on on this? Yeah, I mean, it's it's quite concerning really. Revelations have surfaced that the Australian Government is paying a baby bonus of more than $4200 to women who choose late term abortion to end the life of

their healthy unborn child. This was first reported by pro-life Act advocate Joanna Howe and later covered by the Daily Declaration. Who's Who found that these disturbing welfare payments were thanks to a loophole in the government's Centrelink's definition of a stillborn baby. Now, stillborn babies don't have rights because they have never taken a breath. And if a baby has never taken a

breath, it's not deemed human. So this is this is the way they're doing it. Even worse, the payments of over 20,000 lbs are available to mothers who opt instead for parental leave pay on the premise that their aborted baby was stillborn. Now this is very good. You know, this is a good thing. If a woman has genuinely had a, a still birth, you know, and, and needs parental leave for up to a year or maybe 18 months afterwards because of her trauma. But this is this is different.

This is they're, they're incentivising women to actually have an injection to kill their babies first before the stillbirth. So, I mean, with the exception of a single article in the Advertiser last year, the mainstream press is refusing to touch this story. In Australia, a curious silence given the overwhelming public interest in the scandal. And next Threat has almost

reached 1 million views. And the lone article was authored by a courageous journalist, a lady called Catherine Bingham. Birmingham. Sorry. Unsurprisingly, you know, there's detractors who've rushed to dismiss the revelations as fake news. However, Doctor Howe's evidence is compelling. There are four reasons to believe her claims. And, you know, are, are real. And it's all about the, the, you know, Centrelink's definition of still birth, you know, to be eligible for our payments.

It says, you know, oh, sorry. I think it's the next slide. You you know so to be eligible for our payments a still birth needs to meet our definition. A stillborn baby is 1 who's not breathed since delivery and has had no heartbeat after birth. To be considered stillborn a baby a baby also has to have a gestation period of at least 20 weeks. So this is encouraging late term abortions and weighs at least

400 grams at their birth. So you know, this is this, they all of this meets their criteria basically for, for these payments. And Doctor Howe's key concentration is that Services Australia has to carve out to say that the still birth has to be natural as opposed to intentional. And all that's required is a letter from the hospital confirming that the baby was delivered stillborn. So there's no, there's no scrutiny here at all, even from the hospital and the the doctors

and midwives at the hospital. The medical eligibility component of still birth is determined, declared and declared by a medical professional. The spokesman said that Services Australia does not receive any detail on the nature of this determination. So there's, there's definitely something going on here. Um, and in 2013, a Catholic pro-life advocate, Bernard Gaynor, published a disturbing medical, um, form, um, by family that was hurt by abortion and, and, and, and that's been

withdrawn. And I'll flag that up later, but certainly, you know, it's got, they've got forms here. If we can flag this one up of have you registered, you know, you, it's free to register a child's birth. You know, you cannot be paid parental leave pay and be paid by newborn supplement with your family benefit. So it's, it's, it's all the paperwork. So you just have to fill in a form. It's all very, very blase to be honest.

And yeah, there was this, this form which a medical form which this pro-life advocate Bernard Gainer flagged up and it was issued by the South Australian Department of Health. And it was a yellow A4 document provided detailed instructions for post abortive women on how to apply for the stillborn baby payment, then known as the bereavement payment or paid parental leave by registering their their abortion as, as a a

still birth. Now that form was withdrawn 12 years ago and instead it appears now to have gone underground. So it's, it's all very, very concerning The, the, the, the, the, the, the doctor. Howe said that she was contacted by midwives who are traumatized and shocked by the rise in late term abortions of healthy babies. She revealed staff are being effectively forced to sign off Centrelink's forms so women can claim payments, a process leading to a double level of trauma.

And 111 midwife was was really traumatised because the mother stated she would use her aborted baby bonus to fund a holiday to Bali. I mean, this is absolutely unbelievable. So a late term abortion in Australia is most often performed by injecting the baby's heart with potassium chloride or digoxin, followed by the induction of labour and the delivery of the dead infant. Now the, the other thing is that the, the, the, there's no

provision for a funeral. If you want 1, you can have one, but if you, if you're willingly taking your baby's life, you're not going to want that. So I think the, the, the midwives are of a trauma fight, traumatized further by the fact that the baby then goes into waste, which is not, is not good. And we know that there's there is an issue there with harvesting. So I'm going to, I'm going to show you an animation video,

which you may find distressing. Please turn it off if you don't want to watch it. It's a it's an animation and it shows you exactly how this is playing out. Thank you. So you might be wondering how is the stillborn parenting payment available for a late term abortion Here? I need to do just a quick recap of the method for a late term abortion and I'll pull up the policy from a NSW hospital. And it's the same process

everywhere. So what occurs is the mother goes into the hospital, she goes under general anesthetic, but a abortionist will inject the baby's heart in utero with poison. So it's either digoxin or potassium chloride. The baby then goes into cardiac arrest and dies in utero. So they die in the mother's womb. Now they have to get that baby out some way, and the way they do it is they induce labour in

the mother. So she takes pills that lie to her body and make her think that she's going into labour early. She then delivers that baby vaginally, but she's not delivering a live baby, she's delivering A stillborn child. So it's a forced birth of a stillborn baby. Now, because that baby is stillborn, this is what then makes her eligible. I mean, it's, it's, it's shocking really. I mean, we've got genocide by

war and genocide everywhere. And you know, we've just relaxed the, the, the laws in the UK for full term abortions and let's hope we don't go down the same route as South Australia. Shocking. It absolutely is, Sandy, but nonetheless, thank you very much for looking into that.

Now, on the subject of controversial medical procedures, Vanessa, you have unearthed something in Lebanon. Yeah. I mean, I was basically having a conversation with someone the other night who did take, I think at least the first vaccine and then didn't take the

booster. But they were laughingly telling me that there are some advantages to the corruption that exists in Lebanon because in reality, the Pfizer vaccine, and this is translated from an article in Arabic that they sent me to prove that what they were saying is true. The Pfizer vaccine in particular was replaced by Lebanese hospitals and doctors with a mixture, with a saline mixture,

basically. So the people that thought they were getting the Pfizer vaccine in Lebanon didn't actually get the vaccine and therefore haven't suffered any of the adverse effects that people are in other countries that did take the real Pfizer vaccine suffered from. So, you know, there are some advantages to living here, I guess. Indeed, a good news story, but not for Pfizer. Thank you very much, Vanessa.

Now on a related theme, Indeed Bio security, I spoke last week about Blue Tongue and the continued push for vaccination, particularly with regard to sales along the English Welsh border and access to markets means that there is a huge push for vaccination. Although reports suggest that only 1% of sheep and 5% of cattle in whales have actually been vaccinated. So there seems to be some resistance for a number of reasons.

But of course, alongside this is really the inference that there will be a regime of complete testing, tracking, injecting and surveillance under this heading of bio Security and indeed the inference that this is all part of a convenient and safe approach. Now bird flu again, never far from the headlines and indeed the vigilance and bio security we are reminded of regularly, this time by APHA today. And this is set to continue of course.

But this is set alongside an announcement from the government on Monday about the deal between the UK and the EU on sanitary and phytosanitary dealings. Essentially to establish a UKEU zone, which will cut costs and red tape for businesses that export and import from the EU, reducing delays at the border and making food trade with the Uks biggest market cheaper and easier. So this is really to do away

with border checks. Now, the significant point to draw out of here, given the incredible focus on bio security, is to say that that these checks on border crossings will not be required as their implementation is, quote, disproportionate. So as with all these things, bio security matters until it's considered disproportionate or there's another factor which Trump's it. Yeah, So how about that? Now we have a different note

upon which to finish. We've spoken a lot about the way in which Palestine action has been treated over the last few months, of course, resulting in their recent prescription. But we will now take a look at how plaster scene action has been dealt with. Now this video will be running

in the background. It has no sound to it, but actually no sound is necessary because what this shows, and I, I will invite Mike to comment in a second, is the way in which the terrorism law is first of all, absolutely wide open in order that it can capture anybody.

So here the article being dealt with is Section 13 of Terrorism Act 2000, which says a person in a public place commits an offence if he wears an item of clothing or carries an article in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or a supporter of a prescribed organization. Now this chap is clearly wearing a plasticine action T-shirt which concerns AI generated images, so there's absolutely no overt reference to anything

other than pastor seen action. And I think the important point to draw out of this is first of all that members of the public will not be carried into some ambition into not taking actions like these. I think we can all guess in a way what what 1 is perhaps supposed to consider, but also that the authorities that are supposed to deal with this have absolutely no idea what to do when confronted with it.

And this absolutely nullifies in a way the the role of the police in this kind of circumstance because they can't even decide. And this is exactly where the independence of a constable should come into play. But but doesn't like. Right. Indeed. You know, they're supposed to make up their own minds about these things, and they're increasingly unable to do that without getting a yes or a no from the authorities.

They are and, and I think ridiculous as it seems, and of course it does drive to the heart of a very, very serious point. I should, I think we should take this as a positive in that the the system is in effect being thwarted and indeed there is considerable pushback concerning Palestine action, of course. And just to finish, Patrick will have some pretty spectacular news on this on Friday's programme as well, so keep an eye out for that. Excellent. Yes, Now that brings us to the

close of the programme. So Mike, thank you very much for joining me in the studio. Thanks to Vanessa and Sandy, Thank you for tuning in, of course. And don't forget we've got Germ going out this evening speaking to Celia Farber and the discussion between Brian and Gemma going out at 1:00 tomorrow. If you are a member, please stay on the line and join us for extra. And if you're not, please consider it. Otherwise, we will look forward to seeing you at 1:00 on Friday. Bye, bye, bye bye.