UK Column News - 28th January 2026

Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 20th of January just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column news. I'm your host Mike Robinson. Joining me in the studios today is Co host Charles Mallett. Welcome to the program, Charles. Thank you. Bye. And by video link. We are joined by Vanessa Bailey. Now later in the programme, we'll be looking at the latest censorship of efforts by Ofcom and their international colleagues, child abuse in Israel and the reform of

policing. But we're going to begin today

with digital government. Now people across the UK could benefit from faster, safer and more reliable public services as leading British AI specialist. Join government to modernise critical systems used everyday. From public safety to transport maintenance. These are the words of Keir Starmer's Digital minister Ian Murray. So I'm sure we were all impressed by that.

But anyway, the effort is going to be underpinned by £1,000,000 from Meta and will be run through the Alan Turing Institute. And the group of AI experts are going to develop open source tools to what they describe as tackle some of the biggest challenges facing public services. Now this all comes part of the new customer. Oh, sorry, I didn't show the Alan Turing Institute there, but there we go. And this all comes as part of the new customer first

initiative. And customer first, by the way, spelled as one word, you know, without any gaps between customer and 1st. And that's going to put modern technology to work to cut out long phone queues, reduce paperwork, and make it easier and faster for people to access the services they rely on. These are all their words. It's fantastic propaganda. But anyway, right there with the with that quote, we get an idea of what this is actually about.

Because as we all know, the long wait times on phones when people want to access the likes of HMRC or any other so-called customer facing service provided by the state are a deliberate ploy to force people to accept the digital panopticon that Shabana Mahmoud is so keen on. So let's just remind ourselves what she said when she was speaking to Tony Blair a short while ago. AI and technology can be transformative to the whole law and order space.

And she was was talking about the need to use AI and technology to transform the justice system. She cited Jeremy Bentham and his panoptic. And now we're going to come on to what that is in a second. If anybody doesn't know. And she was absolutely talking about the idea of pre crime and using AI to to make judgments and what people were going to do in the future.

But coming back to customer first for a second, it describes itself as a new unit within the government digital service and very much echoing Dominic Cummings of a few years ago. They say they've been set up to explore a fresh way of working in government and operating with the pace and some curiosity of a start up. This is Dominic Cummings kind of of language. And they said that their work aligns directly with the road map for modern digital government, which has just been published.

And once again we see statements from public, from politicians delivered with not a hint of irony because this is the comment from the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Liz Kendall, saying when we came into government, the Prime Minister made a commitment to the British people that politics would tread lightly on people's lives. So I'm just going to ask, do you all feel lightly trodden on

because I don't now. She went on to describe all the benefits of the new panopticon for the sleep deprived parent trying to sort childcare, the homeowner getting planning permission, the worried patient looking for doc, booking a

doctor's appointment. She said that life is busy and our role as a government should be to carry the burden in these moments, not add to it. And so this plan sets out how we do this by embracing AI, removing our dated IT, and strengthening our cyber resilience in the face of new threats. So let's just have a look at what this brave new world has in store for you and for me. So they're talking about managing health records, appointments and prescriptions in one place through the NHS

app. They're talking about using the gov.uk app to access personalized services and notifications. Securely store and share digital versions of important documents like your driving license. Using the gov.uk wallet. Quickly and securely proving your identity using the new digital ID. Accessing simpler, faster digital services for tax, driving vehicle and immigration. Using a new career service.

Bringing the support you need together to understand your skills and use them to find or change jobs, but also benefit from target targeted support to improve digital skills and confidence and address data and device poverty. This is incredible stuff. Access better care for children because data will be joined up across services. And if you're in business, it's good for you too. As anybody that's already in business knows, you've had to identify yourself to Companies House for example.

But this will mean that you can access government services with a single secure login for businesses. Now we've discussed one login before and how it's not in the least bit secure, but we can talk about that later. Manage and tax and customs obligations through a modern digital first system. Sell technology and services to government through simplified procurement processes. Find talent faster using smarter candidate matching tools.

Quickly and securely verify your employees right to work through a secure process. So, you know, we at the UK column are warning about these kinds of things. We have also been warning, as we did last week, about Palantir and their complete access to NHS patient data. And when the Electronic Frontier Foundation are warning about ICE agents in the US using Palantir's health access to US health data to run their operations, then we might ask ourselves what the Starmer regime is building here.

Just what exactly is it? So let's just finish this by reminding ourselves what the Panopticon is. It's the idea proposed by the so-called philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1791 of a theoretical circular prison design allowing a single central observer to watch all inmates without being seen, based on the central inspection principle. And it aims to reform behaviour through constant surveillance and the psychological and the psychological internalized

feeling of being watched. That he described it as power of mind over mind. So we're talking about a cylindrical building with a central inspectors, large and outer cells with light passing through so that there's backlighting so that the entire prison population, as I say, could be watched by a single guard. Now he'd Bentham designed this for prisons, but he also intended it for schools, for factories, for asylums. He as he talked about it and he was talking about maximizing

utility, productivity and order. And this is clearly now, this is clearly now what is being built, what Mahmoud is talking about being absolutely desirous of. And so this goes way beyond just simple digital ID. It absolutely does. And for a road map, it really is attempting to join everything together. And I think really the way that this should be looked at is through the lens of considering why it is that they only suggest that there will be positive

outcomes. There is absolutely no suggestion that this is a balance or a trade off, that there could be any downsides. And I think that that should really raise a, a red flag to anybody hearing about this. The the idea that changing something wholesale is not going to have any undesirable consequence is an absolutely extraordinary and therefore completely unlikely outcome. I think that that that's a big part of it.

There's there's no concession at all to the inherent vulnerability of putting everything in the same place. I think the, the idea that that setting this out and using the sorts of language, as you say, that Dominic Cummings might have been proud to have put together is just disingenuous beyond compare because there are example upon example of systems like this failing. And I think that, you know, the the greater the, the centralisation, the greater the

danger if there is a failure. And I think that's one of the things I mean among many that that absolutely are not being talked about and presumably will not get talked about unless this is raised as an issue at the at the local levels and is pushed effectively pushed back uphill because there, there there is no real debate or discussion about this I think. I mean, we're going to be talking about China towards the

end of the program. And of course what we're constantly seeing is people looking at China and and making claims about social credit systems and so on and worrying about what's going on over there. No concern generally about because they can't believe that this would be the type of infrastructure that's being built here, but it absolutely is.

So, you know, we've got to, we've got to be aware of what's going on in our own country and many people are, but but limiting it just to digital ID is, is not going far enough. Vanessa, I'd be interested to to get an idea of what kind of experience people in the Middle East are having of this type of policy Is is there or are there attempts in in Southwest Asia to bring this type of thing in? Well, obviously apart from inside Israeli prisons where of course there is a huge degree of

surveillance and dehumanisation. I'm not sure. I mean here, definitely not. We might have just got biometric in some of the passport offices. Some, generally it doesn't work very well. UAE, of course, is has just joined Pax Silica, which is the complex of all of the countries involved in basically introducing AI, digital control in the future, which has very much Israel at its centre.

So I would say in the Zionist block in the countries that were created by Britain to support Israel, for example, like Saudi Arabia, but particularly UAE, you might be finding it. Yeah, but not to this level, no. Okay, thank you for that. But of course related to this then Charles is policing because obviously my mood was very clear that that one of the major applications of this would be the idea of pre crime and and getting the police 100% on board.

What What are what is the Starmer's vision for policing in

the UK then? Well, this is exactly it and and I should say if you didn't watch Monday's UK column news then you should of course, because Ben Rubin was articulating initial thoughts on the idea of police reform because of course at that stage no documentation had actually been produced. It has now been produced and Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, has had quite a lot to say about it. Here she is tweeting that today's reforms mark the biggest shake up to policing in 200 years.

So what she's doing there in terms of setting the scene is trying to invoke the spirit of Peel, who is credited, of course, with starting the the idea of a sort of formalised

police force in the 1st place. Now I would put it that she has not really read around the subject and to qualify that I would just make the point first of all, that in her introduction to the document, she talks about the suggestion that the police is broken, but then counters that by saying that arrests are up by 5%. And I think this articulates the, the, the very centre of the problem.

And we'll just look at the first of the Pelian principles in order to get an idea of what I mean by that. Now the the first one is that the basic mission for which the police exists is to prevent crime and disorder. Now arrests are not by nature preventative, although as Mike's just been alluding to, we will watch this space. So. So the fundamental issue appears to be that Shabana Mahmood and and others are confusing the solving of crime with stopping crime.

And they are two very, very different things. Now to, to move on from what it was set out by Peel all those years ago, we'll, we'll look at the, the document itself and, and just put a few things out from the executive summary and indeed her opening remarks. And straight back to what Mike's been talking about, really serious and organised crime is growing and nine in every 10 crimes now has a digital

component. Now that's a very significant point to make when one is suggesting that the answer to that is further and further digitised. They they go on to say and and I've pulled out just sort of selective parts that I think are all merit some consideration. We will modernise legislation such as the Public Order Act 1986 to ensure that the police are clearer about where the line stands between freedom of speech and criminality.

Now we've seen that that line absolutely blurred and let's say very much not likely trodden over the last few years. What is it exactly they mean by this? Of course the Public Order Act 1986 has the the more obvious offences or or at least perhaps clearer offences of riot,

violence, disorder and a fray. But the controversial ones being fear or provocation of violence and the harassment offences, but effectively turning the offence itself into a subjective affair because of course it's for the victim to report how they felt about the particular incident in question. Now with further digitisation, it's hard to see how this is going to turn out any better for either apparent victims or

suspects in those situations. Now the document goes on to talk about rolling out artificial intelligence, AI powered tools and software to automate manual processes, saving the police valuable time so that it can be redirected towards serving the public. Again, to suggest that that is simply a fait accompli because you can say that it will save time and therefore there will be an outright benefit is a claim that requires again much further investigation.

This is absolutely the the theme of the document and and very much follows Mike's report about putting out these totally unqualified positives that seem to have veered so far away from from the the status quo. It's to be very, very questionable also in terms of the the control structures. And this is what Ben was surmising on on Monday.

The police and crime commissioners will be abolished and they'll be replaced directly with, sorry, with directly elected mayors and where mayors do not yet exist, with policing and crime boards made-up of local council leaders. And this is said that the new system of police governments will reintegrate policing back into the system of local government in England, Wales, enabling greater collaboration

across local services. Now again, if one assumes good faith, that could in some ways be the case. However, just to qualify it a bit to reintegrate back into local politics, it cannot really be what it sounds like. Because of course, as Ben was intimating on Monday, partly this is because the nature of local politics has changed such an enormous amount in the intervening period.

But also because of the capabilities in data collection and sharing between all the various agencies that will be involved in this. And of course the the many, many digital compromises and vulnerabilities that are inherent in in doing any of that. And we return to the Pelian principles because we look at this one which says police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to the public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.

Now involving police hierarchy with local politicians, given the state of affairs in local politics, local democracy, if, if we can still call it that nowadays, I would say again, is another significant compromise. Now, of course, this document has come out, it's making great claims to turn the police over in in a productive sense for more than they have been in 200 years. Therefore, there's been inevitable sort of commentary and response to this. As far as police bodies are concerned.

There's been almost universal applause for the reforms as they're set out, with the exception of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. Now, given that I've just read out texts saying they're going to be abolished, it would be easy to say that that's sour grapes.

But in fact, I think we should look at the point they make, which is there is also a risk the National Police Service could stifle local innovation and restrict the ability of local communities to shape how policing effects their lives. And large regional forces risk weakening local responsiveness and accountability while introducing unnecessary

complexity and cost. I should have said that the which I'll come on to in a bit, but the one of the solutions to the problem is the idea of the National Police Service, which again and was talking about on Monday, referring to it as a sort of rehashed version of the FBI. Now we're going to look at, or rather listen to what it was that Shabana Mahmoud said in the House of Commons about one of the points that is bound to provoke, well, should certainly provoke a fair degree more debate.

While some forces surge ahead with the results to show for it, others are fighting crime in a digital age with analogue

methods. We will ensure that every force is adopting the latest technology LED out of the new National Police Service. This will include the largest ever roll out of live facial recognition technologies across England and Wales. We know this approach works in London. In just two years, the Metropolitan Police have made 1700 arrests, taking robbers, domestic abusers and rapists off our streets.

When the future arrives, there are always doubters. 100 years ago, fingerprinting was decried as curtailing our civil liberties, but today we could not imagine policing without it. I have no doubt the same will prove true of facial recognition

technology in the years to come. At the same time, we will launch Police dot AI investing a record £115,000,000 in AI and automation to make policing more effective and efficient, stripping admin away to ensure officer time can be devoted to the human factor that only a police officer. So as far as she's concerned, job done, we've got computers, they can do it, we can all step back and and that's that. Now I, I think it's not quite that simple.

And and certainly in terms of the symmetry or indeed asymmetry, she's suggesting that the answer to a digital threat is a digital solution, whereas of course in actual fact to pervade an analogue. Set up with a digital invasion is impossible. And again, that's that's absolutely being glossed over and again, relates exactly back to what Mike's been reporting on. Now the other thing is that again, exactly like Mike says she's talking about about thought crime and pre crime.

That's exactly where we're going with this with, with live facial recognition, because otherwise how would she be able to say that that has delivered the effect that it has? And again, concentrating on arrests rather than actually the prevention of the crime in the 1st place.

Now, as you've just had us talk about the, the announcement of the AI capability, she made the mistake of giving the, the website address of police AI. And you'd think that somebody might have just popped a holding page up there, but not so. And since AI is heralded as the future, I did ask it to generate create an image of the success that Mahmood and the proposed National Police Service are pointing towards now as a sign

of things to come. This is what was produced, No First Lance, you may not see much wrong with that. And if you can't see it, I should point out that it's it's sort of two and a bit. Police officers wearing an extraordinary ray of kit, including masks covering their face. Shabana Mahmood has been turned into a journalist. And and then when you look more closely, you'll see the police constable on the left of the

frame is missing his head. Now I was confused by this at first, but actually I see that it is an accurate rendition and I've taken advantage of the UK columns graphics department to correct the image. So if we can just go full screen again, please. Chris, this is exactly what's being suggested. We are replacing the human brain with a computer. We are surrendering the human mind to the to the bias of artificial intelligence.

Now the answer proposed is in terms of the this this reform is a national police service and you know, one should concede at least that there are some sensible points made and they say that as one force, it will be better equipped to share technology, intelligence and resources to stop the growing threat from crime that has become increasingly complex digital online and with no respect for Constabulary

borders. Now I, I can talk a bit more about this in extra, but there are absolutely great frictions associated with having 43 constabuaries within England alone. England and Wales I should say, and there are absolutely efficiencies to be gained there. But that's taking it at face value and of course ignoring the very many pitfalls to centralisation, which I think is what the APCC are trying to get at.

But they're pointing towards the advantages of procuring technology, clothing and general sort of cost saving. They're also saying that they can recruit another 13,000 more neighborhood police and they are trying to separate those on the beat from the admin burden. Again, would be a would be an effective mood move, but only if done correctly. No on vetting and personnel disasters.

There's plan to introduce a license of practice to practice, which is going to be managed by the College of Policing. But again, the the issue with this is it's not really made clear how just having a license would actually enhance the situation. So there's there's more to come

out on that and we look further. Again, to have the pillion principle of maintaining the relationship with the public gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police.

Again, something I think that's been glossed over very much in the reforms as their put forward now and I don't know if we've got time to just share a quick video clip really just to to get to the point of considering whether or not police are actually thinking about what they're doing. Catherine Gunn, who will be known to many of the UK column audience, was stopped whilst coming into the UK recently and this is a short clip of her experiences.

At the top of the metal stairway with three police officers. And as soon as we stepped our foot out of the plane, we heard them say, are you Catherine Gunn and my daughter's name? And I was like, yes. And it was a shock to be asked by police officers as soon as we stepped off the plane. And so we went down the steps and my daughter was taken by a female police officer to one side of the stairs and I was taken by two other police officers, 2 male officers to the

other side of the stairs. So we were separated and then basically the male police officers asked me. They said we have been contacted by members of the flight crew who were concerned about child safety safeguarding. And I was like, well, what's the evidence? There is no evidence. What the hell are they talking about? And and they demanded that I give them my husband's name, our address in Turkey. And I was like, why should I give you that information?

What's like, I'm not being, are you charging me with anything? But he basically threatened me with taking me to the Border Force and dragging out the whole process if I didn't give him our address. They didn't ask for any evidence. They didn't ask for our

passports or anything. So Catherine's experiences there, which could have been over in seconds if they'd simply asked for passports, but there's the inference there was that she might have been might have been involved in child trafficking. And again, I just, you know, put it forward that there is a reduced element of thought in policing in general.

And so just just to finish off the last point from the Pelian principles, which is that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it. And it looks very much like Mahmoud's reforms are absolutely meant to provide the evidence of dealing with it, rather than the absence of crime and disorder. Thank you, Charles. Vanessa, over to you then. And we're going to have a look

at Israel and child abuse now. Take your time. Yeah, of course child abuse, as we've been demonstrating for some time, as really systemic in Israel, not only against the Palestinians, who of course are dehumanised beyond belief and tortured in some of the most sadistic ways, but even within

their own society. And coming back to the police issue, it's fascinating that the people who are being arrested by the police in the UK are the people that are literally exposing the crimes from within Israeli society. So again, we have to question what exactly the police are there to do in the UK and perhaps we can discuss that further in extra, but actually this is a follow up.

This is a recent case where a cyber CEO was found guilty of statutory rape, assaulted children as young as four years old and multiple minor underage rape cases from him. This is Itai Levy. We actually covered this story, I think about a year ago, but now he has been found guilty and convicted. And of course he was connected. He was the CEO of Cornelius, which is a major cybersecurity

company. And again, of course, this brings us back to the fact that of course much of the cybersecurity, the data storage, the the Health and Education Ministry of Defence information is going to be stored by individuals that are certainly have their roots in the Israeli spy agencies. But seeing to what extent this sexual predator nature is prevalent in Israeli society, we also have to start raising questions about this.

This was I think a few days ago, an IDF, so a military reservist convicted in large scale online child sexual abuse case. Content warning. Well, I am going to show the content because there's a couple of things in there that I would really like to discuss further in extra. So let's have a look at what the case actually involved. So apparently he used technology he found online that allowed him to appear and sound like a woman during video calls.

During those conversations, he instructed the men to carry out sexual acts against their minor children. This is my first question. How on earth can you persuade a father, a parent, to actually conduct or carry out sexual abuse against their own children? This included infants and very young children. And to document the abuse and send him the footage. It detailed a series of impersonations that led to

sexual abuse within families. In one case, he posed as a woman while speaking with the father of a one and a half 1 1/2 year old girl and directed him to carry out sexual acts in the child's room during a video call. In another case, using the alias Maria, he persuaded a father to sexually abuse his young son, telling him the child would not remember because of his age, prosecutors said.

Alfie also communicated under female identities with dozens of other social media users, including minors, convincing them to perform sexual acts on themselves, record the acts and send the material to him. Investigators found more than 150 files containing child sexual abuse material in his possession. I wonder where online safety was

in Israel? And then I want to come on to the latest report from an Israeli human rights organization based on the occupied territories but Slam Living Hell. This is a follow up from their previous report which was called Welcome to Hell, published in August 2024. The Israeli prison system is a network of torture camps. So let's have a look at what they actually say. Now they do give content warning sexual violence, and I will show a screenshot from the actual

report. You can freeze frame and read it well, or of course the link to the report will be in the show notes. But let's have a look at the

actual screenshot. Now, what this is talking about is multiple cases of rape with with, sorry, it's very difficult to talk about this with objects, human beings raping women and men within the Israeli forces, by the way, conducted these rapes and appalling torture, basically attacking people's genitals, bringing dogs in to urinate on prisoners and so on. Absolutely appalling. I mean, I wonder what on earth I'm reading when you go through that report.

And this is just a very short section of one of the videos from the first report, Welcome to Hell, which as I said, was published in August. So let's just play this. I saw. Phil Montreal has certainly had

Al al asir Yeah letters. So again, as I said, you know, with Britain getting closer and closer, every single political party in the UK being friends of or having a section which is friends of Israel, we need to really start wondering to what extent they are aware of and are involved in what is going on. Yes. Well, well done, Vanessa for covering that because this is not something that we're hearing from anybody else as far as I'm aware in the UK at least.

And so we need to have more insight into these types of problems in that part of the world. Now. Let's move on then.

UK Column, of course, only continues to operate with your assistance. So if you can possibly help us financially, that would be really appreciated. There is a section on the UK Column website that you can find by getting to the front page and get all the details for how you can help help us out that way. If you can't help us financially, please do at least share this program. Any of the articles on the website, any of the podcasts that you enjoy, please share those.

And that helps us beat the censorship regime. Now tonight, Jeremy is going to be speaking to David Vice about Flat Earth, apparently. So join him at 7:00 for that. We've got something to say about that just after the outbreak here. And then the Silken Steel podcast with Carl Zeiss going to be talking about Mark Carney and his comments at Davos. But I just want to briefly

mention David Weiss being on with with Germ tonight. Of course, Germ covers a wide range of topics and he is not in any way restrictive about who he speaks to and we wouldn't attempt to restrict who he speaks to. But David Weiss I do have a bit of a problem with because of course he, aside from the topic itself, he pushes forward a an app, which is how he apparently funds his activities.

And well, this is Consumer Rights Wiki, which is run by Lewis Rossman, who is a fantastic advocate for consumer rights and for right to repair and so on, and is really the man behind the the Clippy campaign, if anybody is aware of that. But what this is pointing out, this is that basically for the last number of years, Vice has been pushing out this app, which people can get access to through their various phones and so on, but that he is completely LAX with his security.

And therefore, people's personal information, their e-mail address, their password, their location on the planet and so on, is easily downloadable from the app. Now, he's been warned about this for years and refuses to do anything about it. So. So I think it's just worth mentioning that because obviously if you do support him using this app, you are putting any personal information that you give at risk. So that's just what I wanted to say about that.

Yeah. Good. OK, let's let's move on to reform Charles.

Yes, no, it's the the weekly update which which started and it has absolutely been worth continuing because there has been yet another defection. And it just goes to show that there is a theme that has emerged. And here we are seeing Suella Brahman with Netanyahu proudly showing her face graph on Twitter.

Admittedly, that was back a couple of years ago, but she talks about strong relationship between Israel and the United Kingdom. And if you've missed previous updates on reform, you'll know that that is exactly the theme that I have been referring to. And the question is, is in whose interests? We've had Nigel Farage now going to Davos, protesting, of course, that he's going to be pursuing the idea of national sovereignty for the United Kingdom.

But in actual fact, everything is pointing in the other direction. Here We have Bravman back in 2015 on a sponsored visit to Israel by the Conservative Friends of Israel. And just to remind you what the Conservative Friends of Israel actually do, they say that we aim to ensure Israel's case is fairly represented in parliament, and that means in the parliament of the United Kingdom. Like what business?

Israel's case has been represented by parliamentarians who are supposed to represent their constituencies, has not made quite clear. Now Brothman, you may recall, is married to Rael Brothman, who is also involved with the Reform Party. And early last year, about a year ago, was making overtures to the Board of Deputies in effect to convince them that actually Reform was a natural

home for people of Jewish faith. And again, just for context on this, it, it shouldn't be regarded as coincidence that Suella Brotherman was home secretary back in 2023 when the current conflict took hold. And I, I write an article back then called home secretary picks aside for the police. And I would encourage you to read it because what she did to police there, first of all, was an abuse of her position as home secretary in that she was trampling all over police

operational independence. But also she was absolutely skewing the narrative completely in favour of Israel. And this is where Reform is going. Thank you for that, Charles. Now let's talk about censorship

for a second, because it's six months since Ofcom began enforcing age verification in the UK, and the effect on freedom of speech, of course, has been chilling. Vanessa and Alex Creel have both reported on the misuse of the requirements to censor on Substack. And more and more people are choosing not to look at content rather than to submit to the age verification regime. Well, Ofcom has now announced that the Global Online Safety Regulators Network just put that back on screen.

Chris, which is which brings together online safety regulators across the world, has set out its views and expectations on what they describe as the important role age assurance pays in the global effort to protect children. Now let's be absolutely clear about this. It plays no role in protecting children.

This will come on to a second in a second now in the UK, age checks, or they describe it as the cornerstone of the Online Safety Act. And they say that their rules, their rules, sorry, requiring sites and apps to have highly effective age assurance have been enforced since July. And that they're currently monitoring services compliance. And that they've opened 83 investigations into adult websites as part of their enforcement program.

And that they have recently fined one service provider, AVS, £1,000,000 for failing to have highly effective age assurance checks in place. And this is because the pornography industry is the poster child for all of this. The justification which is supposed to make it acceptable in the minds of the public. And in an effort to build opposition to the policy, then the biggest porn site, Pornhub, has decided to restrict access to its site to UK users from

next week. But as we've been reporting, despite claims of plummeting viewer numbers of Pornhub here in the UK, it's clear that people have been taking to VPN use to subvert the age verification requirement, and this has been recognized. And so the House of Lords has decided to vote that age verification should be extended to VPN use, confirming what we suggested was going to happen at the time that VPN would become a target for political

interference. Now, this comes as an amendment, Amendment 92 to the Children's well-being and Schools Bill proposed and the amendments being proposed by Lord Nash. Amendment 92 would insert a new clause titled Action to prohibit the provision of VPN services to children in the United Kingdom. And it requires that within 12 months of the ACT being passed, the Secretary of State must make regulations prohibiting VPN services from being provided to children.

And that's described as under eighteens VPN providers may be required to apply age assurance that is highly effective at correctly determining or not the person is a child. That Ofcom would be would produce guidance for VPN providers and compliance and the government would establish A monitoring regime with enforcement measures and penalties for non compliance. But it's been pointing out time and time again, none of this does anything to protect children who are by far put at risk.

Far and away the biggest risk online is by adults posing as children on websites like Roblox that have no age assurance department to confirm that users are actually children. The biggest risk to children is from grooming. And these are the types of platforms. Roblox is the type of platform where that kind of thing happens as highlighted by Miller law on screen at the moment. All this in the show notes, so do pay attention on the UK column website to the show notes for this.

But then moving on from here, of course, Australia decided that under under 16 should be banned from any social media useless use. Recently, France has now decided to do the same thing. So they've passed a bill that will ban social media use by under fifteens in their case. And this, of course, was championed by Macron as a way to protect children from too much screen time. So the National Assembly has adopted to that it will go to the Senate and so on. And Macron very excited about

this. It's a major step apparently in dealing with this. And then finally, I just want to mention that, Oh, sorry, just before we get on to the finally, we'll just mention, of course, this is absolutely happening in the UK as well because the proposals are in, here's the House of Commons library proposals to ban social media for children. So this is coming to the UK as

well. And finally I'll just mention what's been going on with TikTok because TikTok users are saying they can't upload anti ice videos in the United States. TikTok themselves are saying that this is as a result of tech issues. The BBC covering this as well. TikTok US pushes back on claims it's censoring content. Now they're saying that this is because of tech issues.

It may well be. What I'll say is that if it's, if it is genuine, then this is an example of the next step, which of course is that content gets scanned before it's uploaded and it's prevented from being uploaded in the 1st place if it's content that they don't like.

What I'm going to say about purely anecdotal, I'll accept, but our personal experience with tech Tiktok is that it is, despite its claims that that that it's not censoring people, it is the most censorious social media platform out there. And so I'm highly skeptical about their claims that this was just sort of some kind of technical accidental thing. But so the the censorship regime moves on appears. But let's come back to Vanessa then.

Vanessa, lots been going on, particularly in North East Syria

with the Kurds. Yes, I, I thought I but I'd swing back to Syria because there is AI mean there has been a lot going on for the last few years, but there is a lot of clashes going on between the Kurds and the Jolani HDS Takfiri forces. And it appears that despite the fact that allegedly the Kurds fought ISIS in Syria for years now the US allies say they've been abandoned. And this is the general narrative.

Now, of course, from my perspective, having lived in Syria, the Kurds, backed by the United States, effectively occupied NE Syria and took control of the oil resources and

the agricultural resources. And in my opinion, were absolutely pivotal to the fall of Syria by energy, depriving the Syrian people and also depriving them of agricultural resources from Syrian territory in the North East on behalf of the United States. And, in fact, former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said this in 2019 in relation to the Kurds. We tell those groups who are betting on the Americans that the Americans will not protect

you. They will put you in their pockets so that you can be a bargaining chip. And he was always very clear, as was our leadership of the Lebanese resistance, that the Kurds would, as they have historically be betrayed by the United States.

Now, I just wanted to show, I think this is a map from 20, 19, which shows the territory that then was under the control even up to December 2024, that was under control of the Kurds, which is the yellow section, the green sections in the north there that are under the control of the Turkish military and

their proxies. But if we look at a very recent map, this is January 2026. It's a little bit confusing, but the two red circles there are basically where the Kurdish forces and civilians have been forced to withdraw to, to as they call it, Kobani and Hasika. So Kobani in the north and Hasika in the North East, of course surrounded by the Turkish proxies and now by HTS. And of course, surprise, surprise perhaps for some is the fact that ISIS are now being released. I'll come on to that.

This is a statement by Tom Barrack in the last couple of days. So he's basically now saying Syria has acknowledged the central government that has joined the global coalition to defeat ISIS. This shifts the rationale for the USSTF partnership. The original purpose of SDF as the primary anti ISIS force on the ground has largely expired. And in fact he goes on to say that Jolani and the HTS forces will take control of the ISIS

holding camps. Meanwhile, of course, the majority of Jolani's Takfiri forces comprise ISIS members. So guess what? They're actually releasing ISIS members from the prisons. I think there's 9 prisons in the northeast holding up to 100,000 ISIS fighters and their families. But then if we look at what Lindsey Graham is saying, who's come slightly more to prominence recently under Trump, he says it would be a disaster for US reputation and national security interests to abandon the Kurds.

I will be introducing legislation this week designed to impose crippling sanctions on any government or group engaged in hostilities against the Kurds, the Save the Kurds Act. So this is getting a little bit silly now because Trump has just allegedly withdrawn the season sanctions on Jelani's government, whereas now Lindsey Graham is going to bring in an act to reimpose sanctions on the HDS government for the massacres that are now being committed against Kurdish civilians in the

areas where HDS is advancing. Then let's have a look. And this is, in my opinion, entirely what this is all about. This is from U.S. central Command CENTCOM. U.S. forces launched mission in Syria to guess what, transfer ISIS detainees to Iraq. So what are they actually

saying? They're saying the transfer mission began while U.S. forces successfully transported 150 ISIS fighters, held a detention facility in Haseka, Syria to a secure location in Iraq. Ultimately, up to 7000 ISIS detainees could be transferred from Syria to Iraqi controlled facilities. Now, I'm sure this is absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming potential aggression against Iran. Trump is bringing in his big beautiful Armada as he's described it.

And if we just move on, Trump is saying, I'm hearing that the great country of Iraq might make a very bad choice by reinstating Nouri al-maliki as Prime Minister. Last time Maliki was in power, the country descended into poverty and total chaos, nothing to do with the United States.

Of course, that should not be allowed to happen again because of course, how Trump perceives it and how the region perceives that Nouri al-maliki will be very sympathetic to Iran with the upcoming aggression yet again. He also says Trump make Iraq great again.

And I just wanted to include so the fact that ISIS is now being transferred from Syria to Iraq. Russia is withdrawing its troops from the Karmishly base in the northeast, and Jolani is in Moscow today to discuss the movements and and the bilateral agreement with Putin. I'll leave people to speculate

on exactly what that means. But I wanted to draw attention also to the UK involvement in the ISIS camps in the northeast because again, I'm sure people are probably saying, well, this has nothing to do with the UK. In 2021, the UK provided funding for the expansion of one of the ISIS camps in Haseko, northeast Syria. Rather than repatriate British nationals, the UK Foreign Office condemn them to a life in prison in conditions that are described as inhumane by various human

rights groups, according to report in Defence One. The effort will double in size the current facility at Hausiga, a series of three converted school buildings that hold roughly 5000 prisoners, according to British Army Major General Kevin Cropsey, the coalition's deputy commander for

strategies. So Britain very heavily involved in this also and a recent article, I think in the last two days from Kit Clarenberg, where he talks about leaked documents demonstrating how the MI 6 infiltrated ISIS refugee camps and were involved in the indoctrination, particularly of children in radical ideology. So as we've talked about the radicalization of elements in the UK that would then be sent to fight alongside Al Qaeda in Syria.

The UK apparently appears to have been doing that within the ISIS holding camps that they are funding in the North East of Syria to effectively be weaponized against wrist resistance movements in the region. Which we have formed for Vanessa with al Qaeda as well and HTS over the years. Yes, OK, well, I'm sure we'll be talking about that an extra as well, Charles.

Let's end, then, with China. Because of course, Mark Carney was in China a week or two ago, and now Keir Starmer has gone. It's Thomas Turn. He has announced on Twitter, where else, that he has landed in China. You'd be forgiven for thinking he's gone there in his capacity as a postman or a Courier, he says.

He's I'm here to deliver for the British people, he goes on in his press release to make a point of striking honesty, but obviously an attempt to extract political capital and take the high ground. He said or released. It was written for him. For years our approach to China has been dogged by inconsistency, blowing hot and cold from the Golden Age to Ice Age.

But like it or not, China matters for the UK and it it it does seem that he has hit it at the heart of the inconsistency surrounding commentary on China, which is to say that people are prepared to make damning criticism of the place whilst remaining absolutely content to rely upon all the goods which are imported from there. But Starmer himself wanting to appear tough, banging the drum for national security.

He says, rather the press release says that he will be clear that we will not trade Economic Cooperation for our national security and he'll raise the areas where we disagree with China so that the language sort of softened to a certain extent. Now what one has to ask is, is it coincidence that the BBC has chosen exactly this moment to suggest Chinese military is in complete disarray with an article here? China has purged its highest ranking military general. Why now?

This is about the disappearance, in fact back in November of General Zhang and he's the most senior figure in the Central Military Commission. And to substantiate their position, the BBC has quoted Lyle Morris from the Rockefeller, Rockefeller funded Asia Society Policy Institute, who speculated that there are lots of rumours floating around. We don't know at this point what is true and what is false.

And he went on to be absolutely certain in saying that it's certainly bad for Xi Jinping, for his leadership and control over the People's Liberation Army. Quite how he reached that conclusion remains to be seen. They then asked associate professor from the National University of Singapore, who again speculated completely, saying that he'd heard rumours, everything from leaking nuclear secrets to the United States, plotting A coup and factional

infighting. There are even rumours of a gunfight in Beijing. So essentially the entire BBC article based on nothing but circumspection. The reader is obviously expected to come away with increased suspicion of the Chinese state, and indeed they're to consider that they're now very vulnerable militarily, despite the fact that the people of Liberation Army still numbers over

2,000,000 men and women. Now whilst I'm not going to claim to have the answers that the BBC couldn't quite grasp, I can point out one or two things that they failed to collide with. The first being that the 15th 5 year plan here shown on the State Council website begins in March. And General Zhang has it's been out of the public eye since November. As I said, he's also 75 years old.

So like Starmer, perhaps it is time for a change, despite the allegations of corruption and wrongdoing and all sorts of other things. Which may indeed be the case as well. Not only that, but the military is looking to modernise. So again, is this coincidence as the State Council announces that the regulations which will take effect focus on accelerating the modernisation of military theory, optimising the top level design for innovation in

military theory. So is that the sort of change that one would implement with a 75 year old at the helm? That is simply a question that I might put there. Now, Starmer also referenced the relationship between defence, or as he calls it, national security and trade. And this is precisely what Trump's Board of Peace is is bringing to the fore. And here's the news, the invitation as published by the Chinese embassy in London. All of which puts the spotlight on the relevance in the role of

NATO. Now, of the many commentaries out there, I had a look at The Diplomat, which has an article out recently published titled The disintegration of NATO would not be in China's Interests. And what they're positing, among other things, is that the the Chinese experts have argued that NATO began looking for a new adversary after the Cold War to

justify its existence. Not not exactly a contentious position necessarily, but of course the point to be brought out of it is that the situation with NATO, which regards China as a challenge rather than a threat, is 1 of stalemates. So it doesn't. None of those present prevents NATO from posturing. And we can consider the awkward confluence of running military operations, as Luke Pollard

said, to boost trade. And we're looking here at the Carrier Strike Group, which set off from the United Kingdom last year, touring the South Pacific region with it's occasionally just composed of United Kingdom vessels and aircraft and occasionally with other NATO fleets. But what they did do whilst they were there was to boast that they transited the South China Sea. Of course, no actual engagement with China.

But to refer back to Starmer's point, which is that one so many are so determined to ignore, of course, the United Kingdom imports more from China than any other country except for the United States and Germany. So as things stand, the United Kingdom is much more dependent upon China than China is on the United Kingdom. Now, UK column is going to be doing more of what we should, which is finding out for

ourselves. So we'll hope to be able to break new greater insight on this in the coming weeks because Mike and I will be in China for the latter stages of the Stalmer visit and we'll be able to talk a bit more about that in extra. But for now, Mike, what do you think about the UK's attitude towards China and I suppose especially in light of the comments of Mark Carney and so forth? Yeah, I think UK has demonstrated absolute schizophrenia with respect to China for a number of years now.

We have, we have produced the China report from the House of Lords. I believe we have decided that Huawei is not appropriate because it's a national security threat to it's not appropriate to have that on our 5G networks because 5G networks are used for dual use these days. And of course we don't worry about the fact that our 5G networks are often heavily polluted with it's really unit

8200 inspired hardware. So you know, if we're worried about countries stealing data, which countries is it that we should be most worried about? And so, yeah, there there seems to be definite efforts to try to demonise China while at the same time keeping relations there. I suspect Britain and and Carney probably represents this policy as well, is very keen to do anything that it can to split China away from Russia if if that's, you know, if that's how they view the the major threat.

Yeah, well, that was it was actually one of the things that the article in the Diplomat went on to to refer to. But of course, the line that they take is that is that Russia is is acting, you know, in the sort of mainstream sense in terms of the aggression and and whatnot. And and what, if anything, do you think Starmer will come away from China with? Well, he'll come away with absolutely nothing. Yeah, exactly. So hence the use of the word deliver rather than.

Yes, bring back. Yes, exactly. Yes, yeah. So we'll we'll see what happens there. But as I say, we should have some more commentary on that by next week. So that brings us to more or less, I think the end of the IT. It, it does indeed, yes. So we, we do have to finish there for today, unfortunately, but with much more an extra if you're UK column member, if you're not a UK column member, maybe you'd like to join us and that helps us do what we're doing. And you can join us for extra

anytime. We are hosting a news programme. I want to say thank you to Vanessa and Charles, of course, for joining me today. And for everybody that's been watching, don't forget, if you want to look at the documentation behind the stories that we've covered today, have a look in the show notes. But we'll be back in a few minutes on this stream if you're AUK column member. Otherwise, don't forget the interviews this evening, an interview going out at 1:00 PM tomorrow.

News again, 1:00 PM on Friday. We will see you then. Bye, bye, bye bye.