UK Column News — 5th December 2025

Good afternoon. It's Friday the 5th of December 2025, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK called News. I'm your host Mike Robinson and my Co host in the studio today, Patrick Henningson. Welcome to the program, Patrick. Great to be with you, Mike. And we'll be joined today by journalist Tim Norman. Later in the program, we're going to be covering the Eurovision Song Contest. We're going to be looking at censorship.

We'll have a Ukraine update, the latest on potential military action in Venezuela, and well, news of a very big donation to reform. But we're going to begin with the Don Sturgis Inquiry report. Now, just as a reminder, in

March 2018, the British regime accused Russia of using a weapons grade chemical weapon to poison former KGB agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. Uh, several months later, Charlie Rowley is said to have found a bottle of expensive perfume and to have given it to his girlfriend Dawn Sturgis, who fell ill, uh, when she sprayed the perfume on her wrists. Uh, she subsequently died and well, the clamour from the British regime is that the bottle contained enough novichok

to kill thousands of people. Now the inquiry into Don Sturgis death was led by Lord Hughes. You just saw on screen there. So let's have a quick listen to a little bit of what he said when he was introduced. Good afternoon. For those who haven't been at earlier hearings, I'm Anthony Hughes, and this has been an inquiry into the untimely death of Dawn Sturgis. It was established in March 2022 when I was appointed to chair it.

So, in summary, the conclusion of the report is that Dawn Sturgis died an innocent victim of an attempt by officers of a Russian state organization to conduct an assassination on the streets of Salisbury using a highly toxic nerve agent. The conduct of Petrov and Boshirov and their Gru superiors and those who authorized the mission, up to and including, as I found, President Putin, that conduct was astonishingly

reckless. There is a direct causal link between the actions of all those individuals and Dawn Sturgis's death, and they, and only they, bear moral responsibility for it. So I'd like to welcome Tim Norman to the program. And Tim, I suppose my first question is, is there a direct causal link between the death of Dawn Sturgis and an alleged Novichok attack in Salisbury? Well, they're all hinges on the question of this bottle.

That's the causal link that the UK establishments and Lord Hughes is trying to make, because this is the bottle that, as he said in the introduction, allegedly was picked up by Dawn Sturgis's boyfriend and given to her. But it's it's, you know, it's very important that to understand that his testimony is the sole foundation of this entire narrative whereby he picks up a bottle, gave it to Dawn, she sprayed herself, which is a question in itself.

When you think about a chemical weapon, would you really spray that? But that is a narrative. And then she died and he calls the ambulance. That entire section of story belongs only to Charlie Rowley. And Charlie Rowley is a admitted alcoholic and a heroin addict and indeed a convicted petty criminal whose previous girlfriend, two years in the before, had died of a heroin overdose in his flat, in his presence.

He just put her to bed, knowing her that, knowing that she'd taken a heroin overdose and she died. So he didn't appear before the inquiry. And this is really the critical factor. I think that shows how the inquiry sort of failed to store the surgeon's family in in many respects, because he's the key witness and the inquiry simply failed to produce him.

I would suggest because if they did, everyone would see for themselves that he's an extremely unreliable witness and the narrative had a very very shaky foundations. If for him not appearing at the inquiry. Beg pardon, sorry. What reason did they give that he did not appear at the inquiry? Health issues he's, you know, apparently had his memory affected by Novichok. And so the inquiry has to rely on 6 year old transcripts of police interviews that he gave

at the time. And there's some of them are sort of bordering on a comical there's the police are effectively trying to suggest to him that he found this bottle. They don't really know. He doesn't know where he denies he doesn't recognise the packaging when it's showed him in the first instance. He says, I think I found it on the floor. It might have fallen in my pocket. It could have been in Amesbury, it could have been Salisbury. I don't know. He just simply has a bank on it. Yeah, yeah.

OK. Well, look, we we will come back to the the bottle a little bit later. But I suppose the next question is this because the inquiry nearly didn't happen and the result, well perhaps the result of it demonstrates that it shouldn't have. But but anyway, the question is why did the inquiry nearly not happen? Because you have a couple of of articles here. This is BBC from 2020. Is that scope of Novichok victims inquest must be

reconsidered. And but also there's another one here from Sky News which is saying that the home Secretary had effectively, sorry, Home secretary had effectively put a secrecy order on the Salisbury inquiry. So, So what? How did how did this inquiry actually come about in the first place?

Well, that's it. I mean, when you hear Lord Hughes speaking as we just did, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the British establishment established this inquiry purely to help the Sturgis family understand what happened to their loved 1 and in interest of transparency and, you know, due process and justice and so forth.

But in fact, what happened is the original coroner in 2019 is called David Ridley. He was Wiltshire's chief coroner, held a very limited inquest and he said I don't want to investigate Russian state culpability in Dawn Sturgess's death and I'm not going even going to investigate the provenance of the Novichok, where this Novichok chemical weapon allegedly came from. And so the family objected to

this. And with Michael Mansfield, the barrister, they took the Home Office to court effectively. And that's what that first slide shows. It's that they won. They won their case against against the government effectively. And that's what forced the government to set up this

inquiry. Of course, there are even public inquiries that you can hold sessions and secrets behind closed doors, unlike A coroner's inquest, which actually is fully transparent and held completely in in the, if you like, in the public eye and then sorry. Go ahead, I was. Just going to say then. So then once the and it took years before the inquiry as we know it took seven years really from Dawn's deaf and till the hearings.

And yes, Priti Patel, the Home Secretary back in 2022, made certain that even before, you know, the Chair was able to look at the documents, there would be documents as that were redacted from the Chair, even from Lord Hughes and prevented from being shown to the Sturgis family. Which goes to show how genuinely committed this inquiry was to actually getting to the truth as far as the Sturgis family is concerned. Have you any thoughts on that just before we move on?

Tim, you know, it's just incredible. It just strikes me that we have the longest running criminal investigation in British history. We have no evidence signed off by any judge. We have no murder weapon. We have really no confirmed crime scene. We have no chief witness and we have, well, initially we didn't have a, a dead victim from Nova Chalk, but it seems like Don Sturgis has been in a way kind

of moved into this position. If if, if we look at the just the lack of the cohesiveness of the case that's being made here and the lack of any criminal due process from this, it almost seems like they Don Sturgis is an incidental accessory to shore up a narrative that Novichok is, you know, a deadly nerve agent because it apparently we're told it didn't kill the script pals. And by the way, where are the script pals?

We'll get to that in a moment. But Tim, where this isn't really, it's incredible that this hasn't really gone through any real criminal legal or criminal due process. Well, that's right. In fact, this, you know, a strange, strange inquiry is as close as the establishment prepared to go. So it's a sort of false trial, if you'll and people back in when the Skripals were allegedly poisoned in March 2018, as you say, they weren't killed and Yulia recovered. We can go into a bit more detail

about that later, maybe. And then and then Sergey recovered and they were both released from hospital. So this is before Dawn Sturgis died. And so we had this kind of period of calm, if you like, for the people of Salisbury where both victims had recovered. They'd been released from hospital.

And The New York Times, for example, published an article where they went to Salisbury and interviewed some of the people in Salisbury. He was saying, well, you know, I think if Mr. Putin had wanted to kill somebody, they'd be dead. And, you know, I don't think we're ever going to get to the bottom of this. And they were expecting. So skepticism from the people of Salisbury being expressed in the New York Times hardly a a minor publication.

And then once, you know, we got to this point, then this sort of second act of the, of the whole of chalk poisoning began and Dawn died, You know, she's, she's, she effectively died in Charlie Rowley's flat. She had a heart attack and brain damage by the time the paramedics came and they revived her, but she had suffered catastrophic brain damage. And she's actually died 8 days later when they turned off her life support system. And then Charlie Rowley woke up

two days after that. So, and then of course, the bottle was found in his flat after he woke up. So this, this suggestion that the sort of bottle was found in a bin really kept was, was given to him. And you can actually see that in the transcripts of the of the interviews that he was given giving to the police.

The time you can see the suggestion really first comes from the police that he found this bottle somewhere because he's he's as, as I say, he doesn't really remember anything about it, although he does remember very clearly that it was wrapped in plastic. And that's another detail which the inquiry has to deal with it. So it has to engineer some answers as to why this bottle was in two pieces and wrapped as

it were, as if new in a box. Well, look, let's, let's see if we can deal with this bottle once and for all here, because first of all, let's bring up the, the, the page from the Don Sturgis inquiry report here. So that's, that's the front page of the Don storage, the Don Sturgis inquiry report and highlighted here is Section 1 sort of 4.71. The larger sachet have been cut open unevenly.

The sachets appeared, particularly the smaller of the two, to have both original manufacturers sealed edges, but also an additional heat seals consistent with subsequent application by the kind of domestic sealer readily available for kitchen or similar use. Those additional heat seals were consistent with the bottle having been used in the Salisbury event involving Sergei and Yulia Skripal and crudely repackaged before being

abandoned. This seems like such a ridiculous narrative, Tim. Well, it seems to me that it's a sort of a narrative that's being engineered around the evidence that Charlie Riley presented. Because although as we discussed, he has virtually no memory of where he found the bottle. He had a very clear memory of opening the bottle, cutting open the plastic and indeed spilling the contents of the bottle on his hands. He tried to put this applicator on the top of it.

And so the inquiry then has to try and answer this question of how did the bottle come to be sealed if it was the bottle that was used to contaminate script house door and there's a sub theory that is a backup bottle. But really then why would there need to be a bottle at all? That could have been anything if that wasn't the bottle. Right, right, right. So sorry. Just let me interrupt for a second because you've just said that Charlie Roley poured,

spilled it over his hands. We'll come back to this in a second. What I want to just mention here in passing here that this man Hamish to Bretton Gordon, if we can get him up on screen here, he was rolled out back in 2018 to terrify us all at that time about this with a headline in the Telegraph. Why Novichok could be Russia's most terrifying weapon in a war with the West.

Look, we have, I want to show a short clip from yesterday's Channel 4 News report on this and well, guess who they rolled out. But let's watch this. And it was 3 Gru men who travelled to the UK to try to kill her father eight years later, under aliases. They were in reality Alexander Mishkin, Anatoly Chepiga and Denis Sergeyev, who stayed in London while the other two travelled to Salisbury smearing Novichok on.

Skripal's door handle The pair then discarded the perfume bottle containing it before travelling back to Russia. We're talking about something called Novichok, the most deadly chemical ever manufactured by man. And if you think that something like chlorine is maybe toxicity one, this is toxicity 10,000. So this is toxicity 10,000 Charlie Rowley. Charlie Rowley pours it over his hands, spills it. Toxicity 10,000. It's killing thousands of people potentially, but it didn't kill

him. That's quite amazing. Deadliest nerve agent known to man 10 times more deadly than VXVX gas Tim. So this this means Charlie Rowley should be donated to scientific research for his incredible immune capabilities. Indeed, along with the Skripals and along with the Skripals cat, which survived in the in the Skripals house for weeks, apparently contaminated with Novichok until the police decided to euthanize it. Yes. I mean, Rowley doesn't just spit

on his hands. He then wipes his hands on his jeans before he then washes them under the tap. And then he goes out. I mean, at this point Dawn is taken to hospital, but he doesn't accompany Dawn to the hospital. He goes and gets his methadone prescription from the Amesbury chemist and then with a friend he goes to a BBQ at a Baptist Church. Then he goes back to his flat and then he collapses.

So very delayed action, although of course in the case of Dawn Sturgis apparently took 15 minutes before she was affected. But just quickly going back to this question of the heat sealing of the of the bottle and why this packaging was sealed, sealed the bottle, according to the inquiry.

They the inquiry suggests that Boschrov and Petrov, these two assassins who we just saw alleged assassins, had with them in their backpack a portable heat sealing device such as you might find in the kitchen and having poisoned the smeared the substance on the door, as we just heard, they went to some toilets in the This is the inquiry's suggestion. This is not fantasy, which is fantasy. Perhaps it's coming from the inquiry.

I went to some public toilets, took apart their bottle of WMD 10,000 times more deadly and then sealed it in plastic using their heat sealer and then just dropped it in a bin and left. And that is the narrative that was off seriously presented to the inquiry to the point where they spent half a half a day at the inquiry interviewing a forensic expert in heat, heat sealing devices and heat seeders.

And I guess because, you know, our councils are also rubbish these days, they don't empty the bin. So it took four months for Charlie Rowley to find it in the same bin. And but here's the key question, Tim. Where was the part perfume bottle found when Don Sturgis was taken to hospital? Well, it was found on the worktop 10 days later, as I think we mentioned. And in fact the photograph that we're shown in the inquiry of the bottle is that is used to suggest to Charlie by the police.

They'd show him the photograph. They say, can you see that thing? And when you see the photograph reproduced in the inquiry documents, the branding is redacted, It's been blacked out, very conveniently also hides how much liquid was in the bottle because clearly the amount of

liquid is quite important. We've apparently now smeared on the door handle, then we've spilled, then rarely spilled on his hands, and then yet again another amount has been used to door by door and apparently on on ourself. So that's a little interesting detail. We never get to see how much liquid is in there in the this bottle, which is the sole sort of forensic centre of this rather baroque narrative. Right. So just just let me understand this.

We're absolutely clear about this, that according to the inquiry report, the bottle was found in the flat. The in no, I mean, we know for a fact that's where it first appeared and it appeared 10 days after the event. The flat was thoroughly searched by the police. But in the in terms of the report, it concedes that it really, really has no idea where he found his account changed constantly and it was it was unable to determine really he's unable to say where, where, where it was found.

You know, no, I'm talking about when Don Sturgis went to the hospital. It was definitely in the flat at that time. Oh, no, no, no. Well, we don't know that we know. We know. The first sighting of the bottle, if you like, is 10 days after the Amesbury flat poisoning, when he is. Apparently he's first seen on the work surface in the kitchen, so that's the first. Of Charlie Rowley's flat right. Of Charlie Rowley's flat. Of Charlie or Dawn's flat Charlie's. Flat. It's just Charlie's flat.

I'm sorry, just say Dawn. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So this is very confusing, right? Because we've got a video clip of Ben Wallace here, who of course was Secretary of State for war slash defence. Let's have a listen to what he said about this. And I went to, I first went to Ukraine in 2016 as security minister.

I remember thinking something had changed when Putin used nerve agent at Salisbury. That was the real wake up call, that this was a man who supposedly had been on a journey from the Soviet Union authorizing the use of a banned substance, nerve agent on the streets of a county town without any real regard. I remember going to see the discarded perfume bottle which was 98% pure. It would have killed 34000 people if they'd been distributed differently. We'd just been chucked under a

Bush in a park. There was a we went to a small park in Salisbury and I went with the chief constable and the head of terrorism and he was saying I'll show you where it is. And there was a man sitting on the bench eating his sandwiches and these policemen and Spooks were pointing at the bench he was sitting on. And he looked up and I thought, I can't tell him, I can't tell him. So I, I don't get why everybody

was laughing there. Here we have a Secretary of State talking about being taken to the scene of a crime by the chief constable with a where there is a perfume bottle which is enough stuff in it to kill 4 to 5000 people. That place is apparently not cordoned off. We've got a guy sitting eating sandwiches on the on the park bench, Patrick, but. But no one in hazmat suits.

No, no one in hazmat suits. But the key point here is we we clearly have no narrative because he's saying was found under a Bush the inquiry saying, well, we don't don't know what the inquiry saying, but but it was apparently found in in in Charlie Raley's flat. So where was this blooming? This perfume bottle is is absolutely it's like the magic bullet for JFK. It it seems to be in but it's multiple places at the same time.

But I mean, even by Ben Wallace's standards, that's just a bombastic and outrageous statement. I mean, this goes in the Hall of Fame of his gaffes, which is a huge pantheon of bloopers. But I mean, this is just next level. I mean, that's the that's the Defense Secretary. Absolutely. Talking, absolutely. And my question for you, Tim, is why, if this inquiry was in any way serious, why would they not have called Ben Wallace to testify about what he said at

that event? Well, indeed, and why didn't they for that matter, call the script hours and they're expected to believe that the UK's sort of security network is incapable of protecting them such that, you know, if they were to appear by secure video link, which of course happens in court cases all the time, he would they would somehow be tracked down by shooting strangely incompetent assassins who would presumably once again failed to kill the script owls

with the most steady nerve agent known to man. But yes, I mean, there's many witnesses that they could have called. I mean, they're plenty of the medical staff, the medical director of the hospital, There's another very important witness that the the inquiry should have called and because she was, of course, in charge of the whole hospital during the response to the Nova shock, both Nova shock attacks. Right.

Well, we'll get on. We'll get on to that in just one second, Tim. But before we do, I just want to remind everybody what the Sally Davies, who was at the at the time Chief Medical Officer said. Let's just have a listen to this. These two patients are in a critical condition following exposure to the nerve agent Novichok following events in March. We have a well established response to this type of incident and clear processes to follow.

Our priorities at this time are to care for the patients and to understand the circumstances surrounding how these two individuals became unwell, thus ensuring there is no further risk to the public's health from this incident. As the country's Chief Medical Officer, I want to reassure the public that the risk to the general public remains low.

I understand that those in Salisbury and its surrounding areas will be concerned that this news, particularly those who've recently visited the areas now cordoned off by the police. My advice for any individual that may have been in any of the areas now cordoned off from 10:00 PM on Friday evening onwards is highly precautionary.

As before, my advice is to wash your clothes and wipe down any personal items, shoes and bags with cleansing or baby wipes before disposing of them in the usual way. This is. So there we go. That was the advice. That was how serious the the contents of the bottle were. Baby wipes. Baby wipes. Yeah. Now you you mentioned the hospital doctor.

This is Doctor Stephen Cockroft. Well, now I was referring to Christine Blanchard, but actually Stephen Cockroft is a very interesting witness who appeared before the inquiry and he was the senior ICU consultant who was present when the Skripals were brought in to the ICU on the evening, afternoon, 4th of March 2018. But this, in this clip, which we're about to see, he's describing what happened four

days later. Because the Skripals were put on ventilators, they were intubated and they weren't able to speak. But under these circumstances, it's common practice in Icus to reduce the sedation of the patients on a periodical, usually more than once a day, to see how their neurological function is and see if in fact, they can be weaned off sedation and can be can breathe for themselves.

So Yulius Gripal had her sedation reduced into his absolute amazement because Doctor Crockroft believed that she had been exposed to a deadly nerve agent who'd been told that by Porton down this stage. He believed that she would be brain dead. And as he says in this clip, he's absolutely gobsmacked. So let's have a look. Let's have a look at this clip here. To be honest with you, I was actually gobsmacked. This was a girl I never thought I'd see move again.

I never thought she'd be capable having a conversation. I was quite convinced she suffered catastrophic brain damage and I I I couldn't believe that she could be as neurologically attacked. As she obviously was, she was looking at me, she was nodding, she was crying, she looked absolutely terrified. Yeah, I mean, you could not be anything but gobsmacked, Tim. Yes. And there's serious implications. There's all kinds of ramifications to that.

And one thing would be, of course, at this point, Yulia should be put on a rehabilitation program. They've just discovered that she's very neurologically intact. She should be almost immediately should be given a brain scan, and she should be rehabilitated and moved towards coming off ventilation. Instead of which, as far as we know, she simply spent the next three weeks under sedation without any further sedation halts, while the geopolitics of the scribble affairs were

unfolded outside the hospital. Yeah. OK, we can't let real medical conditions get in the way of the narrative, Mike. No, absolutely. Not but D notices were a thing. Well, it just brings us to the question of media management and narrative management. I have to point to this excellent report here by The Grey Zone. We'll bring this up on screen right now. Files expose Britain's secret D

notice censorship program. And this is a pretty incredible most in the most in depth analysis with testimonies, whistleblower testimonies regarding the D notice program. This is a complete full spectrum censorship program in Britain with the military leaning on mainstream media organizations telling them what not to say, what not to report, anything that could quote affect national security. And it's just another damning indictment. We've talked about D notices over the years.

We we're well aware of the practice. But the level of detail in this is shocking. And that brings us to this story. Mike and I always thought and it this is I'll show you where I got my references on this, but this is one of the lead narratives that came out of this. Now the question is Mike, will this be viewed as a cock up or cover up after the inquiry? And this is always the big thing with regards to British inquiries of major high profile

events. And of course we get the the cock up rather than the cover up here. Novichok attack MI 5 left ex Russian spy Sergei Skripal alarmingly accessible to Putin assassins. They didn't do enough to protect Sergei script out. We need more resources for MI 5. We need more funding for MI 5. And so this was a cock up by the system. And you know what there's form here and this is always the case

after every major scandal. And I'll point you to this excellent book here, which is called Power beyond scrutiny, Media Justice and accountability. This is Justin Schlossberg. It's a great book. I often quote it here just to show you. I've got a copy of it which I keep by my desk all the time.

For journalism. This is a fantastic resource, but this is one of the key quotes in this book of many, and it really focuses on the David Kelly incident, Mike, and we'll bring this up on screen again here. And this is what it says regarding cock up versus cover up here. And this is regarding the David Kelly of the Hutton inquiry. Several respondents now the the author here talked to many people involved in the process.

And this was the conclusion several, several respondents did profess belief in some sort of cover up regarding David Kelly's, you know, suicide, stroke, murder, whilst at the same time subscribing to the suicide verdict. The common thread was a tendency to couch the notion of cover up in terms of quote cock up rather than a conspiracy.

And to round out that point, that is to say, if a cover up had taken place, the likely intention was to conceal professional failings rather than unethical or criminal behavior. And this is the institutional leaning that we see time and time again. It's almost like a formula, Mike. They never the establishment always ends up and they appoint probably people who will end up with. This was the final narrative of this. By the way, here's this book, which is available a good

independent publisher. By the way, Pluto Press power beyond scrutiny. I have always said this is required reading for anybody that's interested in these types of events or anybody in journalism. It's a fantastic resource. But, and again, we see the same thing repeated here with script out. Are we surprised? I certainly am not, but I'm still disappointed. Well, indeed. Well, look, Tim, thank you very much for joining us today. You'll be with us an extra as well.

We'll talk about this a little bit more there. But this narrative is so full of holes and this inquiry actually has done nothing to fill those holes in in any way, shape or form. But undoubtedly we'll be accused of conspiracy theory for this and we'll explain why. I say that in a few minutes time when we look at the censorship

issue. But before we get there, let's just say to everybody that if you like what we do and you'd like to support us, please have a look at the UK column website. There is a link there which takes you to a page which explains how you can support us. We do need your financial support. If you can't support us financially, please do share our material because that absolutely helps beat the algorithm. Now tonight at 7:00 PM, Charles and I are speaking to Jeremy again for our usual weekly

intercession. And we're taking a look at Africa and Britain, the West's influence in Africa alongside Russia and China, of course. Then later on at 9:00 PM, life in China versus Western myths. That's Carl speaking to Jason RB Smith on the Silk and Steel podcast. That's at 9:00 PM and we're very pleased to say that tickets are now on sale for our event on the 11th of December in Salisbury entitled Skripal and Novichok. What didn't happen?

You can find this on Eventbrite. The link to that will be in the show notes that begins at 7:30 PM at the location in Salisbury. Details on the Eventbrite Eventbrite site, please. If you are coming as AUK column member, we would be very enthusiastic if you could find somebody from the local community to bring along with that with you because we want to to present this mainly to people in the local area. I think they deserve to hear some of what's being said.

Craig Murray speaking, Patrick Hennigson speaking, and Tim Norman that you just heard is going to be speaking at that as well. And then finally, I just want to mention that on Sunday the 14th, then we are hosting the third annual David Ray Griffin Lecture and that is entitled 9/11 Truth Today, A Social Movement at the Precipice.

It's got to be given by Professor Richard G Alfreds and well, you can see on screen there who else is going to be taking part Jason Burmas, James Corbett, Sandra Lara, Lara Toda and Madava Get the SETI is going to be chairing the event. So that's going to be live streamed on the UK column and on ic911.org. Join us for that if you possibly can. Looking forward to it, to both those events, in fact. So now, Patrick, let's come then

on to the issue of Ukraine and what's been going on there. It's important that people understand the update on this because all these countries are involved in it. Britain, of course, is also very much involved in it. So where are we on the negotiations on this? And very entertaining image. We'll just remind you of Instinct, the Russian dolls. Zelensky has been added to the street side. Russian dolls collections in Moscow. If you travel to Russia, you

have seen this. It's very interesting indeed. Now, how's the media reacting, Mike, to some of the recent statements regarding what Russia is saying, what the US is saying. Here's the Guardian straight up. And you can see that this is the level of propaganda. You see the headline, Russia is ready for war with Europe. Of course, when you read the text, Mike, in the context of this is a much broader conversation. But it's interesting how the war mongering Guardian has chosen to

use that as their headline. Here is the actual statement in context from President Putin. And it, it this should be a real wake up call, I think for all of the war mongers in NATO land, at least the European branch of NATO. Listen to this. Europeans are not silent. They are upset about being sidelined from the talks on a Ukraine peace deal. But I want to note that nobody sidelined them. They sidelined themselves. For a time we had close contacts with them.

Then they abruptly cut ties with Russia. That was their own initiative because they adopted the idea of inflicting A strategic defeat on Russia. And judging by everything, they still live in that illusion. Seeing that they don't like today's results, they have started obstructing the current US administration and President Trump from achieving peace through negotiations. They themselves refused peace talks and now they are hindering President Trump. Thirdly, they have no peace

agenda. They are on the side of war. Even when they claim to introduce changes to Trump's proposal, we can clearly see all these changes are aimed at one thing, to block the entire peace process. They put forward demands that are absolutely unacceptable for Russia and they know it. The goal is to later blame Russia for the end of the peace process. Therefore, if they want to return to reality based on the situation on the ground, as they say, then by all means, we are

open to that. We are not planning to fight Europe. I have said this 100 times. But if Europe suddenly decides to wage war against us and starts it, we are ready right now. There can be no doubt about that. The question is if Europe starts a war with us. I believe that very quickly. This is not Ukraine. With Ukraine, we act in a surgical, careful way. You understand right? It is not war in the full modern

sense of the word. If Europe chooses to start a war, the situation can very quickly reach a point where there will be no one left for us to negotiate with. Well, I mean, that's that's pretty clear. And it's also pretty clear he's not threatening anybody there. Quite the opposite. I think it's pretty clear the the the US does not want a confrontation with Russia. Russia does not want to have a war with Europe. But the rhetoric coming from the European leaders, Mike says

something else. It's like they do want a war with Russia. So what's interesting here is what Putin is. Pay attention. Putin has identified A fissure between Europe and Trump and Washington. And he is absolutely using it. He is really hammering the wedge in there. And and by doing this, there's going to be a lot of back and forth dilly dallying between Washington and and Europe and Zelensky. And Russia knows this.

I believe they priced this all into the equation and but it's a very, very good strategy, I think. So where did this fissure come from between Europe and Washington? Is this a genuine no? But is it, was this something the Trump administration wanted to distance himself like JD Vance at the Munich Security Conferences from Europe? Whatever the case is, wherever this originated from, Mike, or whether it's coming from animosity with with the UK, between Washington, who knows?

But wherever it came. But this has changed the whole calculus of this because under Biden you had total solidarity between transatlantic solidarity on this. They could run Lend Lease deals for the next 10 years, who knows, and keep this thing grinding away. So that's an interesting point of view. Well, and here's the reaction from Trump's reprochement, if you will, with Moscow. This is the Der Spiegel here will bring this up on screen. We must not leave Ukraine and

Zelensky alone with these guys. And there's another reservoir dogs style picture from the European meter to to make all these European leaders look like they're really sort of with it and tough. I mean it's just kind of a joke at this point. So that's interesting. You know the irony, Mike, this is AUS LED destabilization project right from my from before the Maidan. But now the US wants to exit the situation. Europe is stuck with it and they're now running point on it.

They're going to have to wear the failure of this. And I think that's inevitable based on what we're going to show you in a moment here, because now you've got another problem to contend with. We'll bring this up on screen, a corruption scandal in Brussels. And this is the only the beginning here. That is the former high representative to the European Union on foreign policy.

That's Frederica Margherini. She is basically detained by the police under questioning for a corruption regarding tenders, contracts, all sorts of graft and things like this. So officers have been raided, right? All of this has happened. So this is just, I think, a warning shot because there are other bigger scandals, Qatar gate, von der Leyen's own vaccine graft as well that hasn't been fully. This could be something to

placate the press, who knows? But this brings us back to the original question, who is going to pay for Europe's war with Russia? And this was Vanderline's recent pronouncements here, She's saying all over their new plans and schemes to finance Ukraine's needs for the next, like, three years or something like that. But there's a problem. And the problem has come in the form of guess who, Christina Lagarde. This is a battle of the alpha females here at the highest level.

Mike Lagarde says the ECB, the European Central Bank, will not violate the EU treaty, the Treaty of Europe, and allow Brussels to steal Russian assets to pay for the Ukraine war. She has given it the thumbs down. Here she is explaining why she's made her decision.

What I have said very clearly and what the team around me has said is we will do everything we can, but we will not violate the Treaty. It's not that we are refusing, it's just that we are saying we have to respect the Treaty of Europe in relation to the functioning of the European Central Bank. So when the fiscal space is not there, we have to find a way and there are ways that have been identified and in particular. Option 2 is one of the ways that has been identified the issuance of.

Bonds that would be specifically intended to finance Ukraine. More debts. Perfect. Answer, the bonds she's talking about are underwritten by Russia losing the war and paying reparations. Is that going to happen? I don't know. So it looks like no way out really for Vander Leyen and company on this. So just a summary on where we're at. These are the key data points to pay attention to. We'll bring this up on screen here. Ukraine negotiations, key data

points, number one. EU corruption and scandals abound. Bad news for Brussels makes them weak right here. Rubio's absent from the NATO meeting this week. First time ever the US Secretary of State has not shown up. You can read that two different ways. Could be Trump keeping Rubio away, or could be Rubio basically blowing off NATO. Either way, it's a bad look for NATO and for their prospects of getting full solidarity on this issue.

Witkoff snubs Zelensky in Dublin Zelensky went to to the Irish parliament did his. Normal grandstanding and was posed to meet Witkoff while Witkoff was on the way home from Moscow. Guess what? Witkoff snubbed the little Green Man. So this was a huge insult. And here is the big one in terms of data points, that one Russian momentum on the battlefield, this is an inescapable reality here.

So you combine all of these data points together, Mike, and the conclusion is that while this US Moscow ripprochement negotiations might stretch on into 2026, at least now there's an acknowledgement by the US of the facts on the ground. They're recognizing Russias winning and that they cannot, Ukraine cannot turn the tide or NATO of this conflict.

That is a reality. They've US has acknowledged that there's no NATO membership for Ukraine and Zelensky has been effectively sidelined with corruption scandals in Ukraine. Your mock his chief aide is out. That is Zelensky's brain. He's gone. So all of these things together, Mike, it, it looks like we're seeing a shift. However, when is this going to be formalized into some kind of a formal agreement or treaty? That is the big question.

It is, but the Europeans will kick and scream as long as they possibly can. Or the the UK, who arguably helped the Ukrainians to hit oil tankers in the Black Sea, causing a huge environmental catastrophe in order to basically sabotage these negotiations. So that's continuing. And what's Russia's reaction? They're ramping up their timetable on Odessa. So well done NATO. Brilliant. OK well let's let's move on then because trouble at Eurovision.

So let's bring your vision on and well for those non Europeans who don't know what your vision is, it's a so-called Song Contest where European countries compete to win with cheesy tunes and cheesier performers. It's always been highly politicized, and up until recent years the winner was chosen by a selected panel of national representatives who would always vote for their geopolitical buddies.

But in more recent years, an effort to lose this politicization has been brought in with possibly also the skim cash from the general public, of course, because they introduced a popular vote via a phone in Now they claim to be united by music. But in fact, not this year because when Israel came second in the 2025 Song Contest, the accusations flew that Israel had rigged the telephone vote, causing the director of Eurovision to issue an open

letter denying the allegations. At the core was the unlikelihood that Israel would receive such a popular vote in light of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. And Martin Green there claimed that there are all kinds of checks and balances in place to prevent flooding fraud. But this is Israel we're talking about and they've got their unit 8200, which we've got to remember is an offensive cyber operation.

So anything's possible here, but the news today then is that Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia are going to boycott the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest after it was decided that Israel could compete. And everyone paying attention may be asking why Israel was ever involved in the 1st place.

Well, Eurovision is organised by the European Broadcasting Union, and any country with a national broadcaster that is an active member of the EBU is allowed to participate, even if the country's not in Europe geographically. So the Israel Broadcasting Authority became a member in 1957, and Israel first took part in 1973.

But a number of countries decided they should not be taking part in 2026, bearing in mind what's going on, and Spain led the charge for a secret ballot to be held on Israel's participation. That idea was rejected and the participation was pushed through. And so these four countries so far have decided to abandon. The chief executive of Israel's broadcaster said the attempt to disqualify its entry can only be understood as a cultural

boycott. A boycott may begin today with Israel, but no one knows where it will end or who else may harm, he said. And is this what we truly want the contest to be remembered for, for his 70th anniversary? The BBC for its part, of course, broadcasts your vision in the UK, said in a statement. We support the collective decision made by members of the European Broadcasting Union.

This is about enforcing the rules of the EBU and about being inclusive, and we don't worry too much about who's being killed in the meantime, apparently. I think it's great. It's now relevant again, Eurovision, politically anyway, so I think this is great news. Yes, indeed. But sticking with international stuff, then Venezuela, Patrick. Hugely, hugely complicated

story. Obviously the the ramifications of this are unbelievable here. Trump's new war on Venezuela, this is exactly what it is. And this has taken some interesting turns this week. And we'll look we'll look at that, especially regarding the self declared secretary of war. His name is Pete Hegseth here. And the controversy is over this. It's the Venezuelan boat strike fallout here. They're calling it the double tap. This is being regarded as a war

crime. The press are now circling like vultures, as well as the opposition, including Rand Paul and the Republican side, putting a lot of pressure on the government to have an inquiry regarding this incident. Now, is this a war crime? Is it not a war crime? This is obviously part of the national debate right now. But you can see clearly that this is damaged the Trump administration here. We'll bring this up on screen. Trump's Venezuelan boat strikes fuel war crime allegations.

Are they legal? This is CBS News. So this is dominating the political conversation here. Certainly there's grounds for impeachment for Heg Seth. But more than that, he would basically go under trial first in front of Congress and then if if it goes any further for war crimes, probably would get pardoned by Trump because Trump has his habit of pardon, pardoning anybody who's a criminal, basically. I'll show you one in a minute. But this is what a defiant Heg Seth tweeted.

We'll bring this up on screen right now on his this ex account. This is a children's book called Franklin and he's made his own cover. Franklin targets narco terrorists. So I mean this this is the the maturity of the current Defense Secretary calls himself the war secretary. This is the sort of stuff he's putting out. And if you think this is bad, he had to double down on this because he got a lot of stick for this.

So what does he do? He goes and sticks this silly mem outside of the Department of Defense there, and that's Hegseth. You can see the tattoos on his forearm. His body is completely covered with tattoos. He's very proud of the fact that he's done this year. So the the people who are circling the wagons on this mic have pointed out that Hegseth has incriminated himself by basically previously last month calling for a change in the rules of engagement.

So if there is a trial, what I'm going to show you is going to be evidence exhibit #1 watch this. We are preparing every day. We have to be prepared for war, not for defence. We're training warriors, not defenders. We fight wars to win, not to defend. Defence is something you do all the time. It's inherently reactionary and can lead to overuse, overreach and mission creep. War is something you do sparingly, on our own terms and with clear aims.

We fight to win. We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement. Just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for war fighters. That's all I ever wanted as a platoon leader. A. Platoon leader. I got a platoon leader as the head of the Pentagon.

Great. So who are the enemies of the United States? Well, with this new rule book that heck, Seth and Trump are trying to foist on the United States and the world, if you can call someone a quote, narco terrorist, this is a new term, Narco terrorist, then basically it's carte blanche. You don't need any due process. You can just kill whoever and do it extrajudiciously and so forth with extreme prejudice. And so, and this is something

that's also happened here. And if you pay attention to this story, this is from the Wall Street Journal here. Hexet asked top Admiral to resign after months of discourse. So basically pushing out anybody who wants to follow the law or comply with the law. We're talking about the US military code, the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions. OK, Hexat's pushing out people who are doing that now. Do you remember a couple months ago when they hit a Colombian narco sub after this boat

incident? This boat incident took place, this double tap in end of September. After that, they had a narco submarine in the Pacific. OK, What happened? They went and rescued the people who were survived from that. There was a change in policy. Why? Because there was a change of command at JSOC or at this level of this operation whereby they had already internally recognized what that this was a war crime, you see. So this has been stewing under

the surface. This is why The Washington Post had seven sources confirmed the story last week and then Hegseth and Trump both lied to the public. They denied it happened, then they changed the story, then they changed the story again. So they've lied and you've got war crime, evidence of a war crime here. I mean, this is not good for the United States. Now, the British reaction, Mike, was quite quick or early on. This was from last week here. We'll bring this up on screen.

The UK paused intelligence sharing with the US on suspected, quote, drug vessels in the Caribbean because Britain didn't want to be implicated any potential war crimes. So hats off to the British for recognizing the precariousness of this. But again, the wagons are circling again. Watchdog finds Hegseth violated Pentagon protocol in the signal gate affair. You remember that? Yes, that was months ago. So they're they're lopping one after the other.

And here is the ultimate conclusion, Mike, is that this relatively small event, this boat carrying allegedly narco terrorists carrying drugs to America, a boat with a range of 60 miles or 990 miles. I mean, how could how could that get to the US territorial waters? But that could have thrown a wrench into Trump's war plans politically. And we'll bring this up again, this is mainstream here, this is CNN.

Trump struggles with Venezuelan dilemma as Maduro digs in and storm builds at home over potential war crime. Again, with Pete Hagseth, Trump is also implicated in this war crime because he would executive wise, he would have given the OK to Hagseth, who would have then told his Admiral, who they're currently leaving out to dry on this, who would also get pardoned by Trump. But you can see, Mike, how this

has created a delay. I think this is kind of, you know, gummed up the effort by Trump to hit Venezuela. Now, if Trump is seen to be bluffing on Venezuela, that's it. I don't think you can pull this one again. You can't do it twice because the opposition and those enemies of Trump are going to see this and they'll seize upon it if he tries this one again. So again, there's so many different aspects. By the way, Trump is claiming there's a major war on drugs.

This is all about stopping Maduro in Venezuela. Trump just pardoned one of the biggest drug traffickers this week, a former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who did a 45 year sentence in AUS federal prison. He's in AUS clink for 40 tons of cocaine trafficking it into the United States and this Trump just pardoned him because he said well, friends of mine said he was treated very badly.

And so apparently this is coming from Marco Rubio, who is Marco Rubio friends with current president of Ecuador Naboa massive connections implicated in huge drug trafficking scandals. Are the cartels giving an order to Trump to spring one of their own? Is that what happened? It's nobody calling about for this because he's running this anti narco state operation and then he's releasing former heads of narco states. How does that work? And he's justifying it on, well,

guys, I play golf with that. He was treated very badly. So we're going to release him. No, it's Rubio and it's the people behind Rubio. We have the level of criminal corruption. Corruption in the US government in this Trump administration is one of the most criminally corrupt governments. It may end up being in history. And this is only 10 months into his first second term, Mike. I mean, what do the next three years have in store? That's the question. So there's more to report on

this. We'll we'll be watching this closely. Yes indeed. OK, well let's come back to the UUK then and and censorship

agenda. So yesterday Ofcom find AVS Group Limited which runs 18 adult websites. They find the £1,000,000 for not having robust age checks in place, plus 50,000 lbs for failing to respond to information requests. And they say Ofcom says the fines come as the regulator reports on how the online safety landscape is changing following the new laws coming into effect this year. Well, we'll talk about that a

little bit more in a second. But they said that for more than two decades online platforms have been unregulated, unaccountable and often unwilling to prioritise people's safety over profits. And they said that illegal content duties under the ACT came into force in March.

And then it goes on to say that new Ofcom research shows that 58% of parents believe the measures in Ofcom's codes of practice are already improving the safety of UK children online, and that 67% feel the measures will make a difference in the future. And the 36% have noticed the potential impact on their child's online safety. So this is quite an incredible claim that they're making.

And they're saying that they're making sure that tech firms assess the risk their platforms host the UK users and take appropriate steps to address those risks. And they're particularly claiming that these platforms are having to deal with age checks and other child protections. And they're also saying that that the platforms most used by kids, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, Roblox and Snap must tell Ofcom what they're doing to keep children safe.

And I'm just going to ask, how's that going, Ofcom? Because the YouTube schlep built a huge following on YouTube, tracking down alleged child protectors, child predators on Roblox before he was kicked off until the platform is facing

multiple losses. Roblox, we're talking about over child safety and the truth is, as we've mentioned many times that Ofcom is doing nothing to protect children from grooming and it's merely using child protection as a front for the digital ID roll out, which is what this age verification thing is all about. So, so that's that's where they

are with that. Now moving on then, I just want to mention the fact that the wonderful people at News Guard, this organization that is there to protect us all and make sure that only trustworthy news sources are seen by everybody, has sent us their annual e-mail. So let's bring it up on screen here. So there it is. I'm right. Good afternoon. I'm writing from News Guard, a company that reads news and

information websites. For reliability, we assess each site based on 9A political journalistic criteria and assign a zero to 100 trust score based on those criteria. Our rating processing criteria can be found in the links on screen at the moment. So anyway they they have asked us for comment because because they find some of our content

inappropriate. So I just wanted to highlight the particular articles that they do find inappropriate with a view to suggesting the people that you might want to pay particular attention to them. So the first thing that they were criticizing was this Patrick, your news programme with Brian from from the 20th of November. And they were very upset about Brian's statistics on on Ukrainian deaths and because apparently the economist said something different. So that that was the basis of

their complaints. So the CIA was upset about? Hold on, we'll come on to that in a second. Upset about the casualty numbers Brian was presenting, I got it. Absolutely. And discussing An Inconvenient Truth with Del Victory that was that was my interview with Del Victory that was also deeply upsetting to them. And then of course green bottles, yellow cylinders and the increasingly fantastical claims made in support of Syria Chemical weapons narrative part 4 by Doctor Pierce Robinson.

That is absolutely problematic to them. And the final example that they had was the question of whether vaccines have ever worked. 1 of germ warfare's. Roman Bistrionic, co-author of Dissolving Illusions, one of the The history of vaccines. Great book by the way. Joe Rogan was promoting that book, so it made me news. Guard need to get in touch with Joe Rogan. Anyway, yes, so, so the question, the question then is, you know, what is News Guard and what are they all about?

Patrick, good question. Well, according to a 2023 question in the European Parliament News Guards advisory boards, as you pointed out to be earlier before the program, Patrick includes Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and NSA, and also Tom Bridge, the former US Secretary of Homeland Security. Wait, hold on. So it's this is headed by a former CIA guy. He's on the he's on the Advisory Board. Oh, he's, he's chairman of the board or he's, I think he's chairman, isn't he? Michael Hayden.

Anyway, the Advisory Board, Yeah, Wow. So it's full of Spooks, including the head of the CIA. That's great, very reassuring. Absolutely. And then we've got other former senior, formerly senior U.S. government officials, including ex heads of the security defense, intelligence institutions. They're listed amongst news guards advisors, according to this this congressional report here. So we could, could we call this a cut out? Is this an intelligence government cut out?

It kind of falls under that definition, doesn't it? Well, quite obviously that's what it is. But they, they probably have people, they, they hire people coming out of university who are, want a job and who are well meaning and want to get their foot on the ladder of the, the system. So they're probably doing their the worker bees are doing their job, reaching out to nefarious websites like the UK Column and 21st Century Wire and Consortium

News and others. And meanwhile this is all being directed from the top. Right, absolutely. We'll also just mention that they have previously boasted of

government ties and Breitbart was was hissing hinting at this with their headline here. News Guard boasts of government ties and censorship pitched to Twitter. And well, then we have also this. The fact that Consortium News is suing News Guard at the moment for defamation. Oh, wow.

OK. But as part of this, they're pointing out the government contracts between news Guards and government agencies, including the Department of Defence. So, you know, I think, I think we don't see need to say any more about that. We understand what News Guard is, what it represents. And so if they're criticising our news coverage, I'm deeply

proud of that fact. Why don't they just why doesn't the CIA just come out and just give a quote to the New York Times or, you know, a mainstream media outlets just just change the, the heading on the on, on the organization. Just put it back under the CIA, let them publicly come out criticizing websites because isn't that what this is anyway? Absolutely. Narrative control, narrative

management. So Speaking of narratives and and politics in Britain, Mike, we have to show this story, which made the headlines, the front page. This was the lead story in the Huffington Post today. The Reform Party sparks outrage after receiving historic £9 million donation. Democracy should never be for sale. Who made the donation? Let's take a look at that for a moment here.

This came from according to Electoral Commission Mike revealed that Christopher Harborne, A Boris Johnson supporter and crypto investor based in Thailand, gave the party millions of pounds in just one payment on August 1st, And this is coming on the heels of the previous donations, including, well 50,000 from Lady Rothermere.

This is of daily Rothermere's Daily Mail fame and this means a reform received 10.5 million overall in the third quarter 2025 S. The Conservatives, in comparison, received almost 7 million Labor 2.5 million Lib Dems 2.1 million. So that's what they're saying there, Mike, on the money side. So the question is, first of all, is the crypto Bros overseas coming in backing reform, Do

reform have grassroots? Do they have a ground game, first of all, for local elections to to be able to have the kind of gains that that have been attributed to the hype surrounding reform? And can you actually buy your way into power in this fashion in Britain? What do you think? We can talk about that an extra because we're absolutely out of time for now. I think we they probably can, but we'll we'll, we'll discuss that more. An extra. Yeah, yeah, brilliant. So, yeah, we'll have more

analysis on this an extra. And we'll also be talking about Nigel Farage as will he or will he not be head of the party by the time the next general election rolls around? So all of that and more. Good question. And Tim Norman is going to be joining us for more on the Skripal affair, so stay with us. We'll see you in a few minutes. Thanks.