UK Column News — 5th January 2026

Good afternoon. It's Monday the 5th of January 2026, just after 1:00. And welcome to UK Column News Happy New Year to everyone watching and listening. I'm your host, Mike Robinson, joining me in the studio today, Ben Rubin. Welcome to the program, Ben.

Thank you, Mike. And by video link we have Brian Gerrish. Later in the programme, Brian's going to be looking at Starmer's moves to bring Britain back into the EU and I'm going to be looking at Cambridge University's International Security and Intelligence programme. But we're going to begin today

with Venezuela. And of course, for those that watch UK column and have used the term Trump Derangement Syndrome to describe how we've been covering his behaviour over the last little while, maybe the events of the past few days, I've encouraged some to reconsider at least. But as everyone will know by now, the US invaded A sovereign country and lifted its president and his wife and brought them to New York for trial on drugs charges, apparently drugs

related charges. And Maduro was marched around the place, as you've just seen on screen for the inevitable PR video video. But let's just begin by listening to the beginning of Trump's remarks from the press conference a couple of days ago. Late last night and early today, at my direction, the United States Armed Forces conducted an extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela, overwhelming American military power.

Air, land and sea was used to launch a spectacular assault, and it was a an assault like people have not seen since World War 2. It was a force against a heavily fortified military fortress in the heart of Caracas to bring outlaw dictator Nicolas Maduro to justice. This was one of the most stunning, effective, and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history. So what are your thoughts on

that? My immediate thought is that he sounds like he was slurring his words a little bit. He didn't sound well at all. Absolutely, absolutely. What was he on? What's the question? What's coming on to my my lips, Brian? What what are your thoughts? Because you know, the suggestion that that this was the most impressive military operation since World War 2 with words to that effect. It's quite, quite a statement. Quite a statement, Mike.

First of all, happy New Year to all our viewers and listeners. Yeah, it's quite incredible to see these events unfold and deeply concerning I think it should be for most people because is America really under control at the moment? Is America really the land of freedom and a proper running democracy, or have we got a sort of dictatorship? Now in operation under Trump. And does it mean that he can simply walk into any country in the world if he so chooses?

And he doesn't like the the existing incumbent politicians and their policies. There's so many questions to ask here, but really, really dangerous events in my opinion. And indeed, well, during the press conference, Trump was very clear that this was effectively about stealing Venezuela's oil. But to set everybody's mind at rest, he said this. I thought that would be so I settled 8 and one quarter war. You know what the 1/4 was? Thailand and Cambodia, I did it

again. They were, they broke out and I did it in about 5 hours and I settled it. I'm giving myself 1/4. So I'm up to now 8 and 1/4. In other words, I settled the war, but then they broke out. They had a pretty bad breakout over the last four days. I got them to go back to peace. So I only give one quarter. So he solved it 8 and a quarter wars while he's busy creating new ones in Africa and South America.

And many people are justifying the attack by setting the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, for anybody who doesn't know, was created in 1823 and established a what they described as AUS sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere and this was an opposition to European interference in the Americas. There've been lots of references in the Trump administration rhetoric over the last number of weeks to this idea of AUS sphere of influence in US Western or US

hemisphere and so on. If you listen to to the various comments, the the justification suggests that Maduro's ties to Russia, China and Iran represent the kind of foreign influence that this doctrine was meant to counter. But the problem, of course, is that Russia, China and Iran are not European in the original sense. The argument is also that the US has a legitimate interest in what they describe as hemispheric stability and

democratic governance. It's quite incredible how they can take this position while they behave in this way. They say that humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and refugee flows affect the entire region, and that justifies what they were doing, and also the fact that the United States had an existing indictment against Maduro for drug trafficking, which they seem to be suggesting is giving some kind of legal

basis for the arrest. All of that, of course, is utter nonsense because the Monroe Doctrine was a unilateral U.S. policy statement, not international law. It doesn't authorise military operations to capture foreign leaders. And of course, he completely ignored the requirement for Congress to authorise this type of action. And that's a constitutional

requirement. So also modern international law, whether that you consider that embodied by the UN Charter, but also also other sovereignty principles, supersedes the 19th century doctrine. And we've got to say that this action violates Venezuelan sovereignty. That was, as I said, supposed to be in response to European

colonialism. Which makes Trump's actions all the more ironic because over the weekend he was claiming that the US would be running Venezuela until such times as there was some kind of new government there. And so you got to ask, is that not United States colonialism? The hypocrisy seems to be off the charts to me. And of course, using force to remove the head of state, even an unpopular 1, at least from America's point of view, sets an

extremely dangerous precedent. And it demonstrates yet more hypocrisy because Trump and also all the supporting Western leaders continue to criticize Russia and China. And despite the fact China hasn't actually done anything yet, you know, this suggestion that they're going to invade, where does that leave the suggestion that they're going to

invade Taiwan? Does that give China in fact free rein to go ahead with that operation, if that, if that's in their mind, I don't know so. If you're following that logic, then that would make sense, wouldn't it? Absolutely does, no. He was asked at the press conference whether there would be boots on the ground in Venezuela. And Trump said, well, we're not afraid of boots on the ground. We're not afraid of it.

We don't mind saying it. And we're going to make sure that the country is run properly. We're not doing this in vain. And then in yesterday's interview with The Atlantic, they are reporting him. Well, they say that Trump delivered a direct threat to Venezuela's new leader, Rodriguez. If she doesn't do what's right, she's going to pay a very big price, is what they're quoting him as saying.

Probably bigger than Maduro. And he made clear that he would not stand for any defiant rejection of the armed intervention in the United by the United States that resulted in Maduras capture. He was asked how regime change in Venezuela is different from the regime change that he himself had opposed in Iraq. And he sort of rushed that off. He said, I didn't do Iraq. That was George W Bush. That's. The difference I've.

Asked Bush that question. Because we should never have gone into Iraq. That started the Middle East disaster. So you know. Is he just a neo con now then Trump? Is that what's happened? Well, this, this is something that quite a number of people are saying is, is MAGA going to turn into a neo con, you know, movement at this point, right? It's quite incredible. And then he was asked about taking over Greenland and he continued, We do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defence.

And he said that this was because it was surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships. So the question then is what's the international response between one of the UN Security Council has scheduled an emergency session for today. I believe that's taking place 10 Amus Eastern Time. So here's the the report from that from the Security Council report and they're talking about the United States's snatch and

grab operation. They're saying that, well, basically this, this report here from Security Council report saying that this session has been brought about by Colombia with the support of Russia and China. The Kelly, Kelly, sorry, Kya Callas, the foreign security policy administrator for the European Commission, was tweeting out on Saturday. I've spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and our ambassador in Caracas. The EU is closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela.

The EU has repeatedly stated that Mister Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition, defended a peaceful transition under all circumstances. The principles of international law and the UN Charter must be respected. We call for restraint. The safety of EU citizens in the country is our top priority. So she's basically, basically saying, yeah, it's fine that they went ahead and did this, but but I'm going to defend international law. So break international law, but

we're going to defend. It to the UN. Yeah, Ursula von der Leyen then called for a peaceful transition and she said following very closely the situation in Venezuela, we stand by the people of Venezuela and support a peaceful and democratic transition. Any solution must respect international law and the UN Charter. So there you go. That was pretty much that. And then Friedrich Merckx called

the situation complex. He said the legal assessment of the US intervention is complex and requires careful consideration. International law remains the guiding framework. So you start to see the theme, the common narrative between all these people here and well, let's see, what did Farage say here in the UK? Well, here he is. The American actions in Venezuela overnight or unorthodox and contrary to international law. But they make China.

But if they make China and Russia think twice, it may be a good thing. So don't worry, international law's there and it is in breach of that. But don't worry about that. So long as it has the outcome of making China and Russia, I think it's a good thing. So let's finish this little segment with the wonderful Keir Starmer and his comments, because this is what he had to say. The UK has long supported the transition of power in Venezuela.

We regarded Maduro, Maduro as an illegitimate president. We shed no tears about the end of his regime. But here we go. I reiterated my support for international law this morning. The UK government will discuss the evolving situation with the US counterparts in the days ahead as we seek a safe, safe and peaceful transition to legitimate government. So clearly all the Western powers reacting in exactly the same way to what the United States has done. Yeah, we don't.

We didn't like Maduro. We're glad to see the back of him. But of course we got to support international. Law got to wag our finger a little bit and say how disapproving we are. Precisely. Yeah, right. But the whole thing just rumbles on. Quite incredible. Isn't it just? Isn't it just? But it doesn't end there, Ben. It certainly doesn't end there. No, let's just let's just talk

about Trump very quickly, Rob, because this is we're right into the, we're getting into the business end of the second term. And the thing that always jumps out at me, you started your segment by saying we're accused of TDs, right? Well, I remember Trump 1.0. So 2016 to 20 is a completely different proposition to what we're looking at now, right? So he was very famously putting himself forward as being anti

foreign war. We're not sending blood and treasure overseas to overthrow foreign dictators or whatever it might be. Even though he was actually running quite a lot of military operations in the background. He didn't start any new conflicts. Absolutely. But now it's sort of just though not even a year into his second term, he was he's kicking off in Nigeria over Christmas. We've got this operation special operation that's kicked off now. When somebody else used the term

special military operation. Yes, they said. Yeah. That that had a different. Result he's on the different side, you see, so it's different for them, but this is it's, it's amazing. And actually that his base is kind of going along with it. And it strikes me that this, the, the Biden term, that single term was basically nearly four years of ritual humiliation to enrage the MAGA base so that Trump can now be let off the leash and go and stamp his mark across.

Well, wherever he's been in Nigeria, he's been in Venezuela. They're talking about maybe taking Greenland at some point. I mean, who knows, right? I mean, this is this is intercontinental grand strategy of the The Kissinger Playbook. And we'll come on to Henry Kissinger again in a moment.

I actually ended my last Monday news segment of 2025 with this story of Rothschild and Co. We can just get that up on screen where we had the the great and the good of NATO and civil service establishment here in the UK, convening at the Rothschild and Care offices in the City of London to talk about the opportunity for investors throughout the capital stack of investing in weapons and death, basically the military industrial complex. So that's how we ended last

year. And then this year it all kicked off with Lord Rothschild himself congratulating Donald J Trump on the liberation of Venezuela, Venezuela Libre over on X. But this couldn't really have been a celebration of making lots of money out of kinetic warfare because, well, I was going to say, it seems like not a single shot was fired. He's described it as the biggest or best military operation since World War 2. But we've not actually seen

anything. You know, in this day and age where you see almost live streamed military activities, it happens. Like in this instance, we've not seen anything at all, have we? But that is, that in itself is quite remarkable. Well, he was suggesting that there were quite a number of deaths on the Venezuelan side, No deaths on the United States side. That's what he was saying more or less during his press conference. Yeah, but it was quick.

Whatever we can say about it, it happened pretty quickly. So they're not going to be making loads of money in the military industrial complex on this particular conflict. So what was it about then for for Lord Rothschild? Was it about oil potentially? They're sitting on a lot of oil. David Miller doesn't think so. So actually David was over on X opining about the fact that this is actually a message from what he calls Pax Judaica to the rest of the world.

We own Trump and so we own you. It was a dry run for a new type of regime change mission, low cost, lower risk, lighter footprint, which Netanyahu was imposed on the US as a replacement for his and Pax Judaica's previous model, which used American troops and treasure to impose ground invasions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and elsewhere.

So actually, this is a move by Hax Judaica, the, the, the, the Jewish empire ultimately, which is what Miller's referring to and that we've seen in operation across Latin America, the South American continent over the past 12 months and of course, before that. But it's really coming to a head

now. We had this announcement back in November. This is the Isaac Chords, which was signed by Javier Miley, the Uber Zionist president of Argentina, often seen crying his eyes out at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. He signed the Isaac Accords. This is basically a version of the Abraham Accords for Latin America, whereas the Abraham Accords focused on the Middle East and includes Saudi Arabia, the UAE, as well as Israel.

And this is based on establishing free trade agreements between Israel and countries that sign up to it. Those countries will agree to move their embassy to Jerusalem in the same way that the US did during Trump's first term. Actually, these participants will sign the an official declaration that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist groups, of course, and they will adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism in order to be part of this club essentially. All right. And this is from November.

And now we see this happening in Venezuela. It seems to me that this is part of part of the deal, ultimately. It's also a massive, massive, massive, just another distraction from the Epstein files. So these have been dripping out over the past few weeks and months. Trump seems to figure pretty heavily in them, as well as most of the rest of the US political establishment the past 30 or 40 years. So what are we going to do? We'll start a war so we don't

have to talk about this. And a lot of this is being promoted and aided by the the right wing commentariat, the the MAGA patriot Instagram types, not least this guy. This is BC Drano Rogan O Handley who popped up during COVID as a freedom protester. But actually it's turned out to be a Slavist Zionist regime propagandist. Basically he's got 3,000,000 followers on Instagram. And it really caught my attention how he was talking about this, this Venezuelan situation over the weekend.

Just have a look at this, right? Look at the language and look at how it's been presented. So they're saying that Trump has just captured Venezuela's communist president and sees 17.3 trillion in oil reserves. This is going to deliver an economic boom, the biggest economic boom in American history. Win, win for Trump here. It's what it looks like. They've got 303 billion barrels of crude oil, which the US now controls.

And according to this analysis, if they just sold all of that, then we'd wipe out a third of the national debt in just 12 hours. Trump, what a deal, what a guy. Trump's managed to to to execute this. And it wasn't just about oil. It was about protecting the US dollar. You see over there on the right hand side, which is the world's reserve currency. And that was down to an agreement made between Kissinger and Saudi Arabia in 1974. All oil sold globally must be

priced in U.S. dollars. So they're validating Kissinger. They're saying Kissinger was a good guy, it was good for America. And Trump is protecting this legacy ultimately. And apparently, according to this guy, China was hours away from ending dollar supremacy. And then we're going to do that in a number of ways. And make the kuan the the, the new world currency through these new payment systems, relationships between the BRICS countries. And Trump stops it just in time.

Thank goodness me for Trump. Isn't he incredible? And if you mess with the dollar, you disappear every single time. It's amazing language. This isn't it. And this is this. And this is the the, the mindset that is being pushed into the American patriot right at the moment. This is America first, essentially. Yeah. And that means American basically means America can do whatever it wants and the rest of the world can go swing. And that was American foreign policy, well, for decades.

And and we thought that was coming to an end, but it isn't. And Trump is fully embracing it. And actually you can. We can get that back on screen quickly. We can see that one of the big bonuses apparently is that America has just secured fuel for the $10 trillion AI and EV boom. So apparently this oil windfall is going to help with the AI and electric vehicles.

Again, It's all about. The other thing we've got to remember is that Venezuela has quite a bit of quite a lot of rare earths as. Well, does it? Absolutely. Well, that's a happy accident, isn't it? Goodness, fantastic. And and this is all presented in the language of the kind of start up Silicon Valley, 10X your investment type worldview. And they talk about this idea of smart money. He's paying attention to what Trump's done. But now you can do this too, right?

So nations do it on a global scale, but you can do this at a local scale. And this is all about building Internet businesses and owning deal flow across digital platforms. You can make loads of money, 50 grand a month, mostly passive. This is all from the same statement, by the way. This is just one thing. I think This is why I think it's particularly interesting to put this stuff together. And this is all being positioned

towards these people. Blonde haired, blue eyed white American patriots who are supposedly Trump's people and that they should be buying into this whole, this whole agenda for. It's just amazing. It's all presented like this. So it's the strong man, the strong, rugged individual leader taking control. Faffo. You know what faffo means. Tell me. Faff around and find out. Really. Yes, yeah, yeah. So no games faffo and Tommy Robinson loves it.

So this is obviously lit up the UK the the the supposed patriot right in the UK literally calling for him to go to Downing St. and to kidnap Keir Starmer, Lawrence Fox doing more or less the same thing and saying there we go. Could you send over some rugged individualists to free us from the warm embrace of collectivism?

And that's a a direct reference to the inaugural address just three or four days ago by Zara Mandami in New York, the new mayor of New York saying that we will replace the fragility of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism. So the rugged individualism is Trump and his faffo meme and kidnapping communist leaders as, as Mandami would put it, he probably wouldn't call him a dictator, call him a communist leader. And, and, and that is he's basically Trump's become a bogeyman.

And it's deliberate, right? They're doing this deliberately in order to provoke a reaction and to drive parts of the population into collectivism and and and ultimately into communism because actually, if you go far enough up chain, these things begin to coalesce, come back together, not least through people. ISO ran Mandami and this is one of the the images that we shared when he was voted in just a few

months ago. That's him with Alex Soros, son of George Soros, who is now the the chair of Open Societies Foundation, which is supposedly a liberal progressive NGO promoting better future for the whole humanity. But she's also a strategic partner of the World Economic Forum. So now you can see that socialism and capitalism, collectivism and collectivism and individualism all kind of coalesce together into this totalitarian system. It's been built around us.

And that situation in Venezuela is just one great example of how it's all playing out. We'll keep you posted on this as it goes. Vanessa is going to have more on this on Wednesday. And I've no doubt. But Brian, let's, let's welcome you back to the program and

well, Starmer and the European Union because of course, part and parcel of everything that's going on, going on at the moment is the threat to the nation itself. Thank you, Mike. Well, of course, that's

absolutely right. I just felt that while we had these momentous world events happening, it was a good thing to keep an eye on what was happening with Keir Starmer and as you say, the European Union. And fascinating for me that my interpretation of what he's up to at the moment Reawoke work that UK. Column did back in 2006. When we were warning about certain things happening with young people in the UK. But let's open up with the way

the papers have been reporting. So I've just chosen a couple here. We've got the OA paper. It's talking about a softer course for Brexit. It's interesting that title because it's almost as though. We haven't come out and we're doing a softer course to get out of the EU. You came up with a wonderful UK column expression of Brexit without the exit and that's

stayed out of position. So we've never fully left the EU. But here's the Daily Express going much stronger and saying full blown Brexit betrayal. And if that was the two of the newspaper headlines, then for me it was also important to keep my eye on what the BBC was saying. So let's bring in this one. So this headline is what's behind the PMS notable shift on closer ties to Europe. And in the article, really the message is very strongly.

Well, it's just a little bit of manipulation around the single market helping get trade flow. It's about food in particular and farm exports. They need some help. Electricity comes into it. But of course, of course, as a nation state we can't even power the country. We need to draw on the European grid. So it wasn't only electricity, but it's also trading in power. I thought that was interesting. Let's have a look at another headline here because here we should release.

They want to pay attention because in this BBC report on a notable shift to closer ties with Europe, we see that in the text Stormer is acknowledging that what he's doing is a sovereign decision. And I thought this was a very,

very important line. OK, he's saying we've got the best relationship with the EU for 10 years, but I think in this article he's having to recognise that what he is doing is absolutely touching on and abusing constitutional issues and he absolutely needs to be called out for it. Let's go on to another headline and see what we get from that. And this time we've got Rachel Reeves.

And in this BBC headline, it's talking about her having pushed for an ambitious youth migration deal and saying that the UK agreed to work towards a. Youth experience visa Now many people would just think this is sort of fluff and nonsense it's

just to do with. Is to do with youth and students and it's it's a few thousand students coming into the UK for Europe but is that really what's happening let's have a look at the background to this and this is the meat of it which has come out in another article here by the Independent. I think it is where it it actually says that the UK is going to rejoin the EU. Erasmus student exchange scheme. Now people have never heard of this before.

You need to really know about it and understand it. Erasmus, if I remember correctly, a Dutch Renaissance thinker, also a priest and a humanist, but he has been taken up by the European Union as the. Model. For young people. So where does this leave us? Well, let's actually have a look at the scheme itself. And I've just got a headline here to to bring up on screen. So this is the Erasmus literature from the EU itself. It's talking 2021 through to 2027.

And this is all about engaging youth. So if we have a look at the actual costs involved here, this is no small program because we're talking about €26.2 billion in order to gauge engage youth. And why do they want to do this? Well, the blue arrow there is highlighting that this is all about reframing the minds of thousands and thousands of young people in order to get them to believe that they're not German or British or French or Dutch.

They're actually part of the European project and they're going to think in terms of no borders, never mind Brexit, no borders. They're going to move between countries and they're going to be an internationalist in their whole spirit. Here's a little video clip which probably spells it out better than me. This isn't about your Erasmus in the first instance, it's about the EU's youth project, but nevertheless this is about. As young people, we have the power to shape the European

Union's future. The EU Youth Dialogue is all about bridging the gap between young people and policy makers. It offers us a unique opportunity to make political decision makers aware of what truly matters to us.

Every EU Youth Dialogue takes place under a trio presidency, with three countries chairing the Council of the European Union. Over an 18 month cycle, these countries take it in turns to organize our EU Youth Conference, where we meet and debate on the chosen topics from the EU Youth Dialogue. During each cycle, we young Europeans are first consulted, making sure there is a wide

range of perspectives. Next, we discuss the results and make recommendations for European Union and Member State policies. So let's take the opportunity to voice our views and help shape European societies, because the best future for Europe is 1 in which we can engage, connect and empower youth. So that's it in a nutshell. This is about grooming, reframing, training young people to believe in the European mind, to believe in the European

project. And of course, once they've been trained and reframed, they're put in positions of making policy. So if they can come into politics, all the better. But also NGOs and other agencies and these are the people that help drive European policy within their own country of origin or the host country in which they now reside. So this is very, very dangerous

stuff. Let's just put up a little bit of a label over the top of this because the key point here for people, if we pop this one on the screen, screen Mike, and this is about reframing you. So if we so if we bring in the ad on there and to that slide, this is all about reframing youth to believe in Europe and the European project over and above their own nation state. So this is a Trojan horse to bring in European policy into the UK. Starmer absolutely knows what it's about.

And I just want to remind viewers that way back in 2006, the UK column was alone in warning about the highly pro EU charity Common Purpose and what it was doing in order to adopt the same European reframing of children, not of teenagers university age, but children from about the age of 12 onwards in UK schools. So I think this is very dangerous and it says to me that Starmer is absolutely wanting to continue the EU. He's no intention of making any

form of Brexit hard or soft. As as we have been suggesting for a long time, this of course this is a unit party policy, not just not just Starmer. He's just the latest step along the way. Now let's just remind everybody

that we can't do what we do without your help. And I want to say thank you very much to everybody that helped us in 20252026 is a new year and we're going to have lots going on this year. If you can't support us financially, please click on the Click here button on the front page of the website. It'll take you to a page that shows how you can support us. If you can't support us financially, do share all the stuff you find on the UK column

website. There is a host material there to share that helps us defeat the the censorship regime. The more of you that take part in that the better and is equally appreciated. Now tonight at 7:00 PM, Jeremy's back building a social contract to dismantle the base system. This is discussion with James Roguski about the failure of governments and public health systems.

So join us at 7:00 PM for that. And at 1:00 PM tomorrow, Diane is talking to Chris Allen and Brent Holloway of the Cumbria of Cumbria Action about their outreach work towards the raising towards raising public awareness of globalist agendas. So join us for that as well. And then on Sunday at 7:00 PM, we will have the latest 1000 Words podcast. Let's have a look at a short trailer. We're going to be chastised by the by the truther slash freedom slash cult, I said. Terry's dead.

And then I laughed. But you know, rabbit holes are underground. You know, they're, they're, they're, they're the opposite way to. And that woman behind me was crying. So I just without sounding like I'm, I'm not Mother Teresa, thank God, because he's. Right TuneIn this Sunday at 7:00 PM for 1000 Words with comedian Abby Roberts. So I'll be I'll be Roberts. This is the next portrait to be pitted by Jake Ferns to join us at 7:00 PM for the first of the

podcasts on the on that. And that should be a bit of fun. OK, now let's move back to the UK and the 2026 International

Security and Intelligence Program. So let's bring it on screen. This is Cambridge University. It's going to be hosted once again at Emmanuel College at Cambridge University. This is a residential program.

It's going to run from the Sunday the 5th of July to Saturday the 1st of August. So basically a whole month is going to be chaired by Richard Dearlove, the former chief of MI 6. And well, the Cambridge Security Initiative was launched the International Security and Intelligence Program in 2016. And they said that the aim of what they describe as a unique program is to provide an opportunity for participants to engage with leading academics

and practitioners from the intelligence and security communities in the historic setting of one of the world's foremost universities. I believe it's also probably one of the most common sources of traitorous behaviour in in this in the country as well, but maybe that may may be a misunderstanding of history. I don't. Well, they did. They say that Cambridge produces the heretics and Oxford burns them.

Really. Yes. Anyway, the teaching program, because this is a teaching program, closely follows that of Cambridge University with lecture, seminars and supervisions, which, well, we can decide what those are later. All the instruction is is conducted under Chatham House rules.

And So what they say is that that means that when a meeting is held under Chatham House rules, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker nor that of any other participant may be revealed. So applicants applications are invited from undergraduates have completed at least a year of university UH and sometimes more.

UH, also graduates and early career professionals with an intellectual or professional interest in statecraft and the interlocking themes of intelligence, security, strategy, defence and in foreign policy. And so, Ben, my question is, is this about education or is this in fact a recruitment programme? Brian, I don't know if you've got any thoughts on that. Is this about recruitment?

I've I've I've asked one or two other people about this and and their view is that it could very well be more about recruitment than anything else, but I'd be interested in your thoughts. Well, my, my immediate response, Mike, is it's so difficult to tell now what's going on. Are we dealing with the state? Are we dealing with the government? We're dealing with agents of the state.

It's become increasingly difficult to tell whether thing whether people are running the country in line with the Constitution. Or they are a cabal that's running to their, you know, to their own agenda. What are you reporting on Venezuela? Just to jump back to that subject, I thought to myself, well, here we are with. America totally out of control, ignoring the rules based international order just to throw the rock in the pond. But of course we've got Auk

government that's voted. In a whole load of legislation to allow it to break the law, we shouldn't be surprised. To allow it to break the law itself or its agents to break the law, we shouldn't be surprised. Now whether we see increasingly murky groups set up, we've no idea what they're really there or doing. And we need to ask that question. Certainly we need to lift the stones to find out. Indeed. Well, the program directors.

Here's the first one. Professor Michael Goodman, and he formerly head of War Studies and now Professor of Intelligence and International Affairs at King's College London. He's the official historian of the historian of the British Joint Intelligence Committee and a visiting professor at the Norwegian Defence Intelligence School. He's a British Army reservist. They're not clear as to who he's a reservist for.

Is it 77 Brigade perhaps? And has spent many years seconded to the Cabinet Office in the Ministry of Defence. And then Professor David Glow, who's visiting Professor of the Department of War Studies, King's College London. Recently British Academy Global Professor at the Department of War Studies and formerly Associate Professor of History at U.S. Military Academy in West Point.

And well, the little synopsis says that he brings 25 years of combined active and reserve service working in the US intelligence community, including analytical and operational roles in the FBI, CIA, DIA and Office of Naval Intelligence. So as I say, the teaching format closely follows that of Cambridge University and so on.

But look, the connections here into the whole Russia Gate thing in the United States. We've, we look at Russia Gate to start off with Christopher Steele, he's involved with this organization. Stefan Halper absolutely. Richard Dearlove is chairing this event. Christopher Andrew, the official historian of MI Five. Well, he's not directly connected to this particular event, but his his, his work, his academic work, his historical work on MI 5 is absolutely part and parcel of

the curriculum for this. So that's the Cambridge four that we talked about with respect to Russia Gate.

But then also we've got the same types of people involved with the Skripal case as well, which is all about building narratives against Russia. In fact, Russia Gate, the attack on Trump was also really about a narrative against Russia interfering and so on. And then if we just focus on Christopher Steele for a second, of course, he produced to Trump dossier also produced or contributed to the Russia report for the British government and also the Huawei dossier for the

British government. So you know, this, this is these are the types of people that we have operational here and so on. But just to to move on to another Cambridge person, of course, the lovely Blaze Metro Welle, who was giving her inaugural speech as the new head of MI 6 just before Christmas was she of course, was outed as the granddaughter of the infamous, shall we say, Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Konstantin Dobrovolski, known to the Abver as the butcher.

And that was from 1941 to 1943. And he was accused of rounding up Ukrainian Jews for slaughter and bragging about the extermination his his part in the extermination of the Jews, now Blaise Metro. Eli's response was to deny any

knowledge or contact with him. And then the Foreign Office and MI 6 issued statements that the BBC was happy to to promote, saying that Blaise's ancestry is characterized by conflict and division, and as is the case for many with Eastern European heritage, only partially understood. It's precisely this complex heritage which has contributed to our commitment to prevent conflict and protect the British public from modern threats from today's hostile states.

As the next chief of MI 6:00 Well, it turns out that Metrovelli's father, Constantine Dobrovolski Junior was was raised by another Nazi collaborator. Collaborator. That was his stepfather, David Metrovelli, who worked at an Abfair run special preliminary camp at Auschwitz. The camp was in the town of Auschwitz, but it wasn't the same as the concentration camp

that's known by that name now. He was apparently teaching radio technology to radio operatives for the Abfair, and it's also noted that he's obviously Georgian. As we've mentioned from the name, he was also providing instruction to members of the Georgian Legion, which was also collaborating with the Nazis. Brian, MI 6 must have understood enough about her family history before they recruited her. And now she's following her career in MI 6.

MI 6 is now under her command. And so I wonder, you know, obviously, having a grandfather who was known as the butcher and a Nazi collaborator, and also therefore her father being brought up by another Nazi collaborator, that doesn't make her a Nazi necessarily. But, you know, what were MI 6 thinking in the recruitment process, do you think? I mean, why would they choose someone with this kind of family

background? Because, as I understand it, intelligence operatives are fairly well vetted. Well, very good question, Mike. And my immediate response is that if you're involved in murky dirty business, you want to recruit somebody for who come from comes from a murky dirty background. So in some ways I could look at her and say, yeah, OK, this is exactly the lady they want because The Dirty work that's going on in Ukraine in

particular. Is clearly going to continue throughout this year and many forecast into into next year. UK is heavily involved in a war, although it's denying that it is. So whether we've got troops on the ground or we've got special intelligence services active in the background, do you want somebody who's capable of of operating in that murky way. So my my initial impression is this woman would have been specially chosen.

Because of her connections and murky pass, she's acceptable to both sides of the Presumably she's acceptable to both sides of the Ukrainian political divide, those that are on the extreme right wing in Ukraine, which of course nobody, including the BBC wants to talk about anymore, or whether she's connected into the cleaner, more modern Ukrainian political circles. But they absolutely. Absolutely would have known what this woman's background is.

My opinion is she's been chosen because of that murky background. Thanks, Brian. Now let's let's come on back on to other UK topics and something

that we've been, well, it's been a topic of conversation for many, many years. And that is the question of the House of Commons and, and the the Palace of Westminster and whether it's actually capable of hosting the House of Commons and the House of Lords anymore. I mean, obviously we've just seen Big Ben refurbished and it's looking spectacularly good at the moment, it has to be said. But that's the outside. What about the inside?

Well, this is a good question. Perhaps we're going into another dirty, murky subject, but I wanted to flag this up because again, the UK column was. Talking about the the whole concept of a major refurbishment to the Parliament in UK, this was being discussed 50, least 15 years ago and we said that at a time when we've got the sort of iron fist of the EU around our

throats as a nation state. It was very worrying if we were going to see Parliament broken up for refurbishment, recited possibly in another city, a time of great turbulence when there was another political power clearly attempting to take full control of the country. We're in a time of turbulence again and what is now cropped up is that we are to have a major refurbishment of Parliament. So I'm very wary as to what's going on here in a political sense.

But also many years ago I had experience of working in a company undertaking major conditions surveys for very, very big properties and so including some of the EU's own buildings in Brussels. And so I've got a little bit of professional knowledge about how this system works. And when I look at what we're being told in the media about what's to happen with Westminster, some of it does not stack up. So let's have a look at how this

is being reported. No apologies for picking the BBC because the BB CS, the biggest propaganda outlet in the country, so many people being affected. But the picture I'll just describe first of all, because I suspect some people have trouble seeing what it is. It's the BB CS picture of part of the problem with Westminster.

So you're down in the bowels of the the building and what you're looking at isn't a rat's nest, which you might expect to find in Parliament. No, what you're looking at is a massive mess of data cables. And my immediate response is if that is indeed the condition of those cables, somebody needs to be on a health and safety charge because it's outrageous. No other company would be allowed that. But underneath we've got some of the the meat of what this

report's talking about. So it's talking about these works taking 19 to 28 years to complete with Parliament vacated or partly vacated or partly relocated for some 12 to 20 years. And I've added a question mark after that because this time scale is not set. Now. There's more pictures here from

the BBC now. They tried to make out as though this is an absolute disaster, but many people in the professional world of building can of, of buildings and their condition will say, well, this looks pretty neat and tidy compared to many. But I can accept that the system's rolled. So we've got all sorts of heating, pipe work, ventilation, which is down under the building if we just bring you over the overlay.

This is what the BBC says, a hot and fusty corridor in the basement, the Houses of Parliament which carries hundreds of tangled gas pipes, water mains and electrical wires, some of which are redundant, dangerous and need replacing. Well, this would be what you would see in most older commercial properties, particularly up in London. But for some reason, now we're onto the subject of Westminster. My goodness, this is a nightmare that nobody's capable of sorting out.

So if we go to the next one, we got another picture. This is a 1945 pipe that was leaking at the flange at one point. So there's a little bit of a rust stain on it. But what does the BBC say? Well, it says that this pipe has been decommissioned and needs to be removed. However, getting it out requires removing the otherwise entwined around it. They can't. They can't be isolated, meaning the whole system would have to be shut off.

This is completely normal. No commercial operation would be batting an eyelid at this is what happens in big and small commercial properties right the way across UK and indeed worldwide. But suddenly for Parliament it's a huge problem. We've had to create a specialist company. Let's have a look at it.

It's it's the restoration and renewal company that's already spending about 79 million a year in order to think about and plan what this refurbishment is, is, is going to be and how it's going to work and what is the cost. Well, this is where my eyes really started to to bulge because apparently to refurbish this building is going to cost between 7:00 and £13 billion and this is Conservative estimate.

And I'm thinking to myself, my goodness, what commercial operation would be looking at the possibility of non inability to use a building over 20 years and possibly spending £13 billion to refurbishment, refurbish it. It sounds incredible. So if we get into a little bit more of the detail, this is from that company's own reports. This is just a very simplistic list of what's going to take place. So the top one which I've highlighted is it says save the building and renew failing

building services. And the top subject is building services such as heating, ventilation and cooling. And apparently that is going to swallow out 51% of those billions, which we've already identified. This to me seems completely unbelievable, but you can see some of the other problems underneath because they're talking about the need to to conserve the building fabric. That makes sense, but that's a mere 16% to the cost. We've also got asbestos removal at 8%.

Asbestos still a big problem in many older buildings, but the procedures for getting it out are very well established and 8% of the overall cost sounds to me probably about right for for a building of that age. If we go on and have a look at the next table here, we suddenly start to see something different because now we're looking at a working, creating a working home for members and Parliament itself. And that is only going to take 3% of the budget.

So we've got 51% to those billions simply on the engineering systems and a mere 3% on achieving the reason. I would have thought you're trying to refurbish the building. And if we go on to the last one, there's a lot more to this, but to give people an overview, what are we looking at in this last one? Well, it's a building that's got to be accessible. And what do they mean? It means that anybody who can't walk, they're in a wheelchair, they can have full access to the

building. And that alone is going to take 6% of those billion pounds in budget. So some quite extraordinary things taking place here. But if we get to the meat of my concerns in the next slide, here is what's actually happening, because is this a simple restoration and renewal or is it a project which is to be dragged out over so many years? You have the opportunity to completely disrupt and reset the UK's constitutional government.

And if you're wondering what the 48 years is that's appeared on screen, yes, in the report by that renewal company, at one stage they casually suggest in one of the sentences that maybe this whole project could disrupt Parliament for 48 years. I'm going to say as part of my prediction for 2026, what we're looking at is now a deliberate attempt to completely undermine and destroy stability within our political process.

And the idea that we're going to spend 13 billion on, on renewing parliament is a complete, it's not only a nonsense, but it's so outrageous. We we've got to ask questions as to what's happening here. So we've got Starmer re educating youth to believe in the European Union, and at the same time we've got a perfect opportunity to destroy the workings of Parliament as we know it.

So perhaps I can throw that back to you, Mike, and say there's something at work here and I think we really need to pay attention to it. But we've got nothing to worry about, Ben, the Citizens Assembly. So we're going to save the day. I don't. Do you know what I was just going to say? Sadiq Khan has just built a new City Hall up in East London. Maybe they could move in there instead, if that'd be OK, wouldn't it? Yeah. Well, well, if the question then to to finish then is are they

intending to sell Britain? I mean, they've been flogging it off for years, haven't they? Yes. I mean, basically I've been doing the route. I mean, it's, it's quite nicely LinkedIn from what Brian's just been talking about, Right. Like I've been doing a bit of it for the first time in a few years. I've been going around the country on various different trips. Went up to York for the UK

column conference. Was in Stroud with Sandy just before Christmas. I've been exploring Devon over the past few weeks, has been fantastic. And I was up in my mum's over Christmas just outside of Nottingham, small town called Bingham. And the thing that you can't help but notice is, well the first thing, that half the country is now covered in solar panels, which is awful and it makes me sick to my stomach when

I see that. Then the other one that's really getting me, and it was particularly related to seeing my mum over Christmas, is that Bingham is this beautiful, not quite a village. It's a little bit bigger than that, right? But it's, it's been there for hundreds of years. It's got a very particular feel to it, a very particular architectural style, these lovely red brick buildings. And it was in the middle of

fields and farmland. And you know, there's huge swathes of the country that are like that, like these little small villages, small Hamlets, and they're surrounded by by the countryside by nature. And that, and that essentially that is what the country is. And Bing urban. And this is a good example that can be seen across the whole of the country is now surrounded by these things. We can get this up on screen. Are these these building sites and these new housing estates that are going in.

And this is destroying the the soul of the nation. Yeah, like the fabric of the country, like what it was, how it feels, how it looks. And this is just the perfect example for me of, of what's going on in wrong in the country. Like where you can essentially look at a, a field, a Meadow, you know, the surrounding of something that is ancient and beautiful that's been there for centuries and say, do you know what that really needs and need?

Some, you know, toy houses made by Taylor Wimpey or some other FTSE listed house builder to come in and bulldoze over it, overload the local infrastructure, basically fob people off with, you know, like this is not a particular comment about Taylor Wimpey. It's just a comment about modern, modern construction. So we say these things are not built to last. So there's no sympathy with the local area. It's not an asset that you're going to hand down through generations over potentially

centuries. It's something that you're going to have to tear down and rebuild in 30 years or 40 years potentially maybe even before you get to the end of the mortgage. It's going to run out of it's going to run out of usefulness. And this is the front line of the the struggle that we're in at the moment. You know, if you think about those building sites, the solar panels going up, you know, we talk a lot about what's happening in terms of global agenda and global policy here on

the UK column. But it manifests at a local level, right? And so when you see these things popping up, understand that that's being driven from these great macroeconomic and political forces in places like the City of London or Davros or wherever it might be. Yeah. So that's the country transforming as a consequence of these policies.

And the other thing that it really flagged up to me is the enormous importance of independent local media, because if the newspapers in those towns were doing their job properly then. Some of this would be happening. Yeah, indeed. Well, look, Brian, we're out of time, but let's just finish with something slightly lighter hearted, shall we say? Because of course we're all going to die because of the snow.

Well, this is true. Snow's the problem, and we're all to become snowflakes, to not be able to deal with those snow snowflakes as they come down. But I've got to say thank you to Mrs. Garish for this one because I found a laughing one morning while she was looking at some reports online. What? What's the whole thing about?

Well, of course it's the government ramping up fear of a snow hitting the Uki remember the winter of 1963 as a very small child when we really did have a problem with snow, but we still managed to to survive as a nation. The trains were able to start running again, roads were cleared and people just dealt with it. But now of. Course, the government says. That snow, as we can see in this one, is, is a risk to life. And this is the thing. It's all about fear.

Now who's driving the fear? Well, in these articles they start talking about the extreme events and. Health Protection, Health UK. Health Security Agency and there's a. Particular individual who's who's actually Portuguese Agostino D'souza and he's interesting man. He's got a very European career, but he. Said as the cold weather sets in, it's vital to check in on friends, family and neighbors

that are the most vulnerable. And if we press the magic button again, he added this, the forecasted temperatures can have a serious. Impact on the health of some people. Leading to increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and chest infections, particularly for individuals over the age of 65 and those with pre-existing health conditions. So I I think we should thank Agostino. For thinking for us and keeping

us safe from those snowflakes. Because before he got involved, no adult in the company in the country was capable of doing this. But the the thing that really brought a smile to our faces as a family was the fact that these agencies were having yellow snow warnings. And this brought into my head a Frank Zappa track from some years ago because he was also warning about yellow snow because that's where the doggies might go.

So yellow snow warnings in UK, does that mean watch out where you're treading or does it mean something else? I don't know. But for goodness sake, snow is snow. We can survive. Let's not let these people make us anxious and fearful of something which is quite normal for any country, certainly in in Europe or America, wherever we go, where there's cold weather. Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for that. Yes, we all recommend Frank's

office satire from time to time. It's it's good stuff. OK, well, look, we got to leave it there for now. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Ben. Thanks to everybody that's watching. We'll be back in a couple of minutes. If you UK call UK column member for some news extra. Otherwise, don't forget Germ tonight. Interview at 1:00 PM. Tomorrow, we'll be back from another news program, 1:00 PM as usual on Wednesday. We'll see you then. Thanks for joining us. Bye. Bye.