UK Column News Podcast 19th March 2025

Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 19th of March 2025, just after 1:00, and welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson, and joining me via video link today is Charles Mallett, Vanessa Bailey and Sandy Adams. We're going to begin today with the UK regime's attack on the welfare, welfare system. Now the Labour government has announced major cuts to the welfare system in the UK and today they're publishing a green paper called Pathways to Work.

The main focus of this announcement was on the disabled and long term sick and getting them back into work. This is what they were trying to claim. It's all about getting them back into work. So they've announced they're going to spend £1 billion, that's £1 billion to do that. This is, they say, going to end years of inaction, government inaction which has led to one in eight young people not currently in work, education or training and 2.8 million people in economically inactive due to

long term sickness. And they say that this is one of the highest rates in the G7. Now, I think the first thing to note is that no one in the mainstream media, at least in their coverage of this was wanting to speak about why there are so many people on disability benefits, because the fact is that these that they're roughly double the number of people.

So if we just bring this graph on screen and have a look at how this situation has changed uh, since 2014, fifteen uh, but around 2019, uh, there were something around 200,000 people uh, claiming pip uh, this is personal independence plan, uh, payment, sorry. And uh, by 2023-2024 that was up

to around 400,000. So a doubling In the last few years, the DWP is has reinforced this graph by admitting that since the pandemic so called, the number of working age people receiving PEP has more than doubled from 15,300 to 35,100 a month. And that the number of people aged 16 to 24 receiving PEP per month has also got risen from, in this case, 2967 to 7857 a month.

And they're saying that over the next five years, if no action is taken, they say the number of working age people claiming PIP is expected to increase from 2 million in 2021 to 4.3 million, costing 34.1 billion annually. But the question is, what do they mean by take no action? Do they mean if they don't simply cut the support? Or do they mean that they're going to do something to actually repair the damage done by the government policy that we've seen over the last several

years? And let's don't, you know, never mention the jobs. Uh, but my question is, what's this really about? One thing that it isn't about is filling job vacancies because the number of unfilled jobs has been falling now for 2 1/2 years. The estimated number of vacancies was 812,000 in the UK. That according to the latest statistics from the ONS. That was between October and December 2024. Now 812,000 might seem like a big number but isn't really.

And it represents a decrease of 24,000 from the previous quarter. That's 2.9% fall and a 12.7% fall from the previous year, same period the previous year. So the direction of travel is not good if hundreds of thousands of new people are going to be forced into the market because there are already 1.9 people per vacancy before

this change. But I think that actually the disabled here are effectively the poster children for something else that's going on. Certainly the part of this is about punishing anyone for whom locked down and jobs had a major detrimental effect on their lives, but it's also as, say, cover about something else. So here's an exchange from the debate yesterday in the House of Commons. This is Tory MP Mark Pritchard asking Liz Kendall.

Well, he had this to say. Youth unemployment stood at 642,000 as of the last quarter of 2024, a rise of 136,000 on 2023, and a youth unemployment rate at 14.8%. She mentions earlier in her statement. Earn and learn. Does she agree with me that one way of perhaps attracting some people back into work is for her to have discussions with her colleague in the Ministry of Defence, the Defence Secretary? And would she agree with me?

Getting more young people into His Majesty's Armed Forces, Air Force, Navy, Army would be a starting place. I absolutely agree with the honourable gentleman, indeed, before I was appointed to this position in Opposition as a constituency MP. I have discussed.

With my local job centre and the armed forces recruitment, precisely these issues, because of the really exciting careers and opportunities that are available, I think are really important for young people in in my constituency and the one that he represents. And I will certainly be having more conversations with colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to make sure we put this plan into action. So she's going to put this plan into action. What plan? What is what are the details?

No one's talking about this plan. So maybe this is something everyone might like to write to their MP about and ask exactly what is the plan with the Ministry of Defence which is going to be put in action. I think we know whether it's called conscription or National Service, it is coming and I think if we don't want our children and grandchildren involved, now is the time to take note and take action. Charles, any thoughts on that? Thanks, Mike. Good afternoon all.

Yeah, well, I think my first thought is that the government have an amazing amount of control over the younger generation. First of all, like we see here, people who are claiming any sort of benefits are obviously financially dependent upon the government, so therefore can be pushed in any which way. But the other thing, looking at it the other way around, if we're to say this, this is a plan, when quite clearly it isn't.

But if we're talking about people who are wilfully staying out of the workplace, either because they're unfit enough to enter it due to quite probable injuries from pharmaceutical products or indeed the product of simply living a very healthy, sorry, unhealthy lifestyle from 2020 haven't been sort of interned. What sort of people are going to be fed into the armed forces if they're not willingly coming

forward? The bar would have to be lowered considerably in order the people got through whatever training is required. So that so the the outcomes for anybody concerned would be absolutely terrible. But the, you know, the euphemistic language previously described of course, as economic inactivity is, you know, that there is an absolutely enormous disaster here below the surface, which is just not being not being dealt with at all.

So exactly what do the government mean when they say we're talking about dealing with it exactly? I don't know. Yes, indeed. OK, well just to finish this off then I'll just bring this tweet on screen. Robert here saying I'm 76 and worked since I was 16. Explain to me how the UK state pension is a benefit because this is also part of these cuts. Where's the money I paid into it gone? You talk Ponzi scheme, I give you the UK government.

I just want to say this is exactly the point that I've been trying to make for years now. State pension obligations for the UK state at the moment is £6.1 trillion. This is unpayable and so it is a Ponzi scheme and there was only ever going to be a rolling back on the state pension scheme, whether that means increasing the pension age or reducing the pension. So we'll keep you posted on that

as we as we move on. Vanessa, let me welcome you to the programme now. And of course, everybody talking about Donald Trump and the great peacemaker with his conversation with Putin yesterday. But what else has he been up to? Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, he's so far fulfilling his mandate to bring a ceasefire to Ukraine. However, he's turning his attention to West Asia and in particular Iran on behalf of Israel.

So this was something that Donald Trump tweeted out, I think yesterday, hundreds of attacks being made by Houthi, which is, of course, known as Antrulla, the sinister mobsters and thugs based in Yemen, based in Yemen. I mean as if they're not Yemeni and hated by the Yemeni people. In reality, of course supported by the huge majority of the Yemeni people in their battle to to end the occupation and oppression of Palestine. All emanate from and are created

by Iran in capital letters. He then went on to add to this with further threats. Every shot fired by the hoodies will be looked upon from this point forward as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of Iran in capitals again. And Iran will be held responsible and suffer the consequences and those consequences will be dire. Then basically, I think it's one of the spokespeople for the for the the White House basically went on to Fox News to reiterate the message that Trump was

putting out. So let's just play this extraordinary statement. Well, the Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight. And as President Trump has made it clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorise not just Israel but also the United States of America will see a price to pay. All hell will break loose.

And. All of the terrorists in the Middle East, again, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iranian backed terror proxies, and Iran themselves should take President Trump very seriously when he says he is not afraid to stand for law abiding people. He is not afraid to stand up for the United States of America and our friend and our ally, Israel.

I mean, this is this is just, I mean, Trump is effectively apparently declaring war on the entire resistance access across the region from Palestine through to Iran at the same time in Israel. This statement was put out by Israel cats. I've called him the war minister of Israel. If Hamas doesn't release all the hostages, the gates of hell will open in Gaza and the murderers and rapists. If Hamas will meet the IDF with forces they have never known before.

Of course, we're back to the ceasefire shenanigans, which is never anything more than a than a theatrical play to effectively be used as a weapon to blame Hamas and to enable what is now happening, the violation of the ceasefire in Gaza and the continuation of the ethnic cleansing and genocide. And then again, Ben Gabir is announced to be rejoining the Netanyahu coalition, praising the mass killings carried out in Gaza in the last 48 hours with mass bombing.

And then the statement by the Zionist IDF and Israeli occupation forces who said that they launched a strong offensive against, of course, they called them terror organisations. These designated areas are considered dangerous combat

zones for your own safety. Addressing the Palestinians sheltering and got in what's left of Gaza, you must evacuate immediately to known shelters in western Gaza City and in Khan Yunus. Of course, this is again forced displacement of people that have already been multiple times displaced. The Rafah crossing with Egypt is now closed to all medical cases looking to enter Egypt for hospital care or even to go abroad for medical treatment. So we're back to full on genocide.

While a number of Hamas resistance fighters were killed in the attack, I think it was 3 or 4. The majority of the victims, of course, were children. Yet again, just a couple of photos from the aftermath of the attack itself the other day and the headlines even in Western media. I have to say I didn't have to look very far. More than 400 Palestinians.

I think the number is now around 462 in one attack killed and schools injured now reaching close to an estimated 600 injured across the majority children in extensive Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. And this is a statement from Tanya, doctor Tanya Haj Hassan, who works for medicines, some Frontier or Doctors Without Borders in Gaza itself. She said immediately after she described the horrors that she saw. And of course, she's been there for much of the genocide in Gaza.

There were probably three men. The rest were all children, women and the elderly, everybody caught in their sleep, wrapped in their blankets, Terrifying. So she describes the fact that again, the majority of the victims were disabled, elderly, innocent civilians, children and women that have been targeted since October the 7th. At the same time, of course, Trump has effectively with the UK, started a new round of the war against Yemen, which began in March 2015.

And in the initial strikes, around 50 Yemenis were killed, injured in the USUK aggression on Yemeni cities, which include the targeting of hospitals and cancer centres and schools. Yemen has retaliated. Harry S Truman attacked for a second time within hours by various ballistic missiles and

drones. And there are reports now that there have been 4 attacks on the USS Truman at the same time, when we're talking about Trump launching what is effectively a regional war, Israel has been increasing its attacks on Syria. It bombed southern Syria a couple of days ago. In data, there are convoys of Israeli troops and hardware coming into Syria for the last 48 hours.

And yesterday, they bombed what they described as missile battalion in Homs in Syria. So on the border, very close to the border with Lebanon, and I'll come on to that next. If we have a quick look at the map, we talked about this previously just to keep the map on screen, the red circle shows the area on the Syrian Lebanese border which was attacked I

think about a month ago. We we talked about it on UK column by the HTS Al Qaeda forces who were driven back by the tribesmen and the clans in this area. There has been a more concerted attack in the last few days by HTS forces. There's now a sort of a semi ceasefire, but they were again driven back by the tribesmen and now the Lebanese army forces are on the border with heavy artillery to force back the Syrian terrorist attack. I won't call them Syrian actually, because the majority

of them are foreign mercenaries. So and at the same time Israel was actually bombing the Lebanese side on behalf of Jolani's forces. Israel has been bombing southern Lebanon corresponding with the attack by HTS.

So it becomes very clear that Israel is trying to open 2 fronts against Hezbollah and Lebanon, using HTS or Al Qaeda as a proxy in the northeast and attacking directly in the South, while, of course, disrupting and destabilising Syria, and while Al Qaeda is continuing with the massacres of the ethnic minorities inside Syria. So it appears to be very clear that Trump, while, let's say, ending the war in Ukraine in agreement with Putin, is now focusing very much on West Asia,

with Iran, one assumes, as the final target. Thank you very much for that, Vanessa Wolf. More international news later on, but let's come back to the

UK 1st. And Charles, a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about GB energy. That must be going very well, surely? Well, I think we can probably qualify that. Yes, we'll look at great British energy and this is something UK column has talked about even back at its inception last year, 2024. Spoiler alert, it is not great, it's not really particularly British and there is going to be very little in the way of energy.

But the reason it's in the news today is that there has been a report from the Institute for Public Policy Research which relates back to the Labor Party manifesto of 2024. So right away we are stuck in the zone of net zero being absolutely ideological rather more than than anything else. And in the manifesto they said that they were going to turn the page decisively on the Conservative ideas that have caused chaos in order that they can take ownership of the chaos

themselves. The proposal is that the this is pushed on by £8.3 billion worth of investment, which can only be said to secure perhaps 5% of the total energy requirement following the year 2030. So that's an absolutely paltry amount of electricity to be generating at one minute past midnight this morning. They were meant to publish the full report, but like all things connected to net zero, that

didn't work. And we'll then take a look at the chief executive just to see the sorts of alignments we're considering here. Run by a chap called Jurgen Meyer, who is also running the digital cast bolt here, accelerating the digital future. And of course, because we know now from the National Energy System operator that all energy is really to be diverted towards artificial intelligence and control of our lives in order that we surrender our own

requirement for energy. This is entirely in keeping with the direction of travel. Now, this of course provides an opportunity for political opportunism. And this is where the leader of the opposition has jumped in, receiving a certain amount of criticism. But of course, it's all very theatrical. Kemi Badnock here taking flak for saying that we're now going to be dependent upon China, which has instantly meant that she's been fact checked by Carbon brief.

Now, the moment you start telling lies about this sort of stuff, you are definitely going to get caught out. So the irony being that last year the the IPPR written produced a paper written by the same man who's produced today's report, Simon Gaspara produced a document called Second Wind in which they said to meet global net 02030 targets, the world's wind manufacturing annual capacity will have to increase to 350 gigawatts, which is significant increase on where we

are now. I know these figures are slightly meaningless, but the point is needs to be ramped up dramatically. And the report went on to say that China, China is the global wind superpower. China accounts for 3/5 of the world's capacity in wind nacelles and blades, and accounts for the overwhelming majority of mining and refining of essential rare earth minerals. So. But not might be right. But of course, is China a threat or not? And is 1 to take the Richard

Dearlove line or not? So this absurd line being walked when it concerns net zero, which as I say, of course, is an ideological commitment rather than anything else. Now, what I'll do is I'll just set in context what this means in terms of energy. This is taken from Energy Dashboard live at 6:00 this morning. The overall picture of energy on the left there.

Now I'm putting a red arrow down onto the renewable contribution, which was only just over 9% this morning because the sun hadn't yet got up and it wasn't really blowing much in the way of wind. What is worth drawing your attention to is the box just to its right, which I've ringed there in red because that is the total contribution from imports and nuclear, which amounts to just over 8.5 gigawatts of energy, which is what Great British energy is supposed to recover from an £8.3 billion

investment. Now, is it worth it if the sun's not going to shine and the wind's not going to blow? I will leave you to answer that question yourself. And now on the right, we see the what's called the carbon intensity. So even if all of this stuff works and we do get by some miracle 5% of renewable energy, if you turn the gas on, then you're destroying your fiction of net zero because of course you're straight into the zone of what they call high carbon intensity.

Now, just to give an indication of the direction this dreadful scam is going, the Alpha Ventus offshore wind capability that Germany had set up 15 years ago is now going to be closed because it cannot be profitable because the subsidy has dried up, which just reinforces the point. This is absolutely a totally and utterly failed policy.

And just to contextualise the requirements by space for all of these various technologies, we'll just look at the Nuclear Energy Institute, which shows here with a graphic which I'll describe the acreage taken up in order to produce 1,000,000 MW hours. Now to produce 1,000,000 MW hours, nuclear would require 103 acres, solar would require 3200 acres and wind would require a whopping 17,800 acres.

So we talked a lot on this programme about the stealing of agricultural land in particular, but land in that belongs really in the natural world being completely destroyed by the so called renewable technology. Now last week I spoke about a food and farming symposium that was going to take place in Cheltenham at the weekend, which Julie did and it was a great success. Sandy was there too.

And very pleasingly this has been reported by the Stride News and Journal, an article put in by Kate Divine. So we see this on screen and it's worth noting that there were two members of Parliament there, 1 pictured here standing

next to Auk column journalist. And here's the Jeffrey, Jeffrey Clifton Brown, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which of course is significant because he has recently audited the absurd carbon capture scheme and highlighted the incredible inefficiencies of that particular technology.

But within the article, I'd just like to draw out the following text, which is how it concluded, which is that supranational and unaccountable influence over the food supply via the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. And the Davos influence is something that those present expressed their determination to challenge and resist. So I think to have it on record that a sitting member of Parliament, and indeed one who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, was present at such

an event is significant. It means that this is being heard and it really cannot be hidden. That this zero agenda fails at every turn is absolutely becoming good for public concerns. Of course, now it's over to people to keep pressure on, particularly where it concerns the utter waste of taxpayer money, as indeed we see with this absurd idea for Great British energy. Charles, thank you very much for that. Let's come on Sandy.

Charles, talking about 20-30 is the deadline. Undoubtedly what you're about to report here is also related to the year 2030 as well. And later on we'll be going to be talking about European defence and it's also becoming related to 2030 to 2030, massively significant year. But what's been going on in in Bristol? Well, the residents of of Barton Hill, E Bristol got a bit of a shock last week. An overnight police operation took place in Bristol to finish installing a controversial

Liverpool neighbourhood scheme. The council and its contractors, I think they're called ETM and Avon and Somerset Police arrived at Barton Hill at approximate approximately 3:00 AM in the morning on Thursday the 13th of March to install planters, bus gate signs and roads as part of the East Bristol Liverpool Neighbourhood Scheme. The installations took place in multiple locations at the same time.

UMM protesters arrived between 4:00 and 5:00 AM to attempt to stop these works but only succeeded in stopping the instalment of 1 Bus Gate at the junction of Marsh Lane and Avondale Rd where a group of women actually laid down in the road to halt the contractors. As work was abandoned at this gate, the final E left on gate Bus gate was was not completed. So they did actually, you know, at least stop something.

Now you know. This scheme attempts to reduce traffic in parts of Barton Hill, Lawrence Hill, Redfield and Saint George by closing off side roads to cars and creating a series of no through roads, dead ends and culdesacs whilst allowing pedestrians and cyclists to go through. However, many in the area of Bristol have said it's made life really difficult for them, with some saying car journeys have doubled or tripled in length because of congestion.

I mean, we've seen this in other, in other areas, uh, this time, umm, uh, this, you know, this nightmare, you know, we've seen it in all these other, other cities. Contractors were supported by 28 Avon and Somerset Police officers and a police drone operator team. By morning, planters Rd blockages and bus gates were installed across the area, including two locations. Um, you know, other locations in, in East East Bristol. Officers and contractors left the scene at around 6:00 AM.

Now, even in Somerset, police confirmed that 28 officers did attend with, with drone support. And they said that they had they, they, they were sort of trying to, you know, calm the, the, the protesters. They said they'd held back a few demonstrators. Now there's a cafe owner who said that she was not told about this. She said her business would suffer if the closure of the road happened, and she was. She said that there was nothing about bus gates, nothing about Rd closures.

Not a single time did they mention it. Now the Police and Crime Commissioner for Avon and Somerset Police, Claire Moody, said she'll look into the heavy police presence at protest at the protest. And she said. I obviously have a scrutiny role around policing. So I just want to acknowledge that it's something I'm aware of, the number of police involved. I mean it's something I'm investigating and it's something I'll be following up.

Meanwhile, the Green leader of the council, Tony Dyer said. I think it's very clear there are some very strong feelings about this process. We do take those seriously. Well, I wonder what we have to remember is that Bristol is a combined authority, weka, the West of England Command Authority. With the new directly elected mayoral elections on May the 1st, this will drive the people further away from any decision making process.

And what's deeply concerning is that the is the assault on the community is not on any democratic process despite strong opposition. This is a classic example of what we can expect when these smart city mayors are in power. The fact that the IP that that the P the Police and Crime Commit Commissioner said she will investigate the heavy handed approach of the police in this incident in incident is ironic. Her position as Police and Crime Commissioner will not exist in the future.

According to the Cities and Communities Act of 2016 and the Devolution White Paper of 2025, the powers of the Police and Crime Commissioners will be given over to the Mayors for Climate and Energy in the combined authorities along with all the powers currently led by, you know, held by Westminster. This begs the question really, where will this leave the people of the UK with their freedom of movement and rights to go about their business trampled on? It's nothing short of fascism in

my view. Devolution is set to cost the taxpayer over 400 million. So let's look at what the devolution means. Straight from the devolution White Paper and Angela Rayner has quoted. We will give mayors strong powers over housing, planning, transport, energy, skills and employment, backed up with consolidated funding. Devolution will no longer be agreed at the whim of a minister in Whitehall and Jim McMahon, you know, he was quoted as saying.

This white paper initiates the biggest transfer of power out of Westminster to English regions this century. He also, um, you know, he, he's, he also did, didn't, did mention another quote in, in the summary of the, of the devolution white paper, which I found interesting. He said this is ambitious, but it's not new.

This programme of reform continues the work of the 1997 governments onwards which saw the formation of the Mayor of London, devolved parliaments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and freedoms for local government with the creation of combined authorities. The power of economic, social

and environmental well being. Well, what he's really saying is it's the continuation of Tony Blair's legacy of devolution from 1997 which ended up with Northern Ireland in the Good Friday Agreement. In my view, he speaks of economic, social and environmental well being and I think what he really means is ESG, environmental and social

governance. So that's, uh, that's my report from Bristol. Uh, but, but the key point here is, uh, Sandy, that, you know, lots of people will look at devolution and they'll think, well, this is a great thing. It's taking power away from these idiots in Westminster who are, you know, clearly incapable of using it properly. It's putting, it's bringing it to the local level. We will have more of a say in what happens at a local level.

But in fact it's quite the opposite because it's putting, we're just replacing a Prime Minister with an elected mayor who may be elected, but in fact is ideologically aligned with more global interests. And, and, and they have the election for the mayor sewing up just as tightly as they have for Westminster. So we will end up with someone who is basically untouchable. Absolutely.

I mean, 100% it's a, it's a Trojan horse to actually remove the powers from Westminster to, to destroy our representation of government. Even if they are, I mean, yes, they're not good, but at least, you know, you do have some sort of say. But with this lot, you won't have any say at all. Yes, Sandy, thank you very much

for that. OK, let's move on. If you like what the UK column does and you'd like to support us, the place to go is support.ukcolumn.org. There's a link from the front page of the UK Column website and you can support us by making a donation or joining as a member. And if you do join as a member, that of course entitles you to get access to UK Column News Extra and other material of the forums and so on.

You can pick something up from the UK Column shop or if you buy something using this link from Clive to carl.com, then we will get a small Commission from anything for, from anything that you buy from them. Uh, but if you can't do that, please do share the material you find on the UK column website in particular, and we do provide share links for that. Uh, if you can do that, would, that would be fantastic. Uh, another reminder of the UK column on location.

Uh, I think there are less than 50 tickets left now, I think something like that at the moment. So if you are able to come along for that, please do. Catherine Gunn, Alex Thompson, Patrick Hennigsen, Roger Mia talking at that. But at that, Brian Garish will also be speaking now tomorrow at 1:00 PM.

Then Brian is going to be speaking to film maker Chris Burgard, who was present at Capitol Hill on the day that Biden and the media screamed rioters held a dagger to the throat of America and American democracy. Now, his documentaries tell a different story. And if you'd like to know more about that, join us at 1:00 PM tomorrow. The interview that went out at 1:00 PM yesterday. Charles was with Liz Evans.

It was, yes, and I really recommend listening to it's very candid account of her journey, first of all into the NHS and the incredibly constrained thinking that she encountered there and then back out into complementary medicine, but also particularly her focus now being on medical ethics and indeed the harms from the COVID vaccine. So very much worth listening to.

And Liz will be joining us on the news on Friday, so please join us at 1:00 PM if you want to hear more from her and then Charles, the Food Finders Hub. Yes, indeed. This was the sort of fallout and follow up action from the symposium that I referred to on Sunday, launched by Mark Byford who spoke very well about it. This is a way of connecting producers of food with the consumer in a really, really direct way. So please do take a look at this. The link will be in the show

notes. It's not to say that everything has to go through the Food Finders Hub, but it's really just to understand the concept of dealing directly with farmers and the producers of food and cutting out all the influences that turn things bad. Brilliant. Thank you, Charles. Now let's move on then to European Defence. And well, Ursula von der Len is frankly off her head, and I mean really insane actually. So allow me to demonstrate. Yesterday she was speaking to

military cadets in Denmark about the future of war in Europe, and she announced what she called Readiness 2030. Because 20-30, as we've mentioned already, is a key deadline year for everyone. Um, so she announced 4 priorities for readiness 2030, a surge in defence spending, uh, with up to 8,000,008 billion, sorry, €800 billion. We talked about that over the last couple of weeks. This is her plan. Uh, and then we've got pan European cooperation was the next thing she was talking.

That includes military mobility, which is what they describe as a functioning EU wide network of land corridors, airports and seaports to facilitate the fast transportation of troops and military equipment. They don't call it this, but let's call it the Russian front because that's what it's what it's all about They're talking about, or she's talking about a what she's calling a porcupine strategy for Ukraine, whatever

that means. And maybe she means it's completely so bristling with missiles that it's dangerous to touch it or something. She talked about setting up a joint task force with Ukraine. And finally, she talked about the other feature of European Defence Union that we've been talking about for a long time, which was an EU wide market for defence equipment and a single point procurement process.

So this is the defence union that we've been warning about for 15 years and the war danger that comes with it is absolutely there for everyone to see. So how was she justifying this? Well, first of all, she had something to say about Greenland. Let's have a listen.

Europe must get ready for war. I'm of course talking about the ongoing war in Ukraine and conflicts in other theatres, but also the repeated and continued attacks on critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, and of course the ongoing competition for influence in the Arctic region, including Greenland. And to all the people of Greenland and of Denmark as a whole. I want to be very clear that Europe will always stand for sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Sovereignty and territory, territorial integrity was something that we're talking about with respect to Ukraine. Now they're talking about with respect to Greenland. Is their intention to seriously, you know, face off against the United States? I don't know. But this is this is unhinged language that she's using. She went on to talk about Trump's desire to reorient to China. Just take Russia. We already know its determination to deny other countries their right to choose their own path.

And now Russia is on an irreversible path to creating a pure war economy. It has massively expanded its military industrial production capacity. 40% of the federal budget is spent on defence, 9% of it's GDP and this investment fuels it's war of aggression in Ukraine while preparing it for future confrontation with European democracies. And just as these threats increase, we see our oldest partner, the United States, move their focus to the Indo Pacific.

So we're going to talk about this much, much more. An extra, I'm quite sure, but let's just listen to a final clip because she's absolutely determined. I mean, obviously what's Trump is doing here is justifying this move towards military integration in Europe. Let's listen to why her comments about when the United, the

European Union should act. The point is that we must see the world as it is, and we must act immediately to face up to it, because a new international order will be formed in the second half of this decade and beyond. So as we stand here today, Europe faces a fundamental choice about its future. Do we keep reacting to each challenge in an incremental and cautious way?

Or are we ready to grasp this opportunity to build a more secure Europe, one that is prosperous, free and ready, willing and able to defend itself? Dear Carrots, the answer is clear. The choice is none. Europe is ready to step up. We are ready to take control of the change that is inevitable because we cannot afford to be pushed around by history and that means acting now is a must. So we've got to act now.

Now, just to clarify the jump cuts that were in those three video clips, I wasn't cutting any words out of that. I was cutting out silences. So it was just to to slightly compress the time that she said those words, but the words were

in the order that she gave them. But in the meantime, as we've been reporting for a couple of weeks and, uh, yobs was, uh, reporting on this again on Monday, Germany has been subverting its own constitution in order to enable Starmer and von der Leyen to enable their war policy. Well, yesterday it actually did it. So a 2/3 majority in the Bundestag voted to allow these huge increases in defence and infrastructure spending.

Uh, and this of course, is going to exempt, uh, spending on war from Germany's otherwise strict debt rules. And it's going to create out of nothing something like €500 billion of a war fund. The question now or the question of whether to go ahead with this now moves to the upper house, the the Bundesrat, which needs to approve the deal also by a 2/3 majority before it actually becomes law. And that vote is going to happen on Friday.

But as Patrick has been reporting, the incoming chancellor, Friedrich Mertz proposed these measures immediately following his election when in 180° reversal of the policy he campaigned on. So, you know, this is wrong in so many levels as far as I can see.

But finally, on this topic, for now, Katya Callas, who is the the equivalent of the EU foreign minister, the special representative was in the UK this week to meet with John Healey, who's the Secretary of State for War, and David Lammy, who's foreign Secretary. Let's listen to what Healey and Callas had to say. Kaya welcome. This is a time when the demands of the moment mean European partners has come together, recognising the NATO as a cornerstone of European security.

But we need to do more. You and the Commission and the European Union are stepping up, just as we are in the UK. We must step up together on European security, on defence spending and on reinforcing our industrial bases. And to to add to that, it is more defence spending.

How can we do more, but also how we can spend the money and more cleverly, I mean the new technologies, what's could be their innovation and and the capabilities that we can develop further so that we could have a European security in really. Strong hands. Exactly so, and I think we can learn from what we have been involved in with supporting Ukraine, can't we? We need our European defence industries to be able to innovate at a wartime pace.

We need to make sure that what we spend on defence also drives economic growth. But on Ukraine, now is also the time when we must maintain our strong support for Ukraine. We must not jeopardise the peace by forgetting about the war, and we will together reinforce our efforts to secure that peace. Because European security starts with the Ukraine right now, and that's why we need to support them to be able to defend themselves. So thank you very much for. Exactly. So thank you.

Vanessa, these people are off their heads. That wasn't scripted at all. I mean, just think just listening to them is like, I'm, I'm in the Truman Show or something. It's, it's so disconnected from reality. It's quite incredible. Sorry, I'm a bit speechless actually on this one. Yeah. Well, well, move on with it because we've got more here from you on UK and EU cooperation.

Oh yes, exactly. Well, I mean, people will remember back in January, just after the international coup finally toppled the Syrian government and replaced it with Al Qaeda. So Lammy was then saying that he discussed the importance of an inclusive political transition and regional security with interim Syrian Foreign Minister Assad Shibani. The UK will support Syria's long term stability through humanitarian aid and coordination. Of course they didn't.

They basically destabilised Syria to the maximum from about 2009 onwards. But let's look Fast forward to 17th March, UK pledges up to 160 million to support Syria's recovery and stability in post Assad era. The UK government has pledged 160 million in aid. I always put that in inverted commas to help stabilise. Should also be in inverted commas. Syria. Following the fall of the Syrian government, let's have a look at what the actual Minister for the Middle East, Hamish Volcano said.

UK aid delivered through trusted UN and NGO partners will provide life saving support for Syrians, including refugees across the region. Of course, like we know who those trusted NGOs are, predominantly the White Helmets.

We also know that there will be 0 transparency about that 160 million, add to the previous millions, if not billions, that the UK has sent to support basically Al Qaeda and their White Helmet helpers and all other NGOs associated with Al Qaeda in Syria. And then this is quite interesting. This was on the 6th of March, an update on Syria lifting asset freezes on 24 entities, which includes the Syrian airlines, the Syrian Central bank.

But interesting that they're maintaining sanctions on the Assad family because of their alleged links to the Captagon drug trade in Syria. That we've covered quite a few times on UK column and and debunked, particularly ABBC documentary accusing former President Assad of being the

head of the captain trade. And interesting that there have been a number of arrests recently, all drug smugglers in Syria. So despite President Assad no longer being present and the most recent one, Iraq's Interior Ministry announced Sunday the seizure of 1.1 tonnes of Capticon in the arrest of a major cross border drug network in coordination with Erbil and Soleimani Counter Narcotic Units

authorities. Tractor truck going from Syria via Turkey. So one assumes it's going from Idlib, which was previously under the control of Gilani, who is now the unelected self proclaimed president in Damascus. And it is one of the Iraq's largest drug busts. So few questions to be raised over, one, the reason for the sanctions and two, the propaganda regarding the Capticon production in Syria. And then we move on back to Brussels and von der Leyen and

the whole team there. This is standing with Syria donor conference in Brussels that ended I think a couple of days ago. And who was invited? The interim foreign minister who of course was previously al Qaeda. I know that we've mentioned this before. He was actually a founder of al Qaeda in Syria named back in December as a caretaker foreign minister. I know I keep repeating this, but I do think it's quite important.

And here is a picture of him on on the right or left, depending on how you're looking at it. I think that was at the WEF in Davos and on the left as an acting al Qaeda and formerly ISIS member carrying out atrocities against Syrian civilians. And of course, he did meet Kaya.

Sorry, I'm putting on the Arabic accent bilateral meeting between Foreign Minister Sad al Shibani and EU High Representative Kayakalis on the sidelines of the Brussels donor conference on Syria. So again, the EU and their various representatives embracing al Qaeda members in Brussels. And of course, they're also upping the ante in their funding for Syria. The EU and its partners, Kayakalis says, just pledged 5.8 billion for Syria and its neighbours.

This will support Syria at a crucial time of transition and address the dire needs on the ground. This is a chance for the people of Syria to seize the moment and shape their own destiny. But I just want to move on to Assad Chibani's actual speech that he made where again he was

blaming. He was basically reiterating the propaganda that has sustained the regime change war for the UK, the EU and the US against Syria since 2011, that it was all the fault of the minorities and President Assad. He states that the age of tyranny is over. We have sworn an oath to our people that the age of oppression has passed and will not return.

And he goes on, he says, and as is the case now that I've put in brackets there, the unelected al Qaeda Syrian government remains the sole guarantor of civil peace.

Well, really, I mean, last week we talked about the ethnic cleansing and the effect of genocide that's being conducted by HTS and its various foreign mercenary, fanatical extremist terrorist groups against the people in the coastal area, particularly Christians and Alawites, but even against Sunni Muslims who are protesting massacres of Syrian otherwise. So I just want to play this video of a lady who was being interviewed in Jablay on the coastal area in Syria.

I was so dumb. The massacres are continuing, houses or apartments, shops are being looted and burned and there is now talk of displacing all of the other white civilians and replacing them with Sunni Muslim extremist factions to actually sort of reconstitute that area of of Syria. And I just wanted to quickly show this rather than another execution video. This is a kid in Al Bab, Aleppo being given a semi automatic, I think it is by an HTS fighter.

This is how the children in Syria are being indoctrinated. So I would also ask when to the UK or EU pledge money to actually alleviate the problems in the target countries.

Yeah, good question, Vanessa, good question. Thank you for that. And Sandy sticking with EU and UK, Nigel Fries is pretty silent in this. But what are what are the, what's going on with respect to

our potential rejoining? Well, Keir Starmer, as we know, has been strengthening ties with EU without allegedly reversing Brexit. I mean, he's proposing an EU security pact, you know, UKEU security pact with the collaboration on defence and intelligence matters, aiming to bolster NATO, all that kind of thing. And the stuff that we've been talking about. He's now in in May, on May the 19th, 2025, he's hosting an EU

leaders for post Brexit summit. And this is the first summit obviously since Brexit to explore avenues for deeper cooperation and to reset relations between the UK and the EU, you know, engaging in bilateral talks with the E with key EU nations. He's engaged in discussions with leaders like German Chancellor Olaf Schultz and French President Emmanuel Macron to negotiate bilateral agreements focusing on defence, energy security and scientific

collaboration. So he's advocating for closer economic ties whilst, um, apparently ruling out rejoining the EU. And he seeks to improve economic relations by addressing trade barriers and all that, you know, the recognition of agreements to facilitate smoother trade between the UK and the EU member states without allegedly reversing Brexit. But yesterday on this, this was published on Monday from the the House of Commons Library that on

Monday, the 25th of March at 4:30, there'll be a debate in Westminster Hall on E petition 700005 on applying to join the EU. The debate will be led by Paul Davis MP. So as we all thought Sama Starmer is, you know, he's determined to reverse Brexit and and and debate on us rejoining. Yes, and it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone really, But yes, I believe that's what's happening. So Charles, let's come back to

you then. And, well, what's going on with the police? Well, as ever, never quite the right thing. And we have our attention drawn to this by the tribunal that's been going on in Croydon last week, shown here by Sex Matters, who have described it as a tribunal concerning and well particularly they're reporting

on the anonymity of a witness. Now, that's not actually specifically what I want to go into, but this concerns Melanie Newman, a Metropolitan Police Service employee who submitted a statement of evidence that goes back to 2023. And I think this really just lays bare the intentional destruction of the public services, which I'll go on to qualify. Now, she was in 2023, signed up for what's called the Transgender Day of Visibility. And in in her statement, she makes the following.

Well, she, she describes what it is that she thought in the workplace and she is very explicit in, in her belief. She says I have gender critical beliefs by which I mean that I know there are two sexes with immutable biological differences between them. I believe sex segregation and recording is essential in some circumstances to ensure female safety and equality. Opportunity, sorry, and equal opportunity in much the same way that people are routinely segregated and classified by age.

So it's important to note she's she's giving the policing context there and she goes on to say I view this classification as particularly important in the criminal justice sphere. Males, irrespective of self identification, make up the vast majority of violent and sexual crime suspects, defendants and

convicted offenders. She also went on to say that she believes very much in freedom of speech and expression, which presumably can't have endeared her to the Metropolitan Police Service or perhaps the tribunal itself. But the point really in all of this is that it teases out the fact that that really what we're dealing with is an ideology and nothing to do with the way in which a police service should be

able to conduct itself. And just to go on, to give a flavour of what happened during this training, there were two trans activists there speaking one. I might get the name wrong, it might be Cher Coffey reposted a video on Twitter of Posey Parker being assaulted at a Let Women Speak event in New Zealand with a caption saying this was hilarious. And another one called Eva Echo who spoke in high Pollock terms about a need to save trans people from gender critical people with quote warped,

twisted views. End Quote. But never identified the nature of the risk. He advised on how to dismiss concerns about trans women in female only spaces and spoke about the government and media in a conspiratorial manner. Now I think really one thing that's come out of the tribunal, we're yet to see the the full

transcript. So it's it's hard to know exactly which way it would have gone and what the significance is. But certainly a senior police officer there speaking at the tribunal wouldn't even commit to saying that there was an identifiable link between the male sex and violent crime. So that is the degree to which the police psyche and modus operandi has been infected by

this kind of ideology. And I would say this points back to the Equality Act 2010, which is now to be seen to be doing that which it was intended for, which is really to create division, confusion, the breakdown of the family unit and particularly hypocrisy and contradiction in both law and

the workplace. And I think really what this comes to is the use use of the positive action as enabled by sections 158 and 159 of the Equality Act, which are contextualised by this phrase, which is participation in an activity by persons who share a protected characteristic that is

disproportionately low. So although it's an absurd example, this means that you could manipulate the situation in order to justify, for example, putting more pregnant pregnant women into to frontline soldiering because of course they would be represented in a disproportionately low fashion. So once you've done that manipulation, it allows you to go over anything, regardless of whether it's appropriate or suitable or even desirable by the people who are looking for

employment into a position. Where as an employer, you can treat a person more favourably in connection with recruitment or promotion than another person. Because person A has the protected characteristic, but person B does not. And so with with that in mind, we should look at this lady here, Emma Dunn, who is the chair of a gender, which is spelled a colon and then gender. But of course it is an agenda. And in her profile there, it describes her as being the chair of a gender.

The cross government network supporting trans and intersex staff across government. Emma is intersex and identifies as female. Her pronouns are she her or they them? Most confusing. But the point is this, this this organisation agenda, it sits

within central government. And given what I've just said about the Equality Act and the clauses that enable positive action and the way in which the Metropolitan Police Service has treated its own employees with regard to indoctrination around in this case, gender issues and indeed the protected characteristics part of, it's very hard to see how the government itself is not weaponizing the Equality Act in order to unlawfully positively discriminate in order to pursue

this ideology. Now obviously if anything significant is to come out of the results of the tribunal, then I'll report back on that. But I think this gives a very good insight to the incredibly corrosive influences that are attacking police from all sides and in a completely intentional manner. Thank you, Charles. Thank you. We're just going to end then

with this. But well, on Friday, I was talking about the fact that Elon Musk and the US, sorry, in the US, is running his dodge operation to cut bureaucracy right across the federal government. And just a few weeks later, as I mentioned on Friday, Starmer had announced effectively the same policy with the NHS England, the

1st to fall. Here's the next effort then, because they're cutting government waste apparently, and they're going to cut up a bunch of credit cards, 20,000 credit cards so far is what they're intended to cut up, or at least freeze them so they can't be used. And then they're going to make anyone that wants to use a credit card in the civil service that I'm talking about here, they're going to make them reapply for their credit card.

So according to the Cabinet Office, who's behind this great innovation, their aim is to reduce the number of active cards around 10,000. They haven't been able to give the quality reports of outrageous spending that Musk was able to do. And the examples they gave them weren't talking about millions or hundreds of thousands even, uh, they spoke about, uh, 1200 lbs spent on luxury coffee pods by one team in two months and 1800 lbs on a quotes value for money course. Absolutely shocking.

So rest assured, as the prime, as the Prime Minister set out last week, he will be making sure that every pound spent delivers for us. What a nice man. I'm not sure what it's intending to deliver. Perhaps Missiles on our heads is where we're heading, but we'll talk more about that in extra as well. We've got to end there. I'm going to say thank you very much to Vanessa, Charles and Sandy for joining us today. Thank you for joining us. Stick around for UK column for

some extra. We'll see you in a few minutes. Otherwise, enjoy the interview at 1:00 PM tomorrow and we'll see you on Friday. Bye bye.