Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 24th of April 2024, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson, joining me by video link. Today we have Vanessa Bailey and Charles Mallett. Welcome to the programme both. We're going to get started today with defence spending and, well, this is the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute which is having a look at defence spending across the world.
And of course the timing of this is quite appropriate as we'll come on to in a second with Rishi Sunak in Poland yesterday. But they're saying that the global defence spending has reached 2400 and $43 billion in 2023 and that's an overall increase of 6.8%. We'll look at the country spending in a second. This is a comment from Nan Tian saying states are prioritising military strength, but they risk an action reaction spiral in the increasingly volatile geopolitical and security landscape.
So this is the first time since 2009 that spending has been up right across the globe. So let's just have a look at some of the details of this. United States is up to these figures are the total that they're spending. That's not the amount that it's gone up by. So it's up to $916 billion. And so that's 2.3 up, percent up in 2023, more spending this year of course already.
But in 2023, across all the NATO, if you take NATO as a whole, all 31 member states accounted for 1341 billion of that 2443. So that's over 55%. Russia is up to $109 billion, so that's a 24% increase. Hardly surprising. What I find really amusing, of course, is that the Ministry of Defence continues to pump out propaganda telling us on their Twitter feed telling us that Russia is no longer an exporter of defence equipment. Hardly surprising under the circumstances.
China up to $296 billion and that is a 6% increase. And Japan in the same region has increased theirs by 11%. But Ukraine is now one of the major spenders in terms of GDP anyway, so they're up to £64.8 billion. That is 37% of its GDP, which makes the 2 1/2% that Rishi Sunak announced for the UK yesterday look a bit silly. Perhaps in one cut in one sense. But of course Ukraine starting to get more money from abroad, as they could have been for
quite some time. But the stalemate over US funding seems to be broken and I think 98 billion, another 98 billion heading over to Ukraine as a result of that. So there he is, our glorious Leader with Poland's Glorious Leader Leader Donald Tusk yesterday with flowers on the table that all looks very nice while they're talking about death and destruction across the world. So let's just have a little look from Rishi or a little listen to
what he had to say yesterday. We did not choose this moment, but it falls to us to meet it. In a world of increasing threats, we must show our enemies that we are resolute and determined, that their attempts to destabilise our world or redraw its borders by force will fail. That with our friends and our allies, we'll be at the forefront of the defence of the free, democratic world.
And under my leadership, the United Kingdom will always stand up for our interests, deter our enemies, and defend our values. So hopefully that didn't make people feel too physically. I'll it certainly did me at 1:00 earlier on when I watched it for the first time. But let's see what they were pumping out on Twitter this morning.
Because great propaganda here, £75 billion new funding secured to fund the greatest strengthening of our National Defence since the Cold War. To defend the UK and help Ukraine defend freedom's frontline. With a record 3 billion this year. To lead in a more dangerous world. From native's eastern flank to the Pacific. With our Aucus allies. To modernize our armed forces. To be able to fight and win against an enemy. To support service personnel at the dawn of a dangerous era when
we need them more. And which will put our defence industry on a war footing with at least £10 billion extra for munitions. And to ensure that we have the conventional forces we need to deter rising threats. So of course while he was in Poland, he also met Jens Stoltenberg and they of course were extremely excited with this extra spending. Charles, what are your thoughts on this? Good afternoon, all.
And I think this is just a sort of gigantic exercise in spin really, because of course there's so much more to it than money, which I will come on to in a bit, but it's, I think completely nonsensical would be the word I choose. Yes, yes, indeed. So let's come to your segment then Charles. And more tanks running off the production line in the UK as a result of this money.
Well, yes, the announcement that the Challenger 3, the latest iteration in the UKS main battle tank, has rolled off the production line, although not yet of course operational, but here we see the Army advertising the soon to be capability or at least relatively soon. Ryan Metal BAE Systems building the tank. And of course there's much made about the prosperity in securing jobs and all the rest of it.
And critically, and this is the important part, the the MO DS buying 148 of these vehicles at a cost of £800 million. So it is a lot of money, but I'd like to look back to 1983. This is my copy of the presentation document at the release of the original Challenger tank and it's worth noting then that the MOD bought 420 main battle tanks. So as Popular Mechanics asks or rather points out at 148.
Whilst it is a new tank and it may be quite a capability, there are not going to be very many of them. And indeed to set it within the context of the situation in Ukraine and Russia at the moment. The defence of Ukraine. Twitter profile posted that they claim to have destroyed 6739 Russian tanks since February 2022. Now that may well be a work of fiction, but nonetheless, 148 main battle tanks set against that total, whichever way you look at it, is a very, very
small number. So the other thing to to point out on the the actual capability of it and again to do with the the situation that the the United Kingdom and the the MOD and of course the armed forces are involved in. It's worth pointing out the Challenger Three will be fitted with an Israeli capability, the active protection system which effectively is designed to if we just bring that on screen, it's designed to be able to repel an incoming projectiles.
We just look at the the the text here which describes it as being the Trophy MV medium variant currently in service with the Israeli Defence Force. And basically the point of it is that when something's fired towards the the the tank, this activates itself and is supposed to effectively counteract the the projectile. The text at the bottom there says a final decision on trophy APS is not planned to be taken until 2023. This in fact has been taken.
So we are definitely locked into that with Israel. And it's it's just a point that's worth mentioning because of course it means in effect that the most intelligent part of the technology of this machine is owned by another country or indeed an organization from outside of this country, which might not be necessarily a new thing, but I
think is worth noting. And I'll then just come on to what Mike's been talking about, which is the the sort of disconnect between the equipment and indeed the money. So we got the MOD equipment plan report from the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts from March of this year in which they state that there's a £16.9 billion deficit between the MO DS capability requirement and its budget.
In effect, there's been a series of sort of disconnects and perhaps book cooking exercises that haven't quite turned out as they should have done. And they conclude in this paragraph by saying the Army, for example, could need around 12 billion more to fund all the capabilities the government seeks. And finally they go on to say the Med has not had the discipline to balance its budget by making the difficult choices about which equipment programs
it can and cannot afford. So of course they talk about suspend 2.5% of GDP on defence and finally they say the MOD has not credibly demonstrated to Parliament how it will manage its funding to deliver the military capability to capabilities that government wants. And just to reinforce Mike's earlier message, of course Prime Minister on a visit to Poland announcing that 500 million additional funding to Ukraine taking the UK military aid to 3
billion. So really, whilst the Challenger 3 development is in some ways a significant one actually in the overall context of armoured warfare as it's intended to be, if we're talking about some kind of direct conflict with Russia, it's it's a meaningless gesture and and the the financial side of it of course is is, well, a confused picture to say the
least. Yes, and in the meantime, of course, the old Challenger tanks that we sent over to Ukraine just to become scrapped once again over there, because that's seems to be the scrap yard in the West at the moment. But anyway, in the meantime then Germany and the UK have signed
another defence partnership. So we already have various agreements, the Achan treaty and other things involved here, but they've decided that they have deepened their defence and security cooperation as the words that they used. And in an initial step the UK and Germany will announce plans for a joint endeavour to develop remote controlled howitzer, 155 millimetre wheels, artillery systems and so on.
So this continues. Here's Rishi getting off the plane to in Germany. So an impressive figurine cuts there. But in the meantime Foreign Affairs magazine has reckons that Europe, but not NATO, should be sending troops to Ukraine. This is a pretty sick article, really. The sub headline here is to halt Russia's advanced Kiev needs
needs more boots on the ground. In other words, there's an acknowledgement here that significant numbers of boots on the ground have already been decimated in this war, that Ukraine is running out of boots on the ground to have decimated in the war. And therefore Europe needs to provide boots on the ground to fill the gap because otherwise Russia is going to win this war. It is a pretty horrible comment from foreign affairs here, and, well, I suggest people read it
and comment on it themselves. But I wanted to end on on this note. Here's Barbara Woodward. She's EU KS Permanent Representative to the UN and she had this to say yesterday, President conflict related sexual violence is not an inevitable consequence of war. The UK remains committed to tackling conflict related sexual violence and maybe if you look like Barbara Woodward that's the
case. But otherwise I think this is a pretty reprehensible position to be taking because what she's basically saying is that murder is is fine, don't worry about that, we'll we'll continue to pursue the murder and so on. It's the rape and the pillage that maybe we want to deal with that somehow can can be excluded or removed from the picture just as long as we keep the murder going.
Vanessa, I just wanted to get your thoughts on this, because it seems to me that the way that you stop sexual violence and warfare is to stop the warfare. Absolutely. But also, of course, there is absolutely total omission of Ukraine's part in child trafficking and sexual prostitution trafficking, which is inevitable and it's becoming a pattern, of course, but still it's it's disgusting hypocrisy as usual. Yeah, 100 percent, 100%.
OK, well, let's move on then for more hypocrisy here, because of course I can't remember how long ago we were talking about this, but the the narrative, the Captagun, the drug is now Syria is the main source of this drug in the world. There has been an update on this story.
Yes, there has. Indeed, we reported a little while back on Abbca documentary that was in collaboration with three other media related outlets funded by the UK Foreign Office by the National Endowment for Democracy and US Aid. In other words, EIA and American intelligence agencies and Qatari and Saudi Arabian media outlets based in the South of Syria. Now one interesting point that I want to make here, I was looking into this in the last few days is that Syria was largely drug
free. Funnily enough, until the regime change war began in 2011 and 12 and Al Qaeda and ISIS and various derivatives were using the drug to carry out suicide bombing and also just to ensure their ability to continue fighting even when they were injured. So the Captigan 2 bill is on its way to the Senate as part of an urgent legislative package. This was a report yesterday and the media is full of reports on Syria being a narco state. It was voted across both parties 364 and 58 against.
Headlines like this are flooding the media in the UK and the US. So ISIS terrorists, which are proxies of the UK, US cartel in Syria are intent on regime change. They're taking captagon superhuman drug that makes them charge at tanks. Yes, that's a real headline.
But what is quite extraordinary here is that the argument is the President Assad is going to personally produce a drug which enables ISIS to carry out attacks against Syrian forces and civilians inside Syria. Just as we're supposed to believe that President Assad would launch chemical weapon attacks against his own civilians when his own forces are about to liberate those civilians. So again, we have this sort of mass suspension of disbelief
across the media. Who's one of the people responsible for the sponsorship of this bill and others that I'm going to mention, US Congressman, Republican, French Hill, Second District of Arkansas. And he's basically brought in a law package called peace through strength. I would replace that with force in the 21st century. So let's have a look at what those bills include. Provisions included in a package fighting against foreign adversaries and strengthening
national security, of course. And who are their allies? Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. No guesses over why they are their allies, But let's have a look here what he says. Basically, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a transnational drug kingpin. The hyperbole is getting more and more extreme. Who exploits his dangerous drug Captagun to generate billions in illicit funding and devastate families in Syria and the region?
Now what's interesting? They're claiming that the income from Captagun in Syria is 57 billion. The GDP? The entire GTBGDP. Sorry of Jordan is less than 50 billion. So I'll let people work that out for themselves. And in 2021 it was described as 5.7 billion. So he's brought in the illicit cap to Gun Trafficking suppression Act. He's also brought in the holding Iranian Sorry, you never mind holding Iranians accountable for their global terrorism. However, French Hill has
effectively skin in the game. In August 2023, he visited northwest Syria in the presence of the Syrian emergency passports who also facilitated the smuggling end of John McCain in 2013 to meet with ISIS and other terrorist leaders. And in the same way, French Hill met with Al Qaeda operatives, including the White Helmet in northwest Syria when he came in
illegally. He's also being reported to have been supporting the separatist movement on the next slide in Swedar in in southern Syria, reportedly calling the Druze leader of the separatist movement that's backed by Israel and the United States in southern Syria. And then if we move on, I just want to point this out. So let's have a look. This was on an article that I was reading. So these are headlines. Now comes the Taliban narco state.
Well that's interesting because opium was not a problem under the Taliban. It became a problem, of course, after the US invasion. With China's help, Mexico is on the verge of becoming a narco state. Myanmar emergence of a narco state on India's eastern borders, Guinea Bissau, micro state, narco state, and Syria has become a narco state. Is this becoming a pattern Mike? Well, let's go back to 1971 and Nixon's war on drugs display
this very short introduction. I began the meeting by making this statement which I think needs to be made to the nation. America's Public Enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new all out offensive. I've asked the Congress to provide the legislative authority and the funds to fuel this kind of an offensive.
This will be a worldwide offensive dealing with the problems of sources of supply as well as Americans who may be stationed abroad wherever they are in the world. It will be government wide pulling together the nine different fragmented areas where within the government in which this problem is now being handled. Does this sound familiar? So you have the war on drugs. What happens of course exponentially. Drug trade increases, the War on Terror.
What happens is terrorism increases exponentially worldwide. And of course, what this was used to do by the Nixon administration was to isolate economically and politically Latin American states back then. And not forgetting, of course, that the US could potentially be described as a narco state. It has a 500 billion income from the drug trade into the US economy, which is almost equivalent to their defence spending.
And it's renowned for funding both sides of the drug trade and of course laundering money from the drug trade, providing money and arms to both the security forces that are fighting the drug trade while supplying weapons and support to the actual drug cartels that are running the drug trafficking. And of course the US is I think the number one in opioid use
globally. So very interesting here in the fact that they were responsible for the introduction of the drug Cactagon in the 1st place through the terrorist proxies and and again echoes of the Kosovo Liberation Army that run its forces, ran its forces on amongst other things on drug trafficking, drug manufacturing, drug trade while being supported of course by the West. And KLA were effectively predominantly Al Qaeda. So I just want to give one
example. So in 2021 in Saudi Arabia, they came up with a story that millions of Captagon pills, if you just move on like this, had been brought in to Saudi Arabia in a consignment of pomegranates from Lebanon. And as a result, they basically shut down all imports from Lebanon, bearing in mind that this was months after the disastrous, catastrophic Beirut blast in late 2020.
So they effectively cut back one of the few areas of trade with Lebanon, while increasing trade for the same products from Israel. And this was designed effectively to politically isolate and undermine Hezbollah inside Lebanon. Because of course, Hezbollah, as his President Assad in Syria, are blamed for the production of this particular drug. Now what is this war on drugs which appears to be re emerging since 1971?
Of course, it's designed to stigmatize target nations, to isolate them politically and economically, and to enable and facilitate further sanctions on an already unprecedentedly sanctioned country, which is. Syria in reality increases drug field violence because the US as we've seen, and Mexico is. Mexico is funding both sides of the drug war potential to orchestrate a failed state. In other words, to to bring an already weakened state which has resisted regime change, to its
knees. And of course, it prevents peaceful resolution and facilitates further Western military intervention once the drug field violence has reached a pitch so cynical marketing here by the West in yet another attempt to to completely destabilise Syria. And I mean you're talking about Syria, you've talked about much broad many other countries there, Vanessa, but but we've got to understand the scope, the scale and the scope of this.
It's not just about Syria or the other countries that you've mentioned. It is a global thing and we should remember that, you know, George W or George Bush senior was accused of using the drugs trade to fund CIA black operations when he was working for the CICIA prior to him becoming President of the United States.
So you know the, as you say, the drugs trade is a major driver for a lot of the wrongs that we see in the world these days And for the last, for for the last 100 years or so, the war on on drugs has has not solved anything. And I mean the the the fentanyl situation in the United States is off the charts. It's the same. It's increasingly a problem in Scotland as well. So that problem is coming to this country as well.
But people often sort of dismiss this as being irrelevant because it's it's happening in Syria or it's happening in Lebanon or it's happening in Saudi Arabia. This affects us on a daily basis. Absolutely.
And if you look at a number of articles actually on the war on drugs under Nixon, what it was weaponized to do was to actually attack the kind of anti anti war left wing back then organisations and to target them as being affiliates of drug trade or being in support of narco state etcetera. So you're absolutely right. Just as everything that we protest against can be used against us, if it's spun in in the right way, then this is very much also what is coming.
And plus, as you said, the introduction of these drugs that even when it was production was stopped in 1986 but continued in Bulgaria and was then smuggled into the Arab Peninsula by Turkish and Balkan drug trafficking cartels. So, you know, the fact is that who is moving all of these drugs around the world and using them against populations to destabilise and be and to stigmatise these populations. Yeah, indeed. OK, Vanessa, thank you very much for that. Now, if you like what the UK
column does, you would like to support us. support.ukcolumn.org is the place to go. The options to help us out are there. We do need your help because it's only you're the only people that that that do help us and and keep us going. So thank you very much for that. If you can't support us, please go there. Do share any material you find on ukcolumn.org and UK column extracts.co.uk especially, but also from the other platforms.
You could pick something up at the UK column Shop now, the interview that went out yesterday with Tom Nelson about climate. The movie is up on the UK Column website. If you haven't seen that yet, please do have a look and share that as widely as possible. Also the interview with Nicola Lund from school Teacher, activist, journalist. If you haven't seen that, go watch it, but please do let everybody know that it's there.
Tomorrow at 1:00 PM. The next edition of The Green King, one of the latest programmes in the No Smoke About Fire series, is going out 1:00 PM on the usual places on the UK column website. If you are interested in Net Zero and what King Charles is doing then that one's for you. Quick reminder of the Sounds Beautiful festival taking place in Wimborne at Dorset 27th to the 30th of June. The promo code for 10% off tickets is UK column.
That promo code will work until midnight on Friday this week. So if you would like to go to that, you're running out of time to get tickets with the discount, so please we will be there. So join us if you can for that Also stand in the light festival taking place 24th and 27th of May in Cumbria. If you can come along for that one as well. This would be great to say. Hello. Now an event taking place on Friday evening 7:00 PM to 8:30. This is all about excess deaths.
One once again Andrew Bridging will be taking part in this Peter McCulloch, Pierre Corey and so on. There'll be a webinar recording for this. It's Channel Islands and UK Resistance, if sorry, Channel Islands and UK Alliance, if you'd like to find out more, if you have a search for that now. On Monday this week we put out the premiere of Playing God, Unbelievably great documentary
with on a very, very dark topic. Nonetheless, I'm delighted to say that Jackie Devoy, the producer, is with me again today. Jackie, welcome to the programme. What's the response been like to the Premier, which went out on UK column, but also Children's Health defence in the United States? Yeah, it's been pretty amazing actually. I've got some really good comments on social media. People are still watching it every day. So yeah, I'm not sure how many people have seen it on UK
column. I haven't actually checked and I don't know. Can you see the figures on there? I don't have the figures to hand, but but, but the response in the forums has been extremely positive. As I say, very dark topic, of course, because we're talking about deaths in the National Health Service, but nonetheless people very appreciative of the work you've done here. Yeah, I haven't had any negative comments at all, which is quite unusual.
When you when you put something out that you've made, they've all been very positive, mostly very shocked. You know I think a lot of people have have a rough idea but demoside is a thing and then it is happening especially after the first film that I made a good death with iconic. You know we've talked a lot about euthanasia or mainly about euthanasia in that so. But this film is a much broader look at demoside death by government policy. All different types of of of deaths.
People who've died in in, in, in trials for for untested drugs, people who've died from the jab. People who've died from euthanasia, drug overdoses in hospital and malpractice and negligence, as well as a more deliberate kind of culling and killing, which we've been seeing more so as the years go by. Have you had any response from mainstream media or MPs yet? And I wonder how long it's going to be before the fact checkers
attempt to come along. Well, I brought it to Andrew Bridgen's attention, but I haven't heard back from him yet. As you know, we had a meeting in the House of Commons with him last June. So he's very, very much on site and very supportive and has been supportive to to me and and some of my support group over the last nine months or so. And yeah, I'm sure once he has a look at the film he'll be able to comment on it as well. But no, no other, no other MPs
have commented and they won't. A lot of MPs have blocked me so. So I don't with no explanation, obviously I haven't done anything directly to upset them. Let's put it that way. Yeah. So we're we're we're hoping to do more. More screenings all over the UK as well in in cinemas. It's quite hard to get cinemas to run these kinds of films, but we are going to be doing that. Obviously that's going to, you know, cost a bit to organise, but we're keeping the crowdfunder running for a little
bit longer. That's that crowdfunder playing God final phase. If people can donate there. We're trying to help the contributors as well. A lot of them are still fighting for justice for their loved. Ones and need some help. And we're also, as I said, doing screenings. And also I'd like to kind of pay some other people who work for cheap or free on the film to help get it finished in that in that quite short time.
Frame. Yeah, so if anybody would like to help with that, if you go to the Playing God video on the UK column website, the the link is in the description. So please do that. And I mean, what were the the participants themselves? Has this been helpful to them? Yes, that they're actually really appreciative. I mean, I appreciate them for doing it because it's a very brave thing to do, to come out and and tell these stories, but
it's also. It seems they appreciate the film being made because it's finally given them that voice and that platform to get that, get their stories heard. So I think it's very important they're actually going to be on Children's Health Defence tomorrow night. Some of the people who told their stories in the film, they're actually on the Doctor Brian Hooker show tomorrow on CHD, so people can hear what they have to say about their stories and about the film there.
And then also there's an interview with me and the director, one of the directors, Naeem Mahmood, on CHD as well, and on my show tomorrow night on Unity News Network. I'll be talking to some of the people involved in the film, too. OK. So we would just ask everybody to share the film, contribute if you can, if you haven't done so already, but also share those programmes as well. So Jackie, I'm going to say thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Mike. Thank.
You OK? Brilliant. Thank you, Jackie. Now, Charles, back to you then. And food. Specifically, the slow March towards food scarcity and the direct result of national and supranational policy, and the rather obvious but neglected response or rather reaction to it. So we look at the Sustainable Farming Initiative, which is already in its sixth version since it was announced in January of this year, essentially set out as an
unlimited scheme. Defra have now conceded that they do have to limit it, even though they still espouse that it is to have the explicit purpose of taking land out of food production. And they say that now it's restricted to 25% of anybody's land. Specifically, they refer to actions unlikely to deliver their intended aims. But of course, they were not clear about that in the first instance, which is why we are
where we are. So they say that if you applied since the 26th of March, there are 6 actions which were saying you'd be done on a proportion. Essentially, these are the ones that just wholesale take take land out of production.
But the critical part here is that it does not apply to existing agreements or applications submitted before the 26th of March. And the question is therefore how many people went into these schemes 100% or thereabouts, and therefore not producing food at all this year. So we'll just have a look at a clip from the popular YouTube video Harry's Farm, in which he talks about this very issue. So that is why they've gone for this greening.
And I'm going to get improved soil structure from doing this. So long term, the soil structure on our farm will benefit from me entering these schemes and the legging mixes every doing, and they're replacing break crops. But it also means as a country we're going to produce less food than we were. And when this document was written, I don't think they took into account also the rise in the population in the UK. It is incredible how quickly the population rising.
The UK population between 1996 and 2021 went up 8.9 million, that's 15% rise, about 6768 million if you go forward. The number now for 2036? Seventy 3.7 million people. It's rising at an alarming rate and we have to feed all these people and all this land coming out of production and going into these environmental schemes means there's less land being farmed and I think we're heading well by 2027 when these schemes, everybody signed up to these schemes and the reality hits.
We might even hit it in 2025, but there was an awful lot less food being grown in the UK, so he's bothered to look into these schemes and where they've come from. But his view, which is to take the risk out of his farming practices, is going to have been shared by many of his contemporaries. And indeed he talks about his neighbours having gone into these schemes wholesale. He's only producing a third of his arable crop from previous
years. So we line this up against the open goals that Defra are missing, and one of them, of course is food waste, not discussed at all, but clearly a very significant factor when we confront the possibility of food shortages. So most recent publication in the House of Commons Library says that most food waste comes from the household 60% and this equates to 10.7 million 10.7 million tonnes per annum, which is equivalent to £250 per person per year or 1000 lbs for a family.
You'd think, therefore, that the government would find it easy to communicate this. And here is their communication plan 2024 Five, in which they state that the purpose of it is to change behaviours for the public good. So you'd think they might indeed have started talking about food waste and indeed how to deal with it. But of course they haven't. Instead, this is something that came through my letterbox the other day and I'm sure
everybody's seen similar things. Instead, what they're doing is normalising the waste of food, and in actual fact they're going a step further by talking about recycling it. And so they suggest that there is a high quantity of it. The emphasis of course, is on what you do with it and how green your response to your food waste is, rather than not actually wasting food. So as I say, a massively open
goal that's being missed. The other thing I've talked about in terms of land use is solar farms, and we see the map here showing the green dots are where existing solar farms are and the ever increasing purple splodges are where proposed
solar farms are. And what's cropped up now is an amazing illustration of the hypocrisy of the government and those that are within it. Just a reminder here that Defra of course did not collect specific data on the amount of land that's generating renewable energy, as they say, but they will start doing it in June as a result of persistent questioning
by UK column. But we've got here Michelle Donilon MP in Wiltshire and she is actively campaigning against a solar farm proposed in her constituency, Lime, Lime, Down Solar. So we've got, she's put up a text there and I've just taken a little bit of it to to illustrate the hypocrisy. What she says that she's a big supporter of our climate change ambitions, but the proposals put forward by Island Green Power are completely unacceptable in
this location. So she doesn't want to confront the underlying issue, but she wants to talk specifically about the site. She then talks about a ginormous battery storage site size of 200 shipping containers, and indeed saying that it's unsuitable to the specific location.
Of course, she's entirely missing the point here we see going back to her campaign 2019, it's unclear as to what that chap is gesticulating, but he might be suggesting where she could go. But she talks specifically about wanting to continue to push for us to promote more and support green energy, and indeed a Facebook post going back to the price of the last general election.
Green technology is undoubtedly the future, and she supported the Net 0 by 2050 target going into law, she says she'll be voting to implement the Green Revolution plan. Well, The thing is, she can't have it both ways, and indeed, nor can her constituents. So it's worth pointing out, and what I would really go back to is the comment that was made on a planning application I reported on in January by the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority.
And the critical issue here is not not just that the the solar farms themselves are taking up the best and most versatile farmland. Or indeed that the the whole net zero agenda is is. Sort of a corner of gigantic proportions, but there is a real safety issue here and it is the batteries. And we see here that within an application that was made to Wakefield, the fire service pointed out that control measures and verification of standards, the tender of the battery installation has not
taken place. But they find it concerning that no specific information in relation to fire risk and explosion has been incorporated into the application. And of course that's still the case. It's not required in the application. They go on and talk about regulatory reform. They find it concerning that no specific information in relation to fire safety management has been provided. So they're unable to make any comment. But then they they they finish up by talking about the risks of
vapour. Cloud, thermal runway and explosion are very real risks and are becoming more common as we see an increase in the number of best battery energy storage systems rise. And here we are. So, going back to Wiltshire and Donilon's constituency, there's no definitive or preferred way of putting out a lithium ion or a lithium ion or fire. There are, in effect, two main options, one being to let it burn, or the other being to use significant amounts of water for a protracted period.
Sorry to be looking away from the screen, but the point is that Donilon is absolutely refusing to concede that. The push for net zero, of course, is having the exactly opposite consequences from those that are supposed to be intended by it, and indeed is is demonstrating a personal hypocrisy of gigantic or she might say ginormous proportions. Yes, thanks, Charles. Thank you for that. Now, Vanessa, let's come back to you.
And we've been hearing in the mainstream press in recent days and weeks that members of the Jewish community feeling unsafe in the UK. Yes, and this was an extraordinary article in the Telegraph following an incident with the Metropolitan Police at a Palestinian protest which we'll come on to. Britain's Jews fear for their lives because Sir Mark Rowley is a weak coward, while other nations show strength and resolve in the face of the Islamist menace. Our police have shamed
themselves. So I picked that. I mean the article. I do recommend reading it. It's quite extraordinary. It double s down on the propaganda and hyperbole that is effectively pretext for the genocide that has now been ongoing against Palestinians for 200 days. But this was an interesting
section of the article. So apparently the author joined a ZOOM conference where she she states that the Jewish group were deciding whether to ride out the present troubles and hope for the best, or to make alia, which, of course, is to take up residence or to settle in Israel, an offer available to every Jew. While of course, Palestinians have no right to return to their homeland. She then says the younger, bearded guy who lived in Manchester had already made-up his mind.
He'd witnessed several recent attacks on Jews, and his family's bags were packed. Look at the demographics, he said bluntly. The Muslim population is growing. It's not safe for us, but this is our home, one woman protested, her voice quavering. The second said she was joining us from Tel Aviv. She advised the rest of the group to get out while they
still could. Even faced with the prospect of rocket attacks from Hezbollah and the threat of war with Iran, that Lady and her husband still felt safer in Israel than in Hampstead Garden suburb. This is quite extraordinary. This is actually effectively spin to promote settlement in Israel, while perhaps many settlers are actually fleeing the security situation or lack of it in Israel.
And this was back in mid March. An Ali affair in London saw hundreds from the British Jewish community attend and since the start of the Gaza war they're claiming this is in Jerusalem Post, a 40% increase in new immigrants from Britain to Israel. So let's have a look at the incident that sparked this article. Sunak appalled by officers threat to arrest Jewish man at pro Palestine rally rally as calls Mount from Met force to
quit. So let's see what was actually said in the exchange, the officer can be heard saying to him. You are quite openly Jewish. While, of course, there were hundreds, if not thousands of Jews actually on the March in defense of Palestine and against a genocide that's being committed by Israel, this is a pro Palestinian March. I'm not accusing you of anything, but I am worried about the reaction to your presence.
No mention of arrest there. Now, Mike and Charles, I don't know what you think, but this strikes me as, let's say, a staged event to further fuel the claims that Jews are at risk. But let's hear from some of the Jews that were actually on the March. Well, I'm Jewish and I'm here and I feel very safe. I actually feel very at home in this crowd of people who just want peace. As a Jewish person in London at weekends, I don't believe these statements, but it's unsafe, absolute.
Rubbish. I've been here every Shabbat with my kipan. I've had nothing but love, nothing but welcome from everyone. I've spoken to the idea that London is a no goes own for Jews is just for the birds. It's rubbish. These Jews have come out specially. There were 500 of us meeting outside Belgrave Square. We've all come here on purpose to show that that's rubbish.
Politicians are pushing it as just basically propaganda and to to push their own narrative to pretend that there isn't another voice that opposes the genocide going on in Gaza to try and weaponize anti-Semitism to a degree. We've been sold a false narrative and I think it's really important for Jews everywhere to stand up and say I'm not OK with this and this is not, it's not being done for. Me, Jewish people are not a monolith.
They all think the same. There's thousands of Jewish people who feel very comfortable in London and oppose the events in Gaza. It seems that they don't agree with the media headlines. Also over in the US, concerns over anti-Semitism rise as Jews begin observing Passover and then this article in the Guardian.
Not like other Passovers. Hundreds of Jewish demonstrators arrested after New York protests that are about 300 people were detained near as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's Brooklyn home. So let's see what what the article says. Hundreds of Jewish anti war demonstrators have been arrested during Passover.
The 300 also arrests took place on Tuesday night at Grand Army Plaza. So again it appears that also in the US Jews are effectively on the side of humanity against the genocide of Palestinians. And then let's have a look at an article in Winner again Israeli media number of Westerners seeking to make earlier surges. Since October the 7th Israel has apparently received 12,745 new immigrants, 3074 of them in March, quadrupling totals for October 2023.
Amid escalating global anti-Semitism, there has been a significant rise in immigration requests from France, Canada, the US, South Africa, Ukraine and Australia. So are we seeing again the the Zionist orchestrating anti-Semitism in order to increase illegal settlement in the State of Israel? And I would question whether the anti-Semitism is actually taking place, Vanessa at all or? Whether it's merely. A media campaign.
But Charles, let's come on to the issue of the idea of right wing extremism and Telegram seems to be a target now.
It does, Mike. Yes, As the window that supposedly brackets extremism or any form of it expands enormously, we see now that the latest group apparently to fall foul of it is called Terrorgram and the Home Office have just announced that Terrorgram has been added to the list of prescribed terrorist organisations under the Terrorism Act 2000. If you're scratching your head wondering what that's all about, you're not the only one, but the
UK is the first country in the world to prescribe the Terror Gram Collective after draft draft prescription. Basically this will be laid before the House of Commons on Friday and they described the Terror Gram Collective as an online network of neo fascist terrorists.
This is critical language because they go on to say that the government's commitment to tackle extreme right wing terrorism and online radicalisation in all forms is what's brought this about and that it's the first time it's been used in this way. So they're calling it an online terrorist network. This is not something that's been done before, so the background to it is deeply relevant. However, what they do is they
they clarify here. They say following an internal review, the term extreme right wing terrorism was adopted as the umbrella term to make it clear that those who hold mainstream right wing views will not be in scope of any action by
counter terrorism authorities. Well, it'll be interesting to see how far and how quickly that drift, because of course the moment you set up such a such a mechanism for capturing people who are apparently far right wing extremists, it's very easy for other people to drift into this. Anyway, the prescribed organization, obviously any association with them, it carries all sorts of penalties.
But specifically they talk about it disrupting terrorism and particularly here we see the encouraging of removal of online
materials. There's very clear focus here on on the online side of it. But there are a couple of things that as I say when we consider the drift offences under this prescription would be to express an opinion or belief that's supportive of a prescribed organization to wear clothing or carry or display articles in public in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that the individual is a member or supporter of a prescribed
organization. So I just remind you of the case of Sam Melia who's been imprisoned for what were referred to as far right activities by the by the crime Prosecution Service anyway. Nonetheless, this has been banded about the place we see the Telegraph here just reporting it without question that terrorist group terror gram had to be banned in the UK. There is a bit of a pedigree to this. This is as far back as 2017 saying that terrorists love Telegram in particular.
So it's the Telegram app that's in effect the sort of target for all of this. And I point you to a piece in Politico from the 28th of March in which we're told that Pavel Durov, the the chap that started Telegram, has been warned off by Putin saying that terrorists are using it. So he's getting it from all sides. But he was asked specifically about the the Kremlin's war on Ukraine and he said let's not go there, adding that it's very important for the world to retain Telegram as a neutral
platform. We'll just play a very short clip now of Durov speaking to Tucker Carlson about the pressures that he feels on his Telegram app. Largest pressure towards Telegram is not coming from governments, it's coming from Apple and Google. So when it comes to freedom of speech, those two platforms, they could basically censor whatever is you can read access on your smartphone. So I mean, do you run the risk of being thrown out of their stores?
Exactly. That's what they make very clear that if we fail to comply with their guidelines, so they call it, children can be removed from the stores. I wouldn't mean to characterise Pavel Durov as a as a beacon of virtue and therefore different from competitors in that marketplace. But it's very significant that he does specifically make that distinction between the state
and these big corporations. But what we should come on to is the the fact that whilst we hear a lot now about this terrogram organization, it's almost invisible online now. It's it's an unfair comparison I do concede, but I'm showing now references in Hansard recorded by the UK Parliament of any time Hamas has been mentioned or written about. And there are 15157 such references in the last five years. Now when you look at the same thing for Terrogram Zero, there are no results.
It has never ever been mentioned or written about in any sort of sort of parliamentary debate, written paper, anything. And in actual fact they're so confident it won't be they've projected out to October 2026. But so for an online terrorist collective, it does seem quite extraordinary that they appear to have absolutely no online presence whatsoever. So where on earth does it come from?
Well, we look at a sort of pseudo charitable an organization called Hope Not Hate which produces an annual report called State of Hate. And here we find the sort of kernel of the suggestion of Terrorgram in which they talk about contemporary far right terrorism and having an awareness of the labyrinthine and hard to monitor world of pro terrorism online spaces. And they talk about exploring the so-called Terrorgram network.
So essentially it's really just a term that's been applied to to note a collection of a few dozen public channels and private chat groups on the messaging app Telegram. And of course, they're not specific at all. They say telegrams extended the reach of an array of international terroristic organisations and they talk about ways, and then they talk about committing hate crimes and
threatening public officials. Now, of course, all this is ringing a bell because this relates to what Tom Toughan that was talking about the other day. Again, there's some very flimsy academic background to this under this article here Militant Acceleration Coalitions, in which they also talk about the terror the terrorgram community, but they don't really define
exactly what that means. So essentially it looks very much like terrorgram has been put out there, not least because it sounds exactly like Telegram, but essentially to be able to capture anybody who's doing anything online that may either now or in the future be described as extremist. And because it's been prescribed, it therefore goes one up to being a terrorist offence.
So I'll just leave you with a reminder that in actual fact things are a little bit murky than they seem because of course the Ministry of Defense has a telegram channel and they specifically have it here. They they broadcast in Russian as well, and they've said here in their most recent message, even amongst Russian officials, there is likely a low level of understanding about total casualty figures because of a long established culture of dishonest reporting within the
military. Well, how interesting. I wouldn't say that the military of Russia is the only place that there's been a culture of dishonest reporting. Well, indeed. OK. Now we'll we'll change topics here and move on to sort of medical stuff and CRISPR of course gene editing, CRISPR is the technology for that. We have a great article here from the New York Times talking about or telling us the generative AI has arrived to in the gene editing world of CRISPR and what could possibly go wrong.
So because anybody that's used generative AI to produce you know an image of somebody, they usually have two heads or six fingers on their hands and so on. So if we put that back on screen for a second, this is what they say. Generative AI technologies can write poetry and computer programmes, or create images of teddy bears and videos of cartoon characters that look like something from a Hollywood movie.
Now new AI technology is generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your DNA, pointing to a future when scientists can battle illness and diseases with even greater precision and speed than they can today. Much as ChatGPT learns to generate language by analysing Wikipedia articles, books and chat logs, pro fluent technology creates a new gene.
New gene editors after analysing enormous amounts of biological data, including microscopic mechanisms and scientists already used to edit human DNA. Generative AI technologies are driven by what scientists called a neural network. A mathematical system learns skills by analysing vast amounts
of data. Pro Fluence technology is driven by a similar AI model that learns from sequences of amino acids and nuclear nucleic acids, the chemical compounds that define the microscopic biological mechanisms that scientists use to edit genes. Essentially, it analysis the behaviour of CRISPR gene editors pulled from Nature and learns how to generate entirely new gene editors. As I say, what could possibly go wrong? So this is the organization Pro. Fluent suggests people go and
look at them very closely. They are supported by 5 venture capital organisations, Inside Partners, Air, St. Capital, AIX Ventures, Convergent Ventures and Spark Capital. So this is a hedge fund backed technology company with a bunch of people working for it that have no background whatsoever. If we put that on for no background whatsoever in genetics or anything, I mean that even their chief geneticist has got a very tenuous connection to genetic research or any kind of scientific
background. These are all AI people that are messing about and things they don't understand and it looks to me to be extremely dangerous. And if if governments are looking at regulating AI, maybe this is one place they might want to start now. In the meantime, back in the UK here Andrew Neil has been appearing in front of the House of Lords media committee and he was well, let's just listen to what he was asked and what his response was.
I'd like to take you to the role of government in the sort of news sector and looking forward over the next few years. How interventionist do you think government should be in supporting the new sector, if at all? And what do you think would constitute our government overreach? You should steer the hell out of it. You don't know anything about it. You're only trouble. We're not on your side. You're not on our side.
We're different. I mean, relations between journalists, journalists, media and government should always be bad and never in any account be allowed to get better. A major industrial upheaval, a major technological revolution, and we've come through the other side. We've lost people by the wayside. At times it seemed like the baton death March, but we've come through and we now know what we're doing and we just want to be allowed to get on with it.
So I'm going to say I agree with the first sentiment they expressed their, I disagree with the second set, the meeting expressed and we'll talk a lot more about this with Vanessa and Charles an extra. But government interference with the media isn't going away anytime soon. And of course as we saw through COVID, government funding of the media became an an an extremely concerning conflict of interest. Let's just leave it at that for now.
We'll talk about a little bit more about this an Extra in a few minutes if you're AUK column member, but we're going to leave it there for today. So I'm going to say thank you very much to Charles and Vanessa and to Jackie Devoy for joining us today. Thank you all for watching. We'll see you in a few minutes if you're UK column member on Extra. Otherwise, enjoy the interview at 1:00 PM tomorrow and we'll see you on Friday for another news. Bye, bye.