Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 29th of January 2025, just after 1:00. And welcome to UK Call News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson, and joining me in the studio today is Charles Mallett. Welcome to the programme, Charles. Thank you, Mike. And by video link, we do have Vanessa Beanie this week. Welcome to the programme, Vanessa. But we're going to get straight on here with bird flu. Bird Food is yes again and the seasoned UK column viewer.
This will not come as a great surprise, but from the UK Health Security Agency we've had what might seem like a very trivial announcement of somebody being ill in proximity to birds, but they're describing it as a case of bird to human avian flu in a person in the West Midlands. And they are at pains to say that the risk of avian flu to the general public remains very low despite this confirmed case. Now people will be having bells of Deja vu ringing in their heads.
I dare say circle at the bottom of this tweet. I have included the text. Currently there is no evidence of onwards transmission. This case, which I'm labelling subject to change because we've seen how these things can and will drift. Of course this represents an enormous commercial opportunity, mostly for the Pharmaceutical industry in terms of vaccinating or medicating not just poultry
but also human beings. Also for the bio security industry as it's as it stands in so far as introducing measures to not just places that keep poultry, but because there is suggestion that this zoonotic capability means that in in some
senses anything is at threat. Therefore, of course this could be wheeled out anywhere potentially and previously, and I say previously, which I will qualify in a second for the food cartels because this is introducing the notion of food scarcity and manipulation of the food chain.
Now as you see from the tweet or did see from the tweet, the the Health Security Agency using absurd spurious language of on scientific nature like spillover, which of course has absolutely no veracity or scientific standing.
Now this is significant, I would contend, not because I'm wanting to reinforce the scaremongering narrative, but because of the parallels to the messaging that we received at the end of 2019 and early 2020. So dipping back into Hansard from the 23rd of January 2020, we had the shadow Health secretary Sharon Hodgson talking about a global pandemic which
can be avoided. She said in the Commons that there is a chance that a global pandemic can be avoided if governments across the world take the right measures in a timely fashion. This is sort of what the UKHSA are saying now. On the very same day Matt Hancock said most cases of the new coronavirus so far have been non fatal. In these cases most people experience cold and flu like symptoms and then recover. However, there have been a small number of cases so far.
Where does proven more serious and fatal? So the narrative, insofar as the pace and the use of what sounds like a fairly innocuous incident, has the potential to be blown up and up and up again from January. If we go back to the timeline of 2020, the speed with which it developed was extraordinary. On the 29th, the family that had fled into the UK from China were reported to have fallen.
I'll the son called the NHS and declared that they had a fever and a cough and that they'd arrived from Hubei province. Now two paramedics stressed in hazmat arrived at the hotel. Obviously very much overdramatic, necessarily so for the narrative to be developed accordingly.
But an ambulance took them to a hospital in Hull and they were tested and learned and behold, they were found to have the the coronavirus the very next day, on the 30th of January, the risk level was raised in the United Kingdom from low to moderate, and the World Health Organisation declared that the pandemic as it was described even then, was a global health
emergency. So the point I'm making here is that it's very easy from one very simple illness that is confirmed of course by the extraordinarily spurious PCR test to developed this at speed if required and indeed if the system is deemed ready for it. But of course this, as I say, relies on the tests. And that's exactly what happened back in 2020. The Public Health England lab back in the north, sorry northwest London, confirmed that
they had coronavirus. So the UK column line throughout this has been to examine the science, such as it is or such as it isn't, and to state that there is a complete lack of, sorry, an absence of evidence for the existence of avian influenza as a discernible illness. Further, there is no evidence for transmission in the way that it's being described by the Animal and Plant Health Agency, Defra and the Health Security Agency too.
But critically, like all of these things, it is being pushed very hard by the BBC Now Farming Today, the Farming Today programme earlier on had a, sorry earlier on today had an interview with a free range poultry farmer, a free range egg farmer and he set out the very faulty logic contained within the countermeasures in so far as bio security is concerned. We'll just have a quick listen to what he said. It's about as near as we'd like to get, really, for bio security
reasons. Well, we're standing a good distance from the sheds where David Peron has his layers. I think the argument for housing can be odd because the biggest case so far has been in Shropshire and that was all housed birds because they were barn eggs and it makes the
argument for housing weaker. I sit the nail on the head there because by the the government's own metrics or own logic, which is to keep birds inside in the event of such an illness confirmed by PCR, he, this man is stating that of course these birds were already inside. Now, as we know well, no account of the environmental conditions of birds or their feed or their water is ever tested. This I have in black and white from APHA by a Freedom of Information request.
Nevertheless, BBC Farming Today pushed it further by speaking to an epidemiologist, Veterinary One Professor James Wood from Cambridge. And this is what he had to say in terms of confirming whether or not farm workers should feel worried about it. So should farm workers on poultry units be worried about this?
I think in general terms, no. If an outbreak of bird flu is notified to the authorities, then they will be providing very specific advice around the the sort of personal protection and the PPE that people should be wearing if they have to go anywhere near the birds. So in general terms, I don't think this is something that poultry workers should be worried about, but everyone should be aware that this is
something that could happen. Now, what he also said in response to a question was that this cannot be passed from human to human. So we're in the position now of being expected to believe that a virus exists that can be passed amongst wild birds. It can be passed from a wild bird to domestic poultry and back again. It can be passed between domestic poultry and it can be passed from domestic poultry to a human being.
But somehow it's unable to go from a human being to a human being unless of course it mutates. And of course, I refer back to the case last year where we were told that even bird flu had travelled to the South Atlantic to infect elephant seals. So that there are holes in this narrative a mile wide. But the likelihood is that the population will believe this, which is why it's a significant
problem. Now, the epidemiologist James Wood did did at least have the decency to say this is different from the variant or the version in the United States, which he cited as having conjunctivitis as a symptom, which it makes one wonder, of course, why it's not just referred to as conjunctivitis, but because of the proximity to animals, it has a zoonotic label slapped on it. And there we go.
Now, the central message to the BBC's output this morning was to suggest people don't think that it can't happen to you. And this is very redolent of the narrative that was put out for the coronavirus confection back in early 2020. And it does represent corruption across the board, not just the science, which is totally what without foundation, but by their own logic, the countermeasures are known to be pointless. The environmental conditions, as I say, are never considered or
assessed. And it's a complete corruption for the consumer who has had the regulations changed, which means they'll still be be able to buy eggs labelled as free range even when they're not. So that sixteen rule has gone. And of course, this lays the door open for further food scarcity and ties in with that narrative driven towards what's the suggestion that it's all to do with climate change.
And indeed, Defra is very keen to point out that in the scheme of things that the destruction or the culling, as they say, the humane culling of these birds is proportionate to the 20 million that are slaughtered each week for human consumption. So the the figures just in order to make it clear how the PCR case, the PCR test drives this are that to date the there are 24 cases or 25 across the two strains they claim to have identified. These are not deaths.
These are PCR cases. And as was pointed out in the last news broadcast where I referred to this, there are approximately 9500 slaughtered birds per discerned case by PCR. So the the the point to draw out here is that the government is well primed for the inflation of this particular narrative to drive people towards bio security panic and the sense of emergency and the 5 million doses of stockpiled vaccine for humans, well made by CSL secularists, which of course
we've reported on in the past. So this will certainly be something to keep a very close eye on. And the only hope really is that following the years of coronavirus propaganda that the expected audience will have fallen foul of fatigue of the story. But we shall see which way it goes. Thank you, Charles. Vanessa, let's welcome you to the programme. And we've been talking quite a bit about Davos over the last few news programmes, but what's your take on what happened there?
Well, yeah, I mean, everybody is well aware that the Syrian foreign minister was present at Davos, but I just wanted to draw attention to something that was published by Davos actually back on the 9th of December. So then they were talking about what to respect and who's coming. Now, what's interesting, So this was what, one day after I actually left Damascus, and so one day after the fall of
Damascus itself. And yet here they actually name Assad Hassan al Shibani, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Syria. So did Davos and WEF have full knowledge of what was going on inside Syria and who would be appointed the foreign minister? And then if we actually look at who this foreign minister is, this is from the cradle, former al Qaeda in Syria founder. So he was a founder of Nusra Front in Syria, named as caretaker foreign minister.
And who should interview him? None other than snake oil salesman himself, Tony Blair, former Middle East war envoy and responsible really for the war against Syria since 911 in his relations with President Assad from 2002 onwards. So let's just have a very quick look at part of of the remarkably unpleasant interview. And I apologise in advance for forcing people to watch this again if they've already seen it
and. You've obviously got a lot of different minorities in in Syria, Christians, Theresa, Alawites and how how confident are you that this will be a Syria for all the people given the the history and the difficulties of the past I. Can say that now, as we Syrian people, we are victims of the sectarian government and we are also victims of this language and we refuse to use it for the future of Syria. We are not Syrian people, not
divided into minorities. We are Syrian people and Syria should be for all the Syrian people without any sectarian dividing and also without to to punish someone regarding on his background, social background, religious background or sectarian group. That was about as tough as Tony Blair got in his questioning and and his follow up question was
what about women in Syria? And we'll come on to that because obviously there are daily reports of atrocities committed by the HTS unelected government in Syria, former still a prescribed terrorist group conducting dozens of sectarian executions, kidnappings and torture across Syria. And we'll just play one video that is not particularly gruesome, but it shows a young Shia Muslim man discovering that three members of his family have been murdered by the HTS terrorists.
So if we can just play this? Nothing. His anguish is very obvious. And when we're talking about women, this is Doctor Rasha Al Ali who was a university researcher at Haunt University and a member of the Arab Writers Union who was kidnapped on the 20th of January after she objected to the imposing of niqab law wearing and niqab instruction at the universities in Syria.
Her body was discovered on the 25th of January with her fingers amputated and signs of extreme torture and obviously she was killed for her views about women in Syria. And equally, Syrian Christians, of course, all minorities are, are being faced with ethnic cleansing, displacement, torture, etcetera, but particularly Christians also who are finding that their daily life is, is being affected very
much. If we look at that what was actually written in the article and they're being harassed to effectively conform to Islamic rules and customs. They're being asked to disarm escalating incidents of violence towards religious minorities and even the fact that buses are being boarded to ask the women and the men to segregate on the buses, etcetera. So all, basically all minority communities are suffering under the the imposition of the rules of extremist Islamist government.
Thank you. Thank you for that, Vanessa. We'll have more on on this a little bit later. Now coming back to the UK then the other big story that's going on at the moment is the issue of knife crime and the fact that the government is about to impose more digital identification on the general public in order to, they say, to deal with this knife crime situation. So this was being, this is actually going back to 2017. So this is not something that's new.
Suddenly it's becoming a crisis. But this was LBC in 2017 saying 3 fatal stabbings in 36 hours, 35 murders under the age of 25 this year, a rise of 84% in 12 months. Is knife crime getting out of control? So, so this is not something that is is a recent issue. So the government has announced stricter, what they're describing as stricter age verification online.
They're adding the purchase of knives to the use of pornography in terms of the regime that people are going to have to abide by, they're describing it as what they call a stringent 2 step system, which will be mandated for all. This is a quote will be mandated for all retailers selling knives online, requiring customers to submit photo ID at the point of sale and again on delivery. They say. Government saying they have an ambitious mission to have knife
crime within a decade. Why are they only having it? Question I'll. Ask before, I'm not sure. Within a decade, as part of the plan for change, of course, because this is all about change and a core element of this, they say, again, this is a quote. We'll be addressing problems in
the online sales space. End Quote so they're saying that a person may need to submit a copy of photo ID such as a driving licence or a passport that they may need proof of address such as a utility bill before and they're again going to have to show ID after the package is delivered.
And this could also include submitting a current photo or video of yourself if you're buying a knife to an online retailer alongside their ID. Now the implications of this in terms of personal data and you know, the potential for identity theft, because of course you're going to be handing more and more sort of personal information to more and more retailers whose systems may not be terribly robust from a security point of view. Now you may say, well, this is
so I'm not buying a knife. But of course this is now pornography first. Now it's knives. It's going to continue on the, the list to the point where we're going to need ID for, for many, many things.
Um, it's also under this proposal going to be illegal for any retailer to deliver a package containing a bladed weapon to the doorstop to doorstep, sorry, when there's no one in to receive it and so on. Uh, so anyway, uh, let's have a look at what the our wonderful home secretary had to say about this. Here's Yvette Cooper. It's a total disgrace how easy it is for children to get
dangerous weapons online. She says more than two years after Ronan Canada was killed with a ninja sword bought by a teenager online, too many retailers still don't have proper cheques in place. The measures I'm setting out today will be crucial in addressing this problem and are part of our plan for change and mission to make streets safer. Well, are they? This is a very good question.
We'll discuss that in a second. But before we do, Idris Elba was on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning because the BBC at 9:00 PM this evening is pushing out a documentary hosted by him on this topic. Let's just have a listen to a minute or so of what he said this morning. What has happened now is a look at the the schemes that are working, that are showing, hey, this works. So a lot of these schemes are losing their funding.
We need to look at the budget and perhaps make sure we can support the schemes that the data shows work OK. I think that we need to ban all knives period. And let's not be grey arid about it. I think heritage swords and such, yes. But if you have one, have a licence for it, OK. We even kitchen. How would kitchen knives work with that? So the truth is, is that kitchen knives are perhaps 25% of the knives used in most of the terrible crimes. That's one of the stats in the
films. And those kitchen knives are usually a domestic situation. So kitchen knives, of course, it's very difficult, their domestic knife. I do think there is areas of innovation that we can do with kitchen knives. I hate to say it, not all kitchen knives need to have a point on them.
That sounds like a crazy thing to say, but actually it would reduce, you know, you can still cut your food without the point on the knife, which is an innovative way to sort of look at it. And in a country in crisis, I'm sorry, but yeah, let's look at that. But the truth is, all knives, you know, the loophole on the heritage knives allows the sale of Nombie zombie ninja swords to be sold. So let's ban them all.
And if you need, if you have one of those knives, get a licence for it. Simple as that. This is such nonsense. I mean, we were wetting ourselves, frankly, during that, but we'll talk about that in a second. It's such nonsense. You know, he's talking about 25% of incidents involving kitchen knives. Of course, if there's no availability of other types of knives, that proportion is going to go up, right? Because what everyone is doing is looking at symptoms. They're looking at the symptoms
of a disease. Where? So I would like to know where's the discussion about what's causing young people to be absolute so absolutely demoralised, frustrated and angry that they're resorting to lashing out in this way? Where's the optimism in our youth banning, what's banning knives going to do? It's going to do nothing to stop violence along young amongst young people if we don't deal with the underlying problems.
Take away the knives and they'll pick up rocks or they'll smash a window and wrap a Shard of glass and gaffer tape to make a knife. This is all wrong and you know Charles, we have to deal with the the disease and not the symptoms we do. It seems from what he's saying, it's not just kitchen knives
that don't have a point. And he really, I mean, what you're saying is it is very much reminiscent of what the Duke of Edinburgh, the late Duke of Edinburgh got pilloried for after the Dunblane incident where he suggested that the response to it would be akin to banning cricket bats just because somebody had once hit somebody else over there with a cricket bat. It is completely absurd.
I will be dealing touching on this again a little bit later in the news, but but complete and utter nonsense. How how the Today programme sustains that sort of a conversation in in sort of good faith is beyond me. Well, the Today. Programme has sustained the conversation. They've they've made an entire documentary about it tonight at 9:00 PM. So, so they're absolutely the BBC as a whole sustaining this
conversation. We will talk more about this in extra, but we shall move on. If you like what the UK column does, you'd like to support us, the place to go is support.ukcolumn.org and we do need your continued support. You could make a donation that helps a great deal. If you join as a member though, you get access to the members only content, including UK called News Extra and there are
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algorithms that are there. Now, tomorrow at 1:00 PM, Ben is interviewing Rajamiya, of course, about the rape gangs. He has been for six years calling out what's been going on with the rape gangs in the North England. Do watch that 1:00 PM tomorrow if you possibly can. And yesterday's interview, Charles was with Catherine Gunn.
It was indeed. And as the pieces have moved around the board in the Middle East today, it is very very pertinent to cast our minds back just over 2 decades to the build up to the Iraq War as it was then. And Catherine Gunn's actions whilst working at GCHQ in breaching the Official Secrets Act to do what she believed was right at the time. And her story is extremely compelling and and really does merit a revisit. So please do listen to this and share it far and wide.
And she also offers her views on the world as it is now and and gives a very, very concise sort of analysis of it. OK. And we'd like to mention Public Child Protection Wales is holding a conference on the 22nd of February this year. It lasts from ten 10:30 AM to 4:30 PM. It's in Cwmbran near Newport. We would just encourage everybody or as many people as possible possible to go to that, if you can.
Certainly the presentation from Kim Isherwood at the UK column conference in in October went down extremely well, so if any way you can possibly support this organisation by attending that would be fantastic. Details of public Child protectionwheels.org They have a great line up of speakers that are on screen at the moment, but including Rebecca Manning, Doctor Anna Lutfi and so on. We will have the link to that in the show notes, of course, so please do join us for that.
Now where does that take us, Charles the Klein? No, before we get to that. One more. Here that is this open letter being signed by doctors, academics, and so on for RFK. This is to the Senate, of course, because RFK's confirmation hearing is taking place very, very soon. Lots and lots of signatures on that. So there's a number on there, another 4800 signatures, including the ones that are on that I've just shown you on screen at the moment.
And so if anybody is a healthcare professional or an academic would like to sign that, there is a Google Doc and the link to that will be in the show notes as well. And if you'd like to sign that, please do. Let's move on to the climate bill. Climate. Nature. Bill, yes, which as reported on last week, was in Parliament for its second reading Friday the 24th of January. And there's been a response to the adjournment of this bill or of the debate, which suggests that it's something of a
victory. And I would like to sound a note of caution. This is something UK Column has been following for some months now, and there's been a certain amount of confusion about the bill itself, of course hidden from the government website published by Zero Hour, who I suppose, as their slide here suggests, probably haven't raised quite the level of public support that they thought they would. There's £6515 raised. I should imagine they were hoping for a bigger push.
Nonetheless the the reason for qualifying this, in so far as it doesn't seem entirely positive, is that what actually happened on the day was the chamber was flooded with Labour MP's who were whipped into a position of voting to adjourn until Friday the 11th of July. Now this was led by the MP Roz Savage who at the outset said that she had absolutely no practical experience of farming and therefore was in a sense
leading the blind. Now I read through Hansard and every single comment in the debate was entirely in support of this. So to suggest that the adjournment is a battle won, I would say is a very hasty judgement and one that might need a little bit more scrutiny, not least because there are many issues at stake here. There is plenty of existing legislation, binding government, all sorts of climate targets which we're well aware of.
This could well represent a cooling off period after the Trump rejection of the Green New Deal and the likely backlash from that. But also in in granting sort of six months stay of execution, they've enabled the the raising of public awareness and indeed calls for urgent action. It's very easy for a state of emergency to be developed even
further. Of course we're supposed to be in the midst of a climate emergency, but to make that seem more acute with a six month lead in is not entirely difficult to do if you think of the things that could be ascribed to climate change. I've just been speaking about bird flu. That is of course one such. We've had the announcement today there are going to be 9 new reservoirs in the United Kingdom. So water shortages of course is another one.
And I refer you back to the comments of Alan Lovell, the then chair of the Environment Agency, who said in 2023, I'm most concerned about water resources. But to grip the existential threat of supply and demand, we will need to ask the public to do 2 things. Save water and pay more for it. There is of course the population shift via migration, which Mike's going to be touching on in this programme too. There's the poor harvest, the food shortages and the incoming
likelihood of food scarcity. So there's also time of course for the government to sell the lie that renewable energy can work as the the contribution of solar energy increases with the increase in daylight. We've got the BBC, of course, who are complicit in virtually every part of the government's pushing of any agenda and that I, I would imagine, going to be reporting on this theme in such sense as to give people the impression that it must be pursued yet further.
Now on the solar side of it, I thought I thought it'd be worth noting that the energy dashboard from 11:30 this morning notes that 9% of energy on the grid is coming from solar, which, given the area handed over to it from swathes of perfectly viable farmland, is rather pitiful. But also in contrast, on the left hand side of the chart, there imports remain at 15.3%. So the suggestion that that that renewable energy is in any way a viable and dependable source is of course ludicrous.
The other thing to point out is the continued corruption of the system. Recent announcement that there's a go ahead for a large scale solar farm in Lincolnshire which is going to be run or at least funded by Ecotricity. Dale Vince, the owner being a donor to the Labor Party. So it seems reasonable indeed to question his relationship with the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.
And of course there is the other aspect to all of this, which is the, the, the response to a, a public clamour now that this bill has apparently disappeared, as there's no better way to activate the activists than to suggest that their future has been dashed or shattered. So I, I am imagining that in fact, between now and July, there will be a massive propaganda campaign in order to pump this bill back up again, whether it goes through as private members bill, it reigns
to be seen. But to dismiss at a stroke this bill just because it has been adjourned, I would say is hasty. And it's also worth considering the 11th of July is of course just before the end of the school term, which gives the education system plenty of time to work on the children within its care in order to push the climate emergency and that could philtre up to parents and beyond.
So again, one to watch. But I think to dismiss it just because of what happened last Friday is very, very hasty indeed. Well, Charles mentioned this, let's talk about migration for a second, because the UK population is now suggested it's going to hit 72.5 million by 2032, I think 75,000,000 by 2035 and this is fuelled by 4.9 million increase in net migration.
This is numbers coming from the Office for National Statistics and the ONS where it pins to make the point that for the first time we are overtaking France in terms of total population. Of course, France has a significantly larger landmass than Britain does, so population density is less of a problem in France. But France doesn't seem to be having the same problem as we have. I wonder why now? Chris Phelp, Who's the shadow? Sorry, sorry, sorry, wrong
button. The the shadow home secretary said that 10 million arrivals over 10 years is too high. It's far too high, he said. We need a binding legal cap on visas issued each year, which is very, very substantially lower than this in order to get the numbers down and under control.
And so we might suggest that there's a significant amount of hypocrisy in that, bearing in mind that this current migration situation has absolutely been driven up under Tory leadership for the last 10-15 years, whatever it happens to be. The Resolution Foundation here there, Representative Adam Corlett has said that the Office for National Statistics projections of higher working age population are going to be more money for the government and for the Treasury.
So he said a larger working age population means a bigger economy, more workers and higher tax receipts, which should deliver a fiscal boost of around £5 billion a year by the end of the decade. Well, he's talking about an increase in population of 5 million people and a £5 billion a year increase in the money to the treasury. Then what does that actually mean? 1000 lbs per head Is that is that a good deal? I don't. Think so? I think Neil Ferguson may have lent out his calculator.
Well, indeed, that is true. So the question is, you know what, what is going on here? Of course we have an ageing population. We also have falling birth rates. We've talked about this many, many times in this programme. But we've we've also got the issue of economic inactivity. And it's interesting that if you look at the the mainstream press in recent weeks, there've been some efforts to sort of launder this idea of economic
inactivity. This is something that the Office for National Statistics has been talking about for a long time, a long time, I mean, post the so called COVID pandemic. But because as Charles has pointed out on the programme before, long term sickness is becoming a real problem in the country. But we're trying to, in the mainstream press at least kind of persuade ourselves that perhaps ONS is not counting this properly. I think we did this with excess
mortality as well. The ONS was counting things in a particular way. And then at some point they decided that our people decided that they didn't like the figures that were coming out. So the ONS was was encouraged to change their model. This seems to be what's happening here as well. We've got another graphic here showing long term sickness broken down by age group. And this is a significant, a significant problem here.
If if what we're saying is we've got to maintain migration at a certain level in order to maintain in a younger working age population in the country, because the the population that's already here is not sufficient to grow the economy, then we have a slightly different problem. So we need to be looking at this anyway.
Coming back to Chris Phelp for a second, he also went on to say we must also get more of the 9 million economically inactive adults in the UK into the workforce and invest more in technology and mechanisms to end the unsustainable reliance on mass low skilled migration. But if we're talking about technology and so on, increasingly we're talking about AI, which is taking away jobs, even more jobs already. So what direction are we going on? And we have an ageing population.
This is a problem, don't worry, because the government has an answer to that as well. It is assisted dying. That's why there's so much discussion about that at the moment. And Chris Whitty has been speaking out on this because he's saying what we don't want is a system which is very difficult for them, the people that are wanting assisted dying for them to navigate so that they spent their entire last six months of their lives.
If this bill is passed and they choose to take account of it, which is a minority, he said. So these people would essentially for the last six months of their lives be stuck in a, what he described as a bureaucratic thicket. We need to to keep this simple. And my view, the best safeguards are simple safeguards. So make it as simple as possible for people to end their lives because that'll take the pressure off that particular end of the economic equation.
In the meantime, keep bringing more and more people into the country and keep building up the pressure because, you know, at the end of the day, I'm not going to deny that there are some viewpoints out there which might be viewed as racist.
But actually most people's concern about this is the fact that we don't have the infrastructure to, to cope with it. We don't have the housing to cope with it. We don't have the schools, the hospitals and so on. This is, is a big problem, but it's economy is at the back of it. And and again, we're not dealing with with the the underlying causes of the migration in the first place. And when we're dealing with this, absolutely. We're not and, and nor are we benefiting the countries that
people have come from. We are, we are draining many countries of their resources in terms of brain power and and manpower. And that that does not in in the Oval scheme things help. So we'll talk about that more in extra essay as well. Yes, absolutely. So let's come on to extremism. Yeah, yeah, more.
Extremism, which was something I spoke about last week in relation to the Prime Minister's speech about what he was proposing to do in the aftermath of the conviction, sorry, the not correct conviction of the Southport murderer Axel Riddick. Abana and I described it as an exercise in conspired, conflate with, well, with the BBC, conspired conflate the issues of national security extremism with terrorism.
So to go back to summer 2024, Yvette Cooper said action against extremism has been badly hollowed out in recent years, just when it should have been needed most. That's why I've directed the Home Office to conduct.
A rapid analytical Sprint on extremism to map and monitor extremist trends, to understand the evidence about what works to disrupt and divert people away from extremist views and to identify any gaps in existing policy which need to be addressed to crack down on those pushing harmful and hateful beliefs and violence. So rather long winded.
Nonetheless, her team of civil servants did produce the so called Rapid Analytical Sprint which by some miracle has been leaked to the Policy Exchange. Now the The Policy Exchange therefore have authored a document to respond to this. Worth noting that one of the authors is Andrew Gilligan, of great repute going back to 2003 and the affair concerning Doctor David Kelly. But of course, as with all government leaks, it's assumed to be intentional.
But to what end? And the the Sprint, as it's been referred to, written up by civil servants, has made great effort to shift the qualification of extremism from somebody possessing an ideology to behaviours of concern. So this just reinforces the point of view that it is being conflated with terrorism, which of course is subject to being redefined in order that it may be used to capture people more
easily. The specific behaviours they refer to of violence against women and girls, misinformation and disinformation and extreme violence and misogyny. Now the Policy Exchange makes a a repeated point of saying that it downplays Islamism, which they describe not not the civil servants, but the Policy Exchange they're describing as by far the greatest threat to national security.
So just on that, it's it interesting to note that previously William Shawcross, senior fellow at the Policy Exchange back in 2018 was in conversation with the Prime Minister or well the now Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. So I think if there's time then this we'll just ask Vanessa for a little bit of comment on that and the sort of the policy exchanges leanings.
But just to proceed for now. They were saying, or rather Shawcross previously has made the point about the Prevent scheme, this should not be concerned with the 3536% of referrals not concerning ideology or suspected terrorism, but pertain to mental health and vulnerabilities of young people.
Now the civil service document that this Sprint has also had trouble with Michael Gove's rework definition of extremism, which we've talked about not before, saying there were concerns the last government's definition could be used against legitimate organisations and individuals, especially in the absence of a test of proportionality and
reasonableness. Now that's exactly what I was talking about last week with the example given by the BBC of Patriotic Alternative and how there was a complete double standard in the way that they were being looked at compared with the Labor Party. Now really what they are meaning by this is that they want to redefine it in such a way that anybody who contradicts the mainstream narrative can be
captured as an extremist. And this is really no more than at all with which to capture dissenting voices. Now, going back to what Mike has been talking about with regard to knife crime and the suggestion that violence has a great deal to do with this, which may not necessarily be denied. I I've just picked out as an example the PlayStation game Fortnite because this is something that is actively in effect opposed to what Idris
Elba has been saying. He's made specific reference to the the, the ownership of knives and samurai swords. And yet we see the BBC on their children's channel CBBC promoting the computer game Fortnite. So this is not a push for further online safety, but really to ask the question of parents. If children are going to be engaged or wasting their time with games like this, what are they expecting that the result
would be? And of course, this plays completely into the hands of the government with their reworking of the definition of terrorism. Thank you, Charles. Vanessa, any brief comments on that before we move on to Lebanon? Well. No, not really, except that it's the ongoing infiltration of all of the UK government sectors, including security, by the Zionist movement of course, which we've been talking about extensively. OK, Thank you.
Let's move on to Lebanon then. So, of course, the ceasefire ended in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Hezbollah rejects the extension of Israel's withdrawal deadline from South Lebanon because, of course, Israel, rather than withdrawing at all, has been embedding itself further and actually encroaching further upon Lebanese territory in the South. And So what basically happened on Sunday, contrary to the recommendations even by the Lebanese army that is supposed to replace Hezbollah military in the South, but has been failing to do so because of the Israeli
obstacles put in their way, but also the recommendations of UNIFO that civilians should not return. Of course, what did they do? They returned to their homes in the South. And this is just a short video report from a local media outlet. Define fear and threats. The people of southern Lebanon rose with unshakable resolve on Sunday, returning to their homes as the deadline for Israel's withdrawal expired.
Despite a ceasefire agreement requiring full withdrawal, Israeli forces remain entrenched, violating the deal with brutal force. As thousands of courageous Lebanese crossed into their occupied towns, Israeli forces responded with machine gunfire and shelling, killing 22 and injuring 124 civilians in cold blood. In addition to the violence, the Israeli forces arrested several civilians attempting to reclaim their homes.
The Lebanese people demonstrated remarkable resilience as they marched forward despite the Israeli army's violence. From the elderly to the young, they pressed on, determined to return to their homes and highlights their unwavering commitment to reclaiming their lands and resisting oppression. And so. What I wanted to show now is just a video that a friend of mine very kindly took as she went to the South yesterday during the the clashes between
civilians. So these are not armed civilians, These are not effectively members of the Hezbollah military. They are civilians and of course, the devastation in the South became very clear from the footage that she sent me, including, of course, the
demolition of mosques. But not only mosques of churches also, as you will see shortly, this is one of the roads into the town of Chiam that was occupied by the Zionist forces and where civilians are still in danger of being shot or or basically pushed back by the Zionist forces that are still there even today. A number of people were sniped as they were demonstrating against the Zionist tanks being still in their villages. Last night.
There were a number of air strikes or drain strikes in Novatia in the South with a number of injuries and again this morning. And so basically Israel refusing to leave, the people refusing to abandon their homes and very similar scenes, of course, in Gaza with. If we watch the following video, you'll see what Hamas is describing as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returning to their homes in the north, and Israel is claiming
that it's only 10s of thousands. But what is extraordinary about this? While it's very hard, of course, to describe the carnage that has been carried out by Israel both in the South and in Gaza, what is extraordinary about it? It's the first time that Palestinians in particular have returned to their homes post genocide or post ethnic cleansing. So in some ways that is a tremendous moral victory. None.
And we'd actually reported. Previously on the plans by Motti Kohana, which is basically Mossad, to bring in US and Egyptian contractors. And actually the BBC was one of the few media outlets to pick up this story and to point out the fact that US and Egyptian contractors are now working in Gaza screening cars as they pass through a checkpoint. But of course the BBC doesn't find any problem with that. That is not by any means a violation of Palestinian sovereignty, which of course it is.
And then of course, this is all combined with what's going on in South Lebanon with the increase of operations inside the West Bank, which were predicted with Trump's election, that Israel would perceive that it now has the green light to effectively ethnic cleanse Janine and the rest of the West Bank.
And if we actually look at the report itself, what they're saying is that the operation and Janine Operation Iron Wall will be unprecedented in its size and scope, and that the military operation in Jenin began with a drone attack on infrastructure,
he further said. Military analyst Amir Bachbot further said that the operation will continue for as long as needed, noting that the goal is to secure the Israeli army's freedom of operation throughout the West Bank and destroy and neutralise terrorists in inverted commerce, infrastructure and time bombs. So basically Gaza for the time being is finished. The Zionist movement has transferred to the West Bank. Thank you, Vanessa.
Thank you very much for that. Plenty to talk about an extra the day for sure Charles. Well, we've got another chance we have. Yes, we'll go straight to. A slide now showing the King's visit to Auschwitz, Which ties in with the commemoration of the Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday the 27th of January, marking 80 years since the liberation of
the Auschwitz camp. Now, this is something that the king himself has described as a very as being a very personal, a deeply personal pilgrimage, which might seem like a slightly odd remark for somebody that has no personal connection either to the place or any of the people who are involved or were involved in it. But nonetheless, this has become part of a of a very, very big splash of news and and information and all leading to a particular point, which I, I
will come on to a little bit later. But just to give an idea of of the significance of this, the royal family typically from their Twitter profiles send out about one message a day. They sent out nine tweets specifically about the Holocaust Memorial Day. Of course the Prime Minister Keir Starmer was at Auschwitz on 17th of January where he said time and again we condemn this hatred and we boldly say never again.
But where is never again when we see the poison of anti semitism rising around the world in the aftermath of October the 7th? Where is never again when the pulse of fear is beating in our own Jewish community as people are despicable targeted once again for the very same reason because they are Jewish. Now I think he's taking some great liberty there to suggest that this is or any of what he's describing is because they are
Jewish is is a point too far. David Lammy hosted a a reception at the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office and that was with the Israeli Embassy. And he goes on to say I'm proud to host you all in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on Holocaust Memorial Day and I've been so glad to come
into this job. As the UK holds the presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, I want to thank all those involved in running our presidency, in particular Eric Pickles, whose work as envoy only reinforces the cross party nature of our country's commitment to
Holocaust remembrance. One of the projects we've been sponsoring during our presidency has been 80 Objects, 80 Lives, curated by the Association of Jewish Refugees and the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation. This exhibition connects the testimonies of 80 survivors with 80 objects from before Now.
The Holocaust Memorial is something that we've talked about a lot on UK column before because of the way in which it has been a process by which planning permission has been ridden roughshod over by successive governments. But also to point out that quite specifically, the area in question, which is Victoria Tower Gardens, the South Palace of Westminster, is subject to restrictions on such
developments. Also worth noting that it contains the Buxton Memorial, which you can see in the foreground on the right of your picture there, but also the Burgers of Calais and Monument to Emmeline Pankhurst, among others. But of course, we are told that the Holocaust must assume precedent, despite the fact that it did not take place in this country. Further, the Holocaust galleries are just over the river at the Imperial War Museum, shown on the map there, less than a mile
away from the proposed site. So this is absolutely something that it it deserves further scrutiny. But back in September, Kier Starmer spoke at the Holocaust Education Trust, where he referenced online misinformation and conspiracy theories and again reinforced this point about building a a national Holocaust Memorial and learning centre, even though planning permission has not been granted.
And he said that well build it next to Parliament boldly, proudly, unapologetically, not as a Jewish community initiative, but as a national initiative, a national statement of the truth of the Holocaust. The so this apart from this just being a corruption of of the planning process or and the restrictions on development in the Tower Gardens. It is also, of course, dismissing all the other things that are that are going on there.
He says that we've got to be bolder and more defiant about the national importance of Holocaust education. As you would all know, the Holocaust is on the curriculum at Key Stage 3, and there is currently a review of our National Curriculum. But tonight I'm making two decisions in advance of that review. First, the Holocaust will remain on the curriculum come what may. And 2nd, even schools who do not currently have to follow the national curriculum will have to teach the Holocaust.
When the new curriculum comes in for the first time, studying the Holocaust will become a critical, vital part of every single student's identity. And not just studying it, learning from it too. So it seems reasonable to ask why this subject should be the only one forced into the
curriculum by law. Now, closely related to this is the news from just over a week ago from the Knesset saying that the final readings have been approved for the 2nd and 3rd readings in the prohibition on denial of the events of the October the 7th 2023 Massacre bill, which has been sponsored by a group of members of the Knesset. 16 of them supported the bill without any opposing votes or abstentioned.
It's also proposed to add a new offence according to which person who publishes statements denying the October the 7th massacre with the intent of defending the Hamas terrorist organisation and its partners or expressing sympathy or identification with them, will be charged with a criminal offence bearing a penalty of five years imprisonment. This really does seem like a very significant move to make and I'm describing a quote here to Saint Augustine.
Whether or not he said it or rate it is neither here nor there, but it is as follows. The truth is like a lion, you don't have to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend itself. Now I've run over, but we will be talking about this in extra because I would certainly like Vanessa's comment on all of this and where it's going. Indeed, Vanessa. Let me welcome you back. And well, Trump then, has been in the media in the last day or
two for many, many things. But one of the things that's grabbed the headlines has been his comments on Gaza. Yes, I. Mean as I've mentioned. Many times, you know, US foreign policy is basically A tag team event. Biden devastated Gaza during his presidency, and Trump is now coming in to try and put into effect some of the ideas that were raised during the genocide against the Palestinians that began 100 years ago but obviously intensified after October the 7th.
So this is his idea to move the Gazans to Egypt and Jordan, which of course we've heard before. Jared Kushner, his son in law, was talking about developing the Gaza waterfront territory into a new kind of real estate project back in March 2024 and had absolutely no problem with the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in order to allow this to happen. So let's just play a section of what Trump said while he was boarding Air Force One. So the sound is is not great, but I think you can pick up
pretty much what he's saying. Looking at the whole Gaza Strip, right? Now, and it's a mess. It's a real. You'd like Jordan to house people, to take people. I'd like Egypt to take people. I'm meeting with a talking to General El Sisi tomorrow sometime over there. And I'd like Egypt to take people and I'd like Jordan to take people. I could. I mean, you're talking about probably 1,000,000, 1/2 people and we just clean out that whole thing. I mean the language, you know,
we just. Clean out the whole thing. Now, this isn't a new idea. This is a leaked U.S. cable on X published by Mohammad Chouhader, Gazan analyst and journalist. So it's a leaked U.S. cable from 2004 where Israel's Nation Security Council chief Gora Island admits that Gaza is a huge concentration camp and calls for grabbing 600
kilometres. From the Sinai. And of course, it's worth pointing out that the HTS unelected government that is now in control pretty much in in Syria and of course is collaborating with Israel, has elements within Jordan and Egypt that are already to some degree being triggered to destabilise those countries. Should of course they not agree with Trump's plan to deport Palestinians to both Jordan and Egypt.
Now this is quite interesting because another idea was also posed that Trump was thinking of sending 100,000 Gazan refugees to Albania. Albanian Prime Minister Eddie Rama on Monday rejected reports that his country is holding talks with the US on taking in 100,000 refugees.
And yet again, we have the Jared Kushner connection here, who is looking at developing with Gulf money, Sazan Island off the coast of Albania, which was a former Soviet Union military outpost and chemical weapons facility. Now it is Italian Albanian presumably working to combat drug trafficking. So interesting scenario there. I'm not quite sure how the Albanian connection comes into that. If if anyone in the audience has an idea, please let us know and we can talk about it in extra.
Thank you. Vanessa, thank you for. That and well, we've got to finish because we are absolutely out of time. So thanks to Vanessa. Thank you to Charles. We will be back in a few minutes on the members live stream for some extra stay with us. Otherwise, don't forget the interview 1:00 PM tomorrow and back for the news 1:00 PM on Friday. See you then. Bye, bye, bye bye.