UK Column Radio

UK Column News Podcast 11th September 2024

Mike Robinson, Vanessa Beeley and Charles Malet with today's UK Column News. If you would like to support our independent journalism, please join the community: https://community.ukcolumn.org/ Sources: www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-11th-september-2024

Duration:: 1h 3m
Broadcast on:: 11 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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We're going to get started today with the situation with the prisons and everybody will be glad to know that our prisons are almost full and that without prison spaces police can't arrest dangerous criminals and courts can't hold trials. So, in order to solve this problem, the UK government as everybody will know by now has released a bunch of dangerous criminals so that the police can arrest them again and the courts can hold more trials. It's excellent stuff. Ultimately, justice would grind to the halt says the British government if we don't act law and order would break down. So, they went on to say in their little twitter graphics fest this morning, this is why we're changing automatic release dates for some prisoners so they leave after serving 40% of their sentence rather than the current 50% freeing up these spaces is the only option to avert a crisis but it's a crisis of Care Starmer's own making because he's decided to throw aside from the people that were violently rioting a bunch of other people that were merely commenting on social media or who are journalists and are being accused of various anti-terrorist related criminal offenses. It goes on to say it does not apply to all prisoners. There are exemptions to sentences for sex offenses, serious violent offenses with sentences of four years plus, terrorist offenses, offenses relating to national security and offenses connected to domestic abuse like stalking and non-fatal strangulation and yet the mainstream press is full of stories over the last day or so about cases of people not receiving warnings that the offender was being released and that they were potentially at risk. So, if you are part of the victim contact scheme or the victim notification scheme your victim and liaison officer will inform you of any change to release dates. Why would this be necessary if people related to domestic abuse offenses that are not being released? So, this doesn't add up. It went on to say this offenders will still serve their full sentence even after release they'll be on probation under restrictive license conditions with strict supervision. How is that possible? As we'll see in a minute the probation service has been under massive stress for a very long time now if they breach their license this says or it's necessary for public protection they can be recalled to prison. How can they be recalled to prison when there are no prison spaces and we're making room for the new prisoners by releasing the old prisoners. We're placing those old prisoners with new prisoners and so there'll be no prison spaces again. So, how does this work? How will they be recalled to prison? This seems like a pack of lies. So, they go on to say the probation service has been working over the summer to prepare for prisoners releases by carrying out safeguarding and domestic abuse checks to protect partners and children sharing information with police and other key partners and finding homes and job center support for those released to support the rehabilitation. And again at the end they say if you're a victim of crime you can find free confidential supported victim and witness information.org.uk so this is the victim and witness information website you'll notice in the top right-hand corner there there's a small link that says online safety. I just wanted to highlight the information that they provide for online safety. They say if you need to hide what you're doing on this website or protect yourself from someone it can be safe for not to use your home computer or your mobile phone. It was a bit late to tell people that now whenever they've already been to the website but okay and they go on to say when you use this website and every time you use the internet your device saves a record of the pages you've looked at and they're pointing out that this could be a risk if you've got a domestic violence situation and they talk about small files called cookies and they say they give advice on how to delete cookies but they say be careful because deleting cookies will also delete stored passwords for online accounts this is complete nonsense and this is such bad advice if any organization is storing a password inside a cookie then that would be the last time I would ever visit that organization that is not what cookies are for and so that is quite bad advice because that will potentially prevent people from deleting cookies but anyway I just want to highlight the speaking of the probation services is Napo the probation union and this is what they had to say about this they called it a ticking time bomb probation unit Napo fears that the early prisoner release scheme is a ticking time bomb that could put public safety at risk the scheme originally initiated by the previous government will see 1700 prisoners released early today that was yesterday to ease over crowding in prisons but Napo and its members fear that this is just moving the problem from one place to another without properly assessing the risk to probation staff and the general public the probation services currently facing a crisis of its own chronic staff shortages excessive workloads and per morale have staff worried about how they will be able to supervise this influx of service users particularly those who should not be eligible for the scheme but are somehow being released because they're serving concurrent sentences involving a lesser offense so we get to see why some of these risky prisoners are being released the announcement of the policy had already exponentially increased workloads for probation staff working in prisons and the community as they attempted to accelerate release plans develop and strengthen risk management plans and find appropriate accommodation for those being released with workloads significantly higher the ability of staff to address risk and support the transition of those being released will have a wider impact on the work that's already being undertaken and this shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody because Napo as they said a few in the previous paragraph there this is a continuation of a policy which the Tories had originally initiated so again this is not possible on behalf of Keir Starmer it's just acceleration so if we look at Napo's comments from May 2024 when the original plan was announced by the Tory government Napo the largest trade union representing probation staff they said has condemned the government's recent announcement that from the 23rd of May certain categories of prisoners and 84 premises across the mail estate in England and Wales will be eligible for earlier release up to 70 days prior of their sentence a similar scheme that has been running and the female prison estate has nice been suspended so the very much stronger language with the previous government perhaps that's because their union I don't know but anyway just to highlight what Charles had reported a couple of weeks ago about the reoffending rates adults released from custody or starting court orders had approved and reoffending rate of 33.4% adults released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months had a proven reoffending rate of 56.1% and the question is bearing in mind the stress of the probation service how much actual coverage is going to be given to these new people released and what are the chances of reoffending in the meantime the mainstream press has been going nuts with the headlines designed to enrich the population so my stubbed-out broke my ribs and made me lick dog feces off his shoe when I was 9 years old now he's free after serving just 19 months I mean if these cases are true it is shocking and I mean Starmer should be answering for this but of course many of these headlines are inflammatory as we just run through them so but don't worry because Starmer is uncomfortable with some of the people that have been released apparently so we'll be back thieves and drug addicts admit they'll end up back behind bars the other point to make here is of course part of this is about driving demand for offenders to be sent overseas in order to deal with this problem this again was something that the Tories had attempted to do with the criminal justice system and the idea of sending prisoners to Estonia apparently still on the cards so Charles I don't know what you think about that very briefly what are your thoughts I think the well first of all good afternoon all and good afternoon Mike the big question that hardly anybody wants to tackle is what is the expected outcome from a prison sentence given the reoffending rates and indeed the way in which we're seeing people who are substantially below the threshold of criminal activity are actually ending up in prison now what is the expected outcome if that's not dealt with then all of this is in effect for north it's just it's layers and layers of confusion upon one another and the other thing I think is that what we forget is how quickly prison population has risen from the 90s between 1993 and 2012 the prison population doubled and that's because they're of effectively procedural ineptitude and an inability to build to grasp what was going on within the system and they're still feeling the hangover from that so it is complete chaos and unless they start again it's not going to get me better well indeed we'll talk about this much more and extra but Charles in the meantime what's going on with the police? well it's a throwback really to 2020 and we'll just look at the case of Charlie Staple a young man who I spoke to yesterday this is a picture of him earlier in the week outside the Royal Court of Justice and he was filmed by a friend of the Column Wilsie of Resistance GB outside a demonstration in London and this is how he was dealt with by police at the time Hey, do you want to say anything? No, I'm warning you I play under public health legislation, you've got to move, you've got to move Oh yeah, I'm going to rest Alright, yeah, go in, see, you've got to go, ain't ya? I can just, you've got to go mate mate, what are you doing? What are you fucking doing? Oh I don't know, you've got to be there. What are you doing mate, what are you doing? Excuse me, 40! Alright, OK, I told you. How are you doing? Alright, OK, you've been warned? You've been warned? You've been warned to go under public health, OK? Under public health? Under a public health legislation, OK? All right, I've told you. What is that? Shut up, listen, listen to me. I've told you, I've told you twice, you haven't done it, OK? You've stopped, turned around, and you're serving the police. OK, OK, I'm not putting that with that. OK, show, you're under arrest. You're making up, you're making up. What? Why are you looking at me though? I've got them, right? I'm done, I'm done. For ease, you have to engage with him. This is illegal, you have to engage with him first, before you arrested. The rest is a fuck. Ice! Ice! What? What? Ice! This is a last resort, you're not legally allowed to do that! This is illegal! Public health. No, there's not enough time to go into the egregious detail of what happened, but nonetheless, Charlie himself was charged with assault on emergency worker, among other things. Now, he defended himself, and during his trial, he, as almost as an aside, said it was like he was being tortured. The judge asked the jury if that was something they would consider, and they found that reasonable, and therefore it's introducing the element of torture as a concept. And what we have to look at is section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. So this goes back a while, and it specifically states that a public official or person acting in an official capacity, whatever his nationality, so we have to bear that in mind, because it covers acts overseas, intentionally inflicts severe pain or suffering on another in the performance or purported performance of his official duties. Now, this is reinforced, of course, by the Human Rights Act 1998, which specifically says under Article 3, "Provision of Torture. No one shall be subjected to torture or to, sorry, or to in human or degrading treatment or punishment." That's an absolute right, it's not qualified or limited. However, amazingly, in the Criminal Justice Act, it goes on to say that it shall be a defense for a person charged with an offense under this section to prove that he had lawful authority, justification, or excuse for that conduct, and given what we've just looked at, that seems perfectly extraordinary. Further, there is, of course, a loophole. The system is very much stacked against the individual. It states in Section 135 that the requirement for the Attorney General's consent for prosecutions for proceedings for an offense under Section 134 shall not be begun, except by or with the consent of the Attorney General for England and Wales, or the Advocate General for Northern Ireland. So that's just one of the obstacles in the path. The other one is that in this instance, they've been attempting a private prosecution on individual basis against the police constables who were involved in this incident, and this goes back to slides I produced a little while ago, but guidance on private prosecutions from the Crown Prosecution Service, and here we see the obstacle in the path is another individual, the Director of Public Prosecution, of course, the Office of the Prime Minister used to hold, and he has the power under Section 6 to take over private prosecutions. Now, what does that mean? It means that there will be instances where it is appropriate for the Crown Prosecution Service to exercise the Director's powers to discontinue or to stop it. Now, this is very significant. Further, of course, with the new government, we have a new Attorney General, and I think it bears scrutiny to look at him as an individual, and indeed, what he is supposed to be standing for, Richard Herman, K.C., unusually, he's come straight from law and not inside politics. But the Financial Times in particular has written him up as somebody with a sort of staunch position on Israel insofar as he is meant to be a balanced exponent of effectively sort of a legal viewpoint. Now, Herman himself is Jewish, to what extent could that present an obstacle to his objectivity given the situation in the Middle East at the moment? In an article he wrote back in October last year for the Financial Times, he states that Israel has a clear right in international law to respond in self-defense. They go on to use rather a motive language, and talking about civilians being brutally murdered and subjected to severe atrocities, they go on to say they also have a clear right to see justice for the crimes that have been committed on its soil, fair enough, not simply against those captured by Israeli forces, but against the Hamas organization itself and those who enable its military operations, which surely would apply to both sides. They go on. Just as international law provides the means for categorizing criminalizing the barbaric acts of Hamas, so too does it provide a framework for governing how Israel must respond, but how is that to be interpreted? Any nation is bound in law to comply with all the laws of war, yes, but exactly how. And finally, they state that the laws of war are not pacifist, rather they are the opposite. They are an admission that there are occasions when war is necessary. They are designed to ensure that when war be conducted, there are limits on what harm can be done to other human beings. Now, I think given the situation that Charlie Staple has found himself in, that is a very significant sort of admission by the Attorney General and those that are within his orbit. And first of all, we've got the issue of whether there should be a common norm of torture, and this could break very interesting legal ground, but also we have the other aspect of the fact that the Attorney General presents potentially an enormous obstacle, not just this, but also to securing peace in the Middle East, possibly, but we shall see. Okay. Thank you, Charles. Vanessa, let's welcome you to the program, and well, you're in Damascus a couple of days ago, there was some activity from the Israeli direction. Yes, and we'd also, first of all, say that under international law, Israel is an occupied force, therefore, doesn't have the right to self-defense. But yes, two days ago was yesterday a lose track, because the attacks were always in the early hours of the morning. Israel launched actually one of its largest expanded strikes against Syria for some time, since actually probably before 2011. So let's have a look quickly at a couple of sort of amateur videos that were taken of the attacks and the interception by Syrian air defense over basically the coastal areas. So this will be close to Tartus on the western coast of Syria. There have been rumours that the Syrian air defenses did actually shoot down an Israeli warplane. Now, obviously, if they did, that will have landed in the sea, and so therefore, until now, we haven't got substantiation of those rumours, and of course, Israel is not going to be the first one to admit it. So the first wave of attacks basically came from Lebanon, the north-west of Lebanon, and then from, as I said, the western coastal region from the Mediterranean Sea. It's worth also noting that Russian jets were buzzing the Israeli jets. They were patrolling the coastal area to prevent the Israeli jets entering Syrian airspace, but they couldn't engage with the jets because of the activity of the Syrian air defense would have put them in peril, of course. So the area that was extensively targeted is the village and the countryside of Messyaf inside that red circle to the west of Hummer and Homs in sort of central Syria. The first wave of attacks used the Delilah cruise missiles, I'm not sure of the number that was used, but it was an extensive attack. The majority of the missiles were downed by the Syrian air defenses, and it's believed that for the first time and some time, the Syrian air defense used the S-200, which was seen to arrive as far as FAFA in the occupied territories. That was then followed by a wave. So while they had tried to create almost a belt of fire for the Syrian air defense and then sent in the Harrop suicide drones to target certain areas inside Syria. So this was a very, very extensive attack, however, a number of the drones were brought down in various areas on the coast and surrounding the Messyaf Homs area. Now interestingly, there was a French air force plane coming in from the Jordan airspace, but carrying out surveillance shortly before the attack. And that I think is the first time that the French planes have been involved. It's also interesting that about a year ago, there was talk of setting up a NATO base and headquarters in Jordan. In addition to the Syrian army's research centers and a position in the north of the city of Messyaf, the Israelis also targeted a military base in the southwest of the city, which according to the Israeli regime, was the site of the production of rockets utilised by the Lebanese resistance movement. The military base, which is identified as an underground facility and the Institute 4000 Research Centre was also targeted in the airstrike by the occupying regime's army on the 12th, March of the 12th, 2023. So to 2018, the mentioned centre has been attacked by the Israeli regime's army at least on four occasions, and if we go back one year, I think we reported on this report in Hebrew by the INSS Tel Aviv University related think tank that actually went into some detail about the perceived threat from Syria's weapon development. Now in the strikes, there were 14 people killed, many injured, six, critically, all of whom were taken to the Messyaf National Hospital, and in fact the director of the National Hospital was himself injured and a Syrian news agency reporter. Also they appeared to have deliberately caused extensive damage to water lines, to equipment and civil defence teams that were heading to put out the fires, vehicles, as you can see, the main road between Messyaf and various other villages was shut down and is now obviously under reconstruction, electricity, internet lines were heavily damaged, and of course, you know, this is relatively normal. We've seen the water crimes in Gaza and in Lebanon, and in Lebanon, of course, the attacks and the burning of Lebanese forestry and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. So very similar pattern here. Vanessa, thank you very much for that. We will keep an eye on how that develops and how this escalates as undoubtedly it will. Okay, if you like what the UK column does, you would like to support us, the place to go with support.uk column.org, we do need your financial support, it's what keeps us going, and we'd like to thank everybody that is supporting us in this way. But we also need you to share material on various platforms, so the place to go to get that is uk column.org or uk column extracts.co.uk. We are centered on the various platforms, and so if you can help be the algorithm, this is extremely useful. Plenty for you to have a look at on the UK column shop, if you'd like to support us that way as well, and agenda 21, your life and their hands is still available for purchase if you would like to get a copy. This is September the 11th, and so I just want to remind everybody of the symposium that we hosted for the International Center for 9/11 Justice at the weekend. The archive of that is on the UK column website at the moment. We will be splitting these up into separate presentations, but the archive of the full live stream is there for you to have a look at, if you would like, with timings in the show notes, so you can step forward to the place you'd like to watch. Tomorrow at 1pm, we're putting out, premiering the interview that I've done with Diane Serrin, who's a vigor from the United States. They are standing for Senate and Congress, respectively, in New York, and well, they have plenty to say about that. It's probably the only interesting thing that's going on in the US election at the moment, but join us at 1pm for that tomorrow. If you can. A reminder of the Bristol event, UK column and location, on the 19th of October, there are still tickets available for this. Piers Robinson, David Miller, Peter Ford, will be among the people relaunching media on trial. Bob Moran will be speaking, Ahmed Malick, Kenny Joe Murphy will be talking about Hope Sussex, Claire Wilson will be talking about how we deal with tax and whether we would like to perhaps hold a tax strike. Brian and I are speaking at the Heritage Party Conference on Saturday, the 20th of September. That's in Reading, details@heritageparty.org, and this coming Saturday, there's a rally for peace taking place on Glasgow Green at the Commonwealth Monument 1pm, and a number of speakers there. Please get along to that if you are in the Glasgow area, if you possibly can. No, Charles, you spoke to David Clues in the last couple of days. Yes, he had been the subject of a campaign of vitriol from mainstream media over his reporting in the wake of the Southport killings, and I've recorded an interview with him, which is now on the UK column website entitled You May Be Next. I really would encourage you to listen to it, which has just got a short excerpt. After I'd asked him the question, what do you think the end state is for government? In an ideal world, they would shut down social media entirely, and you would just be stuck at home watching the BBC, that RITV or Sky, and you'd be watching their proof titles. They simply do not want people having alternative sources of information, because if they do, people can then expose their scams, and they can expose their lies, and we all have a record over COVID. We have a track record over the war in Ukraine, we've got a track record over the conflict in Israel and Gaza, and we clearly don't like us because we provide a nuanced and balanced view. It's like they say they're conspiracy theorists, they're brainwashed, they say we're the ones that actually have a proper look at the situation, and try and say look, and every conflict there's one side, there's another side, and there's other people, and this is some of the, and they just, they hate that. So he's absolutely right in what he says, they're worried about the so-called alternative media and social media, and so one of the question is the online safety bill, for example, has been focused on the big platforms, at least that's what most of the headlines have said so far. Peter Kyle, who's the Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Innovation, may have got that the wrong way round, has decided to write to damn Melanie Dawes at Ofcom because he's very concerned about this, so this is what he said in his letter, "Dear Melanie, I know you and everyone working at Ofcom share my concerns about the proliferation of extremely detrimental material online, which is often far too easy to access. I appreciate your organization's hard work to do in setting up the regulatory regime for the Online Safety Act. I'm writing on a related issue regarding so-called small but risky services, which is an area of concern that has been raised with me directly. The act was designed to ensure that tech companies take more responsibility for the safety of the users, and therefore keen to understand how Ofcom will monitor the small but risky online services, and in particular, can you update me on how you intend to use the full force of enforcement?" So the government clearly expressing a concern about smaller organizations of all kinds that might be pushing out what they describe as hateful content, for example. I mean, of course, they're also trying to frame this under the guise of suicide prevention and other things. The disinformation aspect of this is 100% there. So kind of related then is a statement from the Media Freedom Coalition. Now this is a group of what they call themselves a partnership of countries working together to move media, media freedom at home and abroad, and they're particularly concerned about what's been going on in Hong Kong, and they begin their press release by saying, "Journalism is not a crime." So that's the quite definitive, "Journalism is Not a Crime," and you'll be glad to know that the Media Freedom Coalition includes the British government. They have published the same press release on the government website. So they're also saying that journalism is not a crime. It was signed by Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech, Denmark, Estonia, what you can read them there. United Kingdom, United States are on the list. So we might have taken that into consideration when we consider the people that have been arrested recently because of claims by the British government that they've somehow breached the Terrorism Act by somehow supporting a prescribed organization or the people that have been complaining on social media about immigration and are going to prison at the moment because they dared to speak out on social media. We've got to consider that and remember that journalism is not a crime, and in the meantime Vanessa Craig Murray deciding that he needs to leave the UK because he's concerned about colleagues and friends who are journalists, who have been arrested under the Terrorism Act. I don't know if you've got any thoughts on that. Well, of course, Craig Murray was incredibly unfairly penalised for his reporting on the assault trial and was then also, I think, detained under the terrorist act very recently. So this is a form of British ambassador, say, it is becoming ridiculous but extremely dangerous also. Yes. Indeed it is. Okay. Thank you for that. Now, bring us up to date then with what's going on in the wider Middle East. Well, I've talked about the expansion of aggression against Syria, but that has to be looked at in the context of what's happening in the West Bank, in Gaza and in Lebanon also, so we are seeing, and actually in rhetoric regarding Iran, as I'll show at the end of the report. So last Friday, an Israeli sniper killed US-Turkish activist in the West Bank by shooting her in the head. And there is, I think, a report circulating that he was celebrating the kill immediately after. It was on Friday, on Monday, Netanyahu gave a press conference during which he showed a map of Palestine, with Palestine completely missing from the map. He had erased it entirely from the map. Let's see what Matthew Miller, the US state department spokesperson, said in response to a question about this basic disappearance at Palestine from the map of Palestine. One last final question. Yesterday Netanyahu showed a map when he talked about the Philadelphia Corridor. It has no West Bank. It has nothing on it. Is this kind of normal that he shows a map with just Israel on it? There's no Palestine. I'm not, you know, I'm not going to comment on, I'm just saying, is that normal for you? So I'm not going to comment on the Prime Minister's press conference. We have been quite clear about our position when it comes to Gaza, when it comes to the West Bank, when it comes ultimately to a two-state solution. Yeah. Okay. No comment. But, I mean, you know, this is quite extraordinary. Would he be quite so immediately mouthed if this was regarding Ukraine and Russia, for example? Then followed by Netanyahu actually doubling down with the map of Israel. That goes from the river. The river is right here. That's the Jordan River to the sea, the Mediterranean Sea. So when Hamas is talking about liberating Palestine from the river to the sea, basically what they're saying is destroying Israel, that comes after he is effectively erased Palestine from the map. Then let's have a look at what's been happening in Gaza, just ongoing genocide appalling massacres. Of course, the majority of victims or children began. Israeli massacre in Jabalia can't another one of the heavily congested refugee camps where people have been gathering after being displaced from other areas of Gaza. After the Fonunos massacre, which was one of the worst again that we've seen, so let's have a look at the details on that. The shelling of Muwazi Fonunos, Muwazi of course, was one of the primary safe areas that Israel persuaded people to go to when they were in the early hours of Tuesday, Israel launched an extensive attack against the displacement campaign Muwazi. The area was previously declared and alleged safe zone, an unfinalised death toll indicates that at least 40 Palestinians have been killed in the aggression while 65 others were injured. However, the numbers are expected to exponentially increase in the upcoming compound bombs dropped by the AOF, sorry, entire families have been wiped out while others completely disappeared in the sand. So let's just have a look at a video which shows the craters left behind by these 2000 platforms. Remember, this is in a... incredibly crowded area that they drop this size of munition just extraordinary. This is a report by Dr. Christopher Busby for Al-Naidin, co-authored, is Israel using small nuclear weapons in Gaza and South Lebanon, and what does he say in the report? This investigation has been ongoing for some time. The American Peace Information Council in Green Audit, which is Busby, conducting an investigation of Israel's possible use of small nuclear weapons in Gaza and South Lebanon. So basically what he says, they've asked people who drive ambulances down in the south or live there to come forward with engine air filters from ambulances driven in bombed areas, samples of long hair. As they live in bombed areas and geico-counter readings and soil samples from bomb craters, and they ask for those samples to be sent, interesting, the Lebanese Red Cross has so far refused to collaborate in the investigation. So again, just horrific. And this is from the IOF, so take it with a degree of a pinch of salt, but these are the latest attacks on southern Lebanon, which is the brown area, showing according to the IOF, the targeting of launch pads, ammunition areas and so on, showing an extensive targeting of those areas across the south of Lebanon, but of course not taking into account the fact that many of those missiles have actually landed in or ended up doing serious damage to civilian infrastructure. And if we actually look at the next video, we can see again, its amateur videos of the targeting from about 5am this morning. And I mentioned Iran also. This is Gantz speaking at the EAD conference in Washington, Benny Gantz calls for increased pressure on Iran and says time for action in the north has come, and that Israel is late on this, that they need to take care of Hezbollah. Now interesting timing, so this presentation is coming just before elections and with Trump in, I would say, voting ascendancy in the US, so what did he say? This war has shown that we need to increase military diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran, and that we cannot accept an agreement that only addresses nuclear issues, but must also include restrictions on funding and operating proxies, proxies of course, or another word for the allies of Iran, which will mean Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, state and non-state actors. Gantz identified Iran as the root of regional problems while Hezbollah poses an operational threat. We must remember that Iran is the core issue. Look at the situation in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon achieving real victory, is about resolving the Hamas issue and recovering hostages, it's about a general alliance against the Iranian axis that has established terror cells around us. Syria is described therefore as a terror cell one presumes. Iran is involved in almost every conflict from supplying UAVs to Russia, which Iran is currently actually denying the use of Ukraine to supporting terrorism in Sudan and Algeria, the prospect of Iran with nuclear capabilities is concerning. We must maintain pressure on Iran, not just militarily, but economically and politically, with greater intensity. This is a global responsibility. Any future nuclear deal must address enrichment and launch capabilities and impose severe restrictions on funding and operating proxies. As I've said, Iran presents a global and regional challenge, not just an Israeli concern, so quite incredible belligerent rhetoric from Gantz, who's previously been described as a more moderate version of Netanyahu. And then let's have a look at a recent video of Trump on his campaign trail, speaking about Israel, and let's just roll this quite extraordinary again. And if I don't win this election, Israel with comrade Kamala Harris at the helm of the United States is doomed. Israel is doomed. That's a tough statement. Israel will be gone. One year, two years, Israel will no longer exist. I better win. I better win. Oh, you're going to have problems like we've never had. We may have no country left with it. Maybe our last election. You want to know the truth? People have said that. This may be our last election. You got to get out and vote. This could be our last election. I mean, honestly, U.S. elections are, I don't know, off the scale, hand to mind at the moment. Yes, Vanessa, put a smile on the face and the allegations that Iran is supporting terrorism in Sudan and Algeria. I think Britain is a much more likely candidate for that. Anyway, thank you for that. Let's come back to Britain then, Charles and the latest on farming. Thanks, Mike. Yes. Today is, at least according to the National Farmers Union, the NFU. Today is back British Farming Day and they've been setting up a stall in Parliament Square to make this public. I think the big question to ask is, are the NFU supporting British farming and there might be some evidence to suggest that might not exactly be the case. They've also criticized Defra today about underspending on subsidy, of course, subsidy described as creating slaves by Julian Rose who gave a very good interview to the economy. Here's Tom Bradshaw, the NFU president from that article saying that a 358 million underspend over three years is unacceptable and nothing short of a kick in the teeth to farmers and growers who have faced years of uncertainty and loss of income during the agricultural transition. Well, you'd think therefore that Defra and the NFU might be at loggerheads, but that's perhaps not quite the case. Also published today are the statistics from Defra or the amount of money they have spent in all the various subsidy classes, the farming and countryside program annual report covering the period up to the year up to 31st of March 2024. So it is going to be a bit of a date, especially given all the changes that were put in place by Steve Barkley, the previous secretary for the environment earlier on in the year, but nonetheless, in the introductory text here, it's worth noting that they say that the program pays farmers and land managers to deliver significant and important outcomes for climate mitigation, adaptation and the environment alongside food production, these actions contribute to the goal set out in the environmental improvement plan, third, national adaptation plan and the net zero growth plan. Now, simply the order in which those things are listed suggests that actually the priority is not perhaps food production, but is more likely to be net zero and the environmental schemes which do not go hand in hand with food production when you scrutinize the schemes themselves. Now, just to look at the figures in a bit of detail, we see that the total spend this year has been $2.14 billion, but that's down from $2.45 billion four years ago. The land management schemes, which is what's been referred to, that this is where things are changing, is now a total of $806 million in the year versus $433 million four years ago. Productivity and innovation, though, essentially, money with which to produce more food is at $137 million, not money increases from $120 million in 2020-2031, but they do describe that they have taken on a data-driven approach to engage farmers across 97 regional and stakeholder events in London. Essentially, they would have been harvesting information with which to better control the farmers that they can reach, and also, they show off that they've produced 26 videos with 12,000 views and four podcast episodes with 4,900 donuts. I would say they could do better on that score, so I'm not quite sure why they've included it, but the thing to look at, really, is what are the priorities of a food production for either the NFU or DEFRA or not, and the NFU particularly is banging the drum for achieving net zero in farming by the year 2040 and in the introduction by minute batters, the president. She says that there's no single answer to this problem. To achieve our aim, we'll need a range of measures that fall under three broad headings, improving farming's productive efficiency, improving land management and changing land use to capture more carbon, boosting renewable energy and the wider bio-economy. Overall, it looks like the priorities for both the NFU and DEFRA are summed up not just by the way in which the money is being spent, and indeed, the shift of focus onto environmental schemes that people are being pushed into, or at least incentivized into, but also the lack of investment into the production of food combined with the fact that of course a lot of land has been taken away from that. Now, to look further into this, going back some years, admittedly, I would encourage you to go to the UK column website and look at an article that Malcolm Massey wrote back in 2012, the National Farmers Union making government policy since 1947, just a tiny excerpt from that. The NFU's relationship with the government is further supported by the National Archives, which states in regards to the NFU's inclusion in the 1947 Agriculture Act, the government's aim was to maintain high levels of agricultural production through a system of guaranteed prices negotiated annually by the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Farmers Union. The unveiling of this close relationship will not surprise those farmers that believe NFU was pulling the strings during the foot and mouth disaster in 2001. Now, a lot might have changed since then, but nonetheless, the power base the NFU has is significant, and it certainly doesn't have to go along with the views of its membership. Of course, the council itself does decide what it is going to do and what it is going to say. And it looks at the moment that all they really care about is an obsession with what they're calling climate change. Thanks, Charles. And so the question is, if we're reducing our food production capability by taking land out of productive use, what are we going to do to replace it? And we've been highlighting for quite a few years now the issue of gene editing. Well, the BBC's decided to get onto this, and I'll explain why they have done in a second, but the BBC in-depth has published this article, the great gene editing debate, can if be safe and ethical? And this is their typo, so I just want to make sure everybody's clear about that. They do not understand the difference between the word if and the word it. So can if be safe and ethical? Now, just in case you're not sure, BBC in-depth is the new home and website on the website and app for the best analysis and expertise from our top journalists. So if you're wondering where the typos come from, it's from the BBC's top journalists. And they do offer a feedback button, so you can give your feedback if you want, and maybe you would like to. But I wanted to highlight one particular aspect of this because, of course, the Precision Breathing Act, as it's known, now was passed a couple of years ago. And so they have to say that at the time when that act was passed, many scientists working in the field were overjoyed. And they quote Professor Jonathan Nippier saying, "I thought, 'Great, this is going to encore a whole area of activity in the public and private sector,' but he says his hopes were soon dashed. The BBC reports for the law to come into effect. The Treasury legislation was required, and this was due to be passed by the parliament this July. That was before the election. But earlier than—sorry, that was after the election, but the earlier than expected election meant that this was not voted on by MPs and the Act is currently in limbo. So the Precision Breathing Act is—the BBC calls it—and I have to say, Charles called it the last time he mentioned it as well—is what it's known as. But I wonder why it has been called that because, of course, in doing that, they were removed or they don't make the point that the word's precision breeding were in brackets. And genetic technology has been effectively removed from the title, and perhaps that's for reasons that they don't want to highlight the genetic aspect of this, but I just wanted to remind everybody what this piece of legislation does and should get the secondary legislation passed, which the Labour government regime has said that it will do. It removes plants and animals produced, and this again is the government's typo in this case. Remove plants and animals produced through precision breeding technologies from regulatory requirements applicable in England to the environmental release and marketing of genetically modified organisms, introduced two notification systems, one for precision bred organisms used for research purposes and the other for marketing purposes the government collected will be the information collected will be published on the public register on gov.uk. Well, that hasn't happened because the secondary legislation hasn't been passed yet. Establish proportionate regulatory system for precision bred animals to ensure animal welfare is safeguarded. We will not be introducing changes to the regulations for animals until this system is in place. And finally, establish a new science-based authorization process for food and feed products derived from using precision bred plants and animals, again using gene editing. And so the question is, are we replacing food production on farmland, whether that be arable food production or animals with food production in factories and labs and so on. And I see that that is the direction of travel, and therefore we've got to be aware of that and making sure that this secondary legislation never gets passed. Charles, back to you on more countryside news. Thanks, Mike. Yes, of course farming being but one economic activity that takes place in the countryside, the labour manifesto from this year has said that under animal welfare considerations or concerns, they are going to improve the situation and they say they will ban trail hunting and the import of hunting trophies. Now this of course is an extension effectively of the Blair Era Hunting Act of 2004 which came into effect as a ban in 2005. Now, regardless of your views on the practice of hunting, the situation at hand is that trail hunting has effectively replaced hunting with dogs. There were exemptions to for stalking or fleshing wild animals, effectively to prevent damage to livestock, feed crops, timber, etc. Or to obtain meat for human or animal consumption, or to participate in a field trial, but essentially that was with a restriction to working with only two dogs and not working underground. So of course it was effectively impossible to actually continue to hunt. Now, even the Guardian at the time back in 2004, Geoffrey Wheatcroft writing here, "George Orr on hunting is a sock to MPs for war war in Iraq" and I think it is worth just going back and having a look over some of the things that were being said at the time. Short of improbable developments in the courts, fox hunting will become illegal in England on Friday. Many people reading this will no doubt be pleased, but I suggest that the left might pause before gloating and wipe any smiles off their faces. This is a very nasty piece of political work indeed and what it says about the Labour Party is truly horrible. So those who don't know the figures, by the way, more than 700 hours of parliamentary time were devoted to the hunting ban as against seven hours spent on the decision to invade Iraq, a comparison that sums up the way we are governed. Now, I would absolutely agree with that statement then and now, to go back to the practice of trail hunting, which effectively came into being after the ban on fox hunting, this is a statement from the British Home Sports Association just to define what it is, but specifically the concerns on the other side of the argument effectively which are that animals do still get chased and that the home dissociation is stating here, "If the homes pick up the scent of a live quarry, the huntsmen and other members of the staff stop the homes as soon as they are made aware that the homes are no longer following a trail that has been laid." Okay, that is somewhat questionable because it does seem to be a significant degree of evidence, just that doesn't always turn out like that. Nonetheless, they go on due to the persistent spurious allegations from our opponents that hunts are not trail hunting. The presence of saboteurs is trying to intentionally disrupt the legal activities, hunts record and keep evidence of their trail laying and files, files are kept of the day's activities. Now, as I said at the start, effectively this concerns what goes on in the economic situation or the economic dimension of the rural environment. So if this is of interest to you, then the British Hone Sports Association is having a national trail hunting day this Saturday the 14th of September, but the principle of course is the government is proposing to do away with an activity that provides a significant economic contribution to the rural environment. Here we have the Countryside Alliance a couple of years ago having a sort of look back at what happened back in 2004, and an interesting remark by Tim Bonner has written for the Countryside Alliance saying, "I'm asked at least once a week and have been for the past 20 years. When are we going to march again?" And my answer is, "We need a moment." Now, to me, this is an interesting remark and a strange way to look at things because I would perceive that in fact the rural environment has been under attack from successive governments for an awfully long time, and I wrote to the Countryside Alliance last year on exactly this principle to effectively ask why they didn't challenge the COVID restrictions due to their banner of liberty and livelihood. And I wrote as part of a longer email, "In 2020 and beyond, when a divisive and undemocratic campaign to destroy almost all of the British economy under the falsehood of a public health emergency, the Countryside Alliance remained silent, and their reply was that the COVID pandemic and subsequent policies put in place was not an area the Countryside Alliance had expertise in. So it was only right that we left the debate and discussions to those more qualified. They went on to say, "I appreciate you are concerned about state control and being monitored and tracked, but our campaigns reflect the concerns of our members, and this is not an issue that is on their agenda for the Countryside Alliance to campaign on." Well, without wanting to have too much of a pop at the Countryside Alliance or their membership, I would say that they are staggeringly naive and very, very short-sighted not to have seen this coming, for they are in a terrible predicament now. And this was encapsulated in a letter I saw in the back of the programme from the amazing Frampton Fair of this year, it's a picture of a Huntsman with a letter written on his back which I'll read out, which is, "Dear Labor, what will you do with the homes no longer used? What will you do with the horses? What jobs and houses will you find for thousands of those in Hunt Service? Will you collect the dead stock from farmers? Will you support the local pubs and shops, no longer seeing the benefits of hunt events and hunting folk? Will you support the ferriers with no work? Will you fix fences, plant hedges and trees? Will you provide a community who helps one another in any situation?" No, you won't. And that is the bottom line here, the government are not suggesting any kind of economic alternative to this and yet they're banging the drum about animal welfare, so just to remind you as a concluding remark, under the guidance on home slaughter, we have a passage here on stunning animals before killing, which is a requirement. According to their guidance it is a requirement in law and specifically they say if you kill an animal to eat on your property, you must know how to restrain, stun and kill the animal humanely and quickly, to avoid causing the animal any avoidable pain, distress or suffering. However, slaughter without stunning in accordance with religious rights can only take place in an approved slaughterhouse, so for the government to suggest that they are intending to improve animal welfare at the same time as having guidance and policy and legislation that quite clearly has a very sort of at least flexible line on where exactly animal welfare is perceived to be, is hypocrisy in the highest order and they haven't considered the economic ramifications of what they're planning to do. So I would just encourage people to think about exactly what this is and put to one side the actual practice of trailhunting itself. Charles, thank you for that. Now, last week we were talking about digital ID and in extra we talked about the new regulations that are in place for getting, if you're a British citizen and want to travel to the EU. So let's just play a little excerpt from from extra last week. The other thing I wanted to mention with us following on from the digital ID segment there, you'll all be glad to know that the formal announcement is out. So the government press release, I'll just read it to you, you'll love it. From autumn 2024, the EU will be introducing a new digital border system to strengthen the security of its external shang and border. The new registration process called the entry exit system or EES for short. There you go. That's good stuff is expected to be introduced in November. However, the EU has yet to confirm specific date for his introduction. It will apply those traveling to the shang and area which encompasses all EU countries except from Cyprus and Ireland. Additionally, the non-EU states, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Liechtenstein are also part of the shang and area. This will require most citizens of countries outside the EU to create a digital record and register their biometric details such as providing fingerprints and having their photo taken as they enter the shang and area. This should only take a few minutes for each person to do. British travellers will need to do this on their first visit to the EU after EES is introduced. Their records will be checked on point of entry into the shang and area verifying either their fingerprints or photographs. So there you go. Digital ID will, if you refuse to take part, will prevent you going to France, Germany or any other shang and country. I did receive an email from somebody suggesting that perhaps it was voluntary. It is absolutely not voluntary. But don't worry if you think it's unfair that British people, British citizens have to do this going to the EU. It works both ways and Britain has its own similar scheme. It's not called the EES. It's called the electronic travel authorisation. There's an app that you can get from the app store or from the play store if you're on Android. Anyone wishing to travel to the UK except British citizens will need permission to travel in advance of coming here. This can be either through an ETA or an EVISA. They are confirming that from the 27th of November 2024 eligible non-Europeans can apply for an ETA and will need an ETA to travel from the 8th of January 2025. ETA's will then extend eligible Europeans from the 5th of March 2025 and will need an ETA to travel from the 2nd of April 2025. So the digital ID regime moves on a pace. I'm sure we'll be talking a little bit more about that as well and extra. Charles, let's just end then with a government contract. Yes, a government contract of some note. Now we were all scratching our heads along with Sir Keir a few weeks ago when he discovered there was a great big black hole in the economy or in something. And looking at the government contracts finder, I was extremely surprised to see that there is a contract out at the moment for facilities, management and security services to the value of £120 billion. Yes, you did read that correctly and so did I. They have gone on to say that it's, sorry, just trying to make the thing go forward, the Crown Commercial Service intends to put in place a pan-government collaborative agreement for the provision of facilities, management and security services to be utilised by central government departments and all other UK public sector bodies including local authorities, health police, fire and rescue, education and devolved administrations. Now admittedly this is over a number of years but it is an eye-watering figure and when we can consider the question of what is government for and how much do we need it, this is one such statistic that really does wait one think that little bit more about it and also I should say that with the vast parts of the former defence estate now being used for asylum seekers, refugees and perhaps prisoners, I wonder if that might explain why there are quite so many zeroes on the end of that figure. Yes indeed, I was wondering as you say thank you Charles, thank you Vanessa for joining us as well, thank you all for watching. We'll be back in a few minutes for some extra. If you're a UK column member, if you're not don't forget the interview at 1pm tomorrow and we'll be back with more news at 1pm on Friday, we'll see you then. Bye-bye. We wear our work day by day, stitch by stitch. At Dickies we believe work is what we're made of. 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