UK Column Radio
UK Column News Podcast 13th September 2024
Mike Robinson, Debi Evans and Mark Anderson 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-13th-september-2024
- Duration:
- 1h 2m
- Broadcast on:
- 13 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
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It's Friday the 13th of September, 2024, just after one o'clock. Welcome to UK column news. I'm your host, Mike Robinson, joining me by video link. We have Mark Anderson from the United States and Debbie Evans from Cornwall and welcome both. We're kicked off with events from Wednesday with the fantastic David Lamy and Blinken heading off to Ukraine. So David Lamy and Blinken demonstrating Western support, they say, for Ukraine's fight against Russian aggression. This shouldn't be making fun of it because it's actually quite serious. So these are apparently the first two international leaders and inverted commas to go and visit the new ministers following Zelensky's reshuffle. And part of this was Lamy announcing 242 million pounds in funding to support Ukraine. As they describe it in the face of relentless Russian attacks and the deployment of $464 million worth of fiscal support and military equipment deliveries. The big question, though, is why they would be announcing or whether or not they would be announcing the approval of the use of long-range weapons against the Russian state, the Russian territory. No, they didn't announce that at the time. But Blinken was saying that the US had from day one been willing to change his policy as the situation on the battlefield changed and saying that he's going to continue to do this. This is what David Lamy had to say, very exciting stuff. The special relationship has been cherished on both sides of the Atlantic for more than 80 years, but together we are committed to supercharging our alliance to bring security and growth. So they're going to bring security and growth by blowing up Europe, Eastern Europe. He said the escalator here is Putin. Putin has escalated with the shipment of missiles from Iran. We see a new axis of Russia, Iran, and North Korea. So he's basically saying that because Iran has sent missiles to Russia, that therefore the UK and the US are likely to approve the use of long-range missiles in order to attack Russian territory itself, not just for use in Ukraine, as they have been being used, but to attack Russian territory. He went on to say China should not throw in its lot with this group of renegades. So this group of three countries is a group of renegades, apparently. Well, China seems to have already thrown its lot. Thanks to Debbie for reminding me about this. This is the latest. This is the ocean 2024. Exercise is taking place at the moment. It's taking place until the 16th of September, and Russia and China's Navy warships meeting in Peter the Great Bay to participate in this exercise, more than 400 warships, submarines, support vessels, 120 naval aircraft, 7,000 units of weaponry, military and special hardware, more than 90,000 personnel participating in these drills. As I say, they're taking place in the Pacific, the Arctic, Mediterranean, Caspian, and Baltic seas. And so China already involved in this. But coming back then to the events in Kiev, the response and the potential for sending long-range weapons to Ukraine for use in Russian territory, Putin gave a statement about this yesterday saying, "We're not talking about authorizing or prohibiting the Kiev regime from striking Russian territory. It already does so with the help of drones and other means, but when it comes to the use of Western-made long-range precision weapons, that's a completely different story. If this decision is made, it will mean nothing but the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, European countries, in the war in Ukraine. This is their direct participation, and this, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict. It will mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries, are at war with Russia. And in this case, then, bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that are opposed to. So there's no ambiguity about this. He's absolutely clear about what the potentials are here. But in the meantime, what's the Western media pumping out? Putin threatens war as Western allies near deal on missile strikes in Russia. So his key point here, Putin's key point, is that these weapons cannot be used except with the use of Western personnel. There's Western personnel that would be programming the weapons, and therefore it's direct intervention. It's a very significant development. Blinken then tweeting this out, "During my meetings with President Duda, Prime Minister Tusk and Foreign Minister Sikorsky, we again made clear that the U.S. and Poland stand united as NATO allies in support of Ukraine in the face of Russia's aggression. Our relationship with Poland has never been stronger, so Blinken had, after visiting Kiev, headed off to Poland. Well, this garnered a response from one Polish member of the European Parliament. Blinken, go home. Go home. As soon as possible, get lost, get lost. We don't want you here. We don't want Polish people paying and dying for your worth. Thank you very much." That's a pretty clear message. The question then is, is there any opposition to what's going on in the U.K. And of course, the answer is no. So this is the former Defense Secretary Grant Shaps, tweeting out, "When the President of the United States and Kyr Starmer meet today, they must give Ukraine the green light to use storm shadow missiles inside Russia. As I argued in the Times, it's hypocritical to support Ukraine but restrict itself defence. We must back Ukraine fully in their fight for freedom, no time to hesitate." So this was the article in The Times from last Sunday, led Ukraine strike Russia with our storm shadow missiles. So just to reinforce this, again, Ukraine cannot strike Russia with our storm shadow missiles. Western personnel would need to be handling this, not only in terms of providing the targeting and the intelligence for it, but the programming of the tracks themselves. So this would be direct intervention. Then in the meantime, Sikorski, who we've just mentioned, who's the Foreign Minister in Warsaw, published this or at least was reported in the telegram in an interview with The Financial Times, saying Poland has a duty to shoot down Russian missiles over Ukraine. Now, this is the situation that Poland has been discussing over the last few weeks, whether or not it would fire anti-missiles from the Polish side of the border into Ukraine in airspace in order to shoot down Russian missiles. But unfortunately, Mr. Sikorski was caught out, as many other Western leaders have been, by Volva and Lexus a couple of days ago. And he said this about the question of whether missiles should be shot from the Polish side of the border. If we will lose some control, could you help us? And as I know, Macron, if Macron agreed, if the U.K. agreed, could you join the U.K. and the team? My Prime Minister would be very reluctant to do it. We are discussing at the moment the shooting down of Russian cruise missiles over your airspace, from our airspace, without entering into your territory. And even that, at this stage, is very, very controversial. And there is no agreement for that, because it would be joining the war. So first of all, an acknowledgement that Putin is right, that would be joining the war. And that's not even talking about long-range weapons. But the other point is here, there seems to be a bit of a difference in the narrative being presented by this man, whenever he's speaking to Western media, and whenever he thinks he's speaking to somebody who's within the Ukrainian regime, it's unfortunate you get caught out there. And then just finally on this, of course, one of the big discussion points is election interference by Russia. The Russian foreign intelligence agencies are claiming that the West, and particularly the United States, are going to be interfering in the upcoming Georgian elections that are taking place at the end of October. And they're basically suggesting that there's going to be quite a lot of attempt to bring people out onto the streets to overthrow the current Georgian government, which, of course, takes a relatively pro-Russian position. So that's the situation at the moment. It's very dangerous, particularly if we're looking at ramping up the situation with long-range weapons into Russian territory itself. But Mark, let me welcome you to the program and bring us up to date with what's been going on with the election campaigning and the recent debates. Mike, I'll say at the onset here that what's going on in Georgia is strikingly reminiscent of what happened in Ukraine 10 years ago when the U.S. interfered and overthrew a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine itself. Something we can maybe expand on an extra anyway, September 10 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ABC News/Public Television Trump Harris debate took place. This is a picture kind of reminiscent and emblematic of how Harris responded to Trump's very straightforward, somewhat more simplistic style of speaking. She winced and smiled and smirked at him many, many times. It was kind of entertaining in his own way, but moving on from there, these are some of the key talking points, though not all of them. Freewheeling Trump, who's used to wide open rallies and less regulated venues, was not really in his element at this thing. It had tight speaking timeframes, no audience, he loves an audience, and facing inherent media bias. Former Senator Kamala Harris, of course, she's used to speaking in regimented ways on the Senate floor, and as a former AG of California, she explained her views somewhat more clearly than Trump. She managed to get under his skin, put him on the defensive, therefore he went off into tangents and got a little overly repetitive while commenting on certain topics. He perhaps should have avoided Trump strongly stressed Kamala's position on immigration carrying over as Biden's vice president and saying that that would open up the U.S. to dangerous criminal elements that apparently are gaining strength. So he's saying a Kamala Harris presidency would be Biden on steroids in terms of an open border, and he also warned, if I didn't happen to put this in the talking points, he warned that under Kamala Harris, Mike, that the war in Ukraine would not be diffused, that it would get worse, and that the situation with the Israelis and Gaza would get worse, and he said a Trump presidency would have a lot of diplomacy to notch down those conflicts and actually end the conflicts he claimed. So some interesting things there. When we move on an American free press headline, your town next, what would you do if 20,000 poverty-stricken immigrants were dumped in your backyard, don't laugh that maybe on the way. So this editorial is saying that under a Harris presidency, we would have even more federal resettlement programs, and a couple of talking points, D.C. insiders, including ultra liberal, dem politicians, allied media, et cetera, have been making a mockery of genuine and considering genuine citizen concerns about mass illegal immigration, free trade policies, et cetera. In addition, towns like Springfield, Ohio, already decimated by trade deals like NAFTA, whose citizens are the new migrants, very ironic, are then burdened with federal resettlement programs of foreigners. In this case, 20,000 Haitians have been resettled in and around the former industrial powerhouse of Springfield, Ohio. And very interesting there. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris, of course, really attacked Trump, saying he's an insurrectionist, he's a felon, and that he tried to overturn the election. Ironically, we're talking about Georgia elections overseas and Georgia elections in the United States. In the swing state of Georgia, one day before the debate, the irrepressible Garland Faverito of voter GA, voterGA.org, he gave a press conference. The truth about Georgia's state election board, the powers that be in the state of Georgia are trying to prevent voter GA from exposing the fact that the 2020 election in that swing state was indeed stolen and that Trump really did win that state. And so the kind of ironic juxtaposition there where these programs are being suppressed by the media, and yet if they were more widely known like we're trying to do right now, then it would be very obvious that Kamala Harris was making very empty allegations about Trump saying that he's an election thief and things like that. So much more could be talked about, but the debate, I think, showed that Trump, while he had a more forceful way of speaking, tended to be, again, more repetitive. He tended to be a little more simplistic. He got off on these tangents, some people believe that it weakened his position for the election and that he may have lost swing voters, undecided voters. And that after all, Mike was supposed to be the target audience, not the Trump faithful, but the undecided voters and a lot of Republicans, and even including RFK Jr., who's a new Trump ally, you might say, all of them kind of believe more or less that Trump lost the debate and failed to address those swing voters, those undecided voters. But the Trump campaign is bouncing back, they're doing lots of new rallies, things of that nature, Mike. And so it's going to be an interesting race, although it's rather regrettable. And I went to that conference a little over a year ago for U.K.C. in Austin, Texas. It's rather regrettable that we still have this duopoly system and that all we have to choose from is President Trump and Kamala Harris. It's ballot access laws, keep alternative candidates off the ballot. You have both parties that keep alternative candidates out of the debates, including RFK Jr., even a Kennedy couldn't qualify to be on the debates. So it's a really rigged system here, Mike. But nevertheless, that's what went down. Those are the main talking points. And perhaps next week, there'll be a little more of the aftermath of that debate. So back to you. I do apologize, I'm muted there. It's the same here, exactly the same situation with people being limited from taking part in hustings and getting time on TV and so on. Basically the BBC's policy is, for example, that the amount of time that you get, the amount of airtime that you get as a candidate is directly proportional to the popularity of the party that you are a part of. So if you're an independent, you get almost zero. By almost zero, I mean a matter of a few seconds. But if you're a Tory or a liver party is candidate, then of course you're getting all the time. So there is no prospect of any kind of serious opportunity to overturn the order in the country. So thanks for that, Mark. Now Debbie, let's come over to you then and bring us up. Well, we're introducing the youngest peer, the youngest member of the House of Lords. Who is she? Well, yes, good afternoon, everybody, and that's a very good question. And this was a rabbit hole that took me to a Warren, actually. So let's look at the London Economic, which announced that Boris Johnson is going into business with Steve Bannon, Charlotte Owen, and a Uranian entrepreneur. And this came from an original report from, I do apologise if I don't pronounce her name correctly, Carol Cadwala-Dra, who's a journalist for the Observer who noticed this and the article goes on to say that the right, honorable Alexander Boris de Fuffel Johnson was added as a director and co-chairman of the Energy Transition Company, Better Earth, which will work with national government and it's based in seven oaks. Now this is interesting because this was added to Companies House on the 1st of May 2024. So just keep that date in mind, I'm not going to go into detail on Better Earth, I'm just going to show you their website, they're very much into solar energy, I'm sure we'll be doing more news on this in the future. But this isn't the first time that Boris has been interested in Better Earth and I just want to take you back to an advice letter of a business appointment that was announced UK Gov, which said that Boris should not be involved in anything to do with Better Earth for two years after his term as Prime Minister or as a minister and he shouldn't give advice on matters that don't conflict. Well, according to my records, Companies House, that was the 1st of May, he was appointed. He didn't resign as a Prime Minister until June, I think it was 2022. So it's not quite two years there, so a little bit of a discrepancy. But anyway, who's Charlotte Owen, you might ask yourselves. Well, Charlotte Owen is indeed now a peer. She's the youngest life peer that Boris has recommended. She was a senior parliamentary assistant, a spat in a censure. She's only been in Parliament for five years and eight months, I think it is. And people are absolutely staggered at the way that this young lady has been elevated. Her mum lives in Audelie Edge in Cheshire, which is a very expensive part of Cheshire, I believe, and her dad sadly died two years ago, age 91. The spectator perhaps is speculating with this title, Boris's Babes to join the Lords, because there is and has been a lot to talk about. So a remarkable resemblance between our newest Baroness and the Prime Minister. So let's go to the Lords themselves and we'll look at Baroness Owen of Audelie Edge. And what is she interested in and who is she? So not much information, but she's a Conservative. She's a member of the preterm committee, her policy interests, her energy and environment. Well, that will come in handy, wouldn't it, since she's also now on the board of Better Earth. She's interested in online harm, so I'm sure Mike will prick up on that. Tech, Developmental AI, Women's Health, Young People, she's concerned about the northwest of the UK, perhaps because her mum lives there. And globally, like me, she's concerned about India and the USA, but what experience does she have? Well, according to the Lords, none. So you can see why so many have been surprised at her sudden elevation. But hey, you know what, don't take my word for it. Let's have a listen to Baroness Charlotte being interviewed by Channel 4. I mean, why do you think that Boris Johnson appointed you to the Lords? What were you told at the time? You simply get an email through with your nomination form. So were you surprised when you got it through then? I think everybody's surprised, aren't they? But it was as much a surprise to you as to everybody else. Of course, nobody really expects such a thing. It's an honour. I mean, there was an array of lurid claims about you online, and a lot of people believed at least some of it. We've been talking about digital fabrication of women's images against their will. I mean, just as damaging clearly is the online fabrication of facts, you know, misinformation as we might call it. Do you worry that people don't know what to believe about you, for example? Falsehoods in the creation of falsehoods online is always wrong, and that's why I want to be an advocate. I want to help put this law through to prevent more women becoming victims of this technology. And I believe that misinformation and disinformation and deepfakes as a part of this will form a huge topic of conversation for the next decade. So there you have our youngest life peer. She was 29 when she was, when she gained her seat in the Lord, she's 31 now. But she's got some areas of interest, actually, that I share too. So when I went to look at what debates she'd taken part in, here we've got one on the NHS app Medical Records, and this is the rabbit hole that I was explaining that led me to a rabbit Warren, and in our second segment, you'll see why. And she's also been talking about tackling spiking. And I just want to remind everybody that these are two areas that I've been looking at, intently, and on UK column website, you will see my hypothesis on the word spiked, because it's also coming up for more legislation it was talked about in the King's speech. And also, as you know, we've been talking a lot about the NHS app, but you know what? This one is especially for Ben, my next slide, because if you want to know more about our newest life peer, go no further than tortoise media, who of course, as you know, Ben has been talking about in huge details, so perhaps more to look out for with the baroness Owen of Alderly Edge. Thank you, Debbie. We'll have more on this immediately after the ad break, so let's just do that now and say if you like what the UK column does, then you would like to support us, and we do need your support. Five or a month as a membership, it's less expensive if you take out an annual membership, but please do that if you possibly can. Share our material, because as usual, we are the shadow band and the rest with Facebook and YouTube and so on. We're currently suspended from YouTube once again, because of the coverage of the polio vaccine in Gaza. If you would like to pick something up with the UK column shop, there's quite a bit of material there to have a look at, especially if we continue to mention this in your life in their hands. If you haven't got this or distributed around the place, please do. Debbie, very briefly, your blog. Yes, my blog. Well, actually, thank you to all of our wonderful members, because a lot of my blog this week is your comments and your views, but we're also going to be looking at the autumn budget and the Darcy report. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Debbie. A reminder of the UK column on location at Bristol 19th of October, 2024. Lots of great speakers there. All the UK column people will be there as well. Bob Moran will be there and a whole bunch of other people. So please do join us for that if you possibly can. Tickets are available at the UK column shop. And Brian and I will be speaking at the Heritage Party Conference on the 28th of September. Also at heritageparty.org and final reminder of Raleigh for Peace Glasgow. If you're in the Glasgow, Redenburg area, head along to that tomorrow. That is 1pm at the Commonwealth Monument in Glasgow Green, a bunch of great speakers at that as well. If you can possibly support them, that would be fantastic. So Debbie, a second ago you mentioned the Darcy report. What have you got? I did indeed. And this is where everything joins up, doesn't it? So let's look at the Independent who ran this article about Tory austerity and shake-ups have left NHS in critical condition. Well, the Darcy report, Lord Darcy, of course, who is a Labour Minister under Gordon Brown. He's Independent now. He's a surgeon. This report that he was commissioned to do. So what does it say? Well, we've had no progress in early cancer diagnosis. In fact, our cancer, survival rates are the lowest in Europe. Can I just also highlight that this is an NHS review, not a social care review? And that's very, very different. And really, all of the things that he said that hospitals are getting too much money, the community is not getting enough. It's all the Tories. Well, basically, I believe this report, which has been compiled in eight weeks, believe it or not, eight weeks, is basically a green light to cure stammer, to digitize and change and rebuild the whole of the NHS. So digital health actually did report that they, it seems to me as though they've given the green light to cure stammer, because according to the Lord Darcy report, this has given him every reason to digitize the NHS, a digital NHS. Well, you can find the independent report on the website, but I would like to say that the independent report of the front page, which you'll see on the next slide, is over 600 pages long. So I will be reporting more on this in the future, but they're talking about turbocharging the timeframe for digitization. They say the NHS is in serious trouble, and we can't rely on it. Well, we knew that already, didn't we? The conclusion, basically, was that the NHS's health has deteriorated, the nation's health has deteriorated. Well, I wonder why the nation's health has deteriorated, I can point them in a few directions. But despite the challenges, the NHS's vital signs remain strong. Well, I see that as a contradiction in terms, personally. And we know that Tony Blair has been very keen on preparing the NHS for an AI era. We've done a lot of work on this before. If you want to go back and have a look at the news on the 23rd of August 2024, we were talking about it. And thanks to Baroness Charlotte Owen, I found this debate that took place on December the 19th, 2023, where Lord Alan Hallam was asking the government what measures were really being put into place to mitigate the risk of people sharing their medical data to third party communities through the NHS app. Now, this is a very interesting discussion. On the next slide, you'll see that Lord Markham, and I just want to tell you that Lord Markham, he was made a life peer in 2022, he's the Parliamentary Undersecretary for Social Care. He was formerly an unpaid government junior. He set up the charity project Little Boat and delivered PPE and other essential equipment, no revolving doors there, and he also co-founded Signpost, which is spelled C-I-G-N, by the way, C-I-G-N-P-O-S-T Diagnostics, and he works with the Elite in Express PCR testing. So big revolving door then, but he is trying to reassure everyone that not to worry because we have to use a login detail and everything's really secure. So let's jump on then to the next slide from Lord Turnberg, who highlights the need to use data for medical research, or yes, how important it is to use a medical research data. And Lord Turnberg, who's replying for the government, says yes, we must need, we must have balance. But then Baroness Brinton, she said, well, what about happens when, such as in financial data, when it was sold to subsidiaries and contractors and third parties, is this going to be the same as our health data? And she's also got concerns regarding India and the USA. But Lord Markham, again, reassured her that don't worry because the GPs, NHS and hospital, they're the data controllers and it will remain with them. Well, my argument is that we know that the NHS is basically a public-private partnership, so your data is going to which companies I don't know. So then further on, Baroness McIntosh was asking, well, what are we doing about sharing data for clinical trials with Europe? And Lord Markham was very keen to remind her that this was very important for the Life Sciences Agenda and the UK data is the envy of the world, I bet it is, and that 90% of UK data has been digitised, whereas only in Germany, 1%. And then the debate goes on to Baroness Merren, who was talking at last about safety. And she was talking about domestic abuse and what happens if this sensitive information that's sitting on your phone or your device could be accessed by partners or spouses or anybody in association with family courts, for example. And Lord Markham came up with a very strange response and said, well, don't worry, it's all very safe because even if you hold somebody else's head into it or if somebody's eyes are closed or if someone's asleep, you can't get into the app. But he went on to say that safeguards are in place and they were looking at it. But then I went to look at refuge because I just took a little break in the debate because refuge to charity have issued a letter to the government urging survivors of domestic abuse to contact their GP services immediately to request that their online medical sharing be switched off. They have deep concerns that perpetrators abuse, perpetrators will abuse and utilise the records for abuse purposes. They also urge that they should delete the NHS app until there's better safeguarding. And we would say, I would say to all members, actually, if you're a member tuning for extra because we'll be talking a bit more about this, because it seems that Hertfordshire partnership don't appear to have received the memo because they've actually launched their own app called We Protect for victims of domestic abuse. But quite clearly, this opens up a huge debate on how sensitive is your data and if you're elderly, for example, and carers, who gets access to your medical records. So back to the Lords and we'll go and see Baroness Bull this time, who's making the point of if you have private medicine, do your private medical records get integrated into this whole digitisation of medical records? Because what if you need A&E care? What if you've been abroad for surgery perhaps? What if you've had private medical care and that's not in your records? How does that equate if you need accident and emergency, which is an NHS service? And Lord Markham replied to Rhea Shorha that the NHS Federated Data Platform has got loads of data from loads of places and don't worry, basically, nothing to see here. But he also said that you own your data, you own your paperwork. Well, I don't think you do, actually, because you can get copies of your medical records, but ultimately the originals stay with the NHS. And finally coming full circle to back to Baroness Owen of Olderley Edge, which is where all of this started in the first place. And she asked in tech of the future, because she's very interested in the future and she's very into technology, well, she didn't have long to wait to have an answer to her question because the UK Authority have just announced that the NHS app will include a digital health check. So here we go. This is the first stage. This is the key to the door. The NHS app is not convenience, it is control. And they say that 1.2 million have been accessing their medical records every day. And just to finish this segment, I want to thank mixed master Miraj, yet again, who brought up this wonderful graphic, delete the NHS app. It's your choice. If you don't trust the NHS app, if you feel that your data is being shared with people that you don't know, you might choose to delete it. However, when I went to show a little bit of video that Sam kindly did for UK column on how to delete the video, it's only 18 seconds long, apparently it was warned on X for adult content. So I'll leave that with you. So scrap the app, app, trap, it's your choice, your decision. Yes, thank you, Debbie. Thank you very much for that. Of course, we do need to make the point that this issue of sharing data with international partners and inverted commas was something that was going to be particularly enabled by legislation that the Tory party was pushing through, that they failed to get through before the general election was called. But don't worry, because the Starmer regime is busy bringing that legislation forward again. It's got a new title, not so different from the last one. But it's basically going to have the same content, possibly even more enabling than the Tories had intended. That seems to be the way that the Starmer regime is going. Okay, let's move on then to the media and particularly digital news. And this is the new Reuters Institute Digital News report. Now this has been created by the Reuters Institute in collaboration with the Oxford University of Oxford. And I just want to go through some of the points that they make here, because most of it is a bit sort of whiny. But let's start off here. In these troubled times, a supply of accurate and independent journalism remains more important than ever. And yet many of the countries covered in our survey, we find the news media increasingly challenged by rising mis and disinformation, low trust, attacks by politicians, and an uncertain business environment. So some of this is good news because the corporate media are finding things extremely difficult in many, many countries around the world. And of course, whenever they talk about the rise of mis and disinformation, what they mean by that is the challenge of the rise of the truth. But anyway, we move on. They say our country pages this year are filled with examples of layoffs, closures and other cuts due to a combination of rising costs, falling advertising revenues, and sharp declines in traffic from social media. Mark, I'm going to just ask you for comment here because I'm interested to know what the situation in the United States is with respect to closures and layoffs and whatnot. But I'm also fascinated that what this report is clearly stating is that mainstream corporate media is starting to see the same type of restriction on reach that perhaps alternative media has been experiencing over the last few years for various reasons that will come on to. But what's the situation in the states with respect to layoffs and closures? It might not be quite as dire of a situation, but it's happening in Canada too. There's all these claims that smaller newspapers, smaller TV outlets, radio are experiencing a news desert, a news desert is resulting because so many of these things are either hanging by a threat or these entities are going out of business. Therefore, to fill the void, we need more of the legacy media's content. We need more of the mass media cartel's style of news, and nothing could be further from the truth. What you said is spot on, Mike, that truthful alternative media like ourselves, we don't have to hesitate in saying that are gaining ground. Maybe not always as fast as we'd like, but they're beginning to feel the pinch, so they have to label it "miss and disinformation" so they can kind of divert people's attention from what's really happening. It's just a question of whether Congress in the US and the Canadian government will act to bail out or save these entities. There has been legislation in the states and the Canadian government has acted to try and salvage at least some of these smaller legacy media outlets. They end up getting direct government money in the process, and therefore, there'll be even more of a controlled narrative in return. It's largely good news, really almost completely good news that this is happening, and they're just trying to mislabel it so people don't realize that the real reason they're going out of business, yes, there's layoffs, yes, there's increased costs, but the real reason at the core is because people don't believe the media anymore, and that is growing and that is great news. That's the bottom line. Absolutely, Mark, thank you for that. Let's go on with this then. They go on to say there's no single cause for this crisis that's been building for some time, but many of the immediate challenges are compounded by the power and changing strategies of rival big tech companies, including social media, search engines, and video platforms. Some are now explicitly deprioritizing news and political content while others have switched focus from publishers to creators and pushing more fun and engaging formats, including video to keep more attention within their own platforms. Concern about what is real and what is fake on the internet when it comes to online news is risen by 3 percentage points in the last year. They said with around 6 to 10, 6 and 10, 59 percent, saying that they're concerned. The figure is considerably higher in South Africa and the United States. Both countries that have been holding elections this year, well, I mean, that's nonsense in a sense because most of the planet has been holding elections this year, so many, many countries holding elections and to focus on those two in the course of that point is a bit daft, but they go on to say this as publishers embrace the use of AI. We find widespread suspicion about how it might be used, especially for hard news stories, such as politics of war, there's more comfort with the use of AI and behind the scenes tasks, such as transcription and translation and supporting rather than replacing journalists. So they produced a graph which I thought would show, and this is showing the proportion of people that are uncomfortable with using news on the following topics, which has been produced mostly by AI, and there are a number of countries in the small print at the bottom there, including Africa, in fact, a continent there, but including Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey, that they say have not been included in this survey for this particular set of statistics. But I find it quite disturbing that they're saying that 46% are uncomfortable about AI being used to generate political news, because that implies that there is a majority of people that are prepared to actually enjoy the fact that AI is producing political news, and I think this is a pretty dangerous direction to be heading in. And then finally on this, I just want to show the proportion, because Mark was talking there about trust, the proportion that trust most, sorry, news most of the time, and just looking at one particular region, which is Northern Europe, and we find the UK at the bottom of the list with only 36% of the population trusting most news most of the time, and I think that is an encouraging statistic, that particular one is an encouraging statistic, because it demonstrates just how, importantly, people view the news that's coming out of the United Kingdom, mainstream news, because they're not talking about alternative news in these statistics. But Mark, let's head back to the United States, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, sorry. Yes, September 12, I was able to cover this virtually and took some original photos and notes. Trade War 2.0, question mark, the 2024 election in the global economy was the program, a couple of speakers and a moderator, there wasn't as much mention of the election and the two major presidential candidates as the billing of this indicated, but there were some general connections made. Quickly, this is Karl Friedoff, he's the Marshall-Booten Fellow for Asia Studies, he was the moderator, one of the two speakers, Heidi Kribow-Redeker, she is Council on Foreign Relations as well as Tri-Lateral Commission, a senior fellow in fact in the Center for Geoechonomic Studies at the CFR, and she served in the Obama Administration as the State Department's first chief economist. So she's pretty confident in her predictions, but as I will indicate, her accuracy is seriously up to question. There was one other speaker, Diane Swank, a chief economist for KPMGUS, which is a major consulting firm, three decades of experience in the field, she's an expert in labor markets and monetary policy and she regularly briefs the Federal Reserve in its regional banks. She noted immigration reductions and imposing current and especially more tariffs are always going to be inflationary, she warned, breathlessly warning us, even while charging import tariffs takes the U.S. on a dangerous path, and I'll be talking more about her views and rebutting her a little bit later here. Some of the key talking points, Mike, however, the current U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, the Trump enacted, are still being applied by Biden, these presenters said, which is a bit of a surprise when you consider that Biden tore down a lot of Trump's border wall and didn't allow other parts of it to be erected. Moving on, the November elections are highly consequential regarding spending, tax policy, spending tariffs, and weather immigration will be curbed a lot, like Trump would do, or not, like Harris would do, and the rolling over of certain Trump tax cuts into the next presidential term could boost the budget deficit. The claim in the debate with Harris was that Trump's tax cuts benefited only the wealthy. Anyway, regardless of which candidate has elected president, these think tank wonks were saying, supply chain diversification must be dealt with, the U.S. must reduce its foreign, especially Chinese dependency on sensitive things like semiconductor production, and partisan political infighting will put the U.S. credit at risk, but the Chicago Council, the CFR, the trilateral commission, despite their non-partisan claims, are partisan in a different sense, and that's always worth mentioning that these think tanks always say they're non-partisan, but the real divide isn't Democrat Republican. The real thing to look at is nationally oriented versus internationally oriented. In other words, your home country and sovereignty versus globalism, that's the real partisanship to look for. Therefore, these think tanks are highly partisan. Anyway, some more talking points, sticking to the key ones, Swank mentioned that U.S. must never and never, ever default on its debt. Hence the need to bolster the credit rating of the U.S. plus anti-corporate sentiment, and this is good news in a sense, anti-corporate sentiment is at a record high in both parties, part of a larger trend of the distrust of institutions, which includes the news institutions. So that shows the unity of the people is growing across the so-called party partisan divide, which is something the globalists don't really like to see, Mike. They don't like to see people on both sides of the so-called aisle beginning to find more common ground. And I saw this admission last week when I talked about Russell Mead addressing the American Enterprise Institute. Anyway, China's looking at smaller kit manufacturing hubs in Mexico to try and get around U.S. tariffs applied to imports directly from China. And this was talked about at some length. China would therefore put a hub or smaller factory in Mexico and manufacture certain things that would go across the Mexican border into the U.S. and presumably they would escape the tariffs that would normally be applied to Chinese goods coming directly from China. And Ms. Swank went out to say that jobs for immigrants may displace U.S. based jobs, but she claimed that hiring foreign-born workers in the U.S. would somehow spur more native-born U.S. people to apply for such jobs. And she mentioned that 25% of all U.S. construction workers are foreign-born. And U.S. tariffs on imports, these two think-takers said, "We'll spark a massive trade war." They warned this over and over again and said they're super deflationary, excuse me, super inflationary to sustain and increase U.S. tariffs. But I always note, and I'll talk a little bit more about this after a video that we're going to show, various domestic taxes could also be defined as tariffs on the domestic economy and all taxes one way or another, one degree or another, always end up in the final price tags. These people speak as if only tariffs will end up in the final price tags, but all taxes, all kinds of taxes, property taxes, inventory taxes, income taxes, one way or another, one degree or another, will end up making products and services cost more. This is part of the deception that these globalists always sow. Anyway, I was able to ask a question, Mike, virtually, naturally, it couldn't be there to this event. And my question was the only one chosen from the field of online questions, and I asked this and we'll look at the video that we'll accent this even more. I asked our tariffs really so bad, doesn't a degree of protection grow our industrial base and generate needed revenue to rebuild U.S. infrastructure and boost, for example, semiconductor production domestically. And if you're ready, we can show a video where the moderator asked my question and then we hear this rather windy, circuitous answer from Ms. Swank on this. So we can fire that up if you're ready. Well, let's take a question from online. I think this is one that we've been talking a lot about industrial policy tariffs, and there's a question here. In general, we've said that they're inflationary, that they could spark a trade war if they're done at high levels. This question from online, "Are tariffs really so bad? Doesn't a degree of protection grow our industrial base and generate needed revenue to rebuild U.S. infrastructure and boost semiconductor production domestically?" Diane, how would you respond to this? So tariffs are not the most efficient way to do that. I do think I understand there's a gap between what's economically efficient and what is best in terms of optimal for security issues. That said, the way tariffs work is that we pay them. And we know when we tariffed, was it washing machines, they went up in price but so did dryers, and they weren't tariffed, because they're sold together, and consumers paid all of that. Now, some of the more recent research shows that also producers paid a lot of it in the United States, but instead of expanding the economy, it's a tax, and this idea that the other country pays for it is not the case. Now, it's a tax designed to change our behaviors so that we don't buy certain items. And so that is certainly important that said, when you're talking about taxing the 60 percent tariff, the kind of spread of items that it's going to cover is very detrimental to the United States, to U.S. consumer, and to demand, and to production in the United States. And so, you really can get very rapidly go down a rabbit hole, especially a tit for tat trade wars, because people respond to these things that gets you into a situation that is a smaller economy, and that's why it's actually stagflationary to both curb immigration raised tariffs at the same time. And it's why many of the people who are assessing these things, and we've run our own simulations, when you look at the extremes of some of the policy proposals, you get not only recession but stagflation, erupting, which is a very, very difficult situation. So it's a very dangerous path to go down. We're already down it. There are reasons for it on a security basis, but we have to be very judicial. And a brief rebuttal to this, Mike, the way tariffs actually work, actually the nation and paying the tariff to enter things into our market, they pay money into the U.S. treasury, which reduces U.S. deficit spending and therefore the debt. Her claim that only consumers will ultimately pay that tax is way off base. The manufacturers in the U.S. when they offshore manufacturing, one of the things they look at is if there's no tariffs, if there's no real premium to pay to come back into the U.S. market, they'll offshore the manufacturing and have foreigners make goods and import them into the United States. But if you have a tariff there of a sufficient amount, it doesn't have to be punitive, then that manufacturer who's thinking about offshoring U.S. manufacturing will think twice. They'll think, wait a minute, I'm going to have to pay a premium to sell the stuff back in the U.S. Maybe I'll keep the jobs here. And when that happens that keeps the tax base in the U.S. in tech, the local property tax base to pay for schools, to pay for bridges, to pay for highways, to pay for police, you name it. And so whenever jobs are sent overseas, which is incentivized by low tariffs, that is a forfeiture of U.S. wealth, a forfeiture of growing wealth. And these are the aspects of this and I could go on that are never discussed by these globalists and again, the other point is they always act as if tariffs are unique in making things cost more when all taxes will ultimately make things cost more products and services. And it's just something where you never get the full story and but it's very important to outline what these people are saying so you can rebut them and get the full story out there. But at least they allowed the question to be asked so we could elaborate a little more on U.K. column today. So back to you, Mike. Thank you, Mark. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about that an extra now yesterday the office for public budget responsibility published a report entitled fiscal risks and sustainability. And this was all about government spending over the next few decades. And what they had to say was it was very interesting in a certain sense. So let's bring on a graph. They're talking about projected total government revenue and spending. And as you can see, they are projecting that government spending is going to go through the roof over the next few decades. And there are a number of reasons for that. One of them that by the way, the headline is that the government debt is going to increase from currently about 100% of GDP to something in the region of 270 or sorry 270% of GDP by 2070. So the main reason or one of the main reasons is because of the cost of climate change mitigation. So if you're worried about government debt going through the roof, perhaps you might want to look at net zero policy and look at what we are spending money on with respect to that. But the other issue that they were particularly concerned about was population age structure and the costs of looking after the increasing aged population in the country over the next few decades, the cost of the NHS, the cost of the social care infrastructure and so on. And I just thought that was a very also pension costs as well that we're talking about. And so I just wanted to take this opportunity to remind ourselves of the position of Matthew Parris here, who is a voice that is echoed by many others. But this was perhaps the most egregious example of it in the times a few months ago. This is March 2024, just remind everybody what he said. I can't dispute the objectors belief that once assisted dying becomes normalized, we will become more apt to ask ourselves for how much longer we can justify the struggle. And of course, a lot of the pressure that's coming on people to end their lives and earlier is economic. So perhaps this is relevant, if assisted dying becomes common and widely accepted, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions will consider choosing this road when the time comes and in some cases even ask themselves whether it would be selfish not to. Well, of course, if government debt is in the tax burden is going through the roof and basically the tax paying, the portion of the population, which is paying taxes is shrinking, and perhaps it would be selfish to continue living, wouldn't it? He goes on within a decade or more, assisted suicide will be seen as a normal road for many to take and be considered socially responsible, even finally urged upon people. And it said, we may not be aware that our moral attitudes are being driven by the Darwinian struggle for survival, but in part they will be and when we covered this first, I just wanted to remind everybody that this attitude is absolutely Fabian, so HG Wells, one of the founders of the Fabian Society, and this is something Ben's been talking about, at least Fabianism is something Ben's been talking about in the last week or two. Just remind everybody of his attitude to this, that the method that must in some cases still be called in is death, the merciful obliteration of weak and silly and pointless things, future humans will naturally regard the modest suicide of the incurably melancholy or diseased or helpless persons as a high and courageous act of duty rather than a crime. And I just see that again, looking at the direction of travel here, Debbie, I'd be interested in your thoughts on this, but looking at the direction of travel, it's very, very clear that as the country gets into a more tricky situation with respect to the way that the age breakdown of the population develops and the debt burden that that places on the country as a whole, the pressure to perhaps end our lives a little bit early is only going to increase. Yeah, indeed. And to be honest, I was very interested in your HG Wells reference because one HG Wells reference that I hadn't heard of was humans in the year million, and if anybody hasn't seen it, perhaps we'll bring on a trailer, maybe on another news, but assisted dying, so medicalising death bullet points, medicalising death, we're looking at made in Canada. So we're probably going to be following on from Canada. Citizens jury have just pushed it forward. Who's on the citizens jury? C40. Mayors. What are we looking at? Also clinical frailty scores. So when's going to be our expiry date as deemed by our doctors or perhaps artificial intelligence? Are we going to be coerced into death? And are we going to be seeing not science fiction, but science fact, Logan's run? I don't know. Yes, indeed. Well, Debbie, just to finish off, take us through a little bit of NHS and MHRA news. Right. So very quickly. So who have we got, uh, chairing our new health and social care committee? Well, who better than Layla Moran, and you ask yourself, well, what's her experience? Well, she's a maths and physics teacher, um, which doesn't seem very relevant. Her mum's a Christian Palestinian from Jerusalem. Her dad was a diplomat and economist and a UN EU ambassador to Egypt. She has got experience in health. She gets she was getting very depressed and apparently she puts it down to obesity. So she had a stomach stapling operation. So she knows about that. Um, a few other little facts about her. She was arrested for slapping her boyfriend during a libderm conference. She was charged with domestic violence, but the charges were dropped. And since then she now identifies as pansexual and is in relationship with, uh, Rosie Cobb, who's the libderm press officer. So that's who's the chair of our health and safety health and social care committee. Uh, but you know what, if you need a blood pressure check, why don't you, if you can get an appointment at your dentist, or you're going to have your eyes tested, you can have a blood pressure check done there because people don't seem to be engaging with the NHS at the moment. I'm not sure why. I'm going to try and catch you if you can catch an appointment at the dentist. But don't worry if you can't get to the dentist and, or you can't find a dentist and you're not having your eyes tested, your employer might do it. So, uh, ask your employer, uh, the standard, uh, brought out this story. If you're in the building, trade, hospitality, transport, social care sectors, uh, they're all going to record information about each of your risks as to a heart attack or cardiovascular. So, uh, maybe we'll be coming to you, Mike, for my health check. Who knows? And the MHRA have been getting giddy on giving back to school advice and who better than to trust than Alison Cave, who's still refusing to talk about vaccine serious adverse reactions, but still very keen to tell parents to go and get their children jab because it is to make sure they are as safe as possible. I say that with tongue in cheek. Starting with the MHRA, we did report on this way before the MHRA did, but men taking sodium valp rates, um, do increase the risk of neurodevelopmental conditions in their children. Now, we reported on this, even though this was published on the 5th of September, we were reporting on this from the board meeting back on the 23rd of January 24, uh, in my blog and on the 19th of January in the news. So you can always catch things on UK column news first and a quick to finally stop press. I hope you're coming to the MHRA board meeting with me next week, 70th of September, but times being changed. Don't know why. Maybe it's day and June's last, but nine o'clock till 11 30 new time. Will there be a special announcement? We'll have to wait and see. Yes, indeed. Okay. Thank you very much. Debbie. We would need to leave it there for today. Thanks to everybody that's joined us. Thanks to Debbie and Mark for taking part. If you're a UK column member, stick around. We'll be here for extra in a few minutes time. Otherwise have a great weekend and we'll see you on Monday. Thanks for joining us. Bye bye. 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