UK Column News — 13th February 2026

0:00Good afternoon. It's Friday, the 13th of February, 2026, just after 1 o'clock. And welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson, my host and studio today, Brian Garrish. Welcome to the program Brian. Pleasure to be here. And we'll be joined today once again by Basel Valentine. And I later in the program, Basel is going to be reporting on the removal of access to court lists and records by the Starmer government. The building, the building for fight over contracts with Palantir. Brian's going to be reporting on a convicted child abuser. And we'll have the latest on what kind of purpose has been up to and I'll be taking a first look at the Munich Security Conference, which begins today. And I'll have an update on online safety. But we're going to begin today with Palestine action, because the question of whether or not they should have been prescribed has been settled or has it basel? Well, for the time being, the ban remains in place.

1:00Brian, although just this morning, named Victoria Sharp, sitting with Mr Justice Swift and Mrs Justice Stain, said that the Palestine action is an organization that promotes its political cause through criminality and encouragement of criminality, a very small number of actions of amounting to terrorist action within the terrorism act of 2000. I'm not quite sure what they are. But that proportion was still disproportionate. So the ban, the prescription of Palestine action has been declared unlawful, but remains in place, pending an appeal and further legal arguments, unsurprisingly, the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmoud has rejected the court's findings and intends to launch an appeal at the Court of Appeal. In order to keep the ban in place, obviously, it's presented an extraordinary set of circumstances with supporters of Palestine action declaring their support for the organization once again outside the old Bailey, lots of cheering, as you can imagine.

2:09And police standing around rather non-plussed, not quite knowing what to do. It's a sort of, you know, legal gray area now. Of course, Palestine action are jubilant. We were banned because Palestine actions disruption of Israel's largest weapons manufacturer, Elbit Systems, cost the corporation millions of pounds in profits and lost out on multibillion pound contracts. We've used the same techniques as direct organizations throughout history, including anti-war groups, Kierstammer himself defended in court, and the government acknowledged in these legal proceedings that this ban was based on property damage, not violence against people. This is who the Amori speaking outside the high court this morning. Banning Palestine action was always about appeasing pro-Israel lobby groups and weapons manufacturers and nothing to do with terrorism, metropolitan police have released a statement warning that prescription remains in place, and so showing support for Palestine action is still a criminal offense.

3:18But they've said that they're going to focus on gathering evidence rather than making more arrests at this time. You know, it's a complete nonsense, really. The Assistant Commissioner Lawrence Taylor, the National Head of Counterterrorism, policing, said officers will enforce the ban pragmatically and proportionally. Policings are always to enforce the law and to do so without fear or favor as the public would expect prescription is and always has been a matter of government following today's judgment. The Home Secretary of State, it intends to lodge an appeal. The court has ordered that the prescription order remains in force until further order of the court. What we recognize, this is an unusual set of circumstances and until further order by the court, counterterrorism policing will approach the whole question of enforcement pragmatically and proportionally. That seems to be the code word and will continue to work with forces across the country.

4:19So, you know, a huge victory really for simple liberties apart from anything else. It was always nonsense to categorize Palestine action as a terrorist organization and the court acknowledged that. So, quite what the Home Secretary hopes to achieve at the court of appeal or what new evidence or arguments are going to be presented, particularly when the six defendants at Village Crown court, yes, last week, were cleared of the key charge of aggravated burglary, which itself doesn't cross the threshold into terrorism. I'm not quite sure it's a bloody nose for the government, February the 13th proving unlucky for the Home Secretary line. Absolutely, Basil, just very, very briefly then. The question, as was in my mind, is what happens with the convictions of the people that have, you know, were arrested at the various protests in recent months, do you think? Well, that's a very good question, Amnesty International and the Lead of the Green Party, Zach Polansky amongst those saying that all charges should immediately be dropped.

5:29People are doing court next week. It's a gray area. I don't think anybody knows what's going to happen because this is the first time any such ban on a prescribed organization has been overturned in court. So, we're in uncharted territory. Okay, thank you for that. Let's move on then to an ex-liberal councillor. Well, it's more bad news for Labour, isn't it? But first of all, I must say that I'm about to report on a gentleman called Lear and Veliman. And I want to make it clear that he's been released on bail, so has not been convicted and court proceedings effectively still in process. So, we're making a very measured report, some of the information in the public domain at the moment. So, we'll kick off with the BBC's report. So, here we are. How do they headline it? Labour, ex-counselor admits child sex offenses.

6:32And I wouldn't bring this up on screen because a warning appears in this story, which it says this story contains details that some may find distressing. And I'm slightly flummox because, okay, there is some pretty unpleasant things that have taken place, but it seems to me extraordinary that the BBC felt the need to put a specific warning for the reader on this. But perhaps our audience will make up their own mind if we just bring that one back on screen. Let's go through a little bit more on what we need to cover. And so, this is part of the BBC's report. So, this man sent a video of his penis to basically a 13-year-old girl, I believe she was 13, and he was attempting clearly to groom her. What he didn't know was he was falling into a sting operation by the police, and he's eventually caught for this. Now, the BBC here talks quite a bit about what happened and about the court case.

7:34It does admit that he's a member of the Jewish Labour movement. He's thrilled on bail, but he can't mix with somebody under the age of 18 without supervision from another adult. He's going to be sentenced to a harrow ground court later. But what the BBC doesn't tell their readers is that he was formally a director of the new North London synagogue. And we think this is important because, effectively, it starts to build up a little bit of a more detail about this gentleman. Now, just remember that no-sendencing has taken place, but we're dealing here with the reporting of the case. So, if we bring this on screen, this is the Jewish Labour movement, and what we can see instantly is that we've got another very powerful Jewish lobbying group this time in and alongside the Labour Party itself, and this man was originally involved with this.

8:35But the BBC failed to report on something else, and that was that Mr Bellaman was a former hope, not hate, political organiser. Now, other news sources have picked up on this gentleman, and we've got MSN here saying, excellent and Labour councillor admits child abuse, child sex offenses after met sting. And we now know that he was an organiser for hope not hate, but the BBC clearly doesn't want to talk about that. But why is his former connection with hope not hate so important and in the public interest? Now, remember, you're getting this information from the UK column, not from the BBC. In turn, we want to thank UK column members who picked up hand sharp eyes to pick up some of the information I'm now going to bring on screen. So, remember what this gentleman has allegedly done. Now, let's go to the online safety bill, and this is the hands-on report here.

9:42So, it's talking about debated on Thursday, the 26th of May, 2022, and initially under that banner headline is a list of the committee members under the chairmanship of Sir Roger Gale. But there are also a number of witnesses, and we brought those up on screen. I know it's a bit small. Well, let's bring in the big arrow, because here we have no less, but Lear and Bellaman himself, as a political organiser for hope not hate, witnessing the online safety bill. You couldn't make this up, Mike. It's really quite extraordinary. And I just want to highlight as well, no suggestion of any wrongdoing, of course. But William Moe, the chief executive of full fact, was also present as a witness. And this is the organisation which puts it forward itself forward as being the know all essentially as to what's happening. So, we wanted to bring this up that a man who's been accused of some really serious things was actually a witness to online safety.

10:50It's giving evidence to the inquiry. It's to decide what the high this legislation, which the government has framed in the language of protecting children, and they're having these types of people involved as witnesses. Now, we could say that this comes down to vetting again, because the government is using people to give opinions and influence and lobby on very serious law, and it appears that they're failing. So, there's a lot to come out about this case, but at the moment, of course, we can't report in too much detail because of the situation of the case itself. Now, we do also want to say that Jewish media has reported on this man, and I think it's important to highlight this. So, this is the Jewish Chronicle, ex-labor counsellor who sent explicit messages to police officer who believed was a 13-year-old girl released on bail. So, Jewish press did pick up on this, but it's only the UK column and some sharp white members that have picked up on this connection through to hope not hate and the online safety bill.

12:04So, then, related, I suppose, in a sense, is the Epstein investigation, and well, Keir Starmer has decided to fire the head of the civil service and cabinet secretary. Now, of course, I'm only speaking about one person who held both of those rules, and that's Sir Chris Womald, who could be seen on screen here speaking to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee last November. So, Womald was given both these rules in December 2024, and he is the victim that Starmer has chosen to try to stave off the latest victim I should say that Starmer has tried to stave off Peter Mendelssohn's criticism of Peter Mendelssohn's appointment as ambassador to the United States. Now, the fact that Womald was only appointed to the role a few days before Starmer announced Mendelssohn's appointment. So, he kind of had very little impactors played really almost no significant part in the decision to appoint Mendelssohn. So, his interim replacements then are going to be Catherine Little, who's permanent secretary at the cabinet office, Dame Antonio Rumeo, who's permanent secretary at the home office, and James Bowler, who's permanent secretary at the Treasury, and they're going to be there doing his job until the replacement disappointment is appointed, and that will be shortly.

13:21And we should remember, of course, he's the third person to be kicked out in the last few days following Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief of staff, and also Tim Allen, his director of communication. It's not going so well for Starmer at the moment. No, of course, because the party's rotten from the inside, which also applies, in my opinion, to the conservative party. But these dynamic events have caused this rot to come to the surface, and now they're just going to try and cover up by getting rid of people and bringing in somebody else who will keep the lid on the state of play inside the Labour party. Absolutely. No, we're delighted to see that Patrick Henningson has managed to join us live. Patrick, welcome to the program. Now, you've sent us a report from Iran, from Tehran, and we're going to show that in a second, but before we do, just be interested to get your brief thoughts on the deep prescription of Palestine action.

14:21Now, we can't, unfortunately, we can't hear you. Patrick, look, what we'll do is we'll show the report, we'll show the report the first part of it anyway, and maybe you can try reconnecting and let's see if we succeed and be able to hear you. So let's show this to start this off. This is a good introduction. This week we're reporting from on the ground in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran, and it's been a quite incredible journey to get here. A lot of obstacles were put in our way. We managed to arrive here on Wednesday, and as luck would have it, this was the National Independence Day or the National Rally Day for Iran. And we managed to, after making it through customs an hour and a half, somehow managed to get through traffic into the city.

15:21The traffic was so incredible because there were literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, coming into the city center to join this sort of national display of solidarity for the state, for the government, for the leadership, and really also in opposition of the threats being waged by the United States. Currently, under the Trump administration, threatening to start a war at any moment, it could happen. This is a very real and present concern here, no doubt, but we managed to park the car and to walk. A lot of people parked, literally turned a major freeway, artery into the city, and literally a giant parking lot. And we walked in for the duration, as did many other tens of thousands of people on the road that we took. And we made it to the latter part of this rally. It started at 8 a.m., and finished around 1231.

16:21And we got a chance to experience something extraordinary. By anyone's estimation, probably 2 million people attended this rally. So the scenes were incredible. We took a few short cuts from this, and we'll show a few of those in a moment here. So there's hundreds of thousands of people who may be a million, or out here, who are coming up to the main square, but just the sheer mass of Iranians out today is unbelievable. A major event. So what was incredible about this is that we've been told in the Western media by our politicians in the West that there were, you know, all of these anti-quote regime protests going on, and the country is completely divided. People are afraid to come out in the streets for fear of being, you know, attacked by the regime and whatnot. So that's what we've been told. We've been fed a steady diet of what can only be described as Western propaganda, and how they characterize what's going on in Iran.

17:29And what you saw was this incredible unity, national unity. There weren't just, you know, I would say socially conservative Iranians out, religious, more religious of people in this country. Certainly that would have been the majority of the people out, but there were what you might term moderates, secular people, all united under this umbrella, if you will, of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and celebrating the anniversary of the revolution. So, you know, the revolutionary government is alive and well in this country, and it has a massive, massive constituency, and you can really see that for your own eyes here. Certainly this was one of the reasons why I came on this trip, and there's a lot of reasons why I shouldn't have come in terms of the threat of war. It's certainly not a pleasant situation if that was to kick off, but I needed to see for myself what was happening here, and I needed to be able to convey that to our audience at the UK column, of course, but also a 21st century wire, and really brought more broadly to our Western audience and our readership and our viewers.

18:48Well, Mike, I've got to say really fantastic report from Patrick. It's brilliant that he managed to get to Iran, and of course, Patrick taking huge risks because as a Westerner, he's in a very big city, and although he's clearly describing everything is stable. He's been walking out on the street, so a well done to Patrick Henningson, and also we'd like to say some sort of fantastic that we've UK column with Patrick's help have been able to get another in-country reports out, so this is excellent. So we're going to show another excerpt from that in a second, but Patrick, just give us the latest that you're seeing over there at the moment. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can hear you now, yes. That's brilliant. The internet here is very patchy because of the security situation. Everything is very much on high alert right now.

19:50Obviously, people here are concerned about imminent attack from the United States, but despite all that, life goes on in Iran. This is a megatropolis in terms of major cities, so it's people are getting about with their daily life. There's no, the rioters are gone, and normal life is happening. It's very safe to run at night during the day, etc. But the internet's always going to be an issue here with the current security situation, so I've managed to get a window of internet here at the moment. Now, in terms of what we just saw, the clip that you showed, it was really a display of solidarity nationally. All around the countries, all the major cities, millions of people came out, probably collectively about 20 to 24 million people in total in the different cities and municipalities around the country.

20:53So that's a very different picture than what we've been fed over the last couple of weeks and months about the division. There's supposed division in the country. Actually, there's quite a lot of resilience. Now, we're also able to see a lot of the military hardware on the parade. Some of those clips are in my report in terms of the drones and the missiles. So, you know, that is a big sort of source of national pride here is their homegrown defense industry. Everything is basically native. We got a chance to see their missile defense systems earlier today, as well as a hypersonic missiles, as well as the drone technology and US drones that they've downed. We got a chance to go and listen to their experts tell us about how they captured the US drone and downed it by capturing its signal communication and landing it in Iran, the most advanced US drone.

22:00That was a couple of years ago, obviously, and then the downing of the global hawk, the MQ4 global hawk drone. We got a chance to see that and hear the stories of how all that took place. So, you know, from that point of view, this has been absolutely fascinating. As an American, I was able to see the old US embassy with the famous hostage crisis, which is now a museum. It's called the den of espionage. I'm translating into English. It's pretty incredible. Having seen that story growing up as a child, that was a big part of the news event growing up in America and then to actually go there. Everything is perfectly preserved. The skiff, the secured communications, the encryption, rooms, everything. So, I got an opportunity to actually see all that from a historic point of view and obviously what I've witnessed on the streets and meeting people. A lot of the women are unbeiled. So, this is that stereotype that women have to cover their hair here. It's completely false.

23:04So, there's just so many different things that you could only know really by seeing it for yourself if you're from a western country. Because all of this is more or less blocked off to our media. These reports exist, but you won't see them on our mainstream media. And so, people are getting a distorted view of Iran. And I think that's also to manufacture consent to make it okay to trigger a war against them. And I hope that what I'm reporting can help deconstruct some of these and debunk some of these stereotypes and a lot of the propaganda that we get fed in the West. That's the reason I came. I needed to see for myself. That's why I'm here. It was not easy to get here. It was definitely not easy to the schedule has been grueling. We've been doing a lot of media coverage with the various local media once talked to the international journalists that are here, of which I am one of many. But these aren't necessarily mainstream journalists. A few of the mainstream reports I saw. They're absolutely unbelievable.

24:11I didn't want to ask you about that Patrick because BBC because you were obviously that first segment of that of that of your report was talking about what was happening on Wednesday this week, the BBC answers that was that there were massive chance of kill him any. And so I just wanted to ask you to address that. Yeah, absolutely. This week. Yes. Absolutely. Boulder dash. No way. No way. Just the opposite. So the record number of people came out for the National Rally Day more than previous years. So people are absolutely rallying around the government by the millions. I think they estimated two million people came out for the National Day March in Toronto. Very, very pro. I mean, it's all about supporting the leader. It's all about supporting the military because the country people here on mass know they're under attack, even the secularists are basically in solidarity with conservative and religious conservative Iranians.

25:21Everybody is on on point with with basically opposing US war and an Israeli war, which is being what you know waged against this country. So if the BBC actually reported that about the National Rally. That's pretty much insane. It's the only way I can say it's just like Orwellian. Yeah. Patrick, I just want to stress for our audience that you were there live in Toronto at the moment, which is really excellent. You in your reports, we're going to be showing the full report that you've given recorded report that you're given the column. So people watching the news today and UK column extra, which will make public will be able to see Patrick's full report. The other things you've stressed is how calm things are at the moment, but you've also been speaking to people about the terrible turbulence and trouble and violence there was. So we're recognizing with compassion that the clearly people were hurt in Iran, but that has now clearly stabilized and you've stressed.

26:30Here is this very big city and country and it's reverted very quickly to a peaceful state. I don't know whether you'd like to say anything more on that. Well, to add to that, Brian, and I'm glad you mentioned this because just in the last 24 hours, I have met two families who have lost in one case, two of their sons. And in another case, a family member that were attacked by and shot by the so-called peaceful protesters of which there is ample evidence. And we even met with the chief of the main district police here yesterday to show us pretty gruesome evidence of what happened to police officers. So hundreds of law enforcement officers and security officers were killed and these were people largely that were unarmed. And it's not the same as in America where the police all carried firearms, not the case here.

27:32So because it's a different type of civil defense, the rioters and agent prosecutors are able to take advantage of that by using the crowd as a human shield and firing from behind people in the streets. But weapons caches were recovered. I mean, it's a huge scandal here. And so it's, you know, having actually met the families of the victims who were killed by these so-called, you know, peaceful protesters. And there was, there were peaceful protests. There were legitimate economic protests from the merchant class. This was in December, late December in the beginning of January. And the violence drafted off the back of that. And we have plenty of admissions from Israeli and US intelligence that they were involved. Admissions, you know, from officials. So there's no question that that was the case. So, but it's to really see there's going to be no here jerking BBC videos about the families who lost their children to violence perpetrated by people backed by the west or backed by Israel.

28:44You're not going to get those reports. And, you know, so you get it on the media here. It's not that these reports don't exist. They exist here. But they're not filtering back through to the western media. They don't care because that destroys the narrative, basically. And this is a narrative that the west are trying to spend about something that happened that they say happened here that, you know, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 for someone told me 70,000 as I was getting attacked online a couple of days ago. So I replied back to them. Why not round it up to 100,000, you know, protesters were quote massacred by these so-called, you know, the quote regime. It's ridiculous. I've never seen, we have never seen a propaganda wave designed to demonize a country that's so outrageous. As we're seeing out in October 7th, post October 7th, the type of propaganda, atrocity propaganda, Israel was pushing about 40 beheaded babies.

29:44That was bad. But the scale of the operation against Iran is unprecedented. And I believe the amount of money spent on influencers in the west pushing this script scripted lies is unprecedented. We're talking in the millions, tens of millions, maybe more was spent to create this campaign to soften up Iran for a military strike. That's exactly it. There's no question in my mind. That's what that's what this is. Yeah, Patrick, thank you very much for that. And the tragedy of this is, of course, people have been killed and severely injured. Lives destroyed both sides of both sides of it within within the wider public community and within the state system itself. Yeah, it's terrible. Okay, well look, Patrick, we need to move on, but I'm going to say thank you very much for joining us today. That has been absolutely fantastic. We are going to show the rest of Patrick's report in extra. We are going to make today's extra available to everybody, not just the members, so everybody will get to see the full report.

30:49So thank you very much, Patrick, for joining us and we'll see you next week. Okay, see you then. Thank you. Okay, let's come back to the UK then and to the situation with the courts in the UK and access to court records and court lists. Basel, the media, sorry, let me just see here, sorry, Brian, you start this off because you know, with a package in the flow, obviously that was a live report. So that's taken a little bit of time out out of the news. We're delighted to do that, but great effort by Patrick. I just wanted to give credit to UK column members because there's a lot of sharp white members sending us information. This was a little report that I received a couple of days ago. Now it is from the Times newspaper, but somebody picked it up on their phone and said, Brian, I think this is really important. So I want to say thanks to that person who was UK column member Paul Jay, but he was very, very upset to read about this deletion of the UK's largest court reporting archive.

32:00So I just wanted to give that credit as an introduction. Absolutely. So Basel, take us through this story. Yeah, court desk, it's called and it's a relatively recent introduction. It's an archive of magistrates and county court cases that enabled accredited journalists to find out what's going on in the court system more easily than sifting through hundreds of pieces of paperwork, often only give the name of the defendant and very scarce details, which means basically that without court desk is extremely difficult for journalists to find out what's going on and very easy for cases to sort of disappear without any meaningful reporting. Well, I'm indebted to Nat Goodlad, a reporter up in the northwest of England for a local newspaper, because local newspapers are one of the few outlets in the sort of mainstream corporate media where people do still have some independence.

33:07And he was writing in the Lancashire telegraph pointing out that the decision to delete the entire archive as well as, of course, therefore not maintain or updated is being presented as an administrative tidying up exercise, purely for data protection reasons, but those data protection regions have not actually be meaningfully explained in any way. But it is, in fact, a decision that makes the criminal courts much less visible, much less accountable and harder to scrutinize and should worry anyone who cares about open justice. But those of us who report from court regularly, he said court desk became part of the daily machinery of doing the job properly. Court desk was never a replacement for court lists, phone calls or sitting through hearings, but it was a way of making sense of a system that increasingly withholds detail until the last possible moment. So court desk filled gaps allowing reporters to prepare, prioritize and ensure that hearings of genuine public interest were not missed simply because the information wasn't there in time.

34:18And that this matters because open justice does not mean very much if cases can be heard without meaningful notice to depress courts may be open in theory, but in practice, the public relies on journalists to be present. If reporters do not know what's happening or cannot reasonably prepare for it, then scrutiny falls away. The data court desk gathered was uncomfortable reading for the justice system, millions of hearings being advanced without notice listings that were accurate on only a tiny fraction of sitting days courts routinely hearing cases, the media had no way of knowing about. And that information obviously did not damage open justice, but it demonstrated where it was already failing. Now, unsurprisingly, there's been pushback against this from amongst others, the libertarian conservative former cabinet minister David Davis. And there are perhaps even deeper darker reasons why this is happening. I've seen speculation online that it's in order to cover up Prime Minister Keir Starmer's own failings when director of public prosecutions or indeed multiple other cases that are now going to disappear into the annals of history, unless journalists are prepared to spend hundreds of hours going through court filings.

35:45Basel, thank you for that. Now, we do have a little bit of what David Davis had to say here, so let's just have a listen to that, and then we'll talk about it in one second. Open justice is an absolute foundation stone of the British justice system, knowing when somebody is going to be tried and what they're going to be tried for is fundamental. And yet the government, the Department of Justice, Minister of Justice, is now ordering a company that does just that, tell the newspapers what's going on in the courts to shut down and delete their database, a huge database massively important to the newspapers. 1500 inquiries in recent times, depending on this database, so much money, and it'll undermine transparency of justice in Great Britain.

36:47Oh, right, sorry, but we're having a few technical books. Look, what I want to, what I want to make is because you already mentioned this puzzle, the fact that court desk was only launched in April 2024. And so it's only be going for less than two years. Now, there's a number of points about this. First of all, as far as I'm concerned, it could be argued that some people have been on social media that, that this is an attempt to cover something up by a care stammer. What this does is it brings us back to the battle days of pre two years ago where people had to go to individual courts to see the court lists and the court lists were often not correct and they weren't published on time and this kind of thing. But the point is that this platform, although it was much more convenient for journalists, it was only convenient for journalists and members of the public couldn't get access to this. So we couldn't see what court cases were coming up if we wanted to attend them in person, for example.

37:54And so my question really just to finish this off is that what actual, you know, justice is supposed to be seen to be done. What actual transparency is there with respect to the court system when, in fact, for us as the public, it becomes very, very difficult to follow what's going on. And we rely, therefore, on the editorial policies of the newspapers to decide what they think are the important cases. You know, absolutely, Mike, and really rather than deleting the archive in its entirety and doing away with this, it should be made available to the general public or at least made available to anybody, any journalist that seeks accreditation to access to it. But 100% going in the wrong direction. I mean, it's extraordinary that a so-called labor government are pressing ahead with this, where, you know, as David Davis says, there's going to save a few pennies. The data protection reasons that the government's claiming that it's doing it for because you see, obviously, if information about all these cases is available to a wide number of journalists, then some information that may come into the public domain, which, you know, should not.

39:07But that should be dealt with on an individual case by case basis, not with that, you know, doing away with the whole thing as a blanket ban. Yes, thank you. Yeah, Basil, I'd agree with that. I just challenged David Davis talking about open justice when in this country closed courts with no press and no jury can take people's children away. And when the parents attempt to defend themselves against perjury and false reports, the papers will not deal with that information because it's protected under family court secrecy rules. And I can tell our audience that the telegraph itself backed out of a high profile case around to twins that were taken from a mother because they said, well, we can't touch the evidence that the mother has to protect. Self because it's held under secrecy rules. So to stand up and say, sorry, not just in the family courts.

40:11I believe I'm writing saying that during the judicial review into Palestine action, the barrister representing the government was presenting evidence, which neither the defendant who the memorial her legal team were allowed. To be in present in court to listen to that instead of special counsel was appointed to represent their interests, but that special counsel was not allowed to tell them what had been said. So, you know, it's not just in the family courts. You know, this creeping secrecy together with, of course, the move to do away with jurors for vast number of cases. That means that decisions like the one made today by the high court to overturn the ban on Palestine action are absolutely crucial. Judicial reviews, absolutely crucial to maintaining the checks and balances in our constitution. Thank you for that, Basil.

41:12A lot more to be discussed on this. Absolutely. We'll do that in extra, but just to finish this off, just to let you know there is a petition titled Mick or court and tribunal transcripts available free of charge. I would say that that needs to be expanded to the court list as well. But anyway, that's there if anybody wants to get involved with that. Let's just say if you like what we do here, the UK column, we do need your ongoing financial support. Please do help us if you possibly can by becoming a member or making a financial donation. You can find out how to do that by clicking on the button on the front page of the UK column website. But if you can support us financially, please do share our material because that helps us defeat the censorship regime, which we might get a chance to talk to later on in the program. Tonight on the weekly banter, Charles and I are speaking to Jeremy about our recent trip to China, why we went, who we saw we were there. So join us for that if you can and lots of people want to know. So hopefully there'll be a good viewership for that.

42:13Just very briefly, my discussion with Matt Errett that went out yesterday at 1pm is up on the website. If you haven't seen it, the comments in the in the forums have been very positive. So please do have a look at that and an article on Edgar Allan Poe fascinating historical figure road lots as everybody will appreciate, but also involved heavily involved in US politics and so on. So have a look at that if you can and Brian, a couple of stories from members there. Yes, I just want to continue this theme of our members doing some really good work in the background. We got a huge number of emails we can't respond to them all, but we do pay attention to as much of the information that comes in as possible. This was an article which a concern member of the UK column said, you will wear this is happening. So the headline here from the Gazette and Harold said the public asked if up to 96 firefighters should now be made redundant.

43:18This is further collapse of local authority provision for the public. So it's dorsid and wheelchair fire and rescue authority starts the discussion on the possible closure of eight fire stations, which would ultimately lead to 96 firefighters becoming redundant. Also pop this one up on screen and we were hearing a little bit about this some time ago in relation to Windsor, but basically the local councillors got fed up with the fact that every time the royalty decide to ease in large numbers, fine food and wine, etc. They end up with a bill. It appears that at the moment the local council is saying it will not support any more state visits because basically the cost of the royalty hosting Donald Trump at Windsor Castle last year were not reimbursed. And I think that's fair enough. If we put a picture up of what fine dining looks like, I think they've got most of the Amazon rainforest on the table. I wonder they can actually see each other.

44:24But I'm going to bring this up because apparently among the important guests at the French President State visit with Dame Christine Scott Thomas, who's an actress and Mick Jagger and so Elton John and my goodness, we've got to put all of that cost on to the public. I think it's outrageous. Meanwhile, another heads up from our audience was that we've now got the raw family on altruistic work. This was Camilla visiting. I think it's Somerset Police, even and Somerset Police. And I think this is absolutely about reputation management. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's move on then to Munich and the 60 60 second Munich Security Conference begins today and it's going to run until Sunday at the hotel bear bear is your half in Munich. Now, Marco Rubio is going to attend and for the first time in a while, AFD is going to be there because they were considered person in non grata.

45:28Kierstamer will be there, maybe assuming he's still Prime Minister by the end of today. Also, event Cooper and pretty Patel will be there representing the UK regime in its opposition. As a name, Bonnie Addy from Amnesty International UK will also be there. Now, she is also, by the way, a board member of the Burraman Center for Human Rights in Iran. So you create Iran, the military industrial complex, Russia, AI, populism, they're all on the agenda. Ben's got to have more about what's happening at MSC on Monday's program, if anything, newsworthy comes out of it. The question which is often asked about this event is, is it just the poor relations of the world economic forum and the answer is, I suppose it depends because times of geopolitical strife, like we're going through it at the moment. It definitely comes to the fore. It's less corporate than the world economic forum and more direct directly tied to the sort of the crises that might be happening at a particular moment.

46:31So we're going to watch closely over the weekend and we'll keep you posted, if anything, interesting happens. Now, all this is happening at the same time that there's significant shifts in the leadership needle. And on Tuesday, they announced an agreement on a redress what they describe as a redistribution of senior command positions. So that's going to see British officer take over joint forces command Norfolk, which is responsible for the Atlantic and the Arctic. An Italian officer taking charge of joint force command Naples and these both these positions were previously occupied by US officers. Poland and Germany are now going to share the joint force command Brunson responsible for NATO's eastern flank on a rotational basis and that was previously held by a German officer alone. And they say that as a result, all three force commands, which lead at the operational level in crisis and conflict will be held. So we will be led by Europeans. And at the same time, the United States is going to lead all three theater component commands.

47:37And that's. For the first time, taking up responsibility for allied marine command and they maintain leadership of allied land command and allied air command. And the report says the agreement is part of a shift to more fairly shared responsibility with a needle with European allies taking greater responsibility leadership roles in NATO's command structure while also making clear the US commitment to NATO command control. Including maintaining the role of supreme allied commander Europe. What are your thoughts on that? Well, more European control will mean more confusion and disaster really because the Europeans have never ever. And that is one NATO was doing its cold war job been capable of operating together in a fully coherent way. One of it is is language you may speak English, but colloquial terms and military terms vary across the nation states and a few, a few words spoken at the wrong time or the wrong words use can cause trouble.

48:44Europeans under the European Union banner. This is not going to be good because everybody is going to want to be the top dog. And my prediction is you're just going to see more and more infighting the thing about the Americans is they're overwhelming military might men that somebody was there to make the ultimate decision and the rest had to fall in line. Now you're going to see sorry, this is a bit crude. It's going to be a dog's breakfast of of a military operation. So I think it's going to be fascinating. Okay. Well, in the meantime, you got a bit of a preview of it there. So we'll just bring it on screen in the meantime. The Ministry of Defense here in the UK has signed a contract with a defense company called Blacktree for the supply of AI capable equipment, including radios, headsets, display tablets, cables, batteries, patches and antennas. The contract is worth 86 million pounds. It's known as disminded data system and it's going to provide what they claim precise information on surroundings and intelligence, meaning increased clarity and who are enemies and who are comrades with all soldiers linked to the same network through this equipment, DDS will be also be tailored to different scenarios allowing troops to receive either or a combination of voice or visual data, maximizing effectiveness across all battlefield situation.

50:06And they said the new systems have already been tested by soldiers on deployment in Estonia, the testing on the other Eastern flank, they said, saw the visual information element, allowing soldiers to be less distracted by light noises on the battlefield. I asked Charles about this because obviously he has qualified as it comes on this and he said, talking it up as a British based SME is misleading. It looks as though Blacktree is just not let for trellis wear in the United States. This exposes some very obvious vulnerabilities as with all things tech, especially digital. They're all well and good until they break and then you're left with nothing. All of this is predicated on the idea that they are not susceptible to jamming and electronic warfare attack, which is all well and good until they are. It further reduces the need for situational awareness from commanders and anyone on the ground, as it will become reliant on what they're fed by systems like this. There should be questions about how it harmonizes with other existing equipment, as well as what the fallback is should it feel.

51:09Also, while it might work in Estonia, would it work in Iran, for example, there are many examples of Combskit in particular performing very differently according to terrain and topography. I think the central danger is you wouldn't know if it had been compromised and such a situation would lead to disaster. This sort of stuff is pushed as is surely just a matter of time before the baddies find a way to defeat it. I think those are very astute comments. There's one other thing I will add to it is that is the more the battlefield control is wrapped up in this sort of IT AI blanket, the more people who are distant from the battlefield think they can micromanage fighting on the battlefield itself. People back thousands of miles away, warm offices will start to think they can make the actual decisions that are going to affect the real fighting at ground level. That comes down to toughness and gut instinct about how to conduct that warfare in a local area. I think Charles is absolutely right to be concerned.

52:18Brian, let's bring us up to dead with common purposes. Yes, it's very interesting, isn't it? That's a lot of work by the UK called them many years ago to expose what this pernicious political charity, that's what I've always called it, what it was up to, common purpose started to do less in the UK and to do more outside the country in particular in India. But we have been paying attention to what it's been doing and we thought the time was right to talk about it again, particularly thanks to UK column member Kate. Now Kate sent me an email saying that common purpose and the British Council of partner to run leadership programs for the Pakistan, Pakistani diaspora community in the UK. The aim is to build the capacity of Pakistani diaspora leaders from different backgrounds sectors and generations to have a greater impact both in Pakistan and in the diaspora community in the UK.

53:20Now let's qualify this because UK column has been saying for many many years that immigration and migrants have been used as a malicious political policy to help break down nation states and common purpose in choosing its future leaders is now going to select people who are living outside their own country. They probably hold two sets of values, one for UK, one for Pakistan and common purpose and unelected body or charity will be highly politically based is now going to train these people. So if we just bring this up on screen and I'm going to say to our audience please go to common purposes website and have a look it says here we are bringing together leaders from across the many different diaspora of the world. Now they're not just ultimately going to go for Pakistan is this is going to be to people of migrated worldwide across the world and common purpose is one of the many non government organizations which is clearly going trying to capture these people reframe them in common purposes own political agenda and then use these people to take control of the political systems in the nation state.

54:39Now how can I reinforce this route audience well thanks again to Kate she sent me to other links she said that this max of the EU Soros neighborhood project of the EU and NATO expansion migration so this ladies spot on and if we have a look at what she was referring to. Here's the British Council a scoping study for a leadership program for Pakistan diaspora leaders in the UK and the British Council is commissioned common purpose to conduct a scoping study to establish the potential for leadership programs for these people in the UK and to produce a report for the British Council based on the findings of this study. So if you're local and you're thinking well if I get elected as a local Councillor I'm going to be able to make a difference in my community no no no in the future common purpose is going to make sure that it is defining who's going to come in as an leader.

55:44Here's another one of the links that Kate pointed out for us and this is the Balkan forum into diaspora round table discussion on the Balkan region it's back from February 2020 in Berlin and I think our viewers will be interested that this is all being done with the financial support from the Rockefeller brothers fund of course with absolutely no accountability and I'll add this bit here. We've got the European Commission and if the image seems a little bit strange this is what you see on screen so if you're saying my goodness I can't read this please blame the European Commission and not the UK column but this is talking about union global diaspora facility. So this is going worldwide there's no question of it like I say once again the corruption is what you see on the website that's not a fault of the UK column but if we bring in some of the people driving this we don't really know who these people are what their backgrounds are what their loyalty is have they been vetted at all know have they been elected know but these people are going to bring in the future leaders.

57:04And if I may Basel just give you opportunity to comment on this it is utterly blatant that the agenda now is to break down nation states across Western Europe including the US itself in order to get this globally in the UK. Well US and UK might because this is this is being done in the US or be it with different organizations and names but the tactics are the same this is to destroy the nation state and they are now going to use people who've been displaced from their own country in order to take up a role where they can be steered away from pro national policies. I don't know how you'd reply to that Basel. Well this has been an agenda for arguably 50 years Brian and it touches on a very sensitive subject which is the relationship between the people that live in the country the history and the land and whether or not any connection between people and land is valid in terms of authenticating.

58:16Connection ultimately nationality sense of belonging and that's what is being just eroded but completely smashed to pieces so in other words arguments about this recently of course with Jim Ratcliffe's comments and indeed Matt Goodwin as well reform candidate up in Manchester. Look what I'm going to say now is arguably rather controversial but if if a dog has puppies in a stable it doesn't mean that they become ponies and horses it's as simple as that you know is there any qualification to being English or British or French for that matter or any other nationality more than simply being born or naturalized in that country or becoming a naturalized citizen thereof is automatically decried as some form of ultra nationalism ethno nationalism or racism. So that's a conversation that hasn't been had. It's one of the ones that's been swept under the carpet for the last 30 years. I don't want to pronounce on it from any sort of ethical or moral judgment.

59:32Myself simply that there needs to be an honest conversation around that subject and we haven't had it yet. Yeah okay thank you for that Basel Knight look we're well over time but I do just want to finish off today with with the Palantir story because I think this is very important. So so Basel first of all I'm just going to bring this on screen because this is transparency international and corruption perceptions index 2025 UK corruption concerns risk becoming new normal businesses usual not enough to turn corner as UK receives lowest ever score and transparency international influential annual corruption perceptions index and they go on to say results published today show the UK scores fall in the 70 down from 71 last year this marks the UK's lowest point. Since the index underwent a major revamp in 2012 the UK remains 20th in the global ranking for the third consecutive year a significant decline from its top 10 position back in 2017. I believe it was seventh at that point and then they they quote here their chief executive Daniel Bruce is saying for three years running the UK has been stuck in 20th place in the corruption perceptions index with a score that continues to deteriorate this persistent decline is not a temporary blip it risks becoming a defining feature of our political culture I'm going to say Basel to start this off I think that horse is well and truly bolted.

1:00:58Yes and it's worth pointing out that this was produced before the mandals and scandal broke to the extent that it now has resulting in the resignation of three senior members of the government and possibly the prime minister himself but the the Palantir business rolls on and on there were pointed questions in the House of Commons this week from both sides. About Palantir's involvement particularly in the NHS on Wednesday night Palantir celebrated its winning of the 240 million pound ministry of defense contract with a huge lavish party at the BAFTA building in the west end of London now that was picketed and BAFTA employees certainly some of them were horrified that companies so intimately entwined with the Trump administration and indeed with surveillance operations in Gaza should be holding a party in their building but there's more to it than that with Palantir because not only

1:02:04with these contracts handed out after Peter Mandelson took Keir Stammer to an off the record meeting with Peter Teal at Palantir's headquarters in Washington but also Jeffrey Epstein himself was apparently an early key funder of Palantir when it was in the start-up stage now we don't know where Epstein got his money from that remains opaque certainly some of it came from Les Wexner did it also come from child trafficking in which case if Palantir is built on the proceeds of child trafficking then what possible role could it have in any contract in any aspect of which is public life let alone the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health and this is this is closely important puzzle because at the end of the day the tentacles of the Epstein scandal go right through politics but also through corporate life as well and as you say if contracts are being given to companies that are somehow benefiting from his activity this needs to be fully investigated and the necessary steps taken

1:03:22and some politicians are calling for a full investigation into where these contracts were awarded or indeed that they should just be cancelled immediately the government claiming that no British company could do what Palantir is going to do for the Ministry of Defence and they're clinging to the to the life raft at the moment but I think there's a lot more to come on this story the pressure has to be kept up the government want the whole thing to just go away you know we got to his time everybody moves on new cycle moves on but no we have to keep the pressure up on this one Palantir was awarded the MOD contract was more without any competition without any tender there were no other bidders indeed but also they have access to call up contracts as well which you know this so it's not just the MOD contract we're talking about here no there's the Department of Health one as well and very slow take up among GPs to cooperate with that and indeed with health trusts it may become completely unworkable the more so now that we know more and more about Palantir and its relationship with Mandelson and Epstein

1:04:34so if the government can't force GPs and local health trusts to work with the Palantir system then they'll simply have to abandon it it doesn't do anything that other aspects of NHS data collection and sharing don't already do as well apparently yes okay well thank you very much for that Basel and thank you for your contribution today and Brian as well we've got to leave it there for now and Master thanks to Patrick for joining us from Tehran so we would be back in a few minutes on this on the livestream if you can call a member stick around for UK column news extra if you're not a member then please consider joining and then you can join us for extra as well but don't forget germ tonight and we'll be back at 1pm and Monday as usual for another news program have a great weekend we'll see you then bye bye bye