UK Column News — 14th January 2026

0:00Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, the 14th of January, 2026. Just after one o'clock, welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson. Joining me in this studio today, Charles Mallard. Welcome to the program, Charles. Thank you, Mike. And Vanessa Billy, join us by video link later in the program. Alex Creel will be joining us to discuss the censorship on sub-stack, which Vanessa reported on last week. I'll be looking at allegations of foreign interference by Iran and China, and the claim to climb down on digital ID by the Starmer regime. And Charles will be investigating extremism in the UK, but we're going to begin with Iran, Vanessa. We are a repeat spin cycle yet again. We see the repeat of the kind of Arab spring narratives, but also the same narratives that were used to destabilise Ukraine back in 2014. But I just wanted to start with a reminder, I'm sure people don't need it

1:01of the violence being meted out against civilians and anti-genocide protesters. This is in Germany, just very quick show of that. But of course, we're seeing similar videos being disseminated from throughout the EU and the UK. And then, of course, a Palestine action, a direct action group, activist group that targeted Albert Israeli weaponry systems in the UK, and who are now a number of them incarcerated, basically, by the British regime, beyond their remand period and waiting for trial dates, if we can just have the screen on. Palestine, hunger strikers, near death, intent on continuing protests. Now, of course, this is Hiba Muraisi and Cameron Ahmed. Now, Hiba is on 72 days, which is beyond even the 1981

2:08Bobby Sands hunger strike, which was 66 days when he died in British custody. So very frightening that the British government is effectively allowing these young people to die under British incarceration when all they were doing were protesting genocide, when one compares that to the narratives coming out of British media and the British regime, the EU and the US targeting Iran for legitimately putting down externally fermented riots and attacks on civilians inside Iran. Yet again, of course, mirroring what happened back in 2022 with the very much exploited death of Masar Amini who didn't die under torture or abuse, but was taken to hospital and she died there from heart problems. So let's have a look at basically what Trump has been saying. Of course, he's coming out with make Iran great. Again, he's saying to the protesters to keep protesting,

3:14take over the institutions and Larajani, who's basically the National Security Council heard, as said, we declare the names of the main killers of the people of Iran, of course, Trump and Netanyahu. Masar, of course, proven to have been behind many of the protests and weaponizing the rioters against Iran. And then I'll come on to a couple of other points towards the end. But if we then look at what Trump is trying to orchestrate, and of course now the British and the EU are joining in, effective immediately, any country doing business with the Islamic public of Iran, we'll pay a tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the USA. This order is final and conclusive. Thank you for attention to this matter. So what does this actually mean? What effect will this have on Iran? Iran has, of course, lived under sanctions for some time.

4:14But this was put out by RT India. If we just click on the screen, we'll see just the headline there. Iran pulls out of bricks drills, bricks plus drills at South Africa's request due to pressure from the United States. So bricks countries are effectively getting a bit wobbly at the fact that they might be having posed upon them the 25% tariffs that Trump is using to collectively punish Iran for resisting attempts to destabilize it from within. Then that's followed up by a report. So I think this was in the Globe and Mail saying that Iran actually defied pressure to withdraw from the bricks military exercise in Cape Town and one of its naval vessels was seen to be joining the other bricks vessels to take part in the drills. That's not yet fully confirmed, but it appears that Iran is itself refusing to back down despite a certain degree of weakness

5:15from within bricks itself. Then, of course, what the Western media is not going to show you, as it did in Syria, it never showed in 2011 when the regime change war began against Syria. It never showed you the hundreds of thousands that went out on the streets to support President Assad and the Syrian Arab Army. And again, in Iran, more than 3 million people were reported to have gone out onto the streets. And those protests in favor of the Iranian government and the IRGC and the security forces were seen basically across the country. Then, of course, the BBC is as always supporting the narrative of the bringing down of the Iranian in speech marks regime, of course, always used to denigrate a target country. And this is BBC verify the video itself, which is only

6:17about a minute and a half will be in the show notes. They talk about mortuary videos showing the aftermath of the attacks by the Iranian forces. Now, in the report itself, the disinfo babe, the latest disinfo babe from the BBC is talking about having had supplied to them videos of mortuary with body bags and so on. And of course, they're claiming that those civilians that were killed by the security forces as the BBC has always done supported the narratives that are being used to destabilize target countries. We saw exactly the same thing in Syria. And so I've just included a short report from a forensic doctor in Iran who actually went to the same mob that the BBC is talking about and gave this report on the bodies that he examined, which he said were being shot by snipers placed on the roofs surrounding the streets where the rioters were carrying out attacks

7:19against civilians. So let's just have a look at this. In the past, the police had been killed by the police and their murderers. They were not killed, or were killed because of the police and the police and the police were concerned that the Syrian people would be arrested for this. They were not taken to the camp, they were taken to the camp and they were taken to the camp and were taken to the camp. Yes, they were taken to the camp, So there's a lot to unpack about these actions taken by both externally supported and internal protesters, but we can perhaps go into greater detail in extra.

8:19Yes, we can. Thank you for that, Fidesza. Well, let's come back to the UK. It's still related to Iran, but this article in the Scottish Herald is carrying a headline here, the network of Scottish ex-accounts could dark amid Iran block out and they're saying ex-accounts linked to Iran have gone dark after an internet block out was imposed on the West Asian nation. The silence from the group of accounts, which began on Thursday said comes as widespread protest against leadership of the Islamic Republic. Now they talk about a network of fake accounts with names like Fiona, Jake and Lucy all being quiet since the uprising in Iran began, but these accounts appear to be based on Europe, they say because of VPN use. So we can see on screen here some examples of what they're talking about. Jake claimed that a top BBC anchor resigned on air and was immediately detained by security services. They're saying that these tweets became

9:22much more extreme in the run up to the activity in Iran and then went dark. Meanwhile, Fiona said the protesters have seized Balmoral estate and international markets are dumping UK assets as images of tanks in Edinburgh, go viral and so on. So this is what it's all about. Now apparently these Iranian accounts were established to set up to campaign for Scottish independence. So you may ask why, but we'll come onto that in a second. And the article claims that opposed from these accounts as I say became much more extreme in the run up to this. So what was interesting that they quoted this company here, Syabra, which is claimed to be a disinformation uncovering good bad content, fake content online, disinformation, discovery, organization. But the problem about this is that, well, who is it and who's behind it? So Syabra, in fact, claims

10:26that they discovered 26% of profiles discussing Scottish independence were fake on Twitter. But this is who they are. They are an AI part disinformation detection and social threat intelligence platform headquartered in Tel Aviv in Israel. They were founded in 2017. And the positions they describe themselves as being a leader in combating online disinformation, fake profiles and AI generated content across social media platforms. They were funded by their chief executive, Dan Brame, their COO, Josef Dar and the CTO, Edo Shraga. All of them have backgrounds in Israeli military intelligence. So Brane Brame, for example, was former IDF shooting and combat instructor and previously a strategy consultant at Deloitte. Dar was a long time veteran of unit 8200. He served from 2004 to 2014 and he became head of department. Shraga was former cyber systems engineer at the IDF. And if we just bring Dan Brame on screen

11:32here, this is how he's quoted on their website. Our proprietary technology developed by senior veterans from the Israeli special operations command allows us to use sophisticated algorithms and advanced data analytics to determine when automated bots are being used to spread lies across social media platforms. And in 2024, in January 2024, in fact, they added Mike Pompeo to their list to their board. So this is all good stuff. So my question, Vanessa, is this an Iranian effort to influence Scottish independence or independence or is it an Israeli operational to re-operation to reinforce the idea of foreign interference by Iran? And another question that comes to mind is, did these accounts go dark? Because a bunch of Iranians were disconnected from the internet as part of the crackdown on the uprising there or did they go dark? Because it's really operatives time their activities with what was going on in Iran. And you know, many of the employees of this company have been recruited from or have backgrounds in unit 8200

12:36and other intelligence is really intelligence units. So is this a service, I'm sorry, a post service private enterprise or is it an ongoing Israeli intelligence operation? I mean, I don't know the answer to these questions, but the whole thing doesn't smell the best as far as I can see. I just would be interested in your thoughts. Well, first of all, I've got no idea why Iran would want to interfere in Scottish affairs. It's number one. So it seems to me far more likely that it's to be a Zionist hands or a unit 8200 behind the personalities that have been described in order to give the impression that Iran is trying to interfere in affairs in the UK and elsewhere. So yeah, it's very hard to say definitively, but almost certainly I would say

13:37unit 8200 is behind this. And I don't think the blackout, I mean, the blackout when you talk about blackout in Iran, people forget that Israel also imposed a blackout when it was under attack from Iran, but of course, the BBC et al don't mention that they don't make any comparison. It's just Iran is cracking down on communication because it wants to violently put down the protests, right? But the reality is, of course, Iran is protecting itself just as you could say, Israel was protecting itself from bad press when it was under attack from Iran. You only thoughts on this? Well, I mean, I would agree that it does look like it's coming from one particular direction, and that's certainly not Iran. But of course, this is greatly to the advantage of the security minister here, Dan Jarvis, because of course, Iran last year was the central character in his foreign interference narrative. And it was at that time that the particularly information

14:40surrounding nuclear weapons and the Iranian spies and all that kind of thing was going on. So I think this works, this works to a number of people's advantage. And in the information sharing age, and I'm talking between intelligence agencies and governments, it's not impossible to imagine that if this was coming from Israel, the UK administration would also be aware of these. Well, sticking with this information and so on, in a sense, but also extremism, Dan Jarvis. We are, yes. Well, I mean, they're one and the same thing, or at least so they're being cast at the moment. Now, the latest really is what might be described as a thinly veiled attack on family cohesion, but children in particular, and this is by an organisation called Shoutout UK, which within the administrative area of Hull and East Riding has been dressed up as an educational resource. Now, they say that they are countering disinformation through political and media literacy. They also make a strong point of saying they don't receive funding from anywhere

15:40else. Of course, you read the fine print, and in actual fact, they are able to bid for government contracts. And indeed, have had money coming in from government to deal with propaganda. Now, when one considers exactly which direction that's going to go in, it makes the next bit make sense, which is a game, or at least it's being referred to as a game of sorts, a free youth-centered interactive learning package, effectively pointing people towards prevent and helping young folk how to identify harmful content, and more importantly, what to do about it, and of course, is being dressed up as being educational. Now, I went through the first question pushed to the player of the game, which is that you come across a video online, and you're not quite sure about it. So, I'll just go through the options. Tell a trusted adult, talk to a stranger online to find out more about the video, or download the video. Now, what I would say that comes

16:44out of that absolutely immediately is that it's stripping away from the person learning about this, that they have no agency responsibility, or indeed, critical thinking. You have to do something that involves either behaving like an idiot, or relying on somebody else. And this actually pertains very much to what Ben was reporting on Monday, and this network of adults that children can get in touch with if they're not allowed to trust their own judgment. Anyway, if you choose the wrong option, you then get masses of people going crazy about how much they really enjoyed that video that you posted. And then, of course, your conscience is supposed to kick in, and we're told that Charlie wasn't sure if this was the right thing to do. Some of the ideas in the video were extreme and violent. And the next thing is it does spiral downwards quite quickly, and within a very short space of time, you'll remind it, it's important to remember that downloading or streaming certain content can lead to a terrorist offence conviction. And so what this is doing here is

17:46absolutely cementing that direct link between the use of or the passage of information and terrorism via what's being described as extremism. And just a reminder that, of course, when extremism was re-worded by Michael Gove nearly two years ago, it paralleled almost exactly with that written up by the Soviet Union a hundred years previously. Now, the next point to make on this is that a year ago at least reform, the reform party reform UK were up in arms about what prevent was doing, and they were saying that they were concerned about two-tier policing or grooming gangs. Now, in some respects, of course, prevent does help with the reform party narrative, at least specifically on migration and the specter of terror. And so, considering that, we should just take a quick look at the video of the latest member of reform to join the party.

18:48Hello, Tony, time for the telegraph. Mrs. Zahawi, on this point about COVID vaccines, I hear the point about free speech, but the doctor previously mentioned told reform's conference that the vaccines that you rolled out may, of course, cause the king's cancer. And he was described by David Buller as someone who worked with him to write reform's health policy. So, do you reject those views? And if they have shaped reforms health policy, will you try to change it? I think you'll find David Bull actually spoke about vaccines on Friday night at our event that we held down at the Excel Centre with just shy of 3,000 people launching our London campaign. And I think you'll find if you look at what Dr David Buller chairman said, how proud he was of the work, actually for centuries that London had done and led the way in with vaccines. And as Nadine said previously, you know, we get all sorts of speakers from all over the world. Some of them have different opinions. Can I just come in for Tony? Please. I expected more from you. All right, that was a really stupid question, right? And it doesn't even deserve an answer to try again next time. Right.

19:49So, lead in from Nigel Farage, but that's Nadine Zahawi, who's the vaccines minister during the COVID tyranny. And it comes across there as somebody who is not really able to manage himself appropriately with some sense of decorum that would have been appropriate in that situation, not really a very pleasant response to that man there. But we, we therefore consider this defection to reform. So if we just pop that on screen now, Zahawi himself. And how does this look to the supporter of reform? What is the direction of travel that Zahawi, a friend of Israel, himself whilst with the conservative party? This suggests, really, I would say that the narrative that's being promulgated by reform, which is that the specter of terror is never far away. It is the fault of migrants who are in large or at least the ones that we should be concerned about

20:51are brown skinned and Muslim. And indeed, I will go on to substantiate that not least because Zahawi himself tweeting back in 2022 congratulating Netanyahu on his election victory and reinforcing the point UK and Israel are great friends. Well, that might seem innocuous enough. The rhetoric on either support for Israel or indeed taking the view against Iran was stepped up last summer with a tweet from reform saying the UK reform UK stands behind the military actions of the USA. Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons and the future of Israel depends upon it. Now, back in October, I reported that Richard Tyson had spent time in Israel and this is just a quote from an article he wrote in the conservative woman back then about the reports of famine, which he's described as being a blatant lie. He's saying it's all considerably more nuanced than the BBC Sky and other mainstream news outlets that carry breathless reports about starving children seek to imply.

21:54So this is all adding up to going in a particular direction, especially where the relations between Iran and Israel are concerned. So it is therefore pertinent that Nigel Farage went to the Iranian Embassy in London earlier this week and this is what he said whilst he was there. Well, I've just been there with the protest outside the Iranian Embassy. Quite tough, quite tough, you know, women there in tears, I don't have it members missing, very real. Let's win. Let's make this revolution. Freedom for Iran. Freedom for the Persian.

23:00Why can't the British government see? This is the most appalling regime. It's been there over 40 years. They've got to go. Why don't we help them do it? Pre the wonderful Iranian Persian people. So Nigel Farage hoping to score a lot of political capital there. There's definitely something else going on in the background and it's worth pointing out also that this is very much a change of tune from Farage. We look at a report back in 2013, Farage talking about love bombing Iran, saying that concluding a piece there, saying I'm not coming here like everybody else to be falling to the Jewish community, saying you're the most important group of people in the country, although you may be. Now, the way the direction this is pointing was articulated to press conference of his earlier this week's. We just have a look at what he said as that conference opened. Before the main event today, a couple of quick comments. I am quite a good friend of Razor Pilarvi, quite what the final settlement would be in Iran if this revolution succeeds I don't know,

24:06but I do believe him to be a positive and helpful influence. It is obviously tragic that so many people have been killed over the last few days, wholly unsurprising. And perhaps a lot of the silence we get from our establishment is of course because they all backed the JCPOA deal back in 2015, which I was vehemently opposed to, which frankly has done nothing more than prolong the life of this absolutely monstrous regime. So for our expressing his support for Razor Pilarvi, the exiled crown prince, the son of the late Shah of Iran. Now, the reason this is relevant is because of a piece put up by Harret recently, in fact, just a couple of days ago, talking about the Israeli influence in terms of the campaign to install Pilarvi and what they've identified here, which relates exactly back to what Mike's just been talking about. It turns out that a large scale digital influence campaign in Persian was underway, operated out of Israel and funded by private entity that receives government support. And it goes on to say the campaign promotes Pilarvi's

25:11public image and amplifies calls for restoring the monarchy. The campaign relies on avatars, fake online personas posing as Iranian citizens on social media. They were first discovered by social media researchers in Israel and abroad. So the journey that we're sort of weaving here from the beginnings of extremism in the UK go absolutely straight through reform policy and indeed to exerting influence on behalf of Israel where Iran is concerned. I mean, I'm sorry, no, we've gone a bit over on time, but I would be interested to hear Vanessa's points of view or specifically on the last bit about Pilarvi and the sort of campaign to support him and where that's come from, where that's likely to go. Well, of course, the Pilarvi campaign is related to the former Shah of Iran. And that was a former CIA-Predished coup because Prime Minister Mossadak had dead to nationalize oil resources in Iran. And so therefore he had to be got rid of in order for

26:15the Shah to come in with his dictatorship, but backed by the U.S. and the UK in order to reopen oil supply to both countries, but particularly to what is now BP, British petroleum. It never, the script never changes. Fan as we're looking at this point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, yeah, more an extra. Yes. Okay, well, let's move on then to sub-stark and the censorship there. We will, which is an extension of Vanessa's report from last week relating to censorship. And as Mike pointed out at the beginning of the programme, we have Alex Creel on the programme with us today. We just look at the letter that he sent to sub-stark recently, which Vanessa is a co-signatory too. And it's to the chief executive. Obviously, it's been there a week now. So my first point, Alex, obviously, you know, very welcome to UK Column again. Good to see you. Now, just give us a bit of background. What was it that prompted you to write the letter?

27:18And what were the main points that you were putting across in it? Yeah, so I was prompted to write the letter because we had feedback from some of our subscribers across different authors that they were being challenged with age verification to access our content. And, you know, immediately that seemed strange because age verification is only required for accessing harmful content, which is essentially pornography and information on committing self harm. So to me, it was completely insane, frankly, that people were being challenged to verify their age in order to read our writings about sort of current affairs. And, you know, with a little bit of talking across sub-stark, it became pretty clear that that experience was repeated for a number of authors, a number of accounts. They also saw their readers being

28:22challenged for age verification. And that was the same, I think, for Vanessa. And other accounts also confirmed that. So geopolitics and empire, James Dellingpole, and Doc Malik also had got this feedback from their subscribers that they're being challenged. And what we all saw of all of us was a very significant drop in our paid subscriber numbers. Mine started in about November, or maybe even on end of October, every single day you're seeing an outflow of paid subscribers at the same time as, you know, you've enjoyed years of growth, or you're seeing growth in unpaid subscribers, but the paid subscribers were just leaving every single day without any exception. I mean, every day you would log in and see how many had gone and it's gone to about 20 percent at the moment. So what we did, I thought collectively we could write. So across our

29:23group, it's about 60,000 subscribers. And I wrote to the CEO and said, you're not actually authorized to challenge people to verify their ages unless they're trying to access harmful material. And actually, off-com for all its faults makes it clear that is absolutely no legal requirement. And no way you can require people to verify their age to access content that is not harmful. So, Substack is behaving completely inappropriately and they're using the requirements of the UK Online Safety Act as an excuse because the real problem is their classification of our material as potentially harmful being pornography or information about self-harm. So this is an internal substack problem that seems to affect only a very specific group of accounts, some of which are here today. Any kind of off-narrative people authors are being attacked with this imposition,

30:31and which doesn't seem to apply because as a user, I can access kind of normal authors without any age challenge. So this seems to be only applied to a tight group of dissident kind of authors, and that's what we've challenged them on, and so far we haven't heard back from them, but this experience we're having is shared by a number of other authors as well. All right, thanks for that. Now, obviously, as you say, you haven't had a response. What are the parameters within which you think a response should be framed? What do you expect to get back? I expect to get back probably that they made a mistake because they do envisage in their own documentation that you can be misclassified, and if you've been misclassified, just fill out this box and will reclassify you. So I think they will do that, but I don't think that was really enough

31:32because they've actually caused considerable financial pain if you added up across the whole group of authors that have gone on there. As I said, you've seen about a 20% decrease in revenue over three months or so, and the only possible reason I can see for that is the imposition of age verification requirements by Substack. It goes completely against the trend. There's also another perspective, which is that authors can actually end up being quite severely financially punished by Substack because people are being locked out of their Substack accounts who are paid subscribers, and then those authors are then being challenged for taking money that they're not providing a service pool because the actual subscriber is no longer able to access that author's contents. So they're ending up being the authors are ending up being charged all kinds of bank

32:32recovery fees. So this can spiral into a big financial penalty for authors on Substack and one Substack author has written about this, and he's gone through the maths. It can add up to a lot of money. Yes, Alex, I mean, this is a really important point because if I don't know what typical subscription you're asking for pay or contributors or people that are writing on Substack are asking for, but let's say it's three or five pounds a month or whatever it is, and you end up getting a 15 or a 25-pound charge. That is a big hit and an extremely unfair hit, particularly since, as you say, this is an optional thing for Substack. Yeah, and a guy he's called agent 131711, which is not a very catchy title, but he's actually been through maths of how this would work. If you get 300 subscribers with this 15-pound charge,

33:36you're into sort of four and a half thousand pounds of charges for the author. And, again, as you said, Mike, you're being punished for your subscribers walking away due to a Substack in position, which they imposed completely and appropriately. And it's the author that ends up being punished. It's completely outrageous, but that's where we are at the moment. I mean, what do you think the answer to this is because my question would be should independent journalists, independent authors be using platforms like Substack? Because you're relying on a third party who could always become hostile at some point in the future. Yeah, it's a great question. And I think opinions are split on that. So, obviously, any of these kind of hub and spoke centralized systems,

34:37the guys in charge of the hub can cause you extreme damage. But the other side is, of course, it is a good distribution platform and it kind of works better than any other system there is for independent authors to make money. So, it's an open question that, you know, do you take the risk and get the benefit or do you walk away? Yeah. I think a lot more to talk about on that. So, we will do so in extra. I'm pleased to say that Alex will remain on for extra. So, if you will remember, you'll get to listen to that. But Alex Kriall, I'm thinking Kriall, thank you very much. Yes, thank you, Alex. Okay. Well, if you like what the UK column does and you'd like to support us, the details can be obtained via the front page of the website. Have a look at the click button, the button to click on there. If you'd like to find out how you can support us, if you can't support us financially, then please do share content. And let's deal with some of the censorship that we're talking about just a few minutes ago. Now, tonight,

35:40Jerome is speaking to Larry Sanger about Wikipedia, who's suggesting that Wikipedia is a central intelligence and walk nest. That's a 7pm. Karl is talking about Taiwan again at 9pm. So, joined for that. And very briefly, Charles, tomorrow, you were speaking with Ian Overton. Yeah, Ian Overton, who's been referenced on the news program by Vanessa. In fact, a number of times, a very interesting conversation about the situations involved involving UK forces in armed conflict and a lot of situations where they actually should not be involved. So, really worth tuning into. Okay, thank you. And we'll just bring the graphic up here for Abby Roberts, part two, which is on at 7pm. This is from members only at 7pm on the UK column website. Please do join Jake, for that. Okay, let's move on then and talk about digital ID because this is quite a development here. So, here is the BBC News headline.

36:47Government drops plans for mandatory digital ID to work in UK. And let's just have a look briefly at what they're saying in the report. The government has dropped plans for requiring workers to sign up to its digital ID scheme in order to prove their right to work in the UK. By 2029, right to work checks will be done digitally, for example, by using biometric passports, but registering with the new digital ID program will be optional. That's my emphasis there. This marks a shift from last year when the government first denies the policy. And Prime Minister Sir Kierstharmer told an audience you will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you did not have a digital ID. It's as simple as that. Well, let's just have a quick look at some of the responses. Then, so here is Kiermy Bednoch. Good ridden, she says. It was a terrible policy. Anyway, well, is it good riddance? Well, we'll talk about that in a second. Here is Zack Polanski from the Green Party. The government have you turned on ID cards? Good. Don't think it's a you turn either, but we'll

37:48come on to that in a second as well. And well, this is Nigel Farage's comment. This is a victory for individual liberty against the ghastly authoritarian government reform would scrap it all together. Well, it's great that reform would scrap it all together. But, you know, Nigel Farage is not pointing out that in fact, there is no you turn here at all. Because what are we looking at? We're looking at the government pulling back a little bit from a position. So the word mandatory is gone. The word voluntary is absolutely still there. The digital ID program is absolutely still there. What what have they done? Is this then backtracking again because of the pressure from the campaigners and so on? Well, of course, it isn't. Because if we actually look at this psychological techniques that are at work here, we've got three examples here of what we might be talking about. First of all, the door in the face technique. And I'm going to say our I pay to Scott Adams here because of course, Dilbert is expressing how this or giving an example of how this works. So in the first cartoon here, it's saying the Dilbert's speaking to someone who's

38:52saying, Oh, my babysitter cancel tonight. Dilbert says too bad. And in the next frame, hey, I have an idea. Do you like kids? Dilbert says I'll not watch your kids tonight. And in the third frame, the person says I was going to ask you to adopt them. And Dilbert says absolutely not the best I can do is watch them tonight. So the person gets what they wanted by taking an extreme position and then walking back from it. So we put that back on screen. Then the next one is the Overton window and that shifting. Now, of course, the Overton window is the idea that things become normalized over time in a step by step way slowly over time. But of course, what Starmer is in a sense doing here is normalizing digital ID by making it voluntary and therefore not something that you have to worry about because you can choose not to not to accept or not to use it. And then of course, we have the contrast effect, which is where we're basically

39:53celebrating this big win and we take our guard down as a response. And of course, that's exactly where we are at the moment because anybody that's campaigning on digital ID is going to find it very difficult to get engagement from the general public who nicely it is something that is completely voluntary and they don't have to worry about. And the sort of threat to them at this point in time is no longer a thing. And so Charles, we have this situation that they did exactly the same thing with the inheritance tax for farmers. And it's a common theme with governments in the UK to pull this kind of gag. It is effectively a psychological operation on the general public because they end up with what they want at the end of the day. Of course, absolutely, no, we see it at time again. I mean, it was very much played slightly differently, but during the the Covid period where something that seemed very much right of arc was put out there, it was left to sort of settle for a few days and then road back on slightly and then sure enough there'd be

40:56a clamoring for it. I think the other thing to point out with this is of course that the number of contracts that are already signed out there as it were for private companies to be working on behalf of the government. So in a way, whether it's Manitur or not, it's sort of neither in all that. It's still going to happen as far as there concerned. Exactly. And they just push the responsibility for making it mandatory onto the private sector rather than government mandate. Yes. So, but, you know, I suppose in a related topic here at Finessa, let's just have a chat about Palantir and what it's been up to. Yeah, Palantir, which alongside UNIT 200 and various other Israeli spy units is effectively taking over or taking control of surveillance and AI tech, both in the US, where Trump has embedded them into his administration, but also now in the UK. So this is from the Palantir website, Palantir UK.

41:58Competitive innovation through data exploitation for over a decade. Palantir has provided world-beating data operation software to the UK Armed Forces and its allies. And of course, not forgetting the Albert systems itself is now training members of the British Army. So, this was a meeting in September 2025. This is from a UK government document between Defence Secretary John Haley meeting Palantir CEO Alex Carp. Now, I just want to quickly insert a section from, I think it was a Zoom meeting of Palantir employees and Alex Carp, where he's supposedly talking to customers and potential customers just to give an introduction to what I would describe as Alex Carp's psychopathy. But let's have a look at this. You know, we are doing with the United Kingdom and many other places. Palantir is here

42:58to disrupt and make aren't the institutions we partner with the very best in the world. And when it's necessary to scare enemies and on occasion kill them. And we hope you're in favor of that. We hope you're enjoying being a partner. And we're really happy and very, very focused on what we're doing. Thank you for your time. Thank you. That concludes today. So, they're prepared to kill people for their customers and that, of course, included Israel during the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. So, let's have a look at what the UK government document actually said. So, they're talking about a new strategic partnership with Palantir to unlock up to 1.5 billion investment into the UK to deliver new jobs, growth, national security. Palantir announced his plans to make the UK at European HQ for defence and create up to 350 new high-skill jobs, cementing the UK as a state of the art defence

43:59technology hub. Palantir and UK military to develop AI powered capabilities already tested in Ukraine. And of course, we now know in Gaza to speed up decision-making, military planning and targeting to kill people. In other words, it will see Palantir invest up to 1.5 billion to make the UK defence innovation. They don't create up to the jobs, making defence and engine for growth. And then let's see what they say also embedded within the document. So, they talk about Palantir and the UK military working together to make the UK the leading edge of innovation in NATO. Some of these new capabilities will support development of what is known as the kill chain whereby military planners fuse a wide range of information and data sources from open sources and military platforms to provide military commanders with faster options for attacking and enemy target. Of course, the enemy will eventually also be domestic populations. This

44:59would form an element of the digital targeting web announced in the strategic defence review, which will have a large and diverse supplier ecosystem. So, I don't think I'm alone in finding this pretty sinister. And then on the 7th of January, Middle East, I published an article saying that Corbyn slams the UK for our 240 million pound deal with Israel linked to US tech giant Palantir. So there is some pushback against this, but actually really not enough. And then if we have a look at a recent interview with Alex Karp, this was one of the on the YouTube video. This was one of the screenshots if we can just go back to the Oppenheimer moment, which again I just find quite sinister. So he describes in his own paper our Oppenheimer moment, the creation of AI weapons. The interview itself was with New York Times, Andrew Rossookin,

46:00it was at a New York Times event. I think it was a couple of months ago. But let's just hear what Rossookin says initially in his introduction to Alex Karp. $4400 billion. And after October 7th, Karp has been perhaps secretly the most outspoken CEO in America to support Israel. Week after the attack, he took out a full page ad in this newspaper, The New York Times, had four words on it, said Palantir stands with Israel, should say the IDF and Assad are clients of Palantir. There are a lot of questions about what they're doing here in the US, including their contract with ICE and their work around the world. And we are going to talk about all of it. Alex, thank you for being with us. Couldn't imagine why we're controversial. Couldn't imagine. Let's discuss. So of course, when he's saying he supports Israel, what he's effectively doing is providing direct support to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. And then let's say another section of one of his responses to Rossookin. There is, yes, then there's the more subtle answer. All these

47:07countries and people I defend in public, like Israel's the perfect example. I think most of the critiques of Israel, not all, not all, but a lot of people just have like, Israel derangement or Jewish derangement syndrome. It's like, they're like hobbyists. They think about Jews all day. It's like, I don't know. I grew up in the Jewish community. How often do you think about Jews? I don't think about Jews very often. So it's like, hey, of course I'm going to defend in a way publicly that I can assure you, privately, people have less present conversations than the one we're having. Like I told the Israeli government from the beginning, maximum violence to the people organizing violence, minimal violence to the people on the front end. I told every single person, do you think that they lived up to that? We're going to talk. I mean, you know, this is quite extraordinary. Palantir were involved in the development of the AI tech war study, which effectively was used by the Israelis to identify alleged Hamas members, would then track them back to their home and target the home. So then killing all of the family

48:11members living in that home. Palantir were involved in the Grim Reaper operation, which were the Pedro attacks in 2024 in Lebanon that mutilated more than 3,000, mostly civilians, including children, removing eyes, amputating hands, and effectively mutulating civilians. So this doesn't quite bear out, of course. I mean, we shouldn't really be surprised by that. And then this was quite interesting. I found this guy, Juan Sebastián Pinto, on Substag, who was a former Palantir employee based in Denver and the US. And I recommend everybody reads this article. It's a very interesting deep dive into the Palantir systems and basically into the Istar systems, intelligence surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance, which he actually describes as being very akin to terrorism

49:11and in how it responds to threat. And of course, it supports state terrorism, as we've seen clearly from the US under the Trump administration through the ICE agents that have effectively recently killed an American citizen in Minneapolis and are conducting violent operations against US citizens on a daily basis. Under again, the Trump administration, Palantir supports that. And then let's have a look at what Sebastián Pinto actually talks about in his article. So just as Palantir's software can set algorithmic thresholds to define who is a target and justify their killing, the New York Times sets the narratives that allow this killing to continue, to observe genocide, justify war, define terrorism and perpetuate international aggression. Nonetheless, it's both continued to enable genocide in Palestine or stoke fire for war with

50:14Venezuela. People are whizing up to the ways in which these corporations weaponize information to protect and enrich those in power. And he then goes on, he's then quoting Alex Krop again, so Krop in another interview, actually said, the primary way to create peace in this world is to scare our adversaries when they wake up, when they go to bed while they're seeing their mistress. The most effective way for social change is humiliate your enemy and make them poor. Does that sound familiar? And of course, you had the former director of Mossad Yossi Cohen talking about every phone in the world has a bit of Israel in it. So again, you can see this collusion between Palantir and Israel. And now the embedding of Palantir into institutional structures in the UK and in the US and US is far more advanced. But I think in the UK we're going to see a lot more of Palantir in the future. Yes, thank you, thank you for that Vanessa.

51:19Now let's come on to a piece of propaganda in the Daily Telegraph. Let's bring it on screen. And well, the headline there is uncovered secret room beneath Chinese embassy that poses threat to city. And they say the Telegraph obtains unredacted plans showing how closely underground complex will come to cables carrying sensitive British financial data. Now in the article itself, they say China is to build a hidden chamber alongside Britain's most sensitive communication cables as part of a network of 208 secret rooms between its new London super embassy. The Telegraph can reveal this newspaper has uncovered detailed plans for an underground complex below the vast diplomatic site in central London, which Beijing has sought to keep from public scrutiny. The drawings show that a single concealed chamber will sit directly alongside fiber optic cables transmitting financial data to the city of London, as well as email and messaging traffic for millions of internet users. But if that isn't comedic enough for you,

52:24it was this, so just put this back on screen for a second because it was this photograph that had me in stitches because it's just comedy gold. What Telegraph doesn't explain in there, what for anybody is just listening by the way, it is the Telegraph journalist standing on a manhole cover with a measuring tape showing the distance between the manhole cover and the wall. It is pathetic. But what the Telegraph doesn't explain, of course, is exactly how Chinese embassy staff will snoop on the data on these fiber optic cables. Maybe they're going to tunnel out of their secret room, which is on the plans, or maybe like the League of Gentlemen, if anybody remembers that 1960 film, they'll gain access through the manhole covers in the straight as they dress up as BT workers and hide what they're doing with smoke bombs. I mean, how is stupid does this have to be before people begin to recognise what they're being subjected to? I'm not sure, but that could well turn out to be a journalistic photograph of the year,

53:25and it's in its second week in January. Well, I think it deserves to be actually brought back on screen once again. I can't really enjoy it enough. But I mean, the other thing is, you know, what a massive distraction, every single organisation that we could list that supposed to preserve the integrity of financial or any other sensitive data has had a breach in recent times. So why not just do it the old fashioned way and hack into it if you want it? I mean, why would you spend all that time and effort digging when you know, yes, because just to be clear about this, you cannot snoop off fiber optic cables without physical access to the cables. So, you know, this is just, well, anyway. But where does that leave us with China? Well, it leaves us with, again, I think a moment of irony, partly in response to what I've got, Cooper was saying about Iran and sanctions. Sanctions, of course, always wave is the great big dangling threat, but it's just interesting to note that China, the Chinese

54:25state has posted information about their trade surplus of the year just passed. China's foreign trade hits new high up 3.8% in 2025, just a little bit of detail off the State Council's website. The foreign trade value hit 45.47 trillion yuan, which is about 6.48 trillion US dollars according to data released. And it marks the ninth consecutive year of growth for China's foreign trade since 2017, begging the question, sanctions. So what? Sanctions, of course, and tariffs. But as demonstrated by China, as demonstrated by Russia and presumably Iran, I mean, the rhetoric from, well, obviously, if it could put them in issues in the chair, is just senseless pointless and hopeless. And China here demonstrating exactly those three things. I mean, part of the problem here, Charles, is that no matter what they say about sanctions on China and Russia, there's still trade going on between the West, of course, and China and

55:27Russia. So, of course, they're not going to be suffering terribly badly. Yeah, indeed. Okay, well, let's finish the program today then with some farming news. Indeed. In actual fact, slightly limited on the news from, it's rather more what hasn't been said. It's the Oxford farming conference took place last week. There is a rival, the real Oxford farming conference, so that there's sort of, there's always controversy surrounding it. I think one thing that is worth drawing out to the report from the OFC this year is just the absolute Goldigook they've gone into. They say that how the UK agriculture now operates in a, I don't know, how your plants, it's actually Bani or Bani, B-A-N-I world, one that is brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible. I think incomprehensible, I'd go along with, they go on to say that shocks from shifts in world trade dynamics, regional conflicts, Brexit and the public debt crisis have all combined with increasingly disruptive weather events to create uncertainty and instability.

56:28Nothing you haven't really heard before, I think the point to make there is that there's absolutely no suggestion that either government or corporations might be accused of derailing agriculture wholesale, but we'll just have a listen to Emma Reynolds, the Secretary of State, in her address to the farming conference. Today I'm going to cover a lot of ground, but there are three commitments that run throughout my speech. First, that this government is serious about partnership with your sector. Second, that we're committed to giving you clarity and stability. Third, that we're backing you to grow with confidence and resilience. Let me start with the announcement we made just before Christmas. Since starting this role in September, I've listened to farmers and stakeholders about your concerns on proposed changes to inheritance tax. You told me the threshold was too low. You told me it would hit small family farms, the very farms we want to protect,

57:30farms that have been in families for generations, farms you understandably want to pass on to your children. We have listened and we are making changes, increasing the inheritance tax threshold for agricultural and business property relief from one million to two and a half million pounds. That means couples can pass on five million pounds without paying inheritance tax on their assets and that's on top of the existing allowances such as the nil rate band. Around 85% of a state's claiming APR, including those also claiming BPR, will pay no more inheritance tax. Good governments listen and when they hear real concerns, they act. So for anyone thinking that the era of the virtuous soundbite had died with the Blair administration, I think that might have proven wrong, essentially her talk was a tevere tame regurgitation of the farming profitability review, which I went through last week,

58:31written up by Minnet Batters, also the press releases on the inheritance tax word play really, because of course nothing has actually changed yet. So for her to say that the threshold has been increased and parrot the government's line on it is extremely disingenuous and the bottom line really was that with regard to profitability or actually improving the lot of farmers, she really had nothing to say but I'm cladding the subsidy to supermarket system, which of course will not really benefit anybody in the short medium or long term. Talking of long term, she referred to there being a 25 year plan for farming. Of course, they haven't actually written it yet, so it's debatable as to whether that might take roughly that time to write. So as I say, it really was just soundbites with very little substance. In terms of money, she referred to 30 million pounds being spent on farmers to help them share ideas and that was one of her things. The other one was 30 million pounds on farming and protected landscapes,

59:32which of course again is similar to a lot of the environmental initiatives, which really give the authorities the power to take control of land. So again, a very much double edged policy, she then talked about the sustainable farming incentive, which of course is very controversial towards the end of last year after the norm was pickle that had been made of it by the previous conservative government. And on that, she said specifically, you'll still have plenty of choice, but this government recognizes that SFI must work alongside food production and not displace it. So effectively trying to convince people that the government has actually been listening when this was said absolutely at the outset and is not a point of her making. She then goes on to say we will limit how much land to be put into certain actions and review payment rates for others. Again, that was done by the conservative administration when they realized that they'd made an absolutely gargantuan miscalculation earlier on last year and had to do an about face. Now,

1:00:34related to this, I think I would say is the consultation that's gone out on, well, what's being talked about as welfare, it's a proposed ban on keeping laying hands in cages. Of course, there is a ban on that, but only for those who keep 350 birds or more. Now, this goes under the banner of welfare. And I think a point to raise here is, well, what about high expansion nitrogen foam, which of course is the preferred killing method for birds supposedly infected with bird flu. Of course, we don't really need to go into detail again about how that's achieved through the PCR test and all the various shortcomings, but not really a welfare solution and indeed avoiding a much bigger issue. First of all, the killing methods, but also the conditions inside broiler factories. And then the other thing, just a point out, is a really excellent illustration of how supernatural policy is cleaved to by the United Kingdom and then used to manipulate the destiny of overseas territories whilst maintaining, of course, that it is in their own interests.

1:01:39And therefore, we take a look at the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction bill, which has just had a development, but just to read the opening text to make provision for an connection with the implementation by the United Kingdom of the agreement under the United Nations Convention on the law of the sea and the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. Now, that's the critical part really here. And of course, in the draft legislation, there are provisions for regulation that may be enforced and indeed criminal sanctions. So this is the British government taking UN policy and indeed anything that comes out of the conference, the parties, and that those whims are then translated into laws that are then foisted upon overseas territories at the same times, telling them that they have autonomy and self-determination. So that's the farming wrap up, which leads us into... Well, I was just going to say, you know, we are a little

1:02:41lit here for reasons I can't possibly understand, but anyway, we should watch the final video here. We should, yes. No, this is, well, this should have been done ages ago, actually, but this is to galvanise people. If you are at a loose end on a Thursday lunch time, you could do a lot worse than going down to broadcasting house. Now, this is what happens at BBC Truth Hour. Truth Hour at the BBC Thursday is one till two. We'll expose the lies disclosed the truths or facts from fiction in the news. This Corbyn will be there as well, as he has many truths to tell. And you can speak out if you like, so don't miss out its open mic. We detecters off the seat, those who lie, will defeat. The truth will win out. There's no doubt, those who lie, will route out. The BBC light off the week. That is what, of we shall speak, galvanised by mission and of truth. There really is no excuse. Now it's time to make a start. So please come along,

1:03:46the length and height. Strengthen numbers is what we want. So let's present a United Front. Well, as he's saying, strength and numbers is what they want. So if you are able, do get down there because I think it would be great to have a grind swell of attendance there outside the BBC every week. Thursday, one o'clock was a link in the show notes. Okay, thank you, Charles. Thank you to Alex and Vanessa today. We are going to have to leave it there because we're absolutely well past time. Join us in a few minutes if you can't call a member for UK call news extra. Don't forget, Jeremy Carltonite and Charles interview tomorrow at 1pm. We'll be back as usual, 1pm on Friday. We'll see you then. Thanks for joining us. Bye bye.