UK Column News - 21st January 2026

0:00Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, the 21st of January, 2026, just after 1 o'clock. Welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson, and joining me by video link today are Charles Mallett and Vanessa Bailey. Welcome to the program both. I live in the program. Vanessa is going to be taking a look at the behavior of mainstream media here in the UK and also looking at the situation with Venezuela's oil. Charles is going to be reporting on defections to reform and the UK's conscription agenda, and I'm going to be taking a look at Tony Blair. I mean, Trump's new board of peace, but we're going to begin today, of course, with Davos, because as Ben reported at a Monday, Davos is now at nine full swing, and Trump has now arrived, despite the fact that apparently they had to turn back because of technical problems with the airplane. But of course, he's not the only important person there, because another key person,

1:03as co-chair, is Black Rock's Larry Fink. Let's just have a listen to what he said. But also places like Detroit and Dublin, or cities like Jakarta, or Buenos Aires. We need the mountain to visit everyone, to be a part of everyone's life. So in fact, that's why I agreed to take on this role after Klaus Schwab, who's more than a half century of work, together with an extraordinary dedicated group of men and women at the world economic forum, made this gathering possible. There was an opportunity to make this forum more transparent, and I thought this was a surest way to rebuild trust, when people can see in the room about the debates, about the participation, and about the conversations, and maybe a lot more understanding. That approach may fail in other gatherings, and this one it's in a work,

2:06because for all the caricatures of this forum, the people come here, the people I know aren't here to congratulate themselves, aren't here to pat themselves on the back, they're not here to protect their own comfort. The people I know are here for something bigger than themselves, bigger than their organizations that they represent. Charles, that would be sitting, or something would it? Exactly, or where he was going with that, and I'm not sure it's that much more reassuring to be able to hear what it is that they are talking about. Yeah indeed. Well, of course he is a major participant this year as co-chair, and he will in fact be chairing the session with Trump later on, but if we just look at this graphic here, he had five sessions, he was chairing yesterday, another three today, undoubtedly he'll have more to do as well. So the session with Trump begins at about 3.30 this afternoon. Now political then was interviewing

3:12Borger Brande, the president and CEO of the World Economic Forum, and they reported that Brande spent a lot of time over the last year working to get Donald Trump to attend, and the quote I'm saying post Davos last year, I started with discussions with the White House, and also coordinating with chief of staff Susie Wiles. I also visited DC in early December in meetings in the White House, but also with different cabinet secretaries, and now we're in a situation where Trump is coming, and we also have five key cabinet secretaries, there'll be a broad footprint of the US and Davos, so they seem to be trying to reinvent themselves, instead of the past few years, types of topics like global warming, Paris Agreement, sustainable development goals, so on, it's now Trump and Maga, and so on, and they quote Mike Rubino, who's a former Trump administrator and administration official, sorry, in the political report there. He works for forward global and baller partners, and I believe he said that stuff, global warming, and so on,

4:12has gone out of fashion, but he was also, by the way, talking about Ukraine in that comment, so Ukraine is apparently out of fashion as well, which is perhaps why Zelensky has decided not to attend, so he's abandoned trying to make the excuse that Ukraine's critical energy situation is the reason. Well, besides Maga and so on, the traditional Davos billionaires are there, of course, but also the new billionaire class, the AI, cried, so political reported that Jensen Yi Huang, that particular session, also chaired by Larry Fink, by the way, he's, of course, the boss at Nvidia, and other people from Microsoft, Metapalentir, and Throbic, OpenAI, they're all there, they're all holding meetings there, also JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Salesforce, these types, but one person that isn't there is Iran's foreign minister, who posted this on X,

5:17except of course, I can't show you what he posted on X, because the online safety act means that due to local laws, laws, we're temporarily restricting access to this content until X estimates your age, so I can't show you what he said, I can just tell you what he said, he said, Weft cancelled my appearance in Davos on the basis of lies and political pressure from Israel, and it's US-based proxies and apologists, and he said that he accused the Weft of having blatant double standards, because it never stopped any Israeli official from participating, even when the worst of what was going on in Gaza was going on, he also put a video, by the way, showing some of the organized writers and during the recent uprising in Iran, but the upshot then of Davos this year, maybe their attempts to make it more relevant, we've got to decide for ourselves whether it actually is, I suspect the answer to that is no,

6:18in most people's minds, we're of course going to continue to watch closely and report more on this, but there is a lot going on there, so we'll keep you posted, but let's close this segment with a little comedy, because I'm sure everyone is seeing this by now, but my question is, did Brigitte give Manuel another smack in the face? He says the sunglasses were there to cover up a minor eye infection, and that may well be true, but nonetheless the memes are already doing the run, and bearing in mind the number of transhumanists that are attending this year, perhaps this one is as close to the truth as possible to get. So there we go, a quick grind up of Davos, we're going to be talking a lot more about Davos in extra, but any brief thoughts, Charles? Well, an actual fact, it does protect very closely to what I'm going to go on and talk about, but I think something I'll come back to is this idea that the focus might be changing,

7:20and that people who have vested interests might genuinely be thinking about changing direction, and that, I think it's very hard to get to a point where that makes any sense at all. So with that in mind, and also with the idea that Zelensky has taken a, well, not actually a cease at all, I was going to say a backseat, but that he's not there, there is this struggle to re-energise the Ukraine situation, and with all these things being connected, it's no coincidence, I wouldn't say, but the Ministry of Defence has recently put out a tweet from Defence Intelligence, suggesting that the situation, as it stands, is that the text will be underlined. Of course, the illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is continuing, but there seems to be a little doubt in putting out this tweet, they really are seeking to just keep this in people's minds. Of course, we've had a lot of propaganda surrounding the coalition of the willing, but not necessarily able,

8:20and there are many overtures being made about the prospect of a looming war. Now, I've just shown a map, and I'm going to show another one now, because this goes back to July 1940, and has been reprinted in an article published by the University of Portsmouth, written by David Townley, in which he refers back to the 1930s, and the technocrats, sometimes also called Technoxy Inc, and they propose merging Canada, Greenland, Mexico, the US, and parts of Central America into a single continental unit. Now, I'm not going to go into detail on that, because I'm in Mike Will later in the program, but I think it's very significant to point that out, and just to go on, this they call to Technate, it was to be governed by a technocratic principles, rather than by national borders and traditional political divisions. Just at this point, Mike, I wonder what your view of that is, particularly given what you've just been talking about with Larry Fink's comments in Davos.

9:24Well, not only that, but what we're going to talk about later in the program with the board of peace, and also at the very end of the program with, sorry, Greenland, and during extra, actually, we'll probably be talking a little bit about the comments from Mark Carney, who suddenly seems to be getting very nervous about the fact that Canada is being encircled, and I think that what you've just shown on screen is the intended outcome of this whole process. Absolutely. It is. And of course, what we mustn't forget is that this is very much joined up, and certainly been running since 2022, when Russia first made its incursion into Ukraine. And of course, this idea that we must mobilize and be ready for war to take on a whole of society approach, essentially nudging people towards conscription. And so, on that note, just going to go through a few recent press releases from the MOD, one of which is that they're saying there's going to be a major boost to the pool of skilled former military personnel

10:26who can be called upon in crises as the UK strengthens its preparedness. Now, what are they talking about here? They're saying that they're taking decisive action to boost readiness and deliver on the first duty of government to keep its citizens safe. Well, the first duty of government really should be to protect the power less from the powerful that we're so used to having it misquoted, we just let it go. They are going to increase the maximum age for calling up reserves from 55 to 65. They're going to align the time for which recall applies across all three services so that everybody will be subject to the same conditions. And, critically, they're going to lower the thresholds recall so that reserves can be recalled for war-like preparations in addition to the current requirement for national danger, great emergency or attack on the UK. Now, I've spoken about this quite some length before and this is very, very close to a lot of what was being done in suddenly the earlier stages in the First World War and indeed in 1939 as the country

11:28prepared to enter into a full-scale conflict. Now, the next press release, which concerns the how is how are we going to do this? What sort of effects are going to be delivered on the battlefield wherever and whenever it turns out to be? And we have an announcement of a 279 million pound contribution to a new cyber regiment barracks going to be a transformation of the Duke of Gloucester barracks in Gloucestershire and the Army website here saying that cyber attacks are a growing threat. In the last two years, there have been more than 90,000 attacks on the UK's military networks. The government's strategic defence review says that cyber warfare is now at the heart of modern conflict. Well, they might well say that. The bit that gloss over, of course, is that without the use of artificial intelligence, which they are on the one hand so much pumping up, these sorts of attacks would be far less likely to occur. So we absolutely have a situation where technology is in effect playing both sides. The statement goes on to say that to meet the challenge,

12:31a new cyber and electromagnetic command is being set up and this will help put the UK at the front of cyber operations worldwide. Now, the other point to make on that specifically is, of course, that the control of the technology will not rest with the Ministry of Defence. It is, of course, being developed by international organisations, many of which have their origin in Israel or at least the proprietary technology will be held there, as well as other places. And this represents, again, a significant risk that is absolutely not being discussed. Now, the last announcement concerns the announcement of a cut against drone degree to train military forces of the future. So how exactly they're going to inspire young people to sign up for this remains to be seen, but the idea is that the conflict in Ukraine has highlighted the growing threat posed by uncrewed devices. And it's critical that the UK has both the specialist capability to meet that

13:31demand, but also the power and authority to protect military sites from such threats. Interesting to note there that, of course, there's no reference to any threat to civilians. And yes, of course, all of this is predicated on the experiences in Ukraine and in Russia, where there are many, many instances, of course, of drones being used in a variety of ways. And again, it begs the question about the overall use of drones in the United Kingdom and what the Civil Aviation Authority is doing about it and whether there's any sort of responsible regulation in so far as drones and perceived threat that drones may offer is being dealt with. I think the other point to make just to draw this to a close is that the Ministry of Defence have also been boasting about record defence exports from the past year, but this comes exactly alongside the enormous deficit in resources by way of kit and manpower. So there's a case being

14:32made for war with very, very flingsy evidence that we're in any position to be able to do anything about it. But I think the point to fall out of this is that men, young men in particular need to stand by for an absolute increase of the pressure that's going to be applied to them to enter into some sort of fray, whether that be technological or indeed kinetic. Interesting you say, young men, just very briefly. I mean, one word answered, Charles, if they're increasing the age for reservists to be called up in the event of a more general call-up, then that in fact would bring the likes of view and me right back into the frame. It would, and this can change on a six pence, and I will be writing an article about it, which we'll hope to publish next week. Thank you, thank you for that. Okay, let's move to Vanessa, then. And Vanessa, Kathy Newman has been back in the headlines for the last couple of days, because of a recent interview. What are your thoughts on it?

15:35I think my thoughts are probably not repeatable on air, but good afternoon everyone, and I apologize for rather saturating this report with sections of Kathy Newman's appalling interview on Channel 4. But I just quickly wanted to show if you actually scrolled around a search of Channel 4 and Iran, you will see that the search itself is full of headlines like this on their news reports. Basically supporting, of course, the regime change narratives, just as they did throughout the regime change war against Syria. But I'm focusing today on an interview that Kathy Newman did with Professor Said Marandi. He's a Tehran University professor, but look at how it's framed in the title, regime supporters. So immediately he's he's othered into being a supporter of the elected Iranian government. He refutes the systemic slaughter of protesters. So already she's

16:37drawing the conclusion that protesters, peaceful protesters, just as she did, of course, in Syria in 2011, are being slaughtered by the government. So let's just have a quick listen to the first section that I've taken out. What right does the West have to determine who governs in Iran and who doesn't? The people on the streets in their thousands who are now being systematically slaughtered in their thousands. They are saying that your government no longer has the right to govern. Yesterday we saw rallies across the country and the footage is online and it was broadcast live. Even though now people like Musk and others are trying to pretend it was AI. These were people who were forced to go out and protest, but people of their own free will bravely went out. And in return, the government, your government, has slaughtered them in their thousands. And for what?

17:40In this is just extraordinary. We're back to Syria again. Where? What, right? Protesters. Sorry, where protesters are being literally forced out on the street in support of their government. And then if we look at what she bases the report on, it's a report from Reuters about five days ago Iranian official says verified deaths in Iran protests, which is at least five thousand. However, of course, the official is not named. And so therefore we can pretty much dismiss that report from Reuters as we can. The majority of the reports coming out surrounding Iran itself. And then I just want to play a second clip from Kathy Newman. There are no bodies piling up on the streets. Nobody's piling up on the streets. We've seen them with our eyes. And but, and no, not on the streets. I live in Tehran. And by the way, and by the, so then rephrase and don't produce propaganda.

18:47You're supposed to be a credible news outlet. A hundred police officers, roughly, or officers of the law were murdered. Two were burnt alive. One was beheaded. And we had a nurse burnt alive in a clinic. The clinic was burnt down and she was burnt. She was a young nurse. We had a three-year-old kid who was shot by these rioters or who you, the people who you call protesters, and murdered in her father's arms. These are violent people. Well, let me ask you. Let me ask you. Now, notice though, she says that she's seen the parts of bodies with their own eyes in the streets of Tehran. She then switches it to the morgue. So how on earth you can have any trust in what Kathy Newman and Channel 4 reporting on Iran is kind of beyond me. And then how she dismisses said Miranda's reports are from on the ground in Tehran of the people that have actually been killed by the Mossad operatives inside Iran itself. And Israel, by the way, has admitted that it's been

19:52supporting the so-called rioters and or as they're called protesters. Then the final clip from Kathy. These are people who were rioting and these were people who were shooting at police officers and there's footage of it. And that footage is online. And it's on the accounts of many people and people can see it. Mainstream media in the West and obviously your media, since you are trying to create an environment for war and to justify illegal activity on behalf of your regime and the regime and the Trump regime. Here, of course, creating an narrative of thousands of peaceful protesters on the streets being slaughtered. If you don't like my questions, if you don't like my question, Professor Miranda, let me put to you what the German Chancellor said, Friedrich Merz said, when a regime can only maintain power through violence, then it is effectively at its end. Do you accept your government is nearing its end? It's in the final days. And of course, it was Chancellor Merz who said that Israel was doing its dirty work when it

20:57attacked Iran back in June last year. Then let's have a reminder from 10 years ago of Cathy Newman interviewing the then advisor to President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. This doesn't mean that there is any hesitation on the Syrian government after all these are our people. And we are tired. Yes, and your people, your people are being massacred. Your people are being starved to death in Aleppo. Children that the victims are chlorine against the tax just less than a fortnight ago. Seems Cathy Newman's style of interview doesn't change in 10 years. But then I just also want to look at the BBC and this is Hugo Bachega reporting one would imagine from inside Iran. Let's have a look at this. It is also very difficult to verify the number of people who have been killed across the country. One human rights organization says more than

21:582,600 people have been killed. Who is this organization that he's relying on for their figures out of Iran during the protests? H-R-A-N-A. Let's just put that on the screen quickly. And if we look at this organization when you we delve a little bit deeper if we can just pull up on the screen H-R-A-N-A. So this is the news agency for the human rights activist in Iran. So again, you could be excused for thinking they're based in Iran and they're reporting out of Iran wrong. Let's have a look at the next slide which shows very clearly on the left hand side that they're based in Fairfax, Virginia. And they're being supported by CIA outreach agency, the National Endowment for Democracy, to the tune in 2024 of almost $1 million. So clearly

23:00not a grassroots human rights activist agency, just as of course we've seen in Syria and even with the reporting against China. And this article by Mint Press News which will be in the show notes revealed the CIA backed NGOs fueling the Iran protests because it's not only the human rights activist group. And then finally I just want to look at this. This is from New York Times inside the fight to keep Iran online. Now what is interesting is that all of these BBC channel 4 commentators are admitting that the protests died down as soon as Iran managed to shut down Starlink. And in this report from NYT they talk about grassroots activists managing to smuggle in an entire Starlink network which kept them in communication with their external handlers and controllers throughout the early days of the riots when of course the worst murders of security forces and civilians were committed by these rioters. As soon as they were cut off

24:06from Starlink communication, funnily enough coincidentally, the riots died down completely. Of course it's being spun otherwise by the BBC and channel 4. And Mike you will probably remember this was from 2012 in Syria. So while the NYT is pushing the narrative of smuggling hope into Iran through the use of Starlink, Avaz again a US State Department CIA linked organization had a fundraising campaign smuggle hope into Syria the group's website asked for contributions to continue the smuggling operation as embassies close medical agencies withdraw and journalists pull out Avaz has the only network that is both smuggling media equipment and journalists in and images and information out sound familiar. Absolutely and we shouldn't forget that Avaz is also saw us back as well. So yeah absolutely. So thank you very much for that Vanessa we'll be talking more

25:09about that in extra now let's say that if you like what the UK column does we do need your ongoing financial support so if you can possibly help us out that way please have a look at the front page of the UK column website you'll find a link to take us to the information that you need to help us if you can't help us financially please do share our material on social media networks and anywhere else that you possibly can because that helps us defeat the censorship regime including age checks I think but let's look at what's going on tonight 7 p.m. Jeremy's back with another German warfare again looking at the moon landings that should be entertaining and then silicon steel tonight why Canada just did a 180 on China that could be related to their understanding of what's going on with Trump perhaps but but we'll find out at nine tonight and Charles the blindfold briefing perverse verdicts this article is nigh up on the UK column website yeah just very briefly it

26:11follows exactly what Patrick was talking about on Friday with the remarks made by Rajiv Menon in the case of the filth and six but it's essentially it covers jury nullification and the extraordinarily strong campaign by government to get rid of juries and to stop them being able to equit based on conscience and digital ID protest at the weekend yeah this is in Glasgow taking place on Saturday so if you can't get along there one o'clock on the green then do go along to that thank you for that okay let's come on to then the board of pace because the other major news from the Trump camp is the so-called board of pace middle east i asks in their headline what is Trump's board of pace and who will govern gaza and i'm going to ask will it end at gaza because quite clearly it isn't going to and i'm at least i has also published the full text of the charter and there's no mention of gaza in it so it calls for a more nimble quote there's a more nimble

27:15and effective international peace building body it says that the scope its scope could be far broader the board of pace is an international organization that seeks to promote stability restored of pendible and lawful governance and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict it's this is published without any sense of released no overt sense of irony anyway but it gives Trump a wide ranging pause as because he will become the chair of the board of pace he will appoint and remove member states and his decisions can only be overturned by a two-thirds majority of members countries that join will serve a limited three-year term unless they contribute more than one billion dollars within the first year of operation so it's a as Ben said to me earlier it's a pay-to-play scheme the charter itself seems to revolve around Trump's self-appointment as board chairman it says Donald J Trump shall serve as an inaugural chairman of the board of

28:21peace it doesn't refer to the office president or it doesn't refer to any length of term membership of the board of peace is limited to states invited to participate by the chairman and commences upon notification that the state has consented to be bind by its charter itself and it also says that the chairman has the authority to remove members subject only do veto as I say by two-thirds majority the board of peace it says as an international organization it seeks to promote stability restored of pendible and lawful governance and secure enduring peace enduring peace in areas threatened by conflict it shall undertake such peace-building functions in accordance with international law and like I say no there is no irony in this at all apparently but then last Friday the White House this was before the charter was published I think the White House 9's two executive boards we talked about this last week that will sit so they will sit below the peace board itself so Gaza is mentioned this time but only because the Gaza

29:26executive board is one of the two boards the other executive board is just called the executive board and it will have Marco Rubio State with Steve Whitcalf, Jared Kushner, Sir Tony Blair, Mark Rohn, Ajay Banga and Robert Gabriel and the board of sorry the executive committee for Gaza will have those people plus two or three others on there as well my invitations will be made to countries including Russia and China but France is apparently declined, Hungary, Belarus, Morocco, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Argentina and the UAE so far I believe have accepted the invitation Trump was pretty upset about France saying no and he said that if that were true he would just threaten to impose a 200% tariff on wine and champagne from France and he also said well nobody wants him to speak about Macron because he's going to be out of office very soon anyway so if you can keep a straight face on that Charles and Vanessa actually be very interested in your

30:33thoughts because obviously this is being at least originally framed as being something to deal with Gaza but actually it's quite clear from the charter that he's got much bigger ideas and he's looking at some kind of tectocratic infrastructure which is going to replace the United Nations as if that wasn't bad enough yeah I suppose I have to open by wondering if therefore it was Trump that punched Macron in the face but maybe we will not find out yeah I think you know on Gaza specifically the two things that they're immediately spring to mind are the utter failure of the state of Israel in particular to adhere to the Geneva conventions and also the fact that the international criminal court set up over 25 years ago has not been signed to by either Israel or the United States so this seems to be just yet another layer of sort of pick and choose and do what you like I think would be would be my view on it and I'm sure we can talk more about this in extra we will Vanessa what are your thoughts well I find it more interesting to see the countries

31:38that were not invited to the Peace Board and of course they include all the countries that would have the best interests of Palestine at heart particularly Gaza and that includes Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Algeria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and even Syria although of course Syria is a little bit more complex and Jolani is basically doing what Israel and the US wants at the moment but I would find that more interesting indeed so Vanessa let's come on to an update on Venezuela and particularly what's going on with oil yes well I mean last week we talked about the pool singer purchase of the Venezuelan subsidiary in the US sit-go of course at half the market price due to dear old insider trading and the fact that he's very connected to the Zionist movement and is pushing their agenda particularly in the US and to the Trump administration and on it goes of course so this was reported a couple of days ago unchecked corruption the first

32:40US sale of Venezuelan oil goes to the company of Trump mega donor and this was that an oil execs meeting on January the 9th interesting seat Tucker Carlson there in the background but this guy that I've circled John Addison is a trader for a company called Vittor and let's just see what they say about that in the article so Addison attended a recent White House meeting with other top oil execs donated six million total to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign by several superpacks including five million to mega ink Addison pledged to Trump at the White House vent that Vittor would attain the best price possible for Venezuelan oil for the US so that the influence you have over the Venezuelans will ensure that you get what you want according to the financial times now of course there has been a degree of uproar about this particularly from Democrats and I'm not supporting either Democrat or Republican before people

33:44jump in with that commentary but this is Senator Chris Murphy after the oil exec meeting talking about what he thought about the deal well the bottom line is that the administration is planning to take Venezuelan oil indefinitely and sell it on the secondary market use that money to run the Venezuelan economy the Venezuelan people don't get a say we're going to sell that oil we're going to get that money and then the United States of America is going to decide who gets paid and who doesn't get paid inside Venezuela we're going to micromanage Venezuela and we're going to use your taxpayer dollars to do it because this is going to be a multi billion dollar effort right which is going to take money your money but also enormous time Donald Trump the White House everybody there is going to be spending just as much time running Venezuela as they are

34:45running America. He makes quite a few interesting points actually in his statement after the oil exec meeting but I wanted to show again how Vittal and John Addison are yet again connected into Israel so this was a report in very recently in the last couple of weeks from the Palestinian Institute of Climate Strategy and they're talking about fueling apartheid how Brazilian oil and Italian ports sustain Israel's war machine. Now remember that both Brazil and Italy made statements the governments made statements to say that they were going to end supply or boycott Israel because of the genocide it had been committing or intensified since October the seventh let's have a look at what they say in the article however in 2024 so this is the year after

35:45October the seventh Brazil's exports to Israel amounted to a total of 725 million around 30% consisted of mineral fuels oils and distillation products representing 2.1% of all the Zionist regimes deals making it the second biggest partner in the American continent after the United States and Israel's 12th biggest commercial partner while the Zionist entities main sources for crude oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan by the port of Sehan in Turkey and the Russian port of Novoresk more than 2.7 billion barrels of Brazil's crude oil 260,000 tons have been extracted and 8 statements delivered to Israel since December 2023 okay so now we know that Brazil is involved a BRICS member country as is Russia in the supply of oil to a genocide or entity

36:47but then let's see who was helping them circumvent the embargoes by using intermediaries the Italian connection Vittal, Saras, SBA and Petro Bras, Israel's total imports of oil and refined products are supplied in large part by two refineries the Valero e-Bel refinery in Texas a key provider of military fuel and the Saras spa refinery in Sarac Sardinia each accounting for approximately 17% representing a combined total of 34% Saras refinery is owned by the Swiss giant Vittal the words largest oil and petroleum product distribution conglomerate and a direct commercial partner of the genocide or state so yet again we see the roots of the operation in Venezuela reaching back into Israel and I just wanted to point out that we're going to be publishing at UK column ongoing series of articles written by Jose B. Morghi the Venezuelan ambassador to Syrian Lebanon

37:52this is his latest one which hopefully will be up at UK column shortly is Venezuela a victim of the Trump Epstein labyrinth you can also follow B. Morghi on X and I just want to remind everyone that Mike interviewed B. Morghi Venezuela under attack I think that was back in October last year and hopefully we'll be arranging another interview in the future to run through exactly what's happening in Venezuela thanks Vanessa thanks for that now let's move on then to Chatham House Chatham House for those who know is well otherwise known as the Royal Institute for International Affairs is a major think tank and now Bronman Maddox is the director of Chatham House and she gave her annual lecture on the state of the world last week and in her evaluation the US has never had a rival like China it's equal or more in technology trade and military power so let's just have a listen to a short

38:56excerpt from what she said so this year has clarified what we face we are in a world of two super powers in rising competition with each other each says it does not want a war with the other but the possibility is not zero and it would be catastrophic for the world even without that though their competition per power is a threat to the peace and prosperity of others in the case of the US's allies they must now contemplate what was unthinkable to have to defend themselves against the US itself in trade and perhaps security this messy world does offer opportunities I should say for countries that are not superpowers there is a chance to play both sides a reason to make new alliances so Finna say your thoughts first because obviously that's probably may well have been the first time you've heard that but but it just I find it fascinating that the the main British

39:57policy think tank or least international policy think tank is suggesting that the current situation lies smaller countries we obviously mean Britain here to play both sides Britain would never do that no as if yeah I mean it's kind of fascinating as you said that Chatham House is focusing on the potential of conflict between US and China and and yes I think Britain now their policy is changing in the sense that they are being squeezed out of much of the sphere of influence that is rising that is controlled very much by China and Trump I won't even say by the United States necessarily yeah and Charles she went on to say that that she wants to play both ways with Europe and she said that was to strengthen Europe's hard with both the US and China and that she also said that the UK needs a closer relationship with Europe and she also said that we need to play both sides with the global south in order to advance some kind of order in private talks in

41:00mediation and policy proposals and with many countries involved that's the heart of what Chatham House is now doing so is this a think tank or is it something different? Well it depends what it is we expect to think tank should do should be and the effect that it should have and I think it's perfectly clear that there are many think tanks that do an awful lot more than just think I think to go back a little bit to her point about countries finding themselves in a position of in effect being attacked economically by America I think either she's misrepresenting the situation or she's talking about extreme naivety on the part of any country that doesn't think that America would turn around and stab it in the back but then again I think that the scripture would would apply to very many countries not least this one and and on the sort of playing both sides yes okay that may have been something that has been done very very effectively

42:02many years ago now it looks specifically with with China and the United States I would say it looks like we are being played by both sides the United Kingdom is being played by both sides and I would say at least the political level it looks like the same same situation with the with the European Union and the global side as well I don't really see that the United Kingdom comes out of this very well okay we can talk we definitely talk about that an extra for sure Charles let's move back to the you well to the UK I suppose and the schools bill just introduce this thanks Mike yes the the schools bill or at least the children's well-being and schools bill are very little to do with children's well-being as will be articulated in this recording but it's now the report stage in the House of Lords and among the sticking points are this consistent identifier effectively a digital ID tool which has a very very low threshold for data sharing

43:06and the predication of the whole bill which is really that children are a problem parents are irresponsible and this will deal with both of those things rather than allowing any suggestion that parents might be responsible and indeed might be looking out for their children in protecting them from what they see as a form of education that's not appropriate but this is well-cold till reporting from a recent protest against this bill people are really petrified that they're literally going to lose their way of life and it's literally putting the state between the parent and their child it's like they've forgotten how to trust the parent hello this will cause a reporting for UK column today I'm down here in Westminster covering the schools and children's well-being bill a bill which looks like it could end home education in this country as we know it hey so I'm Michelle Zahia and we're part of a campaign group of parents educators child advocates um social workers in amongst our campaign as well who are a campaign group

44:08against the children's well-being as schools bill um because basically we absolutely say yes to children's well-being unfortunately they forgot to put that in the substance of this bill well I've been home-educating annual for about four years now and um we don't want other other families to have the rights to do what we've done taken away stand very strongly against the children's well-being and schools bill and all of the things within it which are actually going to cause harm to young people from the unique identifier which is digital ID for kids by stealth and the home education register which is actually really there to restrict the access access to educational options for young people most people have only heard about the breakfast they haven't heard about the fact that it changing the position of data so it effectively makes um it effectively makes children have no data privacy because now no concerns needed by parents to share for as low as may promote welfare um at the moment current position is safeguarding absolutely you should share information if the child's at risk of safeguarding but to drop it to may promote welfare um they don't need consent of the parents don't need the consent of the child children from birth will be

45:10uh ascribed uh digital identifier there's been no discussion no consent whilst the government say that they've done a u-turn on mandatory uh digital ID uh what this shows is like with one login and the directors and the encroaching infrastructure everywhere that this is carrying on and the government kindly have added some extra amendments in last week they now have added in from the point of deregulation within 15 days the local authority must consider where the child lives so we're adding home visits in for no reason of suspicion not because the safeguarding risk just because you happen to choose a non mainstream option for education perfectly lawful um option which just is the wrong position for it to be out um and they're also going to do a pilot program where now you'll have to have a monthly meeting before you can deregister even if it's a mainstream school and the parent must attend and there's an expectation that the child will attend what's the biggest problem for you problem with the bill yeah the home visits at the moment with the legislation we can say no we're going to do all of our communication writing we're going to provide a report

46:11but with the children's bill they could insist on coming to our home and they're not even looking at people who are qualified social workers there's not someone who's actually been trained how to assess it's just the yeah and if you look at well you can look at what you actually uh qualification officers are some barely have a don't even need GSC local authority level there is a huge risk of um of bias of um any policy coming through being not adhered to possibly we've heard so many stories from across the country of um people demanding information that they're not legally the local authorities are not legally entitled to what are the charges that can be laid against you if you do not comply and you say that you wish to educate your own children right see this is where it gets really interesting because the government keeps trying to twist it and go well no it's not really criminalising you you'll just get school attendance order now if you fundamentally believe in electrically home educating you're not sending your child to school so you're not going to comply with the school attendance order because the school attendance order requires you to enroll your child in school um but if you actually think no actually we are educating um then they can prosecute you and that's a criminal prosecution um to the courts and at the moment um obviously if you

47:16preach that it's possible education you're acquitted and it's all fine but at the moment the maximum is a fine but they're introducing a fine and or prison so really is it appropriate because I didn't fill in a bit of information oh yeah because also there's a bit of spout not having accurate information you let me give you the right information you wanted that I think that your parent could you know face prison time it's not going to make the problem go away by putting the parents in prison the airport security philosophy there applied to education and there's no indication really at the any stage certainly not the report stage that the concerns that are being aired there are in fact being dealt with so thanks to Wilcole's Hill for that report now um I'm going to go on and talk about um what are being put out as threats to democracy and indeed how the response is being dealt with and so I'm going to start with the statistic provided by unlock

48:18democracy talking about the number of local elections which are under threat um as of this year looking ahead to May where 63 local authorities may not conduct local elections and of course we must remember that the reform party has managed to generate an enormous groundswell of support via exactly this tool so they would have a very keen interest in democracy one might think it's already been mentioned of course that Nigel Farage has gone to Davos so we're just going to wind the clock back and listen to which way the wind was blowing back in 2020 it's Davos time the world economic forum set up by people years ago who wanted big politics and big business to work together and they had this little gathering in in a ski resort in Switzerland and then now thousands of people go every year and of course it reached its absolute peak under people like Tony Blair and Clinton and Obama and really all the arguments for globalism have been

49:24there at Davos for the last 50 years and more no space for the little man no space for the nation's state really no space certainly for the small entrepreneur and what I thought was so delightful this year was that Donald Trump went along with bluehole thing up just tell them look hey you know what you all said my America first policy would be a disaster we're doing really well we've got the lowest unemployment at 50 years we've got good growth we've actually got more black and Hispanic people now working than ever before and poverty in those sectors being reduced and they all sat there in complete stony silence and I think it's really interesting to think that what's happened to us over the course of the last 50 years is we've decided nation states don't matter we've decided national democracy doesn't really matter because we can decide all of this in ski results in Switzerland isn't it wonderful it's called globalism and then we can bow down to the European Union or perhaps give the United Nations some more power and this is the importance I think

50:25of what Trump has done it's the importance of what Brexit symbolizes most of us people would come and sense believe that the nation state run on democratic lines is much better than people deciding our futures in swiss ski results on their annual jaunt to Davos or wherever else it may so Nigel Farage there attempting to invoke the spirit of Trump or at least that's what he's trying to do this year he's put out a short statement today about going there in order to affect change but critically to suggest that he doesn't want there to be any undue influence in the politics of the United Kingdom the sovereignty of the United Kingdom and this is something of a sticking point we spoke about defections to reform last week and in the intervening period we have yet another we talked about Nadeem Zahar we last week and here we have Robert Generick they're committing criminal damage putting a flag up onto a flagpole of course Palestine action have been prescribed as a terrorist organization for criminal damage but they come back for Generick

51:30and also Andrew Rossindel there with Boris the destroyer Johnson so all of this which I will come on to explain why looking very much like the interests of reform are not going to serve the United Kingdom but instead now a confluence of the globalist and corporate entities contained by the world economic forum and the state of Israel now Generick and Rossindel both friends of Israel conservative friends of Israel with thanks to de-glassified UK for their thorough data on all that Robert Generick of course also reported by the byline times from 2024 having accepted donations from a family friend who also turns out through quantum pacific corporation to be a supply of arms to Israel and Generick again just to make sure there's no doubt in anybody's minds as to where his loyalty might lie talking about a star of David being displayed

52:32at every point of entry into the United Kingdom so I think this gives a good idea of the interests of the reform party as they are now and again with thanks to Alex Creel I referred to Richard Tyson's visit to Israel back in October and it turns out this was paid for by the reform friends of Israel incorporated in June last year and described as being for public relations and communications activities now all of this leads to as I say sort of the suggestion of undue influence and this is where we come on to the very much related issue of the resignation of Craig Gilford Chief Constable of West Midlands Police until recently in the man at the centre of the Maccabee Tel Aviv-Aston Villa scandal or debacle or however one wants to describe it the inspector of constabulary put out a statement recently describing this as being a disaster of

53:33confirmation bias having influenced the police recommendation to ban the fans and in particular they highlighted the fact the force failed to engage with representatives of the local Jewish community early enough and they went on to say that in its communications West Midland Police placed too much emphasis on the potential and previous behaviour of Maccabee Tel Aviv fans and didn't reflect wider concerns about public order and post-order public disorder and so quite staggering to see how this cuts both ways with regard to potential and previous behaviour and the way in which many of the tangles that people are finding themselves in the criminal justice system at the moment are based exactly on potential and previous behaviour and so much legislation in the pipeline pertaining to exactly that thing but now we'll have a quick look at the video at the start of the second meeting of the Home Affairs Committee into this.

54:41Order, order. Can I welcome our first panel today to our follow-up session, following the session we held at giving a December on the policing of the Dastavilla Maccabee Tel Aviv football game? Before we start if members of the committee could declare any relevant interests and I will declare that I am a member and officer of Conservative Friends of Israel. I'm a member of Labour Friends of Israel, Labour Friends of Palestine but I'm also 40 years the spouse of Lord Mann who's the government's independent unpaid advisor on antisemitism. And I'm the all-party parliamentary group chair against antisemitism sorry the chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism. I'm a member of Labour Friends of Israel. I traveled with Labour Friends of Israel to Israel in May of last year. I also attempted to travel to Israel with the

55:43centre for the advancement of Arab British understanding and was banned from entry into Israel later in the year. So I've been twice but only got him once. I'm also a member of the board of deputies of British Jews. And I received a donation from the Lib Dem Friends of Israel before the last election. So on the subject of undue influence something of a of a theme there and of course this has articulated very well the way in which the language is manipulated in order but it seems like it's a campaign against people of Jewish faith rather than against football hooligans who subsequently went on to conduct violent behaviour in a derby in Tel Aviv just after that decision was making. Now that is not at all to excuse the very very poor performance off-weighed West Midlands police in arriving the decision that they did but that is in this circumstance somewhat beside the point. I just want to round off with a clip from Nick Timothy MP who of course was one.

56:47Asdenviller in the European League tonight played Maccabee Tel Aviv and after a very nasty campaign by Islamist thugs, Maccabee Tel Aviv supporters have been banned from attending the game. Her activist counsellors like Wasim Zafar and Mumtaz Huzain got to ban his really Jewish football fans from the city and West Midlands police went along with it. They said it was for safety reasons but it was an admission that they can't protect Jews in Britain from Islamist rabble rouses and thugs on our street. Do you think you have a right to chat with that test of the IDF? Then to the IDF I never heard that he said so I feel like you would just say that if you let the media do you want to do it too? I feel like if it like you probably are potentially more strong? No really, do you think I'm more successful? You guys are here, you don't live here, you don't live in probably a country area so that you know I can push here really, you don't go to the problem for our families to live in residing, you know what I mean? Well I've got a season ticket here and I went to school on the road actually so I have every right to be here. You okay? How do you feel about Jews being banned from coming to the game

57:52this evening? I feel like those fans that got banned from it, good they got banned. You think they feel what? It was good that they got banned from coming, definitely. So you feel proud that Jews aren't allowed to come to a football match, you're banning them? I'm glad they got banned because if they came there they would have 100% caught problems and if they caught problems you would have had to defend themselves. What's going on here? What are you doing here? I'm very sincere. I'm very sincere. I'm good for you. You don't need to defend my views. I have my views, you have no views. So why do I need to defend my views? Why do you want to defend your views? Can you not be a hand in my face? Can you not be a hand in my face? I'm not, okay. Do you actually accept that Israel is doing the genocide? No I don't. So they're not doing the genocide? They're not doing the genocide. Sorry, let me ask a question. Do you believe that they are not doing the genocide? Is that my right? They're not doing the genocide. Okay, thank you. And the story, where do you want to show me something like that? So the manipulation of the language there, perfectly astonishing and I know I've

58:52gone over slightly on time. So just hang the question in the air, which was how long till Nick Timothy defects to reform? That's a very good question. Yes, we're going to finish on a slightly different note and we'll talk a little bit about Greenland here just for one minute. So first of all, one let everybody know you may have seen it on social media that on the 4th of August, 1916, the US government issued a declaration to the Danish government that would saying that it would not raise objections of Denmark, extended its interests to Greenland to include the entire island. This was surprising according to this article in Nordics info based on the 1832 Monroe doctrine that we talked about in previous news programs, which of course was intended to limit European colonialism. But this declaration absolutely paved the way for Denmark to take control of Greenland. And this is problematic for Trump because a declaration, although would not normally have the force of law. In this case, the declaration was added as an

59:57addendum to a treaty. And the treaty was for the sale of the Danish West Indies, now the Virgin Islands, the US Virgin Islands, to the United States. And the declaration went through the full ratification process. It was approved by the Senate on the 7th of September 1916 was ratified by the president on the 16th of January 1917 and proclaimed on the 25th of January 1917. So although under normal circumstances, a unilateral declaration by the United States would not be binding. In this case, it is binding because it was part of that treaty, which was ratified when through the full ratification process. And it's therefore constitutional. This was domestic law. We're talking about here, not international law, and it's much, much harder for Trump to breach that. But in the meantime, of course, we've had the European invasion force there to scare Trump into staying away. At least that's if the Western press is to be believed.

1:00:57We had 15 French 13 German two Norwegian three Swedish two Finnish one British and one Dutch military personnel turning up from the Arctic endurance group. But then the Germans immediately turned it around and went home again, as we can see here. And this red post highlight headlined Britzkrieg on ice. German soldiers came, conquered Greenland and left the next day. So the question is, why did they leave? Well, apparently it was because it was just too cold. So German Germany had cold feet in Greenland. Berlin says early departure took place according to plan and was driven by adverse weather conditions. I'm not quite sure how it can be too planned, but driven by weather conditions. There you go. It's all very strange. We'll talk about that in extra of no doubt. Well, we'll leave it there for today. So thank you very much to Vanessa and Charles for joining me and for everybody that's been watching. If you're UK

1:01:57column member, stick on the live stream for extra. If you're not a member, then maybe I'd like to join us and you can take part in that as well. We'll see you there in a few minutes. Otherwise, don't forget the interviews. There'll be an interview at 1pm tomorrow. And we'll be back at 1pm, of course, as usual on Friday. We'll see you then. Bye-bye.