UK Column News — 9 February 2026

0:00Tyler Reddick here from 2311 racing victory lane. Yeah, it's even better with Chamba by my side. Race to Chamba Casino dot com. Let's Chamba. No purchase necessary VTW group. Boy, we're prohibited by law CT and C's 21 plus sponsored by Chamba Casino. Good afternoon. It's Monday the 9th February 2026 just after 1 o'clock. Welcome to UK column news. I'm your host Mike Robinson and joining me in the studio today, Ben Rubin. Welcome to the program, Ben. Thank you, Mike. And by video link, Vanessa Billy joins us from Lebanon, as usual. Thanks for joining us, Vanessa. And I later in the program, we're going to be covering the disappointment by private digital ID providers with UK government plans for its app and wallet. We're going to have more on the Vanessa on the filter six. And Vanessa will be reporting on dark worker strikes in in Mediterranean ports and solidarity with Palestine. And Ben's going to be looking deeper into the impact economy here

1:01in the UK. But we're going to begin, of course, with Jeffrey Epstein. And well, his ghost is haunting grand old men of capitalism, according to the economists here. So let's just have a look at this. The tint of the disgraced financier will endure is what they say in the subhead. So I say the economist clearly desperate, as is the rest of mainstream mainstream press to keep his title lid on who was and who wasn't involved with Jeffrey Epstein as possible, as much destruction as possible at the same time. Some heads will have to roll, of course, as Ben will discuss in a moment. But the economist wants to reassure us that even before the Department of Justice document dump, the Epstein issue had quotes had claimed enough high profile careers to fill a private jet. Last Wexner retail magnet was employed by Epstein as financial advisor was the first to go, they said, he resigned from Elbrans in 2020. The next year was Jess Staley,

2:05boss of Barclays, and Leon Black, founder of Apollo, some of the biggest names from Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft to Larry Summers, former treasury secretary, have been, they described the word they used was tarnished. And then it was Brad Carp, who is chair or was chair of what they described as the white shoe law firm, Paul Vice, he resigned. And they say that more will follow. But this is just a changing of the guard that they describe it as nothing to see here. The situation may be explosive because, quote, so many people, so many who spun in Epstein's orbit are still in par, but they have reassurances for us all, as those embroiled in the lottery affair are scorned, ostracized, or in some cases locked up, they say, a new business elite is getting ready to take their place. I don't know what you think about that. Well, that's good, isn't it? It's like he's one I made earlier. Yes. But don't worry about those nasty

3:09old men of capitalism. We've got some new, less nasty, or certainly less publicly acknowledged as being nasty, men and women, I would imagine of capitalism to come through. Right. Well, okay. But let's let's stick them with Peter Mandelson here, because the question is how much money he received following is sacking as British ambassador. I couldn't resist putting this image up because it's probably one of the last times we'll ever see this particular one. But anyway, there's there's some confusion about this in the mainstream press. The BBC says it was 40,000 pounds. The telegraph says it was 50,000 pounds. Either way, it's pocket change to him. So he isn't going to be too concerned if he has to pair back as people are not demanding. Maybe the police have found it to bear under his mattress during the search by the of the two properties at the end of last week. We the property that he rents from Lord Rothschild allegedly, allegedly, no, no, no, no, no, if it's allegedly, I've heard it quite conclusively. That's the case.

4:10Either I think you're going to be able to use that picture again. Yeah, of course, he's like a bad smell. He's not going away. Right. Okay. Well, let's let's stick with him. Yeah. Okay. Well, what did Mandelson have to say about our next individual of interest? Let's have a little look. He said about this person, I don't know who and how and when he was invented, but whoever it was will find their place in heaven. We are, of course, talking about Morgan McSweeney, who is the second head to roll, metaphorically speaking at the top of the Labour Party, former now Chief of Staff to Keir Starmer. One of the most powerful people in the modern Labour Party movement has been in the game for 25 years. He actually began working for Labour in what the BBC see called the towering infernal. So this is Millbank Tower, former HQ of new Labour, where he helped to build the infamous Excalibur computer, which rivaled MI5 and the information it held of anybody and everybody, friend or foe, he built that four Mandelson. So he was key team member working for Mandelson.

5:13And has been inside number 10, keeping Mandys eye on Starmer, I think, is probably fair to say. And he's now gone because he was the one of the people that recommended that Mandelson be appointed as a US ambassador. And he's released a statement saying that after careful reflection, I've decided to resign from the government, the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself. When asked I advise the Prime Minister to make that appointment, and I take full responsibility for that advice, in public life, responsibility must be owned when it matters most, not just when it's convenient, in the circumstances, the only only honorable course is to step aside. I wonder if he said the same thing to Keir Starmer. I don't think so. No, probably not. Anyway, he went on to say, well, I did not oversee the due diligence and vetting process. I believe that process must now be fundamentally overhauled.

6:15This cannot simply be a gesture, but a safeguard for the future. So he takes personal responsibility, but actually it was just a process issue. Right. Really, I mean, that was really the problem here, nothing to do with McSweeney. He goes on to say, I remain fully supportive of the Prime Minister. He is working every day to rebuild trust, restore standards and serve the country, which I think is laughable from a man like McSweeney. Although I am sure he still does support Starmer because he's actually pushing forward the policy agenda that know that McSweeney and Mandelson and the rest of this crowd are behind. Now, we talked about McSweeney at the end of last year. It was related to this organisation. So this is Labour Together, which is a charity established in 2017, which exists to deliver bold ideas for a Labour government says on its website that in Labour's wilderness years, Labour Together was founded by a group of MPs fighting to make the party electable again. Today, Labour Together was a sink tank offering bold ideas for

7:16Britain under a Labour government. So essentially, what he was doing was, well, supposedly trying to unite the Labour party, he was actually working behind the scenes to subvert Corbyn's leadership and having pushed out of the party. And as part of that process was deliberately hiding donations coming in from backers that they didn't want the public to know about. Let's just put it like that. So people like Harry Lubner, who will come back to later, also to Trevor Chin, you can see on the left hand side of this image with a bunch of other scallywags, including Tony Blair, sorry, Sir Tony Blair, do apologise to Tony. And of course, the Jacob Rothschild, at that point, Lord Jacob Rothschild, slap bang in the middle of the picture. And interestingly, the operation that McSweeney was running at the time inside Labour Together in order to get rid of Corbyn was called Operation Red Shield, which is what Rothschild actually means. Red Shield, so whether that's a coincidence or not, I don't know,

8:19but it seems like it, perhaps, isn't. And this was from a lot of this information from an excellent report, which came from Double Down News, from a journalist called Paul Holden, which was called The Scandal that could bring down key storms government. And maybe it could, maybe this could be The Scandal, but this is the scandal with another layer of scandal put on top of it. So maybe this thing will just keep on building and building. Now, importantly, McSweeney is gone, right? Mendelssohn's gone. Well, they're certainly out, out of the picture for the moment. But Labour Together still there, you know, so there's actually anything substantially changed here or is this just, you know, moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic? I don't know. Let's have a little look at the Labour Together team. I think this is quite interesting. We'll go past the core team. It's always important to go and look at the board level. And this is the advisory board. So we can see here a bunch of very senior Labour-type people, Alan Milburn, who was a top Labour politician for many years,

9:21including Under Tony Blair, Andrew Cooper, Lord Cooper, should I say, over there on the right hand side. Also, just skimming through these, Jeff Morgan, absolutely in the mix with this. And we talked about Morgan last week, you know, former editor of Marxism today, founder of demos, used to share an office with common purpose back in the mid-90s. So you can kind of get a sense of what's going on behind the scenes here. This is effectively what Labour Together is about. It's building these clandestine networks in the back end of the political and the economic system in order to deliver a radical transformation agenda, ultimately, which has very little, if anything, to do with the best interests of the British people. And importantly, and I only just noticed this earlier on today, if you go to the Labour Together website, they have these sections on the team and then the advisory board, but they don't really want to talk about the board because the board, which is the actual, the operational oversight,

10:23this is where the governance of the organisation comes from, only gets a tiny little reference and they don't have any pitches on there. So I thought we'd just bring them all on screen or at least three of them, three particularly interesting ones. So the first one is this lady, this is Baroness Morgan, Sally Morgan, former Minister of State for Women in Blair's first government, and famously was viewed as one of Blair's top advisors alongside Jonathan Powell, Aleister Campbell and Peter Mandelson himself. So, you know, Mandy might be gone, Baroness Morgan's still there. She's less famous, but it sounds like she's just as influential in many ways. Also on the board of Labour Together, Lord Kestinbaum, first thing guy, former chair of Nesta, who owned the behavioural insights team, and also Chancellor of Plymouth University. So that's quite interesting. It's probably why they've got all those UN posters hanging down the side of their building. And crucially, in the context of what we just talked about with Operation Red Shield, he's the director of five arrows limited,

11:23one of three directors of five arrows limited, which is one of the primary Rothschild family investment vehicles, he's actually based out of what was the manner in Buckinghamshire. So, you know, another very clear Rothschild link here. And then finally, Fran Perrin, OBE, who is actually, I believe the daughter of Lord Sainsbury, she certainly member of the Sainsbury family, Lord Sainsbury is who talked about extensively, Brian in particular over the past few weeks, through his support of the Institute of Government, absolutely in the mix of the rewiring of the British state through the civil service in particular. But Fran Perrin also has her own charitable trust called the Indigo Trust, which is very much involved in media regulation in particular. And her husband, William Perrin, who also has an OBE, was instrumental in setting up off-com. So this is the, these are the types of people that are still there in the back end, right? So Mandy's gone, McSweeney's gone, but actually laid it together and the control apparatus and the networks

12:24and the agenda are still essentially in place. And I don't think that's going to change any time soon, not least because Starmer's still there, isn't he? Starmer's not gone. So just McSweeney talking about accountability and all this kind of stuff, but you know, who actually made the decision? He did, but he's still there. And importantly, the first time I talked about Labor together on the UK column was on the back of this event. This was in September last year in London, the Global Progress Action Conference. And this is where Starmer announced the digital ID scheme and announced that it was going to be mandatory to have digital ID in order to work in the United Kingdom. Right? That's what they're pushing for. Yeah. So that's not disappeared, although they might be trying to walk to it down or shift it and move a little bits of it around. But actually, this is absolutely what they're pushing for. And I should also just say, be careful what you wish for. Because if Starmer does go, who's in the wings next? Shabbana Mahmoud, Lamy.

13:26I don't know. It's not good. It's, it's absolutely not good. So much more than this to come, no doubt. But I will just say I did rather enjoy this clip of Lord Falkner being grilled about Mandelson when he thought he'd gone on Sky News to talk about the assisted dying Bill. Take a look at this. Lord Falkner, well, I have you, and as a senior member of the Labour Party, I do want to ask you about Lord Mandelson. What do you mind if I don't go there? Well, I thought you might say that. No, I do, I do kind of mind, because I know that you know him quite well. Yes. You obviously worked with him during New Labour. I'm not going to ask you anything specific, but I do want to talk to you about the way that this is impacting our politics at the moment. Do you mind about it? Because I'm talking about assisted dying today, which is such a big issue. Both, I mean, primarily for the people who are affected by it. So I'm afraid I won't go there. You're not going to comment to talk about it. I'm not going to comment to talk for at least five minutes about assisted dying. No, I'm not going to comment to talk. I'm really sorry.

14:26Is that because of you've had a conversation with him? No, I want the focus to be on assisted dying. We did talk about that for at least five minutes. And we went through it in quite a lot of detail. I'm really sorry. I thought that I might be able to convince you to at least say something, because of course you were there in the moment in the rules. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. Are you embarrassed by what's happened here? I'm not remotely a bit embarrassed, but I really do want to focus on assisted dying. We have talked about that. I'm going to ask you another couple of questions on it. Have you spoken to Mr. Mandelson about this? I know you're a friend of his. I'm sorry. Can we leave the focus on Mandelson and go to assisted dying? Well, we started on assisted dying. And as the government seems like it's in turmoil having to sack its man in Washington, the man that you well know. I thought that you might want to say something, either in his defence or about the situation we find ourselves in. For the people who have been wanting change on assisted dying for years, whose own relatives have really suffered in relation to it, this is a really important day. And from my point of view,

15:27I am trying to make this change for those people. That's what I thought I was coming on. I knew what we did, and not respectfully. We did talk about that in quite some detail, but I did want to get your feelings, your thoughts on the topic of the day, which is the resignation of a man from our position in Washington, in scandal, and as a man of the Labour Party, I thought you might have something to say about it. Well, I'm afraid I really want to focus on assisted dying. Okay, well, I've always could make the very judgment on that decision, Lord Foughton, are we? I thought that was quite good from Sky News, actually. Remarkably. He clearly doesn't want to say much. I doesn't want to say much, no, although I do think that it's relevant that the people who are particularly interested in what they call assisted dying, what I think of really as state murder, have got links into these global human trafficking networks, seems like a valid area of investigation to me. So anyway, hopefully we'll see much more of that kind of thing in the future. Well, in the meantime, Dan, and of course, Wiley reported, turns out there was more to the

16:32relationship between Prince Andrew and Epstein than just the allegations that girls seem to be making. It seems he was sharing information with Epstein related to Andrew's role as trade envoy. So under official guidance, of course, trade and voice have a duty of confidentiality over sensitive commercial or political information about their official visits. But this email amongst others appeared in the latest release. And well, he was distributing documents published by his staff or written by his staff on his activities, Andrew's activities in Hong Kong, in China, in Singapore, in Vietnam. No, Andrew then subsequently a muthersule letter emailed Epstein a confidential briefing on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of helmet profits in Afghanistan. And if you remember, that was the part of Afghanistan that was mainly looked after by Britain's military. And the reconstruction there was to be funded by UK government

17:36money. Epstein was already convicted at that point when that email was sent. But don't worry, as the BBC and other mainstream press are absolutely clear about being named in the Epstein files is not an indication of misconduct. That's okay, Dan. That's okay, Dan. Okay, let's leave Epstein there for today. And welcome, Finessa, to the programme. Finessa Patrick was covering Film 6 on Friday, but you wanted to add a little bit to that. Yes, I did. I mean, with a focus on supporting people that actually have the courage to go against both the system and, of course, in the case of the Film 6, to protest genocide to the extent where they were held in 17 months' remand. This is a report in the real media, the film trial, the verdicts, no convictions, five bailed if we can just have this up on screen. Thanks. And then if we just show the photo of the six individuals, young people who literally put their

18:39lives on the line, in my opinion, to protest, genocide took direct action to prevent the British government's complicity in the genocide being committed by Israel. And then this is just a very quick video from the real media showing the various verdicts. If we can just quickly play that, people can see it in and freeze-frame it if they want to read the results. So basically, five have been released on bail with strict conditions. In case there is to be a

19:43retrial Samuel corner who has been accused of grievous bodily harm, although Basil Valentine told us on Friday that the person that was injured in that event should be fully recovered within two months. So he's effectively being refused by all. But finally, I just want to play this interview with Claire Hinchcliffe, who's the mother of Zoe Rogers, one of the young girls who was not only held on remand for 17 months, but was held in solitary confinement. Most of them were denied basic human rights during their remand period. So let's just have a listen to what Claire Hinchcliffe has to say. I have to start by saying, I'm still in disbelief that my daughter Zoe is coming home tonight. I just cannot believe it. I won't believe until I see a walk out of that. But I want to

20:44say about this whole case. What it has shown us about our government is at least shocking. And what we've seen is just the cruelty, the cruelty of the state. My daughter has been in prison for 18 months without being convicted of any crime. That has been brutal, but she will never get that time back. That has gone now. This is a government who not only had invested all their resources in arming a genocide, refusing to stop arming Israel when they clearly, what it might be believed to be a genocide, but they had prosecutors and imprisoned with that trial and treated as terrorists, the people that took exception to arming Israel, even while this government was breaking into national humanitarian law. They've treated those protesters who in good British protest history have put their lives on the line. They've taken direct action in the same way the suffrage at state and the same way the anti-apartheid campaign has served and yet they've

21:47been treated as terrorists. And the cruelty is breathtaking. And so there's a clear message now from the British public and the form of 12 members of the public in the jury to say that they disagree with the government's assessment of them as criminals and as terrorists. Nothing to add to that, but I think it's a very good reminder as to what is actually how government is doing to anyone that challenges their decisions. Yes, indeed. Thank you for that, Vanessa. Okay, let's move on. If you like what the UK column does, we do need your ongoing financial support and all kinds of support. In fact, here on the front page, you'll find a button to click to take you to information on how you can support us. If you can't support us financially, please do share what you find on the website or any other places because that helps us to feed the censorship regime. Now, Jeremy tonight at 7pm speaks to Machia Freeman on the historical

22:51and ideological roots of those believed to be to influence world events and religions. So join Jeremy at 7pm for that 1pm tomorrow. Brian is speaking to Aaron about how the feminist agenda has been used to as a deliberate and orchestrated attack on both women and men. This is part of the Guilty Women series. So join Brian for that if you can at 1pm tomorrow. Okay, let's move on then to digital ID because not all as well or all as not well rather in the world of digital identity at the moment. A private sector providers like Yodee Cretus and Sherring are finding the way that the storm regime is going about things a bit tricky. At the moment, this is highlighted in a post on LinkedIn by a British lawyer Richard Olfant, headlined UK digital ID landscape information gateway and DVS providers. So there's the headline now. This is not a title. This is not his title

23:53for it rather because this title has been brought helpfully forward by LinkedIn using AI, sloppy AI to generate the headline. So well, you can make your own decision about that. But anyway, what's he talking about? He's commenting on the recent webinar hosted jointly by the government digital service and the Department for Science Innovation and Technology. And his post focuses on the legislation which enables digital ID in the first place, which is the Data Use and Access Act and specifically section 45, which is establishes an information gateway, which is supposed to allow access for private sector identity providers to government held data, including the digital driving license that I was reporting on last Wednesday and other so-called attributes such as the right to work, age and the rest. These are now known as verified credentials. Now, the problem is that there are no plans to

24:55allow the private sector to have access to these government held verified credentials at this time. And this naturally has the private sector worried because they've been hoovering up all kinds of venture capital because any government mandated market is one that any private sector company would want to be in, certainly venture backed private sector companies. But not if they're competing directly with the government itself. And this is all of its main point because he's saying here that this conflicts with section 45 of the Data Use and Access Act and accords the UK government wallet and unfair advantage over DVS certified wallets, that's private sector wallets, improving age identity eligibility to private sector services. And he reports that the Department for Science Innovation and Technology said during the webinar that public authorities will not be obliged to share information with DVS providers. And he said that this is a breach of the statutory

25:55requirements. The question is, why does he expect this regime to be about the law? They're not obeying the law in any other policy areas. So why on this one becomes very hard to see what the role of the private private sector will be here, particularly because the regime imagines that this new digital driving license will be used for all the kinds of things the private sector thought they would be doing, getting served in pubs, getting into the cinema, getting access to gambling accounts and betting shops and so on, opening bank accounts. So the question is, how long will the venture capitalists stick around? And bearing in mind, the success of government IT projects over the years, Ben, and over the decades, in fact, the digital IT rule-life promises to be a mess, which may be something that we should welcome. But anyway, unless the M here, I'll be interested in your thoughts on this. And unless the M here is to drive the private sector into the arms of the public sector to create yet another public private partnership. It could be, yeah, it could

27:00be. Or it could be that they're just flapping around and don't know what they're doing. That's always possible with anything touching on government IT systems. I mean, the most famous one, if you go back about 20 years now, was the spine initiative in the NHS and they've burned about 18 billion pounds. I remember reading a quote at the time saying that they tried to build their own internet. That's what they tried to do because the NHS couldn't possibly just use the existing infrastructure. They had to have their own thing. They burnt 18 billion pounds of taxpayer money, paid a load of bonuses out to extension partners and Fujitsu and a bunch of companies like that and then delivered basically nothing. And then they moved on to the next thing, nothing, no one got fired, nothing really changed. And this is what they what they seem to do. It's very interesting though. I guess they could be just trying to burn a load of venture capital money like deliberately wins prize mail, you know, if we're going to, I don't know, it's fascinating. Yes. So we'll keep an eye on this and see how it develops. But at the moment, some unhappy

28:03private sector digital ID folks. But couldn't happen to a nice bunch of people. Well, indeed. But let's talk about a term system craft. System craft, yeah. Great, isn't it? They love coming up with these things. Yeah, we're going to talk about the elite leadership networks working across the UK to transform our society into a public private partnership, actually. This was happening. And we mentioned this organisation at the end of last year, quite a few times. I think I did three weeks on the trot talking about the forward institute, which is one of these new leadership networks. It's a nonprofit based in London. It exists to shape a better future through responsible leadership. They've got 1,500 people in the program. It's run by this guy, Adam Grigeki, who is a former Boston consulting group consultant, BCG being one of the top strategy firms, strategic partner of the world economic forum. He's also

29:05governor of the arch academy, which is Paul Marshall from GB News's attempt to reshape, not just an attempt, he's an active program to reshape the education system in the UK. And he's also the a member of the world economic forum global shape program, which is like their young global leader program for the under 30s. So this is absolutely without question, a world economic forum guy and a gender that has been promoted here. They've got this fellowship program for 2025, but they talk about not just navigating the future, but leading it. And last week they kicked off in Manchester with a whole bunch of people in the room and there's some pictures that were shared by someone who was actually there. I'll just read through some of these, right? It's not the most exciting thing to look at, because it's just a bunch of words on the screen in front of you. But I think it's quite important to pull out particularly the level of infiltration going on as it relates to the government, because we've got the Bank of England, the British Army, the British Council, the Cabinet Office, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Department for Environment,

30:09Food and Rural Affairs, Department for Transport, Department for Work and Pensions, Department of Health and Social Care, the League Government, League of Department, the Greater London Authority, so the Silicon Office, the Historic Royal Palaces, HM Prison and Probation Service, HM Treasury, the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Ministry of Justice, and Bob Com, and then also something called Sprit, which is a coalition of NHS trusts from across the North of London, all involved in this programme. This is absolutely infiltration of government, but then also, you've got in the mix there, a bunch of international corporations, you've got Barclays, you've got Centroco, which is British Gas, and then a bunch of advisory organisations, so Boston Consulting Group are involved, Group of Humans, which is a Digital Transformation Network, actually, no people who are involved in that work there, and PWC, formerly known as Price Waterhouse Coopers, and these people are coming together in order to network, to build a perspective on what's going on in society, inside their organisations,

31:12and then to migrate to a new system, that's ultimately what they're doing, and they spend three days together in Manchester in a hotel, day one was about zooming out, seeing the system today, day two was about zooming in, listening across the system, and then day three was what next, inquiring in our own systems, so come together, get a load of information, share ideas, build connections, and then think about how we're going to take that off around society, around around the UK, adopting what they call a cross-systems perspective, so this is absolutely common purpose type language, so breaking down silos is what common purpose used to talk about, and this cross-systems thing is absolutely the same, this idea of leading in uncertainty, so if there is a poly crisis, as we're constantly being told, how do you navigate through that, and what are the leadership attributes that you need to have, how do you articulate strategy, motivate people, all that kind of stuff? It is leading in uncertainty, another way of saying order out of chaos?

32:13That's good, that's yeah, I think you just landed on something there, and that's absolutely correct, that's exactly what it is, and then this word system craft, which is coming up again and again now, and what does that mean? Well, you're crafting the system, the re-engineering system, so you've got these leadership networks who are coming together to think about how we rewire the whole of society, we heard about it a lot over the past few weeks in the civil service, it's not just in the civil service, not just in government, it's everywhere, and it's being facilitated through certainly still common purpose, because they're absolutely active, but more internationally, but this forward institute is right in the mix in terms of how that's playing out in the UK today. System craft is what they're, is what they're, is the term that they're using. The lady running that session is this lady, Dr. Kate Simpson, who is a Cambridge professor, and the director of the system craft institute at Cambridge University, and she developed

33:15these skills through something called Wasifiddi, which is a consulting business based in Kenya, and this is one of the things I find really interesting, because you've got people in, essentially like former imperial outposts, who are using these techniques for transforming the system, the societies that they're in Africa, and Singapore is another really good example of the way you see this stuff happening a lot, and then they bring that back into the UK. So they're actually using a sustainable development for an Commonwealth development office type methodology that has been honed and tested overseas, they're bringing that bucket back into this country, and essentially the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, as colonies, essentially. That's the methodology in the mindset that is behind this, is absolutely what we're seeing. And the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, CISL, which is where Kate Simpson is based, is where this

34:22picture was taken, and actually I showed this at the end of last year as well, but I think it's worth getting it back on screen, because you can see their Charlie Boy, Prince of Wales, as he was then, within Cheshire, just over his left shoulder as we're looking at the picture here, who is also involved in Ford Institute, you've got Lord Beban, formerly known as John Gummer, at the top left there, Sandra Indix and DeClev from the club in Brom, and a bunch of other people, in the elite levels of what the Ford Institute and these people are doing, and this is how the agenda has been progressed. Thank you for that, Ben. Finaster, let's come back to you then, and we'll head to the Mediterranean and some industrial action going on there. Yes, again, a demonstration of how collective action can genuinely do something to push back against a genocidal agenda, so if we can just get the headline up on screen, this was a report in the cradle. Mediterranean

35:23Dock workers shut down over 20 ports in solidarity with Palestine, so what does this actually mean if we can just have the next slide on? Dock workers in over 21 Mediterranean ports will carry out coordinated actions on the 6th of February to block arm shipments bound for Israel, unions and port workers in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Morocco and the Basque Country are refusing to unload or allow transit of military cargo, destination, ashtad or high for port in Israel, and we can just have a very quick look at the map of what that actually means, so there's a huge number there of Dock workers unions that have very proactively gone on strike to and are taking measures to prevent the shipments, and of course looking back at the fact that this is a BDS report, we can just have that up on screen showing that in fact to prevent the transit of military material to Israel through

36:24the Italian port of Ravenna, because although the Italian government made promises or guarantees that it would stop supply of arms, of course, what happened, it was going through second party or NGO type organizations designed to look like civilian cargo, so again collective measures from people on the ground through unions and ordinary people, and this of course is ongoing while the genocide is ongoing in Gaza, just very quickly this is a recent bombing of Gaza City and central Gaza, while the Israeli government is bringing in measures to increase settlements and demolitions in the West Bank and to bring in execution death penalty for Palestinian prisoners. Thank you for that, Vanessa. Ben, let's come back to the UK then, and impact investing. Yes, impacts investing, aka the third way, aka stakeholder capitalism,

37:29public private partnerships, the big society, all of those different terms that we have for the transformation of the, not just the economic system, but political and social systems in our society, this report just released a couple of days ago, impact UK, the size and story of our impact economy, 2026, story that words really important, they're really pushing to build a narrative around this, is all being led through communication, absolutely crucial, this comes from an organization, you can see in the top right hand corner there, the NPC, this is called new philanthropy capital, and it's really important because the new philanthropy is not philanthropic, I guess that's why it's new philanthropy, because all of this stuff is being delivered for profit and it's designed to deliver what they call social and environmental outcomes for the richest people in the country. I think that's probably the best way to describe it, and it all ladders up to the world economic

38:29forum agenda and the other things that we've been talking about earlier on in the show, who has this come from in terms of the support for this report, so better society capital, so that is the big society initiative, they rebranded it a few years ago, but this is absolutely David Cameron's baby from when it was announced back in 2011, it's still going between administrations between government even, it's the same agenda being pushed forward. Esme Fairburn Foundation, one of these non-profits that is absolutely everywhere in the UK, in terms of social transformation programmes, so I'm going to call force to communications, as PR agency, not come across them before, Deloitte Bank Foundation, quite why the UK's biggest retail bank who's engaged in this stuff, I shut us to think, but they're also a world economic forum partner, and then Mishgon Derraya, the law firm, who seem to think they're going to

39:29be making a bunch of money out of this as well, and we talked about this guy previously, he gave the introduction to the report, this is Kieran Boyle, who is a professor at the LSE Marshall Institute, so that's Marshall as in Paul Marshall, the founder and major funder of GB News, and again, I'll just sort of reinforce the point that the person behind GB News, the person most influential in terms of funding and establishing that organisation, is actually working with the world economic forum people to deliver the transformation of our society, so the idea that GB News is some kind of opposition voice, it's not credible when you understand what LSE Marshall's doing in the background, and we talked about Kieran Boyle last year, he's absolutely leading the conversation in this space, he's also a young global leader of the world economic forum, and we can see here that

40:32he sees the opportunity for the impact economy is to be the foundation for navigating the century ahead, this is the scale of what they're talking about here, and essentially what they've done with this report is to try to spin a load of existing activity in the education system, well sorry not just the education system, in the economic system, into fitting into this impact investing new economy narrative that they're trying to build, and they're what they're saying is that 15% of economic output in the UK is impact economy when it isn't at all, and it certainly wasn't established on that basis, and they started pulling out a bunch of numbers, you can see here 428 billion, forget those back on screen, 428 billion pounds in the centre right at the top there, sorry centre left at the top there, UK impact economy apparently is 428

41:35billion pounds, there are 700 companies that they've focused on for doing this research, and this goes across the education system, the housing system, charities, trade unions, trusts, different political parties, apparently a part of this as well, and I think that they're really reaching here is what I would say, this is coming across as a little bit desperate to try to build this into something which it isn't yet, and actually I'm getting this sense across the piece actually to go back to the section I was talking about earlier, with system craft, when you read through their documentation you can see that one of the big things that are coming up against is that reality is not doing what they wanted to do, so you're having all of these dictats handed down as to what the future is going to be like, but actually reality is not responding, humanity is not responding in the way that they expect, and I think this is just another really good example of that, so this impact economy that they've said is going to be absolutely foundational to the way that this society is going to run over the next 100 years,

42:37they've actually had to create out of a load of smoke and mirrors and turning numbers that have got nothing to do, frankly, with this initiative into something that they can apparently claim to. We talked about some of the organisations involved, really interestingly, this chap who I mentioned earlier, Gary Ludner, he's one of the case studies for this, so Ludner was one of the one of the people who was donating to Labour together that Morgan McSweeney was quite keen to hide from public scrutiny, and you can see here that he says this is a crucial point in the bottom right hand corner, the quote there is, I believe that if you work with government you can unlock billions rather than millions, that's how you make systemic change, so essentially what you've got is that some of the richest people who've ever lived in the whole of history, people like Gary Ludner, who want to deliver a particular set of social and technological and economic outcomes that

43:39will ultimately benefit them and help to entrench their position in society in perpetuity, that's the game they're playing here, working with government in order to mandate the implementation of the things that they want to see happen, and in doing it all under the guise of charity, first of all, but also in a manner that allows them to extract profit from it, while telling the world that they're being philanthropic, it's really grubby by this whole thing, but this is absolutely front and centre in terms of what the system is pushing towards, and it all stems from the big society, so this term didn't exist, impacts investing didn't exist really, there was a slight blip because Ronnie Cohen, so Ronald Cohen actually introduced this back in around 2009, so he did some of the early thought pieces and public statements about it, but it really kicked him to gear when the big society initiative was announced in 2011, and we talked about this last week because we showed that some of the work going on inside

44:43the civil service via policy profession to completely reshape the civil service, and on the wall of one of the workshops, the pitch that was taken in 2023, we could see the big society, not big government, exactly the image that you can see there behind David Cameron in the original announcement of the big society back in 2011, and then the, as you can see, this term has then been pushed out into public discourse through the media, through government communications since then, and they are trying to turn this into the next thing ultimately, and if you want to find out more about that, then the best place to go actually, not just because I'm saying it also because when I searched for it, it's one of the first things came up, is this article from Martin Edwards on the UK column back in 2011, where he laid the whole thing out, and it's about as relevant today as you possibly imagine, great piece of work, and just goes to show that the UK column was on the case back then, and I believe we're probably

45:44still all right now. Well, hopefully, thank you. Yeah, thank you very much for that. Vanessa, let's come back to you now, and while the focus has been, of course, on the human costs of what Israel's been doing in Gaza, and so on, and in the West Bank, the environmental cost is also something that we should not ignore. Yeah, and I find it particularly interesting, I mean, you and I, Mike, were talking about this earlier in the sense that the WEF is now talking very much all of the kind of oligarchy class are talking about making assets of fresh air, or water, of all of mankind's natural resources, and yet here you have the Zionist block, basically, destroying the environment, committing ecocide, particularly in this region, in all of West Asia, and the most recent report is this one, Israeli chemicals, devastate 540

46:46hectares of Lebanon's borderlands, so that's basically in southern Lebanon, where Israel has been spraying farmlands with glycer fate, and this is a section of a report from Russia today, and their correspondent, Steve Sweeney. God, by war. Initial laboratory analysis has now identified the substance as a herbicide band in Lebanon and several other countries. One, the World Health Organization says increases cancer risk. Laboratory analysis results showed that the substance sprayed is the herbicide glyphosate, which could damage vegetation cover with direct repercussions on agricultural production, soil fertility, and ecological balance. The ministry say this was neither accidental nor harmless, and one human rights group condemned the incidence as a war crime. The deliberate targeting of civilian farmland violates international humanitarian law, particularly the prohibition on attacking or destroying objects indispensable to civilian survival.

47:48Large-scale destruction of private property without specific military necessity amounts to a war crime and undermines food security and basic livelihoods in the affected areas. And of course, this is a policy that Israel has conducted throughout history really poisoning wells in Gaza and also spreading glyphosate on the borders between Israel and the barricade that maintain the prison of Gaza itself. Now, this is a report from March 2025 forced desertification in Lebanon, which is related to the use of white phosphorus. In bearing in mind, it's not only white phosphorus itself. They're dropping incendiary bombs onto forestry and farmland for the last two or three years since the ceasefire in November 2024. And the report documents Israel's use of white

48:50phosphorus bombs in this war against Lebanon since the events of October the seventh. And then, if we actually have a look at the report itself, director of the Nature Conservation Center, the American University of Beirut says the spread of white phosphorus can affect multiple ecosystems and may threaten food security at the local level. It will contaminate water streams impacting the health of nearby communities that rely on these sources for drinking water, nearby fish traps become at risk of contamination, which could transfer to humans through consumption. And this was confirmed by the national authority of the Latani river as the Israeli targeting, which affected all Lebanon also reached the Latani river. This impacted the river's color and the odor emanating from its course was toxic, according to information, obtained by the ARIG from the authority through the Global Initiative. Now, I have also first-hand knowledge that much of the spring water

49:54that is sold here in Lebanon comes from sources related to the Latani rivers. So potentially, those are also being contaminated. Then, if you look, you mentioned the human cost. Also, Mike, this is the highest civilian toll from phosphorus, aggression, if we can just have a look to that. According to figures from the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the number of casualties during the ongoing war from October the 8th, 2023 to October 20th, 2024 reached 2412 people, including 257 individuals who were injured by white phosphorus. This indicates that 10.6 percent of the injuries were caused by the phosphorus. So, I mean, this is a banned substance. It's constantly used, of course, in Gaza during the so-called Mowing the Loan campaigns by Israel to effectively targets civilian communities inside Gaza, not only since October the 7th, of course. And that if we go back to 2024, this was the war against Lebanon's trees, Israel's wars on

51:01Lebanon's trees. And again, if we look at what the agricultural ministry here has said at that point, Israeli bombing has caused severe damage to 6,000 hectares of agricultural land. 2,000 are totally destroyed. 60,000 olive trees destroyed some 300 years old, citrus banana, almond trees, and vast areas of forest destroyed. And then also in the last couple of days, there have been instances of glyphosate poisoning. Sorry, I've got the S&P the wrong way around. On the slide, on farmland in Hebron, local activists told Waffa that Israeli forces chase shepherds in the community of Khirbat Jimba in Masayata and barred them from reaching grazing areas before arresting Palestinian citizen Shah Ahmad Issa and his son Mamun. He also added that the colonists from the Sharia colony built on Palestinian land in Masaya to destroy large

52:04areas of wheat and barley fields in the region. The fields were sprayed with chemical substances, late Thursday night, using drones, causing heavy losses for farmers. So it extends beyond crops. And of course, it poses a serious threat to livestock that are grazing on these lands. And then, if we look at South Syria, which of course, Israel has been increasing its occupation of since the fall of Damascus in December 2024, they have there also sprayed glyphosate on the farmland in the Konatra area, which they now fully occupy. And they're preventing Syrian farmers from actually reaching their land firing on them if they try to get to their livestock. They've also been seen stealing livestock from farmlands in Konatra. And of course, that goes back historically, Israel was responsible for many of the forest fires, particularly in the south, but also through their Al Qaeda proxies, who sat fire through incendiary devices both in the northeast and the

53:07northwest. And then not related to West Asia, but still related to the destruction being caused by Israelis, and particularly, sorry, if I can just have the slide back on screen. Israeli settlers in Patagonia in Argentina are not forgetting the Andeania plan, which was part of their door hustle, one of the founders of the Zionist movement in the late 1800s going into the early 1920s onwards. It was seen as a potential settlement land before Palestine was finally agreed on. And apparently there, there are accusations that there are Israeli settlers that set a light, the Patagonian forestry. So again, while the WEF is talking very clearly about privatizing all natural resources, are the Zionists creating demand for the WEF, etc, to be able to

54:10privatize those resources? Good questions. Finanza, at what point is the world going to say enough on this, whether the target is humanity or whether the target is the environment? What are your thoughts on that? Well, I mean, they haven't said enough after more than two years of the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, I guess, for many people, the environment, the nature, and the whole ecological structure in West Asia is being destroyed, which will eventually have an effect on the rest of humanity, of course. Yes, indeed. Okay, well, thank you very much for that. Now, we're going to finish then today with BBC, of course, because what could be better? Well, the news, of course, is that the annual cost of a TV license is going to rise to 180 pounds from the 1st of April, 2026, and this is required by the 2022 license fee settlement in line

55:17with inflation, apparently. So, I mean, the rise isn't that much, but I just think it's obscene that anybody's expected to pay $100,000 a year to that organization. But anyway, the BBC is, and Finanza, I'll be very keen in your thoughts on this, but the BBC is, according to the storm regime, the UK's number one media brand, with 94% of UK adults using the BBC each month last year, and it remains the UK's most widely used and trusted news outlet. That must be true. I think they should get UK column verify onto that. In my opinion, the BBC is not fit for purpose, and anyone who still thinks it is, is kind of living in an ulterior dimension to the rest of us. Yes, indeed. Well, I tell you all, though, I think it

56:18might be true. Do you? Yeah, I think he's probably the most trusted news brand still. Yes, well, I think he probably is. Yes, but we need to change that. We certainly do. Yeah. Anyway, the question is, what are they doing with all this money? Well, the BBC has recently announced a series of initiatives with what they describe as the aim of bringing trusted public service content to more young people and families where they are. And so that is including a new content partnership with YouTube that the BBC was very pleased to tell us about a few days ago, with a CBB parenting YouTube channel launching later this year, walking possibly go wrong as well as six themed channels featuring content from CBBC shows. So they're absolutely targeting the children here. And of course, this is undoubtedly got to bring quite a lot of ad revenue to the BBC as well, of course, because this will undoubtedly generate quite a number of views. That's quite a big shift for them.

57:22Going to YouTube, there's an admission of failure for them in many ways. Well, I would say so. Yeah, I would say so. But anyway, look, the BBC, the current BBC charter began on the first of January 2017. It ends on the 31st of December, 2027. The role charter is what provides the BBC with its constitutional basis. And it also defines the BBC's mission with the capital M and public purpose with the capital two capital P's there. And it sets out how the BBC has governed regulated and funded. This is how the government describes it. But anyway, there is a charter review going on at the moment. This is a big discussion within the BBC itself. And there's a charter review green paper to be published. And the contents of that are going to be based on a public consultation on options for BBC future funding. That consultation is currently running. And they say that the BBC belongs to all of us. We are therefore looking to hear from a wide range

58:23of voices on the future of the BBC as our national broadcaster. And how it can represent and deliver for every every person in the UK as part of the charter review. Now, the links for this, if we put this on screen, the links for this will be in the show notes. And on the UK column website. And of course, that will include the link to the consultation response form itself. And I would say everybody needs to be responding to that. Please do. Yeah. Whether they'll listen to anything that you have to say is up for debate. I've put a complaint into the BBC once. Oh, nothing back. Well, I can't imagine why. That's because the BBC complaints if I remember correctly a run by a capital. Yeah, these capital. Yeah. Yeah. That's certainly one reason for that. Finestress just to finish off very briefly. I mean, what would be your thoughts on how the BBC should be funded? I suspect the answer that's coming is it shouldn't be.

59:26Exactly. It shouldn't be. It should be defunded. Yeah, but the problem here is the problem here is it is an element of British soft power. So it's something that the British government would consider it would consider it to be an organ of the state. And so it's not going to be let to let go in any way. Whatever the final settlement is. Yeah, but then surely the state should pay for it. Why should the public have to pay for it? I mean, if it's essential to the existence of the British state, which is effectively what you were saying. And certainly through foreign policy, the BBC is very important to that. So the government should fund it. Oh, well, yeah, unfortunately that. But we find the government. The government. So actually, it should be defacto. It's government department. It potentially presents itself as being independent, but it's funded through taxation. That's what the license fee is. So it's to factor a government department.

1:00:26So yeah, you know, like my view is I mean, putting aside all of the issues that we could obviously sit here all week and talk about the things that are wrong with the BBC. The basic thing to say is if it didn't exist today, would you create it in its current form? And the answer is no. No. So that has to be a starting point. Indeed. So it should be defunded, but then so should the government. So anyway, we'll talk about more, but more about that in extra in a few minutes. Thanks to everyone that's joined us for the news today. If you are a UK call member, stick around on the live stream. If you're not a member, we do absolutely need your support. So if you'd like to join and join us for extras every time we do them, please sign up on the website. But anyway, thanks for watching. We will see you next in four extra. See you then. Bye bye. Bye bye. Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. The rush of racing? Nothing beats it. But Chumba Casino comes close.

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