UK Column News — 13th February 2026

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Good afternoon, it's Friday the 13th of February, 2026, just after 1 o'clock, and welcome to

UK Column News.

I'm your host, Mike Robinson, my host and studio today, Brian Garrish, welcome to the

program, Brian.

Pleasure to be here.

And we'll be joined today once again by Basel Valentine, and I later in the program, Basel

is going to be reporting on the removal of access to court lists and records by the

Starmer government, the building fight over contracts with Palantir, Brian's going

to be reporting on a convicted child abuser, and we'll have the latest on what comma

purposes been up to, and I'll be taking a first look at the Munich Security Conference,

which begins today, and I'll have an update on online safety, but we're going to begin

today with Palestine action because the question of whether or not they should have been

prescribed, has been settled, or has it Basel?

Well, for the time being, the ban remains in place, Brian, although Justice Smorning,

named Victoria Sharp, sitting with Mr Justice Swift, and Mrs Justice Stain, said that the

Palestine action is an organization that promotes its political cause through criminality

and encouragement of criminality, a very small number of its actions have amounted to

terrorist action within the Terrorism Act of 2000, I'm not quite sure what they are,

but that proportion was still disproportionate. So the ban, the prescription of Palestine

action has been declared unlawful, but remains in place, pending an appeal and further legal

arguments. Unsurprisingly, the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmoud, has rejected the court's findings

and intends to launch an appeal at the Court of Appeal in order to keep the ban in

place. Obviously, it's presented an extraordinary set of circumstances with supporters of Palestine

action declaring their support for the organization once again outside the Old Bailey, lots of cheering,

as you can imagine, and police standing around rather non-plussed, not quite knowing what to do.

It's a sort of legal gray area now. Of course, Palestine action are jubilant,

we were banned because Palestine action's disruption of Israel's largest weapons manufacturer

Elbit systems cost the corporation millions of pounds in profits and lost out on multi-billion

pound contracts. We've used the same techniques as direct organizations throughout history,

including anti-war groups, Kierstarma, himself defended in court, and the government acknowledged

in these legal proceedings that this ban was based on property damage, not violence against people.

This is who the Amori speaking outside the high court this morning.

Banning Palestine action was always about appeasing pro-Israel lobby groups and weapons

manufacturers and nothing to do with terrorism, metropolitan police have released a statement

warning that prescription remains in place. And so showing support for Palestine action is still

a criminal offense, but they've said that they're going to focus on gathering evidence rather than

making more arrests at this time. You know, it's a complete nonsense really. The Assistant Commissioner

Lawrence Taylor, the National Head of Counterterrorism Policing, said offices will enforce the ban

pragmatically and proportionally. Policings are always to enforce the law and to do so without fear

or favor, as the public would expect. Prescription is and always has been a matter of government

following today's judgment. The Home Secretary of State, it intends to lodge an appeal.

The court has ordered that the prescription order remains enforced until further order of the court.

We recognize this is an unusual set of circumstances. And until further order by the court,

counterterrorism policing will approach the whole question,

enforcement pragmatically and proportionally. That seems to be the code word and will continue to

work with forces across the country. So, you know, a huge victory really for simple liberties

apart from anything else. It was always nonsense to categorize Palestine action as a terrorist

organization. And the court acknowledged that. So, but quite what the Home Secretary hopes to

achieve at the court of appeal or what new evidence or arguments are going to be presented,

particularly when the six defendants at Woolwich Crown court, yes, last week, were cleared

of the key charge of aggravated burglary, which itself doesn't cross the threshold into terrorism.

I'm not quite sure. It's a bloody nose for the government. February the 13th, proving unlucky for

the Home Secretary line. Absolutely. But I was just very, very briefly then. The question

as was in my mind is what happens with the convictions of the people that have, you know,

were arrested at the various protests in recent months, do you think?

Well, that's a very good question. Amnesty international and the leader of the Green Party,

Zach Polanski, are amongst those saying that all charges should immediately be dropped.

People are doing court next week. It's a gray area. I don't think anybody knows what's going to

happen because this is the first time any such ban on a prescribed organization has been overturned

in court. So, we're in uncharted territory. Okay, thank you for that. Let's move on then to

an ex-libera consular. Where's more bad news for Labour, isn't it? But first of all, I must say

that I'm about to report on a gentleman called Lear and Vellerman and I want to make it clear

that he's been released on bail. So, has not been convicted and court proceedings, effectively,

still in process. So, we're making a very measured report, some of the information in the public

domain at the moment. So, we'll kick off with the BBC's report. So, here we are. How do they

headline it? Labour, ex-counselor admits child sex offences. And I would bring this up on screen

because a warning appears in this story, which it says this story contains details that some may

find distressing. And I'm slightly flummox because okay, there is some pretty unpleasant things that

have taken place. But it seems to me extraordinary that the BBC felt the need to put a specific warning

for the reader on this, but perhaps our audience will make up their own mind. If we just bring

that one back on screen, let's go through a little bit more on what we need to cover. And so,

this is part of the BBC's report. So, this man sent a video of his penis to basically a 13-year-old

girl, I believe she was 13, and he was attempting clearly to groom her. What he didn't know was he

was falling into a sting operation by the police, and he's eventually caught for this. Now, the BBC

here talks quite a bit about what happened and about the court case. It does admit that he's a

member of the Jewish Labour movement. He's thrilled on bail, but he can't mix with somebody under

the age of 18 without supervision from another adult. And he's going to be sentenced to a

crown court later. But what the BBC doesn't tell their readers is that he was formerly a

director of the New North London synagogue. And we think this is important because, effectively,

it starts to build up a little bit of a more detail about this gentleman. Now, just remember that

no sentencing has taken place, but we're dealing here with the reporting of the case. So, if we

bring this on screen, this is the Jewish Labour movement. And what we can see instantly is that

we've got another very powerful Jewish lobbying group this time in and alongside the Labour party

itself. And this man was originally involved with this. But the BBC failed to report on something

else. And that was that Mr. Vellerman was a former hope, not hate, political organiser.

Now, other news sources have picked up on this gentleman. And we've got MSN here saying

excellent and Labour councillor admits child abuse, child sex offenses after met sting. And we now

know that he was an organiser for hope, not hate. But the BBC clearly doesn't want to talk

about that. But why is his former connection with hope not hate so important and in the public

interest? Now, remember, you're getting this information from the UK column, not from the BBC.

And in turn, we want to thank UK column members who picked up hand sharp eyes to pick up some of

the information I'm now going to bring on screen. So, remember what this gentleman has

allegedly done. Now, let's go to the online safety bill. And this is the hand side report here.

So it's talking about debated on Thursday, the 26th of May 2022. And initially under that

banner headline is a list of the committee members under the chairmanship of Sir Roger Gale.

But there were also a number of witnesses. And we brought those up on the screen. I know it's a

bit small. Well, let's bring in the big arrow because here we have no less, but Lear Envelemann

himself as a political organiser for hope, not hate, witnessing the online safety bill. You

couldn't make this up, Mike. It's, it's really quite extraordinary. And I just want to highlight

as well, no suggestion of any wrongdoing, of course, but William Moe, the chief executive of

Full Fact was also present as a witness. And this is the organisation which puts it forward,

itself forward as being the know all essentially as to what's happening. So we wanted to bring this

up that a man who's been accused of some really serious things was actually a witness to

online safety. I mean, it's getting evidence to the inquiry. It's to decide what the high

this legislation which the government has framed in the language of protecting children. And

they're having these types of people involved as witnesses. Yeah. Now, we could say that this comes

down to vetting again because the government is using people to give opinions and influence

and lobby on very serious law. And it appears that they're they're failing. So there's a lot to

come out about this case. But at the moment, of course, we can't report in too much detail because

of the the situation of the case itself. Now, we do also want to say that Jewish media has reported

on this man. And I think it's important to to highlight this. So this is the Jewish Chronicle

Ex-Labor Counselor who sent explicit messages to police officer. He believed was a 13 year old girl

released on bail. So Jewish press did pick up on this, but it's only the UK column and some

sharp-eyed members that have picked up on this connection through to hope not hate and the online

safety bill. So then, related, I suppose, in a sense, is the Epstein investigation. And well,

Keir Starmer has decided to fire the head of the civil service and cabinet secretary. Now, of

course, I'm only speaking about one person who held both of those roles. And that's Sir Chris

Womald, who can be seen on screen here, speaking to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee last

November. Womald was given to the both these roles in December 2024. And he is the victim that

Starmer has chosen to try to stave off the latest victim. I should say that Starmer has tried to

stave off Peter Mandelson's criticism of Peter Mandelson's appointment as ambassador to the

United States. Now, the fact that Womald was only appointed to the role a few days before Starmer

announced Mandelson's appointment. So he kind of had very little impactors play really almost

no significant part in the decision to appoint Mandelson. So his interim replacement center,

going to be Catherine Little, who is permanent secretary at the cabinet office,

Dame Antonia Rumeo, who is permanent secretary at the home office, and James Bowler, who is permanent

secretary at the Treasury. And they're going to be there doing his job until the replacement.

His appointment is appointed and that will be shortly. And we should remember, of course,

he's the third person to be kicked out in the last few days following Morgan McSweeney,

Starmer's Chief of Staff, and also Tim Allen, his Director of Community Communications.

It's not going so well for Starmer at the moment. No, of course, because the Pomaltese

rotten from the inside, which also applies, in my opinion, to the conservative party.

But these dynamic events have caused this rot to come to the surface. And now they're just going

to try and cover up by getting rid of people and bringing in somebody else who will keep the lid

on the state of play inside the Labour party. Absolutely. No, we're delighted to see that Patrick

Nixon has managed to join his life. Patrick, welcome to the program. Now, you've sent us a report

from Iran, from Tehran, and we're going to show that in a second. But before we do,

I'll just be interested to get your brief thoughts on the deep prescription of Palestine action.

Are we going to help us? Now, yeah, we can't. Unfortunately, we can't hear you. Patrick,

look, what we'll do is we'll show the report. We'll show the report the first part of it anyway.

And maybe you can try reconnecting and let's see if we succeed and be able to hear you.

So let's show this to start this off. Yeah, this is a good introduction.

This week, we're reporting from on the ground in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran,

Tehran. And it's been a quite incredible journey to get here. A lot of obstacles were put

in our way. We managed to arrive here on Wednesday. And as luck would have it, this was the

national independence day or the national rally day for Iran. And we managed to, after making

it through customs an hour and a half, somehow managed to get through traffic into the city.

The traffic was so incredible because there were literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions

of people coming into the city center to join this sort of national display of solidarity for the

state, for the government, for the leadership, and really also in opposition of the threats

being waged by the United States currently under the Trump administration,

threatening to start a war at any moment. It could happen. This is a very real and present

concern here, no doubt. But we managed to park the car and to walk. A lot of people parked,

literally turned a major freeway, artery into the city, into a giant, literally a giant parking lot.

And we walked in for the duration, as did many other tens of thousands of people on the road that we

took. And we made it to the latter part of this rally. It started at 8 a.m. and finished around

1231. And we got a chance to experience something that's extraordinary. By anyone's estimation,

probably two million people tended this rally. So the scenes were incredible. We took a few short cuts

from this and we'll show a few of those in a moment here. So there's hundreds of thousands of

people who may be a million or out here who are coming up to the main square, but just the

sheer mass of Iranians out today is a major event. So what was incredible about this is that

we've been told in the western media and by our politicians in the west that there were all

of these anti-quote regime protests going on. And the country is completely divided. People

are afraid to come out in the streets for fear of being attacked by the regime and whatnot.

So that's what we've been told. We've been fed a steady diet of what can only be described as

western propaganda and how they characterize what's going on in Iran. And what you saw was this

incredible unity, national unity. There weren't just, you know, I would say socially conservative

Iranians out, more religious people in this country. Certainly that would have been the

majority of the people out, but there were what you might turn moderates, secular people,

all united under this umbrella, if you will, of the Islamic Republic of Iran and celebrating

the anniversary of the revolution. So, you know, the revolutionary government is alive and well

in this country. And it has a massive, massive constituency. And you can really see that for

your own eyes here. Certainly this was one of the reasons why I came on this trip. And there's

a lot of reasons why I shouldn't have come in terms of the threat of war. It's certainly not a pleasant

situation if that was to kick off, but I needed to see for myself what was happening here. And I

needed to be able to convey that to our audience at the UK column, of course, but also at 21st

century wire and really brought more broadly to our western audience and our readership and our

viewers. Well, Mike, I've got to say, really fantastic report from Patrick. It's brilliant that

he managed to get to Iran. And of course, Patrick taking huge risks because as a westerner, he's

in a very big city. And although he's clearly describing everything is stable. He's been walking

out on the street. So a well done to Patrick Henningson. And also we'd like to say some sort of

you fantastic that we've UK column with Patrick's help have been able to get another in-country

report out. So this is excellent. So we're going to show another excerpt from that in a second,

but Patrick, just give us the latest that you're seeing over there at the moment.

Can you hear me? Okay. Yes, we can't hear you. We can hear you now. Yes.

That's brilliant. The internet here is very patchy because of the security situation. Everything

is very much on high alert. Right now, obviously, people here are concerned about imminent attack

from the United States. But despite all that, life goes on in Iran. This is a megatropolis in terms

of major cities. So it's people are getting about with their daily life. There's no

the rioters are gone. And normal life is happening. It's very safe to run at night during the day,

etc. But the internet's always going to be an issue here with the current security situation.

So I've managed to get a window of internet here at the moment. Now, in terms of what we just saw

the clip that you showed, it was really a display of solidarity nationally. This was all around

the countries, all the major cities. Millions of people came out probably collectively about 20 to

24 million people in total in the different cities and and municipalities around the country.

So that's a very different picture than what we've been fed over the last couple of weeks and

months about the division, supposed division country. Actually, there's quite a lot of resilience.

Now, we're also able to see a lot of the military hardware on the parade. Some of those clips

are in my report in terms of the drones and the missiles. So, you know, that's that is a big sort

of source of national pride here is their homegrown defense industry. Everything is basically native.

We got a chance to see their missile defense systems earlier today, as well as a hypersonic

missiles, as well as the drone technology and US drones that they've downed. We've got a chance

to go and listen to their experts tell us about how they captured the US drone and and downed it

by capturing its signal communication and landing it in Iran, the most advanced US drone. That was

a couple of years ago, obviously, and then the downing of the global hawk, the MQ4 global hawk drone.

We've got a chance to see that and hear the stories of how all that took place. So, you know,

from that point of view, this has been absolutely fascinating. As an American, I was able to see the

old US embassy with the famous hostage crisis, which is now a museum. It's called the den of

espionage. I'm translating into English. So, it's pretty incredible, having seen that story growing

up as a child. That was a big part of the news event growing up in America and then to actually

go there. Everything is perfectly preserved. The skiff, the secured communications, the encryption

rooms, everything. So, I got an opportunity to actually see all that from a historic point of

view and obviously what I witnessed on the streets and meeting people. A lot of the women are

unbelled. So, this that stereotype that women have to cover their hair here is completely false.

So, there's just so many different things that you could only know really by seeing it for yourself

if you're from a Western country because all of this is more or less blocked off to our media.

These reports exist but you won't see them on our mainstream media. And so, people are getting a

distorted view of Iran and I think that's also to manufacture consent to make it okay to trigger a war

against them. So, and I hope that, you know, what I'm reporting can help, you know, deconstruct some

of these and debunk some of these stereotypes and a lot of the propaganda that we get fed in the

West. That's the reason I came. I needed to see for myself. That's why I'm here. It was not easy

to get here. It was definitely not easy to schedule, has been grueling. We've been doing a lot

of media coverage with the various local media once talked to the international journalists that are

here of which I am one of many. But these aren't necessarily mainstream journalists. A few of the

mainstream reports I saw, they're absolutely unbelievable. I did want to ask you about that, Patrick,

because BBC, because you were obviously that first segment of that of your report was talking about

what was happening on Wednesday this week, the BBC's answers that was that there were massive

chance of kill him any. And so, I just wanted to ask you to address that. Yeah, absolutely.

What from this week? Yes. Absolutely. Older dash. No way. No way. Just the opposite. So,

a record number of people came out for the National Rally Day. More than previous years.

So, people are absolutely rallying around the government by the millions. I think they estimated

two million people came out for the National Day March in Toronto. Very, very pro. I mean, it's

all about supporting the leader. It's all about supporting the military. Because the country,

people here on mass know they're under attack. Even the secularists are basically

in solidarity with conservative and religious conservative Iranians. Everybody is on points

with basically opposing the US war and an Israeli war, which is being waged against this country.

So, if the BBC actually reported that about the National Rally, that's pretty much insane.

The only way I can say it's just like Orwellian. Yeah.

Patrick, I just wanted to stress for our audience that you will there live in Toronto at the

moment, which is really excellent. In your reports, we're going to be showing the full report that

you've given, recorded report that you've given the column. So, people watching the news today

and UK column extra, which will make public, will be able to see Patrick's full report.

One of the things you've stressed is how calm things are at the moment. But you've also

been speaking to people about the terrible turbulence and trouble and violence there was.

So, we're recognising with compassion that the clearly people were hurt in Iran. But that is now

clearly stabilised and you've stressed. Here is this very big city and country. And it's

reverted very quickly to a peaceful state. I don't know whether you'd like to say anything more

on that. Well, to add to that, Brian, and I'm glad you mentioned this because just in the last

24 hours, I have met two families who have lost in one case, two of their sons. And in another case,

a family member that were attacked by and shot by the so-called peaceful protesters,

of which there is ample evidence. And we even met with the chief of the main district police here

yesterday to show us pretty gruesome evidence of what happened to police officers.

So, hundreds of law enforcement officers and security officers were killed. And these were people

largely that were unarmed. It's not the same as in America where the police all carried firearms.

It's not the case here. So, because it's a different type of civil defence,

the rioters and agent broadcasters are able to take advantage of that by using the crowd

as a human shield and firing from behind people in the streets. But weapons caches were recovered.

I mean, it's a huge scandal here. And so, having actually met the families of the victims

who were killed by these so-called peaceful protesters, there were peaceful protests.

There were legitimate economic protests from the merchant class. This was in December,

late December in the beginning of January. And the violence drafted off the back of that.

And we have plenty of admissions from Israeli and US intelligence that they were involved

admissions, you know, from ed officials. So, there's no question that that was the case.

So, but it's to really see, there's going to be no here jerking BBC videos about the families

who lost their children to violence perpetrated by people backed by the West or backed by Israel.

You're not going to get those reports. And, you know, so you get it on the media here.

It's not that these reports don't exist. They exist here. But they're not filtering back through

to the Western media. They don't care because that destroys the narrative, basically.

And this is a narrative that the West are trying to spend about something that happened, that they

say happened here, that, you know, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000. Someone told me 70,000,

as I was getting attacked online a couple of days ago. So, I replied back to them, why not round

it up to 100,000? You know, protesters were, quote, massacred by these so-called, you know,

the quote regime. It's ridiculous. I've never seen, we have never seen a propaganda wave

designed to demonize a country that's so outrageous. As we're seeing now, in October 7th,

post-October 7th, the type of propaganda, atrocity propaganda, Israel was pushing about 40

beheaded babies. That was bad. But the scale of the operation against Iran is unprecedented.

And I believe the amount of money spent on influencers in the West pushing this scripted lies

is unprecedented. We're talking in the millions. Hens of millions, maybe more, was spent to create

this campaign to soften up Iran for a military strike. That's exactly, and there's no question

in my mind, that's what this is. Yeah, Patrick, thank you very much for that. And the tragedy

of this is, of course, people have been killed and severely injured, lives destroyed both sides of,

yeah, both sides of it, within the wider public community and within the state system itself.

Yeah, it's terrible. Okay, well, look, Patrick, we need to move on, but I'm going to say thank you

very much for joining us today. That has been absolutely fantastic. We are going to show the rest

of Patrick's report in extra. We are going to make today's extra available to everybody,

not just the members, so everybody will get to see the full report. So thank you very much,

Patrick, for joining us and we'll see you next week. Okay, see you then. Thank you. Okay,

let's come back to the UK then and to the situation with the courts in the UK and access

to court records and court lists. Basel, the media, sorry, let me just see here, sorry, Brian,

you start this off because, yeah, in the flow, obviously, that was a live report. So,

that's taken a little bit of time out of the news, but we're delighted to do that,

but great effort by Patrick. I just wanted to give credit to UK column members because there's

a lot of sharp white members sending us information, and this was a little report that I received

a couple of days ago. Now, it is from the Times newspaper, but somebody picked it up on their

phone and said, Brian, I think this is really important. So, I want to say thanks to that person,

who was UK column member Paul Jay, but he was very, very upset to read about this deletion

of the UK's largest court reporting archive. So, I just wanted to give that credit as an

introduction, Mike. Absolutely. So, Basel, take us through this story.

Yes, court desk, it's called, and it's a relatively recent introduction. It's an archive

of magistrates and county court cases that enabled accredited journalists to find out what's

going on in the court system more easily than sifting through hundreds of pieces of paperwork,

which often only give the name of the defendant and very scarce details, which means basically

that without court desk, it's extremely difficult for journalists to find out what's going on,

and very easy for cases to sort of disappear without any meaningful reporting.

Now, I'm indebted to Nat Goodlady reporter up in the northwest of England for a local newspaper,

because local newspapers are one of the few outlets in the sort of mainstream corporate media,

where people do still have some independence, and he was writing in the Lancashire telegraph,

pointing out that the decision to delete the entire archive, as well as, of course,

therefore, not maintain or updated, is being presented as an administrative tidying up exercise,

purely for data protection reasons, but those data protection reasons have not actually been

meaningfully explained in any way. But it is, in fact, a decision that makes the criminal courts

much less visible, much less accountable, and harder to scrutinize, and should worry

anyone who cares about open justice. For those of us who report from court regularly, he said,

court desk became part of the daily machinery of doing the job properly. Court desk was never a

replacement for court lists, phone calls, or sitting through hearings, but it was a way of making

sense of a system that increasingly withholds detail until the last possible moment.

So court desk filled gaps allowing reporters to prepare, prioritize, and ensure that hearings of

genuine public interest were not missed simply because the information wasn't there in time,

and that this matters because open justice does not mean very much if cases can be heard without

meaningful notice to depress. Courts may be open in theory, but in practice, the public relies on

journalists to be present. If reporters do not know what's happening, or cannot reasonably prepare

for it, then scrutiny falls away. The data court desk gathered was uncomfortable reading for the

justice system. Millions of hearings being advanced without notice listings that were accurate

on only a tiny fraction of sitting days, courts routinely hearing cases, the media had no way

of knowing about, and that information obviously did not damage open justice, but it demonstrated where

it was already failing. Now, unsurprisingly, there's been pushback against this from amongst others,

the libertarian conservative former cabinet minister David Davis, and there are perhaps even

deeper darker reasons why this is happening. I've seen speculation online that it's in order to

cover up Prime Minister Kier Starmus own failings when director of public prosecutions,

or indeed multiple other cases that are now going to disappear into the annals of history,

unless journalists are prepared to spend hundreds of hours going through court filings.

Basel, thank you for that. Now, we do have a little bit of what David Davis had to say here,

so let's just have a listen to that, and then we'll talk about it in one second.

Open justice is an absolute foundation stone of the British justice system,

knowing when somebody is going to be tried, and what they're going to be tried for is fundamental.

And yet the government, the Department of Justice, Minister of Justice, is now ordering a company

that does just that. Tell the newspapers what's going on in the courts to shut down and

delete their database, a huge database massively important to the as a newspaper. 1500 inquiries

in recent times depend on this database. Don't say much money, and it'll undermine transparency

and justice in Great Britain.

Oh, good job.

Okay, I'm right. Sorry about that. We're having a few technical programs and cool bugs.

But look, look, what do I want to make?

Because you already mentioned this Basel, the fact that a court desk was only launched in April

2024. And so it's only been going for less than two years. Now, there's a number of points about

this. First of all, as far as I'm concerned, it could be argued that some people have been on

social media that that this is an attempt to cover something up by a carestumber. What this does

is it brings us back to the battle days of pre pre two years ago where people had to go to individual

courts to see the court lists and the court lists were often not correct. And they weren't published

on time and this kind of thing. But the point is that this platform, although it was much more

convenient for journalists, it was only convenient for journalists and members of the public

couldn't get access to this. So we couldn't see what court cases were coming up if we want to attend

them in person, for example. And so my question really just to finish this off is what actual,

you know, justice is supposed to be seen to be done. What actual transparency is there

with respect to the court system? When, in fact, for us as the public, it becomes very, very difficult

to follow what's going on and we rely therefore on the editorial policies of the newspapers to

decide what they think are the important cases. Yeah, absolutely, Mike. And really rather than

deleting the archive in its entirety and doing away with this, it should be made available to

the general public or at least made available to anybody, any journalist that seeks accreditation

to access to it. So this is 100% going in the wrong direction. I mean, it's extraordinary

that a so-called Labour Government are pressing ahead with this. Well, you know, as David

Davis says, it's going to save a few pennies. The data protection reasons that the government's

claiming that it's doing it for because you see obviously, if information about all these

cases is available to a wide number of journalists, then some information may come into the public

domain which, you know, should not. But that should be dealt with on an individual case-by-case

basis, not with that, you know, doing away with the whole thing as a blanket ban. Yes, thank you.

Basil, I'd agree with that. I just challenged David Davis talking about open justice when

in this country closed courts with no press and no jury can take people's children away. And when

the parents attempt to defend themselves against perjury and false reports, the papers will not

deal with that information because it's protected under family court secrecy rules. And I can tell

our audience that the telegraph itself backed out of a high profile case around

two twins that were taken from a mother because they said, well, we can't touch the evidence

that the mother has to protect herself because it's held under secrecy rules. So to stand

not just in the family courts. I believe I'm right in saying that during the judicial review into

Palestine action, the barrister representing the government was presenting evidence which neither

the defendant Huda Hamori or her legal team were allowed to be in prison in court to listen to

that instead a special council was appointed to represent their interests. But that special

council was not allowed to tell them what had been said. So, you know, it's not just in the family

courts, you know, this creeping secrecy together with, of course, the move to do away with

jurors for vast number of cases. That means that decisions like the one made today by the high court

to overturn the ban on Palestine action are absolutely crucial. Judicial reviews, absolutely

crucial to maintaining the checks and balances in our constitution. Yeah. Thank you for that

for that, Basel. A lot more to be discussed on this. Absolutely. We'll do that in extra. But just to

finish this off, just to let you know there is a petition titled Make All Court and Tribunal

transcripts available free of charge, I would say that needs to be expanded to the court list as

well. But anyway, that's there if anybody wants to get involved with that. Now, let's just say if

you like what we do here, the UK column, we do need your ongoing financial support. Please do

help us if you possibly can by becoming a member or making a financial donation. You can find out

how to do that by clicking on the button on the front page of the UK column website. But if you

can support us financially, please do share our material because that helps us defeat the

censorship regime, which we might get a chance to talk to later on in the program. Tonight on the

weekly banter, Charles and I are speaking to Jarm about our recent trip to China, why we went

who we saw we were there. So join us for that if you can and lots of people want to know. So

hopefully there'll be a good viewership for that. Just very briefly, my discussion with Matt Errett

that went out yesterday at 1pm is up on the website. If you haven't seen it, the comments in the

in the forums have been very positive. So please do have a look at that and an article on

Edgar Allan Poe, fascinating historical figure, wrote lots as everybody will appreciate. But also

heavily involved in US politics and so on. So have a look at that if you can. And Brian,

a couple of stories from members there? Yes, I just want to continue this theme of our members

doing some really good work in the background. We got a huge number of emails, we can't respond

to them all, but we do pay attention to as much of the information that comes in as possible.

This was an article which a concerned member of the UK column said, you will where this is

happening. So the headline here from the Gazette and Harold said the public asked if up to 96

firefighters should now be made redundant. This is further collapse of local authority provision

for the public. So it's dorsid and wheelchair fire and rescue authority starts the discussion

on the possible closure of eight fire stations, which would ultimately lead to 96 firefighters

becoming redundant. I also popped this one up on screen and we were hearing a little bit about

this some time ago in relation to Windsor. But basically the local councillors got fed up with

the fact that every time the royalty decide to ease in large numbers, fine food and wine etc,

they end up with a bill. And it appears that at the moment the local councillor is saying it

will not support any more state visits because basically the cost of the royalty hosting

Donald Trump at Windsor Castle last year were not reimbursed. And I think that's fair enough

if we put a picture up of what fine dining looks like, I think they've got most of the Amazon

rainforest on the table. I wonder they can actually see each other. But I'm going to bring this up

because apparently among the important guests at the French President's State visit were Dan

Christine Scott, Thomas, who's an actress, Mick Jagger, and so Elton John and my goodness,

we've got to put all of that cost onto the public. I think it's outrageous. Meanwhile,

another heads up from our audience was that we've now got the royal family on altruistic work.

This was Camilla visiting, I think it's Somerset Police, Avan and Somerset Police. And I think this

is absolutely about reputation management. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's move on then to Munich and

the 62nd Munich Security Conference begins today and it's going to run until Sunday.

At the hotel, Bayer, Bayer is your half in Munich. Marco Rubio is going to attend and for the

first time in a while, AFD is going to be there because they were considered personal and non-grata.

Kierstamer will be there, maybe assuming he's still Prime Minister by the end of today.

Also, Evett Cooper and Pretty Patel will be there representing the UK regime in its opposition.

And Nazanine Boniadi from Amnesty International UK will also be there.

She is also, by the way, a board member of the Burraman Centre for Human Rights in Iran.

So you create Iran, the military industrial complex, Russia, AI, populism, they're all on the agenda.

Ben's got to have more about what's happening at MSC on Monday's program, if anything,

newsworthy comes out of it. The question which is often asked about this event is, is it just

the poor relations of the World Economic Forum? And the answer is, I suppose it depends,

because at times of geopolitical strife, like we're going through it at the moment,

it definitely comes to the fore. It's less corporate than the World Economic Forum,

and more direct, directly tied to the sort of the crises that might be happening at a particular

moment. So we're going to watch closely over the weekend, and we'll keep you posted, if anything,

interesting happens. Now all this is happening at the same time that there's significant shifts

in the leadership of NATO. And on Tuesday, they announced an agreement on a redress what they

describe as a redistribution of senior command positions. So that's going to see British officer

takeover joint forces command Norfolk, which is responsible for the Atlantic and the Arctic.

An Italian officer taking charge of joint force command Naples, and these both these positions

were previously occupied by US officers. Poland and Germany are now going to share the joint force

command Brunson, responsible for NATO's eastern flank on a rotational basis, and that was previously

held by a German officer alone. And they say that as a result, all three force commands

which lead at the operational level in crisis and conflict will be held, sorry, we will be led by

Europeans. And at the same time, the United States is going to lead all three theater component

commands. And that's, for the first time, taking up responsibility for allied marine command,

and they maintain leadership of allied land command and allied air command. And the report says

the agreement is part of a shift to more fairly shared responsibility within NATO with European

allies taking greater responsibility leadership roles in NATO's command structure while also making

clear the US commitment to NATO command control, including maintaining the role of supreme allied

commander Europe. What are your thoughts on that? Well, more European control will mean more

confusion and disaster really, because the Europeans have never, ever, and that is one day to

was doing its cold war job, been capable of operating together in a fully coherent way.

And one of it is language, you may speak English, but colloquial terms and military terms

vary across the nation states. And a few words spoken at the wrong time or the wrong words

can cause trouble. So Europeans under the European Union banner, this is not going to be good,

because everybody's going to want to be the top dog. And my prediction is you're just going to

see more and more infighting. The thing about the Americans is they're overwhelming military might,

men, that somebody was there to make the ultimate decision and the rest had to fall in line.

Now you're going to see, sorry, this is a bit crude, it's going to be a dog's breakfast

of a military operation. So I think it's going to be fascinating.

Okay, well, in the meantime, you got a bit of a preview of it there. So we'll just bring it on

screen in the meantime. The Ministry of Defense here in the UK has signed a contract with a

defense company called Blacktree for the supply of AI capable equipment, including radios,

headsets, display tablets, cables, batteries, podges and antennas. And the contract is worth

86 million pounds. It's known as disminded data system. And it's going to provide what they claim

precise information on surroundings and intelligence, meaning increased clarity. And who are

enemies and who are comrades with all soldiers linked to the same network through this equipment,

DDS will be also be tailored to different scenarios allowing troops to receive either

or a combination of voice or visual data, maximizing effectiveness across all battlefield

situations. And they said the new systems have already been tested by soldiers on deployment in

Estonia. The testing on NATO's eastern flank, they said, saw the visual information element

allowing soldiers to be less distracted by light noises on the battlefield. I asked Charles

about this because obviously he's as qualified as it comes on this. And he said, talking it up as

a British based SME is misleading. It looks as though Blacktree is just not left for trellis,

where in the United States, this exposes some very obvious vulnerabilities as with all things tech,

especially digital. They're all well and good until they break. And then you're left with nothing.

All of this is predicated on the idea that they are not susceptible to jamming and electronic warfare

attack, which is all well and good until they are. It further reduces the need for situational

awareness from commanders and anyone on the ground, as it will become reliant on what they're fed by

systems like this. There should be questions about how it harmonizes with other existing equipment,

as well as what the fallback is should it feel. Also, while this might work in Estonia,

would it work in Iran, for example, there are many examples of Combskit in particular performing

very differently according to terrain and topography. I think the central danger is you wouldn't know

if it'd been compromised and such a situation would lead to disaster. This sort of stuff is pushed

as is surely just a matter of time before the baddies find a way to defeat it. I think those

are very astute comments. Very astute comments. There's one other thing I will add to it is that

is the more the battlefield control is wrapped up in this sort of IT AI blanket, the more people

who are distant from the battlefield think they can micromanage fighting on the battlefield itself.

People back thousands of miles away in warm offices will start to think they can make

the actual decisions that are going to affect the real fighting at ground level. That comes down to

toughness and got instinct about how to conduct that warfare in a local area. I think Charles

is absolutely right to be concerned. Brian, let's bring us up to Deb with our common purposes.

Yes, it's very interesting, isn't it, that of a lot of work by the UK,

called them many years ago, to expose what this pernicious political charity, that's what I've

always called it, what it was up to. Common purpose started to do less in the UK and to do more

outside the country in particular in India, but we have been paying attention to what it's been

doing. We thought the time was right to talk about it again, particularly thanks to UK

column member Kate. Now Kate sent me an email saying that common purpose and the British Council

have partnered to run leadership programs for the Pakistani diaspora community in the UK.

The aim is to build the capacity of Pakistani diaspora leaders from different backgrounds,

sectors and generations to have a greater impact both in Pakistan and in the diaspora community

in the UK. Now, let's qualify this because UK column has been saying for many, many years

that immigration and migrants have been used as a malicious political policy to help break down

nation states. And common purpose in choosing its future leaders is now going to select people

who are living outside their own country. They probably hold two sets of values, one for UK,

one for Pakistan and common purpose and unelected body, a charity will be highly politically based

is now going to train these people. So if we just bring this up on screen and I'm going to say to

our audience, please go to common purposes website and have a look it says here we are bringing

together leaders from across the many different diaspora of the world. Now they're not just

ultimately going to go for Pakistanis. This is going to be to people who have migrated worldwide

across the world and common purpose is one of the many non-government organizations which is clearly

going, trying to capture these people, reframe them in common purposes own political agenda

and then use these people to take control of the political systems in the nation state.

Now, how can I reinforce this route audience? Well, thanks again to Kate. She sent me two other

links. She said that this smacks of the EU Soros neighborhood project of the EU and NATO expansion

migration. So this lady is spot on. And if we have a look at what she was referring to,

here's the British Council, a scoping study for a leadership program for Pakistan diaspora leaders

in the UK and the British Council has commissioned common purpose to conduct a scoping study to

establish the potential for leadership programs for these people in the UK and to produce a report

for the British Council based on the findings of this study. So if you're local and you're thinking,

well, if I get elected as a local Councillor, I'm going to be able to make a difference in my

community. No, no, no. In the future, common purpose is going to make sure that it is defining

who's going to come in as an leader. This is another one of the links that Kate pointed out for us.

And this is the Balkum forum into diaspora round table discussion on the Balkan region. It's back

from February 2020 in Berlin. And I think our viewers will be interested that this is all being done

with a financial support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, of course, with absolutely no

accountability. And I'll add this bit here. We've got the European Commission. And if the

image seems a little bit strange, this is what you see on screen. So if you're saying,

my goodness, I can't read this, please blame the European Commission and not the UK column.

But this is talking about union global diaspora facility. So this is going worldwide. There's

no question of it. I'm going to say once again, the corruption is what you see on the website. That's

not a fault of the UK column. But if we bring in some of the people driving this, we don't really

know who these people are, what their backgrounds are, what their loyalty is. Have they been vetted at

all? No, have they been elected? No. But these people are going to bring in the future leaders.

If I may, Basel, just give you opportunity to comment on this. It is utterly blatant that the

agenda now is to break down nation states across Western Europe, including the US itself,

in order to get this globally in the UK. Well, the US and UK might because this is

this is being done in the US or be it with different organizations and names, but the tactics are

the same. This is to destroy the nation state. And they are now going to use people who've been

displaced from their own country in order to take up a role where they can be steered away from

pro national policies. I don't know how you'd reply to that, Basel.

Well, this has been an agenda for arguably 50 years, Brian. And it touches on a very sensitive

subject, which is the relationship between the people that live in the country, the history,

and the land. And whether or not any connection between people and land is valid in terms of

authenticating connection, ultimately, nationality, sense of belonging. And that's what is being

not just eroded, but completely smashed to pieces. So in other words, I was arguments about this

recently, of course, with Jim Ratcliffe's comments. And indeed, Matt Goodwin, as well, the reform

candidate up in Manchester, look, what I'm going to say now is arguably rather controversial. But

if a dog has puppies in a stable, it doesn't mean that they've become ponies and horses.

It's as simple as that. Is there any qualification to being English or British or French for that

matter or any other nationality more than simply being born or naturalised in that country?

Because certainly any attempt to define English and British or any other nationality as requiring

more than simply being born in that country or becoming a naturalised citizen thereof is

automatically decried as some form of ultra-nationalism, ethno-nationalism or racism. So that's a

conversation that hasn't been had. It's one of the ones that's been swept under the carpet

for the last 30 years. I don't want to pronounce on it from any sort of ethical or moral judgment

myself, simply that there needs to be an honest conversation around that subject. And we haven't had

it yet. Yeah, okay. Thank you for that, Basel. Nightluck, we're well over time, but I do just want

to finish off today with the Palantir story, because I think this is very important. So,

so Basel, first of all, I'm just going to bring this on screen, because this is transparency

international and the corruption perceptions index 2025 UK corruption concerns risk becoming

new normal. Businesses usual not enough to turn corner as UK receives lowest ever score in

transparency international's influential and your corruption perceptions index. And they go on

to say results published today show the UK scores fall in the 70 down from 71 last year. This

marks the UK's lowest point since the index underwent a major revamp in 2012. The UK remains

20th in the global ranking for the third consecutive year, a significant decline from its top 10

position back in 2017. I believe it was seventh at that point. And then they they quote here,

their chief executive Daniel Bruce is saying for three years running the UK has been stuck in 20th

place in the corruption perceptions index with a score that continues to deteriorate. This persistent

decline is not a temporary blip. It risks becoming a defining feature of our political culture.

I'm going to say Basel to start this off. I think that horse is well and truly bolted.

Yes, and it's worth pointing out that this was produced before the Mandelson scandal broke

to the extent that it now has resulting in the resignation of three senior members of the

government and possibly the prime minister himself. But the the Palantir business rolls on and on.

There were pointed questions in the House of Commons this week from both sides about Palantir's

involvement, particularly in the NHS on Wednesday night. Palantir celebrated its winning of the

240 million pound ministry of defense contract with a huge lavish party at the BAFTA building in

the West end of London. Now that was picketed and BAFTA employees certainly some of them were horrified

that a company so intimately entwined with the Trump administration and indeed with surveillance

operations in Gaza should be holding a party in their building. But there's more to it than that

with Palantir because not only were these contracts handed out after Peter Mandelson took

Keir Starmer to an off the record meeting with Peter Teal at Palantir's headquarters in Washington.

But also Jeffrey Epstein himself was apparently an early key funder of Palantir when it was in the

start-up stage. Now we don't know where Epstein got his money from. That remained okay.

Certainly some of it came from Les Wexner. Did it also come from child trafficking? In which case

if Palantir is built on the proceeds of child trafficking then what possible role could it have in any

contract in any aspect of which is public life led alone in the Ministry of Defence and the

Department of Health? This is this is crucially important, Basel, because at the end of the day

the tentacles of the Epstein scandal go right through politics but also through corporate life as

well. And as you say if contracts are being given to companies that are somehow benefiting from

his activity this needs to be fully investigated and the necessary steps taken.

And some politicians are calling for a full investigation into where these contracts were

awarded or indeed that they should just be cancelled immediately. The government are claiming

that no British company could do what Palantir is going to do for the Ministry of Defence and

they're clinging to the to the life raft at the moment. But I think there's a lot more to come

on this story. The pressure has to be kept up. The government want the whole thing to just go away.

You know we got to his time. Everybody moves on, new cycle moves on. But no we have to keep the

pressure up on this one. Palantir was awarded the MOD contract was more without any competition,

without any tender there were no other bidders. Indeed but also they have access to call up

contracts as well which you know this so it's not just the MOD contract we're talking about here.

No there's the Department of Health one as well and very slow take up among GPs to co-operate

with that and indeed with health trusts it may become completely unworkable the more so

now that we know more and more about Palantir and its relationship with Mandelson and Epstein.

So if the government can't force GPs and local health trusts to work with the Palantir system

then they'll simply have to abandon it. It doesn't do anything that other aspects of NHS

collection and sharing don't already do as well apparently. Yes okay well look thank you very

much for that Basel and thank you for your contribution today and Brian as well we've got to leave

it there for tonight and Ambassador thanks to Patrick for joining us from Tehran. So we would be

back in a few minutes on this on the livestream if you can call a member stick around for UK

column news extra. If you're not a member then please consider joining and then you can join us

for extra as well but don't forget Jerm tonight and we'll be back at 1pm and Monday as usual for

another news program have a great weekend we'll see you then bye bye.

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