UK Column News — 18th February 2026

Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, the 18th of February, 2026, just after one o'clock. Welcome to the UK Column News.

I'm your host Mike Robinson, joining me by video link today are Charles Mallett and Vanessa

Bealey. Now, later in the program, Charles is going to be reporting on the risks caused by the

lithium battery industry and will have an update on the sensing of Jimmy Lai and Hong Kong.

Vanessa is going to be covering the Iran focus at the Munich Security Conference

and Russia's involvement in Gaza Reconstruction and I'll have an update on the fallout from

discord's decision to roll out age verification globally and also taking a look at paramilitary

protection rockets in Northern Ireland, but we're going to begin today with vaccine injuries

because according to the BBC and they're really calling this as a bit of an exclusive,

the NHS has paid almost 40 million pounds of taxpayers' money to a company called Crawford

and Company Adjusters. Now, this is a US owned outsourcing firm which has been contracted by

the UK Government to assess claims of harm caused by COVID vaccines and that number of 50

millions, I think it's 48 million in total, is eight times the original estimate for the work,

so it was originally supposed to be six million pounds. Now, Crawford was brought,

brought on in March 2022 to carry out medical assessments for the UK-wide vaccine damage payment scheme,

which offers a one-off tax-free payment of 120,000 pounds to those who can prove vaccine

caused them severe disability, but if we bring that back on screen here then it goes on to say that

the firm's five-year contract, as I say, initially valued at six million, but cost spiraled

dramatically as the volume of claims far exceeded expectations, and so this is what they said,

has a claim, volume of claims has exceeded the anticipated levels. At its peak, the NHS was paying

Crawford 5.9 million pounds in a single month, and of course that was almost the entire contract

22,000 claims related to COVID vaccine damage had been submitted, the vast majority apparently

linked to the AstraZeneca job, only around 1% of those have resulted in compensation payouts,

and as of November last year, 249 people had received payments and that was totaling 29.8 million

pounds, so in other words, 20 million pounds less than have been paid to Crawford for running the

assessments. Now the BBC article is clearly an effort to whitewash the situation, they quote

legal experts who've raised serious questions as they describe it about how the contract was

structured, and they quote someone called Albert Sanchez-Grills, a professor at University of Bristol

Law School, who said that the contract was peculiar and given the uncertainty at the time,

and I'm going to ask what uncertainty, because everybody was fairly certain that there was

going to be problems with these jobs as they were rolled out, but anyway, he also argued that a

shorter agreement with a cap on the number of claims processed would have been more appropriate,

so let's not worry about how many people are actually affected by this, put a cap on it,

anyway, and he said that using firm contracts in uncertain situations carry significant

commercial risks, so this is all about commerce and all about the profitability of various things,

but not really about the impact on individual people's lives. Now the NHS has now got rid of

this company and is looking for a new provider, now apparently that new provider has been chosen,

and that's this lot, Maximus, and so this contract is taken over by Maximus UK Services Limited,

now this is another US Headquartered Company, and their new five-year contract is estimated

at 27 million pounds, that of course is considerably more than the six million in the original

assessment, and then the vaccine injury scheme, of course, as everybody knows, is under review

by West Streeting the Health Secretary at the moment, and there's going to be more propaganda

on this coming out from the COVID inquiry in the not-to-distant future, as they attempt to

whitewash the damage that was done. Charles, I'll be interested in your thoughts on this, because

clearly they were expecting there to be many fewer people coming forward to highlight problems

that they've experienced than there have been, and of course it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone

no matter what academics might be saying, or what the BBC might be saying, because it was pretty

clear very early on that people were being injured by these things.

Yeah, good afternoon Mike, and good afternoon all. Yeah, so I mean, I think the cynicism,

the level of cynicism here is absolutely outrageous, and of course this is not a new issue,

as was highlighted right at the start of there being a vaccine damage scheme. It was

like waiting through treacle, but also the sort of adding insult to serious injury, this idea

that you had to be able to qualify to what degree you had been affected in order to be able

to qualify for the payment, so that the reluctance with which government is actually progressing,

this is absolutely unbelievable. Of course, no great surprise to see that the amounts of money

being given to corporations absolutely dwarf that, which would go to those who've been affected,

and I think the only other point to make, I mean, it's hardly a positive, but the fact that this

does actually bring the issue of what went wrong and why back into the public's consciousness,

so it can only be hoped that in reporting on it, like we do here at UK Column, that people are made

aware in a way that they perhaps have been inclined to forget about over the last few years.

Yes, thank you for that Charles. Now, on Monday's programme Ben is talking about and Ben

Prime, we're talking about Rivered Low. This is related in a certain sense.

It is absolutely. I mean, I think really by coincidence, Ben's point in terms of his reporting

of Rupert Low's announcement that Restore Britain will now become a political party was really

he now and indeed his organisation deserves a level of scrutiny that he'd not been

hitherto subjected to and is he and is Restore Britain what it purports to be? Now, interestingly,

we continue on the theme of vaccine damage because here he is tweeting back in November 2024.

If we can just pop that on screen now, the Department of Health has revealed that there have been

nearly 500,000 adverse reaction reports highlighted or underlined there. He then goes on to say

forcing the vaccine on millions who had no need for it was entirely wrong. I mean, one might adjust

that to forcing the vaccine on anyone was entirely wrong. Now, he's put out a series of tweets about

this in recent weeks going back to 13th January, Britain needs a full inquiry into both COVID

vaccine harms and also the wider health impact inflicted on the British people through lockdown

measures and so forth. So he's very much setting out a case there for being against the authoritarian

tyrannical corrupt measures that were put in place from 2020 onwards. How, what we must consider

now is how do his own dealings stack up with that point of view? So we go to the register of

interests in the on the parliament website and learn behold, we see that here's a director of

something called PE487, limited, concerned with free-strying, farmer-related business. Now,

what is this? It is an entity called biopharma process systems limited and here he is shown

as a director of this organisation, which he has been since 2009 and one of the

standard industrial classifications for this organisation is research and experimental development

on biotechnology. Well, what exactly does that mean? And we go to their website,

biopharma group and we find an article or at least a web page entitled The Importance and

Challenges of mRNA vaccines and how the correct Philan finish equipment can support your mRNA

ambitions. We'll look at a little bit of a text from this page which says mRNA vaccineology is

advantageous because it offers adaptability in both the number and type of antigenic determinants

and its versatility means that mRNA can be described as an attractive source of antigen

and the nature of mRNA leads to different advantageous benefits and I'm not suggesting

Rupert Lowe wrote this but nonetheless he has been a director of this organisation

for more than 15 years and indeed he is in receipt of money from it quite clearly a facilitator

in mRNA vaccine technology which was at the heart of the problems with the COVID so-called

vaccine. Now one might consider that this is a one-off but if we look further down the register

of interest we see that's not actually the case and indeed he also has a shareholding in what's

called blue bird holdings limited. Now this is an Ethiopian investment company that oversees

54 capital and in our history we see that they have invested into Addis pharmaceutical factory

Ethiopia's largest pharmaceutical drug provider and I'm not suggesting they've had anything to do

with the COVID vaccines but nonetheless there is a pattern here as identified or at least

explained by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization very much using the same

MO as the likes of Bill Gates here listed as it is 54 capital in the investment opportunities

in vaccine and essential medicines manufacturing in parts of the world that are in effect susceptible

to the influence of Western organisations suggesting that they need to have certain medical

products in order to treat conditions that they may or may not have. Now I got in touch with

restore Britain to ask for a clarification on Rupert Lowe's position on this because there does

appear to be a significant conflict between what he says and what he does and interestingly the

automatic response said if appropriate a member of our team will be in touch well so far it has not

been appropriate to respond on the specific issue of mRNA vaccines so I just close out by saying that

it might also be of interest to note that when he was calling for the death penalty back in

November of 2025 this coincided exactly with the Israeli Parliament doing the same thing about

which I wrote in the previous edition of the Blindfold briefing a capital coincidence which I

would invite you to have a read of. Thank you very much for that Charles thanks for that we'll

talk more about this in extra I have no doubt Vanessa let me welcome you to the programme

now and as we discussed we mentioned on Friday Munich Security Conference going on

over the weekend and a lot of the focus seems to have been on Iran.

Yeah very much so building the narrative for regime change war now first of all I just want to

look at the four points that Netanyahu said he discussed with President Trump in Washington this

is Netanyahu speaking at the Jerusalem conference after his visit to Washington but it gives a very

good insight as to what the US negotiations will base their requirements upon so let's just

play this. Several components that we believe are important not only for the security of Israel

but for the security of the world the United States the region the world the first is that all

in rich material has to leave Iran the second is that there shall be no enrichment capability

not stopping the enrichment process but dismantle the equipment and the infrastructure that allows

you to enrich in the first place and the third is to deal also with the questions of ballistic

missiles there's an empty CR limitation of 300 kilometers and Iran is supposed to adhere to it

of course it doesn't as the rising line operation by itself manifested everybody knows that

and the fourth is stop the dismantle the axis of the terror that Iran has built it's been smashed

but it's still there it's trying to recover as Iran itself is trying to do.

So I mean basically of course Netanyahu is bringing forward terms that Iran is under no

circumstances going to accept so we see the usual negotiations trap being set then Netanyahu

mentions that Iran lies or makes stuff up is a deceitful enemy etc but let's listen to what he says

about the disarmament of Hamas in Gaza. And then Gaza must be demilitarized disarmed means that it

must give up its main weapons not main weapons and what other people said heavy weapons

the practically no heavy weapons in Gaza there's no artillery there are no tanks there's nothing

the heavy weapon the one that does the most damage is called an AK-47 okay that's it that's how

they execute people. So wait the Netanyahu just admit that the Palestinians had absolutely nothing

to do with the massacres on October the 7th which released scenes like this where cars had been

torched by Apache helicopters tanks and so on under the control of the Israelis and of course

this is kind of a foregone conclusion even Hebrew media sources like Hurots have very clearly

stated that the IDF ordered the Hannibal director of on October the 7th to prevent Hamas taking

soldiers captive so just on the side from the Iran issue but demonstrating the hypocrisy of Israel

when they claim that Iran is the one that is lying. And then let's come to the Munich security

conference as you mentioned Mike and if you just scroll down a search on YouTube for the Munich

conference and Iran you get a whole raft of such interviews and talks of course all targeting Iran

for regime change and the dreadful Lindsey Graham was there who's been given a increased relevance

under the Trump administration and here he is talking to Christian Omanpur at the Munich conference.

Ever problems associated with the day after if the people went against the IOTOla are fraction

of the problems associated with the IOTOla killing his way out yet again standing to murder another day

if you don't realize we're on the verge of history you're missing a lot we're talking weeks

not months and when we do this if we do we're starting and we're not stopping

what I find interesting is what he basically says is will secure a regime change after that we

really don't care what happens in Iran um so but again they're they're working on behalf of the

Iranian people then shortly after the Munich security conference Lindsey Graham went to Tel Aviv

where he again pushed the regime change message to an Israeli audience let's hear this

the best answer to all the problems created by Iran is regime change the best answer is for the

people to take the place of the IOTOla I do not believe they're in the streets to build more

nuclear weapons I think they're in the streets to have a better life

so I mean there's absolutely no sort of subterfuge over this particular

regime change operation then of course last night or yesterday we had the talks in Geneva the

second round of talks they're heading for a third round of talks apparently the Iranian foreign

minister actually said that there was some agreement on guiding principles generally the response

has been positive of course generally speaking Iranians believe that negotiation is always a trap

and that there is absolutely no chance of concessions from Iran towards what Israel is demanding at

the same time Trump is building up a military presence in the region um they're sending the US

as Abraham Lincoln to join the other aircraft carriers and there have been reports of dozens of

planes F-22-35 and 16 heading towards US bases um in the region and finally I think and I think

Mike and and everyone listening today will agree with me that the clearest sign of the US heading

for a regime change war or destabilization project is when they hitlarize the enemy and this is

exactly what Lindsey Graham does at the end of his conversation with Christian on poor at the

Munich security conference so let's just play this all we need is the courage of our convictions I

cannot promise you exactly what the day after will be but if somebody had killed Hitler in 1935

it would have probably been better if this regime falls the day after has promised if it stays in

place the day after is going to generationally destroy the mid east and we'll be haunted by this

for generations to come and they will be talking about us in a very bad way

so I think the endgame is inevitable it's just how long it takes for the US to get to that point

yes indeed thanks Vanessa thank you for that now let's move on to online safety issues then

and well sorry before we do that we'll just have a quick ad break just to say to everybody if you

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us beat the censorship regime that we're going to talk a little bit more about in a second tonight

at seven then Michael Rektinwald is speaking to Jarm on free speech and the death of academia that's

seven o'clock tonight no silicon steel tonight it's Chinese New Year so join us probably

hopefully on Friday there'll be the next one now let's come on to the censorship issue and the

issue of online safety because discord the global what is it's a chat platform and so on

I have to say they've decided to roll out globally their age verification system and it is

absolutely sparked a massive backlash because of privacy data security and also the concerns about

the involvement of certain investors that will come on to in a second now for those that don't

know discord is a messaging community platform it's got about 200 million users per month many of

whom are now leaving for alternatives and I discourse announced earlier this month that would

rule out its age assurance program globally from March and this of course is building on what

they're already doing in the UK and in Australia and the move is described as being a child safety

measure of course we've been talking about this for quite some time now under the new system

all users will default to a teen appropriate experience with access to age restricted servers

channels and other settings locked unless the user can prove that they're an adult

they say that they will implement an age inference model so this is a machine learning system an AI

system that draws on account usage device type activity platforms and they're going to classify

users in age groups without needing them to submit any documents or take a selfie except when

additional confirmation is required they say that they will offer multiple privacy forward

options through trusted partners they say that facial scans will never leave your device

and they say that they or their partners will never receive your data they say that IDs are used

to get your age only and then deleted so actually you do have to provide IDs under certain

circumstances and they say that they only receive their age and that's all your identity is never

associated with your account now the problem for discord is that last year attackers accessed

70,000 users government IDs selfies and other sensitive information and that was after

compromising discord's third party customer support system and the electronic frontier

foundation we see this on screen at the moment has awarded discord discord it's we still told

you so breaches award now they these are a bunch of awards that they give out every year for any

breaches of data privacy and so on and they're saying here last year authentic one our first we

told you so award because we protected in 2023 age verification mandates would inevitably

lead to more data breaches potentially exposing government IDs as well as information about the

sites of the user visits like clockwork they did it was our it was our first we told you so

breaches award but we knew it wouldn't be the last so discord won the 2025 award but it things got

worse for discord when they when it emerged that they were not relying solely on a kid which was

their primary global ID supplier but was also experimenting with a second supplier and that second

supplier was this lot persona they started carrying a disclaimer for UK users that information

would be processed by an age assurance vendor called persona and that unlike the other

situation which would be on the vice information submitted to persona would temporarily be stored

from the seven days on personas servers before deletion personas major investors we just

put persona back on screen there for second William please personas major investors include

this man Peter Thiel looking out from the side there so all of this is yet another example of why

age assurance being rolled out as a result of the online safety act of course it's nothing

what efforts to do with child safety or online safety it is about day anonymizing the internet

and providing people like Peter Thiel with huge quantities of valuable data in other words humans

are being farmed and because as I've been saying for a very long time my age assurance does nothing

to prevent adults posing as children on websites geared towards children like roblox this is where

most child grieving happens online and these types of platforms are problematic now this is

recognized in other countries and we're citing Egypt as an example here and in fact other Arab

countries as well but here in other words so Egypt basically has banned roblox in that country

and other Arab countries have done so as well but here it's just data collection and data breaches

and of course substock is the latest so earlier this month they had to admit that October last

year an unauthorized third party accessed user data including email addresses phone numbers

and other unspecified internal metadata and they said in an email that they sent the customers

I'm reaching out to let you know about the security incident that resulted in the email address

and phone number from your substock account being shared without your permission I'm incredibly

sorry that this happened we take a responsibility to protect your data and privacy seriously and

we came up short here so you know Charles it has got to be said it is time to push back extremely

strongly against the online safety act and well actually the time was when it was still a build but

saying it released should be or sorry saying it's repealed should be at the top of our priority

list because this is a major part of the panopticon which is being built right out in the open

it absolutely is and I think it's astonishing given that we have these sorts of instances

happening absolutely all the time I mean that the the preposterous claim that any of these platforms

are in some way protected against such breaches is just ludicrous but yeah it should again it should

keep the the online safety act in the public eye people should be applying exactly that sort of

pressure to to contest the sort of thing and again you know the suggestion that the answer to

all of this is further digitization of everything and that and that you should further submit your

identity all the critical data into these platforms is is an absolute nonsense and one can just

hope but more and more people are beginning to see the direction that this is going in before it's

too late indeed okay well let's move international now and first of all the Hong Kong

and the Jimmy Lai sentencing Charles yeah although different location I mean this very much

follows what Vanessa's just been saying about Iran and of course the pressure from elsewhere

for regime change and I hear we have the foreign secretary Ivec Cooper responding to the Jimmy Lai

sentencing he's been sent down for 20 years supposedly strengthening the pro-democracy stance

in Hong Kong it was taken in 2019 or at least so the story goes now what Ivec Cooper actually

said in her statement among other things was British national Jimmy Lai was today sentenced to 20

years in prison in Hong Kong for exercising his right to freedom of expression following a politically

motivated prosecution well that's not very accurate from Ivec Cooper that is not why he was sentenced

to 20 years in prison and of course British national he may be but it's worth noting that he's

spent the first 12 years of his life in mainland China before his family moved to Hong Kong she went

on to say that Beijing's national security law was imposed on Hong Kong to silence China's critics

and again she might want to take a look at the very similar national security act 2023 in the

United Kingdom and examine exactly what the purpose of that is and then she concludes by

saying that we stand with the people of Hong Kong and we'll always honour the historical

commitments made under the legally binding side no British joint declaration and China must do

the same now we'll come back to that but no great surprise to see that across the Atlantic Marco

Rubio has chucked out a sort of abbreviated version of exactly the same thing saying it shows the

world that Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate fundamental

freedoms in Hong Kong casting aside the international commitments Beijing made in the 1984

sign-out British joint declaration so he's referring back to that again now what I'd like to do

is take a look at what Dr Warwick Powell said to Karls R on a recent episode of the Silicon

Steel podcast because he deals with exactly this issue and shatters the myths that the lights

of effect Cooper and Marco Rubio are putting out Jimmy Lai was part of an American

destabilization slash regime change frontline operation and he was charged ultimately

with sedition and for collusion with foreign powers now I don't know whether it was collusion

or not because collusion kind of implies that it was done in secret but when you're actually on

a global stage calling for America to launch nuclear weapons on China it I'm not sure that

that's collusion right it's certainly not the secret type of type of collusion but he was charged

under national security laws now those national security laws were of course the subject of much

controversy and you know the Western press will talk about them as being panicious and this and

that but of course they're fine large mirrored on national security laws that you find in just

about every other country in the world and the other point to remember is that the national security

laws passed by Hong Kong was actually part and parcel of the original agreement right with the

British that there would be national security laws and so the implication these days is that

somehow what mainland China is doing runs contrary to the the agreements in the original handover

is actually nonsense there was always a requirement for national security laws to be passed there

was an attempt to do so in the early 2000s and it failed in the face of orchestrated public protest

eventually they've succeeded said Jimmy Lai gets charged he's found guilty pretty hard to not

find him guilty frankly given all of the publicly available evidence on top of the evidence that

was presented in the court and he was sentenced to 20 years the West has gone absolutely apoplectic

about this right but it's got nothing to do with free speech as indeed he says it has nothing to

do with free speech and I think the important point that he makes there is about what was coming

from the declaration signed in 1984 by the various administrations by the United Kingdom and

China's we just have a look at some of the text here which is explicit in stating that except for

foreign and defense affairs which are the responsibilities of the central people's government

the Hong Kong special administrative region shall be vested with executive legislative and

independent judicial power so the point is that Cooper saying that this is Beijing in effect

overstepping this was absolutely set down in 1984 for handover in 1997 which makes her

point disingenuous to say the least now on the subject of foreign influence we can't really

ignore the significant part that Mark Simon has played in all of this looking at his Twitter profile

here he described himself as a former executive at Apple Daily which of course was the media

organization that Jimmy Lai was ostensibly in charge of admittedly something that was losing

money at an extraordinary rate giving the amounts of money that were changing hands and Simon

might be regarded perhaps as lies handler now this is well articulated by an article in the global

times from China entitled the verdict reveals Jimmy Lai's true nature as foreign agent now what

this article does very well is explains the various steps of what might be described as a color

revolution it also points out that Simon was in receipt of payments 86 payments that added up

to 118 million Hong Kong dollars from Jimmy Lai and the money here has come from a variety of

sources but most notably perhaps the CIA and the National Endowment for democracy which is

something I've spoken about on this very program in the past now the other thing to note that I

would like to point out is having just come back from Hong Kong I have spoken directly to people

who have felt the effect of what is absolutely disinformation promulgated by Apple Daily and indeed

people who have had who have in effect been on the receiving end of this so there was going back

to Warwick Powell's point there is absolutely no doubt about the guilt and involvement of

Lai in the first place now how has the Western media responded to this perhaps best encapsulated

by BBC Media Action which is taken to LinkedIn to describe Jimmy Lai as now being added to the list

of more than 300 journalists in prison around the world well how consistent are they was BBC

Media Action reporting on the very many arrests surrounding the prescription and very confused

situation surrounding Palestine action at the moment or indeed all the many detentions under

schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and all I would do is just close by saying if you feel like

you do need more background on this then please go back to the UK column news of the 20th of November

2024 to have a look at the background to the Jimmy Lai case going back to 2019 and indeed

particularly the heavy hand that the National Endowment for Democracy among others has played in

this now Mike I'm sure you've got some comment to make on exactly this and the sort of specific intent

that the the Western powers have to try to destabilize China through this sort of psychological

operation yeah but not just China it's so many countries and BBC Media Action Thompson

Reuters Foundation as well both in receipt of foreign Commonwealth and development office money

in order to pursue regime change operations in other countries so what do they do they they

carry out media training they carry out so-called counter disinformation programs they identify

opposition voices and they amplify those opposition voices and they use those opposition voices

should it get to the actual regime change point to to be representatives of so-called grassroots

thought and feeling in those countries back to the British media and the Western media in return

and you know it's we will we can talk much more about this in extra but it is

I understand that there are opposition voices in these countries but they've got to be

very very careful about getting involved with these types of players because there's big money

involved in it and big efforts and influence campaigns and it's it's much bigger than perhaps

some some people think it is yeah it's absolutely yeah and I think that's a critical point to

make you know when we go back to 2019 exactly who was involved and playing what part and how many

of these people genuinely had any idea of where the influences were coming from and why it was

they were involved in the first place and of course then the behavior the conduct

of the security and intelligence forces in Hong Kong and how that was being orchestrated

but as you say lots more to talk about in extra yes Vanessa let's come back to you then and

well obviously over the last number of weeks you've been talking about the the Gaza Reconstruction

ideas from Trump and so on but what has Russia's role been involved have been in all this

well it's it's kind of interesting it's quite a conundrum in fact because since Trump created

his so-called peace board or board of peace which has its inaugural convention tomorrow in

Washington there has been some confusion over whether Russia were actually to accept a place

on the board initially President Putin was talking about allocating one billion from the frozen

five billion in assets in the U.S. to be able to buy them a place on the board now there seems

to be a slight different direction for the one billion Dmitry Paskov went on record yesterday

saying Russia remains the only country in the world that has decided to allocate one billion

and eight to the Palestinians now this isn't entirely true that they are the only country and

will come on to this but let's remember let's just have a look at Gaza before and Gaza as it is

now this is just one section of Gaza City that at least a minimum of 70 billion dollars is needed

to even get it back to the condition that it was in previously and of course Israel is continuing

the genocide in Gaza itself it's it's not providing humanitarian aid starving children are dying

of cold and starvation etc etc while in the West Bank and I'll come on to that

things are ramping up to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians even from the West Bank enclave

now four months ago even the Saudi foreign minister was making the point that while they're ready

to contribute to the reconstruction in Gaza they did actually say it is unacceptable to seek

international funding to rebuild Gaza while the underlying conditions that enabled its destruction

remain unchanged now this is the first that I agree with Saudi Arabia but in contrast to the

Russians that are simply putting out a statement saying yeah we'll give one billion for reconstruction

without any conditions as to how that money will be used and what conditions the Palestinians

are going to to be living in post reconstruction and then of course back on the 22nd of January

President Putin again that this is where some of the confusion comes in he met with Mahmoud Abbas

of the Palestinian authority in Moscow at the Kremlin if we can just have this on screen please

that would be great where he was actually saying that the one billion would be a contribution to

Trump's ball of peace now while having conversations with Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian

authority of course there must be recognition that the Palestinian authority is considered

effectively to be a stooge of Israel and is largely responsible for much of the repression of the

resistance in the West Bank in particular and then in the last two days the deputy foreign

minister put out a statement saying that basically Russia is still trying to nail down the

board of peace mission apparently Minsk suggested to Moscow that they could represent Russia

on the board of peace that was knocked aside by Sergei Rybakov who as I said is the deputy

foreign minister and in fact what he said was in Moscow is in no hurry to decide

we will see who takes part in Washington on February the 19th at which level and scope we continue

to study to analyse the set of proposal and proposals and elements concerning the structures

function and scope so again we're left in a rather a state of limbo as to whether Russia is

officially going to be involved in the board of peace many European countries are backing off from

it saying that Trump is trying to effectively replace the UN and take control not only of the

peace process in Palestine but in other areas of the world and at the same time as I mentioned

the ramping up of pressure on the West Bank itself so Israel's new West Bank registration process

is basically declaring Palestinian land in the West Bank as state property which of course

effectively is annexation of that land now just for people to understand the extent of

loss of territory for the Palestinians here's a map just showing Gaza there on the left

and what's left of the West Bank which of course if we look at the next slide we can see to what

degree that has also been broken down and divided if we could have yeah thank you so basically you

have area A which is run by the Palestinian Authority area B which is 22% of the territory PA

and Israel and then area C which is being targeted for this annexation of land and making of this

land to be state property effectively will lose through that process 83% of that area so when you

look at the orange area 83% of that will then be annexed to Israel to the state and of course it

will not be resold to Palestinians and at the same time Israel is bringing in tanks it's bringing

in aerial bombing helicopters into the West Bank in an attempt to further ethnically

displace or ethnically cleanse the people from the West Bank in a very similar fashion that was

used in Gaza and in fact these are figures relating to May 2025 so now of course they

obviously increased I think around 7,000 Palestinians have been driven out of their homes in the

West Bank and something like probably more than 3,000 Palestinian own structures in the West Bank

have effectively been destroyed and and all of this while Russia of course traditionally

and China talk about or uphold a two-state solution will one has to ask what kind of two-state

solution is going to exist if all Palestinian territory is effectively annexed and the Palestinians

are ethnically cleansed from their homes in both Gaza and in the West Bank and of course there's

no statement from Russia on this basis and then I just want to raise the question who is going to

receive this one billion of reconstruction aid for Gaza is it going to go to the Palestinian

authority which is effectively Israel is it going to go directly to Israel whom we know

has no intention of allowing Palestinians to remain in Gaza except as cheap labor contained

within even smaller labor camps to effectively secure Gaza as part of a free trade zone

running in the India Middle East economic corridor from India through the Gulf States into Gaza

and then into Egypt to Hamas almost definitely not of course although Hamas is the recognized

government of Gaza to Washington and Israel through the Trump Board of Peace to Jared Kushner

who's been involved in the talks on Iran but also the talks on Ukraine it appears that this one

billion whatever way you look at it is effectively going to be used to bail out Israel after it has

effectively decimated and destroyed Gaza it's a bailout for Israel in my opinion and I would ask

the question if Russia had economically boycotted Israel from the very beginning would it then be

necessary for Russia to now contribute one billion to the reconstruction of Gaza

and indeed for us and if Russia had economically boycotted Israel from the beginning

how many other countries may have joined is that clear yeah yeah okay thank you for that Charles

let's come back to Britain then and the question of lithium batteries

thanks Mike yes I mean lithium of course absolutely integral to the whole push towards

all things supposedly progressive technological digital but also in terms of energy or at least

what's being described as renewable energy now especially in the United Kingdom so much contingent

upon the supposed requirement or at least capability to store energy in lithium-ion batteries

we just take a look at the international energy agency who've put a graph out indicative of the

way in which batteries are used so this charts the last 10 years if you can't see the graph you'll

see that the exponential rise is in large part due to a massive increase in EV car but of course

that's not all of it as I say battery energy storage systems form a large part of it now in terms

of the sort of economic and geopolitical ramifications the graph sorry the map shown on screen now

indicates that outside of Australia which of course is the leading producer of lithium it's really

China that has a grip on the lithium market and indeed the control which is exactly what the

IEA is pointing to when it talks about supply side risks in the United Kingdom just this week the

energy storage news has been talking about planning barriers threatening to stall momentum

in the UK battery storage market and as I say this is this is supposedly the way in which

renewable energy or at least so-called renewable energy is made more efficient more effective

but there are absolutely consequences to this approach interesting to see how the government

so abruptly dodges exactly those this is sort of an exhibition in pointing out something in a

less than straightforward manner but we have the battery energy storage systems briefing paper

in which they say that the Faraday institution explains that lithium ion batteries

fires are very rare and it notes that even with billions in circulation there are very few

safety incidents involving them and it estimates that only one in 40 million battery cells experience

failure the results in fire well that statistic may or may not be true what they're

studiously ignoring is indeed the consequences of such a fire and what can be done about it now I

reported in the past about the concerns that fire brigade fire services have had about this and

it should be absolutely newsworthy that the National Fire Chiefs Council have updated their position

statement on this technology and they recognize that the pace of change has been very substantial and

say that this transition is outpacing safety standards and regulation leading to potential increased

fire safety risks as a result and it's a real concern for the NFCC and fire and rescue services

now they use very moderate language but it's very obvious that they are suggesting this is being

carried out in a completely irresponsible manner and then they go on to address the environmental

concerns which they say include risk of fire and explosions impacts on air quality because of

the build-up of gases during a best fire ground water contamination from chemical leaks and

contaminated fire water runoff and noise so of course I should remind you this is the prospect of

environmental catastrophe at the same time as apparently saving the environment and they go on

to say that the range of tactical approaches but there is no one size fits all approach to most

effectively extinguish or control of fire caused by lithium-ion batteries now the short version of

that is they don't know how to put them out and mostly because they can't put them out and as

reported previously but here reinforced by auto evolution an increasing number of maritime

shipping companies are refusing to ship EVs citing this fire risk it was mats and the Hawaii based

company that I'd reported on previously but they're a growing number who have taken a similar line

because it's just too risky because of this problem in not being able to put them out then we go

into the air we look at the civil aviation authority in the United Kingdom with its guidance on

portable electronic devices and having anecdotally but having just taken a number of long haul and

short haul flights the increased push for attention on particularly lithium-ion battery banks and

whether or not they may be carried but they may not be carried in hold baggage that even in the

cabin they may not be used suggest that it really is a serious concern here and then the BBC

through Gritted Teeth as usual talking about China having imposed a ban on what are described

as hidden car door handles now these were effectively pioneered by Tesla and obviously all about

appearance rather than practicality but should there be a problem with an EV that has door handles

like this once the power supply shut down if it catches fire of course there's no way of getting

getting the occupant of the vehicle out and the Chinese authorities have imposed a year long

period on that to be corrected so absolutely this may not be dismissed and if you're thinking this

is just a problem exclusive to China and the Chinese manufacturers absolutely it is not a multiple

instances of such a thing having happened in the United Kingdom now referring back to the very

many best applications what I'd like to do is to point you towards an absolutely excellent and

well-referenced letter written by Heather Godfrey a UK column supporter who wrote to me to get in touch

about an 80 megawatt plan for a best installation near crew Kern and she has submitted an appeal to

this and if you have something similar going on in your area and you need specific references and a

very well articulated argument then I would like to point you towards her substack for an idea of

how to how to put this together and the main document so this is now live on her substack and

there'll be a link in the show notes thank you Charles thank you for that now let's come on to

right to repair and quite an interesting story coming this week because earlier this week the

Dutch defense secretary made the claim that F-35 fighter jet software could be jailbroken

this was an assentment or a discussion he was having with the Dutch radio station

BNR news radio now this is reported in this tweet by clash report and then he said

if asked whether you can modify F-35 software without approval that's not the point we'll see whether

the Americans will show their true colors he said and then they then they went on to quote it

as saying I'm not going to say something I should never say but I'll do it anyway just like your

iPhone you can jail jailbreak an F-35 I won't say anymore about it now this raises a host of

questions about nations buying war fighting equipment from other nations and the conversation

came about because of the ongoing tensions between the EU and Trump and whether or not the US

of some kind of kill switch available in the event that relations break down totally in other

words they spend billions on F-35s and a kill switch is switched in the United States and suddenly

these aircraft turn into bricks now I need to point out that there's no publicly available evidence

of any such kill switch but since nations have no access to the source code of the aircraft

there's no way to demonstrate that either way other than to take the United States word for it

Britain is the only country with any access at all and then only to the parts of the code which

BA system systems wrote now that may not be entirely true though because there's still the question

of one country whether they have special access because questions are being asked about how

Israel has apparently modded the F-35 to increase its range so that they can fly

their F-35s to Iran without refueling and this highlights once again the absolute reliance that

European nations have on the United States for just about everything but it also highlights an

issue that we all face right down to the individual level because this is basically the same issue

that for example farmers have been facing with modern tractors and the ongoing fight between

farmers and John Deere tractors about whether they can repair or do anything to these vehicles

themselves despite the fact that they've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on them or that

people have faced with manufacturers selling them a product and then charging a subscription

to use what it is they bought like BMW and they're heated seats scandal but BMW doubling

on this saying that in-car subscriptions make sense and Charles what we have here is you know

I think the modern expression of you will own nothing and frankly that policy doesn't work

at any level but it because it puts us at risk as individuals but it also puts nations at risk

at the defense or war fighting level yeah well I think that's the that's the central point of

several and and what this indicates beyond any doubt which is absolutely the direction in which

we've been warning things are going but this is absolute proof if it is to be demonstrated that

corporations now hold more power than states where war is concerned so it's not going to be up to

a nation as to whether they switch something on or off it's it's whoever holds the proprietary

technology which of course again as you as you quite rightly point out you know when you look at the

British Armed Forces capabilities the number of component parts that come from

Israel in particular I mean are we to imagine that they're then going to be the possibility of

sort of wrestling for control of particular platform because of the the number of competing

entities that have some sort of control over it and I I think then you know the other aspect of

course is this idea that well if they can control it then exactly like everything else that we

talk about which has this sort of degree of connectivity it can be hacked so frankly anyone

could be taking these things so I think there are there are a lot of things that do fall out

this I think the other thing to go back to that period of time when we were desperately getting

rid of all sorts of perhaps outdated or heavy platforms that we wanted to get rid of back at the

beginning of the Russia Ukraine conflict how would people have responded then if we if we had

actually been able to say that the United Kingdom right we're going to give X number of

challenger tanks to Ukraine but we will retain control over them what would the response of being

by the Western media to such a suggestion so I think this does open up a number of very interesting

questions but I think essentially it points out the vulnerability of nation states and indeed

the vulnerability of technology absolutely now back in the UK you were reporting on the

situation with the police and Freemasonry recently what's the update yes I was I mean the situation

was that the Metropolitan Police with no consultation with the United Grand Lodge of England the

sort of headshed of the Masonic setup in the United Kingdom they went and said that a declaration

must be made of membership of a free Masonry hall the sonic lodge now that went down very badly

with the with the Grand Lodge and indeed they've contested it of course one of the things they

objected to was having not been consulted in the first place what it does appear though is that

they do not understand irony because in part of their statement they say that the United Grand Lodge

of England and others are disappointed that they do not have leave to proceed to a judicial review

based on the legal arguments concerning discrimination of course they seem to have misunderstood

the entire point of the Metropolitan Police's edict is to prevent there being the suggestion of

any positive discrimination based on membership of a Masonic lodge they then go and say and an

assessment of intelligence that has never been fully disclosed again if there's one thing Freemasonry

is known for above all all other things it is the element of secrecy with which they operate but

again the irony seems to have been lost on them and then they finish off by saying which if

communicated could have been amicably resolved without the need for legal action so this is basically

Lord Justice Chamberlain interesting that it is he who has decided that this should not go to

judicial review because of course it was he that set up to deal with the Palestine action

prescription and then at the last minute was removed having said that it would go to judicial

review and then was replaced with with three other judges i'm not suggesting there's any connection

between two things but it is nonetheless interesting that that it was he so that's it apparently for

now with the Freemasons how exactly this will play out with the Metropolitan Police will remain

to be seen thank you Charles I just want to end then with this story from the BBC headline shop

owner's fear of violence after paramilitaries demand protection money so this is a story from

Belfast well from Northern Ireland in general because shop owners construction firms

being held ransom by basically the same groups were running the the insurgency for 30 years from

1969 they're still there and they're still trying to get money out of anybody that's in business

over there this has been going on from the beginning I'll just give a quick anecdote because in 1980

my father was working had had set up a business had set it up in an industrial estate inside Belfast

that industrial estate was blown up after it had been in business for about a year because the

owner of the industrial estate wasn't paying the protection money the various groupings it didn't

matter which side of the argument that we're on would get together on a regular basis with a map of

Belfast and draw lines on it to decide which was their protection money area now the BBC and their

article is talking about the fact that the shop owners are complaining that the police won't do

anything about this and what I know from that incident in 1980 was that the police had watched that

bomb being put in the car and driven down the road and left and the police had been told to leave

it alone so there was no question that at that time despite the fact that the IRA and the British

police or the Northern Irish police and the British military were supposed to be on opposite

sides that there was there were brine envelopes being passed and some of that protection money

was going to make sure that the police did not interfere with the gathering of that protection

money it appears that that situation has not changed since and it's surprising that the BBC is

pretending in their article like this is something unusual or something that's new and so again

a little bit off the mark there with their reporting and maybe there needs to be

some kind of inquiry into why it is that this kind of activity is still going on

despite the fact that it began in effectively 1970s we'll talk more about that I'm sure an extra

as well but we got to leave it there for today so I'm going to say thank you very much to Vanessa

and Charles for your contributions and for everybody who's been watching today

and stick around if you can call a member for extra otherwise we'll see you on Friday for another

UK column news 1pm as usual see you then bye bye