From the Archives: One of Brian and Mike’s First-ever UK Column Broadcasts

Brian Gerrish (0:14)

Well, good afternoon, from me, Brian Gerrish and Mike Robinson in the UK Column Live studio in Plymouth, England. And we've got another 30 minutes news program for you today. We're going to home in on the Lord's Reform, which we believe is a critical area of government policy at the moment that is not being accurately reported in the mainstream press. So we'll be coming on to that in a minute to have a look at it in detail. We've got a guest in the studio today. That's Mr Tony Shell, who is also going to comment on the Lord's Reform issue. But, excuse me, before we get on to that, I'd just like to comment on a couple of issues in the mainstream press today.

We've got G4S security, of course, where finally the mainstream press and media have picked up on failings within the company. Now, we are quite interested in the fact that alternative media was reporting these serious failings by G4S weeks, literally, weeks before anything was appearing in the mainstream media and press. And this really shows us the power of alternative media. So thank you to all of you who've tuned in to the UK Column Live this afternoon. But, of course, there are many other stations that are now coming online reporting because of the failure of organizations such as the BBC to report truthfully what's actually happening in the country. I've got two stories which really work back to back because whilst G4S is failing dramatically to implement an appropriate level of security for the Olympic Games, we've also got David Cameron back on the subject of Iran, and we've also had recently Sir John Sawyer's head of Secret Intelligence Services, MI6, commenting on this issue. So at the moment in Britain, we have the bizarre situation where David Cameron's government is incapable of providing security for the Olympic Games. We have given that task to a private security company, G4S, that has failed to provide the number, the 17,500 security personnel that it was tasked within the £284 million contract.

We are now having to bring in 3,500 British forces to help bolster their failings. This is, of course, more men being taken from a British army, which is about to be cut by 20,000 men. So whilst David Cameron at the moment is busy cutting the British army to the bone and ensuring that it becomes more and more difficult for the British army to defend this country properly, we also have the same David Cameron talking about what action he is going to be taking against Iran. And there seems to be a big hole in the middle of these two subjects. The story for Sir John Sawyers is that he is claiming that thanks to action by MI6, together with American security services and Israeli security services, they have been able to stop progress by Iran in creating nuclear weapons, and that we should be grateful for the work carried out by MI6. But he goes on to say that nevertheless, it's expected that Iran will have nuclear weapons within two years, and thus they have only managed to delay any decision by the British government to attack Iran. What is particularly interesting with Sir John Sawyer's comments is that he continually refers to problems with American and Israeli security to the extent that one has to ask whether his true agenda is to work for the British people in ensuring that it is Britain that is protected and the British people that are protected, or are his interests really lying both with the Israelis and the Americans? We will wait to see how this subject develops, but it does appear clear that whilst we're incapable of providing proper security at the Olympic Games, the government is now moving along a path to take some form of preemptive strike against Iran.

Okay, well, we'll now move on to the subject of House of Lords reform.

One of the key issues, Mike, on this one has been what Mr. Nick Clegg has been doing in the background. And a subject which UK Column has consistently picked up on is the fact that whilst David Cameron is the man we continually see in front of the cameras, and the man who's continually speaking on what is and is not happening in the country, it's Mr. Nick Clegg who remains hidden in the shadows and is clearly pulling strings on one of the most serious areas of this country at the moment, and that is so-called reform of the Constitution. So, against that background, Mike, how do you see Nick Clegg's efforts on House of Lords reform?

Mike Robinson (6:09)

Well, that's exactly right. Nick Clegg has clearly been tasked with constitutional reform, not just House of Lords. But he's talking about, for example, a new Bill of Rights, where we've got a Bill of Rights that the government is attempting to more or less deny that we have one, but we have one.