UK Column News — 21st September 2026

Ben Rubin (0:08)

Good afternoon, it's Monday, 21st of September, 2026 Just after one o'clock, you're watching UK Column News. I'm your host, Ben Rubin, and I'm delighted to be joined in the studio today by Mr. Brian Gerrish. Hello, Brian, how are you doing?

Brian Gerrish (0:20)

Pleasure to be here after such a fantastic weekend.

Ben Rubin (0:24)

It has been a fantastic weekend, as we're gonna get into. We've got a very packed show today, loads going on in the country, including the question as to whether there's a general election in the offing. I think there potentially might be, given some of the things that have been coming through my door over the past few days.

We're gonna be looking at what the BBC is up to, which is propaganda, actually, in a word. And we're gonna talk about that a bit later on. We're looking at the drive to war against Russia and the historical parallels leading up to the First and Second World War and some of the key people involved back then who are still pretty much involved today. Those are the dark powers and unelected think tanks behind the scenes who are dictating government policy. But before we get into all of that, we're gonna have a little look back at the weekend where we were celebrating 20 years of UK Column.

Brian Gerrish (1:13)

Brilliant. Well, what better place to start than Plymouth Ho in the sunshine? And it was utterly fantastic at the end of the day because we were able to take everybody onto the ho to have a look at the Vista. And our drone captured all the wonderful audience there. So we had just, I think, a fraction over 300 people at our event. It was essentially full, absolutely brilliant, and then everybody in the sunshine afterwards on Plymouth Ho.

Ben Rubin (1:47)

The sun did come out for us. And it's fantastic.

Brian Gerrish (1:49)

Well, of course, Ben, because we booked good weather for the weekend. People may not know, but Devon County Council has a Director of Climate Change. They're in charge of the climate. So you just give them a call, book your sunshine, and sure enough, it was there shining on the UK Column. So absolutely fantastic day. We'll take you in just a few seconds into the day itself.

But we thought that we should start with that fantastic view over Plymouth Sound, in the sunshine with a lot of very, very happy people because it was clear that the style and flow of our events, the subjects, the entertainment, everybody thoroughly enjoyed themselves. And it was utterly brilliant to end up with such a huge burst of positive energy.

Ben Rubin (2:42)

It really was, yeah. A great weekend. One for the history books, I think.

Brian Gerrish (2:45)

Indeed. So I just like to, before we have a look at some of the conference itself, I'd like to say to people, first of all, a huge thank you from me to the UK Column team, because as we keep saying, we are a very small team. We worked extremely hard to make this conference happen. It's very clear to us that it was a huge success. But of course, it wouldn't have been a success without the audience presence. So a huge thank you to everybody who bought a ticket. And a particular thank you to our long-standing members and supporters, because without you, the UK Column wouldn't be here in the first place. So 20th anniversary event, it was really incredible for the longer term members of the UK Column team, because in fact, our very first UK Column office, we didn't even have a studio in the beginning, it was a mere 50 yards from the hotel itself. Here's a picture of one of the entrances into the Crown Plaza Hotel in Plymouth. It was a fantastic day, as you can see, great to see the UK Column banners. And the Crown Plaza staff were also tremendous.

They were brilliant, weren't they, Ben, in helping us set up. And if we have a look at the scale of what we put together, this was some of the preparation in the main events hall in the Crown Plaza Hotel.

It was a really fantastic stage, as we will come on to. But we'd like to also give a big thank you to the local media team PL1, who worked with us to create a pretty fantastic event. So, real pros, real professional team. And if we just get into a little bit more of the action, if you like, well, of course, we had Charles Mallet acting as Compaire. He did an extremely good job with a mixture of courtesy, humor, and some firm control over the audience. So, we had them in the right place at the right time, doing the right things. And that was very important because it was a very busy weekend. And I think everything ran perfectly, Ben.