Crikey, Grant Shapps wasn't joking.

Billions to Ukraine and the stout yeomen of Ambridge have finally been dragged into this dreadful conflict.

For overseas subscribers, this is a terrible joke about a very long running and now spectacularly dull and wokeish BBC radio drama.

For all subscribers, does anyone at all listen to The Archers any more?

Report Concludes: No Convincing Case For Why UK Needs A CBDC - UK Column News - 24th January 2024

- Bank of England: Statistical Reporting of Crypto Assets: Statistical Notice 2024/01
- Cato Institute: Global Policymakers Are Still Pushing CBDCs Despite Their Failures
- National Bank of Ukraine: E-Hryvnia
- Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Tracker: e-hryvnia (Ukraine) Digital Currency
- Bank Of Israel: Digital Shekel (CBDC)
- Bank of Jamaica: Jamaica's Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)—JAM-DEX
- The Jamaica National Group: Data Security Incident Full Statement
- eNaira: Same Naira, More Possibilities
- CoinDesk: Why Nigerians Aren't Turning to the eNaira Despite Crippling Cash Shortages
- Government Accountability Office: The Effectiveness of Economic Sanctions At Risk from Digital Asset Growth
- UK Parliament: The digital pound: still a solution in search of a problem?
- Financial Conduct Authority: FCA sets out new rules to maintain access to cash in increasingly digital world

Sources: www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-24th-january-2024

Had there been time, this would have been the clip to include in the CBDC segment on UK Column News yesterday.

These people should be considered a laughing stock and we should not be losing any sleep over pie in the sky projects. Such projects, though, must be stamped out swiftly and emphatically.

Sound stuff from Big Brother Watch:

“The Treasury and the Bank of England will need to go further to explain why the UK needs a CBDC and how the public’s rights, equality and civil liberties would be protected”.

https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/2024/01/big-brother-watch-respond-to-government-cbdc-plans/

To take action on this....

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https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/no-spycoin/#emailMP

The video below this post is from a Gloucester City Council meeting on 25th January 2024, at which it appears that a member of the public was prohibited from speaking, not due to time constraints, but due to content.

The glib response and appalling body language of the attending police constables demonstrates well the complete absence of autonomy or critical-thinking at this level; not to mention the utter failure to grasp the profundity of the wider issue at hand.

If you wear uniform, it is not OK to stand with your hands in your pockets. If you've sworn an oath to accord 'equal respect to all people', then you blinking well mean it.

Ironically, the agenda for the meeting is in the 'democracy' section of the website.

In UK Column News Extra on 24th January we were talking about what we can do. Taking a leaf from this gentleman's book would be a good place to start.

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https://democracy.gloucester.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=141&MId=7452

I have spoken about the situation in Somaliland a couple of times now, on UK Column News. Despite its location in the Horn of Africa, this is not a story that the legacy media wants to deal with. HMG has washed its hands of it, thus far, despite creating the tension in the first place.

This is a handy update, with useful context.

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https://haadka.com/blog/2024-01-26-the-somaliland-ethiopia-mou-a-new-era-in-the-horn-of-africa/

'Ethical Hacking' joins a very long list of other 'ethical' offences being carried out by, or at the behest of, HMG.

As a frame of reference, this slide shows the current Bereavement Compensation 'where the death of an individual was caused by service in the UK Armed Forces', from the most recent edition of JSP 765 Armed Forces Compensation Scheme.

Grant Shapps and Patrick Sanders should have this at the top of all promotional material which advertises war with Russia as a 'good idea'.

Strewth! Even if Mystic Mog and Nostradamus had been working on this at The Speed of Science™️, surely they wouldn't have predicted it.

But, yer man in the street would have had his last few bob on it.

The Spectator does ask some idiotic questions; this corker from the wife of Dominic 'Eye Test' Cummings.

Hard as it is to believe that the cult of Covid still has any followers–four years on–the reality is that many remain under the spell.

This clip of Nick Hudson articulating the absurdity of the timeline is a very useful one. It may be employed to confirm that you have not gone mad.

Mostly, though, it serves as a powerful reminder of the deceit, corruption, complicity, collusion and inhumanity of those that served up, and went along with, the most diabolical and divisive falsehood.

Nevena just found another gear. Social media has made for some incredibly undignified and highly personal wrangling and people using it in such a manner should not be surprised to lose sympathy

If you have ever posted anything on 'X' which has a whiff of the counter-narrative to it, you will know that hot chicks flock to it as though their lives depended upon it. They sure do love dissent.

With apologies to all the other scantily clad freedom wallahs chasing down the truth, I think Lorene has just taken.....pole position.

These maniacs have some extremely alarming ideas about 'war'. However, it is amusing to be reminded that someone called Oliver Dowden is both Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Disaster Preparedness. It is not entirely clear whether he helps the Prime Minister prepare the disasters, or whether he does it on his own.

'Finest hour?
Indeed, for all the foreboding about societal collapse, facing a common threat could give Britain a new-found sense of unity – something many Ukrainians speak of. Just as there was the “Clap for Carers” during the pandemic, similar rituals might take place for those serving at the front. And for every shirker or draft-dodger, others might take pride in national duty, be it manning a machine gun post or cleaning the streets.

“Covid showed our ugly side, with people getting upset when all they were being asked to do was sit on the sofa at home,” said the former TA soldier. 

“But I do think that, under threat of invasion, Brits would pull together, just as Ukraine has done. It might be for the best in some ways – right now all we do is bitch and complain about things.”

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/27/what-would-happen-britain-at-war/

In a special UK Column Extra we are joined by Chaka Artwell, better known to his friends as Artwell, an enthusiastic activist from Oxford. Highly knowledgeable about his local council and their activities, Artwell has recently been challenging implementation of the Oxford LTN Low Traffic Neighbourhood. He describes this initiative as East Oxford’s road block and anti-car policy, and he highlights that by shutting off side road connections with the main arterial routes through the city, the council is creating mayhem for drivers and local people alike.

Artwell is also deeply concerned about the loss of wider freedoms in our Constitutional Monarchy and he sees that Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals are frequently to be found at the core of Oxford’s, and other councils’ policies. Supposedly designed to make the lives of local people better, in practice, they quickly seem to do the opposite.

Artwell’s upbeat and challenging approach to contentious matters within Oxford recently made him the focus of an Oxford Mail article, written by politics reporter Albert Tait. In what should have been an article recognising the importance of Artwell’s questions and challenges to unwelcome Oxford Council policies, Tait attempted to smear Artwell and his former hard work as a prospective parliamentary candidate, by dismissively calling him a ‘Former MP Wanabee.’

In fact Artwell had discovered that so sensitive was Oxford Council to his challenges, his emails, setting out questions that he had wanted to ask at formal council meetings, had been ’disappearing’ into an ‘un-monitored' council inbox. Without Council acknowledgement of his questions, Artwell was subsequently denied his rightful attendance and participation as a member of the public in those supposedly democratic meetings.

Please join Brian Gerrish, Alex Thomson, Mark Anderson and Artwell in our relaxed UKC News Extra conversation and learn more about Artwell and the importance of simple local activism in a uni-party world.

https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-extra-29th-january-2024

There is something pathetic about the techosphere (which might be a new word). Nobody has sufficient imagination or creativity to make up new words for things. We are left in a blancmange of confusion, unsure of the meaning of tablet, mouse, ram, chip and the rest of it.

Here, it looks as though this chap is opening his mouth to accept the cookies on offer.