I have never made much money from this site. However, I’ve had a (very small) core group of paid subscribers since the site started accepting paid subscriptions a few years ago. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all.

However, I’ve now taken the decision to switch off monetisation on the The New Era.

There are a few reasons.

Firstly, while it is very gratifying to have people pay me - it’s the ultimate vote of thanks for a writer - I don’t need the money and it’s never exactly been lucrative anyway. And I don’t want people to get the impression that I write in order to be paid or to gain ‘influence’ for sponsors or subscribers. Or that money in any way influences what I write or how I think. Or that I write what I think my paying subscribers will want to read.

But the more important reason is this. For several weeks now, I have been receiving emails from Stripe, Substack’s exclusive payment processor, insisting that I have to provide lots of personal information (including a copy of my passport and facial scans) in order to put my ‘account in order’ and to maintain payments. Stripe is not a bank. It’s a payment processor. So I’m not prepared to send this digital data to an organisation that has no right to hold it.

In a recent interview I made clear that I was able to express opinions and exercise free speech because I was fortunate enough not to need money to do what I do. That puts me in an extraordinarily fortunate position. It means that whatever I write I’m not being incentivised to do so by clicks, payments or eyeballs.

I’d like to thank the thousands of you who have subscribed to this site because you get some value from my writing, interviews or perspectives. All posts, from now on, will be open for comments from the entire subscriber base. But, please, keep it clean and keep it courteous.

Remember, the best way to support free thinking and freedom of speech is to read and to engage. And feel free to disagree with me.

Also if you have a burning desire to write for the site - even just a guest opinion piece - do get in touch.

We had already scheduled the chat, but then the news broke. So we discussed it. However, perhaps we focused too much on whether the attack had been staged. Aisling’s of the view that many ‘attacks’ that are labelled ‘fake’ or ‘manipulated’ by so-called conspiracy theorists like MiriAF, James Delingpole and Francis O’Neill, have, in fact, happened. And perhaps she’s right. As the furore over the ‘Belfast Beheading’ has unfolded more information has emerged about the victim and it’s Aisling’s view that it was a real attack.

In my view attacks such as this have the same impact on the audience, staged or not. A genuine attempted beheading and a faked one look pretty much the same when recorded by a distant smartphone.

Therefore, the reality of the attack is undisputed in that the video footage was promulgated and the reaction was predictable. Regardless of whether it really happened, was provoked to happen, was staged or fake, the media visibility (of the handily recorded video) has resulted in violence, protest, global media coverage and calls for social media censorship.

As the Northern Ireland MLA, Clare Hanna, has noted, other stabbings happen routinely, in Northern Ireland and across the British Isles, often resulting in death, but Tommy Robinson, Nigel Farage, Katie Hopkins and the rest aren’t engaged to muster a response designed to provoke riots.

As you know, I’m of the view that politics and actors like Robinson are manifestations of the establishment. The establishment seems intent on creating mayhem (in the interim contained within benefits-class areas of Belfast) in order to augur a Reform government that will install a de facto surveillance state and strict border controls.

The systematic open border policy of the Conservative and Labour governments (and the provision of benefits/housing to ‘illegal’ immigrants) will be reversed. But the price will be MAGA-style ICE policing, digital ID, and a surveillance panopticon.

Others have noted the BBC’s almost total focus on the Belfast riots, as far as its recent news coverage is concerned. I didn’t hear it, but apparently the BBC Radio 4 Today programme was entirely dedicated to a discussion about immigration policy given the situation in Belfast.

This implies that the media is intent on putting immigration right at the heart of the agenda. But this, clearly, required planning and orchestration. It didn’t happen because of what a black man did in Belfast. It happened because it has been planned to happen.

However, the Overton window, as far as immigration is concerned, is all about the current situation versus the Reform/Restore/Robinson antidote.

The view from the window implies that very large numbers of people are being permitted into the UK and are immediately permitted housing and benefits. The policy of ‘fighting age men’ being housed in hotels, raping and pillaging all around them, and beheading people, is now the definitive policy issue of our time according to Farage, Lowe, Habib and Robinson.The counter to this policy, according to Farage, Lowe, Habib and Robinson, is to create a strict border policy. Lowe wants most foreigners deported too.

So that, therefore, is the choice: beheadings or a police state, it’s your call. Except that’s Hobson’s choice.

Clearly most of us would choose neither. On immigration I’d suggest that few people would object to an open border policy if immigrants were able to be self-reliant from arrival. Without the promise of free housing and accommodation and benefits, few less desirable immigrants would arrive. Others, wealth creators, would be very welcome - just as elite footballers are welcomed by the biggest ‘English’ football clubs.

When around 10,000 Huguenots arrived in Ireland in the 1680s, they brought with them skills in banking, crafts and textile weaving. As far as I know, they didn’t get housed in hotels for illegals.

Some half a million people came to England from the Caribbean - the so-called Windrush generation - and have contributed much to British culture, cuisine and business. But, notably, the Windrush immigrants rapidly filled jobs in sectors with severe skill shortages, created their own financial institutions (like credit unions), and businesses serving their own communities. Often they were excluded from social housing because of racial prejudice - they weren’t housed in hotels.

People who migrate tend to do so because they seek a better or safer life. Typically they are proud and self-reliant unless they are essentially trafficked by the state to create mayhem. That’s the playbook happening right now in Belfast. And the entire establishment is planning it, stoking it and covering it.

Needless to say, I’m not so sure about bitcoin anymore. Nor are several of my characters in the book.

However, I must say that my presentation was well received and there was a good humoured debate about whether bitcoin can possibly claim any ‘freedom currency’ laurels now that it’s essentially absorbed into the financial industrial complex. Although the debate got a little bit more heated over some cherry vodka at the after-party.

But it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience visiting Warsaw again. Wonderful people and a dynamic, fabulous city.

Here’s a link to my post back in February that explains more.

My recent post outlined the degree of obfuscation around the “war” in Iran in order to hide the corporatising of Israel, the Levant and, inevitably, Iran itself. All of the foundations are in place. Therefore, it’s now time for the Damascene conversion of the “Christian” right away from Zion.

The radical change was marked, of course, by Charlie Kirk’s “assassination”. Following this, many of the leading MAGA cheerleaders, like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and MTG, have been parroting the line that Israel and Netanyahu are essentially controlling MAGA and Trump. All claim to be devout Christians. A bit like JD Vance (although he’s apparently a Catholic version, so devout, that he lectures the Pope on geopolitical protocol) - who converted from Atheism a matter of months before he was ‘chosen’ to be Trump’s running mate.

But, returning to Marjorie Taylor Greene, this tweet neatly articulates the New Alt-Right Anti-Zionist Chapter ‘line’. As the Tweet-author puts it:

Massive bombshell. Former US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene explicitly confirms Donald Trump was forced to make a secret deal with the Zionist lobby to become president. She exposes how the Trump administration is completely held captive by Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel.

This is quite convenient, as far as media narratives are concerned. After all, Team Trump has ensured that the syndicates are installed, the corporations are aligned. So perhaps America should retreat back to its expanding home empire of New Oceania and let others run the show now that the cabals are in place.

The obvious question is, what’s the timeline? Is the (orchestrated) schism in MAGA going to result in Trump’s exit? Will this happen this year? And will JD Vance slowly become aligned with this subtle anti-war positioning?

Who knows? But The “Israel controls America” narrative is clearly agency-led using their favourite commentators and lobbyists. What’s the end-game here? That America disengages from the Middle East and Israel aligns with the BRICS? Because this is not organic. It’s a controlled narrative…

I’m leaving this post open. What’s your view?

But we need to keep asking ourselves, if we truly are thinking straight (and free), what is the other side fighting for? And how does the fighting manifest itself?

That might seem a somewhat daft question when there are wars all over the place. But often the purpose of wars is not just about killing people (typically people just buying some bread or going to school). Wars are, increasingly, key components of obfuscation - hiding what’s actually going on. Wars are useful vehicles for division. They encourage people to take sides and argue for or against the various combatants. And why should such arguments be encouraged by the war-mongers? Because when we end up arguing about the wrong things we don’t get to see the big things, even when they should be really big and obvious. When we’re distracted we don’t see, we don’t understand.

Yesterday I reposted this piece by Morgan which highlighted the big thing that we’ve been forced to ignore in the unfolding ‘conflict’ in the Middle East. Her analysis has one central idea: that wars are typically about theft. And it’s the thieving that we’re not allowed to see.

Morgan

The Usual Architects

There is a particular kind of man who looks at a smoldering ruin and sees, before the smoke has cleared, a development opportunity. History tends to reward him handsomely for this and then name a building after him…

Read more

2 months ago · 62 likes · 24 comments

Of course, the theft arising from modern warfare is complex in nature. These days theft - and I mean really big theft - is less about just snatching things, and more about deal-flow. The central premise that she presents is that one category of theft is to create property redevelopment opportunities by bombing places to smithereens that have already been earmarked for redevelopment anyway. In her analysis the game-play was developed around 9/11. Organise the demolition of the twin towers, then rebuild them with other people’s money. But pocket most of the assets in the process.

In the unfolding mess in the Middle East we have ‘Iranians” apparently bombing sweet shops in Tel Aviv while American fighter jets circle overhead. Meanwhile in Southern Lebanon RAF jets from Cyprus keep an eye on developments on the ground as ancient trade routes get reopened without those pesky villages harbouring “Hezbollah” militants. And Zones are created. Development Zones. And funds, it turns out, have already been raised for their redevelopment, just in time. Funny that.

Of course this isn’t the only game in town. But it neatly makes the point that modern warfare is not just about Palantir. It’s about people stealing stuff and using governments to grease the wheels of the process of thieving.

The other ‘big thing’ in the Middle East conflict is market rigging. With the ‘closing’ of the Straits of Hormuz, and the associated ‘panic’ in energy markets, the consequence has been a gift - and a grift - for the petrochemical companies. This was a leading news story today (about BP) on Twitter/X:

BP Profits Double to $3.2 Billion Amid US-Iran Oil War Surge. The British energy giant credited its windfall to strong oil trading and refining amid the war that began in early April 2026, with Brent crude spiking due to restricted flows.

Meanwhile we hear about deals being negotiated, even when the Iranian ‘regime’ is in tatters. But still, they negotiate. First Iran closes the Strait. Then America. We hear about tolls being levied. But perhaps the USA should be charging the Chinese tolls? Should the Chinese be paying tolls to the Americans? Should they be paying in bitcoin or in Tether? Are the Iranians accepting Tether? Isn’t the US Trade Secretary something to do with Tether? Wasn’t Epstein involved in Tether and that guy with the strange Thai name who used to fund Boris but now funds the Reform Party?

And so the war, it seems, is in some way related to oil company profits, and digital money, and who gets to pocket the tolls and who gets to control the critical bottlenecks. And why aren’t Russia and China complaining? Is this multipolarism in play?

Whatever the truth is we can be sure that it’s about asset theft. They have the guns after all.

There’s an anecdote that used to do the rounds during the ‘peace’ negotiations in Northern Ireland over which Tony Blair once presided. Rumour has it that a leader of a political party felt somewhat left out. The negotiations seemed to be focused on the hardliners. Blair is reputed to have said that the ones with the guns were the main players in the peace talks.

And so it is that the main players in the resolution of the Russia Ukraine War are the Americans and NATO negotiating with the ‘defence’ companies. After all, the only people who can deliver peace are those that provide the instruments of war. But there’s little incentive for any hurry. More dollars can be borrowed after all. More money can be printed. More villages need to be bombed to clear the way for this or that. And, remember, LNG is best transported by tanker. That’ll require new routes. New roads, new logistical partnerships. More exploration. Specialist skills. And everyone has to play their part. Iran has big LNG fields. Western companies can help them get those resources to market once the sanctions are lifted. That’s the prize. Funds can be created that will help. Infrastructure can be built.

That’s the deal flow, you see. There are deals to be done arising out of war. Stability can be achieved. But the people need to know that in building back better than before new structures need to be created that mean that we don’t lurch back to old ways. The old ways, you see, got us into the predicaments, the situations that create war.

As Craig Wright put it (on the other platform)...

We are in a war.

Not a metaphor, not a flourish, not an exaggeration uttered for effect — a war in the truest, starkest sense. A war for freedom. A war for humanity itself. A war in which the battlefield is invisible, the weapons are abstractions, and yet the consequences are more tangible than steel. This is a war over the future of ownership — the future of whether a man shall own himself or merely lease the illusion from those who presume to rule him.

The New Era is a reader supported publication. Please do subscribe to be notified about new posts.

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I’d encourage you to listen to the whole chat (as well as many others) on Doc Malik’s substack.

Doc Malik Honest Health

Authentic conversations with fascinating people exploring health and wellness. 100% supported by you, the listeners and readers.

In this sequence I discuss my book, South of Market, that was published in late 2025. More details here…

Yesterday I had a two hour chat with her on Zoom. We had intended to record some of the conversation to feature on The New Era but, with one thing and another, it just didn’t work out.

Morgan, or Morgan Chase (to give her full social handle) is keen to keep her privacy intact by using a pen-name. After all, she needs to make a living, and some of her analysis tends to rub people up the wrong way. She has dipped in and out of Twitter spaces but, as she admitted to me yesterday, sometimes her active participation just results in a pile-on. More often she’ll sit-in and listen - particularly if the spaces feature celebrity mainstream commentators. This, she says, gives her the opportunity to invert everything they say as a starting point for her own research.

Recently, Morgan’s piece on the Strait of Hormuz - and the generally ‘fake and ghey’ war in Iran - resonated across the wider geopolitical analysis community. I recently mentioned her work in interviews with Ahmad Malik and Geopolitics & Empire. And I know that many have picked-up on themes that she has originally propagated.

Morgan

Strait Theatre

This was not a war. It was a restructuring exercise carried out under the cover of one. The U.S. has done this before — manufacture or accelerate a crisis, let the disruption clear the board, then move in as the stable expensive alternative. Gulf of Tonkin. Iraqi WMDs , Ukraine. The pattern isn’t new. What’s new is the scale of the commercial infrastruc…

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3 months ago · 321 likes · 59 comments · Morgan

But even before the resurgence of the Middle East forever-war, Morgan’s take on most high profile ‘events’ tends to focus attention more on the opportunities for fakery by usual-suspect propagandists to influence unthinking rabbles - regardless of their tribal affiliations. Her insight into the Charlie Kirk ‘assassination’ is a case in point.

Morgan

The Manufactured Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk

On September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was allegedly shot while speaking at an open-air event on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, as part of his "American Comeback Tour." The shooting occurred in front of hundreds of spectators, including students, prompting imme…

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9 months ago · 358 likes · 78 comments

When I reached-out to Morgan a couple of weeks ago to suggest a podcast for this site we exchanged some ideas about angles for the chat. I specifically asked her about developments in Iran, Israel and Lebanon. And she shared this perspective - and she elaborated, yesterday, in our long conversation. If you’re on Twitter/X I recommend a follow.

“I think what we’re seeing in the Levant, and what we saw in Ukraine, is a struggle over global hegemony. And beneath all the slogans and moral framing, a lot of it looks like an effort to make a very small group of people unimaginably wealthy at the expense of ordinary people. That’s the part I find most alarming.

“I do think these are deliberate efforts to reorient global trade and infrastructure in ways that benefit the top tier, the ownership class, the people who profit from corridors, reconstruction, energy flows, arms contracts, and financial control. But I also think it may be even bigger than simple greed. It’s about preserving power, managing decline, and restructuring the world in a way that keeps control concentrated in the same hands while everyone else absorbs the cost.

“The public gets war, displacement, inflation, instability, and propaganda. The people at the top get new routes, new contracts, new leverage, and another round of asset consolidation. That, to me, is the real pattern”.

I hope to record a podcast interview with Morgan in the coming weeks. I’m leaving the comments open on this conversation if you have any questions you’d like me to ask her.

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Please do subscribe to The New Era. And, if you fancy some Summer reading you may want to buy a copy of my novel, South of Market. If you do read it, please do leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

This latest conversation, for G&E, followed on from that conversation. Although, of course, in the intervening period, the Americans and Israelis started a new war with Iran.

In the interview I discuss, with Hrvoje, the rise of the technocratic state using recent events as examples, such as the meningitis simulation and subsequent "outbreak" on Airstrip One, a coordinated effort to condition the public for a permanent state of emergency.

We discuss the "stay-at-home" culture and the transition to EVs and cashless payments as strategic moves to increase surveillance and social control.

The dialogue also questions the authenticity of the multipolar world order, proposing that conflict in the Middle East may be a "financial stitch-up" designed to integrate global economies into a unified digital infrastructure.

We also discuss whether prominent political and tech figures act as agents of a deeper establishment rather than independent leaders. Listeners should maintain critical thinking and extreme skepticism toward all mainstream and alternative narratives.

We also discuss my new novel and some of its technocratic themes.

As Fiona articulates well in the video, this is not, in any sense, winning. Many of us, for years, have been vilified for holding the view that “Covid-19” was a globally coordinated attack on freedom and medical ethics. But this is the first time that arguments have been put forward, in a court of law, in any Western jurisdiction. So it’s a step forward.

Here’s Fiona’s introduction to the video.

If you want to truly understand what is unfolding in the case against Bill Gates, Albert Bourla (CEO of Pfizer) and Mark Rutte (former Dutch PM) along with 15 other defendants - watch this video.

In that courtroom, lawyer Peter Stassen didn't just speak; he delivered a calculated, scorched-earth dismantling of the defendants. What he put on the record is absolute fire. You have to watch it for yourself.

This case is real. It is happening. Please take the time to watch the full update, and share it. While the mainstream media remains predictably silent, we are the ones breaking the blackout. We are the ones ensuring the world knows exactly what was hidden.

History isn't just being written; it's being corrected. Never give up on the truth. This is our moment. Watch. Share. Be the witness history requires.

However, once again, Ms Spring has ignored work done by real journalists to highlight the extent of collusion between the platforms and the intelligence agencies in spreading establishment propaganda and actively censoring inconvenient opinions. Indeed her most recent documentary on BBC2 last night started from the same premise as all her other ‘work’: that WE are the problem (ordinary people with opinions).

However, Ms Spring overlooks a very obvious problem - that the very platforms that she claims to be amplifying divisive and hateful content have been deplatforming, censoring or reach-suppressing people with opinions for years. And, often, users have self-censored by closing accounts.

I deleted my Facebook account when they started actively censoring my content - and made me the subject of an investigation by a ‘Fact Checking’ agency. Incidentally, I was not spreading ‘hate’ or ‘misinformation’. I’m a former Director in two international market research agencies. So whatever content I produce is always well-researched. Also I’ve never included any false information in my CV (unlike Ms Spring).

I still have a Twitter account but my content has negligible reach and my follower count has been pretty much static for the last 2 years. Ms Spring has blocked me on Twitter since around 2021.

One can only conclude that Spring’s omission in her ‘investigations’ of the role played by state actors - to control content and amplify propaganda - is deliberate.

So I asked Grok (X’s large language model tool) to tell me if Spring had made any effort to investigate the degree of collusion between the social media platforms and state intelligence agencies. For example, had Spring covered Matt Taibbi’s work on the ‘twitter files’ that uncovered such things as FBI staffers working in Twitter’s offices in South of Market? Grok is trained on social media content (including Springs own) so it’s the obvious place to check for balance.

And even Grok had to admit (if AIs can ‘admit anything’) that the omission is odd:

Your point about Matt Taibbi’s extensive reporting on the Twitter Files, detailing FBI coordination with Twitter (now X) on content moderation, account suspensions, and disinformation labeling, is valid and highlights a notable gap in Spring’s coverage.

Taibbi’s disclosures, released in installments starting December 2022, revealed internal communications showing FBI agents flagging posts for removal, pressuring on narratives around elections and COVID, and even involving other agencies like DHS in what he described as a “censorship-industrial complex.” This work has been substantiated through leaked documents, congressional hearings (e.g., the House Weaponization Subcommittee), and Taibbi’s own publications on Racket News, where he argues it demonstrates systemic government overreach into private platforms.

Searches across web sources, BBC archives, and Spring’s X activity (spanning her posts on disinformation, social media moderation, and related topics) turn up no instances where she has referenced the Twitter Files, Taibbi’s findings, or specifically FBI/CIA roles in platform censorship. This absence persists despite the Files’ relevance to her field: they’ve influenced global discussions on tech-government ties, with follow-ups like the Facebook Files and judicial rulings (e.g., Missouri v. Biden on alleged First Amendment violations). If Spring were pursuing a fully impartial lens on disinformation ecosystems, one might expect at least some acknowledgment—perhaps critiquing Taibbi’s methods, contextualizing the revelations, or exploring parallels in UK contexts like GCHQ’s involvement with platforms.

Possible explanations for this omission include:

Institutional constraints: As a BBC journalist, Spring operates under the organization’s impartiality charter, but the BBC has faced accusations of aligning with establishment narratives on intelligence and foreign policy (e.g., its partnerships with entities like the Atlantic Council, which has ties to US/UK security apparatuses). Covering US intelligence overreach could risk complicating those relationships or inviting scrutiny from UK regulators like Ofcom.

Scope of her role: Her investigations often center on bottom-up conspiracies (e.g., QAnon networks, anti-vax groups, or foreign state actors like Russia/Iran amplifying division) rather than top-down government-platform collaborations. For example, in her “Marianna in Conspiracyland” podcast and BBC Verify work, she dissects how algorithms push users toward extremism, but rarely probes how Western governments might contribute to content shaping.

Geopolitical focus: Taibbi’s revelations are heavily US-oriented, involving the FBI’s 80-person team liaising with tech firms. Spring’s output is more Euro-UK centric, such as analyzing Brexit misinformation or recent UK riots fueled by online falsehoods. However, this doesn’t fully explain ignoring a story with transatlantic implications, especially post-Elon Musk’s acquisition of X, which she has commented on broadly (e.g., changes in moderation leading to more hate speech).

Critics, including alternative media figures like those in The Grayzone or on Substack, argue this selective blindness suggests a pro-establishment bias, prioritizing “debunking” dissent that challenges Western narratives while sidestepping scrutiny of allied intelligence actions. Her past CV embellishment scandal (admitted in 2018, involving overstated experience) has fueled skepticism about her credibility in some circles, though it predates her BBC role.

Ultimately, while her work provides value in exposing real harms from online conspiracies, the consistent avoidance of Taibbi’s documented evidence does raise questions about comprehensive impartiality in covering disinformation’s full spectrum. If evidence emerges of her addressing these topics, it would counter this pattern—but based on available records, it hasn’t.

For context, Hugh is a former Head Teacher and previously served as a Board member of two education governing bodies in Northern Ireland.

The answer depends on one’s own value system and one’s own view of world politics.

I have chosen to try to answer in terms of a holistic view of political events, which will include my view of the West’s and the US’s foreign policies.

I believe in the right to self-determination and the right of peoples to govern themselves, even if “we” do not like how they choose to do it. I do not believe that we have the right to impose our view of democracy. Actually, I do not believe there is anything moral or visionary in what we are doing. We support many oppressive regimes in the Middle East and Africa — just as long as they are our allies. We have failed to speak up for certain countries (e.g., Tibet) nor for Christian communities (e.g., Armenia, Syria and other places) presumably because it does not suit.

We have left a trail of destruction across the world — see Vietnam, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, Libya, Iraq, and now Iran — in the name of bringing peace and democracy. We will bomb you to save you.

I believed in a free-speech democracy. I am now sadly disillusioned— I thought I had the right to express my views, even if the authorities did not like them. Isn’t democracy supposed to champion differing views and free speech? So, I opposed school closures, masking, and COVID vaccinations for children. I also made my opposition known about the WHO sexualisation of children (starting at the age of four) and the concept of transgender ‘education’ in the primary school curriculum. But my views were simply not welcome.

But this experience encouraged me to read widely about ‘our’ interventions and wars with nations that needed to be taught a lesson about our version of ‘democracy’.

Ukraine

Before the current war, I was aware that the eastern part of Ukraine was ethnically Russian and largely Russian-speaking. Ukraine elected a Russia-facing president. What would you do if you had a giant neighbour on your border? Being on friendly terms would be essential with respect to trade, transport, energy, etc. The US did not like it, so he was deposed, and Zelensky was brought in. His regime started to “Ukrainify” Eastern Ukraine—language, job discrimination, street names, school books, the downgrading of the Russian Orthodox Church—this eventually sparked opposition which turned violent, and hence the alleged reason for the war. In addition, NATO has moved 1,000 miles further east than it promised the Russians it would (rather like the white Americans betrayed the American ‘Indians’ with repeated broken promises (do read, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee).

The West repeatedly scuppered obvious solutions, such as autonomous status for the Donbas region within Ukraine.

Regarding Crimea — what would you do if you were Russian? Russia’s only warm water port is Sevastopol in Crimea; its navy is docked there. If Ukraine joined NATO, Russia would lose its port and badly damage its naval capacity. (Actually, Crimea was neither Russian nor Ukrainian; I believe it is/was Tatar).

When did the phrase “regime change” enter our vocabulary, and since when was it an acceptable democratic policy objective?

The Middle East

So, first up! I have long opposed US and Western policies in the ME and view the current war as a continuation of those policies: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

I mentioned earlier one’s own values.

I am a member of the majority community in Northern Ireland; it is very committed to Israel’s rights — that the Israelites were promised the ‘Promised Land’ by God. There is, by and large, widespread and often blind support for Israel.

That it discriminates against Christians in Jerusalem and is purging them is not known/mentioned.

750,000 Palestinians lived on the land before Israel established itself in 1948 — dispossessed and forcibly exiled.

Apparently, this was acceptable… and still is.

Israel attacked Gaza and the West Bank, allegedly because Hamas attacked it. So, we are told that a regiment-sized group of Hamas penetrated the most guarded border in the world, which also used the upgrade of US movement and heat detectors used in Vietnam —placed at very close intervals above and beneath ground — they did so 15 times. The army unit guarding the border was transferred a couple of days before. Not a hand was laid on the attackers, and nobody within the Israeli military or security forces was sacked, and nobody in the mainstream media (MSM) pointed this out.

This has led to the terrible bombing of civilians. Would RAF bombing of Catholic nationalist areas of Belfast have been acceptable during the 1970s when more people were killed by the IRA bombing campaign than died in the Hamas raid, just because IRA bombers hid and/or lived within the civilian community?

This brings us to Iran and to Israeli policy of a greater Israel and/or US policy, which appears to be regime change and the removal of WMD. The stated aims of the two main allies are different. So, how will we know if they are achieved — so that “they” can claim victory and stop?

Why is regime change a now acceptable policy objective and by force? Is it acceptable to bomb a civilian population?

Is Iran a threat to the US or UK? If so, how?

It seems the US wants to replace all Middle Eastern governments with acquiescent states.

So, I strongly disapprove of the Zionist regime and its stated aim of a greater Israel and the US’s stated aim of regime change and the method of achieving the subsidiary aim of de-nuclearisation.

What has been done is a double whammy: it has driven Christians from the Holy Land, Syria, and Lebanon and facilitated the huge numbers of political Islamists into Europe and the UK, seemingly changing the very nature of the UK.

As in Northern Ireland, force alienated the nationalist population, and more people joined the bombing campaigns. Do we imagine that Arabs will like us more, or will it produce more martyrs?

Do argue, dispute, disagree.

Hugh was recently interviewed by David Kurten, the leader of the small UK Heritage Party. You can watch the interview here.

Patrick Wood is an Economic & market forecaster, speaker, and author of Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation, and Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order. You can follow his work here.

Hrvoje Morić is the host and producer of The Geopolitics & Empire Podcast. Hrvoje hails from the United States. He was bred between the two worlds of America and his ethnic homeland of Yugoslavia/Croatia, moving back and forth between the two countries. His name literally means “Croat”. He is also a naturalized Mexican, fluent in English/Croato-Serbian/Spanish, and truly a proud citizen of all three nations!

The conversation started (my fault) with some commentary on the continuing Epstein scandal, but then we focused more on the state of the technocracy/algocracy project.

I was keen to get Hrvoje’s and Patrick’s response to Mark Carney’s recent speech at the WEF conference in Davos. They didn’t disappoint.

I highly recommend you watch this conversation in full. Getting these two together, to discuss some of the most concerning geopolitical developments of our lifetimes, provides some incredible nuggets of insight.

I’m leaving comments open for all subscribers, free and paid. But please do consider taking out a paid subscription. Just click the button below.

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According to this Guardian article, “The idea that Johnson also used the visit to ensure Ukraine did not sign a peace agreement with Russia first emerged in an article in the respected Ukrainska Pravda outlet in May 2022, which said that Ukrainian and Russian negotiators had agreed on a broad possible agreement after a meeting in Istanbul in late March. A week later, Johnson arrived with a message that “Putin is a war criminal, he needs to be pressured, not negotiated with”, according to one of the outlet’s sources.”

Johnson resigned as Prime Minister in September 2022. But just 2 months later, Johnson’s office received a donation from a Thailand-based businessman called Christopher Harborne, the biggest shareholder of UK Defence company QinetiQ (through two of Harborne’s operating companies). The donation, of £1million, was one of the biggest donations ever to an individual UK politician. In January 2023, the Conservative government awarded a contract worth £80m to QinetiQ.

Johnson revisited Kiev in September 2023. But, this time, he was joined by the man who gave him £1m.

QinetiQ is actively involved in “supporting Ukraine’s defense efforts”, particularly through the provision of technology, training, and engineering support for military hardware.

Christopher Harborne became the biggest financial backers of the Reform Party, last year. He donated some £9m - although it’s not clear whether the donation was in fiat currency or cryptocurrency. Nevertheless, the donation dwarfs donations to the other UK political parties - even from hedge fund owners. The donation goes some way to explain why Reform Party apparatchiks, like Isabel Oakeshott, want to make it appear that Peter Mandelson was working for the Russians rather than the Israelis. Because, of course, Reform’s backers make a good return on the genocide in Gaza - and the war in Ukraine.

Harborne is also a big investor in Tether - the US dollar stablecoin company - controlling around 12% of the company behind the stablecoin (iFinex) - a company that makes vast profit, mostly on Treasury stock allegedly held to ‘back’ the Tether dollar tokens.

Meanwhile, Howard Lutnick, Jeffrey Epstein’s business partner and neighbour, and the man behind the Israel First White House team, and US Commerce Secretary, acted as banker and custodian for Tether when he was CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald.

In June 2024, Nigel Farage attended a high-profile London fundraiser for Donald Trump that raised $2.5 million. While Farage was in attendance to support the campaign, the event was co-hosted by Howard Lutnick.

Lutnick has been described as Tether’s most powerful U.S. ally. He did not create Tether but stepped in around 2021-2022 to prevent its collapse during a liquidity crisis, transforming it into a “crypto darling”.

Recent, DOJ-released documents (February 2026) show that Jeffrey Epstein had close ties with Brock Pierce, a co-founder of Tether. The documents also confirm that Lutnick and Epstein were business associates.

Clearly it’s significant that Reform is the recipient of funding and/or support from a major investor in Tether - and a UK military contractor active in both Ukraine and Israel - as well as Tether’s banker (Howard Lutnick via Cantor Fitzgerald). Tether is essentially being positioned as a private sector dollar ‘CBDC’. Moreover, it is ‘backed’ by US Treasury stock currently yielding over 4% - resulting in vast profits for Cantor Fitzgerald and iFinex. So it is helping to fund America’s vast debt pile - and associated dollar devaluation.

Howard Lutnick’s association with Epstein has resulted in calls for Lutnick’s resignation as US Commerce Secretary. So the Reform Party should make clear whether its relationship with Harborne is compatible with its requirement to support the UK’s sovereign currency (should it ever gain the reins of power). But, more fundamentally, the Reform Party needs to clarify whether if it is de facto ‘owned’ by a military contractor.

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Technocrats love the idea of people - human resources - being at a 'place of work' and 'productive'. It's a control thing. Appointed 'bosses' can check that they're delivering and not slacking. Arses need to be firmly planted to those office chairs for the allocated times so that maximum value can be extracted, and full attention can be given to employer objectives during employer owned time.

After all, it's because magnanimous employers employ that the hired help has the ability to pay mortgages and car finance. God forbid that people should have any agency or be permitted to actually spend any time in the homes employers are vicariously paying for.

For technocrats, individual human agency, and creativity, are to be stifled and suppressed. The idea that individuals should have the ability to contribute, and shine, unencumbered by 'place of work' is inconceivable. No. The assumption is that resources are to be tagged, IDed, monitored and controlled - ideally in a 'smart' building or satanic mill.

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We’ve known for years that Jeffrey Epstein was providing funding and grotesque ‘entertainment’ to the abusers appointed to the ‘elite’. The recent file release has just worked to further obscure which members of the elite willingly participated. But there are no significant revelations in the files. How could there be when investigative journalists like Whitney Webb wrote two volumes detailing the extent of Epstein’s network of control?

Arguably, the ‘files’ have had bigger political implications in the United Kingdom where the repellent wannabe, Peter Mandelson, has been ejected from the Labour Party and, supposedly, may face criminal investigation. It’s unlikely. But, more particularly, the so-called ‘architect’ of Keir Starmer’s success (in securing around 20% of the eligible vote for a landslide victory in the general election) has had to resign.

At time of writing Starmer’s spin doctor has also been axed. I won’t even mention the names of these bag-carriers because they’re utterly unimportant. And, if Starmer has to ‘fall’ who will care? A man utterly devoid of any personality or political objectives (apart from those mandated by his handlers) will disappear from view just like the previous incumbent in Number 10.

The annoying little toad who is the BBC’s “political editor” will still do his ‘packages’ telling us of the ‘mood’ within the parliamentary Labour Party. And, meanwhile, consensus will grow across all the political parties that everything bad done by members of ‘the elite’ was set up by Epstein acting on behalf of the Russians.

Because, look at who is governing or aspiring to govern us. Every single prominent politician from an establishment approved political party was absolutely behind every significant political narrative designed to rob the entire population of individual agency.

Every one of the UK’s main political parties accept that there was a pandemic and that it required a ‘response’ involving the roll-out of vaccines that were de facto mandated. All of the main parties aspiring to govern have said nothing of note to condemn Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Every one has condemned Russian ‘aggression’ against Ukraine but made little or no reference to NATO aggression or the installation of a puppet administration in Kiev. And all of the parties have been largely supportive of the continued moves towards coercion and control using digital ID by the American Tech Bros.

However, in the context of Epstein, all of the mainstream UK political parties have adopted positions that are aligned with the American Zionist elite.

Let’s take each in turn.

The Labour Party is mired in its current pickle because Starmer’s move to the “centre right” actually represented a move to the Zionist establishment approved narrative. It is becoming unstuck because that move required fixers who were connected to Zionist funders (fenced through Labour Together) and to Epstein sleazeballs like Mandelson. The ousting of Jeremy Corbyn was a project designed to present anti-Zionism as antisemitism.

The Reform Party is attempting to present itself as diverse and Muslim friendly (in the same manner that the Republican Party created the Abraham Accords). Nigel Farage has made clear that he is wholly supportive of the right for Israel to exist and of its actions in Gaza. Moreover, he has referred to Palantir-founder Peter Thiel as a ‘friend’. Other senior members of the Reform Party (including those who defected from the Conservative Party), are fiercely Zionist and ‘Technocratic’.

The Conservative Party - like Trump - oversaw the Covid-19 ‘response’ that included Technocratic involvement by Israel’s favourite American tech firms. Moreover, the Conservative government (prior to the election of the Labour Government) developed a deep and significant relationship with Palantir Technologies, particularly during the premierships of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. This relationship resulted in several major contracts across various government departments, including the NHS and the Ministry of Defence. Jeffrey Epstein co-funded a venture capital fund (called Valar) with Peter Thiel, the founder of Palantir. Many of the Conservative Party’s Hedge fund backers have significant positions in Palantir - as well as other Epstein and Thiel backed firms.

Of course this doesn’t reflect the full extent of the embedding of UK and American establishment Zionism into the mainstream political parties in the UK. Some might say that fixating on this single dimension implies that nothing else matters. Well, to a degree, nothing else does. The most recent scandal to befall the Labour Party does seem to be organised destruction designed to auger the appointment of a Reform Party-led government (possibly in coalition with the Conservatives). The modern era of politics in the West has been defined - since 9/11 - by Israel, AIPAC and the Five Eyes intelligence network. But, more particularly, Zionism (and the military industrial complex) has seeded itself into the elite power structures of the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group and World Economic Forum - the key builders of the technocratic reordering.

Therefore, in the scheme of things, the toppling of yet another UK Prime Minister is hardly tectonic. But it provides a distraction of sorts and makes it appear that the ‘file release’ was an act of democracy and openness. But the project will continue as if nothing really happened.

Evidence that a technocratic rules-based-order is very much still in place is Keir Starmer’s recent visit to China. Is China a central player in the technocratic agenda? Or should we believe Trump’s line that China represents a mortal threat to Pax Americana?

We also chat about Trump’s new Fed Chair, Kevin Warsh (son-in-law of Ron Lauder, heir to the Estee Lauder empire and big fan of the United States purchasing Greenland).

The recent collapse of Microsoft’s stock price also features in our discussion. The price correction came after the news that Microsoft’s cloud contract book is heavily dependent on OpenAI and its data centre infrastructure build-out. We also touch on the announcement that OpenAI’s ChatGPT may start showing ads, alongside its hallucinations, to free subscribers.

We discuss the new kid on the the social media block, UpScrolled, and whether its ‘anti-Israel’ platform will get the traction it needs to become a mainstream player in the potentially declining market for youth eyeballs (now that Larry Ellison is censoring anything on TikTok that appears even slightly anti-Zionist).

Claus and I also discuss the US Congress decision to require kill-switches to be fitted to all new cars.

We finish with some discussion about what we’ve been reading. Claus has been re-reading Milton Friedman’s Freedom to Choose. Meanwhile, I was reminding myself of the brilliance of George Orwell by reading, Coming up for Air.

If you’d like to participate in our upcoming chats please do contact us. Also the post is open for comments and observations.

We also have another poke at EVs (and the increasing tendency for governments to want to control them centrally); GDPR and its demise; the UK Digital ID protests; the UK Government Digital Service (and DOGE); CBDCs (again); and personal sovereignty - where it came from and where it’s going.

Clearly some of the themes in this chat appear in my new(ish) novel, South of Market. And on that subject, and to celebrate the New(ish) Year, I have a super offer for you. If you take out a new paid subscription to The New Era I’ll send you a (signed) paperback copy of the book. In the post. I can only offer this to UK and Ireland based subscribers I’m afraid. But I think it’s a rather good deal. Very few of my subscribers pay. And very few of you have bought the book. So here’s a good way to support my work and get a copy of South of Market. Please do email me to let me know your postal address if you do subscribe.

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Here’s a bit more information about the book and some reviews…

I know that Fiona has a stellar line-up of speakers and contributors for Saturday. She’ll be announcing speakers during the coming week.

Further information about the protest and her campaign is available here: https://massnoncompliance.com/

You can also follow Fiona on Twitter here.

If you’d like to help Fiona cover her costs here the link you’ll need.

We’re also thinking of an Abi and Jeff book-plugging roadshow (and signing) in the New Year (kicking off in Belfast). If you’d like to get involved in any way please let me know (comments are open).

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7 months ago · 20 likes · 10 comments · Abi Roberts