D (2:23)

My pleasure.

C (2:24)

So we've seen here in the us, the Epstein scandal continue to have a lot of fallout in the uk. There's some really pretty seismic things that are happening all the way at the top, including the King himself. Let's start there. There's news this week that he's going to be working with police in their investigation into his brother. Can you unpack what's actually happening there?

D (2:46)

So the Royal family have been very quiet on the Epstein scandal, despite the fact that the King's brother Andrew, until recently Prince Andrew, he's had his titles all stripped now, is so closely related to the Epstein island events. He was there multiple occasions. We have so many photographs of him. He's all over the Epstein files with his now ex wife, Sarah Ferguson, famously Fergie in the 90s, early 2000s, the redhead everyone remembers, right. And they have come out of this very, very poorly. Some of their interactions with Epstein just display them as being greedy, opportunistic, really having no moral compass whatsoever. So that inevitably reflects badly on the Royal family because Andrew was apparently the Queen's favorite son, now his brother is King and this was unprecedented when this week, King Charles said, we will cooperate with the police if necessary. And that's very different. Well, I mean, it's his brother. It's not only constitutionally complicated, but it must be also emotionally quite complicated as well. And the Royal family are in, you know, their future is never certain in the uk, but at the moment it feels very precarious indeed. Of course, King Charles has cancer. We know he's been having treatment for that. Princess of Wales, Kate, also has cancer, had cancer. We believe she's in remission at the moment. And so there are huge stresses running around the family and this is kind of the last thing they need that the black sheep of the family is so heavily implicated in the Epstein files.

C (4:23)

Now, the sharing of confidential information is at the heart of this and some other accusations related to the Prime Minister. What is going on with that situation? How much do we actually know at this point?

D (4:36)

So it is fascinating to me as a Brit journalist who's now based here in Washington D.C. doing a, a live nightly show for GB news. How much the political landscape of America is impacting on the political landscape of the uk. This so called special relationship has never been more pertinent politically. We elected a Labour government about 20 months ago now with Sir Keir Starmer as the leader. They won a pretty significant majority, a very significant majority of seats in the House of Commons without actually a huge percentage of the votes. It's just a sort of characteristic of our political system. Now, as part of that administration, one of the most significant positions is of course, the British Ambassador to America six months ago, maybe less, Peter Mandelson. Lord Peter Mandelson was given that job here in D.C. to gasps of shock from anybody within the media and anybody that knew anything about politics, because it was so obvious that coming down the line was going to be the Epstein files. And one of the few photos we already had that didn't need to be released was Epstein and Mandelson on holiday in the Caribbean. I mean, we know that the links between him and Epstein were incredibly tight. Even after Epstein was convicted, they still retained a friendship. And so this potential bomb was coming over the horizon for the Prime Minister. I don't know how he thought he could get away with it. Nobody really understands that. And so now that we know the full implications of Mandelstone's and his relationship with Epstein, as you say there, John, about giving away private policy information in 2008 crash, Mandelson was emailing Epstein saying, I'm just leaving Downing Street. I'll give you a call to tell you what we're doing about bailing out the banks. That's potentially extremely criminal activity, potentially could lead to life sentence in prison. Mandels has now gone off grid. He stepped down, gave up his title, lost his position and of course, questions are asked about the Prime Minister. How could you have given this man such a plum role, particularly with Trump in the White House, particularly given how many people are waiting to see President Trump implicated in the Epstein files and to make political capital and weaponize the content of those files. As of today, it appears that the Prime Minister is clinging on for dear life. We had the leader of the Scottish Labour Party yesterday come out and say that his position is untenable. His Chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, had to resign. His Chief of Communications had to resign. Now, normally, if those key players have stepped aside, the Prime Minister is toast. But today he stood up in Hertfordshire and said, I will not be leaving this position. I believe that I was given a mandate that I have to carry this out. I will not desert my people. And he's sort of transforming this, like, recalcitrant stubbornness. He's trying to recast it as a strength. I'm here for my country. I'm not going to step down. And we live in an age, unfortunately, in the UK it's a lack of accountability, it's the accountability deficit. Nobody ever seems to lose their jobs anymore. It's maybe similar here in the US I don't know. But politically, people can get away with all sorts of things these days. But the fact that the Prime Minister is there still today leaves a lot of questions to be answered about his judgment in appointing Mandelson. How did he think that was okay? I met the new ambassador last night. I was in the ambassador's residence. They've appointed a civil servant, a non political position. Sir Christian Turner. It is. And the first thing I said to him was, well, as long as you're not friends with someone who's friends with a pedophile, you're going to do better than the last guy.

C (8:22)

Apparently. Easier said than done. So in terms of the Labor Party, for the American audience, first of all, how left wing is that party? And then how are they faring amid all these setbacks in recent years? It looks like things are not going well for them. If Starmer doesn't survive, does his party survive?

D (8:42)

It's a very good question. We had 14 years of a Conservative government before Labour won in 2024, summer 2024. And the general feeling was not that the Labour Party offered this great hope for a future. It was the fact that people hated the Conservative Party. After 14 years, everybody felt poorer. They thought the pandemic was very badly handled. We have been involved in foreign wars, Ukraine particularly, in a way that was becoming unpalatable to the British taxpayer. And Starmer was kind of voted in, most people would say, because it was like, well, he's got to be. We're ready for a change. And he's had to u turn on so many political points. One thing they did very controversially when they came in is they, they took away what's called the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. So pensioners were given a small amount of money to help them pay the fuel bill. Now, in the UK our fuel bills are four times higher than you pay in America. Four times. And for pensioners, that's really hard. And so the Conservative government had introduced this payment to help pensioners pay their bills. And Starmer's government took that away. Now they were Saying, well, there are a lot of wealthy pensioners, they don't need this 300 quid a year or whatever it is. But actually, it looked bad. It looked like they're going after pensioners. They then put VAT extra tax on private school fees, which in the UK are often paid by doctors, lawyers, kind of middle ranking professionals who work hard to put their children through private school. So that looked like a punitive and a sort of politics of envy to a lot of people. And they then put increased inheritance tax on farmers. This one has been incredibly controversial because, as you can imagine, the farming community is very important to the uk. We are a green and pleasant land and our farmers are very special to us. And there have been mass protests in the streets of London where tractors, hundreds of tractors have pulled up outside of Westminster because they change the barrier at which you would pay death taxes, you would call them here to about a million pounds. Now, it might sound like a lot of money, but most farmers might have a piece of farm equipment that costs £750,000, right? And so it was dragging a lot of farmers into this. And then we literally had farmers who took their own lives because they didn't want to be alive when the deadline came, because they wanted to leave their farm to their children, because farmers are often asset rich and cash poor.

C (11:07)

Unbelievable.

D (11:08)

So that reflected very badly on the Prime Minister. We have the highest boat crossings of illegal migration than we've ever had. And Starmer was elected under this mantra, I'm going to smash the gangs. Now, your southern border issue that President Trump has people, even people who hate him, will come on my show and say, we don't like him, but we've got to give him some credit for what he's done. On the southern border, ours is the opposite. We have got so many people, thousands of people now arriving on dinghies. They come from the Middle east, they come from India, Pakistan, they cross Europe, they get on a dinghy and they come to the uk. They get off on the beach and they're handed a mobile phone, they're given a hotel accommodation, they are looked after and they are processed very, very slowly. So we have thousands of people who are put up in very nice hotels and they're fed and they're looked after and they're welcomed. Now, we are a very generous country. We have a long tradition of welcoming refugees and asylum seekers, but not when everyone feels that they are paying the highest tax burden since the Second World War. And so it feels like the British public's patience has been really tested under this government. So when the Mandelson situation kicked off, when it was clear that the American UK's ambassador to America was going to have to go, there was actually quite a lot of people had their fingers crossed that this might be what does for the Prime Minister. But at the moment it doesn't look like it. And in fact, the Labour Party don't make it easy to change leaders. The Conservative Party do. You may remember we had Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, then Rishi.

C (12:45)

Apparently very easy to get rid of. Liz Truss.

D (12:47)

Yeah, it was less than 50 days, I think it was. You know, the Conservative Party have different rules. The Labour Party have not in history taken out a leader by the party coming together because you have to have 20% of the MPs on your side, which would be about 80. And of course, politics being politics, a lot of MPs are scared. In case you back the guy who wants to take over, then it doesn't work. And then guess what, you're not going to be the favorite of the existing Prime Minister who didn't get overthrown. So the best bet for those who want to see the back of him would be that he resigns. But he won't do that. I don't think that's who he is. And he's like I say, he's hanging on in there. He's not going to resign. If he does, the party would have to decide who would then be the new leader. They would automatically become the new Prime Minister. They, they would have to go to King Charles to have permission to be that Prime Minister. But it wouldn't necessarily trigger a general election. And that the latest that could be is August 28th. It's complicated, John. It's a mess. But there's a lot, a lot going on.

C (13:47)

Well, we're used to messes over here in the United States, so I definitely get it. Bev, thank you so much for talking with us. We'd love to have you on the show again.

D (13:54)

Love to. Thank you.

C (13:56)

That was Bev Turner, host of GB News, the Late Show Live. This has been a weekend edition of Morning of Honor.

D (14:03)

Sam.