(Another) Labour Leadership Challenge?

Summary

Newscast Podcast — (Another) Labour Leadership Challenge?

Date: March 18, 2026
Hosts: Adam Fleming, Chris Mason (BBC Political Editor), Gary O'Donoghue (BBC Chief North America Correspondent)

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Overview

In this episode, the Newscast team delves into mounting speculation around a potential Labour leadership challenge as Angela Rayner delivers a sharply critical speech aimed at her party’s direction and leadership. The discussion expands to examine unrest within Labour, the mechanics and psychology of leadership challenges, and the implications of vocal internal dissent. The team then pivots to international developments, focusing on the political fallout from America’s ongoing conflict with Iran, intelligence briefings in Washington, and the consequences for President Trump ahead of the US midterms. The episode closes with an analysis of the latest Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), highlighting the increasingly adversarial nature of UK parliamentary debate.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Angela Rayner’s Dissent: A Leadership Challenge Brewing?

[02:27–06:28]

• Angela Rayner’s Speech: Delivered at a “mainstream group” event (soft left of Labour), Rayner’s 1,500-word, highly rhetorical and prepared speech criticized the Labour government’s lack of boldness—implicitly challenging PM Keir Starmer’s leadership.
• Chris Mason:

  “It was a pretty punchy critique of the Government, in which, of course, she served—implicitly the Prime Minister… making her ambitions and her visions for what the party ought to look and sound like abundantly clear.” [07:55]

• Speech Style: Crafted for media impact, laid out like a conference speech rather than informal remarks.
• ‘Time is running out’: The headline phrase suggests urgency and possibly a lack of faith in the current leadership's direction.
• Adam Fleming:

  “The big headline this morning… was her saying ‘time is running out’.” [06:28]

2. Labour’s Leadership Calculus: Barriers and Political Reality

[08:15–11:28]

• Triggering a Challenge:
  • It’s mechanically difficult—requires 80 Labour MPs to publicly call for a contest, a “heck of a threshold.”
  • Historical reluctance: Labour MPs are generally unwilling to topple a leader installed with a large majority.
• Political Calculations:
  • Leadership contests mid-government risk “legitimacy questions” and further destabilization.
  • Many Labour MPs fear a poor showing in upcoming elections could cost them their seats unless bold change happens soon.
• Chris Mason:

  “A contest, if you’re looking at it through the prism of being a Labour MP is arguably unquestionably bad… you sort of create a whole bunch of other legitimacy questions, don’t you?” [11:28]

3. Policy Disputes: The Immigration Row

[12:29–14:33]

• Angela Rayner targets new Home Office proposals:
  • Criticized move to increase time required for migrants to obtain indefinite leave to remain as “un-British.”
  • Significant internal opposition: Over 100 Labour MPs have voiced concerns.
  • Policy can be implemented without primary legislation—no direct Commons vote.

4. Rayner’s Track Record: A Persistent Critic

[14:33–15:27]

• Pattern of dissent: Rayner has consistently been the first to counter government moves she sees as problematic—from vetting scandals to by-election defeats, framing them as “wake up calls.”

5. US Politics: Trump, Iran, and Messaging Disarray

[16:01–25:36]

• Tulsi Gabbard Testifies: As Director of National Intelligence, Gabbard’s congressional testimony underlined confusion—written evidence stated Iran’s nuclear capabilities are gone; in person, she dodged confirming that.
• Conflicting narratives—Trump seeks to justify military actions amid prior promises not to engage in foreign wars, encountering rising skepticism internally and in the wider public.
• Broad Political Impact:
  • War is raising domestic costs (notably petrol/gas), affecting voters ahead of the US midterms.
  • Dissonance in administration’s communication on strategy and intentions.
• Gary O’Donoghue:

  “There is a significant sort of dislocation in the messaging around this war from the administration… struggling to define certain things like what is imminent and what isn’t imminent.” [18:24]

6. Doubters and Dissent in Washington

[24:06–25:36]

• Skepticism from within Trump’s own circle and media voices like Joe Rogan.
• A high-profile intelligence deputy (Joe Kent) resigns, doubting the threat Iran posed.
• “Legacy hunting” and executive action on the global stage—Trump’s motivations analyzed.

7. UK Parliament: PMQs and Politics as Weaponization

[25:46–32:54]

• PMQs Recap:
  • Kemi Badenoch (Opposition Leader) grilled the PM on Peter Mandelson’s vetting; the PM sidestepped, responding on unrelated issues (Middle East war, opposition stances).
  • Both leaders use exchanges to attack their counterpart’s judgment—often ignoring the actual questions.
  • Increasing use of political scandals and foreign policy stances to score points internally and externally (notably between Starmer and Trump).
• Adam Fleming:

  “…everything is politics now and everything gets weaponized… both those things are now just totally fair game politically.” [29:12]

• Chris Mason:

  “If you’re of the view that Prime Ministers… ought to make a reasonable stab at answering the question… considerable steam probably pouring out of your ears today.” [29:12]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Chris Mason, on Rayner’s speech style:

  “It was written to be delivered in a way and then reported in a certain way. It wasn’t just some, some off the cuff remarks… reads almost a bit like a sort of conference speech.” [05:03]

• Gary O’Donoghue, on leadership threat subtext:

  “…when a political speech maker uses a phrase like ‘time is running out’, that’s to conjure… that Keir Starmer’s time is running out, isn’t it?” [08:15]

• Chris Mason, on PMQs:

  “She (Badenoch) delivered some quite withering putdowns and then sat down, forgetting that you need to ask a question because it’s Prime Minister’s Questions… which is why the whole business of asking questions and answering them was sort of even more bizarre…” [28:12]

• Adam Fleming, on political climate:

  “…everything is politics now and everything gets weaponized.” [29:12]

• Gary O’Donoghue, on US politics:

  “They all get drawn in to foreign adventures… because they have significant, significant executive power in that realm where they can make a difference.” [19:47]

• Chris Mason, on “legacy hunting”:

  “I love legacy hunting as a phrase… the mindset of a politician who knows they’re ticking towards the end.” [21:52]

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Labour Leadership Dissent/Angela Rayner Speech: 02:27–08:15
• Leadership Challenge Mechanics: 08:15–11:28
• Immigration Policy Split: 12:29–14:33
• Rayner’s Pattern of Dissent: 14:33–15:27
• US: Tulsi Gabbard & Trump Administration: 16:01–19:47
• Trump’s Leadership Style & Midterms: 19:47–22:31
• Skepticism and White House Narrative: 22:31–25:36
• PMQs Breakdown: 25:46–32:54

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Conclusion

This episode of Newscast provides a brisk, insightful snapshot of political uncertainty in both the UK and US. Within Labour, Angela Rayner’s bold speech hints at cracks in the party’s unity—though internal barriers and precedent make an actual challenge difficult. Meanwhile, in America, Trump’s war messaging faces scrutiny and skepticism as domestic costs rise and political stakes mount. The discussion on PMQs exemplifies a wider trend: everything, from scandals to foreign wars, is being seized upon for political point-scoring, further amplifying adversarial tendencies in both Westminster and Washington.

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For further details, visit BBC Sounds or the Newscast community.

Transcript

[Gary O'Donoghue]

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[Adam Fleming]

hello. Here's a little quiz for you. What do Laura Kuenssberg and Sean Pan have in common? Neither of them went to the Oscars. Both of them have been spending time with Vladimir Zelensky this week. Instead, here's another one. What do Angela Rayner and Donald Trump have in common this week? They have become Keir Starmer's chief critics on either side of the Atlantic. We'll explain what's going on in this

[Chris Mason]

episode of Newscast Newscast, Newscast from the BBC Fat Boy Slim and me in

[Gary O'Donoghue]

the classroom doing our violin lessons.

[Chris Mason]

I was the tattletale in the classroom. Can I have an apology, please?

[Gary O'Donoghue]

I trust almost nobody. Then Daddy has to sometimes do strong language. Next time in Moscow I feel Delulu with no Salulu. Take me down to Downing Street.

[Adam Fleming]

Let's go have a tour.

[Chris Mason]

Blimey.

[Adam Fleming]

Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio

[Chris Mason]

and it is Chris at Westminster.

[Adam Fleming]

And we're also joined by the BBC's Chief North America correspondent, who is in North America, Gary o'. Donoghue. Hi, Gary.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

Hi, Adam.

[Adam Fleming]

Hello, Gary. Do you mind sitting patiently for a few minutes while me and Chris do some Westminster minutiae? Although actually you were a political correspondent for a long time, so feel free to chip into that too.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

I'm patience personified.

[Adam Fleming]

Although I suppose, Gary, when we talk about Labour leadership, that's more. The TBGB's was your era, wasn't it? Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

Well, I was there when Major was there, actually. That was my first Prime Minister, as it were.

[Adam Fleming]

Oh, you've done them all then. Great. We can get the long view, as Jonathan Friedland would say on Radio 4. So, Chris, my question to you. Are we now in the era where spring receptions of think tanks and campaign groups are as important as Christmas parties?

[Chris Mason]

Well, I mean, if Tuesday night was anything to go by. Yeah. So this was the basement of a Westminster publishing. It's like a Westminster twist on an open mic night, you know, singing not required. But if you fancy doing a bit of a turn about your political ambitions and the state of the party that you're a member of, then the floor is yours, effectively is how it kind of played out. So this was a gathering of a group called the mainstream group within the. Within the Labour fold. They're broadly, and excuse the kind of political language here, but they're broadly on the kind of soft left of the party. Some people make the point that there's one, One or two people knocking about within the group that were previously sort of affiliated to or close to Jeremy Corbyn. So it stretches a bit, arguably away from some of those who'd seen themselves as soft left anyway, at this thing in the basement of a pub. Various speeches from various folk, but in particular Angela Rayner, former Deputy Prime Minister. You remember she lost her job back in September around about her tax, which is still unresolved. She's still. That's still being dealt with by His Majesty's Revenue and Customs. Anyway, there she was delivering a speech. So this wasn't off the cuff. It was scripted about 1500 words. And you know what? It was pretty punchy critique of the Government, in which, of course, she served implicitly the Prime Minister. She didn't name Keir Starmer, but I mean, it was, it was. It was no doubt directly an attack on his style of leadership and a sense from her that labor is running out of time, that it needs to be bolder, which in labor land is usually code for being more left wing and that they sort of need to, need to crack on with it. Really.

[Adam Fleming]

The thing that jumps out at me from reading the extracts of this speech in various places because, I mean, I wasn't there, I don't go to spring receptions, was. Yeah, it was so rhetorical. It was, it was, it was written to be delivered in a way and then reported in a certain way. It wasn't just some, some off the cuff remarks, as you were saying. It reads almost a bit like a sort of conference speech.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

So, so to be clear, sentences.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

Don't lead anywhere. No, no, it sounds very poetic.

[Chris Mason]

Quite. So to, to, for the, to be. For the abundance of transparency. I wasn't there either, but I was very quickly able to get hold of the entire script of what she said. And yes, when you look at it on a sheet of A4, it is laid out in the way that speeches are written, where sentences are kind of half, half complete and then there's a dot, dot, dot to allow for a breathing point and then there's another bit. And so it, you know, it obeys some of the kind of rules of rhetoric, how these things are formulated, how arguments are made when they are intended to be delivered out loud as opposed to be, you know, read on the, read on the page. So yes, it was in the basement of a pub. But this was not ad libbed. This wasn't kind of, you know, carefree. And in the moment, some thought had gone into this knowing, given her prominence and significance within the labor movement, that it would, that it would cause ripples, it'd make headlines.

[Adam Fleming]

So I mean, the big headline this morning that everyone woke up to was her saying, oh, time is running out.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

What, what is she getting at there?

[Chris Mason]

Well, she basically is getting at the, the, at the moment, perpetual fear of Labour MPs I speak to every day, which is that the party the polls suggest is very, very unpopular and they need to do something about it and do something about it pretty quickly. Now in the very short term, there's the elections coming up in May, the evolved elections in Wales and Scotland, and local elections in many parts of England. Labour are expecting it to be, from their perspective, bleak. There's a separate question about what is the difference between bad, very bad, dire and oblivion. And how the party responds might depend on in which of those categories they collectively conclude that they are in. So that's the immediate, if you like, short term. But then for plenty of Labour MPs, the vast majority of whom only arrived in Parliament under two years ago, they'd be delighted to be able to try and build a career at Westminster that extended beyond one parliamentary term. And when they look at opinion polls of the likes of which labor have had for ages now, they would suggest if they don't move, and yes, it's still very early in the Parliament, but if they don't move, one heck of a lot of them are going to be out on their ear. So that's, that's the kind of, if you like the bruise that, that Angela Rayner is punching and making an argument without explicitly naming Keir Starmer and without explicitly saying that either, or indeed saying at all that he should go or she wants the job, making her ambitions and her visions for what the party ought to look and sound like abundantly clear.

[Adam Fleming]

But, Gary, putting you massively on the spot for a political story happening in a different country at an event you weren't at, when, when a political speech maker uses a phrase like time is running out, that's to conjure in the minds and ears of the audience that Keir Starmer's time is running out, isn't it?

[Gary O'Donoghue]

Yeah, in many ways. You know, it's one of those things which you don't have to say out loud, is it? You don't have to name anyone. It reminds me, actually, you know, in the old days when, when there was any kind of hint of leadership, potential leadership contests in Westminster, there used to always be stories about, you know, people installing phone lines in some of those terrace houses behind, behind Milbank, how many phone lines were they putting in, etc. Etc. Today, clearly, it's about going to the basement of. And I'd be intrigued to know which pub it was because I know a few of them in Westminster. But what I don't know, because I've been out of this for so long, is how easy is it to trigger a leadership election? Because both parties over the years have made it harder and harder, haven't they?

[Chris Mason]

Yeah. And the answer is, particularly for Labour, not easy. So not easy mechanically, but then also not easy, history suggests, sort of psychologically, for Labour. Are they in the business, as a parliamentary party, often, of toppling a leader that they themselves have concluded might not be up to much? And recent history suggests no, they're. No, they're not what they would need. Just to answer the question directly, you would need 80 Labour MPs to be up for going public saying that there should be a challenge. That is one heck of a threshold. But at the moment, well, during the last sort of bout of the wobbles earlier this calendar year, there was a handful, I mean, if that of Labour MPs who were publicly willing to say the. The Prime Minister ought to go. And then you've got the issue of any potential wannabe successor not wanting to be seen to be the person who brings the Prime Minister down.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

And presumably you've got plenty of. I mean, they've got the argument is there's plenty of time.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

Isn't there? There's plenty of time.

[Chris Mason]

So. So those around the Prime Minister say, hang on a minute, if I was talking to a Cabinet minister about exactly this, this morning, and the observation being, hang on a minute, only at Christmas at the end of this year, which is mercifully still quite a long way away, only at that point does this Westminster Parliament reach its halfway point, if it runs its full course. And governments that remain unpopular tend to let a Parliament run its full course. So only at Christmas, only in eight or nine months time do we reach the halfway point. And of course, if you're the Prime Minister, you can say, hang on a minute, you can effectively say, this is not the kind of language Keir Starmer would use, certainly not in public. You can say, get lost. I was the guy on the ticket who won this massive majority. Who the hell do you think you are, you know, or words of that. Words to that effect. And also give us time, etc. Etc. And make it clear, as he has repeatedly, that he's going nowhere. In other words, create another barrier to entry to the whole thing, which is you. You do realize there'd be a contest. And a contest, if you're looking at it through the prism of being a Labour MP is arguably unquestionably bad. Whatever. Whoever emerges out of the other side of it because you're having a contest

[Gary O'Donoghue]

in government, you sort of create a whole bunch of other legitimacy questions, don't you? If you replace a leader mid Parliament, because people turn around and say, well, hang on, when did the electorate choose you?

[Chris Mason]

Quite exactly that. Which again is a sort of baked in negative. Whoever you pick.

[Adam Fleming]

And also just on the timeline, we're not even halfway to Christmas yet.

[Chris Mason]

No, in this calendar year, although I've

[Adam Fleming]

discovered my smart speaker, you can ask it how many days to go till Christmas and it'll tell you. And then you get a little joke from Santa, how many are there? I haven't Done it for a few days, because normally I have that number at my fingertips. Anyway, Chris, back to Ms. Raynor's speech. Which pub was it in?

[Gary O'Donoghue]

We want to know.

[Chris Mason]

You know, I have asked that exact question, including of someone who was there.

[Adam Fleming]

Okay.

[Chris Mason]

And they wouldn't tell me. They wouldn't tell me. I think it was because they could. I genuinely think it was because they couldn't remember, rather than because I reckon Gary and I, you know, get you and I, Gary, at some point, maybe even together. But at some point, we'll have both been in the basement of that pub because, you know, there's only finite.

[Adam Fleming]

They don't all have basements. Chris. What I was going to ask, though, was, in terms of policy substance, Ms. Rayner did Zoom in on one particular policy that she's got beef with.

[Chris Mason]

Yes. So this is the idea that has been sort of long in the gestation from the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and Labour wanting to be seen in the big picture, to be punchy and robust on migration, on immigration, and in particular, this idea of increasing the time it would take for people to be able to qualify for indefinite leave to remain. And there was a chunk in Angela Rayner's speech, a fairly small chunk, but it was a chunk about a specific bit of current government policy in which she branded that un British, which is quite a thing, to brand it in that. In that way. Her view being that you can't really. You shouldn't change the rules of the game halfway through, because this could have an impact on people who are already here, who might have assumed on arrival that it would take a certain period of time before that might be something that they could. They could qualify for and actually then discover it would take significantly longer. And there's a fair chunk of Labour MPs, I think more than 100 now have gone public saying they don't much like it. The twist, from their perspective, there would be rebels, is that you can actually do this without actually primary legislation. In other words, there doesn't have to be a point where there's a vote in the Commons now that doesn't. You could still have a situation where the parliamentary party was sufficiently restless that the government felt that it had to tweak things. And actually, I was in a briefing after Prime Minister's questions where it looked like they might be going a bit wobbly on it. They then later insisted they weren't going wobbly.

[Adam Fleming]

Right.

[Chris Mason]

But that doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't one or two wobbles potentially in the mix. But anyway, yeah, so, yeah, there was a particular policy critique in pretty blunt language from Angela Rayner about something that the Home Secretary, who by the way, is widely seen to have her own leadership ambitions, you know, that was a specific thing within what she was saying.

[Adam Fleming]

I'm also just remembering last time Angela Rayner did this and it was when the Tories forced this debate on releasing all the Mandelson files for his vetting and appointment as Ambassador to Washington. And the first high profile Labour MP to stand up and say, oh, hang on, the Government's trying to potentially pull a fast one here by deciding what documents get to be released or exempted for national security. And maybe the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament should be doing that job, was Angela Rayner. So she's been making trouble already.

[Chris Mason]

Indeed. And then after that. But before today, in the immediate hours after the loss for Labour of the Gorson and Denton by election in Greater Manchester, a neighbouring MP by the name of yes, Angela Rayner went on social media and said it was a wake up call, which again is language not wildly dissimilar from the kind of stuff she was saying in the basement of that pub.

[Adam Fleming]

Chris, we'll talk about PMQS today as well, because it was an intriguing example of PMQS that tells us a bit about where our politics is going. And I've got very mixed feelings about watching it, but we'll come on to that in a second. But Gary, focus turns to you now. Quite a few things happening in D.C. today. One of the kind of very visible things was Tulsi Gabbard, who is basically one of the sort of intelligence chiefs now for Trump being questioned on the Hill about the, the war aims. What, what's she been saying?

[Gary O'Donoghue]

Yeah, so Tulsi Gabbard, you know, interesting character, been on a big political journey of her own over the years. Now is what's called the Director of National Intelligence, which is basically the top spy in the country. I mean, she's not a spy, but you know what I mean, she heads up all of the nigh on 20 different agencies that make up the intelligence community here. And you'll remember at the beginning of this war, 18 days ago, the White House said that there was an imminent nuclear threat from Iran the regime posed and that was the justification for the attacks. Well, her evidence today, or at least her written evidence that she submitted to the committee said that in fact, after the 12 day war last year, Iran's nuclear capacities had been obliterated. Fine. That's what Donald Trump has been saying, but she also said there'd been no efforts to rebuild those capacities at all since then, that they were cemented in the ground, these enrichment capacities. Problem was, when it got to the actual hearing, she wouldn't say it. And Democrats kept pressing her to say it and she wouldn't say it. And they kept pressing her on a whole bunch of other things as well, including whether Xi and others had warned the president that neighboring countries in the Gulf would be attacked by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, uae, Qatar, these places, because he has expressed some surprise that that had happened and said none of these great minds had expected that. And intelligence community has been warning about things like that, consequences like that for years, including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the oil shock that that has created. So a lot of pressure. And I think really what comes out of all this is that there is a significant sort of dislocation in the messaging around this war from the administration that they are struggling to define certain things like what is imminent and what isn't imminent. They're struggling also to find a way of justifying why this American president, who promised not to get involved in foreign wars, is so involved and struggling to articulate why there was this kind of threat or this supposed threat within weeks to the American homeland. All these things are proving problematic. And that's a political problem, massive political problem. But it's starting to, you know, the war is starting to have concrete effects on every American. You know, dollar average price of gas is now 350 a gallon here, which is 25% up from what it was, I think, three weeks ago. Those sorts of things really, really matter to voters and the sort of things people hone in on at a time when people are worried about the cost of living and at a time where they're approaching these midterm elections in November, where if, you know, for those who don't follow these things closely, every single seat in the House is contested and a third of the Senate is contested. And while at the moment the Republicans have a razor thin majority in the House of Representatives, that could easily go. And in those midterms, presidents often get, even though they're not on the ballot paper, they often get punished. So there are all sorts of things coming together that means that this conflict and finding an off ramp is becoming increasingly urgent, I think, for this administration.

[Chris Mason]

Gary, I wonder how much might this be in the president's mind at the moment that with those midterms relatively imminent and then the potential kind of loss of power, loss of political sway that he could have after it, that he needs to crack on with stuff, that he needs to do that as soon as possible. There might be a limit to what he can do the other side of November. So crack on with it now.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

Yeah, I mean, I think that's true. I mean, I think that there is also a general temptation by a second term, and obviously this is a split second term, but second term presidents and presidents who are approaching those last years, despite their protestations that their focus always going to be on the domestic, the economy, stupid, etc. That they all get drawn in to foreign adventures one way or another, that they, you know, feel that's the only place because they have significant, significant executive power in that realm where they can make a difference. They get frustrated about not being able to make change at home. And even though, you know, the Republicans control Congress, Congress is sclerotic. You know, it gets, you know, the big beautiful bill. Yes. But it gets very little done. Even if you control both houses, even with narrow majority, it gets just very little done. And so I think that there's something in that. And of course, you know, presidents are often accused of going what they might call legacy hunting. You know, what have I, what can I show history that I have actually achieved? All these things are there. But he is worried about the midterms as well, I think, in, you know, in political terms, because he just doesn't like losing. He hates the idea of losing. It's a sort of visceral thing for Donald Trump. And so all these things are, I think, causing a sort of veering about in the messaging day in, day out. And the White House, I think in terms of its communications efforts, struggles to keep up with this president because he is so often out there. You know, you can't say this president isn't transparent. He's out there twice a day sometimes just riffing. And you know, the rest of the administration kind of has to follow and clean up afterwards.

[Adam Fleming]

Tell you what, the vocabulary on newscast this week has been world class. On Monday, Chris was talking about wags. Yesterday I was talking about old Coves. And today, Gary, you've talked about things being sclerotic, which means rigid or unresponsive.

[Chris Mason]

I like, I love legacy hunting as a phrase. I think that's fascinating in terms of a political, you know, the mindset of a politician who is, knows they're ticking towards the, the end, if you like, of their time, even if it's a

[Gary O'Donoghue]

few years they really care about.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

You know, posthumous reputation. It's a kind of one of those sort of philosophical things. Why would you care about what people thought once you'd gone? But people do.

[Adam Fleming]

Gary just going back to Tulsi Gabbard's testimony to Congress, we talked about, about the sort of, the sort of the shifting sands around the aur. Origins of the war. But she also gave a quite sort of subtle description of what's been achieved so far.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

Yeah, she, I mean, she, you know, she says that they, there's been, you know, substantial degradation of their military capacity, etc. The intriguing thing she said is the regime remains intact. Now, again, this intact, but degraded is

[Adam Fleming]

what she said, wasn't it?

[Gary O'Donoghue]

Yeah, but Donald Trump had said, you know, we've wiped out the leadership. We've wiped out at least two echelons of leadership. So, you know, there is some tension there in terms of, you know, to what extent are you getting at the people who you think are the are the problem and to what extent, you know, how deep is their bench, as they would say, in sporting terms in the United States, you know, how many people are in reserve. So there's that. And of course, that is the problem they face. Because when do you stop? Because there's certainly no sign, and the president admitted it this week, last week, rather, there's no sign of what perhaps Israel has been hoping for and has sort of called for explicitly, and what the Americans would like to see, which is some sort of popular organized uprising that could replace the regime, because we know that the threats are there and we know that this regime has murdered protesters on the streets, tens of thousands of them. So the impetus to sort of come out and find some sort of organized alternative seems a long way off as well.

[Adam Fleming]

Gary I can also imagine some people interpreting what Tulsi Gabbard has said and both the things we've just talked about as being somebody who's not totally convinced about this war, and that may or may not be the case with her. But there are lots of other people who are being clearly unconvinced. And I'm just thinking, but like Joe Rogan, the podcaster, he's been casting doubt on this whole enterprise as well.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And later on today, we're going to get an interview with Joe Kent on who's going to give an interview. He's the guy who resigned yesterday who was effectively Tulsi Gabbard's deputy, very Trumpian, but also saying, you know, couldn't stay on because he didn't think Iran was an imminent threat. Very close to Tulsi Gabbard and she has, you know, she's been a very, you know, part of, part of that right wing movement has been very skeptical about. Apparently even in 2019, she was telling, selling, you know, no war with Iran T shirts. Apparently that was one thing she once did. So, yeah, Xi. And people say this about the Vice President as well, of that mindset that believes these foreign entanglements are a mistake for the United States. And of course, parts of the MAGA base and parts of Donald Trump's support thought that's what Donald Trump thought as well. Until, you know, these new adventures have started. Venezuela, Middle East, a flirtation with even Greenland, of course.

[Adam Fleming]

Right, Gary, I'm going to let you go because there's lots of things for you to monitor in Washington. And happy to have a drink with you in the basement of a Westminster pub next time you're back.

[Chris Mason]

Oh, we're Washington One.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

I'd love it, Chris.

[Adam Fleming]

As promised, today's PMQs. I'll tell you why I was in two minds about it.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine your facial expression watching PMQS today.

[Adam Fleming]

Well, this is the thing. So I didn't watch it in real time. I heard about it afterwards and I thought, oh, this is a new low in the world of leader of the Opposition asking a set of questions. Prime Minister answering a whole different set of questions and using it to attack the leader of the opposition. I thought this, yeah, this is going to sound like, not very edifying. But then when I actually watched it an hour or so later, it was quite a dramatic bit of politics. That tells you quite a lot about where the Conservatives and the, and labor are.

[Chris Mason]

Yes. So what you had was Kemi Badenoch standing up and she has all of her questions. And the part of the game on a Wednesday morning at Westminster is what will the leader of the Opposition ask about? And obviously it's a choice for them. And then they've got to decide how frequently do you pursue a particular topic or a particular question if that question is not answered, if it is swerved or ducked or whatever. And Kemi Badenot decided she was gonna ask about Peter Mandelson and the files that we got a week ago. A week ago on Wednesday. But after PMQ's a week ago, in other words, she hadn't had a chance to ask the Prime Minister about it. And there was some criticism of the Prime Minister and the government for doing what they did a week ago on Wednesday afternoon. In other words, just after the point that Keir Starmer had left the House of Commons. So she asks him whether he had spoken to Peter Mandelson during the whole business of his recruitment as ambassador in Washington. And the Prime Minister didn't answer, but chose various answers that had absolutely nothing to do with Peter Mandelson. So one was Kevin Badenoch's position on the war in the Middle east and the other was Kerry Badenot's position and her view about her Shadow Justice Secretary, Nick Timothy, who'd been saying some stuff on social media. And so this conversation, almost at cross purposes, went on for ages, where you got these questions and you got answers that were completely unrelated. Now, what the two of them were trying to do was point out to the audience why the leadership and judgment of their opponent, in their view, wasn't up to much. That's what they were each trying to do, but they were each using totally different case studies in order to do it. Now, if you're of the view that Prime Ministers, or indeed anyone in the House of Commons, ought to make a reasonable stab at answering the question that they've been asked, then there would be considerable steam probably pouring out of your ears today, because, to be frank, those questions weren't asked, answered. But, yeah, that's that. That was kind of what the two of them were doing. And then the curious, the added absurdity into the mix of it was leaving us laughing in the press gallery was that on a couple of occasions, Kemi Badenoch delivered some quite sort of withering putdowns and then sat down, forgetting that at the end of a put down, she actually needs to ask a question because it's Prime Minister's questions. So it was almost like the Prime Minister either forgot or chose not to answer. And on various occasions, Kemi Badenot forgot to ask a question, which is why the whole business of asking questions and answering them was sort of even more bizarre than PMQs can often be.

[Adam Fleming]

I'm going to say something that's going to sound really trite now, but for me it was just a reminder that everything is politics now and everything gets weaponized. So Kemi Badenok was asking about a person who is under investigation by the police for potential misconducts in public office. And we haven't heard from Lord Mandelson on the record in person, but we understand that he denies all those things and says he never acted for personal gain or in a way that was criminal. But then you've got Keir Starmer attacking Kemi Basenok for her position over an active conflict. And in the old days, that's just that would have Been kind of not really territory that you went into in this format. Yeah, but both those things are now just totally fair game politically.

[Chris Mason]

Yes, I think that's right. I mean, look, the Prime Minister is absolutely determined whenever he gets the chance and this has been the case for a while now to make an argument that says he is proud of his conviction and judgment around the UK's posture regarding the war in the Middle east. And that in his view the Conservatives to an extent and reform to a greater extent have occupied lots of different positions that, and he, and he sees that as a kind of key test of judgment and your capacity to be Prime Minister. And he argues. And he would, wouldn't he? But he argues that he passed that test and can evade knocking. Nigel Farage failed to. Kebi Badenok is absolutely keen to prosecute an argument that says that the. As she would see it, one of, you know, the best case study in proving that Keir Starmer is a duff leader is that he appointed Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington and so she'll take every opportunity she can to make that argument. He makes an argument in return about the judgments that she made around the war. Oh, and by the way, when Nigel Farage asked a question at PMQS about drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea, the answer that came back was about Nigel Farage's position on the war in the Middle East. In other words, he kind of got the same treatment. He asked a question and got a different answer. So yeah, I mean you're right, sort of everything being politicized. I mean I think both sides would say they are reasonable point, they are reasonable case studies in the leadership failings of their opponent in those moments. But I mean, yeah, I think that wider point about sort of everything being political is a, is a, is a fair one.

[Adam Fleming]

The other thing that came to mind watching it is as Keir Starmer becomes ever more enthusiastic about using his position on the war as a tool to beat his opponents. Well, he's opening up yet more opportunities for then Donald Trump to attack him. Yeah, that's, that's, he's raising the salience of that ever higher.

[Chris Mason]

I think that's right. I mean perhaps that ship has sailed

[Adam Fleming]

like the HMS Dragon finally did eventually.

[Chris Mason]

Yes, I suddenly realized I was, I

[Adam Fleming]

was about to, I think we need some new metaphors.

[Chris Mason]

We do, yeah. Yes, yes, it does, it does. And for me now the intriguing thing, and this is kind of interesting into sort of Gary's day to day reporting, I no longer, I know he's he's now gone. But the is does the, the repeated nature of Donald Trump sort of doubling down on what he sees as the leadership failings of Keir Starmer mean that that is going to be a sort of permanent position that he can't be shifted from? Or as is often the case with Donald Trump, it's not because he sort of, I don't know, forgets or changes his mind or whatever, and we don't know the answer to that. But, but it, it's certainly not a single barbed comment that then disappears into the rearview mirror.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

Right?

[Adam Fleming]

Chris, thank you very much.

[Chris Mason]

Thank you.

[Adam Fleming]

And thank you to you too for listening to this episode of Newscast, which has now come to an end at about 7pm on Wednesday evening. But don't worry, we'll be back with another episode very soon.

[Chris Mason]

Newscast, newscast from the BBC. From one newscaster to another, thank you so much for making it to the

[Adam Fleming]

end of this episode.

[Gary O'Donoghue]

You clearly do.

[Adam Fleming]

In the words of Christmas Mason, Ooze stamina. Can I also gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds?

[Gary O'Donoghue]

Tell everyone you know.

[Adam Fleming]

And don't forget, you can email us [e-mail] or if you're that way inclined,

[Gary O'Donoghue]

send us a WhatsApp on [phone].

[Adam Fleming]

Be assured, I promise we listen to everyone.

[Chris Mason]

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