C (2:25)

Blimey.

A (2:26)

Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.

C (2:28)

And it is Chris at home having just hair dried. My Underpants, because I'm off to China following the Prime Minister for the next few days and I didn't get the whole washing cycle quite right.

D (2:38)

And it is Henry in the studio with Adam with nothing so dramatic as that kind of sartorial story behind my presence here.

A (2:47)

And we'll be going around the world with Lee Doucet shortly. But let's stick with Westminster, Chris. And Henry's beat. Chris. I wonder if the big theme of this first month of this year has been trouble on the left, trouble on the right of British politics, but the source of trouble is the same Reform uk.

C (3:05)

Yeah, I think that's a reasonable kind of digest in terms of the domestics. And I think you throw into that the additional curveball, certainly from the Prime Minister's perspective, of Donald Trump and what he has been saying. So whenever the Prime Minister has been attempting to set the agenda, make some news of his own about what he thinks the government is achieving on behalf of the country, he gets knocked off course by headlines elsewhere. So, I mean, right back to the very first day of the political year, just over three weeks ago, I was in Reading. The Prime Minister was at a community centre. He wanted to talk about the cost of living, that there was Labour folk outside the station handing out mocked up rail tickets to talk about what the Government's doing for rail fairs in England. We go into this community center, you know, he's having a digestive biscuit and a cup of tea and milling amongst the tables. And then he comes to talk to us reporters and we ask him about Venezuela and then we ask him about Greenland. And then fast forward a little further on, he was again due to be out and about talking domestic, talking cost of living, because that comes up in all of the focus groups that the Government does as a, you know, key issue, of course, for millions of people. And again, we were talking about Donald Trump, we were talking about the international picture. And then, as you say, on top of that, layered on top of that challenge for labor, challenge for the Conservatives, is Reform UK and what they've been doing, because they've had a busy month, too.

A (4:32)

And Henry, in terms of Keir Starmer's management of the Labour Party, that's become a big story, especially in the last couple of days, because of one Andy Burnham.

D (4:40)

Yeah. And I think actually if we'd recorded this just a few days ago before Andrew Gwynn, the former labor mp, who was suspended from the party over offensive messages which were leaked before he'd quit creating this vacancy in Gorton and Denton, I think we'd have said that Secure Starmer had pretty, pretty well improved, actually, the mood between him and the parliamentary Labor Party, albeit from an extremely low base over 2026 so far. But with Andy Burnham showing his hand, declaring that he wanted to become the labor candidate for that by election, which is going to take place actually in just a month's time, that presented Kirstam with a range of options, all of them bad in different ways. And I think a lot of people in the Labor Party, even some who object to what K Star would has done, would concede that from that range of options and from his own point of view, Kamer probably went for the least bad option. I not having a plausible leadership challenger who we know would like to be Prime Minister at some point as an MP with the capability to challenge him. However, in the act of going for that option, in the act of blocking Andy Burnham, he has aggravated and inflamed what were already some pretty difficult divisions within the parliamentary Labour Party.

A (6:00)

And we can hear how some of that has played out in the last couple of days with Andy Burnham reacting to the fact that he will not be the Labour candidate in this by election, and then Keir Starmer having to defend not just to the public, but a lot of his own colleagues, why he took that action of blocking Andy Burnham.

D (6:15)

Andy Burnham's doing a great job as the Mayor of Manchester, but having an election for the Mayor of Manchester when it's not necessary would divert our resources away from the elections that we must have and that we must fight and win. And resources, whether that's money or people, need to be focused on the elections that we must have, not elections that we don't have.

A (6:39)

Are you making the NEC decision, Mr. Bernard?

C (6:41)

I'm not making any comment. I said what I needed to say and here I am back in my.

A (6:46)

Job, full focus on my job as.

D (6:49)

Mayor of Greater Manchester.

A (6:50)

Do you think Keir Starmer is scared of you not making any further comment?

C (6:53)

I've said everything that I needed to say.

A (6:56)

You frustrated my job.

B (6:57)

Now, thank you.

A (6:58)

Now, Chris, not to sound like an episode of Feedback, but can you just explain to Radio 4 and newscast listeners why we devoted so much attention to this, which to some people seems like a sort of internal processy thing in the Labour Party about who might potentially at some point have been the candidate in a by election, let alone whatever the result of the by election or whatever leadership contest might have come as a result of it in five months time?

C (7:23)

Well, because, in short, to pick up on that last Observation, it could have determined who was Prime Minister later this year. That's the simple truth. As to why there was so much significance attached to this. Now, that wasn't certain by any means. There was a all sorts of ramifications that could have stood in the way of that, even with Andy Burnham as Labour's candidate in this by election. But that was why this was as dominating news wise as it was. And it loops back, Adam, to your opening question about the the influence of Reform uk. Because there is a conversation that is going on in the Labour Party has been doing for months for first, privately and increasingly publicly, where the Labour Party, from the Prime Minister down, are reflecting with horror and panic frankly about the prospect, the possibility, albeit it's a long way off the next general election, but the possibility of losing to Reform uk. The Prime Minister's talked publicly about how he can sleep easy at night when there's a Conservative government, even though as a Labour figure he'd rather have a Labour government. But for him, Reform UK would be something different. And that question about Reform UK and their rise is what turbocharges all of the conversations within the Labour Party when you have a unpopular party, an unpopular government and an unpopular Prime Minister around who is the best person, from Labour's perspective, to take that fight to reform in the coming years. And that's what puts rocket fuel under the Andy Burnham question. All of this is symptomatic of that bigger picture fear around reform.

D (8:56)

And just to pick up on Chris's point about how that fear really sits at everything, I mean, look, clearly part of the decision, though they wouldn't admit it publicly, part of the decision to block Andy Burnham was at least influenced by the possibility that were he an mp, he would try to become leader of the Labour Party at some point. But publicly, explicitly, government ministers and Labour figures have been saying, you heard a bit of it from Keir Starmer there. They could not risk Andy Burnham leaving the Greater Manchester mayoralty and there having to be a by election for that which Reform UK might win. Well, hang on a second. It's a relatively new position which has only been contested three times, but the Labour candidate, Andy Burnham, has won 63% of the vote, at least on all those occasions. And now publicly, Labour figures are saying that if there were to be a by election for it, Reform uk, a political party which barely existed a couple of years ago, might win it. That's an extraordinary admission. It is essentially an admission that for all we rightly don't necessarily focus that much on polling they clearly believe the public opinion polls that we see at the heart of this Labor Party and in Downing street, because their decisions are visibly influenced by them.

A (10:08)

So basically, labor figures behind the scenes are contemplating a world where if you had a. A vote to be mayor of Greater Manchester, Labour's vote would be, what, more than cut in half because of reform?

D (10:18)

Yeah, essentially. I mean, that. That's the implication. Now, I'm not. I'm not sure they really did think that the Labour Party would lose to reform, but clearly they believe they would have to pile so much political resource and financial resource, which, you know, often for political parties at this stage of the cycle, a few years away from a general election is quite limited. You know, clearly they believed that it was not worth the risk, but, I mean, it's quite something for that contest, not even to just be an obvious walk in the park for them.

A (10:46)

And, Chris, when this happened with Andy Burnham's blockage by Labour's National Executive Committee, I heard quite a few Labour MPs muttering that there would be consequences going forward for Keir Starmer of doing that. But then once I took a step back, I realized the people doing that muttering were people who tend to mutter about Keir Starmer publicly.

C (11:04)

Anyway, couple of quick observations. So the additional sort of reform is everywhere you look thing from the Labour Party's perspective is that part of the argument that Andy Burnham was making about wanting to contest the by election, the parliamentary vacancy in Greater Manchester was that he would be the most credible candidate to defeat reform in that contest. And then you fast forward to, as you say, that moment where the group of officers on the. On the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party were making their decision on a teams call on Sunday morning. Consider this for a moment. The Prime Minister staring into a laptop or a screen on a teams call at 11 o' clock on a Sunday morning, days before he will meet President Xi of China in Beijing. It's just a sort of little snapshot of a Prime Ministerial week and crucially, how important he saw it to be on that call himself and casting a vote at himself. As far as the views within the parliamentary Labour Party on it, we've seen around 50 Labour MPs, we're told, who've written to the Prime Minister urging him to sort of rethink the blocking of Andy Burnham. What's that? About one in eight Labour MPs, as Henry and I have been reflecting, I think from Downing Street's perspective, broadly speaking, versus the alternative reality of Andy Burnham heading towards being the candidate potentially in that by election, with all of the kind of hullabaloo that would have followed for ages following that. I think, broadly speaking, they. They'll be relatively pleased at having decided what they did decide and having the NEC on their side, which was a big part of Keir Starmer's, as they saw it, rebuilding of the Labour Party when they were in opposition, having taken over from Jeremy Corbyn in the hope of just parking. That whole question of Andy Burnham, if not the wider question of leadership, which absolutely remains there, remains absolutely live, because the alternative, from their perspective, would have been considerably worse.

A (12:52)

Chris Mason, such a good political editor, he knows the Prime Minister's choice of video conferencing software. Right.

C (12:58)

I did find myself asking that of somebody the other day. You know, it's always. It's always the detail, isn't it? Just seek the detail.

A (13:04)

So I wonder, what was his background? Did he have a normal background or like a graphic background or focus on. But you can't tell where they are.

C (13:11)

I wonder if it's like the Emirates. Does he have a background of the Emirates that was. Yes, he had a very rough Mancunian Sunday, didn't the. The Prime Minister, what with the football result against Man United and the whole business of, you know, having to come to a decision of involving a. Yeah.

D (13:24)

And he was there in the Emirates Stadium on Sunday afternoon, by the way, watching in person as they were defeated by Manu. I just think one other thing we should reflect is that the other political party which is spooking labor politicians, including in the Greater Manchester context, is the Green Party. And when you talk about the Gorton and Denton by election, the. By election, we are definitely not the mayoral one, but the Gorton and Denton by election for that parliamentary constituency. I've been speaking to Labour MPs, who not only fear they might lose it to Reform, some of them fear they might lose it to the Greens, or indeed that they might come in third place behind both of those parties. And that is one of those tensions for Keir Starmer is that the Labour Party appears to be bleeding support in different directions.

A (14:07)

Right, let's look at the other side of the House of Commons and what's going on with the Conservative Party, where the theme there has been people leaving the Conservative Party and moving further down the Green bench to go and sit with Reform uk. Lots of defections from the Tories to Reform. And Henry, the one that kind of caught everyone's attention because there's been quite a few of these defections now, but the kind of the blockbuster one was a classic Westminster combination of big news, drama, farce. And it was all happening, basically while you were on air on the Today program reporting politics, Kemi Badenok, the Tory leader, was at her kitchen table recording this video. And we don't know which software she used to record it or what laptop she was using. Chris hasn't found that out for us yet. But anyway, here is the substance of what she then posted on X.

D (14:55)

This morning, I removed the Conservative Whip from Robert Jenrick after dismissing him from the Shadow Cabinet. I was very sorry to be presented with clear, irrefutable evidence, not just that he was preparing to defect, but he was planning to do so in the most damaging way possible to the Conservative Party and his Shadow Cabinet colleagues.

A (15:17)

Now, Henry, done in quite a modern way by posting it on X with a blurred video conferencing background. But it's a tale as old as time in Westminster, isn't it, trying to spike arrival. So you know the arrival is going to do something that's going to cause you a problem. What's the next best thing you can do? Cause them a problem before they do it.

D (15:34)

Yeah, and she did it with real panache. And let's not lose sight, by the way, of how extraordinary it is that she got wind of what was happening, of what turned out to be the case that Robert Jenrick was, at least in fairly advanced discussions with Reform UK about defecting. Although from the sounds of things, Kemi paid not booting him out. The Conservative Party accelerated those discussions at the very least, by some days, perhaps.

A (15:55)

By weeks and months, because Nigel Farage later said that the chances of Genrick defecting, he thought, was about 60, 40, and then by lunchtime, it became 100 0.

D (16:05)

Yeah. And Robert Genrick now says he had already made up his mind at Christmas to do so at some point. So there are various contested claims about how likely he was to actually join Reform uk, but she got wind of it. And I think we still don't have the full version of or uncontested version of this side of events, because there's various sort of different claims. But essentially Cami Badenock seems to have got hold of it because someone in Robert Jenrick's team blabbed. It's unclear whether they blabbed intentionally, deciding to tell the Conservative Party what was going on or whether they left a piece of paper hanging around on a printer. I mean, that was the version. The story about the printer was the version the Conservatives were telling for a bit. But now there's Some suggestion that might have been to sort of protect a mole. Anyway, it really was high drama. And Kemi Banoch played a bad hand very well. I think by common consensus. However, it's still a bad hand. I mean, it is quite something that the man whom she pretty narrowly beat to become leader of the Conservative Party barely more than a year ago has now decided that the future of right wing politics in this country is better served by him being in Reform UK and not the.

C (17:16)

The key moment we learned, I think, courtesy of the Spectator, for Robert Genrick, was a conversation with his dad on Boxing Day where they were kicking around, which was, in their view, the most sort of viable vehicle of the right politically and who was the most viable leader. And Robert Jenrick answered his dad's questions to the effect of Reform and Nigel Farage and sort of argues that that was the point, that all the dots were joined in his mind.

A (17:42)

Well, we need to get an interview with Jenrich Sr. Don't we? Right then. This is how the story unfolded that day. And this is where the. The sort of the farce bit came in. Nigel Farage was at his Reform UK hq, ready to unveil Robert Jenrick as this new big blockbuster defection we were all watching on tv. This was all happening live. Drum roll. It happened. But then Robert Jenrick was nowhere to be seen, at least for a minute or two.

B (18:08)

If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen, on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

D (18:45)

I can't offer you drinks all round, but I'll buy Kemi lunch next week and say thank you.

A (18:50)

And on that note, I will welcome.

D (18:52)

Robert Jenrick into this room and into Reform uk. He hasn't changed his mind, does he?

A (19:06)

I can't find him.

D (19:16)

Is he coming? Nick, it's been a funny. This would be a very funny.

A (19:21)

End of the day, okay, Too awkward to listen to any more of that. But Chris, there's a greater truth I think, revealed there, which is that Reform UK still seems a bit ragtag at times, but also Nigel Farage gets away with things like that.

C (19:36)

Yeah, he has a knack of being able to Pull off those moments. I mean, it would have been a bit of a struggle if generic had been missing for much longer. But he's more comfortable in those moments of sort of ad libbing than some of his political leader rivals would be. I thought what was interesting, I mean, it's very much kind of choreography just didn't have time to get its shoes on that day, which is what in news and journalistic terms made it. Made it so fascinating because it had significance to it. And then it also had farce. Put those two things together and you have a kind of corking news story, actually, Adam, on that point about reform choreography. Up until now, a lot of these big reveals have been handled, I think, sort of very well. They've not leaked. They've managed to tantalize those in the room as to, including me on numerous occasions as to who it might be. And then it creates a bit more of a moment. And then they managed that with Suella Braverman in the last. In the last couple of days. But obviously with the Robert Jenrick thing, because of Kemi Badenok's sort of tactical masterstroke of moving in a difficult position in the way that she did with her video and all the rest of it, the whole thing was fast forwarded and symptomatic of that, I think, was the sort of farcical where is he? Is he coming? Moment.

A (20:49)

And Henry, with Suella Braverman's defection to reform on Monday, there was a revelation of just how bad the blood is in the Conservative Party, certainly in relation to her, in terms of the press release that the Conservative Party put out to mark her departure. And there was two versions of that.

D (21:08)

Yeah. The first version had a line along the lines of. I'm paraphrasing, we have tried our best to help Suella with her mental health, but she was clearly very unhappy. That was then excised an hour and a half later, and I stress an hour and a half later because. And the Conservatives claimed it was issued in error, but it did take quite a time for that error to be corrected. I mean, I think it's unsurprising. There's a lot of bad blood in the Conservative Party right now because Suella Bravman, I think if you'd asked any of us at the start of this week who was the most likely Conservative MP who'd be next to defector reform, we'd have said her. So it wasn't surprising in that sense. But this is still somebody who ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party, who has a decade's worth of parliamentary friendships on her own side, who was home Secretary of great office of state under two prime ministers, who has decided to go and join a rival whose stated ambition is to kill the Conservative Party. So it is actually quite an emotional business on all sides at affection.

A (22:10)

No. That brief rustling you might have heard in the newscast studio was the arrival of chief international correspondent Lee Doucet. Hello, Lisa. Thanks for creeping in.

B (22:18)

There's just this mood of weighing on all of us, of look at Henry, of disbelief and the S word keeps coming up, surprise, you know, unpredictability.

C (22:29)

I don't know what you're going to say.

B (22:30)

And it's not January. It's not January. It's not even over yet.

A (22:33)

Now, Elise, not to ambush you, but we went back into the archives of 27 days ago to find the Radio 4 program where the big correspondents make predictions about the year ahead and we find what your prediction was. So let's remind ourselves now, if one.

B (22:48)

Way or another, Nicolas Maduro does step down or is forced down this year, this has huge consequences for Venezuela, a pivotal political player in the region, also a major oil producer. This could embolden President Trump, who is already intervening. He's already intervened at the end of last year in the elections in Honduras and Chile, where the politician he was backing did actually come through, squeak through. And so this may intensify his view that just how Russia looks at his backyard, China looks at their backyard, he looks at his backyard. And as a Canadian, I can say too little bit nervous as to as well as there and is going even though we've already said that he says he doesn't like regime change if he feels that he can kind of get away with it one way or another. This has implications for Iran and many other parts of the world.

A (23:34)

So, Lys, what are this weekend's lottery numbers going to be?

B (23:36)

I'm already, you know, we were asked what's the place to watch Caracas. I was asked about the person to watch. I'm sounding smug.

A (23:45)

No, not at all. No, you're standing smart.

B (23:47)

The place to the person to watch the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah. Come on here, you. Come on in. You're, you're a learned man. Give me a grade.

D (23:55)

10 out of 10. I'm very impressed. I'm very impressed. And I think probably there are some people in the British government who could have done with listening to that program because, I mean, I'm not saying that they were caught completely unaware. Many of us had seen tensions escalating in Venezuela and in the region. But certainly when I was speaking to people, senior people in government in the first few days of January, I think they were surprised by the extent of the operation that the US Administration ended up carrying out and by how quickly in 2026 it happened.

B (24:25)

And let's just remember why they were softly, softly didn't criticize it because they, well, some made some reference to the respect for international law and said they were very happy to see the back of Nicolas Maduro. But, okay, I'm going to go back into BBC mode now and then. And let's be clear, as unpredictable as some of the British politicians are, would you say that in terms of unpredictability, President Trump trumps them all and that even by, when he was asked in a New York Times interview, what stops you? He said, my own mind, only my mind and only my morality. And he likes to keep everyone guessing. I've said this on this program before. So much as I would like to be seen as the astrologer in chief of newscast, we just don't know. And now I've cancelled trips to India, about to cancel a trip to Pakistan, might hold on to a little family trip to Canada. But we're all, we're all looking at commercial airliners who are canceling, you know, moves of warships and warplanes into the Persian Gulf. That is what we're fixed on these days.

A (25:29)

Well, let's remind ourselves how some of this unfolded. Here is Donald Trump talking to Fox News about that daring raid by US Special forces on Caracas that brought Nicolas Maduro and his wife to the US to face trial.

B (25:40)

I was told, and I was told.

C (25:42)

By real military people that there's no other country on earth that could do such a maneuver. If you would have seen what happened.

B (25:50)

I mean, I watched it literally like.

C (25:52)

I was watching a television show. And if you would have seen the speed, the violence. You know, they say that the speed, the violence, they use that term just, it was an amazing thing, an amazing job that these people did. There's nobody else could have done anything like it.

A (26:09)

Then Donald Trump's attention moved from Latin America to the top of the world, and he explained what he wanted to do with Greenland. In other words, own it.

D (26:18)

By the way, I will say this about Greenland.

C (26:22)

We need Greenland from a national security situation.

A (26:26)

It's so strategic right now.

C (26:28)

Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.

D (26:33)

We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.

A (26:38)

And Denmark, Chuck is not gonna be able to do it. But then actually, this is a rare occasion where Donald Trump raised the tension but then lowered it again.

B (26:47)

He brought it right to the brink. I mean, who among us? And I'm sure many of the listeners heard about that moment in the snowy peaks of the Swiss Alps at the World Economic Forum, Davos, which is the stage of stage for the world's glittering elite, and not so glittering elite, that is. President Trump made his way with an interruption. He had to turn back. His plane had a malfunct. They were waiting to see what he would say when he took the stage in Davos. And then there was that collective sigh of relief when he said he could use force. And if the US Used force, in his words, we are unstoppable, but we are not going to use force. So everyone said. And by the time it ended, after discussions, private discussions with the man who we now describe as the Trump whisperer, the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutter, who once called President Trump Daddy, he's been trying to roll back on that scene. It was just a joke, but President Trump has been playing it up. But he did call him Daddy.

C (27:45)

Trump sounds like an impossible thing to.

B (27:47)

Roll back so critically and so forcefully to NATO members and telling them, you've got to significantly increase your defense budgets. So President Trump flew back to Washington saying, as he had to say, because even though he backed down, he need to have a win. He said, I have been given, in his words, total access to Greenland. And then we talked about this, how when the Danish Prime Minister came here to see Sir Keir Starmer, how when the Danes were asked about it, when the Greenlanders were asked about it, that's not what they agreed to. Sovereignty is not up for grabs. And Greenland, they keep saying, is not for sale. And we have to keep emphasizing There is a 1951 agreement with the United States which allows them to establish bases, to post soldiers. That was renewed in recent years, updated in recent years. All of the architecture is there to work with the Greenlanders in Denmark, to work with the NATO military alliance to get the kind of security framework assurances that President Trump says he needs in the Arctic. So while the NATO military alliance, including Britain, are saying it will be collective security, President Trump hasn't really backed away from saying, like a real estate dealer, I need to own it. I don't want to lease it.

A (29:03)

Yeah. And, Chris, I mean, I wonder if Keir Starmer feels a bit vindicated about his position on Greenland, because at the start of that week, which was only last week, he said, everyone basically chill out and let's see what happens. And actually, that turned out to maybe be a wise strategy.

B (29:18)

Yeah.

C (29:18)

I mean, certainly speaking to folk around the prime minister, they do believe that they had a good week around all of those questions, difficult diplomatic questions. And that's to put it lightly, given how they had spent so much time and invested so much effort in fostering and developing and nurturing that relationship with President Trump, that he would be publicly the prime minister, outspoken. Not just that, but then crank it up a bit in tone and rhetoric a couple of days later around what the prime minister regarded as a kind of baseline principle that he had to defend in public, the sanctity of the sovereignty of Greenland for the Greenlanders and the Kingdom of Denmark. They were aware it could have a kind of blowback, and it did with those spiky remarks, very spiky remarks from the president about the government's deal on the Chagos Islands. But, yeah, there was a key line, wasn't there, a key phrase the prime minister used in that news conference that he gave when he wanted to be out and about around the country talking about domestic issues, when he talked about their desire for calm discussion, which is kind of, if you like his brand, on the kind of international stage diplomatically. And in time, they, like the rest of us, were not certain, you know, how this might pan out, by the way, but in time, that did kind of bear fruit behind the scenes. There were conversations going on during all of that about trying to find some sort of landing zone that both Europe and Washington could live with. But, you know, as we all know and as world leaders know keenly, you can't second guess what, what this occupier of the White House might do or say next.

B (30:55)

Chris and Henry, I'm just wondering what the buzz is in the circles that you talk to, seems under 24 hours a day about the response to Mark Carney's speech. He got a standing ovation at Davos.

A (31:07)

Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration. When integration becomes the source of your subordination.

B (31:45)

So many people. Okay, I'm not going to exaggerate. People did call me or message me saying I wish my prime minister that is, Sir Keir Starmer had been as blunt and candid, and he didn't mention the T word, but everybody knew. No, he's not talking about Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. He's talking about Donald Trump. And it seems that speech really landed.

D (32:04)

I mean, I got a lot of messages and had a lot of conversations with Labour MPs, including some government ministers who had had, I think, read more likely than watched live. Mark Carney's speech and were similarly dazzled, I think is probably the right word, but I think it's too soon to say whether Sakir Starmer would be willing to do the same, in the sense that I don't actually know if he agrees with the pretty stark conclusions that Mark Carney reached. And actually, there were two things that impressed labor mps I heard from about Mark Carney's speech. One was the argument, and the other was actually the clarity of thinking regardless of the conclusions he reached. But if I remember rightly, those conversations were happening on the Wednesday morning last week. It was on the Wednesday afternoon at Prime Minister's Questions, where Keir Starmer used language about Donald Trump that I think would have been unimaginable 24 hours before, let alone at the start of this year, talking about, I will not yield, Britain will not yield. And I do think if you take a step back, Keir Starmer's relationship with Donald Trump and the way he conducts himself around Donald Trump in public has transformed in the short few weeks of 2026 in, in ways that actually Downing street would not have. I think they would have seen not long ago. The way that Keir Starmer is speaking about Donald Trump as a badge of failure. They, their whole approach was that he would be warm and try to build a warm rapport with him so that he could exercise influence in private. Well, now he is trying to exercise influence and criticize the president in public. I think that's partly about the demands of domestic politics, but I think it is also actually a recognition, particularly when Donald Trump issued that stream of invective about the Chagos Islands that actually. And by the end of the year.

A (33:45)

That was not being on the front.

B (33:48)

Can I just say one thing before Chris jumps in, because this is part of the conversation, is that after the rallying around the flag has subsided, people are now saying, and I had a conversation last night with some Canadians about this who are plugged in, is that. That what is the consequence of being so blunt? Well, first of all, Mark Carney was disinvited from the border. Peace not Necessarily a bad thing saves Canadians a billion dollars. Donald Trump's new organization, he's the chairman for life and he thinks, he kind of says it will work with the UN but it's widely seen as his bid to rival the UN in the further dismantling of the post war institutions. The second thing is President Trump has warned and I wonder whether Sir Keir Starmer's thinking about this now. Is he on his China trip, he said, if Canada does a trade deal with China, I will impose 100% tariffs on you. And for Canada, this is hugely consequential. And Mark Carney knows the numbers. The Canadian economy is 10% of the U.S. economy. 75% of trade goes south of the border to the United States. It's a structural thing. And so the costs are there. And the last thing I will say is that what did Sir Keir Starmer get? We don't know what he said in private to Donald Trump. He's the only NATO member who got, really what you'd have to say is an apology from President Trump who paid fulsome tribute to the heroism of British soldiers, not to Canadian, not to Stoney, not to all the other dozens of NATO forces. So it's still playing dividends for Sir Keir Starmer.

C (35:17)

Yeah, I think when we unpack the strategy of Mark Carney and the strategy of Keir Starmer, and I'm very conscious, Lisa, that I'm heading very much into your specialist territory here rather than mine. But I think given where, where Mark Carney's outlook publicly was on President Trump during his election campaign, vert is over a broadly similar timeline. The outlook publicly and privately that Keir Starmer has had, which has been to be much more warm and instinctively bridge building with Donald Trump as opposed to pushing back against him, I think that goes a long way to explaining where they are right now. That said, there is, I think there's an overlap in terms of their instinct and strategy. And as I talk to you, I'm about to accompany the Prime Minister on this trip to China, the first visit of a British Prime Minister to China since 2018. And he absolutely sees his role, to use that language around middle powers, as trying to place Britain in a relationship with the United States, the European Union and China. That is economically and geopolitically significant. And, and I think in that instance, as I say, that there is an overlap in the thinking that you would hear coming out of the Canadian government and coming out of the British government, even if their manner of articulating it both in tone and rhetoric is different.

B (36:46)

What a measure of the moment that we live in. The first visit by a British prime minister to China since 2018. Mark Carney's visit was the first visit by Canadian prime minister, prime minister since 2017.

C (36:59)

And that tells you something, doesn't it, about how that dynamic has ebbed and flowed in the last decade or so. And at the moment there is a whole rush, isn't there, of leaders heading to Beijing. So the French president there recently, the German chancellor en route, President Trump due there in just a couple of months time.

A (37:15)

Right, Chris, thank you very much and safe travels. Tara, Henry, safe travels back to Westminster. Only about 1.2 miles.

D (37:22)

Similarly treacherous journey at the moment.

A (37:24)

And also lys, as you suggested, you don't really know where you'll be going next because it depends happens in the world.

B (37:29)

But I always know I'll come back to your studio.

A (37:31)

Ah, thank you. And that's it for Newscast's review of 2026. Only 11 months to go until we do the proper review of 2026. Thank you very much for listening to this early first draft of history.

C (37:43)

Newscast, Newscast from the BBC. From one newscaster to another, thank you.

A (37:48)

So much for making it to the.

B (37:50)

End of this episode. You clearly do, in the words of.

C (37:53)

Chris Mason, ooze stamina.

B (37:55)

Can I also gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Tell everyone you know and don't forget, you can email us anytime@newscastbc.co.uk or if you're that way inclined, send us a WhatsApp on +4403301239480.

A (38:18)

Be assured, I promise we listen to everyone.