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- [00:00]
Adam Fleming
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- [00:36]
Jake Stauch
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- [01:38]
Keir Starmer
Hello.
- [01:39]
Adam Fleming
Thank you for your comments about the interview we did with Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, in the previous episode of Newscast. We posted a clip on Instagram and it's had so many comments and a reading them from me is amaz because it's an insight into how hard it is being a parent and actually intriguing to hear how things might change when the social media ban comes in. And then you realize, oh, actually it's so much more than just a ban on some bits of technology. It's an attempt to kind of rewrite the rules around screens and technology for children, which is definitely the point that Bridget Phillipson was trying to make in our conversation with her. And B it's been interesting seeing some of the people who've got involved in the conversation via Instagram. For example, Jo Frost, super nanny herself, has engaged with IT in emoji form. So we've even got childcare professionals who are listening to newscast and responding to some of the things that they've been hearing. So I look forward to seeing how that conversation develops online. And also, please keep your emails and messages coming in We've had loads of them already. Newscastbc.co.uk and you can WhatsApp us on 033-0123 9480 and you know what, Maybe we should get more Cabinet ministers coming in and just talking for half an hour in a really expansive way about their subject area in a way that excites newscast listeners. There's an idea. Right, we're going to excite you now with the Latest on the G7 summit in Evian in France, where Keir Starmer has been representing the UK along with the other leaders of the world's richest economies. And we will hopefully catch up with Chris, who's been there and who interviewed Keir Starmer early on Wednesday morning. And we're going to be joined by Alex Forsyth as well, who is on the ground in the Makerfield constituency in the closing hours of this unprecedented by election campaign. So that's what you'll hear on this
- [03:31]
Alex Forsyth
episode of Newscast, Newscast, Newscast from the BBC.
- [03:36]
Adam Fleming
Humanity's next great voyage begins. We are in the midst of a rupture.
- [03:40]
Alex Forsyth
Nostalgia will not bring back the old order.
- [03:43]
Keir Starmer
Six, seven.
- [03:45]
Adam Fleming
Yeah, it's supposed to be me as a doctor.
- [03:47]
Jake Stauch
Daddy has.
- [03:47]
Adam Fleming
Has also a special connotation thinking about
- [03:50]
Keir Starmer
it like a pan helped.
- [03:53]
Alex Forsyth
Do we play music now or what do we do?
- [03:55]
Adam Fleming
Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio and I think this episode is gonna be a little bit chaotic because all the other members of the cast family are on location with questionable mobile phone signal. So let's see how this goes. This is London calling somewhere in France. Chris, I don't know exactly where you are.
- [04:14]
Chris Mason
To be honest, Adam, neither do I, but I can paint a picture. I am currently traveling backwards. I'm on a minibus. In fact, most of the people on this minibus are currently asleep because as we record at lunchtime on Wednesday, we've been up since about 3:30, 4:00 clock in the morning your time, because we were doing the round of interviews with the Prime Minister that the broadcast political editors do or tend to do on these foreign trips. We're at the G7 in eastern France and we're currently making our way down the motorway and we'll be at the airport in about half an hour or so, I think. But yeah, I've picked a seat that's going backwards.
- [04:51]
Adam Fleming
Chris, some beautiful logistics, travel journalism happening there and plenty of political journalism coming from you in a second as well. Alex is here too. Where are you, Alex?
- [05:02]
Alex Forsyth
Hello. I am in the Makerfield constituency where obviously people might have Noticed there's a bit of a by election taking place, so I've been pounding the good streets of Makerfield to get a sense of it all.
- [05:11]
Adam Fleming
Except Makerfield, as we know, isn't a specific place, it's lots of places.
- [05:16]
Alex Forsyth
It's like a collection of towns kind of just south of Wigan. So, yeah, Makerfield is the constituency, but the place is made up of places like Hindley and Ashton in Makerfield. So it's like a collection of towns and all the bits in between rather than actually a place like people don't say I'm from Makerfield, they say I'm from Ashton in Makerfield or whatever else it might be.
- [05:35]
Adam Fleming
Okay, lots, lots to talk about then, Chris, because you did your interview with Keir Starmer early this morning, made the Today program so I could listen to it over breakfast. And yeah, you were combining a lot of things. Just the potential of what happens after the Makerfield by election on Thursday and the very real global security picture right now. Where do you want to start?
- [05:57]
Chris Mason
So I guess the global security picture has clearly dominated the last couple of days here, as you'd expect at the G7, not least the conversation about the Middle east and Donald Trump's deal with Iran and then Ukraine, because President Zelensky of Ukraine has been here talking to leaders. The Prime Minister emphasizing that he felt there was a real unity around the G7 table on Ukraine, which sounded like a subtext, tacit acknowledgement that, you know, Donald Trump has blown hot and cold on his interest in the Ukraine conflict and his support, indeed, for Kyiv. I think the other thing then, Adam, that sort of overlapped between the conversation here and the one back home is the whole question of defence spending, given that that clearly sits alongside any discussion around global security. And we saw the chief of the defence staff, didn't we, yesterday, setting out his concerns about the current funding plan, the funding plan that led to the now former Defence Secretary John Healey resigning last week. And then of course, there is just the spectacularly large elephant in the room, which is the whole leadership question. And that speech from Wes Streeting, the former Health Secretary yesterday, the interview that he gave to Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight, and then the Prime Minister in the interview that I did, and he said similar things in the other interviews, trying to respond to that in the best way that he. The best way that he can, really, given the circumstances he's in.
- [07:18]
Adam Fleming
And Alex, we didn't do this on the previous episode of Newscast because we were having that big extended conversation with Bridget Phillipson, the education Secretary. But actually, while we were recording that conversation on Tuesday afternoon, Sir Richard Knighton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, was giving evidence to this House of Lords committee and he was being questioned by Lord Robertson. Robertson, who wrote the Defence Review, which was kind of the basis for the big political arguments about how much to spend on defence of the last few weeks. And it was kind of news to me because he was saying that the issue is about how much there is to spend on defence now and the kind of the bills of the mod and the military, it wasn't just about getting the military ready for future wars. It seems like the financial pressures on the mod are even more pressing.
- [08:01]
Alex Forsyth
Yeah. And I mean, this has become such a part of the conversation, hasn't it, over the course of the last few days, since the resignation of John Healey as Defence Secretary in particular. And there's been so much focus, you rightly say, Adam, on the Defence Investment Plan, you know, this idea about how the Government's going to come up with the money for future defence spending to match what they call the Strategic Defence Review, which was this big overlook at what the government might need, what the country might need for its defence and future. But you're right, I mean, this, this is the indication that there's already pressure on budgets, which feeds into the big arguments about what the Government's priorities are, what the government chooses to spend on and the trade offs that it then has to acknowledge publicly that it faces as a consequence of all of that. And just not that everything comes back to the kind of elephant in the room of leadership, but that is sitting behind all of these conversations right now. You know, the choices that are going to face whoever is leading the government in the next few days and weeks. And it's interesting that, you know, you heard Keir Starmer when he was talking to Chris last week, making that sort of argument that, you know, whatever happens in the next few days and weeks, there are going to be choices that have to be made from whoever finds themselves in that seat in number 10.
- [09:08]
Adam Fleming
And Chris, the other thing that was then happening on Wednesday, simultaneously with all of this, was the emergence of this news about this incident with the UK based yacht with a British couple who were crewing it receiving warning shots from, from a Russian vessel off the British coast. And you asked the Prime Minister about that and here is that bit of the conversation.
- [09:30]
Keir Starmer
Yes, we have a Russia which is aggressive. We in the fifth year of the conflict in Ukraine, we were discussing that here at the G7 and we know that both Russia and Iran are responsible for proxy attacks in the United Kingdom and across Europe. And we have to be alert to that. We are dealing with that every single day. They take different forms, but that is the Russia that we are dealing with. That's why it's so important that an event like this here In France, the G7, where world leaders get together, we discuss the ways in which we address the Iran conflict, Ukraine conflict, and also what we can do together for the resilience of all of our countries.
- [10:13]
Adam Fleming
And Chris? Yeah, Just give me your take on what the Prime Minister was saying there and just why you wanted to phrase that question in that way.
- [10:20]
Chris Mason
Well, I was very struck yesterday as news of this incident in the Channel began to emerge, how quickly those in government that we're traveling with on this trip. Trip were willing to engage with it and said that they would respond to it. And we heard then shortly afterwards, publicly from the Ministry of Defence, and there was some guidance offered as well from various folk in government around it. And of course, the context was the conversation here at the G7 about Russia, about the threat that Russia poses to Europe in particular, but to, if you like, Western democracy more broadly. Now the government's made the case. You heard it from the Prime Minister, they think that was an isolated incident. The second the word Russian featured in the conversation relating to this warship, and then the discharge of a gun, you know, the firing of a gun, it sits into that wider context. And I thought, I want to ask the Prime Minister about it, because I detected, having seen that response yesterday, that he would be up for saying something. And you heard there that he was talking about it as reckless. And the Prime Minister, you know, picks his. This Prime Minister in particular, but Prime Ministers in general, but this one in particular, pick their words very, very carefully. He clearly decided he was going to use that word in advance. He said it to someone else, I think it was to Chris Hope of GB News in his interview as. As well. So I thought it sat in the context of what's happening here. And then also that story, Daniel DeSimone, our colleague, brought us the other day on the BBC, that the conviction of those two men for arson connected to the Prime Minister's house in North London and a car that he. He used to own involved Russia. And so just that sense of Russia sitting so prominently in various incidents that can be seen certainly in collection, if not always individually, as. As acts of aggression.
- [12:13]
Adam Fleming
And I. Looking at that incident in the Channel, I was just really thinking about something that Jeremy Bowen said to me a few years ago. Why international tension and chaos is bad because it leads to unpredictability which can then spiral into crisis. And okay, this incident in the channel hasn't become an international crisis. It was presumably very scary, as we've heard, for the, for the people on board, but it just shows you if you've got a world where there's aggression and tension between the UK and Russia and there are Russian vessels in British waters, then of course you're going to get incidents like this which have the potential to go. Go very, very badly wrong. And we're just kind of lucky that in this case it didn't. Now, Alex, let's go into the portion of newscast that is kind of going to be the post Makerfield by Election section. But the fact is the byelection hasn't happened yet because we're recording this on Wednesday and the polls open on Thursday morning. Just give me your take from the. From the streets of Makerfield, which isn't a specific place, but give me the vibe.
- [13:12]
Alex Forsyth
The towns of the Makerfield constituency. Yeah, I mean we've all covered a fair few by elections and elections in our time. Right. But honestly, and I'm trying not to exaggerate this or be too hyperbolic about it all, but this genuinely does feel different because when you, even as soon as you get to the constituency you start to see all the placards up in the window and even neighboring properties might have placards with one house saying I support Robert Kenyon of Reform UK and the next house saying I support Andy Burnham. There's a lot of them across the constituency. As you drive round, there are literally just like teams of campaigners and canvassers out on the streets kind of everywhere. I bumped into a couple who just showed me the leaflets they'd had through their letterbox in the last couple of days and it was like a fairly thick wad, you know, from all different parties actually. And in the town of Ashton, Makerfield itself, I was there just trying to get a sense of what people feel and think and the issues that they care about. And honestly, there was one point where I was bumping into more journalists than I was local people. I mean, journalists from Poland, you know, just journalists from all over the world. There were a couple of journalists from France on the train when I was on the way to the constituency. So it's obviously there's a reason there's so much focus on this is because we know what's at stake. We know that Andy Burnham has said if he wins this by election contest, then he would enter any leadership contest that was triggered against Keir Starmer. We know there are other parties, including, but not exclusively reform UK, 14 candidates in total, fighting this by election. But what I think I would glean from what I've picked up so far is the sense that almost everybody in this constituency knows what's at stake as well. You know, they know that they are making a decision that's going to clearly have an impact on the constituency, is going to be their representative and what they do for the towns of Makerfield. But it's also got potential consequences for the country and there's a real awareness about that.
- [14:56]
Adam Fleming
And Chris, I know you went to the constituency a couple of times. My sort of takeaway now that we're at the end of the campaign is it's not ended up being as weird as I thought it might have been because at the start it's like, oh, this is going to be like a primary campaign, almost like a presidential primary in America to pick the next Prime Minister. But actually so much of it has felt like actually a classic hard fought by election.
- [15:17]
Chris Mason
Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. With an extra dollop of attention. I mean, let's be honest, by elections always get an extra dollop of attention from folk like us because they're happening in isolation. I say in isolation. There's actually another two by elections. Aren't they happening tomorrow as well? But clearly, as Alex was saying, this one is on another level because of what is at stake, but in the kind of prosecution of the arguments in those towns and villages to the south of Wigan, it is similar to other by election campaigns in that you have candidates who are arguing about the degree to which they are authentically local. You have a lot of arguments around the specific pledges that candidates are making about the constituency itself, how often they're likely to be seen in that constituency or not if they win, etc. Etc. But framed through that wider prism, which again, to an extent happens at every by election, but this one in particular, that wider prism of arguably the central political tussle of right now, which is the tussle between the Labour Party and Reform, of course, there's lots of other tussles in different parts of the uk, depending on where you are geographically. Of course there are. But an absolutely central tussle is between, you know, the incumbent government and the insurgency of the last few years. And in many senses, Makerfield is a kind of petri dish in that wider discussion and debate with at its heart, Andy Burnham making an argument which will be the argument he carries on with if, If. If he wins the by election. Don't know if you heard the absolutely volcanic sneeze from Robert Peston of ITV there.
- [16:55]
Adam Fleming
Bless you, Roberts.
- [16:56]
Chris Mason
Maybe you didn't.
- [16:56]
Jake Stauch
Anyway.
- [16:58]
Chris Mason
Well, I've completely lost my train of thought. Oh, yeah, that was it. This is that, you know, if. And if Andy Burnham can win, he will use his victory as a springboard to make an argument nationally, particularly to his own party, that he can beat Reform UK in a way that lots of other Labour folk can't, and therefore he should be Prime Minister. That'll be the broad, if slightly, from my perspective, crude, simplification of the argument we're likely to hear from him in the coming days if he wins.
- [17:28]
Adam Fleming
Newscasters everywhere are now trying to club together to either get a packet of tissues for Robert Peston or a box of antihistamines, because he is sneezing away. Thanks for joining in, Robert. Anyway, Alex, I think another intriguing thing about Makerfield, and bearing in mind everything Chris just said there about it being a sort of petri dish for the whole country and the politics that we might be about to get, or the politics that we've already got, it just became about who was the best representative for the area, who was the best local champion. And that happened because that's Andy Burnham's trump card. Cause he's local and he didn't want it to be about his ambitions in the future. And actually, for Reform, they realized, oh, yeah, Andy Burnham's local. So we can't run a campaign that's all about, oh, he's some carpetbagger from down south who's just using this to get to Downing Street. So of course it ended up being a very local contest.
- [18:21]
Alex Forsyth
Yeah, I think that's completely right. Although Reform did try to make the argument that Andy Burnham was using it as a sort of stepping stone to Westminster, in which case Andy Burnham then responded by pointing out his kind of local links. But it's not just among those candidates. All of the candidates actually have been sort of brandishing their local credentials. And actually, I think I would say it has become a bit of a theme of by elections that people do want candidates in by elections broader than this one, to focus on what matters to them in the area and not to just have the sense that somebody's either been parachuted in or is just, you know, going to be in the constituency for five minutes, then disappear off somewhere else. That seems to be a theme that comes across in many by Elections, actually, and perhaps part of that is because by elections do, as Chris said, attract more attention, because they often happen on their own or in this case, as one of three. And I think there can sometimes be this sense, and you definitely pick this up in this constituency of, okay, we're getting all of this attention at the moment. You know, the media are turning up and all the parties are sending their ground troops and people are campaigning and there's all of this kind of focus on our area. But what we don't want is that then to all just disappear off over the horizon when the by election's over. You know, we want to kind of retain some of this attention so we can see the issues that matter to us, whatever they might be addressed. And I think that's been amplified in this by election. So all of the candidates, not just Andy Burnham and Robert Kenyon, are really kind of like saying why they think they are the local person who would best address the local issues, whether it's cost of living or the high street or wherever else it might be. There is another sort of interesting element in this by election that's worth a mention, and it's how well or not Restore Britain do so the party that's set up by Rupert Lowe, who was the former Reform mp. You know, I've seen placards and posters from that party here, and that's going to be interesting because obviously what their performance may speak to is what's happening on the right of British politics. So it's sort of another element in what is already a pretty fascinating by election contest.
- [20:15]
Adam Fleming
And, Chris, it was notable that in the portion of your interview with Keir Starmer where you were asking him about this, he was sort of trying to get out in front of it. So let's have a listen to that bit of the conversation.
- [20:26]
Keir Starmer
If Andy Burnham wins, and I hope he does, and that's why I've told our activists and members to all go and support him. So I hope he wins. But we then tip straight into the Manchester mayoralty by election, because that's under a timeline starts pretty well immediately. So we're all going to have to focus on that. I don't think there should be a challenge because I think that is a bad thing for the country. If there is a challenge, I intend to fight in any challenge to my leadership. Of course I do.
- [20:54]
Adam Fleming
So. Yeah. What did you make of what Keir Starmer was saying? He was sort of almost like he was talking to us from the future.
- [20:59]
Chris Mason
Yeah. And it's intriguing because as I say Prime Ministers generally, and I think this one in particular, pick their words very carefully when they are asked questions about how they may behave at a still hypothetical, if actually quite realistic and imminent moment in the future, for fear that they say something that weakens them. So you can understand rationally, from their perspective, why they might be careful. But as various scenarios loom ever larger, then Prime Ministers and their teams will start war gaming what they think might be strategically useful to say out loud. And the Prime Minister came into his round of interactions, interviews this morning having decided that he was going to say that. Oh, well, if Andy Burnham does win the by election in Makerfield, then hang on a minute, surely the real imminent priority for the Labour Party and therefore for him, should be the other vacancy that he would be creating, because you cannot be an MP and the Mayor of Greater Manchester at the same time. So if he wins the byelection, he will have to relinquish the role as mayor and therefore there'll be a byelection for the Greater Manchester mayor, which could be keenly competitive with reform and the Greens and plenty of others giving it a fair old go. And it's a prized jewel, if you like, in the devolved crown of Labour's current mix of elected offices. So they would obviously want to keep it. And the Prime Minister's argument is, well, look, effectively, you know, Andy Burnham, you've caused this first to by election and if you win it, you're going to cause another one. So in order for Labour to stand still numerically, Labour needs to hold that by election. So why not focus on that? It is telling that Team Burnham have said that they regard it as absolutely ludicrous that you would postpone any kind of question around the leadership until after that mayoral race. Not least, THEY WHISPER it would be much harder, in their view, for Labour to win that mayoral by election, if it comes to pass with Keir Starmer still as Prime Minister, than in a situation where either he has been replaced or there is a process to replace him.
- [22:58]
Adam Fleming
Chris, I'm going to let you carry on your bus journey because I think your signal is getting a little bit dodgy. So safe travels and see you when you land back on British shores very soon. Goodbye.
- [23:07]
Chris Mason
Cheers, Adam. Cheers, Alex. Bye.
- [23:09]
Adam Fleming
Right, Alex, in terms of the other kind of plot lines converging around the Makerfield result, Wes Streeting, the former Health Secretary, he did a big speech on Tuesday talking about his view of the economy and he's calling his approach progressive capitalism. And then Chris was alluding to this earlier on in the episode, he sat down with Victoria Darbyshire on News News Night and basically said, yeah, I'm ready to pull the trigger on this leadership contest that people have been waiting for for weeks.
- [23:37]
Alex Forsyth
Yeah. And conversely, while you've got the Prime Minister telling Chris that he thinks that there needs to be a pause in whatever might happen post Makerfield because of the potential of the Greater Manchester mayoral by election, Wes Streeting is making the polar opposite argument, effectively because he was telling Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight that he thinks what he called the sort of paralysis when all of these questions about future Labour leadership are swirling, can't go on. So what he was effectively saying was that he would be prepared to trigger a leadership contest. He said he thinks the Prime Minister should take the weekend to have a think about things. And his preference, and I'm paraphrasing here, but he was saying that his preference was that the Prime Minister had a think in the eventuality that Andy Burnham wins the Makerfield by election. And then effectively he was making the case, he thinks that Keir Starmer should sort of concede and maybe step aside and then there could be a contest or whatever else, set a timetable, that kind of thing. But we've heard from Keir Starmer that all of the indications so far that he's not really prepared to do that. So then we're. Stretin was saying in that eventuality he'd be prepared to trigger a leadership contest and he was suggesting that he had the names, that Magic Number of 81 Labour MPs that he would need the backing of in order to do that. He was saying that he had them already. So I think, you know, it's hard to really know what the choreography of the next few days might be. But I think if, and it is an if Andy Burnham wins the Makerfield by election contest, then there is the potential, and Wes Streeting was certainly signalling this, that things could move quite quickly and we could end up in a Labour leadership contest fairly soon after that Makerfield result comes in.
- [25:10]
Adam Fleming
Part of me just thinks what has recent history told us about Keir Starmer and the Cabinet? It's told us that Keir Starmer wants to stay and he wants to stick to the rulebook and the rule book says that he automatically gets to compete in a leadership contest. So, yeah, then actually the Cabinet have already had opportunities to go and tell him that he should set out a timetable for his departure. I wonder, are there other Cabinet members who didn't do that last time who would be willing to do it this time or will it just be the same members of the Cabinet making the same argument to him just a couple of weeks or a month or so later? And yeah, I mean, I wonder if it's going to be that different this time round or does a potential by election victory by Andy Burnham just completely change all those calculations? And actually I'm just sounding quite naive about what the next few days might
- [26:06]
Alex Forsyth
be like now, honestly, I think part of it is that we don't actually know what the next few days are going to be like. We can speculate till the ends of the earth and of course we all love doing that, but we don't actually know because you're right with these things. Quite a lot of it can come down to mood and momentum, two of which are quite important factors in politics. So I think, you know, the result of the Makerfield by election could set the mood one way or another. And then I think that people who've got their eyes on that top job are going to want to capitalise on any momentum, which is why things might move quite quickly. But I certainly think over the course of the weekend the Cabinet will be key because as we say, Keir Starmer's giving the message again and again and again and of course he would say this, wouldn't he? Until he doesn't. But his message is very clearly that he is going nowhere, that, you know, he is, he wants to keep his job and he sets out the reasons why he thinks he should. But obviously, you know, you do need the support of your top team and the bulk of your parliamentary party in order to do that. And that is where the mood bit of this equation might really come into play post Makerfield, depending on the result.
- [27:11]
Adam Fleming
And Alex, as we come to the end of this episode of newscast, shall we revisit our successful spin off format By Election Cast? And would you like to give us one last mini episode of By Election Cast from the streets of Makerfield as discussed, not in an individual place in itself.
- [27:26]
Alex Forsyth
Yeah, yeah, quite. From the towns, the towns that make up the Makerfield. Keep saying it until we go blue in the face. Yeah, but, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, look, we've already touched upon it, but it does feel like a really consequential by election and clearly there's a lots of focus on Andy Burnham and how he does in this election. There's lots of focus on reform and you have to bear in mind that reform and their candidate Robert Kenyon, well, they are pushing hard here and reform did well in the set of local elections that happened in May. But they are not the only two candidates. Despite all the attention and understandable attention that there has been on them, they are not the only two candidates standing in this by election. There's that really interesting factor of Rupert Lowe's party, Restore Britain, and their candidate, Rebecca Shepard, and how they perform in this by election, what that says about where the arguments might shape up on the right of British politics. And then the list of the 14 other candidates, it is long, but, you know, I have caught up with some of those over the course of the last couple of days. So, you know, and again, it comes down a lot for them about the battle of sort of localism and if you like. So Sarah Wakefield from the Green Party, she's been talking a lot about wanting to bring in her words, joy to politics and kind of positive solutions that she thinks there can be to voters that live in this constituency. You've got Michael Winstanley from the Conservatives, he's a former mayor of Wigan. Again talking about his local links, positioning himself as a bit of a community champion. Jake Austin is standing for the Liberal Democrats. Their real focus has been on the cost of living. That's definitely something that's come up as I've been speaking to voters here. So they're talking about the plans that they have to try and tackle energy bills, for example. So it's a kind of. It is. There has been a sort of narrow focus on the perceived front runners. It is a long list and it is being hard fought. I tell you. You just need to be out on the streets of this constituency and you get a sense of it straight away. And what is totally fascinating is that while there are some people who live here who are like, oh, my goodness, please don't put another camera in my face. I just don't want to talk to any more media. I'm sick of all the journalists. Quite understandably, I think it's fair to say there are others who see this as a kind of a moment when the focus is shifted to the place they live and a place that some of them feel has been overlooked or forgotten for a bit too long. And I think what the hope for many voters in this constituency is, whatever happens after this by election, that focus doesn't just disappear entirely. And that some of the, or one of the consequences of all of this attention might be that some of the things they really care about get looked at.
- [29:47]
Adam Fleming
I'll just always remember watching that Question Time special from the constituency and ending up zooming in on A map of some waste grounds next to the Sainsbury's because there was an argument about building houses there. I was like, yep, this by election is just as local as it is national. Oh, Alex, before we go, before you go. And I know you've got millions of hours of work to do. Yesterday we're chatting to Bridget Phillips in the Education Secretary and she was saying when the social media ban comes in, children are just gonna have to get used to a very retro thing, which is being bored. What did you do as a child when you were bored and how did you. Did you enjoy being bored?
- [30:28]
Alex Forsyth
Interview with her. And I thought that was totally fascinating, that kind of notion about being bored. I mean, I guess maybe there's an argument that says it's about resilience and learning to entertain yourself. But. Yeah, I tell you, I almost don't want to tell you because it's going to make me sound like more of a nerd than people might already think I am.
- [30:42]
Chris Mason
Please.
- [30:42]
Alex Forsyth
Genuinely was an avid reader, so I did used to read a lot of books. But I also did the other thing which may be other people with sister might find familiar, which is makeup dances. And I'm just really glad that there weren't camera phones around when I was a kid because I hate the thought that some of the terrible dances to me, me and my sister made up to pop songs and then forced our family to sit and watch were never recorded on camera so that they could be rolled out at this stage in my life. Thank goodness for it.
- [31:12]
Adam Fleming
Yeah. Whenever I was bored I would just. Yeah. Write a play or try and put on a show and dragoon everyone into that. So I think we were some. If we'd lived next door to each other, we would have been. We'd probably be in showbiz now.
- [31:21]
Alex Forsyth
We could have done it together.
- [31:22]
Adam Fleming
Yes. We'd be on the stage now rather than in the new studio.
- [31:27]
Alex Forsyth
It all could have been so different.
- [31:29]
Adam Fleming
So, Alex, you're going to stay up all night on Thursday night doing the result of Makerfields, right?
- [31:35]
Alex Forsyth
Yeah, that's right. There's a. There's a special program looking at. Because it isn't just Makerfield, there's two other Scottish byelections taking place as well in Aberdeen south and our broth and Broughty ferry. And both of those are important by elections too. So we're going to do an overnight special with Laura Kunsberg and taking in all of the results and getting all of the reaction through the night on Thursday.
- [31:53]
Adam Fleming
And we're going to do a live streamed episode of Newscast as is tradition at 7am on Friday morning. So if you're still awake and still standing and still have a voice, you're very welcome to come and join us.
- [32:05]
Alex Forsyth
Ah, yeah, I would endeavour to pop in. It'd be lovely to see you on the crisis that you have a cup of tea endeavor.
- [32:10]
Adam Fleming
That's not.
- [32:11]
Alex Forsyth
Yes, that was a caveat. Yes, yes.
- [32:14]
Adam Fleming
We've been around two politicians for too long. Right, Alex, hopefully speak to you on Friday morning.
- [32:19]
Alex Forsyth
Lovely see you then.
- [32:20]
Adam Fleming
Bye bye. And as is usual at this point in the podcast, I will say that there is a full list of Makerfield candidates on the BBC News website. So that's all for this episode of Newscast. As a reminder, we do not report political campaigns when polls are opening. So Thursday's episode of Newscast will be about other things. Then you'll be able to watch Laura and Alex on BBC One overnight for the result. And then as I just previewed a second ago, Newscast will be doing a live stream on all the BBC platforms at seven o' clock on Friday morning. And if you don't want to join us live, maybe you're doing the school run, then you'll be able to listen to that episode as a podcast on Friday morning. So I will speak to you at all those points in the next few days.
- [33:07]
Keir Starmer
Bye bye.
- [33:08]
Adam Fleming
Newscast.
- [33:09]
Podcast Host
Newscast from the BBC from one newscaster to another, thank you so much much for making it to the end of this episode. You clearly do, in the words of Chris Mason, ooze stamina. 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 +440-330-3239480. Be assured, I promise, we listen to everyone.
- [33:56]
Chris Mason
Who's actually won the Iran war. I'm Tristan Redman.
- [34:00]
Alex Forsyth
And I'm Asmaa Khalid and together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The US and Iran say they've struck a deal to end the war, but
- [34:09]
Chris Mason
a key question is what's actually been achieved by nearly four months of fighting and is the situation better, worse or the same for the region and Iran?
- [34:19]
Alex Forsyth
For the full story, check out the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.