Adam Fleming (2:07)

Let's go have a tour.

Toyota Thon Advertiser / MyFico Advertiser (2:09)

Blimey.

Adam Fleming (2:11)

Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.

Alex Forsyth (2:13)

And it's Alex in the newscast studio.

Adam Fleming (2:14)

And a little bit later on we will cross to the US to find out the latest dump of files from the Trump administration about Jeffrey Epstein. Because there's quite a lot to talk about there. But first of all we're going to talk about goings on in British politics. And Alex, I mean I was saying this yesterday to Lucy Powell. Like normally this period for political news is very quiet because parliament isn't sitting. Mps are in the constituencies doing their Christmas Cards. But we've had quite a few quite large news stories.

Alex Forsyth (2:40)

Yeah. And I actually thought I was in for a right quiet shift the day before Christmas Eve, you know, I was going to catch up on everything I had to get done, work wise, ready for the new year. But. Aha. No, no, because as I was on my way into work, so came the news that there had been a really significant shift in government policy about what has been a really hotly contested issue for the past well over a year.

Adam Fleming (3:04)

And so what was the original policy then that Richard Reeves came up with in the budget in 2024?

Alex Forsyth (3:09)

Yeah, so this was agricultural land, last year's budget, and it was in the simplest terms, that for people who own farmland that wanted to pass that farmland on when they died, they were going to have to start paying inheritance tax. Now, the policy was it was those assets, those farmland assets that were worth over a million pounds, which would have to start paying a reduced rate of inheritance tax. So 20%, whereas other estates, the rate is 40% now. After that was announced, there was just a really significant backlash, particularly from the farming community, with people saying, this is going to affect lots of family farms and it's going to make it really expensive and in some cases, you know, just not viable for those family farms to be passed on so that people can carry on the farmland. And there was lots of political opposition from other parties in this as well. It's just worth saying at this point, there was always a bit of kind of contention over how many farms would actually be affected by this, with the government saying one thing and people like the National Farmers Union saying a different number. But anyway, there was a pushback from. In the farming community. And so the government announced on 23 December that it was shifting on that policy.

Adam Fleming (4:19)

And here's how the Environment Secretary, Emma Reynolds, made that announcement.

Emma Reynolds (4:22)

It's important that as a government, we listen to those farmers and businesses who will be affected by. By changes in policy. And as a result of the announcement that I'm making today, 85% of farming estates who claim agricultural property relief will now pay no inheritance tax. And those farming estates and others who are paying inheritance tax will be subject to a lower liability. But it's right that we continue to make the tax system fairer and the largest and the wealthiest estates pay their fair share in inheritance tax.

Adam Fleming (5:02)

So let's just go through the changes then. The. The big one is the increase of that threshold from what it was going to be a million pounds to two and a half million pounds.

Alex Forsyth (5:10)

Yep. And also the fact now that if you are married or you're in a civil partnership, you can effectively combine that allowance so that you could pass on assets worth up to £5 million before you'd fall into this bracket. And you heard that Emma Reynolds, the Environment Secretary, suggesting a direct result of having listened in their words or heard the concerns from the farming community. And she's now saying that, you know, most farms would not be now paying more inheritance tax.

Adam Fleming (5:39)

And in terms of the backlash to this, for the last 13 months, it's been really, really visible. I'm thinking about times like, for example, when we took newscast to the Latitude Festival in Suffolk. Once you get to a certain bit of road, every hedge and farm gate had a poster on it saying, say no to the family farm tax, because that's what it was christened by Opponen. And then even in Westminster, which is quite a long way from the. The countryside, on certain days in the last few years, it was just rammed with tractors because there was those very visible protests at one point, led by Jeremy Clarkson.

Alex Forsyth (6:09)

Yeah, it's been noisy, it's been loud, it's been visible, and it has been constant, really, since the Chancellor first announced this policy over a year ago. So, like you say, I think at points, you know, like Westminster streets were kind of blocked by these tractors and they were beeping their horns and they were. They came at the most recent budget, there was another protest by farmers, and exactly as you said. I mean, I drive around the country or travel around the country a lot, and those banners opposing this policy have been just all over the place, you know, really kind of visible. So it's been quite an organized campaign against this and being led by people like the National Farmers Union, who have been in to see ministers and talk about it and say, we don't think this is fair and the reasons why. So, you know, the kind of pushback has been long and sustained, and I think that is kind of interesting as to why now that the Government's decided to shift its position, because this isn't something that they've suddenly become aware of. You know, this has been pretty known for a long time that from the farming community, there's been real pushback to this policy. Clearly, it's now at this point that they've decided it's the right time to shift on it. I don't know the reasons for that.

Adam Fleming (7:12)

I was standing in for Matt Charlie on five Live again today. There's so many interesting conversations about this, but someone was pointing out that there had been A vote on the finance bill, which is the bit of legislation that implements the budget, where there'd been a vote on. To do with this and there'd been one labor rebel, but something like 30 labor abstentions, which, on something like a finance bill is as good as voting.

Alex Forsyth (7:35)

Yeah.

Adam Fleming (7:35)

So you could see there was quite a large core of Labor.

Alex Forsyth (7:38)

That's right. I mean, there were even more abstentions, but I think it was sort of around that number that some people just saying for a whole load of different reasons. So I think there was that number that was attributed as to people having concerns about this policy. And of course, you can imagine that, Philip, for Labor mps who represent rural constituencies, they probably would have hear. Been hearing quite a lot from their constituents about this. And in fact, when the Prime Minister was at. So basically he does this thing where he appears in Parliament and he gets questioned by all of the chairs of the different parliamentary committees. And when he was on like a whole range of subjects, and when he was having that last session, this came up and it was put to him not just by opposition mps, but also by labor mp, a backbench MP on that liaison committee. So I think the government cannot have been unaware of the, like, growing political pressure, including from some in the Labor Party, about this issue.

Adam Fleming (8:30)

Although interesting, though, that appearance by the prime minister at the liaison committee where he dug in on this policy was a week ago.

Alex Forsyth (8:37)

And.

Adam Fleming (8:38)

And so there's no telegraphing here.

Alex Forsyth (8:39)

No, no, there really hasn't been any kind of, you know, this kind for me. And I mean, maybe I'm just totally unplugged in and don't know what. You know, I'm not getting the signals. But it came completely out of the blue, as far as I could tell, that they've shifted on this. And you have heard from ministers who have been making the case for this policy because they were sort of arguing, they thought it was fair that there were other estates and other types of business in some capacities that paid some form of inheritance tax. Why should farms be exempted from that? And, you know, they were talking about some of the mitigations that they put in place so that smaller family farms wouldn't be. They were arguing for the policy that the Chancellor introduced at last year's budget for a long time before they shifted and moved. But when you listen to what Emma Reynolds, the Environment Secretary, had to say about it, and when you read the words that were put out in the accompanying press release about this, what the government keeps stressing is that it was listening. It's been listening and hearing the concerns out there in the farming community about it. So I guess you can only assume, and I don't know. So it is an assumption that they are sort of, you know, they are thinking that there is that the pressure that's coming from those quarters of people who didn't like this policy wasn't going to go away. Perhaps including. Including perhaps some on the Labour backbenches.

Adam Fleming (9:50)

And also some of that pressure was quite emotive because I was chatting to Tim Farren, Liberal Democrat DEFRA spokesperson, who represents a very rural constituency, and here is some of the things he was telling me on five Live earlier today.

Tim Farron (10:02)

There were certainly people, people I knew with terminal conditions in the farming community who would say out loud it would be far better if I went before the 31st of March. And in some cases, I'll say no more than this, in some cases that had literally affected and impacted the treatment options they chose.

Adam Fleming (10:21)

Yeah, and it got. It got very emotive and it had.

Alex Forsyth (10:23)

That has been part of the debate and the discussion and there have been reports along those lines. You know, I think there are people who have spoken about this, who are farmers or who, you know, their families have farmland who've said and said loudly that the impact would just be huge on them. And that's the case that the people who are opposed to this policy have been making for a really, really long time that, you know, this will have a personal impact on people as well. As, of course, we know that the farmer community has been under quite a lot of pressure for some time with things like inflation and prices of, you know, it's challenging. It's a challenging sector. It's a challenged sector already with all of some of the hurdles that they're facing. And then there was this sort of personal and financial element that they were saying came on top of it. I think obviously, opposition parties, this is one of those strange things where opposition to the government's position on this has almost united. All of the opposition parties who've been saying that none of them supported this policy for some time, most of them have welcomed, including the National Farmers Union, have welcomed the fact that the government shifted. But it's interesting, the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives Reform are all saying the government should go further and scrap this altogether. So you wonder if there might be a bit more continued pressure around it. And it is just worth saying, regarding our conversation about when is a U turn not a U turn, I was listening to five Live earlier when the guy from the NFU was on it Was interesting that he was making the point that effectively, and I paraphrase here, but not all U turns are bad. You know, they were sort of saying, we're really pleased that the government's made a concession and that, you know, when you shift positions sometimes that is, can be a good thing. But because they're clearly, they're clearly really pleased that the government's reached this point, whatever the kind of journey they've taken to get there.

Adam Fleming (12:03)

Well, yeah, because the Ed Ball rule of U turns is that if you're going to U turn, do it and do it big and tell everyone you've done it so that you get credit for changing your mind rather than sort of having to change your mind and then not getting any credit.

Alex Forsyth (12:16)

Like make the case for the Utah.

Adam Fleming (12:17)

Exactly. Don't be ashamed of it.

Alex Forsyth (12:19)

Yeah. And, and I mean the government's clearly doing that, you know, in this saying, look, we've listened, they're sneaking it out.

Adam Fleming (12:25)

It's like it did come in a press release from the Environment Department to every journalist on the email address book.

Alex Forsyth (12:30)

Yes, no, it did, it did. And Emma Reynolds did what's called a pooled clip where she, you know, answered a couple of questions for all of the broadcasters, the Environment Secretary on this. So I, I think having that, we can all get a bit hung up, I think, in Westminster about what, what isn't a U turn. But I do think that while this decision by the government has been broadly welcomed by the people who didn't like this policy and really opposed this policy, you have to remember, whether you want to call it a U turn, a backtracker, climb down, whatever, it's another example of this government changing its mind on one of its own policies after a lot of opposition. So, you know, it follows the winter FUE payment, it follows the proposed changes to welfare, which a whole load of labor mps were just really, really unhappy with and stopped the government doing. And it's a sort of another example of that. And I do think whether people think government should change their minds when, you know, situations or facts change or whatever or not. There are always going to be questions when a government is, has a sort of succession of fairly significant changes in some of its, its key policy areas.

Adam Fleming (13:33)

And I think on this there's like short term, medium term and long term consequences. The short term consequence is they'll do an AM to the finance bill, which is the legislation for the budget, and that'll be an opportunity for the other political parties to say, yeah, you should go further, you should do more and actually Maybe some Labour MPs will agree with them. Then the medium term consequences. They'll have to find the money to pay for this because it doesn't exactly blow a massive hole in the finances because it's a few hundred million pounds.

Alex Forsyth (13:57)

Well, they were going to be a.

Adam Fleming (13:58)

Lot to you and me, but not a huge amount.

Alex Forsyth (13:59)

Yeah. In the context of governments, they were going to raise about 500 million pounds just over from their changes. So it's going to be less than that now.

Adam Fleming (14:06)

Now and then the long term thing of. Is this a U turn that they get credit for or is a U turn that is banked as, oh yeah, another U turn because they don't know what they're doing in the first place?

Alex Forsyth (14:14)

Yeah, exactly.

Adam Fleming (14:15)

To be decided by the electorate.

Alex Forsyth (14:17)

And that's why, you know. Yes, we focus probably a bit too much on U turns when they're U turns or when they're not you. But that is kind of why they matter because I think obviously what people often say that they want from political leaders is, you know, conviction and consistency and all the rest of it. And that's why when policy changes, shift, even if that's a welcome shift like it has been on this occasion by the farming community, it does sort of lead those questions about those basic principles.

Adam Fleming (14:43)

Alex, thank you very much.

Alex Forsyth (14:44)

Pleasure.

Adam Fleming (14:44)

And Merry Christmas.

Alex Forsyth (14:45)

And Merry Christmas.

Adam Fleming (14:46)

When will you be leaving the BBC building?

Alex Forsyth (14:48)

Oh, in approximately seven hours from now and then.

Adam Fleming (14:52)

Any questions? Isn't on on Friday, is it?

Alex Forsyth (14:54)

No. Any questions? Isn't on on Friday? We have two weeks a year off of being on the road.

Adam Fleming (14:59)

Yes, but you know what's on instead?

Alex Forsyth (15:01)

What's on?

Adam Fleming (15:01)

The newscast review of the year.

Alex Forsyth (15:03)

Oh, in that case I' should be.

Adam Fleming (15:04)

Tuning in anyway on BBC Sounds or live on Radio Forum. Now we're going to cross to the US because the Department of Justice has published the largest release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein so far, numbering over 11,000 files. And this follows the release of seven other batches of files over Friday and Saturday as a result of legislation passed through Congress earlier this year. The person who knows what's going on because she's been reading lots of the them is BBC News chief presenter in Washington D.C. sumi Sumaskander. Hello, Sumi.

Sumi Somaskander (15:41)

Hi, Adam, great to be with you.

Adam Fleming (15:42)

Thanks for coming on. So before we talk about, about what people have been finding in these documents, just explain the process first of all, with how the world has ended up seeing all these thousands of thousands of documents in the first place.

Sumi Somaskander (15:55)

Yeah. I will say that the House Oversight Committee. So this is a committee in Congress. They had been investigating themselves, the Epstein files. And what they had been doing was releasing these drip, drip of photos of files, documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. But then we saw in November, Congress pass the Epstein Files Transparency act on a bipartisan basis, requiring the Department of Justice to release all of the files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. And the deadline for that was on Friday, as you know, Adam. And so what we had anticipated in seeing, or at least what was legally required, was for the Department of Justice to release all the files that it had relating to Jeffrey Epstein. They said on the same day they could not, that it would take a longer period of time. And so on Friday, we got this first tranche of documents, of pictures, videos, emails, text messages connected to Jeffrey Epstein. And since then, we've seen seven more slow releases. So this is this continuing kind of protracted process of getting the files related to Jeffrey Epstein. And how it's been done is actually on the Department of Justice website, you know, on Friday, we had this massive BBC team across all platforms looking into the files once they were released. And it's a pretty clunky. It was a pretty clunky release in the sense that you couldn't actually search by name or you couldn't. You know, the search function didn't work very well. And so it took some time to comb through those documents. But we did get a sense that, you know, this was just the first batch, and there are tens of thousands of more or hundreds of thousands of more documents still to be released.

Adam Fleming (17:40)

And we'll come on to the latest batch in a moment. But the batch that everyone was talking about over the weekend seemed to feature Bill Clinton quite heavily. Just explain why so much of the news appeared to be about him.

Sumi Somaskander (17:53)

Yeah. So on the. In the batch that was released on Friday, as you said, there were a few photos released with Bill Clinton linked to Jeffrey Epstein's files. There are a few photos that show him swimming at night. And one of them appears to show him in a hot tub kind of swimming on his back with his hands behind his head. And these photos do have some faces redacted, so black squares over their faces. And the accusation from Democrats is that that this release of files by the Department of Justice on Friday was specifically trying to point a finger at Bill Clinton. It's really important that we say that just because somebody appears in a photo either with Jeffrey Epstein or with his associates, that does not mean that there's any wrongdoing that happened. And interesting to note that the former president, Bill Clinton, his team released a statement yesterday saying, essentially, bring it, release all of the files. We have nothing to hide. And, and this is kind of selective release of these photos of Bill Clinton that do not mean any wrongdoing. And the Clintons, you know, are. Stand behind what they have said, which is that Bill Clinton was not involved in any wrongdoing.

Adam Fleming (19:01)

And on Monday, the current president was actually asked about the previous president. Here's what he said.

Donald Trump (clip) (19:06)

I don't like. I like Bill Clinton. I've always gotten along with Bill Clinton. I've been nice to him. He's been nice to me. We've always gotten to respect him. I hate to see photos come out of him. But this is what the Democrats, mostly Democrats and a couple of bad Republicans are asking for. So they give you their photos of me, too. Everybody was friendly with this guy.

Adam Fleming (19:26)

Yeah. And as Trump said there, everybody includes him.

Sumi Somaskander (19:29)

That's right. There are photos where Donald Trump is with Jeffrey Epstein or linked to Jeffrey Epstein. And there was a photo that the Department of Justice had actually removed from that initial trench of files that shows kind of a. A series of photos including Donald Trump on a credenza. And there was a backlash that the Department of Justice would remove a file that included Donald Trump, a photo that included Donald Trump. And they said, no, we just wanted to make sure that any possible victims who were to be seen in these photos, that their names or faces could be redacted. And there was an interesting exchange in. You know, Adam, there are these Sunday political talk shows in the US and the deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, was asked about President Trump in particular and the removing of this photo. And he said, well, we just wanted to make sure that we are doing a real legal obligation here to the victims, to those who have survived Jeffrey Epstein's abuse, that they're not included in these photos. And he was then pressed by the presenter, the moderator of Meet the Press and NBC News, as to whether the people in the photo where Donald Trump is to be seen, whether they are victims. And he kind of backtracked that a bit to say, no, that's not the case. So all of this to say that Donald Trump has not been implicated in any wrongdoing. He continues to deny any wrongdoing. But his photos, his name comes up a number of times in these files. And we know that he was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein. He says he broke off that relationship many years ago in the early 2000s, and says he has nothing to do with him. But they had been friends. And that's why you do see photos and emails where Donald Trump is mentioned.

Adam Fleming (21:06)

And then coming right up to date, and we're recording this episode of newscast at 5 past 5 on Tuesday 23rd December. So this is the situation as we're coming through the files now. There is this email sent by somebody called a in 2001. Just talk us through what appears to be there.

Sumi Somaskander (21:26)

Yeah, Adam. So the tranche of documents and files released today is the biggest to date. So about 11,000 files. And what you mentioned, an email, has caught a lot of attention. So this is an email that is sent to Jeffrey Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Remember that she has been convicted of sex trafficking. She's serving time here in the US and it is from an email address titled the Invisible Man. This email is dated August 16, 2001. And I'll just read you a little bit of what it says. It says, I am up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family. Activities take place all day and I'm totally exhausted at the end of each day. It goes on to say, how is la, Los Angeles? Have you found me some new inappropriate friends? It then goes on to say, you know, any ideas gratefully received, you know, we'll see each other later. And it says, see ya. A this message was sent from the following email address. It says abx17ile.pipex.com and and a different email address that is similar, that sounds similar is listed in Jeffrey Epstein's phone book under a contact label Duke of York. Very important to note here that the BBC has contacted Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's team for a response. We haven't to the date of this taping, to the time of this taping received one yet. And the emails don't indicate any wrongdoing. We know that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, has always denied wrongdoing. He said he didn't witness or suspect any behavior that led to Jeffrey Epstein's arrest and conviction. It has raised questions here in the US and the UK about the specific line about Balmoral Summer camp and have you found me some new inappropriate friends? So we haven't heard any response yet as to whether this is linked to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. And we are waiting for a response to the BBC.

Adam Fleming (23:22)

And then just to go back to President Trump, there's also some Trump related emails in this set of files as well.

Sumi Somaskander (23:29)

Yeah, there is an email actually from a prosecutor and we should say one of the big criticisms from the release on Friday of the Epstein files is just the amount of information that is redacted. The Department of Justice says these redactions were necessary to protect victims, survivors and those who are linked to them. I will say that we received an email from a statement from a survivor group, a victim group, on Monday saying that the process was shoddy and that that some victims found their names actually not redacted and were upset about that, and other redactions shouldn't have been in place. So there's been massive criticism over that. But there was an email from a prosecutor that went on to say that Donald Trump was a passenger on Mr. Epstein's plane on eight flights between 1993 and 1996, including two with possible witnesses in the criminal case against Ghislaine Maxwell. And it's interesting that this email, this prosecutor writes, Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported, including during the period we would expect him to charge in a Maxwell case. Didn't want any of this to be a surprise down the road. So really interesting nugget in this email here. Clearly a prosecutor flagging the fact that they were surprised to come across this information that Donald Trump had traveled on this private jet a number of times and might possibly have been on these flights with two possible witnesses in Ghislaine Maxwell's trial. So we have also contacted the White House and what they have done is they continue to point us to the Department of Justice. And the Department of Justice continues to say that some files contain untrue claims about President Trump, untrue and sensationalist claims. I'll underline again, Adam, because it's important to continue to do so. President Trump has not been implicated in any wrongdoing. He denies any wrongdoing. But the question here is going to be now looking into why was he on these flights, who was he on these flights with, and what more information is there out there?

Adam Fleming (25:31)

Sumi, thank you very much.

Sumi Somaskander (25:33)

Thanks for having me, Adam, and happy holidays.

Adam Fleming (25:35)

And that's all for this episode of Newscast. The next episode that you hear will be our review of the year to keep you company as you get ready for Christmas Day. Bye.

Alex Forsyth (25:46)

Newscast, Newscast from the BBC, from one.

Chris Mason (25:49)

Newscast to another, thank you so 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 440-3301-239480. Be assured, I promise, we listen to everyone.

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