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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
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Dreaming of buying your first car or new home. Knowing your FICO score is the first step to making it real. With MyFico, you can check your score for free and it won't hurt your credit. You'll get your FICO score, full credit reports and real time alerts all in one simple app. Your credit score is more than just numbers. It's the key to building the future you've been working toward. Visit myfico.com free or download the MyFico app and take the mystery out of your FICO score.
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A
Hello. We promised you that we would do a look back at some of the things happening in British politics this week. And we will do that. But first of all, we're going to focus on the growing protests across Iran and the reaction to it by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which we will do with Lee Doucet on this.
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C
Episode of Newscast, Newscast, newscast from the BBC.
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A
Fat boy sliver me in the classroom doing our violin lessons. I was the tattletale in the classroom. Can I have an apology, please?
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C
I trust almost nobody.
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A
Then daddy has to sometimes do strong language.
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D
Next time in Moscow I feel delulu with no Salulu. Take me down to Downey Street.
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A
Let's go have a tour.
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B
Blimey.
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A
Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.
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C
And it's Lise Doucet with Adam in the newscast studio.
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A
Right, let's talk about Iran. And these protests have been bubbling away for almost a fortnight now. What started them?
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C
Every time there is a wave of unrest in Iran, it is triggered by one set of demands or another. This time on December 28, it was sparked by shopkeepers shuttering their shops, their shops for mobile telephones and other electronic goods because the currency had collapsed and it was impossible for them to remain open to do business. They persuaded because imports became so expensive. Because the imports became so expensive and they persuaded other traders to join in their strike. And because every new wave of unrest leaves tinder such that when the spark is lit, it lights the embers of the last uprising. So it quickly spread from being protests and strikes over the cost of living, over soaring inflation, which is running close to 50%. To slogans being chanted on the streets like death to the dictator, don't be afraid. And over the last. We're now recording on the 13th day, spreading from one one province to the next one provincial town to the next two cities until the twelfth night where these were then describ described as the most significant protest since 2009. That's a date our listeners may have heard before. 2009 was the eruption of protest over disputed presidential elections. We were in Iran then, covering these elections. We saw people taking to the streets. So every time a new. A new wave of unrest unfolds, people say, is it as big as 2009? And now they are talking about it being as significant as then, which is saying a lot.
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A
Right. And how's the regime reacting to it?
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C
Predictably, which is the Supreme Leader has spoken using the language that he always uses. Remember, he has been in power since 1989 after the first revolutionary leader, Khomeini, passed away. He is 86 years old. So predictably, he blamed the unrest on vandals, even though in another comment he had said that some of the economic grievances were legitimate. He also porned scorn on the opposition leaders, most, most of all the exiled Crown Prince Reza Bavi and his father, the Shah, who was overturned and without mention. He also focused on President Trump, saying that he had blood on his hands. And that was a reference to the 12 day war with Israel, which also drew in the United States on the streets. It has also been predictable. Every time Iranians take to the streets, it is. Sometimes it takes months, sometimes it takes weeks. It's eventually put down by a combination of brute force restrictions on the Internet. But it has to be said that this time, and we. We see on the social, the. The videos that activists and ordinary citizens are still uploading despite the risk, despite the restrictions, such ingenuity. In Iran, you can hear the gunfire, you can see the tear gas. So they are resorting to these weapons during. In some places, but. But in others, they are exercising relative restraint. They are not deploying the full force of their arsenal, which they have been able and willing to do in the past. And it is believed that it's because President Trump's warnings have concentrated their minds.
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A
And what did President Trump actually warn and how can we interpret that? Because quite often Donald Trump says things that we need to then work out what he really means.
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C
Yes. And what he says will be what he does at the time of our recording, we always have to say, because we don't know when. He will then post on Truth Social. Three times he has warned the Iranian leadership that if you hit hard and kill protesters, I will hit you hard. And he reiterated that last night, I will hit you very hard. And he added that that message had been sent very strongly to Iranian leaders. And this time, Adam, Iranians have to Be not just mindful of his words, but of what he has done. And that is, of course, in Venezuela that President Trump is now priding himself. His supporters at every turn say he is a president who does what he says. In other words, be careful. We could be coming for you next.
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A
And what sort of options do we think the Americans might be exploring?
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C
I mean, we're speculating here, very much speculating. There was a comment today by Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Arakchee, where he tried to play down the risk of another attack. But you never know in these days because there's so much propaganda, so much feints that to sort of leave the enemy exposed, put them on the back foot. For example, if you remember when the, what turned into the 12 day war between Israel and Iran erupted, I was in Doha, the Qatar, I was in Oslo, the Norwegian capital. Then in the Foreign Minister of Iran was there. The foreign minister of cut, of. Of of Oman. Other Arab foreign ministers, they were preparing for the sixth round of talks, indirect, mainly indirect talks with the United States. The Iranians went home and then woke up. Israel attacked and they weren't prepared for it because they were in the middle of negotiations. So we've seen in the past that they can sometimes say, no, no, no, we're not going to attack. In fact, there has been a report that pre that Prime Minister Netanyahu passed through President Putin a message that there wasn't going to be a strike. Does that mean do we have to take him at his words or do we have to believe the opposite? There is so much speculation, but we have to keep underlining. It's very difficult to know exactly what's happening because of the near total right now, the near total Internet blackout. Telephone lines are also cut. And because there is so much misinformation and disinformation and it is highly unpredictable. Every time there are protests, new cracks are created in Iran's clerical rule. And the cracks keep getting wider and the crisis on the streets keep getting bigger. But the trajectory from cracks to crisis to collapse is highly unpredictable.
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A
Yeah, which doesn't mean it's impossible. It's just impossible to tell when it might happen.
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C
I don't need to say to you, to our newscast listeners, just how unpredictable the times that we are in, and they are, they are fraught as well, with risk.
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A
Now, I know you've been to Iran a lot. I've never been. And to me it's quite a mysterious place. I sort of couldn't tell you what life is like on a daily basis. In an average town in Iran. I don't, I don't know.
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C
I was really struck on my last visit, struck, of course, by the situation in Iran. How many women were not wearing the obligatory head scarves and long coat they call a montau, even though they know that could get them arrested. It could, they could face consequences in prison. And there was that quiet defiance on the streets. And this, of course, is, is playing, is playing out again. And that was, of course, the legacy of the last round of protest in 2022.
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A
Yeah, your earlier point about the tinder that's lying around.
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C
Yeah, the tinder. That, that, that is the, the. But I was talking when people, people outside the country asked me questions, I got the impression that they think Iran is like North Korea, that they're not going to say anything, that they are cowed. Iranian people are not like that. They are people of great courage. They speak their mind. Of course, as a journalist, a foreign, obviously a foreign journalist, and working for the BBC, it was easier when people knew it was going to be on radio, not on television, because they do know the consequences of getting, of getting hauled in, of speaking out too, too loudly. But they do. But, but they're not afraid. They, they, they don't live in with the kind of fear that, for example, the people of North Korea, that they. What the, what the leadership has. And life goes on. The restaurants and cafes were full with the legendary hospitality, fantastic food, stunning landscape. Iran is a country of great surprises. And it has often been said, I'm not the first person to say it, because it's been said for many years that Iran has always been described as the most pro Western, the most secular country in the Middle east, notwithstanding their Islamic revolution, Iranian Revolution of 1979. There, especially this new generation, they just want to have a normal life. They want to be part of the international community. So in some ways, we could go there, you and Adam, you and I could meet, we'd go out for a coffee. And that was one of the starkest of contrast is you'd, you'd go from the streets where you'd have the stereotypical, the men and women in black shouting, death to America, Death to Israel. And for some of them, they really mean it. For some of them, it's propaganda. Some of this meaning, it's the old, the, the sort of the shock troops of the, the revolution. So you go from that to having an iced American, a local cafe, where you'd see in the corner, young men and women canoodling, the woman not wearing, you know, so from death to America to Americanos. It is a country of great contradictions.
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A
And also you have covered this story about these protests in the last two weeks, haven't you? It's not been radio silence from the BBC about this story.
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C
I, I'm really, of course, people who follow the BBC, sometimes they just follow one broadcast. Maybe they listen at a certain time in the morning on radio or they watch a certain program at. And the BBC is a many, many, has many, many pages to its storytelling. And so when I've seen online people saying why is there this silence about the protests? It is true that President Trump is, to use the expression flooding the zone that, you know, we wake up and there's, there's problems in Minneapolis, there's problems in Venezuela, there's threats to Greenland. And so we're, we're really going away. There isn't that much space. And so Iran may have been crowded out, but we weren't, it wasn't because we weren't paying. And we've got a very active group of people who watch Iran closely, including our BBC Persian service. I know myself, I was doing dispatches on a daily basis for, for radio. We were having live pages. Colleagues were also doing television packages. So perhaps they felt, well, you, how come you're not doing as much as Venezuela or Greenland today? Of course it is leading our programs. Right. But to say we're doing nothing, to imply that we don't know how important this is, I think is simply not telling the truth. And I think we will us doing it and we will, we will, we will reassure all of our newscast listeners. We are on it, we're across it because it matters.
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A
Lis, thank you very much.
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Thank you. Wallet Feeling light after the holidays, Recovery starts with TikTok slash and free. Pick products, share the link and watch the price drop to zero. Download TikTok search free and start slashing. Today.
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B
Dreaming of buying your first car or new home? Knowing your FICO score is the first step to making it real. With MyFico, you can check your score for free and it won't hurt your credit. You'll get your FICO score, full credit reports and real time alerts all in one simple app. Your credit score is more than just numbers. It's the key to building the future you've been working toward. Visit myfico.com free or download the MyFico app and take the mystery out of your FICO score.
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A
Now I have assembled two seasoned Westminster watchers to talk us through some of the things that have been happening in British politics this week, what we can learn from them and to see if there's anything we maybe missed at the time. So let's do that now. Please welcome back to the newscast studio deputy editor of the House magazine, Sienna Rogers. Hello, Sienna.
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D
Hello.
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A
And Alva Ray is political editor of the New Statesman. Hello.
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E
Hello. Thanks for having me.
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A
Thanks for coming on. Oh, I mean, I'll let you both plug your publications, but, Alva, you've got an article in your current issue by John Bue.
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E
Yes.
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A
Explain why he is so difficult to get and so good to listen to.
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E
Oh. So he has been a foreign affairs Advisor in number 10 for, I think four prime ministers. Think he. So he's a very esteemed academic. He was writing for the New Statesman before he went into political advising work, but sort of just a real authority on foreign affairs and a regular writer for the New Statesman, very esteemed academic, and then took everyone by surprise by disappearing into number 10 under Boris Johnson and behind the scenes became a really key player during Ukraine. You know, everything under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, and the beginning of Keir Starmer's premiership. And he doesn't do much media, doesn't do many interviews, but as everything was blowing up on Venezuela, we got in touch with him and he overnight rustled up an amazing 2,000 words on the situation in Venezuela, how Britain needs to position itself with regards to Trump, the us, Europe, everything. It's very good.
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A
And actually he did an interview with Sam Friedman and Lawrence Friedman on their substack. And so he there talks about how actually, rather than confronting Trump on everything, you've actually just got to suck it up and work out how you can live with him. Which is quite similar to a thing that Peter Mandelson said in his comeback article this week as well.
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D
Yeah, Gosh. Okay, I still need to read that subject.
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A
Okay.
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E
No, no, no, don't worry.
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A
Marks and I go to our little book club. But yeah, you can hear a few people saying that actually the new world is there's not much you can do to confront Trump, so you've got to find ways to live with him.
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D
Well, yeah, and obviously that is the approach that Keir Starmer is taking. I mean, the kind of. Of realpolitik the situation in reality, however much lots of labor mps would like them to take a tougher approach. Some of them will say things like, well, you've got to stand up to bullies. That's the only way they're going to respect you. And whether this. There's things like the ice agent shooting things like Grok. I mean, obviously, that's a kind of Elon Musk being a Trump ally at times enemy others, all these kind of outrageous things that, that for them, that couldn't possibly align with labor values. They want to see some tougher words. So they were quite pleased with the Greenland message was a little bit tougher. But of course, the, the kind of reality of the situation is that even there's police, the politics of it. But also economically, we know, we saw the tariffs situation. They, they are so constrained in what they can do. And yes, they are acting a lot of the time as if they're scared of him and scared of his reactions. And the most at ease when Kirsten was going to the White House and having this very, very friendly press conference with President Trump, which some people on the left obviously find a bit cringeworthy, but that's just kind of necessary. That's. That's the, the requirement of this age.
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A
And I'm glad you brought up the story about Grok. So that's the, the AI chatbot that's built into X, formerly known as Twitter. And everyone has been talking about this week because you can post a picture of somebody and tell Grok to take their clothes off, and inevitably that's ended up with loads of pictures of women in bikinis without their permission. But that story's moved today because X has sort of shut that feature down or shut that feature down for people who don't pay for it, so they limited access to it. But today at lunchtime at the lobby briefing, the Prime Minister's official spokesperson was sort of suggesting that wasn't enough. But it's interesting because we're now learning where Keir Starmer will stand up to America and where he won't. So, for example, on Venezuela, it's kind of like, like. Bit of a shrug.
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D
Yeah. Well, so the last time I, I did this podcast with you, we were talking about Peter Mandelson, and I remember a lot of the kind of Labor MP chatter around that was violence against women and girls is one of the few things that we can point to where we have such clear record. And you've got people like Jess Asato, a Labor mp, who have been raising an alarm about unification apps for some time. And this is the kind of thing where labor mps feel we. There can be no ambiguity on this sort of area at all. You have to be whiter than white. So this is the kind of thing, I think, where number 10 goes, well, actually, it's one step removed from Trump because it's musk and there are constant rows between them. So they can be a little bit tougher on something like Grok.
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E
And on all of this approach that Sienna has been talking about, about sort of where Keir Starmer does and doesn't intervene and sort of needing to keep the US on side, that's all influenced. You know, we were talking about John Bue or Peter Mandelson, but really the big influence on Keir Starmer is Jonathan Pyle. So he's the. Lots of people listening will know exactly who he is. But just to spell it out, he's the National Security Adviser, basically, Keir Starmer's most senior Foreign affairs advisor. He's sometimes referred to as the real Foreign Secretary, which is a little bit mean on Yvette Cooper and on David Lammy, who did the job before. But he's just this immensely influential, powerful figure behind the scene. He doesn't have much of a public profile or doesn't like a running commentary on what he's doing in the press. But obviously, he was Chief of Staff to Tony Blair. He was really central to the Good Friday Agreement negotiations in Northern Ireland. He was there with Blair through Iraq, through Afghanistan. And he's written quite extensively and very helpfully for us about how the UK should navigate the US and Europe and just geopolitics in general. And so there's quite a lot, actually, that you can hear Keir Starmer saying. You know, we heard him say at PMQS this week that anyone who feels any Prime Minister who's forced to choose between the US and Europe would be making a strategic error.
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A
And, of course, NATO is hugely important, the single most effective and important military alliance the world has ever known. He keeps encouraging me to sort of tug away at parts of NATO and to choose between Europe and the us. That would be a strategic mistake for our country.
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E
And that is exactly word for word what Jonathan Pyle writes in his book.
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A
As in having to be in a position where you had to choose one or the other.
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E
Choosing one or the other, or seeming to choose one or the other is a mistake, which means that you don't. I mean, Sholom Powell also talks about sort of how the French tend towards what he calls more declaratory public policy or declaratory foreign policy, where basically you make a public statement, you maybe tweet that you're condemning Trump on Greenland or Trump on Venezuela. Trump on Venezuela is a better example. And the British approach is more to pick up the phone. And that's what happened. Actually, if you think back, I wrote a bit on the column this week in the column in the. In the New Statesman on this. That's what happened after the Trump meeting with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Everyone was tweeting. European leaders were tweeting their condemnation or their solidarity with Ukraine. And we didn't hear anything from Keir Starmer, and some people didn't like that. But actually, he picked up the phone to Trump and Zelensky and did a lot behind the scenes to encourage the two sides to talk again. And then at the Pope's funeral, he was there with them, actually speaking again. And this is all Jonathan Pyle on how approach the us. And so it's all about biting your tongue. But that doesn't mean that that comes at the expense of your relationship with Europeans. You want that really close relationship with them, too. But it's been really, really strained in the past few weeks. But that's the thinking behind it.
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D
I wonder if that consistently works, because obviously we also saw at PMQS this week, Kemi Badenoch was basically trying to embarrass Starmer over his lack of communications with Trump. Trump, yeah. So obviously Trump is.
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A
And then they had two phone calls in 24 hours.
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D
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But. But, yeah, she was clearly trying to highlight that that doesn't always work and trying to kind of rile up Labour MPs to demand that more declaratory approach.
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E
Exactly. Because it took five days for that phone call, which I think, even though they've played it down, number 10 must be a bit embarrassed by, because Keir Starmer said on Saturday that he would speak to his US counterparts before making.
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A
A kind of judgment about the situation.
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E
He said, yeah, that he'd want to speak to his US counterparts. And then we had Sunday, we had Monday, we had Tuesday, we were given a little bit of a steer that they might speak on Tuesday and then it didn't happen. And then when eventually there was a phone call, you could tell from the sort of the official readout that you get, the sort of summary that comes from number 10, you could tell it went badly. You know, it was so abrupt and then there was another one. But you can see that maybe Trump is not picking up the phone to Keir Starmer. I mean, number 10 hasn't confirmed that Starmer has been ringing and Trump has been rejecting his call.
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A
Yeah, I don't know if there was a dial tone.
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E
We don't know. But we do know that Trump has been on the phone to half of the American press. You know, there are other sort of funny stories about journalists just ringing him up and him ping him up.
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A
Well and also didn't he just do a two hour long interview with four reporters from the New York Times and like world leaders were phon and he just put them on speakerphone, which we know he likes to do. Sienna, the other thing that happened at PM QS this week, especially in the conversation between Starmer and Kemi Badenok conversation was her trying to take the shine off the coalition of the willing agreement that had been signed in Paris the day before, which could eventually, if lots of things happen, lead to some British military personnel being in Ukraine after the war. What was your take on where that's.
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D
Got to well this has progressed this story since PMQS as well because obviously today we've had the splash story that there is this 28 billion yes billion black hole in our defense spending. So there are these briefings that Starmer is not happy with either John Healy or mod. More more broadly with the the Street Strategic Defense Review, the fact that it appears to have been uncosted now this obviously there are lots of criticisms of that as a take because it wasn't done fully in conjunction with the treasury and that was a choice made at the beginning of that.
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A
No, we all said on the day it was published going and how they're going to pay for this, they don't know yet.
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D
Yeah. And very vague in lots of parts as well. So how you can now turn around and say well why didn't you cost this document? Questionable. But, but yeah, it, it looks like obviously Kemi Badenoch was really pressing on when exactly are we going to get to 3%? Starmer did not reply, did not give a time. We're in real big trouble now and it's just really interesting to see this also, as I want to do in the context of kind of labor movement feelings, which is there was a kind of campaign by trade unions recently which was largely ignored actually. But they were did this whole campaign about less defense spending, more public services spending, which you'd probably expect trade unions, especially those on the left, to campaign for. Right. But they do have these kind of pressures where they're trying to turn around the narrative to be towards the cost of living. And at the same time in terms of storytelling and in terms of finances, they just keep being pulled back and they're finding it really difficult to manage and cause.
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A
Alva, at the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, didn't it start off with Keir Starmer doing A big, grand kind of speech about, right, this is the year of cost of living. And then he left that Cabinet meeting to go and do the coalition of the willing.
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E
Yeah, he was off to Paris immediately. And number 10 is really careful to say that actually managing these geopolitical relationships and fighting for global stability is also very important for people's livelihoods here and the economy here. But it's difficult. We heard all of last year that the Prime Minister has got the nickname Never Hear Cater. And. And even though people think that foreign policy is a stronger area for him, it has left this vacuum on domestic policy, which they're really trying to fight against. This was the, you know, he's fighting back. After a really difficult year last year, all the leadership speculation, Labour is still really, really struggling in the polls, looking like it's going to have a torrid time in May in those elections in Scotland and Wales, on the local elections and, and they've, you know, I gather he thought a lot about it at Christmas, but the exact argument he wanted to make, he was hearing those criticisms that were being made of him, they were getting louder. And he's landed on this argument, he's sort of feeling a bit more confident about it. And then, as Sienna says, there are all these things that keep pulling him away from it. But it does feel like after 19 months in government, they have landed on the central thing that they want to. To make an argument around.
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A
Although what. What have they got to say about what they're doing to help the cost of living? Because we know the stuff that was in the budget that didn't get a lot of coverage on budget day itself. Things like the freezing some rail fares, taking 150quid on average off people's energy bills by moving those green levies into general taxation. So we're still paying for them, just in different ways. Have they got anything else in the coverage on the cost of living?
- [27:22]
D
I think so much. I mean, look, every government is. Is shaped by external events, right? But I think this government, perhaps more than others, and they can point to, just like Boris Johnson had Covid, this government has, you know, Trump and his interesting moves and statements, unprecedented stuff, constantly pulling attention away. But the cost of living stuff is. Is so vague a lot of the time. And the proposals that the. Or the policies that they have enact are kind of considered small fry a lot of the time. And then the. The kind of policies about, like, business rates and how they affect hospitality venues, for example, we're expecting a kind of partial U turn which may be dragged out as more and more things are kind of added to that U turn.
- [28:14]
C
Yeah.
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A
Does it have to be cafes as well?
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D
Exactly. And hotels and those ones who don't have as affecting as effective lobbying industries. So we're going to see that play out next week. Like it's just over and again. Labour MPs are saying, well, okay, brilliant, you've got to focus. But they raise the alarm about things and then it takes months for any change to actually happen.
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E
Well, I'm very happy to say what a Labour politician would say if they were here on your question of like, but what do they actually have to offer on the cost of living? The sign that I spend way too much time talking to people in government, that I know what lines they would take here better than they do, I think. So there are the sort of retail things that Sienna touched on that you touched on, Adam. Things like freezing rail fares, capping prescription fees, 150 quid off energy bills. These things that will sort of, they can talk about or breakfast clubs. But they also talk about the macroeconomic picture. So like the big picture stuff of how they're fixing the economy and they point to interest rate cuts, how they're kind of trying to bring down inflation. Obviously interest rate cuts are set by the bank of England, but it's influenced by what the treasury. And that's really important. I mean, that just slows down how quickly prices are rising. It doesn't actually make prices go down again. But I think that they are still trying to make an argument that economic stability is an important part of the puzzle, actually, like doing trade deals, sort of fighting for stability. All these geopolitical things, they're all part of it. I don't know if that is a compelling offer for voters, but that is, I think, what they would say.
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A
That's the plan. How about Keir Starmer's stability in his job? How's that looking today? Not that we should be measuring it minute by minute, although we're gonna do.
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D
All political journalists do. Let's be honest, it did reach a sort of a fever pitch at the end of last year, especially with, you know, Wes street and giving interviews like the one he gave to you, where I mean, he was all, all but kind of making his intentions very clear, all but saying explicitly. And you, I think the attention's not on this right now, but people might be surprised. People often will accuse journalists of kind of over egging this stuff, but they would be surprised that you just talk to an mp, a minister, you just pick random and they will bring it out. And also, if you ask them about this completely straight face, they will often sort of reply to you, kind of mockingly be like, no, obviously he's not going to last. And often the ones who are most outwardly loyal are the most vicious in private. Right.
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E
And it feels almost like there's been a little bit of an overcorrection, maybe at the start of this year that. I mean, towards the end of last year, there was so much leadership speculation. Wes Reading was doing that kind of interview. We'd heard from Andy Burnham earlier in the year, you know, but then, even then, some people were saying, oh, but do Labour MPs really know what they want? Are they organized enough? Are they brave enough to actually get their act together and mount a formal challenge? Because you'd need 80 Labour MPs to nominate a named person publicly. And who's going to be that person who's going to go over the top, as it were? People were saying that in December, and that was the caveat. But now that's sort of become the prevailing narrative of maybe Keir survives the year. You know, he's engaging more with MPs, he's done some good stuff on child poverty, he's focusing on the cost of living. Everyone just needs to calm down. And, you know, no one's. They're never going to get this together. And I think actually set back, like, Sienna is right, Labour is still at 17 points in the polls. You know, there are all sorts of rumors flying around about really, really awful internal polling that Labor HQ has.
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D
Yes, I've heard this a lot this week.
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E
And, you know, I mean, those are just rumors and I haven't got my hands on it.
- [32:25]
D
On it, but me neither.
- [32:26]
E
But also, you don't need to see the internal polling because you can see the public polling. You know that Labour fell behind the Conservatives this week and the Conservatives are not doing great either. Labour is still in a really, really difficult position. And while that remains the case, Keir Starmer is in a difficult position. He's really fighting back. He's got a new comms strategy. He's trying to do things a bit differently. They've made all these U turns quite quickly to minimise the damage. But I still think that, as Sienna says, when you talk to people, a lot of them still think, even if this isn't imminent, even if there's not a challenge until May or something, even if it doesn't happen, everyone is still talking about it. And it's not just idle gossip because I know some people hear conversations like this and sort of roll their eyes and think that Jeremy just love tittle tattle. It's not really about the personalities. That's only a part of it. It's like Labour is looking at the prospect of Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister and is desperate to stop it. And they all have their different ideological instincts about how you do that and they're looking at a leader who doesn't appear to be doing it at the moment. Like that is what is born out of this. That's the discussion going on and there would have to be people to lead that. But really it's more sort of, do you move to the right? Do you move to the left? What kind of an economic offer do you have? How do you pitch yourself an immigration? Which seats in the country do you want to hold on to? Which ones are you prepared to lose? It's that it's much more existential and serious than sometimes people give it credit for.
- [34:01]
A
But of course, if you have the conversation you would be having in a formal leadership contest and then you get the conversation done before the leadership contest, you can then change leaders quite quickly because you've done all the work in your mind.
- [34:15]
E
I think the problem is, though, that they can't agree, so it's actually being thrashed on. For example, I did this interview with Wes Streessing in the New Statesman before Christmas and got quite a big backlash, not towards myself, but I observed a big backlash towards him and his arguments around the economy with people to his left saying that sort of centrism and calling out racism as they see it. It wouldn't be enough to fight for Raj, that he would need to move to the left economically, that there needs to be a sort of bolder, radical offer of economic change. And then West Rating supporters have criticisms of Andy Barnum and other people to their left and it goes back and forth. And this is all basically still happening privately. And we had this moment last year where it looked like there was talk of a coronation for Wes Streeting and whether there's still been talk of that this week. But. But like his opponents, you know, the people on his left who shouldn't be his opponents because they're in the same party, but his critics to his left have made it so clear that that would not happen like that. Someone to his left, maybe Angela Rayner, someone else would stand to stop him, like they're never going to manage or. I think it's really unlikely that they'll manage to just agree amongst themselves and then seamlessly appoint someone.
- [35:39]
A
So. Interesting. Right. Very quickly, give me one thing to bear in mind for, I don't know, the next few months or the rest of the year. I'm not going to do a lame thing like make a prediction, because that's lame. Yeah, all programs do that.
- [35:52]
D
Let me have a thing.
- [35:53]
A
I mean, maybe it's actually just the stuff we've been talking about because they'll actually. All these things will repeat throughout the year. Attention with Trump, the tension within the Labour Party trying to. The tension with. Trying to tell the message to the public that you want does cost of living.
- [36:04]
D
Actually, I've got something that I can flag that happened towards the end of last year. Something major that happened which people did report on, but it is kind of more consequential than people might think, but is that the leadership of Unison, which is the biggest union in the country, has changed. And it was a bit of a surprise result, certainly to the current leadership of that union. And it has shifted dramatically to being explicitly, extremely critical of the government and Keir Starmer. And it was formally led by Christina McAneer, who was basically the most reliable ally of the Prime Minister. That has now changed. And the group of trade unions who are affiliated to the Labour Party have definitely drifted now to the left. And this is a really interesting development for what it means for internal Labour Party politics, labour leadership, etc. But also for strike action and the Employment Rights Bill.
- [37:05]
E
I guess a few quick policy things on top of everything else that we've been talking about. I think some to watch, possibly some rebellions. I'm not predicting that, but I think these are all a bit contentious and tricky for the government. Special education needs reform, the same sex guidance on same sex spaces, and jury trials. I think currently the government thinks that that'll be okay, but very, very tricky. And I just think while Labour is struggling and Kirstar is vulnerable, those are all very important bits of policy that are going to be very interesting to watch.
- [37:38]
A
Very wise, Alva. Thank you very much. Thank you, Sienna. Thanks to you too.
- [37:41]
D
Thank you.
- [37:42]
A
And that's all for this episode of Newscast. Laura and Paddy will be with you for your Saturday episode of Newscast. See you soon. Bye bye.
- [37:49]
E
Newscast, Newscast from the BBC.
- [37:52]
D
From one newscaster to another, thank you so much for making it to the end of this episode.
- [37:57]
C
You clearly do, in the words of.
- [37:59]
D
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 + +4403301239480 Be assured, I promise we listen to.