The Week: The Price Of The Iran War

Summary

Newscast (BBC News)

Episode: The Week: The Price Of The Iran War
Date: April 30, 2026
Host(s): Adam Fleming, Chris Mason, Faisal Islam, with guest Alva Ray (New Statesman)

Overview

In this episode, the Newscast team takes an in-depth look not just at the week’s events but at how the spiraling crisis in Iran is set to shape UK domestic politics and the economy for weeks and months to come. After a major terror attack in Golders Green and a substantial rise in the UK terror threat level, attention shifts to the government’s handling of the fallout, the mounting economic pressures resulting from the conflict, and the precarious state of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s leadership. The episode—heavy with insight and expertly dissected by BBC’s political and economic analysts—tracks the links between global geopolitics, domestic economic pain, and UK political intrigue on the eve of crucial elections.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Golders Green Attack and Government Response

• Starmer’s Statement: PM Keir Starmer thanks first responders and pledges measures to protect Jewish communities and combat extremism.
  • Quote (Keir Starmer, 02:39):
    "We will increase our investment in those Jewish security services. We will introduce much stronger powers to shut down charities that promote anti-Semitic extremism."
• Public Critique: Chris Mason notes the PM’s awareness of criticism of “warm words, not action,” and discusses the mixed and sometimes hostile public and community responses to government figures visiting affected areas.
  • Quote (Chris Mason, 04:29):
    "It's a baseline expectation, isn't it, of government that they can not just seek to reassure, but do reassure and then respond in a way that those who are victims feel reassured by. Which at the moment is an open question."

Terror Threat Level Rises

• Change in Threat Assessment: The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre raises the UK's threat level from “substantial” to “severe”, signaling that an attack is highly likely.
  • Chris Mason, 05:49:
    "So a notching up of that... an acknowledgement from this body... of an uptick, putting it up to that second highest level."

Starmer’s Focus on National Crisis, Not Political Gossip

• Leadership Distraction: Alva Ray highlights that Starmer (long before becoming PM) prioritizes economics and crisis management over “petty” Westminster intrigue, especially at a time when public discourse hasn’t “caught up” with the economic shock now facing the country due to the Iran war (07:00–08:12).
  • Quote (Alva Ray, 08:02):
    "Keir Starmer finds the... idea that you could change Prime Minister at a time of economic crisis... so ridiculous."

Economic Fallout from the Iran War

• Prolonged Disruption: Economic correspondent Faisal Islam draws on new data and government briefings, suggesting that supply chain troubles, especially through the Gulf, mean “at least eight months of economic disruption after the conflict ends” (08:21–09:07).
  • Disruption in energy markets (ships stuck, potential mines in the Gulf, insurance issues) amplifies the shock, even if fighting ceased immediately (09:52–12:17).
  • Insurers and Risk: Even “peace” wouldn’t bring instant economic normality – shipping insurers must trust that routes are safe.
  • Quote (Faisal Islam, 11:05):
    “It isn’t that you have to clear the strait and have peace. You also have to give enough comfort to the insurers of these ships that the traffic can restart.”

Government Messaging and Political Calculation

• Managing Expectations: The government, via ministers like Darren Jones, is deliberately warning the public—subtly—about economic pain to come, such as suggesting people may want to reconsider foreign holidays (12:25–13:53).
• Balancing Gloom and Reassurance: Chris Mason and Faisal Islam discuss how Downing St. walks a fine line between “doomy and gloomy” messaging and failing to prepare the public for difficult months ahead.
  • Chris Mason, 13:53:
    “You don’t want to sound utterly doomy and gloomy and add to... economic gloom... whilst at the same time not... fail to do expectation management.”

Comparisons with Previous Crises

• Ukraine Parallel: Differences are drawn with the 2022 Ukraine energy crisis—this shock is less focused on Europe/gas and potentially less severe for domestic bills, but still challenging (14:43–17:01).
• Public Sacrifice?: There’s skepticism about whether UK political culture will accept policies requiring individual sacrifice for the collective good, referencing infamous “wear a jumper” advice (17:01).

Starmer’s Political Position and Political Intrigue

• Starmer’s Call: Despite economic pain, Starmer’s refusal to join a US-led Iran war is cited as a rare point of public credit, even as his popularity remains fragile.
  • Alva Ray, 17:37:
    "He didn't follow Donald Trump into this war in Iran... he does get a bit of credit for that on doorsteps..."

Labour Party Leadership Rumblings

• Rumors and Maneuvering: Persistent talk of a coming leadership challenge grows as local elections loom. Angela Rayner is rumored to be considering a move, and Andy Burnham’s “outsider” status is debated.
  • Alva Ray, 24:53:
    "Rayner would want about 100... Labour MPs to roll in behind [her] when a lot of them are still indulging the Andy Burnham dream."
• Timing and Uncertainty: The complex choreography of possible leadership contests and the delayed, staggered release of election results means no one individual or faction has total control.

Market Jitters and Fiscal Policy

• Bond Market Fears: The team underscores how leadership instability could spook financial markets, raising borrowing costs for the government in real time.
  • Adam Fleming, 28:33:
    “The other number is going to be how much government borrowing costs. Because... [it] changes minute by minute on the basis of this politics.”

Notable Moments & Quotes

• Adam Fleming, 09:36:
  “Watching what's unfolding in the Gulf has been like watching something unfolding on TV because it's quite hard to link what's happening there with what might happen in my bank account soon.”
• Faisal Islam, 12:17:
  “It isn’t going to be days or weeks, it will have been months and therefore all the consequences... come into play.”
• Chris Mason, 28:33:
  "The big calling card of Keir Starmer was stability. And you want to volunteer that we will indulge in a massive wave of instability when you can’t even be certain your candidate’s going to win. I mean, that’s quite a powerful argument."
• Alva Ray, 32:06:
  "[Andy Burnham's] not even in Parliament... there's just... skepticism in parts of the Labour Party about the reality of what some people call the Burnham Fantasy."

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Highlight | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:39 | Keir Starmer’s statement on Golders Green and protection measures | | 05:37 | UK terror threat level rise explained | | 07:00 | Starmer’s focus vs. Westminster intrigue | | 08:21 | “At least eight months” economic disruption warning | | 09:36 | Real impacts of Gulf shipping troubles | | 11:05 | Complexities of restoring Gulf shipping (insurance, risk) | | 12:25 | Govt messaging: warning about holidays and spending habits | | 13:53 | Downing St’s balance of warning the public vs. avoiding panic | | 17:37 | Starmer’s one “saving grace”: not entering Iran war | | 23:42 | Angela Rayner considers leadership bid after May local elections | | 28:33 | Political instability and impact on UK borrowing costs | | 32:06 | Skepticism re: Andy Burnham as Labour leader |

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Tone and Language

• The hosts employ a mix of incisive political analysis and informal, sometimes wry banter.
• There is a sense of unresolved tension—both about economic risks and Westminster plotting—that reflects the volatile political and economic moment.
• Key speakers are direct and candid, often referencing off-mic conversations and exclusive briefings to illustrate how “un-caught-up” public discourse (and parts of the media) remain about the full fallout of the Iran conflict.

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Conclusion

This episode of Newscast delivers a sobering but sharply analytical examination of the ripple effects from the Iran war on the UK’s politics and economy. The panel deftly moves from local terror attacks to the intricacies of global energy markets, party infighting, and government messaging, making clear that Britain faces not just short-term shocks, but a long period of adjustment—economic, political, and cultural. With leadership struggles brewing and new economic “realities” dawning, the team leaves listeners with a strong sense that the coming weeks will be as unpredictable as they are consequential.

Transcript

[Adam Fleming]

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[Adam Fleming]

Hello, I've just got home after recording our regular Thursday night newscast which is broadcast on BBC1 after question time where me and Chris look back at the and work out what we've learned with friends of the podcast. But it's just hit me that it wasn't really a look back at what's happened this week. It's more a look forward to what's going to happen next week and the week after that in politics and the economy. And yeah, it just hit me that it wasn't really what we normally do. So let me know what you think when you listen to this episode of

[Alva Ray]

Newscast, Newscast, Newscast from the BBC, Humanity's

[Chris Mason]

next great voyage begins.

[Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser]

We are in the midst of a rupture.

[Chris Mason]

Nostalgia will not bring back the old order.

[Keir Starmer]

Six, seven.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, it's supposed to be me as a doctor.

[Adam Fleming]

Daddy has also a special connotation.

[Alva Ray]

Ooh la la.

[Faisal Islam]

Thinking about it like a panto helped.

[Chris Mason]

Do we play music now or what do we do?

[Adam Fleming]

Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.

[Chris Mason]

What's up Doc? Adam, it's Chris in the newscast studio.

[Faisal Islam]

And it's Faisal in the newscast studio.

[Adam Fleming]

And we're joined by Alva Ray, who's political editor of the New Statesman. Hello, Alva.

[Alva Ray]

Hello. Thanks for having me.

[Adam Fleming]

Well, thanks for coming. And I should just explain, Chris reference there to Bugs Bunny is that he and I were on a quiz on Radio 2 with Paddy McGuinness on Sunday morning and one of the questions to me, which I did not get right was what was Bugs Bunny's catchphrase?

[Chris Mason]

And the reason I feel that I can tease Adam is that Adam won and I lost, actually. So therefore.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah, but only on a tie.

[Chris Mason]

It was on a tie where we had to guess whether Paddy had his left or his right hand up and I managed to get that wrong twice.

[Faisal Islam]

Okay.

[Adam Fleming]

Anyway, this is not a Paddy McGuinness Radio 2 podcast companion show. We're here to talk about some of the big things that have been happening in the news this week. Obviously, one of those big things that happened in the UK was the Golders Green attack. And just a couple of hours before we recorded this episode of newscast on Thursday evening, Keir Starmer did a statement in down and here's a bit of it.

[Keir Starmer]

I met some of the first responders today and on behalf of the country, I thank them for their bravery. We will strengthen the visible police presence in our Jewish communities. We will increase our investment in those Jewish security services. We will introduce much stronger powers to shut down charities that promote anti Semitic extremism. We will prevent hate preachers from entering our country, bar them from our campuses, our streets, our communities, work with our justice system to speed up sentencing on anti Semitic attacks. So there is a stronger deterrence factor, as we do with riots.

[Adam Fleming]

Chris, what was your take on what the Prime Minister was saying?

[Chris Mason]

I think it was striking, listening to his language and the argument that he made, that he is aware of the critique that he has faced, that the government's response to moments like this is, as critics see it, warm words but not necessarily significant action that they feel could make a difference. And I think in some of what we were hearing there, he's trying to, he's trying to counter that. Very aware, having just come back from Golden Screen in North London, that he, you know, they encountered a pretty, a pretty rough reception.

[Adam Fleming]

And it was interesting because in some of his previous statements in the wake of these attacks, he's been trying to reassure Jewish people to say, we're with you, we've got your back. Here's the things we can do to help you feel safer. I thought this time he was much more trying to appeal to everyone to say, this is everyone in Britain's issue, not just one particular communities. And he started off with. He was doing a list there of things that the government's doing, but he started off with a list of all the attacks that have been in the last year.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, I know. I think absolutely, absolutely that in terms of the, you know, how does society itself, all of us, reflect on this when there's an attack on British people on a British street from what is in numerical terms, a tiny community. So the vast majority of his audience, by definition, are not Jewish and therefore seeking to speak to, if you like, to those who are and those who aren't. I think they feel keenly that critique about the suggestion of words and not action. And we saw the response that the local emperor, Sarah Sackman and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner got when they went to Golden Screen on Wednesday. And then an element of it, I mean, at the very least a mixed response that the Prime Minister received and some chanting and booing as he, as he arrived. So I think there's a, you know, keen awareness in government when things like this happen, when there are terror attacks, that it is absolutely kind of a baseline expectation, isn't it, of government that they can not just seek to reassure, but do reassure and then respond in a way that those who see them, you know, who are the victims feel reassured by. Which at the moment is an open question.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

And I should just say we're recording this episode of newscast at 7:30 on Thursday evening. And also since we heard from Keir Starmer, we then got another quite significant announcement from the government which is that the UK terror threat level is going from substantial to severe.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah. So just to walk you through this, this is from the Joint Terrorism Analysis center, which works out where we sit on the, on the, the five threat levels. Critical is the most. Is the highest severe, the one we're now on suggesting an attack is highly likely substantial, which is the level that we've been out for the last four and a bit years. An attack is likely. So a notching up of that, so an acknowledgement from this, from, from this body of civil servants, if you like, in terms of the national response of a, of a, an uptick, putting it up to that second highest level.

[Adam Fleming]

And Alva Keir Starmer feels the job of the British Prime Minister is to grapple with things like this rather than fend off what he sees as gossip about his own future or who might be plotting to replace him or who performed best at a select committee.

[Alva Ray]

Yes, exactly. And we've known that Keir Starmer thinks this way for a very long time, since before he became Prime Minister. We've always said and known that he finds a lot of what we do, Chris, a bit petty and he doesn't have loads of.

[Adam Fleming]

You weren't included in that person.

[Alva Ray]

Well, I guess this is what we'll come on to. He finds the economics so much more serious than the politics. He sort of hates the Westminster up and down culture. And I think that particularly this week, which began with more select committee hearings around the appointment of Peter Mandelson and the sacking of Ollie Robbins that was consuming so much time. And from speaking to people close to Him I really picked up kind of more than ever that Keir Starmer was just tearing his hair out at that because the economic impact of the ongoing war in Iran will just be so devastating. People in number 10 are saying on a level that they think public discourse just hasn't really caught up with. And Keir Starmer has, you know, his actual diary has been substantially rearranged to accommodate all of the Peter Mandelson stuff. They do emphasize that they want to cooperate and it's under scrutiny is important. They're not being dismissive of that, but just that actually, I think Keir Starmer finds the. What's implicit in all of this, this idea that you could change Prime Minister at a time of economic crisis. I think he just finds that so ridiculous.

[Adam Fleming]

And Faisal, what sort of economic data will number 10 be looking at that draws them to that conclusion that the rest of us maybe haven't quite internalized yet?

[Faisal Islam]

Well, the inflation data, the economic data, obviously today we had the bank of England inflation. Lot of this is quite tentative and it kind of just depends on what's happening on the underlying geopolitical situation. But I think what, what we have now, and we heard this a little bit from his chief secretary, didn't we, is the idea that they're battening down the hatches for a glass half empty version of events over the past couple of weeks.

[Adam Fleming]

Well, yeah, because that was Darren Jones who was on Laura's program on Sunday and sort of like almost hidden away in his, his, his answer about what's going on in the world. He said, oh, prepare for there to be at least eight months of economic disruption after the conflict ends. Yes, yeah.

[Faisal Islam]

Yes. So if it ended today, and that's partly because of gas facilities having been destroyed in the Gulf and needing to be rebuilt. It's actually I just been at the Royal Navy facilities in Portsmouth where they showed me for the 6 and 10, they showed me just some of the logistics behind what's going on in the Gulf. It's absolutely fascinating. And I just came away from that thinking, God, even if you had a piece tonight, even just getting the ships through the Gulf is one thing. Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

So just give us, bring some of that. Because this is what I've struggled with this story all along, that watching the, the, the what's unfolding in the Gulf has been like watching something unfolding on tv because it's quite hard to link what's happening there with what might happen in my bank account soon.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah, well, these guys are getting phone calls from all Sorts of captains of vessels in the Gulf, including like, bizarrely, from like Russian vessels, phone up this Royal Navy team called the Maritime Trade Operations Team another and some Iranian vessels. So they know it all because we're still sort of trusted in the maritime world like that. So the. There's 870 ships stuck. 130 normally transit both ways. Is less than 10 still.

[Chris Mason]

This is per day.

[Faisal Islam]

Is it per day? Yeah, yeah, it's less than 10. So it's basically shot. There's extraordinary things going, going on. If you can track the ships. There's like Iranian ships making a break for it, going straight through the mined area. It's a big red square on their sort of giant map which shows says hazardous. And that's. And this is interesting, this is where the Iranians say that it's mined. No one's entirely sure if it is mined or how much it's mined. And so there are ships that have gone straight through the middle of it.

[Adam Fleming]

Right.

[Faisal Islam]

And so that's quite an interesting question because when you think about, well, how long is it going to take to deal with all this stuff easier or is it not mined?

[Chris Mason]

Yeah.

[Faisal Islam]

Is. Is a difference between it taking a couple of weeks or six.

[Adam Fleming]

The companies that insurer ships have quite a high threshold. Is it mined or not?

[Faisal Islam]

That's absolutely the case. Which is like the reality is it isn't that you have to clear the strait and have peace. You also have to give enough comfort to the insurers of these ships that the traffic can restart. So that is why we're talking several months. There's all sorts of backlogs and supply chains that have broken as well. But what we've learned this week is even that sort of stopwatch of well is going to take even longer because the Americans have been briefing privately. You know, we can see out a. Some sort of blockade of Iran for a few months to go. You know, they apparently asked the oil companies if that was the, you know, if they could handle that, what would they do? That's the sort of message that we're hearing. And so that is why you've had these violent swings upwards and actually a little bit downwards in the oil price. So all of that feeds in to the idea that it's going to last longer. So the fundamental point is this. How big is the energy shock? How big is the economic shock? It depends on how long it lasts. What we have now is the information that it isn't going to be days or weeks, it will have been months and therefore all the Consequences that Alpha just talked about come into play.

[Adam Fleming]

In which case, why is the Government not being more explicit about what's going to happen? Why is it just Darren Jones sort of dropping into conversation that prepare for nearly a year of disruption.

[Alva Ray]

Oh, so I think that that was really deliberate that Darren Jones said that to Laura Koonsberg on Sunday. And actually the Prime Minister himself said something a little bit similar. He said that people might want to change their spending habits coming forward and they might consider not holidaying abroad. Which, you know, from. For the Prime Minister himself to be carrying that message is quite significant. And that was really just not a coincidence. I think if you see it in the political context as well, I think that inside number 10 they thought that they needed to inject what they saw as a much needed dose of reality into the political debate because they were having this experience in number 10. I'm sure some of this is political spin, but they were having this experience of basically whiplash of sort of one minute you're thinking about process from months ago, Ollie Robbins, Peter Mandelson, who said what when and then they're in these crisis talks about shortages, about the economic fallout, about inflation and feeling it quite acutely to an extent where they then think, why would anyone want to be to replace the Prime Minister at this point? Why would you want to become leader of the country while you're weathering this economic shock? That would be a really tricky inheritance.

[Adam Fleming]

And I am just remembering, I mean, as recently as two weeks ago when government ministers were asked, oh, should people think about postponing or canceling their holidays because there might not be enough fuel for planes in a couple of weeks time. And it was, the advice was, no, carry on, everything's going to be fine. And actually that is definitely changing now, isn't it?

[Chris Mason]

I think it's the dilemma, isn't it, from Downing Street's perspective, that you don't want to sound utterly doomy and gloomy and add to a sort of self perpetuating sense of economic gloom, particularly against the long term economic backdrop, let alone the shorter term one, whilst at the same time not ending up in a circumstance almost by accident because of the volume of other news around, rather, whether it be international or domestic or indeed political, that you get to the point where you haven't done an element of expectation management and then also sort of that sense in that looking at it in a very narrowly political sense in terms of the Prime Minister and his future, one where you might start to make an argument that is exactly that, that says that says to his own party, why on earth would we contribute voluntarily towards political turbulence at a point where there's huge economic turbulence?

[Faisal Islam]

I have to say it's quite interesting though, I'm intrigued that they are going for it on this because although in a worst case scenario, and that's what the bank will put out today, you could see inflation at 6%. You could see interest rates therefore above 5% this year. Was that worst case scenario. One of the features of this energy shock is it's quite different to what happened in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. It is much less focused on Europe and it's much less focused on gas. That is, relatively speaking good news. Probably not. Is less bad news, bad news. It's less bad news. Much less bad news, I should say, for things like domestic energy bills.

[Adam Fleming]

So even bad for Australia?

[Faisal Islam]

Well, it. This whole, I mean, you know, the p. It's what happens in Asia where those physical oil, gas, jet fuel, fertilizer supplies are needed. That is where you have a big problem. And clearly if there's some sort of Asian global recession that's going to affect everybody, I'm not going to try to downplay that, but people tend to draw analogies with what they can remember in the previous crisis. This is quite different. So the peak gas price even in the worst case scenario is 200 pence a therm. It got up to 5, 600 pence at some point during the Ukrainian crisis and at the Moment it's only 140. That's just one example showing that the domestic gas price implications of this at the minute and our energy bills shouldn't be as bad as it was for Ukraine, but could still be challenging. And so it's an intriguing judgment. One of the things that we've talked about before is about during that Russia, Ukraine crisis, what you had across Europe and in particular Germany was this mobilization and using less energy, turning off public buildings, lights or sharing car shares, all that sort of stuff. And it struck me that the UK in 2022 could not have that conversation because the minute someone floated anything like that, it was like, oh, you're interfering with my personal freedom. You can't do that. Why is this politician, you know, and you then you raise the question right now, if that is where they want to lean, do they have the political capital, does anyone have the political capital in our political culture to try and make that type of economic argument about sacrifice for the greater good? It's quite, you know, Well, I remember

[Adam Fleming]

the day they're gonna go for that I remember the day a few years ago when a civil servant who was the Prime Minister's spokesperson at the time, got moved out of their job because they suggested that people wear a jumper when it was cold. That is such a good example of the political culture we have here when it comes to saving energy. I also wonder, though, is this not just an example, what is the shortage example of having your cake and eating it, like not having a cake and not eating it, like Keir Starmer gets to have. Yeah. Gets a bit of political benefit from us talking like this, doesn't it? Because it does shore up his position electorally and also.

[Alva Ray]

Well, a tiny bit. Exactly the way Chris just described it. I think that we were so focused on this at the beginning of the Iran war, asking how the government would intervene on energy bills, and. And they were on the, you know, doing the tours of broadcast studios, trying to do that reassurance pitch, so there wasn't sort of a run on gas and people didn't stockpile. I think that they just feel like the public mood has moved so far beyond that that a little bit of trying to reset the dial won't make that much of a difference, but that it's not unhelpful to remind people of what they think is basically Keir Starmer's main political strength right now, which is that he didn't follow Donald Trump into this war in Iran, that this is the big call that they think he. And he does get a bit of credit for that on doorsteps, from speaking to people. I listened into a focus group from Sunderland over the weekend and he was getting a tiny bit of credit for it, too. Not enough to really stop him still being incredibly unpopular in that focus group. But this is the sort of the one saving grace, I think, in the view of number 10. And they're right that that's borne out in conversations on doorsteps.

[Chris Mason]

And so for him to then make that argument, which Darren Jones is also making at the weekend, which is effectively to say, in their view, this is the big call we've got. Right. And the arc of this is far from over, from which you can join some dots about where a political argument could go, particularly the other side of next week's elections, is fascinating, given the pressure he's been under in the last couple of weeks.

[Adam Fleming]

Although, Faisal, there's a slight irony when you read the bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee notes, where they talk about the decision to hold interest rates and they basically say one of the advantages the UK's got going forward is that the economy's quite weak.

[Faisal Islam]

Right.

[Adam Fleming]

Because if we had a strong economy and unemployment was very low and everything was working really efficiently, actually the. Potentially the situation would be worse. Basically, there's some. There's some slack in the economy that can pick up higher energy prices.

[Faisal Islam]

Yes. And then more than that, they said, they said the following is a similar argument, not quite exactly the same, which is they may be able to hold off on aggressive rate rises because it's difficult to see, or they don't anticipate that these energy price rises will lead to wage rises. And the reason why is because the wage rounds have already happened. So the inflation has happened after the bulk of wage negotiations. But then you unpick what that actually says. So the inflation will be real. But people's wages were set in January and February and it, and that will be a real household disposable income.

[Adam Fleming]

So your bills will go up, but your wages won't go up.

[Faisal Islam]

To me, but it means that. It means that interest rates might stay more constrained than they otherwise would do.

[Chris Mason]

The other fact, deal with the reality of that. Because people are feeling squeezed because of the gap between inflation and where their wages are.

[Faisal Islam]

Well, well, it's more that. Because the inflationary pressure coming from wages is lower than you would otherwise have.

[Chris Mason]

Right.

[Faisal Islam]

They don't need to dampen down the inflationary fires. But the other aspect to this, which then affects all of the constraints of what a government could or couldn't do, and it's very notable that, that however generous they say they might be about energy bills, that they're constantly saying it's targeted, we won't waste money like Liz Truss, which wasn't the argument they were making at the time, I don't think in 2022, I seem to remember. But it's clear that this has affected government debt markets and so the effective interest rate that's facing all governments, to be honest, but, but like there is a sort of slight extra volatility in the UK and they've gone up. And they've gone up in a way that, you know, if we had a kind of regular running total of what this due to the budget, you know, we'd be asking the questions, is this going to mean tax rises? They've put that decision off until a budget, which again might go, might go long. I mean, can we even start talking about the budget now? I don't know.

[Chris Mason]

But like, please, no.

[Faisal Islam]

These constraints are very, these constraints are, are real and they bump up against any view of mass generosity to deal with the costs of this crisis potentially. And then the arguments within the Labour Party, I imagine, about whether to list, you know, how seriously to take the bond markets and, and people have come unstuck on that and it gets quite. Tricks, tricky quite quickly.

[Adam Fleming]

And also the people who are either not listening to this or ignoring this and acting accordingly are friends of people like Wes treating Angela Ra and Andy Barnum. Because, like, there's so much gossip and backstabbing and unsourced stories about people behaving badly that it seems like there is a bit of a leadership contest going on already.

[Chris Mason]

Well, I mean, yes, basically, at a, at, at a, at a particular level. You know, for months now, months, there's been that. And we've reflected it, haven't we, on, on newscasts. And there's been various moments where it's come to a head. Not least the couple of months ago on the day that Anna Sawa, the Labour leader in Scotland, said the Prime Minister should resigned, but he wasn't. He went public. There was plenty of others who were very live to the potential, including in Downing street, that that could very easily have been the moment. Now it wasn't. And actually, Alvar, I was quite struck that until about, what, just over two weeks ago when the whole Lord Mandelson Ollie Robbins thing exploded with that Guardian story. The conversations I was having, Labour MPs were leaning towards thinking that perhaps the Prime Minister would be able to get through the backwash of the, of the elections and on he may go. And by the way, that may still happen, but the last couple of weeks has charged it up again. And then as we were reflecting at the, the weekend at Castfest, where is the. And we don't know the answer to this yet. Where is two things. One, the kind of collective mood of anxiety or however it's defined the other side of the elections for Labour. And then even if that is quite heightened, which seems quite likely, does it coalesce into something that jeopardizes the Prime Minister's future? And that's not certain.

[Alva Ray]

And I think, I mean, you mentioned some of the names. I think a very interesting one is Angela Raynor. I mean, the Times has already reported this, the New Statesman's hearing similar, that she's really seriously considering launching a leadership challenge in the days after the results in May.

[Faisal Islam]

That's like 10 in a week's time.

[Alva Ray]

Yeah. And but the thing is that we can't.

[Chris Mason]

We're still talking about mayors if it's a million.

[Alva Ray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Next week. And I guess Because. Because we have been talking about it for months and months and months now. It's nearly here and the Labour Party will finally need to decide what it does. And that may well be nothing, as Chris has just said, but certainly I think that these conversations are becoming a bit more real. But no one has complete agency in this, which I think is what is so interesting. If you're Angela Rayner, you don't think that you've complete agency in this, because you want to know that all of your colleagues who you feel should be backing you, who are still talking about Andy Burnham, who's not even in Parliament, you need them to get behind you. You need about 100 of them too,

[Adam Fleming]

just because the rule is What. You need 80 plus Labour MPs to sign up to you to challenge the sitting Prime Minister.

[Alva Ray]

But I think Rayner would want about 100, I gather, and just to have a sort of, you know, the heft of a big movement. So you need about 100 Labour MPs to roll in behind you when a lot of them are still indulging the Andy Burnham dream. You know, that's a similar bit of the party. They're not all rolling in behind her. But I think also, crucially, Keir Starmer has a lot of agency in this. You know, people talk about how it depends on the feeling, the emotional response of all these Labour politicians losing their jobs and, you know, what people like Anna saw or say as the results come in. But then it's sort of how he navigates that difficult political moment. It's in his hands in a way, like all these camps thinking about what they do, want to see what he does. And, you know, he. People.

[Adam Fleming]

And you've kind of told us tonight what he is going to do, which is, guys, there's a war in the Gulf and there's massive economic turbulence that we haven't told you about yet. Coming this way. Leave me in place.

[Alva Ray]

Well, I think I'd be interested to know what you're hearing about this, Chris. I don't think they've completely worked it all out because the choreography of this will be quite difficult. People forget that the results are not just in one big go overnight and then it's done. They'll be trickling through for two days on the Friday and the Saturday. At what point, if you're Prime Minister, do you intervene and do a speech?

[Chris Mason]

I think this is fascinating, that choreography, because. And it's useful for newscasters to sort of think this, have this in their minds. We're so used to The British political culture tells us that you wake up on the Friday morning after an election and there is the result.

[Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Chris Mason]

And we will wake up on Friday morning to some results in England. If you're the Prime Minister, there might be a temptation to go out and say something on Friday morning, but that'll be before we get the results from Wales and from Scotland and plenty of other parts of England. And the results, depending on where you are, will head off in all sorts of different directions. Then you're going to have a whole collection, it would appear, of Labour folk in different parts of Britain who will be a combination of exhausted. Not necessarily because they've been all put all right, because lots of people won't have to, but they'll be exhausted. They'll be in the company of cameras, microphones and journalists. And they will be, for many of them, kind of. There'll be an emotion attached to it because they'll have lost friends who have not been elected or not been re elected or. Or whatever. How do they respond? How they respond will depend on who they. If who they have lost to, which could be in lots of different directions depending on where they are. And. Yeah. How does that. That manifests itself where, crucially, as Alva says, no one has total agency. And so the Prime Minister, just going back to the Angela Rayner thing, obviously she's got the whole question of sorting out her tax issues. What does she do? Let's assume the tax thing is resolved or gets to the point where it's the next week, not. Not the political issue that it is, when it's unresolved.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah.

[Chris Mason]

What does she do, for instance, if the Prime Minister offers a receipt back in the Cabinet.

[Alva Ray]

Yeah.

[Chris Mason]

Which. Well, which one does she accept? Does she think the Prime Minister has a longevity or not? And therefore, is that something she wants to take on? That's just looking at it through the prism of one potential contender, let alone there's the Andy Burnham question and can he get back to Parliament, et cetera, et cetera. What about where? Streeting. And then the Prime Minister and his allies saying to Labour MPs of every view, back to the point about turbulence. Look at the economic backdrop. The big calling card of Keir Starmer was stability. And you want to volunteer that we will indulge in a massive wave of instability when you can't even be certain your candidate's going to win. I mean, that's quite a powerful argument.

[Adam Fleming]

So we'll all be looking at all the numbers that come in for the number of councillors or Members of Scottish Parliament or members of the Senate. But the other number is going to be how much government borrowing costs. Because we can see the bond markets, the people that lend the government money to keep it functioning, changes minute by minute on the basis of this politics.

[Faisal Islam]

It can do and it can be affected. And I was rather intrigued to see that Andy Burnham had given an interview to financial publication Bloomberg where he had clarified that point about the bond markets

[Adam Fleming]

because he'd previously said we need to be less in hoc, which people thought, oh, he wants to borrow and spend more, which he can't do.

[Faisal Islam]

I think his argument was, in fact, we, you know, we need to sort things out so we're not constantly. It was a slightly more.

[Adam Fleming]

Yes, exactly. The way it was interpreted was not.

[Faisal Islam]

And he left himself open for it to be interpreted like that. But now he's saying that he'd stick to the fiscal rule. Fiscal rules, but seeks an exemption for the increase in defense spending, which is the conservative German proposal of Friedrich Merz. It doesn't sound, you know, people will have a problem maybe with it or not if you're, you know, fiscally austere, but it's kind of mainstream radicalism, if you see what I mean. But he all, you know, which I thought was intriguing.

[Chris Mason]

That's a phrase.

[Faisal Islam]

It's not.

[Alva Ray]

Not.

[Faisal Islam]

But then I, you know, I also, you know, it just seemed like there was an attempt to sort of slightly sort of in that market, reposition himself, which certainly sounded like he was pairing

[Adam Fleming]

something which, which isn't necessarily like an Andy Burnham versus Keir Starmer thing. We should be reading that as a Andy Burnham versus Angela Rayner thing, potentially.

[Faisal Islam]

But he also said something intriguing about, about. About politics. He said that part of the problem for investors was this total political turbulence. And we come back to this point, which is labor, half a majority of 160, 170. The markets did have a sigh of relief, even if they don't like all the policies that of Starmer and Reeves, that at least you'd know where they were going. And it isn't, you know, wow, what we have seen. And so Burnham in this interview, he says, well, what we need is to find structures that provide the political stability. I think he was implying working across the aisle with other parties and things like that. But I just thought it was an interesting argument that there is something in the water in British politics which means that even if you have a majority of 150, you cannot run the country.

[Adam Fleming]

It's not a big enough buffer to guarantee political stability.

[Faisal Islam]

Which I think is questionable. I mean, you might rather say, well, have you been particularly competent at running the country with a majority of 150, perhaps?

[Chris Mason]

And it's also a curious argument to make when any. Any route between, you know, any route from where we are now to him being Prime Minister is guaranteed to involve an element of political instability.

[Alva Ray]

Yeah. And also, just like that's the sort of intervention that you do if you are a shoo in or a likely candidate in a leadership contest in a few weeks and you want to reassure the markets so that the cost of borrowing doesn't go up and you don't have time.

[Faisal Islam]

No, no. That's how I saw it.

[Alva Ray]

But then the. But then the big issue is he still doesn't have a seat in Parliament.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah. The anti Burnham Runway is months long.

[Alva Ray]

And there's just. It's worth emphasizing that there's just quite a bit of skepticism in parts of the Labour Party about the reality of what some people call the Burnham Fantasy, that we hear different theories about how he might come back or who might give up their seats, which often get

[Chris Mason]

knocked down, don't they, by the incumbents.

[Adam Fleming]

Just this week, in fact.

[Alva Ray]

But then this idea that Keir Starmer might facilitate it. He'd be so weak. He'd have to. Have to. And then the nec, that, like that ruling label, might they have a shared interest?

[Faisal Islam]

Might they have a shared interest in going long? I mean, I know there's.

[Adam Fleming]

But you know what? I think we've gone long because we've run out of time for this. We could go on for another five hours. It's almost like it's election night tonight, but that's a whole week away. Alva, thank you very much.

[Alva Ray]

Thanks for having me, Faisal.

[Adam Fleming]

Thanks to you, too. And good to catch up with you. Chris.

[Chris Mason]

What's up, doc?

[Adam Fleming]

Newscast.

[Alva Ray]

Newscast from the BBC.

[Podcast Host/Closer]

From one newscaster 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 [e-mail] or if you're that way inclined, send us a WhatsApp on 440-330-1239480. Be assured, I promise, we listen to everyone.

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