Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Here's Starmer, not exactly denying the story, but then he kind of thought, geez, I've just had two weeks of really crappy headlines for apologising. I'm not going to be doing apologising much more.
I never turn on my staff and you should never turn on your staff.
Starmer was a very different man six years ago.
We're in government. Shit, mistakes happen. It's a kind of nightmare trying to keep all the plates spinning.
I had 8,000 staff for five years as the Director of Public Prosecutions. And I acted, I hope, in the right way with them, which is when they had victories, I celebrated on their behalf. I picked up awards on their behalves. And when they made mistakes, I carried the can. I never turn on my staff and you should never turn on your staff.
Well, what a difference six years makes. That was Keir Starmer in 2020. In 2026, it all looks like it's been a bit of a bloodbath.
Four comms directors, two chiefs of staff, two cabinet secretaries and one top civil servant. Is it still everyone else's fault? Welcome to The News Agents.
The News Agents.
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Chapter 2: How has Keir Starmer's leadership changed over the years?
It's John. It's Maitlis. And Prime Minister's questions today. Huge amount of anticipation that this could be the final act in which Keir Starmer is brought down by Kemi Badenoch in a kind of grand ritual bloodletting in the House of Commons. It didn't quite work out like that because Kemi Beidnok tried to be lawyerly. But how do you out lawyer a lawyer?
And so Keir Starmer probably came away from the prime minister's questions today, feeling on a slightly firmer footing than he had done yesterday after Ollie Robbins took issue with so much of what the prime minister had said.
Yeah, first out of the traps, almost before the real debate, the real prime minister's questions had started, came a Conservative MP who stood up and went to the heart of really the big question that hung over Ollie Robbins' testimony yesterday. He asked about, drumroll, Matthew Doyle.
Can the Prime Minister deny that Downing Street considered appointing Matthew Doyle to a diplomatic position? Prime Minister. Mr Speaker, Matthew Doyle worked for many years in public service, for me as Prime Minister and other ministers. When people leave roles in any organisation, there are often conversations about other roles they want to apply for, but nothing came of this.
So there you have Keir Starmer... Not exactly denying the story, which is something that everyone has been trying to get to the bottom of since, you know, Ollie Robbins kind of dropped that bombshell, that kind of hand grenade into his evidence. Oh, yeah. No, it wasn't just Mandelson. There was, you know, this guy, Matthew Doyle, who the number 10 was trying to get into an ambassador's position.
And it is extraordinary that there is somebody who has had no diplomatic experience, no particular past in diplomacy. And yet Starmer wants to get him out of number 10. And so maybe we can find him a cushy, nice ambassadorship somewhere else. And I think this question. Of what Starmer was doing about Matthew Doyle, we still haven't really got to the bottom of.
And you've just listened to Pat McFadden, the pension secretary on Sky News this morning with Sophie Ridge. And boy, is he evasive.
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Chapter 3: What controversies surround Matthew Doyle's potential appointment?
But I just wanted to start with something that we learned yesterday. Ollie Robbins claimed that Number 10 pushed for an ambassadorship for Matthew Doyle, former Director of Communications, now suspended Labour peer. Is that true?
It's the first I'd heard of it yesterday. I don't know what conversations took place between Number 10 and the Foreign Office about that, but it didn't come to anything. And I don't think Matthew had the experience to become an ambassador. So I don't know what, you know, if he was about to leave Number 10, what conversations were taking place.
I mean, you know you're doing the interview today. You must have asked them. Did it happen? Well, I don't know... Because the implication is that it was Keir Starmer, right, that he asked... He was like, right, let's get this guy a nice poster. Look, it's not... Did that happen?
It's not unusual if someone's leaving to say, what do you want to do next? Quite what he was asked, what... He wanted to do next. I don't know.
I'm really sorry. Normally, I'm quite forgiving when people say, I don't know. In this situation, when it was this time yesterday morning, you must have asked the question. Or if you didn't ask the question, it's because you wanted to come in here and say, I'm really sorry, I don't know. I don't accept that.
No, I always try to prepare. So what did you do?
Did you ask number 10 what happened?
The important point for me is... No, sorry, this is an important point for me.
Did you ask number 10 what happened?
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Chapter 4: How did the Prime Minister's questions impact Starmer's position?
And as we found out last night, never even knew this conversation was going on around him. And Kemi Badenoch decides that she is going to press the matter home. She raises the question, not just of Matthew Doyle and the putative ambassadorial role, but in how it looks from a woman to a guy looking in on that cosy little club.
This is a joke. He says a member of the House of Lords. Does he mean people like Matthew Doyle? I'm amazed. I'm amazed. I am amazed at the level of chuntering from Labour MPs. He promised them probity. What he's given them is cronyism and an old boys club where Matthew Doyle is being proposed as an ambassador. That's ridiculous. Mr Speaker, we all heard Sir Ollie Robin's testimony yesterday.
The head of the Foreign Office was sacked for the Prime Minister's own failings. His backbenchers know that is not fair. even his most loyal Cabinet members won't defend it. The Prime Minister did not follow the process the Cabinet Secretary set out in November 2024. He knows he did not follow due process, yet he told the House he had.
Mr Speaker, I cannot accuse the Prime Minister of deliberately misleading the House. But everyone can see what has happened here. This was not due process. Everyone knows the price of misleading the House. Will the Prime Minister finally take responsibility and go?
Yes! Mr Speaker, let's be absolutely clear.
Before Mandelson took up his post, UKSV recommended with red flags that clearance should be denied and there was high concern that that was not brought to my attention or the attention of the Foreign Secretary at the time or subsequently is a very serious error of judgment and anyone in my position would have lost confidence in the former Permanent Secretary.
But Mr Speaker, the leader of the opposition claimed on Friday that Mandelson could not have been cleared against security advice. She was wrong about that. She said that ministers must have been told. She was wrong about that. She claimed there was deliberate dishonesty. She was wrong about that. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
She rushed to judgment as she always did, just like the Iran war. And it's fair to say, and we have been really critical of Keir Starmer and his role in the firing of Ollie Robbins on this podcast. But it's also true that Kemi Badenoch did come out of the traps very fast on Friday to say that essentially Keir Starmer was lying and Ollie Robbins' evidence yesterday does not prove that.
And so Kemi Badenoch has had to row back slightly from where she was. I'm told that... And I know that senior Tories think the same and people that have been quite close to her over this, that she went too fast on Friday. The other thing that someone else has said to her about, you know, how she handled Starmer is go for a leg shot. Don't go for the kill shot. You know, just keep him wounded.
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Chapter 5: What role did Ollie Robbins play in the recent political drama?
And I haven't yet had an answer. But there is that, you know, if you look closely, there is a gap between why did they put the red box and not tell him? Why did he say he'd never seen... The piece of paper in which they are clearly saying red means danger. And so I guess that also helps Keir Starmer a little bit say, well, it was kind of weird. If you step back, it was weird.
I didn't know about that whole thing. And she has gone too far because she, as you would say, went straight for the jugular instead of the leg. She just accused him of being a liar.
So I think that, you know, unanswered questions. I think there are two for me that if I had Keir Starmer in the studio now, which I think is unlikely he's going to be here anytime soon. But number one, why did you ignore the advice of Simon Case to get vetting done beforehand? Which she didn't. Which she didn't really go after.
And two, was it you who said to the Foreign Office, get Matthew Doyle an ambassadorial role? Because, again, I think it's from the horse's mouth. Yeah, you want to know that. So I think that in a sense, what we've got to now is a bit of a stalemate. That, you know, Starmer, as you say, Emily, has threaded the needle in a very zigzaggy way and it just about holds together as an explanation.
The more interesting part is what it says about Keir Starmer's character and the fact that, you know, going back to that, what you said at the very top of the podcast about the number of cabinet secretaries that have gone, the number of press secretaries that have gone, the number of chiefs of staff that have gone, that mistakes... Everyone else carries the can.
And the only thing that attaches to him is a bit of an opinion poll blip. But he doesn't take much responsibility. I was told a really interesting story about how after Keir Starmer had made the Island of Strangers speech.
These rules become even more important. Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.
So when you have an immigration system that seems almost designed to permit abuse, that encourages some businesses to bring in lower paid workers rather than invest in our young people, or simply one that is sold by politicians to the British people on an entirely false premise, then you're not championing growth. You're not championing justice or however else people defend the status quo.
you're actually contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart. So yes, I believe in this. I believe we need to reduce immigration.
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Chapter 6: How does Starmer's approach to blame affect his leadership?
And all you're doing, the fingernails are out and you're just clinging on for dear life. Yeah.
And of course, you know, you can go down that route and, you know, never complain, never explain, never apologise. Which was the Boris Johnson. Yeah. But also the person, the par excellence who does that is Donald Trump. You know, he never apologises for anything. You just be shameless about it. You carry out the firing. Tough. I'm a tough boss and this is what happens.
But that is not how Keir Starmer presented himself. And that is why it was kind of relevant to play that clip at the top of the podcast because he was going to say, I'll be the one who carries the can. Yeah. You've discovered in Downing Street, it does you no good to carry the can. And so you're always looking for someone else to blame.
And I just think that, you know, you compare it to Blair when he was prime minister. And Blair was prime minister for 10 years. He had one chief of staff that whole time. He had two press secretaries in 10 years, Alastair Campbell and David Hill. He just, you know, he wasn't getting through cabinet secretaries. And I think it does show something about the brittleness
of Keir Starmer's personality, that when something goes wrong, he doesn't say, OK, yeah, of course, look, we're in government. Shit, mistakes happen. It's a kind of nightmare trying to keep all the plates spinning. He looks for a scalp. And I think that that, you know, more than whether there was evidence that he deliberately misled the house, that is what sticks from this whole episode.
And it's really bad for him.
I mean, funnily enough, even in the Island of Strangers example that you gave earlier, He did say he made a mistake, but then he actually blamed his speechwriter and said, well, I didn't read the copy. Now, how lucky are you that you have a speechwriter? Is it so much to ask that you read what they wrote first? Right.
So, yeah, I guess that is the thing that is that kind of sticks in the crawl, because as Kemi Badenot points out, It was about the probity, wasn't it? It was about a kind of spring clean, a cleansing of politics. And I think it's quite hard to make the argument that Boris Johnson... wasn't a pretty malign influence on politics and on virtually everyone he touched. And people knew that.
They said, he's a rogue, he's a wrong-un, but, you know, he's our wrong-un. He'll get it done. He'll get the thing, you know. He'll push it forward and he'll sort of make everyone feel good about Britain along the way. And the point about Starmer was that he said, I'm serious. I'm going to come to you with some home truths about the state of our economy. But, you know...
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the recent political fallout?
And I apologise again to the victims of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who were clearly failed by my decisions. The pendulum has become turbocharged over the last few days, swinging hither and thither with gay abandon. So where is it now regarding the Prime Minister?
Listen on our free Global Player app or the LBC app.
LBC, leading Britain's conversation.
So today was the day when the ceasefire, fragile ceasefire, was due to end between Iran and the United States and Israel. And yesterday, Donald Trump was promising that the US military was raring to go and was ready to start bombing again. And then, oops, a climb down. Donald Trump suddenly says, yep, ceasefire will go on for an indeterminate time on the back of what? Nothing.
And you kind of think, God, who has blinked first here? Is it Iran or is it the United States of America? It's quite clearly the United States of America. And the fig leaf, the fig leaf that Donald Trump has given himself is that, well, the Pakistani prime minister and the Pakistanis integral to the negotiations asked me to.
Oh, so if the Pakistani prime minister asks you to, you know, lengthen the ceasefire, you're fine with that? Well, it seems the answer is yes.
We remember what happened last time the Pakistani prime minister asked something. We actually found that he'd been sent a draft email, which he copied and pasted wholesale. Look, I think if you break it down, if you look at it quite closely. Trump had three options, two of which weren't real options. So the first option is he threatens to bomb Iran and he has to bomb Iran.
He doesn't really want to bomb Iran because bombing Iran takes you backwards, makes the straightforward moves even further away and actually means that Iran carries on bombing, if not you, then at least all your allies in the Gulf. So he doesn't really want to bomb Iran. The second thing he does is he sends J.D. Vance, right? But... America is quite far from Pakistan. So by the time he's got J.D.
Vance on a plane and the Iranians go, no, thanks, we're not turning up. That's humiliating. That's really embarrassing. J.D. Vance doesn't want to arrive. In Pakistan, he doesn't want to be there, seeming all keen and ready to go. And the Iranians kind of go, we're not quite there yet. So we can't really do that.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can be learned about accountability in politics?
You know, J.D. Vance is not in Islamabad yet.
Look, I think the days of us talking about foreign affairs versus domestic affairs are done. Because today, what did we learn? That inflation has gone up to 3.3%. It's started to climb. And this means that everything that is happening in Iran is actually directly related. being felt right here, right now. It's not sometime in the future anymore. It's with us already.
So London is today hosting, I think, 30 different countries, military planners, to try and work out how they get the Strait of Hormuz opened. And I think it's important to notice that this is about strategy. You know, it's not, as previously discussed, about military efforts. It's not about defence. It's not about offence. It's saying,
Let's get the best military minds here and let's try and work out the plan. Last week, we saw Starmer with Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris. And it looks like the UK and France are still leading this mission, but they're trying to get a lot of other voices here.
And they're basically saying, I mean, this is John Healy, the defence secretary, saying participants would try and translate diplomatic consensus into into a joint plan to safeguard freedom of navigation. It's not really clear, though, whether they're trying to convince Iran or America at this point.
Well, look, the one thing, look, it's great that people are coming together to talk about what happens, but this is not going to happen tomorrow. This is for when a ceasefire or a deal is agreed between Iran and America. And then, you know, Britain, I'm sure, will send forces, the French will send forces to the state reformers to enforce the freedom of shipping. if that is what has been agreed.
But you need to get that agreement in place first. There was this whole long discussion we used to have about Donald Trump, whether, you know, the trouble is that journalists took him literally and not seriously, whereas the American public took him seriously, but not literally. And you've got to take Donald Trump seriously. It's neither.
At the moment, Donald Trump is contradicting himself and tripping himself up on a daily basis. over what he's saying. One day Iran is desperate for a deal and they're begging us. And the next day he's saying, you know, they're being intransigent and don't think you can screw with us. It just goes from day to day. Whatever comes into his head is what he seems to write down. And I think he thinks.
that if he just says something, then that will bring the oil price down and people will feel happy again because it doesn't cost as much to fill up their tanks with petrol. And I think that it's just fanciful what is happening now. And it feels like... that he's lost control of what is happening now in Iran. And that is why he's just said, OK, have a ceasefire for as long as you like.
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