UK political news podcast with Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel, and Lewis Goodall. Making sense of the news.
"Up To Speed" is a new segment from The News Agents that aims to provide quick, informative updates on current events, helping listeners stay informed in a fast-paced world.
Another head spinning day in Westminster. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called on Starmer to stand down as Prime Minister, saying "the distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change." Many Cabinet Ministers were quick to jump to Starmer's defence. Some were notably slow to back the Prime Minister. With the drama coming just a day after Starmer lost his right-hand-man, Morgan McSweeney, the question today is whether this is the beginning of the end for Keir St...
The Winter Olympics are here! What sport are we all going to pretend to be an expert at? Curling maybe? Today Gabby and Mark are joined by one of Great Britain’s biggest medal hopes, freestyle skier Kirsty Muir. She started skiing at 3 years old on the dry slopes of Scotland - imagine the carpet burn doing flips on that surface! Her nan can’t even watch when she does the huge tricks. This year she’s already won gold at the X Games and her third World Cup title. So can she win gold in Italy? P...
Imagine a loan where the Government sets the terms. It can change the terms at any time, and you have no recourse to alter them yourself. A loan designed so most people never clear it, but pay for it anyway. Not because they failed, but because that’s how it was built. This is the system successive British governments have built. In this episode of The News Agents, we examine the relations of our student loan system and ask how can it be that the UK government has built a system that you migh...
Keir Starmer apologised this morning for appointing Peter Mandelson as Britain's ambassador to the US. He said he should never have believed "the lies" of Mandelson. He says he understands the "anger and frustration" of Labour MPs. But is he in a position to win back the support of his own party? How close is he to the brink? And - if Mandelson's relationship with Epstein was widely known at the time of his appointment - what is the PM actually apologising for? One of those concerned Labour M...
Keir Starmer says Peter Mandelson "lied repeatedly" about the extent of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and said that he regrets appointing the Labour Peer as US ambassador in 2024. But with the relationship between the men well known, questions about the Prime Minister's political judgement are looming. Could this be the moment that brings down the Prime Minister? Later, Sir Brian Leveson on why the courts system faces potential collapse without major reform - and the calls to resurre...
Things are moving at quite a pace these days, but at the time of writing Peter Mandelson has relinquished his peerage and the Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Office to hand over Mandelson's emails to the police. The Republican campaign group has also called on the police to investigate Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. Will any of this lead anywhere? Or is it all just noise? And why have the Clinton’s now decided to testify before Congress on what they knew about Jefrey Epstein? The News Agent...
Peter Mandelson has resigned from the Labour party and insists he "doesn’t recall" receiving tens of thousands of pounds from Jeffrey Epstein but has now called for "an investigation.by me“ to check. What was he doing lobbying for the paedophile billionaire from the heart of government? And what retribution if any should he now face? Keir Starmer has called for his peerage to be removed. But is Keir the only person who can actually make it happen? Later we hear from tax expert Dan Neidle on w...
You’ve likely seen the viral video of Coco Gauff smashing her racket in a corridor at the Australian Open. She tried to go somewhere without cameras and failed. Now she's complaining the only private place is the locker room, Novak Djokovic says it's like "big brother", Iga Swiatek thinks they're "animals in a zoo". Content is king but at what cost to player privacy? Isn’t this the kind of access we all wanted to drive sports broadcasting forward and grow the sport? The bigger the sport - the...
Keir Starmer is historically unpopular. When he entered Downing Street, his approval rating stood around +10%. Now? The Prime Minister languishes around -50%. It's the steepest drop in support for any governing party still in its infancy. 8 out of 10 people say that Britain is getting worse as a place to live under Labour's watch. One poll conducted towards the end of last year suggested that even Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had more public confidence than Keir Starmer's government. What on ea...
The election offices of Fulton County were raided by FBI agents yesterday morning. Fulton, in the state of Georgia, was at the heart of Donald Trump's claims six years ago that he’d won the 2020 election (he didn’t). Why are ballot boxes of archived votes now being removed from the premises? Is this still about a six years ago old grudge? Or does it presage Trump's plan for the November midterm elections? We speak to the Commissioner on the premises who watched the action unfold before her ey...
Kemi Badenoch has told her party not to get in her way as she steers it further to the Right. Is this the correct assessment of what the Conservatives needs to attract voters back? Or is she way off? Later, Trump has threatened Iran with his big beautiful armada. Does he have any concern for the protestors getting killed in their tens of thousands thousands? Or is this all about US interests? The News Agents is hsbc.co.uk/